Savage Empire

Wulfston was adjusting the belt of his gray tunic. Now he looked up at Lenardo. "You know that all your secrets will be laid bare before the teachers at this academy- people you do not know? How can you turn yourself over to them that way?"

"The Reader's Honor. Not that eight- or nine-year-old children could have many secrets, but the privacy of even the youngest and least trained is scrupulously maintained. As one grows older, one learns to protect one's own thoughts."

"Well, I'm glad Adepts can't be Read. I remember very well, carrying you home that first night, how you blurted out everything on the minds of the men with me."

Lenardo said guiltily, "I don't remember it. I was delirious. It should not have happened and I must accept responsibility for violating the Code… but the state of the body affects the mind."

"Yes," said Wulfston, "you've said that your abilities are impaired… yet Reading does not tire you or aggravate your physical condition."

"Of course not. I am far beyond the stage of the child who squints his eyes and grits his teeth when he attempts a new Reading. The body has nothing to do with it."

"But you just said it has. When your body is afflicted, your Reading is impaired."

"True-but it is not Reading that afflicts one's body."

"The effects are directly opposite!" said Wulfston. "No amount of physical deterioration affects an Adept's powers -you've seen what Nerius can do, still-but Adept activity affects the body. That's why I'm so tired today, after healing you yesterday and then not getting enough sleep. Aradia's going on sheer nerve-I don't think she even went to bed last night. Are you ready to go?"

Wulfston's clothes fitted Lenardo loosely. The Reader was taller than the young Adept, so the undertunic came just to his ankles. His outfit was completed with a leather belt that hung loose on his hips and a pair of brown felt slippers that stretched enough to accommodate his larger feet. Although the clothes did not fit well, he felt less conspicuous and therefore more comfortable than in the outfit that had been designed for him.

Lenardo was hungry again, and surprised that Wulfston was not. "There will be a feast after the funeral," the Adept explained. "It is considered honor to the dead to eat heartily. I don't suppose you'll have any trouble with that today, but I must warn you that no one but Aradia and me knows you're a Reader. If you reveal yourself, you will undermine people's trust in Aradia. That may not concern you, but perhaps the fact that you would be killed immediately will."

"I won't betray myself… or Aradia."

When they gathered in the courtyard, Lenardo saw Aradia dressed formally for the first time. She was all in gray, her dress a slender column of fine cotton, the bodice fitted to her body, the skirt a mass of tiny pleats falling gracefully to the ground. The sleeves were also pleated, and so full that they fell from her wrists almost to her ankles, seeming to mingle with the pleats of her skirt. The vertical lines of the dress made her look taller than she was, and stately-no trace of mischievous village maiden today.

Her hair was covered by a veil of sheer gray material, a second veil attached to it in front of her ears, hanging under her chin, over her breast, so that her pale face looked out as from a closely drawn hood, the rest of her features merely background to her luminous eyes. Like everyone else, she wore no ornament.

Lenardo fell in with the crowd as the funeral procession moved out the gate. No one took particular notice of him. They went a fair distance from the castle, to a field grown up in wild grass, uncultivated. In the middle of the field was a large but shallow depression, the center of it a huge flat rock surface showing signs of charring. A huge mound of firewood lay ready to one side, and the cleanness of the flat rock, the grass along its edges cut back to form a perfect circle, bespoke careful preparations.

The cart bearing the body was placed in the center of the rock surface. The people moved into a circle, then one at a time moved to the center to say something about the dead woman. Not everyone spoke, and many who did said little more than, "Vinga was a good woman. She will be missed."

Wulfston spoke of Vinga's motherly kindness to him when he was an orphaned child. Lenardo noted one more fact about the mysterious Nubian Adept with the peculiar name-for all the talking they had done, he had learned precious little about Wulfston.

Finally Aradia spoke. "For the past five years, Vinga attended Nerius with great devotion. Like a soldier in battle, she gave her life in performance of her duty. Her memory will live as long as Castle Nerius stands, in the hearts of her children and her children's children."

Then the dead woman's family stepped up to look at the body once more. When they returned to Aradia's side, the circle of mourners began to file past the firewood, each placing a stick on the growing pile surrounding, then covering, the cart.