A hand fell upon Trehearne's shoulder from behind. It was the man in
the yellow tunic, and he had become, in the last few seconds, quite
jovially drunk. He gave Trehearne a friendly shove toward the door and
called out to the people who stood there, "I found him out here looking
for a way in--and I swear the man's a Vardda!" Under his breath he said
rapidly in Trehearne's ear, "Keep your mouth shut, or we'll both be in
trouble!"
They went together into the keep. The men stared closely at Trehearne,
and the women chattered about him in their own tongue. And Kerrel said
to Shairn, "Are you satisfied, now you've got him here?"
"_I_ didn't get him here," she said. "He was going to Keregnac anyway,
and nothing could have kept him back then." She turned away, toward a
table where there were bottles and various foods, and poured wine into
a goblet. "Besides, he's a grown man. He knows what he wants to do.
Isn't that so, Michael?"
She handed him the goblet. He took it and said, "Oh yes, that's so.
You'd better collect your bet."
"I think," she answered, "I'll let it ride." She raised her goblet to
sip the wine, doing it in such a way that her sleeve fell back and
showed him the dark bruised ring his fingers had left around her wrist.
The man in the yellow tunic said something in his own language, and her
eyes narrowed. But she turned to Kerrel and said mildly, "Edri doesn't
approve of me."
"I don't think any of us do right now," said Kerrel. "You should have
let the man alone."
"Michael doesn't think so--do you, Michael? I didn't tempt him to
follow me. That was his idea."
"Well, he followed you," said Edri, and there was a deep anger in his
voice.
"But not all the way," murmured Shairn, and smiled into Trehearne's
eyes. "Only the first step, Michael. You were annoyed with me when I
wouldn't tell you about the Vardda, very much annoyed. So now you're
going to find out." She reached up her fingers and drew them slowly
across his cheek. "You look like a Vardda, you bear yourself like one,
you even think like one. But _are_ you one?"
Kerrel said irritably, "That's impossible, and you know it." He began
to speak to Edri and the other men, in that language that Trehearne had
never heard before. They seemed disturbed and ill at ease, men beset
by a problem to which there was no good solution. Their attitude, and
the particular way in which the women looked at him, took away the fine
edge of Trehearne's excitement. "They act," he said to Shairn, "as
though they're planning where to bury me."
She shrugged. "Oh, they're discussing all sorts of alternatives, but
there's only one possible answer." She sat down on the edge of the
table, watching him in the catlike way that she had. "Nervous?"
"Cold. The rain was very wet." That was only half the truth, but he was
damned if he was going to admit it to her. "And I'm curious. Where do
you people come from? What are you doing here? What's all the mystery
about?"
"Don't be impatient, Michael. It can't all be told at once." She had
been listening intently to what the men were saying, and now she rose
again. "I think it's time I took a hand in this. Men always talk in
circles."
She joined the group. Trehearne finished off his wine and poured more
from a queer stone bottle. It was good, but he couldn't place it on any
list of vintages. There was beginning to be a nightmare quality about
this culmination of his long search. Everything was too business-like,
too solemn--and too insane. He wished they would stop talking about
him. He wished somebody would explain to him what was going on out
here. The voices went on and on, and suddenly he realized that Shairn
had shifted into a language he could understand.
"You see?" she was saying to Kerrel. "I can quote the law as well as
you. And you know I'm right."
Kerrel muttered, "It seems to me a choice of evils." And he added
furiously, "You should have let the man alone!"
"He has a right to his chance," Shairn said. "He came a long way to get
it."
"Do I detect a note of malice there?" inquired Edri.
"Detect what you like. Anyway, there is no other course--unless one of
you feels up to killing him right here, in cold blood."
Trehearne's wine-glass came down with a clatter on the table, and he
thrust his hand into his pocket so that the automatic bulged it very
plainly. He said, "You wouldn't find that so easy."
Edri gave a wry sort of shudder and made gestures at him to relax.
"We're not violent people," he said. "It's only that you've faced us
with a damnably involved problem, and one we've never had to meet
before. You see, there are certain laws."
"Laws?"
"Yes." Edri poured himself wine and drank it thirstily, as though to
get the taste of something out of his mouth. "Persons above a certain
culture level, possessing sufficient I.Q. or influence to be dangerous,
are to be permanently silenced if they discover too much about us. Too
big an investment, you understand, in Vardda lives as well as money,
to be risked--and there are historical reasons for this precaution.
But we're extremely careful, and the situation simply hasn't come up
before, at least in my time." He sat down, sighing. "And of course,
with you there's the added question. Are you or are you not a Vardda?
I thought we might appoint you an honorary one, so to speak, and let
you work for us here, but that was too big a transgression for Kerrel
to swallow." Edri glanced at the tall man--entirely without love,
Trehearne thought. "He's an agent of the Council, which means the long
arm of the law. So I guess it's settled, Trehearne."
Trehearne's mouth was dry, and the words didn't want to come out of it,
but there was a dangerous light in his eyes. "_What_ is settled?"
Shairn came before him, her face uplifted, smiling, sweet. "You're
coming with us, Michael. That's what you wanted. Aren't you happy?"
"Coming with you--_where_?"
"To Llyrdis."
He did not like her smile. He did not like the wisdom in it, the
mockery, the knowledge of things beyond his ken. She bore him malice,
and somehow she had got her revenge, and he didn't understand how.
All the little details joined together in his mind, the language,
the dress, the physical appearance, the taste of a purple wine that
came from no familiar vineyard, and they pressed down on him like an
avalanche, crowned with the echo of an unknown name, and he was cold
deep inside himself, cold with a dread that even yet had no clear shape
to it.