Patternmaster

“No, I couldn’t. Like I said, pre-Pattern children can’t control what’s done to them. Leal—the Schoolmaster— knew he had given me the worst possible second. He did it deliberately because he knew I had already chosen my own second. And he did not approve.” She gave a bitter laugh. “He would have seconded me himself if he could have—if he had been strong enough. He wanted to. He wanted a lot of things that a teacher can’t have.”

“You, for instance.”

“Oh, he had me, for a while. For my last six months at school. I didn’t mind. But we both knew he was going to have to give me up once I reached my transition. There was no way that I was going to be a teacher. Not with my ancestry. Leal could accept that, but he couldn’t accept Kai, the second I had chosen. The second whose House I would have gone into. Although he might even have been able to stand that if I had been able to hide the fact that I was already in love with Kai. We met when she came to the school on some other business and Leal was the—”

“Wait a minute.” Teray turned to stare at her. “She?”

“That’s a good approximation of Leal’s tone when he realized what was happening,” said Amber. “I hope you’re not going to react as badly as he did.”

“I haven’t decided yet,” Teray answered. “Tell me the rest of it.”

She stopped her horse, causing Teray to stop, then spoke very softly. “You’d better decide before we get into Clayark Territory,” she said. “Leal’s reaction almost got me executed. I’m not going to risk my life with anybody else who’s that hostile.”

The link betrayed her hurt. She had taken Teray seriously and was waiting for rejection.

“Do you feel any hostility in me, Amber?”

She looked at him mistrustfully, then read the message the link held for her—his lack of any emotion beyond surprise and curiosity.

She, relaxed and they started forward again. “I’m touchy,” she said. “Leal taught me to be touchy.”

“Why did you tell me that part of it?”

“Because you would have found out anyway. Piece by piece. I would be thinking about it and off guard, and you would pick it up. We’re going to pay a price in mental privacy for our closeness.”

Teray nodded. “Well, Leal had reason to react with jealousy, but I…”

“Jealousy, anger, humiliation. How dare I put him aside for a woman? Poor teacher. He had trouble enough trying to compete with men for the women he wanted.”

“I don’t see why. He was the Schoolmaster. He

should have been able to attract plenty of women.”

“Yes, but not the ones he wanted. He could attract women teachers, but he considered them beneath his notice. He could and did attract older girl students, but they always had to either leave him or become teachers. He had the idea that women from outside the school were better. He tried to attract them—and usually failed. But until I met Kai, he had never lost one of his student girl friends to one of them. It was too much.”

“And Kai even had her own House.”

“Leal wouldn’t have hated her for that if she had gone to him instead of to me. Prestige. But since she didn’t, her House just became more fuel for his jealousy. He had always wanted a House of his own anyway, and he knew he’d never have one. He was almost too strong to be a teacher, but not nearly strong enough to be a Housemaster.”

“A stronger man would have reacted more reasonably.” Teray shrugged. “After all, you’re not that unusual.”

“Coransee didn’t react too well.”

He looked at her, startled. “What difference did it make to Coransee? It happened before you met him, and it didn’t keep you from staying for two years with him.”

“But it made a difference. I didn’t tell him. He found out by snooping through my thoughts just a few weeks ago. That was when he decided that I

was more of a challenge than he had thought. That was when he told me he intended to keep me in his House—deny my independence. Most people don’t try things like that with a healer.”

“Could he have succeeded?”

“Maybe, with his strength. Frankly, I’m afraid of him. That’s why I’d rather run away from him than fight him.”

Teray shook his head ruefully. “He has a habit of trying to domesticate people.”

“What about you?”

“I’m still curious. I want to know how a pre-Pattern child managed not to be executed for killing a person as important as a Housemaster. I’m surprised that his friends didn’t have you declared defective so that you would be destroyed before you gained your adult rights. And I’m curious about you and Kai. But all of that is your business. I don’t want you to tell me because you’re afraid I’ll ferret it out anyway. I won’t.”

“I don’t mind telling you, but that isn’t what I meant.”

No. He knew what she meant. “Last night I asked you what you wanted between us, and you said ‘something good.’ I think there was also the implication of ‘something temporary.’ That’s all right for a start, but I might turn out to be as bad as Coransee. I might try for more, too.”

She laughed. She had a nice laugh. “Don’t do it. One Coransee was enough. Now I’ll tell you the