"Pellia," she said quickly. "Please! The knife!" Dumarest lowered it from where it had rested against her cheek, a spot of blood mute testimony to the sharpness of the point. A wound which would heal without trace but the threat of marring her beauty had been enough."I've seen you before. When the ship landed you were watching from beneath some trees. During the time of bidding.

Why? What did you hope to see?"

"The bidding!" Her tone held contempt. "Why must you indulge their whims?"

"The Choud?" Dumarest eased his grip on the cropped hair. It was silken beneath his fingers, as soft as her voice, as the body he had touched beneath the blouse. A woman's softness overlaying firm muscle and well-constructed bone. As a child this one had never starved. "Why do you serve them? You do serve them, don't you?"

"I am one of the Ohrm, yes."

"And you serve?"

This time she made no answer but he needed no words. A servant, one who had learned to move quietly in the shadows and to watch and listen and learn-how little those who ruled realized how much they betrayed. And yet between her and those others he had seen in the house lay the difference between a pygmy and a giant. Were there others of as great a difference elsewhere?

She remained silent when he asked then shuddered as he lifted the knife.

"You would cut me? A woman!"

"I want answers. I'm looking for the mistress of the house.

Ursula. Have you seen her?"

"No."

"People gathered on the lawn-yours?"

"A few. They come to watch but they did no harm. That I swear."

The truth or partly so, certainly they had done no harm to the sward and, had Ursula been attacked, she would have screamedor left traces he would have found. As it was he had only the fragment of cloth. Had she turned and gone the other way?

"Why are you watching?"

Again the silence, maintained even when he rested the knife against her cheek. For a long moment she stood rigid as the steel touched her flesh then, as it lowered, she released her breath in a gusting sigh.

"You didn't cut me."

"No, why should I?" Dumarest slid the blade back into his boot. "I'm just a visitor here and what lies between you and the Choud is your business. But take some advice, girl. When someone who threatens you asks a question give him an answer.

It needn't be a true one as long as it satisfies." Then, without change of tone, he added, "Just why were you standing on the path?"

"Belain told me to. He-" She broke off, one hand lifting to her mouth. "You tricked me!"

"Yes. Is Belain your leader?" Her eyes gave him the answer.

"Never mind. He set you to watch and to give a signal if anyone should follow, right?" Again he watched the flicker of starlight reflected from her eyes. As a conspirator she lacked practice.

"What is going on?"

"You said you weren't interested."

"I'm not, just curious. Maybe I could help?" He waited then said, "Just as you wish. Are you sure you didn't see Ursula?"

"No, but I heard something before you came. Someone running up the path."

"A woman?"

"It sounded like a woman, yes."

Ursula, seeking heights and brightness and not depths anddarkness, in that he had been wrong. Or she could have some private place in which she could sit alone to nurse her injured pride. To think and, perhaps, to plan her revenge. Sardia had been a fool and to delay longer would be to accentuate her folly with his own.

He said, "Pellia, tell me, has your mistress a favorite spot on an upper level? Ursula is your mistress?"

"No."

An a.s.sumption he had made without foundation- why should she belong to the household simply because he had discovered her close? And yet no establishment in a place like this was isolated; servants would talk, gossip would flow and the habits of one would be the knowledge for all.

"But you would know if she had such a place," he said gently.

"Somewhere she would choose to be if hurt or upset in any way. I need your help. It is important that I find her and soon."

"Then ask another of the Choud."

"How would they know?" His hand fell to her shoulder, rose, a finger softly touching the spot of blood which marred her cheek.

"For this I apologize. If you know where Ursula is to be found tell me and I will forget I've seen you here tonight. A bargain?"

"She is fond of heights," said the woman and her voice held bitterness. "It pleases her to look down on others. It pleases all the Choud. But if she has been thwarted you will find her on the upper terrace. There is a turret of stone surmounted by a crouching beast. In it she plots her revenge."

It rose like a ghostly castle in the starlight, a miniature palace set with fretted stone, dark with sprawling lichen, the beast above it a snarling, fanged shape radiating fury. Inside it was thick with shadows but the air held the taint of a familiar perfume and a section seemed lighter than the rest. A patch which moved and a face which caught the starlight and reflected it in the colorless semblance of a corpse."Ursula?" Dumarest stepped through the opening. "Are you here, my lady?"

"Why have you followed me?"

"I was concerned." The air held more than the odor of the perfume she wore, there was an acridity which spoke of insects and cobwebs and things which hid during the light of day.

Imagination, probably, if she used this place then servants would have kept it clean. Or did she have a perverse attraction for mold and decay? "I came to escort you back to the house."

"So your harlot can gloat?"

"So she can apologize."

"Why?"

"She is a trained dancer, a prima ballerina. Almost her entire life has been spent in learning how to manipulate her body. The challenge was a farce from the beginning and one she should never have taken advantage of. It was the wine-she rarely drinks. And, too, I think she was more than a little jealous."

"Of me?"

"Can you doubt it?" Dumarest found a bench and sat down beside the woman. "Must I ill.u.s.trate the obvious? You are younger than Sardia and she resented it. Your beauty also.

Always until recently she has been the center of attraction and, in you, she saw mirrored what had been and would be no longer.

Youth, charm, the ideal of men. Can you blame her for taking the only advantage she had?"

"The dance," said Ursula. "The dance."

"All she can do and even so her art is failing." It was no time to hesitate at a lie. "I watched you both. She bested you and you are woman enough to admit it, but in a year or two?" Dumarest shook his head. "A tree grows old and gains beauty with age. A woman gains maturity and can add to her attraction by the depths of her mind. But a woman who had nothing to commendher but muscular obedience-Ursula, she should be pitied, not blamed."

She said quietly, "I had planned to kill her."

And would have done and still could unless he could make amends. Sardia had been cosseted too long and had been forgotten if she had ever learned how vicious those born to wealth and power could be. The a.s.sa.s.sin, the subtle drug, the nerve-twisting poison, the killing bacteria-all were weapons easily at hand.

And who would mourn or revenge a lone traveler dying on a remote world?

"A guest," said Dumarest. "You would kill a guest?"

"Cornelius's, not mine."

"But still a guest of the Choud," he reminded. "At times, Ursula, we need to remember who and what we are. You are among those who rule on this world while Sardia is only a woman who acted unwisely while under the influence of wine.

Already she regrets what she has done and wishes she could make amends."

"Such as an apology?"

An act she would detest but would do if he had to force her to her knees. Too much was at stake for him to pander to her pride.

"Yes," said Dumarest. "Even that."

"Even that?" Ursula lifted her eyebrows. "She means something to you?"

"We traveled together."

"And?" Her eyes watched his face; orbs filled with reflected starlight, pale ovals which glinted and looked as blind as gla.s.s.

"Are you lovers?" She sighed at his nod. "So Tuvey mentioned to Ellitia. And yet you berated her for being less than kind. And youleft her at the moment of her triumph when she needed you most. Your woman, Earl."

Dumarest said, "Not my woman, Ursula. Sardia isn't property. She isn't a slave."

"All women are slaves of their pa.s.sion," she snapped. "As all men are victims of their ambition. It drives them like a goad and it can destroy them as love can destroy a woman. What is your ambition?"

"To travel."

"Why?"

"To search. To find."

"What? Happiness?" The turn of her head signaled her irritation. "What is happiness? Is it the contentment of a well-fed beast? Is it the lack of pain? Of hunger? Of doubt? Can you buy it? Make it? Find it in some forgotten place. Tell me, Earl, where can I find this precious thing?"

"In your heart, perhaps, Ursula. I know of nowhere else."

"Then why do you search?"

"For knowledge." He stretched and shifted so that his hand rested on his knee close to the hilt of the knife in his boot A habit born of time spent in shadowed darkness with things which threatened from the gloom. "It pleases me to discover odd facts a.s.sociated with various legends. The mythical planets, for example. You must have heard of them?"

"No."

"Worlds that are supposed to exist and yet which no one seems able to find." His tone was casual. "Worlds such as Earth."

"Earth is no myth."

"So I am convinced and I came to Ath in search of it as I told you earlier. And you reaffirm my belief. The details you gavewere fantastic. Such precision. You could even know the spatial coordinates. If so then it would be possible to locate the planet."

He paused, waiting, but she made no response. "Do you know the coordinates?"

She said, "Earl, let us not concern ourselves with that now.

Tell me, and be honest, do you find me more attractive than Sardia?"

"Yes."

"Are you positive?"

"Yes." She was talking about physical beauty and he was thinking of far more than that, but even so she held an attraction which set her high as the dancer though in a different style. Hers was the loveliness of carved perfection while Sardia held the warmth of all humanity, the fire and the pa.s.sion of seeding and harvest. "Yes, Ursula. Yes!"

She came to him like a scented cloud, her arms lifting to fold around his neck, her body shifting so as to press against his own, the twin mounds of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s flattening beneath the pressure.

And she was fire beneath the ice, long muscles rippling, hips moving as her lips sought his own, teeth and tongue adding their own urgency to the message she was sending, the need she made no attempt to hide.

It was natural to respond. To return the pressure of flesh against flesh, to lift his arms and to send his hand caressing her hair, the fingers gliding through the silken strands to follow the curve of the skull, to feel the odd roundness set firm beneath the scalp.

"Earl!" Her lips left his to rise over his cheek in search of his ear. To bite as she voiced her desire. "Earl, I need you! I need you!"

As he needed her, not for the brief satisfaction of relieved physical tension but for the knowledge he sensed she possessed.

A need greater than any she could ever have known or dreamed could exist."My darling! Earl, my love!"

There was blood on her mouth, dark in the starlight, and warm wetness on his face where more had run from his bitten flesh. A harlot's trick once played on him in a tavern and rewarded then in a manner which had left its mark. Now he could not afford to be other than gentle. Other than kind.

"Ursula!"

"You love me, Earl? You love me?"

He had traveled incredible distances, fought, killed, suffered hardship and almost died in his search for Earth. A few pleasing words were nothing. Dalliance in this stone construction was nothing. Lies, promises, he would use them all to gain what he needed to know.

And then, abruptly, she stiffened.

"Ursula? What-"

"Be silent!" Her head tilted as if she listened to distant sounds.

"Something is wrong."