Man of Impulse
by Marion Zimmer Bradley
"You keep good company, chiyu," Marilla Lindir blazed at her brother. "By all accounts you are just what he likes, the Lord Ardais—a boy not yet a man, old enough to be almost a companion, young enough that you will never contest his will, and pretty as a girl—has he yet made you his—"
Merryl heard the word in her mind, and colored be­fore she spoke it, but he said stubbornly, "You do not know Lord Dyan as I do, Marilla."
"No, and I thank all the Gods for it! Is it not enough that all our Aillard kin think you sandal-wearer because you shirked your term in the Cadets—"
"That is not fair, either," said Merryl quietly. "What ails you, 'Rilla? Are you angry because for once there is something we do not share? You have woman friends and I do not grudge them to you. You know why I could not go into the Cadets; after our brother Samael died, Mother thought always that I would melt in the winter rains or catch the fever in a summer heat, and truly I did not ask it—to be coddled and made a housepet, tied to her sash even when I was grown to be a man. Now for once there is a man of our kinfolk who accepts me for what I am; a man, a telepath ... and does not mock me for what I cannot amend, that I grew to manhood without the company of my own kind. He accepts me," Merryl repeated, and Marilla, through her anger, felt the pain in her brother's voice, steadied though it was. She swallowed hard. Perhaps it was true, perhaps her anger was only jealousy ... she and Merryl, twin-born, had not been separated as most brothers and sisters were when one moved into manhood and the other was confined to the narrow limits of a Comyn lady. Was she jealous, that
now Merryl moved on where she could not follow, into the larger world? She reached for Merryl, and he hugged her close. She was still almost as tall as he; and though her hair was braided in a flaming rope down her back, while his clung in tendrils around his freckled face, her shoulders were nearly as broad as his own.
For years, our father said I was more the man of us two; I can ride as fast and as far as Merryl, my hawks are better trained than his, I even practiced with him at such weapons-training as he had ... because Mother al­ways felt that the rough lads around stable and barracks would contaminate her precious baby boy. But Mother is gone now and there is none to keep Merryl from becom­ing a man. And I... Marilla shrank from the relentless implications of that, must I become no more than a woman? Because I was allowed to share what little Merryl had of manhood, have I been spoilt for the only life that must be mine?
She drew a long breath and said, "True it is that I do not know Lord Dyan as you do. Yet I feel he is using your—" she sought for a word that would not offend him, considered and rejected hero worship, and finally said hesitantly, "using your—your admiration for him. I am not a fool, Merryl, I know that—that young men, boys, care for one another this way, and I would never have grudged you that—"
"Would you not?" he broke in angrily, but she shook her head and gestured him to silence.
"Truly, had you had such a friend ... companionship I have given you and such friendship as you have had—"
"Marilla, Marilla—" he held her tight again, "Do you think I am censuring you because—"
"No, no—wait—that is not what I mean; I am your sister, there are some things a friend, man or woman, could give you that I, your sister and twin, could not, and I—I would have tried not to grudge you that," she said honestly. "The world will go as it will, not as you or I would have it ... a man is free to explore in this way and a woman is not...."
"That is not quite true, 'Rilla—"
She smiled at him a little and said, "Maybe not; I
should have said, a boy is something more free than a woman, since they need not fear disgrace—"
"And I have no wish to disgrace any woman or bring shame on her," Merryl said quietly, "but I have had no bredini either."
"Till now?"
A flare of anger; the barriers were down between them, but she felt them slam shut. Merryl had never before shut her out of his mind. She said urgently, "Mer­ryl, listen to me! For you, perhaps, this is right, this is the time for such things—but in the name of all the hells, in the name of Avarra the merciful—I can see why you love Dyan, perhaps, but what does he want with you? He is old enough to have outgrown such things before either of us were born, he could be our father's father—"
"He is not so old as that," Merryl interrupted. "If he had been grandsire, then would he have been wed full young—and what of that, anyhow? Would you judge a man by the years he was numbered, rather than by what he is?"
"Of what he is, I know only that he is a man past his first youth, at least, who seeks lovers among boys not yet grown to manhood," Marilla blazed. "What kind of a man is that? And I heard, if you did not, of the scandal in the Cadets six years ago, when he seduced a boy so young that he had to be sent home to his family because—"
"I might have known you would throw Octavien in my face," Merryl said, with an odd, smug smile. "Dyan told me before any other could rake it up against him. He took Octavien into his own quarters just because he was young and childish and the other lads who were more mature, bullied him—Dyan had been small and frail too, and knew what it was to be bullied, and he thought perhaps he could make a man of the lad by treating him as one ... he taught him, supervised him, stood friend to him. But the truth of the matter was only this; Octavien was a whimpering child who should never have been sent into the Guards at all, and under the double strain he broke and his mind snapped ... he got it into his head that the other lads were talking about
him night and day because of Dyan's friendship and at­tention, that they had nothing better to do with their time than to taunt him and call him weakling, sandal-wearer, catamite—and then he began to weep night and day and could not stop himself, and, like all such sick­nesses of the mind, he turned on the very one who had most befriended and helped him, and accused Dyan of such unspeakable things ... and so they hurried him away, poor brain-sick child, before he could grow worse."
"That, I suppose, is Dyan's version," said Marilla.
Merryl said, "I am enough of a telepath to know when I am being lied to. Dyan spoke truth—nor would he have stooped to lie about it. Had he known how frail was Octavien's hold on reality, he would have sent him home before—but he had grown to love the boy, and Octavien did not want to be parted from him then, he said Dyan was the only one who cared for him and un­derstood him, and Dyan felt that sending him away would have been to hurt him worse." Merryl was silent, but Marilla could read even what he did not want to say aloud to her, Dyan wept tike a child himself when he knew what had befallen Octavien; he did not tell me this, but I saw it in his mind....
Marilla thought: Dyan could have stood friend to the boy without seducing him first to his bed; and it served him right that he did not observe the proprieties. One of the strongest taboos in the Hellers was that which pro­hibited such affairs between generations; it came from the days when any kin of the mother's or father's gener­ation might have been the true mother or father, since marriages were group affairs and true parentage often unknown. "Could Dyan find no men of his own age for his favorites and friends?"
"You are prejudiced, Marilla. Like all women, you think a lover of men has insulted all your sex—"
"Not so," she said, "but he, too, is prejudiced, then, like to a man who deserts his wife of thirty years who has borne him many children, because of her wrinkles and gray hairs, and takes a younger and prettier maiden. Does he think, if all his lovers are young, that no one will see the lines in his face?"
Merryl flushed, but said stubbornly, "Nevertheless, he is my friend, and as long as you keep my house, you will be civil to him and receive him with courtesy."
"Oh, is it so?" she flared. "While I do your will at all times, we are as equals, but when our wills clash, you say only, I am master of this house and you are no more than a woman?"
He lowered his head. "I say not so, Marilla, Evanda forbid—but sister, will you not be kind to my friend for love of me?"
She said crossly, "It is for love of you that I would show him the door," but when her brother spoke in that tone, she could only grant him what he wished. She said, "I neither like nor approve of the man. But you must do as you will," and turned away from him.
Lord Dyan, she thought, was rather like a hawk: proudly poised head, lean to emaciation, high-bridged nose, and now and again, when he laughed, the far hint of wildness in the harsh sound. His manner to her was delicately punctilious; he called her, not damisela, but Domna Manila, in recognition that she was chatelaine of Lindirsholme. In the evenings when they sat in the hall or danced to the sound of the house-minstrel, he was always first to ask her to dance, and even courteous to her lady-companion and the elderly chaperone who had been her governess and Merryl's. During the days he was out with Merryl, hunting or hawking, or simply riding across the broad lands; in the evenings, some­times, he borrowed a harp from one of the singing-women and sang to them himself, strange sorrowful bal­lads older than the hills themselves, in a voice well-trained and musical, though without much tone. Once he said, with a faint, rueful shrug, "A boy's tragedy is always this—that no matter how beautiful his voice be­fore it breaks, there is no way to tell whether his mature voice will be anything but another well-trained croaker."
"Yet the songs are beautiful," Marilla said, truthfully, and he nodded.
"I had them from my mother ... she spent years studying under one of the great minstrels of the moun-
tains; of course my father could not abide music, so she sang only to me. And I learned more in Nevarsin."
"Were you destined then for a monk, Lord Dyan?" she asked him. He laughed, that harsh bird-sound.
"Not I! I have no call to fasting and prayer, and less, perhaps, to the way of the ascetic ... I like good food and warm beds and the company of those who can dance and sing ... only the music kept me there; I would have endured more than that for such learning. No, I was apprenticed to be a healer, and now—"he shrugged, "I have scarce enough skill in these to set a broken bone for a dog." He stared at the long delicate fingers which moved so skillfully on the harp. They were still fine, but the joints showed lumps and knots and calluses from sword and reins. "For one of our kind, there is no task worthy of a man, they say, but the sword. Duty called me there, and I did what I was bound in honor to do. How lucky you are—" his eyes sought Merryl's, "that you escaped this destiny."
"At the cost of manhood," Merryl said bitterly.
"Faugh!" Dyan made a harsh, guttural exclamation, "If that is manhood, perhaps 'twould be a saner world if we all put skirts about our knees, lad!"
Marilla asked him, "Do you truly think women are better off than men?"
He shook his head. "Perhaps not, Lady Marilla—I am no judge; my grandmother Rohana ruled the Ardais lands better than any man could do, and my father—" he shrugged. "I never saw him sober, or sane, after my thirteenth year. My sister was Keeper, leronis at Arilinn, and no man could be her master, yet she gave that up to die in trying thrice to bear a child to her Terran-reared lover. My mother endured my father's madness and folly till she died of it. My grandmother lived all her life subject to a man who was scarce her equal, yet she treated him always as her better. Can you blame me for saying I understand not women? Nor, for that matter, men ... even you, lad—" his smile at Merryl was so frank, so warm and tender, that Marilla winced, "you have escaped the worst of what your clan demanded of you, yet you pine as if you had been forbidden some­thing splendid! I would have given much for just such
incapacity as yours, so that I might have had my own choice ..." and he sighed. "No matter. The world goes as it will...." And he bent his head to the harp and began to play a merry and not too decorous drinking-song about a most inept crew of raiders from the mountains.
"We have to tell them again and again, Rape the women, and kill the men, I think sometimes they'll never learn, First you plunder and then you burn."
Not long afterward, Marilla rose, with chaperone and lady-companion, and withdrew; Merryl embraced his sis­ter, and Dyan bent over her hand; for an instant she was shocked, wondering at herself, Did I want an embrace from him, too?
And late in the night she woke, shocked, from a dream such as had seldom come to her, she was held in someone's arms, caressed tenderly, mind and body touched in such depths that her whole body seemed to melt into
a jelly of delight	She woke in startled amazement,
feeling arms still about her, the pleasuring touch still
lingering in her body ... but she was alone, and then,
catching her breath in dismay, she slammed down a bar­rier; but it was Dyan's hands, Dyan's arms in the dream
... or was it a dream? And slowly, shamingly, she knew
what she had shared ... she had guessed, of course, that
Dyan shared her brother's bed, and the bond of the
twin-born was stronger than any other telepathic
bond	
But I knew not that it was like this ... Merryl has this and I, ah, merciful Evanda, I am virgin and I lie alone ... till my family gives some man rights over my body without my will ... and Dyan, Dyan wants no woman, he would turn from me in scorn, turn to my brother....
The barrier was in place again. In her cold and lonely bed, Marilla wept herself to sleep. And in the morning she sent down word by her chaperone that she was ill in bed; she could not face Merryl, she could not face Dyan ... certainly he had known that they had touched her....
I never want to see him again. I will stay here in this
bed until he has gone away, and damn him, he can take Merryl away with him, I never want to see either of them again! But she knew that she was lying. The next day, self-possession armoring her again, and chill irony, she managed to come down and be civil, to endure Merryls and Dyan's kind inquiries about her illness. But she held herself tightly with dread, and watched, with something she now knew was envy, as Dyan and Merryl walked arm in arm. And once, when she sat among her women, sewing, she heard one of them giggling and speculating.
"What in hell's name can two men do with one an­other? It seems silly, doesn't it? And what a waste! I've heard that the Comhi'Letzii take one another to bed like lovers, but I've never been able to figure that out either ... maybe they don't know what they're missing—"
"Maybe," Marilla said coldly, "they have more imagi­nation than you do, Margalys," and left the room, hear­ing their curious chattering voices rise behind her.
It was that night, as they sat at music, that Merryl took the harp and began to sing, but broke off in a fit of coughing; and Marilla reached for his hand; it was hot as fire.
"You have fever," she said accusingly.
"Well, there is fever in the village, and I went to see how many of the farm-people would be away from the harvest," Merryl said, sighing. "True 'tis, that old saying, lie down with dogs and you will rise up with fleas.... I will be well enough, sister." He struck her hand away. "You are not our mother, to coddle me now!"
Dyan reached for Merryl's forehead, touching it ex­pertly. "No, now, lad," he said. "Away to your bed; you have fever-bark? And if you are not well in the morning, we will ride another time, but you must not endanger yourself."
Merryl colored, but he rose and signaled to his body-servant, taking leave of Dyan with an embrace. He looked sick and flushed.
"I will see you, then, in the morning—it will be well enough," he said crossly. "Marilla is like all women, she likes having men sick and under her control."
"Only because men are too much fools to admit when they need care," said Marilla, just as crossly, and
frowned. But as she climbed the stairs, to search out fever-bark from the stillroom and pour a dose into the protesting Merryl, she had already formed the plan in her mind.
She had still the riding-breeches of Merryl's which their mother, four years ago, had forbidden her to wear; and Merryl's tunics were only a little too broad for her shoulders. She slipped into Merryl's room where he lay restlessly tossing about with fever, and slid his sword from the rack, belted it about her waist. She had had enough training to walk without bumping it on things; and she took his cloak and slid her feet into his boots. They were too big for her; she pulled on another pair of thick socks so she could walk in them without blis­tering her heels. In the stable, Dyan was already saddled and waiting.
"Well! You look well recovered," he said gaily. "Did not that sister of yours jump at the chance to keep you abed like a child?"
"Do you think I would let her?" Marilla blessed the deep contralto of her voice; she could never have carried this off if her voice had been high and light like her companion's. She was glad to realize that she could, in breeches and boots, jump into the saddle as lightly as Merryl himself; only once had Dyan seen her ride and then she had been cumbered with riding-skirts and a lady's saddle which was, Marilla had always felt, an in­sult to a self-respecting horse.
"You said I might fly Skyclimber," Dyan said. "Have you a hawk chosen?"
Marilla nodded. She said, wondering at her own calm, "My sister told me that Wind Demon is not being flown enough, and she is too busy to ride; she asked me to handle her today."
Bold as she was, she would not venture to handle Mer­ryl's hawk, Racer; Racer was a nervous haggard who let no one but Merryl himself touch her.
But with Wind Demon on her saddle, she felt compe­tent to match Dyan himself at hawking. She rode in the crimson sunrise, feeling the dawn wind in her face with excitement, the delight of freedom; how long it had been
since she rode like this, forgetting the household duties which lay behind her! Surely she would be missed, but what did that matter? There were plenty to care for Merryl and for the household, and if she could not have one day of absolute freedom, what good was it that she was Lady of Lindirsholme?
The sun had begun to angle downward from the ze­nith, and noon was far past; Dyan began to loosen the hawk again from the saddle, then shrugged.
"We do not need any more birds," he said, "and the hawks, too, are full-fed; do we need to take more? You promised we should ride one day to the waterfall; is there time before sundown?"
"I think so," Marilla said, and beckoned to the hawk-master who rode far enough behind them not to inter­fere, but close enough to take charge of the birds if he was needed. "Take them back to the castle, and the game too, Rannan."
"Certainly, vai dom," Rannan said, "but ye're not going to ride farther this day, are ye? Lord Ardais, ye wouldn't be takin' the boy all that way with fever just past and a storm comin' on?"
"Storm? I see no sign of storm," Dyan said, "but if Merryl wishes to return—"
Marilla sniffed the wind; it did not seem to her to smell like storm. Rannan had always pampered Merryl. She said coldly, "You are not now in my mother's pay, to keep me housebound. Take the birds and go."
The man ducked his head and rode away, and Dyan chuckled.
"When I was a lad, they used to have a saying for a boy growing up—Well, lad, ye'll be a man before yer mother will," he said, imitating, with a droll twist of his mouth, the country accent of the man. "You may have been kept from manhood much of your life, but you make up for lost time now. But are you sure you are not wearied with riding? It is true we have come a long way, and no doubt the waterfall will wait on our pleasure."
Marilla was not accustomed to this much riding; she ached and was saddlesore. But she would not yield be-
fore this man! She hardly knew why she had come; per­haps, she thought, I wished to know what Merryl sees in him....
And she knew; a charming companion, ready with jest and game, now and again tactfully suggesting a better way to handle the hawk ... though, indeed, earlier he had said: "You grow better at this than you were; last time we went hawking, you did not handle Racer so well as this—"
Marilla had said lightly, "I have learned from your company and example, my lord."
Dyan smiled and leaned close and said, "I thought we agreed you were to call me only Dyan—or, if you will—bredhyu—" and she felt the questing touch of his mind, but she kept her barrier in place; she could not pretend to be her brother, not now ... but still she could read Dyan, a little.
I like it that he is still shy, that he does not presume nor grow bold....
"The waterfall lies beyond this ridge," she said, and set her teeth, racing ahead. How dared Merryl share this with Dyan? That had been their own private place, their rendezvous, the place where they went to share confi­dences from early childhood; and now Merryl would bring this man here? She felt simmering resentment; and yet ...
I can see it now, she thought, why Merryl loves him so well.
The sky was darkening with cloud when they came in sight of the waterfall, and a few drops of rain had begun to fall. Yet the rushing cataract drowned out all thought, all sound, all speech; and Dyan, staring with delight at the great jagged cliffs with rushing water, was silent, too. He stood there without words, looking downward at the torrent, and after a time she could read his thoughts again.
Now do I know why you brought me here. There are not many who will own to their love of such beauty. Nor do I—much—when there are others near. It is the sec­ond—nay, the third most beautiful thing I have seen at Lindirsholme.
So close they were, so deeply sharing the silence, that
for a moment Marilla was tempted to open her mind to him; she did not want to deceive him, let him show the tenderness he meant only for Merryl. But the thought of his rage and fury at being deceived, kept her barriered tightly, and after a little Dyan sighed and turned away, and again she could read his thoughts. Still he defends him­self against me, but perhaps tonight when we are together he will not barricade his thoughts from me....
In a wild confusion of feeling, dread and shame and some unidentifiable thing, she turned quickly away and hurried to her horse. Dyan turned in surprise and looked up, troubled, but she said swiftly, "Look, we cannot stay here ... look at the sky, Rannan was right about the storm."
Within minutes, she knew, it would break and they would be drenched. Dyan threw himself into his saddle and was off after her, racing ... he drew angrily abreast and said, "You are a child indeed. If you knew this storm would break, and if your clothes are soaked to the skin again, you will have fever worse than ever—are you always going to act like a child or a silly girl? This is such a trick as your sister might have played! Is there any place we can shelter from this, out of the rain for a little?"
"You are like my mother," Marilla snarled in Merryl's voice. "Think you I will melt in the rain?"
"Nay, but I hunted in these hills before you were more than a gleam in your father's eye," said Dyan, and again Marilla caught a picture in his mind, two lads rac­ing over the hills breakneck on their horses ... who was the other boy, younger than Merryl was now? She nei­ther knew nor cared. Dyan said, "I know how quickly this rain can turn to sleet or ice at these latitudes ... even now, feel that," and Marilla was aware of the sting of sleet against her cheeks. "We cannot reach Lindirsholme without freezing; must I seek a cave or ditch as we were taught to do at Nevarsin against bad weather?"
She said, shivering against her will, "There is a—a shepherd's hut." It had stood unused for years, since their father had sold his sheep and turned to breeding the black horses of the Leyniers. She and Merryl had kept childish treasures there, when they rode to the wa-
terfall, and brought food and drink for out-of-door meals away from governess and tutors.
No doubt Merryl would have shared this, too. He cares nothing for our old secrets now, only for Dyan. Well, let it be so.
Even Dyan was blue with cold by the time they forced the hut's stiff door open, and knelt at once to make a fire. When it was blazing up, he unsaddled the horses, brushing away Manila's attempt to help.
"Stay by the fire, lad, you are chilled through, and I have not just risen from a fever-bed!" He laid the saddleblankets down beneath his outer cloak, pushed Marilla down on it. "Nor need we go supperless to bed, I kept the last bird, thinking we might cook our dinner out of doors."
She knelt upright on the blankets and said, "Let me then spit the bird for roasting while you deal with the horses."
Her hands were too cold and stiff still to do much at plucking it; she finally held it to the fire to singe the feathers away. He came when she had half finished, and took it away from her.
"Here could you use some of your sister's housewifely skills," he said, laughing, "Plaster it in mud and ashes, lad, and the feathers will break away when 'tis baked. Did she learn your skills of riding and hawking without teaching you such things as this?"
Marilla flared at him, "Would you have me learn to
cook and sew? Already I was womanly enough, was I
not?" And as she spoke she knew she was speaking the
very words Merryl would have spoken, the rage and re­sentment at never sharing a man's life ... well enough
it was to bring Marilla into a man's world, but if he had
tried to enter hers, then would he have been ridiculed
or worse	
Dyan said, still laughing, "In the Cadets I learned to cook or go hungry, even if it was no more than grain-porridge and such field cookery as this; there are no cook-maids on the battlefield, lad. And my paxman darns my socks and mends my cloak—it is the price I pay for having no woman about me." As he talked, he was plastering mud and ashes on the bird; now he thrust it into the coals. "Leave it there to cook, and get out of your wet cloak,
lad." He pulled it from her shoulders. His hand lingered
at the nape of her neck. "Such fine hair—'tis pity you
cannot let it grow long like your sister's	"
Marilla bent her head. She would have to face that some day, too; and she thought with a sting of regret of the long braid of hair left on her floor. She forced herself not to shrink from Dyan's intimate touch.... Yes, they have shared more than this, he has a right to expect it....
"I suppose you wonder why I would have no woman about me," said Dyan quietly. "I thought it not fair to marry as many of the Comyn do, to women with whom they have no more in common than horse or dog, to use a woman as a breeding-animal, no more. Once I dwelt with a woman for a year, and she bore my son; I had him legitimated, but he died, years ago. I have an heir by adoption—I think you may have seen him in Thendara; Hastur's paxman, young Syrtis. I do not dislike women as much as all that." He raised his eyes and looked at her directly.
"What do you want with me, Marilla?" he asked.
She bent her head. How long had he known?
"Since we stood together by the waterfall," Dyan said quietly. "I am no laranzu; yet telepath enough to know something of what you felt. Do you understand how much I love your brother, Marilla? I know you have hated me; yet I mean him no harm. He will leave me; a younger lad always does; I will have no choice but to find another. My—my friends seem somehow to grow to manhood, and I—well, perhaps it is something within me—" he shrugged. "Why am I explaining myself to you?"
She turned away and bent her head. Her voice was stifled. "You owe me nothing, my lord."
She wished he would not look at her; and as if yielding to her wish he got up and busied himself at the far end of the shelter where the horses were; he gave them grain from a bag, hauled some of the fodder stacked at the far end and spread it for them. She came and stood close, tearing apart the baled fodder so the horses could get at it to eat, and he smiled.
"What? Now I know you are a woman, you do not leave me to do the men's business here?"
"When I ride with Merryl, I am a boy with him; should I be less with you, vai dom?"
"You are his equal, aye," Dyan said softly, "I would you were his twin brother, not his sister ..." and she lowered her eyes before the sudden heat in his. He reached out and took her between his hard hands, hold­ing her so that she faced him. "You have come here with me, Marilla—what do you want, truly?"
She turned aside, swearing that she would not cry. How could she say, I want what it is that you have shared with Merryl and never with me, what you can give to no woman—ah, fool that I am, caught in my own trap—
He pulled her against him, stroking her hair, stroking the nape of her neck. After a time he lowered his lips against hers, and a little later he carried her to the bed of saddleblankets.
"But you are a child—" he said, after a time, hesi­tantly, "and, if I make no mistake, virgin—do I repay hospitality by violating the sister of my host?"
She half sat up, her arms still round his neck. She said fiercely, "You did not ask my leave to take my brother to your bed! What sort of ninny do you think me, that you must have permission from him to take me, when I myself have given you that leave? I am my own—my own woman, I belong not to my brother but to myself— nor to you, Lord Dyan! I give and withhold myself at my own will, not that of some man!"
He laughed softly, and for a moment she thought he was laughing at her, but it was a laugh of pure delight.
"One thing more you have learned of your brother's world, Marilla—if all women were like you, I doubt I should be such a man as I am today—" His lips sought hers again and he whispered softly, against them, "Bredhya." Then he pulled her down again on the bed of saddleblankets.
"I must take care, then, if you are a maiden; I would not reward you for this with pain," he said, touching her more gently than she had believed was possible, and she sighed, letting her mind open before him as her lips opened under his, feeling his delight and surprise and wonder.
I thought you cared nothing for woman, Dyan...."
I am a man of impulse ... you know that of me, if nothing more.... And then even thought was lost.
They rode home early in the daylight, holding hands. As they came within sight of Lindirsholme, Marilla halted, looking at Dyan with a certain dismay.
"Merryl will know ... again I have stolen from him what he wanted; when we were little children, my father said always, I should have been the man, I was the stronger of the two ... and always I bested him at riding and hawking ... and now even at this I have stolen what he wanted most...."
Dyan clasped her hand and held it hard.
"You have taken from Merryl nothing that is his," he said gently. "And I shall tell him, believe me, that it was for love of him.... I cherish you, bredhya, but without my love for Merryl, you would have been no more to me than any of the hundreds of women who would lure a Comyn lord into their bed ... do you think women have not tried? Had you been older, more guileful, I would have thought it of you, and turned away from you, but my friend's sister was something else ..." he lowered his eyes again and was silent. "Now he has shared with me what was the dearest of his possessions," he said at last, "his sister's love. Is it not so, Marilla?"
She clung to his hand. "It is so, Dyan."
Merryl met them at the gate, holding out his hands to each of them as they dismounted. "I was frightened, when I knew what you had done," he said. "The storm was so fierce—but you took him to our own old place, Marilla.... I am glad!" And, meeting his eyes, she knew that he was aware of what had befallen them, as she had wakened to share his delight in Dyan's arms. Dyan reached out and hugged them both together, turning his head from side to side to kiss them, Manila's soft cheek, Merryl's downy one, and for a moment it seemed to Marilla, in an insight she never lost, that somehow Dyan was not a bearded, scarred, aging man, but somehow, inside, a laughing boy her own age or Merryl's....
She took his hand and her brother's, and, walking be­tween them, walked through the gates of Lindirsholme.
Dyan rode away ten days later, Merryl at his side.
"I wish I might come with you to Thendara," she said rebelliously, as she said farewell.
"So do I," Dyan said softly, "but you know why it cannot be." Already, with her laran, she knew that the night they had spent together had been fruitful; she bore Dyan's child, and already guessed that it was the son he needed and desired so much. He held her face between his hands again and said, "You have given me the one thing Merryl could not, Marilla. No one else, ever, can take your place in that. I will marry you if you will—" he added, hesitating, but she quickly shook her head.
"If I held you in those bonds, I should desire of you what you cannot give ... what the bonds of marriage demand," she said. "You would come to hate me ..." and at his look of pain, she added quickly, "not to hate, perhaps; but you would resent me, that some one had put reins to your freedom ... I have this." With a curi­ous new gesture she held her hands, sheltering, across her body where the child lay cradled. "I am content with that ..." and she raised her lips for his farewell kiss. And as he turned away, riding at Merryl's side, she whis­pered to herself:
Once you called me, bredhya. But I know, if you did not, that what you truly said was ... bredhyu.
She turned before they were out of sight, and went inside the gates. There were those who would think that Dyan had taken from her what she had to give, and left her nothing; but she knew now that it was not true.
She was mother to the son of Lord Ardais; mother to a Comyn Heir. Now no kinsman could force her, unwill­ingly, to marry some man for house and name; she had status enough of her own, wed or no. She was her own woman, now and forever; and Dyan had given her this, which was better than marriage.
Some day—perhaps—there might be another man; and perhaps not. Perhaps she was never meant for mar­riage. But some day, certainly, she would find someone to share her life who could accept her in freedom; and when she found that person, man or woman, she would know. Dyan had given her that.