"In Ruatha, I hear a different disdain, a different resentment, a different anger. You're right-she was not the ideal wife for a harem, any harem, but certainly not so important a one as this will be. 1 can dismiss her from my husband's harem. The Serra Amanita has said, clearly, that she will take no offense, and will further give me the resources by which I might replace her with someone more suitable."

By her stillness, she knew that Serena listened. "And?"

"I don't want to do that."

Motion-breath-returned to the eldest wife in the harem. Diora smiled, albeit slightly bitterly.

"You see? You care about Ruatha; you do not want her sent away."

"You are perceptive, Serra Diora."

"I have to be. I will be honest, Serena, as honest as I know how to be. I look at Ruatha, and I see her, hovering over Deirdre as if she were Deirdre's oathguard. She would lay down her life for Deirdre and the unborn child she carries. I have seen such ferocity before, I think-or perhaps I've seen the effects of it, enough so that it compels me. I don't know. But I want to reach her. You care about her. Faida does. Deirdre does. I think I might, if I were allowed."

"And is that all?"

"Yes." But as she began to sing, she knew that she was not, was never, entirely truthful. What she wanted was to have, measure for measure, that ferocity of affection. For herself. She envied Faida and Deirdre Ruatha's love.

It took Alesso three days to distance himself enough from his anger that he might again seek Sendari out; the longest it had ever taken was four months. But a friendship that has never been tested in the fires of anger has never been tempered. Sendari waited in the three days of silence with the patience that Alesso had never mastered.

And when Alesso finally came to the modest quarters that the Tyr had granted one of his three personal advisers, he greeted the General personally, ordered the serafs to make the room ready in his absence for entertaining a guest of import. Teresa had trained these serafs; he did not trouble himself to make his desire explicit. They brought sweet water and wine and midday food, and they left, melting behind the screens that granted the General and the Widan the privacy their conversation demanded.

Alesso did not choose to avail himself of the cushions that lay upon the mat before the low table; for that reason, Sendari also chose to stand, although he preferred the comfort of the bright, soft accoutrements.

"I have given you reasonable time to consider my offer," Ales...o...b..gan, without preamble, his hands clenched behind his back.

"And I appreciate the time you've given me," Sendari replied, cooling. They glared at each other for a moment, for long enough, in fact, that Sendari fully expected Alesso to storm out of his presence a second time.

But Alesso turned away and began to speak again. "If she is without child, if she is kept without child, then she will be returned to your harem."

Sendari was silent for a long time. "Alesso," he said quietly, "I have never tried to force you to make a choice you cannot make. Your boundaries are your boundaries; mine are mine. She is what she is to me."

"You gave her to Leonne."

"Yes. But to imply that giving her to Leonne was giving her to death is foolish. Leonne has reigned for longer than almost any of the clans in the Dominion; its line is unbroken. If any clan could provide a promise of safety, it was Leonne."

"If she were dead, Sendari, you'd be free."

"Free to follow you?"

It was the General's turn to offer silence as a response. At last he said, "Yes," but softly. "You have a keen eye, a keen ear, and some personal ambition-but that ambition would never extend to me, to mine. You are Widan, I am General-but we are alike, in our fashion. I will do this without you if I must."

"You don't need my protection, clansman."

"No. If it were protection I wanted, I would never have made this alliance. But we can do this, Sendari. Take the Tor and slide out from under the grip of our allies." He held out his sword hand. "Tonight, I tender my final reply to Cortano di'Alexes. I have no doubt that I'm being observed."

"No. Nor I." Sendari stared at the proffered hand, and then met the gaze of the man he called friend. "I accept your challenge," he said softly.

th ofMarran, 426 AA Tor Leonne Birth was always a terrifying experience.

She did not remember when it had become so; did not remember when she understood the

difference between the peculiar, extenuated cries of pain that heralded new life-or early death. There were herbs and mixtures that aided a woman birthing a child, but at times, Diora thought that childbirth was a type of theft: a life for a life.

And no guarantee that the new life, fragile and bereft of mother, would survive either.

In the harem, the wives learned many things. Serena, the eldest, had seen many births; had seen the deaths that followed, or the lives. She had held many a child when she had been a wife in the harem of the Tyr'agar-and she had attended the mourning ceremonies in the twilight between night and dawn for those that had simply not been large enough or strong enough to survive that painful entry into the world.

Diora had seen births, but always at a distance; a huddle of wives around their sister-wife, saris stained with sweat and heat and a tense excitement, an unspoken anxiety. It was obvious to Alana when the birth went well and when it threatened to go poorly, and it was Alana's voice that often prevailed above the happy or agonized cries of the women whose bodies were undergoing these final, fateful contortions. Alana was not here. And Serena was not Alana, but she was wise in the way that older wives are, and far more gently spoken.

She was not so fascinated by the pregnancy as the younger wives were: in particular, Faida, Ruatha, and yes, Diora herself.

As she had not done since she was a small child, she would often stop and shyly ask Deirdre if she might- gently-touch the swell of growing stomach. Deirdre was not so shy or modest-not when her husband was not present; she would just as shyly consent, and they would stand a moment, joined by the life that both women could feel moving beneath their hands. She was no seraf, but she felt compelled to help; to aid Deirdre when she rose, to offer her food when she would take it; to pour her water from the lake that was clan Leonne's by birthright. They all did, fluttering like so many hungry b.u.t.terflies around the blossom of a single flower. And perhaps because she was willing-was compelled-to offer this aid to Deirdre, Ruatha accepted it, if grudgingly, for what it was.

They spoke for hours at a time about names. As the child of a concubine, the choice of this baby's name was entirely the mother's; if Diora had a child, the naming would be done by the father-or perhaps the father's father. She knew this, but knew also that her child would be honored and exalted above all.

And if she hadn't known it, Ruatha made it clear.

"Why do you do this?" she asked, the third time that Ruatha interrupted their playful musings with just such a grim reminder."Why do I do what?""Why do you always insist that there be this distance, and this difference, between us?""I don't insist. The clans do. You are the Serra, we are only wives.""We are all his wives, Ruatha. And at the moment, it is Samanta who holds Illara's attention and favor-not I."

"You could have it, if you wanted it."

Diora shrugged gracefully. "I want my harem," she replied softly. "I do not play Serra behind

these screens. I do not tell you what to wear, or how to dress, or what to say or do. I do not plan

your lives and your days; I do not lecture you or admonish you.

"And I do not attempt to take from you the things that bring you joy. If I am Serra-and I am, and I cannot change that-do you think I had more choice in it than you? We are all what we are by the Lord's decree, and if I

have higher rank, it is because of who our husband is, not who I am."

Ruatha started to speak, and Faida pressed a gentle hand to her lips, silencing her. "Diora," she said, "forgive her. She is protective, and she is afraid."

"Of what?" Diora asked although she already knew the answer. She wanted it to be spoken. She

wanted it said; things said had substance enough to be faced if one knew how.

Faida had the grace to flinch and look away; Diora thought that she would let Ruatha speak after all. But her hand did not fall from Ruatha's lips, and after a deep breath, she spoke, bringing her

dark, unblinking gaze to the fore, as if it were a shield. Odd, that vulnerability could be such a shield. It was not the way of the clansmen.

But, of course, they were not men.

"Deirdre and Ruatha are close. The child that Deirdre carries could belong to any of us-except

you. We were happy, when we found that her waning had stopped, until we spoke to our husband.

"He was not happy, Diora. He was, I think, even angry, although he did not speak of it." She drew breath, closing her eyes a moment; when she opened them, they seemed even larger. "The Tyr'agar killed his brothers when he took the crown and the Sword upon his father's death. They were cleanly killed, but they were killed."

Faida had not been alive when the Tyr'agar took the Tor.

"Yes," Diora said, knowing it for truth, although she, too, had not been born at that time.

"We believe that Ser Mara will also kill his brothers when the time comes; already, two have died by accident-riding accidents, both. Serena says nothing when we ask her, and when she says nothing it means a great deal."

"I am not certain, myself," Diora whispered.

"If Deirdre's child is a girl, then she will stay in the harem, and be a part of it, and no brother will displace her and be her death. But if she is cursed and her child is a boy, his life depends on your inability to bear our husband sons.

"It is hard for Ruatha to hear you speak of naming, of birthing, of caring for a child that your own children may well be the death of."

"And for you, Faida?"

Faida said, "If Deirdre does not mind it, I do not mind. This child is her child, and her joy, and if you can add to her joy, that is enough for me." She let her fingers brush the lips of the angriest of Illara's few wives as her hand fell away.

"What do you have to say to that, Serra?" Ruatha said, trying, for Faida's sake, not to bristle so obviously. She failed, of course, but Diora expected no less.

"I hope, for all of our happiness, that Deirdre's child is a girl. Let us make our offerings tonight at the shrine of the Lady. We must take new incense and braziers there anyway."

When Deirdre slipped and fell, no one was in attendance. Her serafs found her, although how much time had pa.s.sed, they could not say. What they could say, what they did say, was this: She was alive, but not conscious, and her left leg was broken.

They found Serena first, of course, but Diora was with the elder, and when she rose, in a silver-haired flash of pale worry, Diora followed, hesitating only long enough to tell the serafs to bring Ruatha to the site.

The site was the garden half-wall; Diora was uncertain as to how a woman might slip and fall unless she were foolish enough to climb or balance upon that wall. And Deirdre was many things, but that foolish? Serena's lips took on a gray cast, and then a white one as she pressed them firmly shut.

And Serena's silences were loud indeed.

"She is alive," Serena said, "but I fear that the child's safe delivery may be costly, if it's possible at all. Diora, Marjora, help me move her-do not touch the break. Put your hands beneath her shoulders and here, beneath her back; slide her onto the carrier."

"Should I bring the men?" the young seraf asked nervously.

"No. We will have to take her to the birthing rooms and hope that she wakes."

Diora touched her sister-wife's brow; it felt oddly clammy; the glow beneath the skin had been replaced by a distant gray. She did not like it. "Serena," she said, as she struggled gracelessly to put her weight into the lifting, "is the baby going to come?"

"I believe so, yes."

"If her leg is broken-"

"Diora, enough."

"No," someone said, "answer the question." Ruatha stepped up to the carrier, coming over the half-wall as if it were a pasture fence and she still a simple seraf girl. Her chest was heaving; Diora had heard that expression a dozen times, but had never really appreciated it until that moment.

"I will answer the question," Serena said quietly and without rancor, "when we have the leisure. We do not have it now, Ruatha; do not hinder me. If you care for Deirdre at all, take hold of one of the poles and keep it as steady as your strength allows."

Ruatha swallowed the words; her cheeks were red with the effort of running and of silence both. She turned to Diora, saw that Diora struggled with both of the poles that supported the stretched cloth upon which Deirdre lay so silently, and stepped in to take the leftmost one. Then, the four women bore Deirdre back into the screened world of Ser Illara's harem.

Faida met them; the oldest of the serafs had taken the time to find her and to call her to the birthing room. She had time to gather the waters of the Tor, and she readied them carefully, not knowing how they would be used. It gave her-and the serafs who hovered anxiously in the birthing room that had never been used by any of Ser Illara's wives-something to do.

Oh, Diora thought, Mara would be angry to see them all like this. Her own brow was beaded with sweat, her hair matted to her forehead, her sari crumpled and, she 't thought, stained. Serena and Ruatha fared as poorly for their effort, and Faida looked no better, for all that she I had not been called to carry Deirdre; she looked worse; her hair was long and unbound, like a child's hair, and her eyes were reddened and swollen.

She went at once to Ruatha and then hovered; she wanted comfort, but dared not to ask for it until their precious and heavy burden was placed-very, very carefully-upon the mats. Serena would not let them use the cushions for fear of the leg itself.

"Come, Ruatha, if you care for her. Help me. Her leg must be repositioned, or it will heal poorly and she will limp."

Faida blanched, and Ruatha bit her lip. It was the first time that Diora had ever seen her hesitate in quite that way, and it came to the Serra that her sister-wife, her angry, hardened, defiant Ruatha, was afraid.

"Ruatha," she said quietly, "if you cannot help, I can. I've done it before, for my father's son. It is not a dangerous task, and if Deirdre is unconscious, and we move quickly, she won't feel it at all."

"But-but how can she birth a child if her leg is-if she must keep the leg still?"

They all looked to Serena, and Serena said nothing; she knelt by Deirdre's side. The serafs brought her the splinting she required, and the cottons and the silks with which to bind them in place; they left them on the floor and moved a discreet distance away.

"Why doesn't she wake up?"

"Faida," Diora said softly, "not yet. I promise, I will wake her when this is done."

Serena's glance wavered a moment; she lifted a hand to wipe her brow and a seraf stepped forward at once with a cloth. "Na'dio," the older woman whispered, "help me, if you've done this before. It has been-long enough, and I am greatly wearied."

"The sari," Diora said quietly.

"Yes," Serena replied, hesitating. "It was costly."

"I will see to its replacement. It must be cut away. We cannot move her to unwind the silk."

Serena nodded, looking faintly relieved. They cut, carefully and precisely, so that both leg and the round curve of Deirdre's belly were revealed to the light of the waning day.