The Golden Sword by Janet Morris Page A

do not get enough.”
    I kept the bowl, continuing my story. I did not tell him how I came to the desert.
    On my one side was Aje, upon my other only empty chain. Beyond him sat dark-eyed, dark-haired Khemi, and behind and beside us the rest of the fifty-three. They talked and joked among themselves. They shared their food, and some even laughed aloud. I could not see that they had anything to laugh about. The cool stone under me was becoming clammy; the press of flesh warmed the air. Aje took my untouched bowl from me and sent it down the line.
    With the helsar, Hael got nowhere. I sensed his agitation, and a cessation and darkness as he covered the thing once again.
    I breathed an inward sigh of relief.
    “That is all, save we came straight here and the dharener assigned two men to deliver me.” I was finished with my account. I had paid little attention to telling.
    “Did you see a woman upon the court?” Khemi asked.
    I said that I did, and described her.
    “And was the Nemarchan affectionate to the cahndor, father of her child?” There was petulance in her tone.
    “More likely to the dharener,” Aje put in.
    “I only saw her speak at all to Had,” I clarified. There was much interest in the affairs of their owners here among the crells.
    “Aje, will you fulfill your part of the bargain now?” I asked him, lest the moment be lost. He turned to Khemi, who lounged upon her side, her bracekted leg crooked.
    “Tell Miheja what you know of Arlet, when Sereth became past-Seven and Vedrev gave himself up to the chaldra of the soil,” he bade her.
    And Khemi looked at me curiously, but started the tale.
    “I know not all of this story, but I shall tell you what I saw and what was told to me,” said Khemi in a musical voice. “On Macara first fifth of that year, when I had been wellwoman precisely one year in Arlet, it came to pass that I put down my duties to go into the hide bast beneath the Well, and study there the forereaders’ way. If I seem bitter in this telling, it is that I too lost something in the common hall upon the first sixth of Jicar, when the floor ran slick with Arletian blood.” Khemi sighed.
    “Hence I was below ground the whole time that Estri, Well-Keepress-of Astria, was in Arlet. I never saw her, but rumors of her doings reached us even so far beneath the Well. It was said, to me by my sponsor, who was close to Vedrev bast Iradea, that some great crux wind blew around her affairs, great enough to involve the learned northern dharener himself.
    “At that time there was in Arlet a new Liaison, Khaf-Re Dellin by name. In fact, he and the Mtrian Keepress arrived together, and it was said that Dellin had more interest in his traveling companion than in Celendra, who was Keepress in Arlet then, Dellin was a strange Liaison, with stranger ways than the old. It was said he was close to Sereth, Seven of Arlet, and closer with Ganrom, who might sponsor him for the Slayer’s chain.
    “This is only rumor,” she continued, “but it is said that the Keepress of Astria bested Celendra at gol-knife upon their first meeting. It is also rumored that some little interest sprang up between Estri and Sereth crill Tyris, former couch-mate of Celendra and father of her only son, Tyith. And it has been postulated that this, coupled with the indignity Celendra suffered at Estri’s hand in the circle, and Dellin’s relative indifference, greatly angered Celendra bast Aknet.” Most of the crells had grown quiet, listening.
    “Whatever the truth of it, it came about that Sereth crill Tyris was tithed by the Liaisons and commanded by Vedrev to get this Astrian Keepress to the Falls of Santha, that she might look upon an artifact there and discharge some chaldra.
    “Now, Sereth, Seven of Arlet, was a man who heard his own voice only, and one not easily ordered about. He and Vedrev had in the past found numerous occasions for altercation between them. And the Liaison Dellin, by trying so desperately to