"Yes, ma'am." He grinned at her. "I'll learn in the end."

"By the way," she said, finding it easier to bring this up when he was bending over the tangled growth, weeding. "Those twins of yours . . . I can't believe your Raffaele bore them-she's so tiny."

Ronnie's ears turned redder. "She didn't," he said shortly. "They're adopted."

"It doesn't matter to God," Ruth Ann said. "What it is, though-and I know I'm being presumptuous,

but-that Salomar. He reminds me of someone."

The back of Ronnie's neck went three shades darker, not counting the sunburn. "Who?" he asked, more coolly than Ruth Ann expected.

"I'm thinking," Ruth Ann said, folding her needle away, because her hand had started shaking. "I'm thinking he minds me of my-of Mitch. And I'm thinking, if there's any reason he should mind me of Mitch, that you might be worrying that I'd notice. You've been awful good to us, and I don't want to worry you. So if-if it is that, what I'm thinking of, then-then I want you to know that I don't mind, and I'm glad to have the boy around. Both of them."

Ronnie said nothing; his shoulders bunched, and the dirt flew.

"I won't say any more," Ruth Ann said.

"It's . . . all right." He turned around; his eyes were bright with unshed tears. "I-we didn't know you were coming, or-but- Oh, I'm making a mess of this, Raffa will kill me. But if you've guessed, you've guessed-"

"I bore nine of that man's children; I know their stamp," Ruth Ann said. She said nothing of Peter's father, though she knew exactly who that red hair reminded her of.

"Brun wanted a good home for them; she was afraid they might be stolen away and used against her."

"You don't have to defend her to me," Ruth Ann said. She still could not understand a woman not clinging to her own flesh and blood, but she wasn't going to argue that now. If their mother had been a natural mother, she herself wouldn't have this chance. "You don't know what a blessing it is, to have those children here," she said. "I've worried and worried-that's the last bit of Mitch I'll ever see; I wanted to know the children were safe. Will Raffaele mind? I'm not going to interfere, I promise you."

"She'll skin me, but she'll hug you," Ronnie said. "Ruth Ann-you are a very, very unusual lady."

"I try to be a good woman," Ruth Ann said, but a bubble of delight rose and would not be denied.

She stood up, and let her head fall back. "Praise God, you aren't angry with me for seeing what I saw, and you won't keep me from him. I never thought to be happy again, and here I am happier than I've ever been."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

BENIGNITY OF THE COMPASSIONATE HAND.

NUOVO VENITZA, SANTA LUZIA.

Confession, for a member of the Order of Swords who had been on a mission, must always be to a priest of the Order. Even so, there were things no one confessed, not if he wanted to live; the priests had the right-ecclesiastical and legal-to mete out punishment, including death.

Hostite Fieddi knelt in silence, awaiting the priest's arrival, and thought about what he had to confess, and what he had to conceal. As a young man, he had found distinguishing between debriefing and confession very difficult, but now it was second nature.

The soft chime rang; Hostite began the old, familiar ritual, "Forgive me . . ." Even as his voice continued the opening phrases, his mind was dividing, as sheep from goats, the truths he must repent from the other truths of which he must not repent, as long as he was a Swordmaster.

"It has been a long time," the priest said.

"I was on a mission," Hostite said. "To distant worlds."

"Beyond the Church's dominion?" asked the priest.

"Nothing is beyond the Church's dominion," Hostite said. "But this was far from any priest of the

Order of Swords."

"Ah. Go on then."

Category by category, he laid his soul's burden out, the temptations acted upon and those merely dwelt upon in the mind, the orders followed which ought not to have been followed, the orders not followed which ought to have been followed. He was heartily sorry for them all, for the necessities which his duty placed upon his conscience, when he would-were he other than he was-have been happy to live in peace all his days, with no more to confess than a lustful glance at someone's daughter.

"And have you any other sins . . . lust perhaps?"

They always asked about lust, though by now they should know that his conditioning had destroyed that possibility. He answered as always, and as always received his penance in true submission of spirit. When he was too old to be of service, when the Master of the Order of Swords commanded, he would confess the last of his sins, and go to his death clean-hearted, no longer the Shadow of the dancers, but filled with light. So it had been promised him, and so he believed.

There was no other life but this possible, and no other future to which he belonged.

"Hostite-!" The Master's call brought him out of the reverie which a long penance produced.

"Milord." Hostite rose smoothly from his knees and turned.

"The Chairman would like an expansion of your report on the situation in the Familias."

"Milord."

"We will be granted an audience this afternoon. I will accompany you, as will Iagin Persius."

Persius, another who had recently completed a mission in the Familias. Hostite was elder by three years, but he knew Persius as a competent agent. "You will report to the Order's Clothier for a fitting now."

"Yes, milord." Hostite bowed; the Master withdrew from the chapel, and Hostite made his way to the storerooms in which the Order kept all the costumes its members might need. He did not dwell upon the afternoon's meeting. Rumor had many things to say about audiences with the Chairman, but Hostite had been there before, and in any case feared nothing, including death.

The costume appropriate for a Swordmaster in this instance was simple enough. The bodysuit of black stretch-knit fit like skin and incidentally left no space for hidden weapons. The scarlet velvet cap matched scarlet velvet slippers, and denoted his Swordmaster rank. Looped through the shoulder epaulets were cords of gold, green, and red silk-the level of experience, the number of assassinations domestic and foreign, the whole story of his career, if one knew how to read it-and the Chairman certainly did. As he was checking the fit of the slippers, Iagin Persius came in. He nodded but did not speak. Hostite nodded in return. They could not discuss their missions until after the report to the Chairman, lest they be suspected of colluding in some error.

From then until lunch, Hostite reviewed his debriefing cube, correcting minor errors in transcription with a coded datawand; four seats down, Persius was doing the same thing. At lunch, they ate at different tables in the Order mess; Hostite restricted himself, as his penance required, to clear soup and water with a lump of "sinners' bread"-a hard, sour, unleavened lump that offered just enough nourishment to ensure that the penitent could perform any necessary duty.

Outside the Chairman's office, the Master of the Order of Swords handed his red cut-velvet cloak to the gray-uniformed guards, and unbuckled his sword belt. Hostite wondered why the Master was required to wear full dress, and then relinquish the cloak and swords, but he pushed the question aside. Tradition required it, that was all. He and Persius doffed their velvet caps for inspection, then put them back on.

The Chairman sat behind his great black marble desk, his face reflected dimly in its gleaming surface. On either side, his personal guards.

"Fieddi, you were sent to see the Barracloughs . . . what, then, did you find?"

Hostite bowed, then began his recital, carefully gazing at the bronze plaque on the wall behind the Chairman's head. "This was my third visit to the Barraclough senior branch, in the persona of a sabre-dance troupe's visiting instructor. On my fourth day there, the assassination of Lord Thornbuckle was reported. The dance troupe is comprised of locals, though they have been trained by Swordmasters; their reactions indicated that they were aware of friction between Lord Thornbuckle and his younger brother, and between Thornbuckle and certain Families: the Conselline- Morrelline Sept in particular."

"Did you have speech with family members?"

"I gave private lessons to six family members while there, including Stefan, the present head of Family; Mieran his wife; Rudolf and James, his sons; Katarin his daughter; and Viola, his niece.

Stefan spoke only of the art of fence; he is proficient in three weapons, but wishes to become expert. He asked advice on hiring a permanent master; this request had been anticipated by the Master, and I recommended Alain Detours, as instructed. Mieran expressed the opinion that Lord Thornbuckle's death was a dreadful nuisance, but that he had brought it on himself, and she hoped that the New Texan assassins would be satisfied with one death."

"How does she fence?" asked the Chairman.

"With that same wit," Hostite answered. "She answers a threat well enough, but always directly.

She cannot see beyond the next thrust. Most women of the Seated Families are more astute."

"And the others?"