Patternmaster

He told her. She had a right to know. And knowing, she had a right to hate him. He had sacrificed her freedom as well as his own. As he had trusted Joachim, she had trusted him. She was beautiful and strong in her own right. Not

strong enough to establish a House of her own, but strong enough to make a secure place for herself in any existing House she chose. Other men had wanted her—established Housemasters. She had turned them down to stay with Teray. And now …

Teray finished his story, and drew a deep breath.

She turned and looked at him—looked at him for a long time. He grew uncomfortable under her gaze but he could think of nothing more to say.

“Are you going to let him kill you?”

Her words seemed to bring him to life. “Of course not! I wouldn’t let anyone kill me!”

“What are you going to do?”

“Fight… again. If it comes to that. I’m not going to waste the time he’s given me. I’m going to learn whatever I can. Maybe learn enough to …’” He could not finish the sentence, the lie. No outsider would be watched more closely than he. No one would be more shielded from knowledge that might help him win his freedom. Yet he could not accept the final defeat. He could not do what Joachim had done.

Iray laid a hand on his shoulder, then raised it to his face. “I’m not going to change my name,” she said.

He set his teeth, not wanting to say what he knew he had to say. “You’re going to do whatever is necessary. You have to make a place for

yourself here.”

“Teray…”

“I can’t protect you. You … aren’t my wife anymore. Perhaps you will be again. I’ll fight for that. If I break free, I won’t leave you here. But for now … we both know what you have to do.”

“I’d like to help you kill him!”

“You know better. You hate him for what he’s done to me! You can’t afford to do that. Think of yourself. You’re beautiful, and strong enough to rise high in any House. Please him, Iray. Please him!”

She sat silent, staring at the ground. After a while she got up and went back into the House.

************************************

The House mutes knew their jobs. They were well programmed and hardly needed Teray to direct them. For days he simply moved among them, permitting them to get used to him. It annoyed him to realize that they missed Jackman. They did not dislike Teray. Their programming did not permit them to dislike any Patternist. They simply preferred Jackman, whom they knew—and who had treated them kindly. Teray did not treat them in any way at all.

He could not focus his thoughts on them, could not really make himself care about them. His own problems held his attention, weighed on him. And it did not help him to see Coransee and Iray together around the House. Coransee had moved

quickly. Sometimes in the morning Teray would see them coming out of Coransee’s quarters together and going out on some business of Coransee’s. Several of Coransee’s wives had begun to look at Iray with open jealousy. Clearly, she was becoming one of Coransee’s favorites. And how did she feel about that?

She seemed subdued at first. Quiet, withdrawn, resisting emotionally what she could not resist physically. She was no actress. She had never been able to hide her feelings from Teray. Even when she closed her mind to him, her face and her mannerisms betrayed her. Teray watched her, concerned that she would anger Coransee with her stubbornness; though Teray took secret pride in that stubbornness. Then Iray began to smile, and Teray watched her with another kind of concern. Was she finally learning to act, or was her stubbornness beginning to melt?

Coransee was a handsome, powerful man. He could be charming. Several of his wives made no secret of the fact that they were in love with him. And Iray was young— just out of school. It was one thing for her to resist the attentions of wealthy lords who came to the school, where they could flaunt little of their wealth or power before her. Where they were just other men. But here on Coransee’s vast estate … How much difference did it make?

Teray watched, sickened by the way Iray was beginning to look at Coransee. And Iray would no longer meet Teray’s eyes at all.

And time was passing. And Teray was learning

nothing, as he had feared. And Joachim, who had submitted, was at his home with his outsiders and wives and mutes—with the wealth and power that he controlled at least when Coransee left him alone.