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“Then learn to barrier yourself,” Neyrissa admonished. “A monitor must never become so deeply

involved, you know that! If you go on like this, Tani, you know very well what will happen!”

Taniquel looked at her with a mischievous smile. “Are you jealous, Neyrissa?” But the older woman only

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frowned at Kerwin angrily, and went out of the room.

“What was all that about, Tani?” Kerwin asked, but Taniquel did not answer. Kerwin wondered if he would ever understand the small interactions among the people here, the courtesies and the things left unsaid in a telepathic society.

And yet he had begun to relax. Strange as the Arilinn Tower was, it wasn’t a magical fairy-tale castle,just a big stone building where people lived. The gliding, silent, nonhuman servants still made him a littleuneasy, but he didn’t have to see much of them, and he was getting used to their silent ways and learningto ignore them as the others did, unless he wanted something. The place wasn’t all wizard and hobgoblin. The enchanted tower wasn’t enchanted at all. For some curious reason he felt pleased when hediscovered a leak in the roof, right over his room, and since no workman or outsider could come insidethe Veil, he and Rannirl had to climb up on the dizzily sloping roof and fix it themselves. Somehow thatprosaic incident made the place more real to him, less dreamlike.

He began to learn the language they spoke among themselves—they called it
 
casta
 
—for, while hecould understand and telepathically, he knew that sooner or later he would have to deal with localnon-telepaths. He read some history of Darkover from the Darkovan, not the Terran point of view; thereweren’t many books, but Kennard was something of a scholar, and had an extensive history of the daysof the Hundred Kingdoms—which seemed, to Jeff, somewhat more complicated than that of medieval Europe—and another of the Hastur Wars which, at the end of the Ages of Chaos, had united most of thecountryside under the Seven Domains and the Comyn Council. Kennard warned him that accuratehistory was all but unknown; these had been compiled from tradition, legend, old ballads, and stories,since for almost a thousand years writing had been left to the brothers of Saint Valentine at Nevarsin Monastery, and literacy had been all but lost. But from all this Jeff gathered that at one time, Darkoverhad had a highly developed technology of the matrix stones, and that its misuse had reduced the Seven Domains to a chaotic anarchy, after which the Hasturs had formed the system of Towers under the Keepers, pledged to chastity to avoid dynastic squabbles, and bound by vows and severe ethicalprinciples.

He had begun to lose track of time, but he thought he had been at Arilinn for three or four tendays when Neyrissa, at the end of a training session, said unexpectedly, “I think you could function as monitor in acircle now, without too much difficulty. I’ll certify you as monitor, and give you the oath, if you want meto.”

Jeff regarded her in astonishment and dismay. She mistook his surprise and said, “If you would rathertake the oath at Elorie’s hands, it is your lawful right, but I assure you, in practice we don’t trouble the Keeper with such things; I am fully qualified to receive your first oath.”

Kerwin shook his head. He said, “I’m not sure I want to take any kind of oath! I wasn’t told—I don’tunderstand!”

“But you cannot work in the circle without the monitor’s oath,” Neyrissa said with a faint frown. “No one trained at Arilinn would ever consider it. Nor would anyone from another Tower be willing to work with you, unsworn—why don’t you want to take the oath?” She regarded him with dismay and the suspicion that had vanished from all their eyes except Auster’s. “Are you proposing to betray us?”

It was a minute or two before Kerwin realized she had not spoken that last sentence aloud.

She was, he realized, old enough to be his mother; he wondered, suddenly, if she had known Cleindori,but would not ask.
 
Cleindori had betrayed Arilinn
 
. And Kerwin knew her son would never be free of

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that stigma, unless he earned the freedom.

He said slowly, “I wasn’t told I would have to take oaths. It’s not, in general, a Terran custom. I don’tknow what I would have to swear to.” He added, on an impulse, “Would you take an oath you didn’tknow, without knowing to what it bound you?”

Slowly the suspicion and anger left her face. She said, “I hadn’t thought of that, Kerwin. The monitor’soath is taken even of children when they are tested here. Other oaths may be asked of you later, but thisone binds you only to basic principles; you swear never to use your starstone to force the will orconscience of any living thing, never to invade the mind of any other unwilling, and to use your powersonly for helping or healing, and never to make war. The oath is very old; it goes back to the days beforethe Ages of Chaos, and there are those who say it was devised by the first Hastur when he gave a matrixto his first paxman; but that’s a legend, of course. We
 
do
 
know it has been formally given in Arilinn sincethe days of Varzil the Good, and perhaps before.” She added, with a scornful twist of her thin mouth, “Certainly there is nothing in a monitor’s oath that could offend the conscience of Hastur himself, let alonea
 
Terranan
 
!”

Kerwin thought about that a moment. It had been a long time since anyone had called him that; not sincehis first night here. Finally he shrugged. What had he to lose? Sooner or later he would have to put asidehis Terran standards, choose Darkovan principles and ethics, and why not now? He shrugged. “I’ll takeyour oath,” he said.

As he repeated the archaic words—
 
to force no living thing against will or conscience, to meddleunasked with no mind nor body save to help or heal, never to use the powers of the starstone toforce the mind or conscience
—he thought almost for the first time of the truly frightening powers of thematrix in the hands of a skilled operator. The power to interfere with people’s thoughts, to slow or speedtheir heartbeats, check the flow of blood, withdraw oxygen from the brain… a truly terrifyingresponsibility, and he suspected that the monitor’s oath had much the same force as the Hippocratic oathin Terran medicine.

Neyrissa had insisted that the oath be taken in rapport—it was customary, she said, and he suspectedthat the reason was to monitor any mental reservations, a rudimentary form of lie-detector, which was sonormal between telepaths that he realized it did not imply lack of trust. As he spoke thewords—understanding, now, why they were being exacted, and realizing that he genuinely meant them —he was aware of Neyrissa’s closeness; somehow it felt as if they were physically very close together,although actually the woman was sitting at the far end of the room, her head lowered and her eyes benton her matrix, not even looking at him. As soon as Kerwin had finished, Neyrissa rose quickly and said, “I’m tired of being shut up indoors; let’s go out into the air. Would you care for a ride? It’s still early, andthere’s nothing much to do today, neither of us is listed for the relays. What would you say to hawking? I’d like some birds for supper, wouldn’t you?”

He tucked away his matrix and followed her. He had learned to enjoy riding—on Terra it was an exoticluxury for rich eccentrics, but here on the Plains of Arilinn it was a commonplace means of gettingaround, since the air-cars, matrix-powered, were very rare and used only by the Comyn; and those onlyunder very special circumstances.

He followed her to the stables without demur; but halfway down the stairs she said, “Perhaps we shouldask one or two of the others to come?”

“Just as you like,” he replied, slightly surprised. She hadn’t been particularly friendly before and he

hadn’t expected that she had much interest in his company. But Mesyr was busy about some domestic

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affairs somewhere in the Tower, Rannirl had some unspecified business in the matrix laboratory—he tried to explain it, but Kerwin couldn’t understand more than one word in five, he didn’t have the technical background—Corus was in the relays, Kennard’s bad leg was bothering him, and Taniquel was resting for her shift in the relays later that night. So in the end they went out alone, Auster having curtly refused an offer to join them.

Kennard had placed a horse at Kerwin’s disposal, a tall rangy black mare from his own estates; Kerwinunderstood that the Armida horses were famous throughout the Domains. Neyrissa had a silvery-greypony with gold-colored mane and tail, which she said came from the Hellers. She took her hawk on thesaddle-block before her; she wore a grey-and-crimson cape and a long full skirt that Kerwin finallyrealized was a divided skirt cut like very full trousers. As she took the bird from the hawkmaster, sheglanced at him and said, “There is a well-trained sentry-hawk that Kennard has given you leave to use; Iheard him.”

“I don’t know anything of hawking,” Kerwin said, shaking his head. He had learned to ride acceptably,

but he didn’t know how to handle hunting-birds and wasn’t going to pretend he did.

There were a few curious stares and murmurs, which Neyrissa ignored, as they rode through the fringesof the town. He realized he had seen almost nothing of the city of Arilinn—which, he had heard, was thethird or fourth largest city in the Seven Domains—and decided he would go exploring some day. Neyrissa’s cape was flung back, revealing her greying copper hair coiled in braids around her head. Because it was cold, Kerwin had put his leather ceremonial cape over his Terran clothing, and, hearingthe murmurs, seeing the awed faces, he realized that they took him for any other member of the Towercircle. Was this what the people in Thendara had thought, his first night on Darkover?

Outside the gates of Arilinn the plains stretched wide, with clumps of bushes here and there, a few tracksand an old cart road, now deserted. They rode for an hour or so beneath the lowering sky, in thepale-purple light of the high sun. At last Neyrissa drew her horse to a walk, saying, “There is goodhunting here. We should get some birds, or a rabbithorn or two… Elorie hasn’t been eating much lately. I’d like to tempt her with something good.”

Kerwin had been thinking of hawking, actually, as an exotic sport, an alien thing done for excitement; forthe first time he realized that in a culture like this one, it was a very utilitarian way to keep meat on thetable. Perhaps, he thought, he ought to learn it. It seemed to be one of the practical skills of a gentleman —or for that matter, he thought, watching Neyrissa’s small sturdy hands as she unhooded her hawk, of alady. One didn’t think of noblewomen hunting for the pot. But of course that was how hawking hadbegun, as a way of pot-hunting for the kitchen! And while a lady might not be able to do much with largemeat animals, there was no reason a woman shouldn’t equal or surpass a man at this skill. Kerwinsuddenly felt very useless.

“Never mind,” said Neyrissa, glancing up at him, and he realized they were still touched by the fringes of rapport. “You’ll learn. Next time I’ll find you a
 
verrin
 
hawk. You’re tall enough and strong enough to carry one.”

She tossed the hawk high into the air; it took off, winging higher and higher, and Neyrissa watched theflight, her hands shading her eyes. “There,” she said in a whisper, “he has sighted his prey…”

Kerwin looked, but could see no trace of the bird. “Surely you can’t see that far, Neyrissa?”

She looked up impatiently.
 
Of course not, rapport with hawk and sentry-bird is one of our familygifts
 
. The thought was careless, with the very surface of her mind, and Kerwin realized that there was a

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strong rapport still between them, as with a part of his mind
he felt
flight, long pinions beating, the all-encompassing excitement of the chase, seeing the world wheeling below, stooping, striking a rush of ecstasy through his whole body… Shaking his head in wonder, Kerwin brought himself back to earth, following Neyrissa as she rode swiftly toward the spot where the hawk had brought his kill to the ground. She gestured to the falconer, following them at a distance, to take up the small dead bird and carry it on his saddle; the hawk stood on her glove, and Neyrissa took the head of the dead bird and fed it, still warm, to the hawk. Her eyes were closed, her face flushed;

Kerwin wondered if she, too, had shared the excitement of that kill; he watched the hawk tearing at theblood and sinews with a sense of excitement combined with revulsion.

Neyrissa looked up at him and said, “She feeds only from my glove; no well-trained bird will taste herown kill until it is given her. Enough—” She wrenched the bloody tidbit away from the cruel beak,explaining, “I want another bird or so.” Again she flung the hawk into the air and again Kerwin, sensingthe thread of rapport between woman and hawk, followed it in his mind, knowing he was not prying, thatshe had somehow opened to him to share the ecstasy of flight, the long strong soaring, the strike, thegushing blood…

As the falconer brought the head of the second bird to Neyrissa, through the excitement and revulsion,he became abruptly aware of how deeply he was sharing this with Neyrissa, of arousal, almost sexual,deep in his body. Angrily, Kerwin turned away from the thought, troubled and shamed lest Neyrissashould be aware of it. He wasn’t trying to seduce her… he didn’t even
 
like
 
her! And the last thing hewanted, here, was to complicate his life with any women!