The style of the speech both magnified and distanced the man it praised, making Regis Hastur seem at once larger than life and less than human. But presently Mikhail realized that those measured phrases were beginning to ease his sense of loss. No doubt that was their purpose. How Regis would have laughed if he could have heard!

Or perhaps he did-Mikhail felt Varzil's ring throb on his finger, and clenched the fist within its glove. They were sending Regis to his rest, but would he go? He did not know whether the idea of another visitation would console him or make him more afraid.

He straightened his back, sensing that the eulogy was drawing to a close. His whole body ached with exhaustion, and his feet felt like two blocks of ice in his boots.

The Servant lifted his arms again. "We shall not see his like again, this child of Aldones-and so we bid him farewell!" The words were ancient, the sorrow in them like a fresh wound.

He lowered his arms, and as if he had released their voices, from thousands of throats came a great wailing, a ululation that rang against the stone walls of Comyn Castle in cascading echoes that battered at Mikhail's weary senses until his own throat opened in an anguished cry. For a measureless time thereafter he remembered nothing, heard nothing, and felt nothing except the wracking grief of their enormous loss.

23.

Marguerida was chafing at the slow pace of the funeral train. It demanded all of her will and the discipline of a lifetime to swallow her impatience. They had been on the road since daybreak, and all she wanted was to reach the village where Domenic was staying and to see her beloved son safe. But there was no way to hurry the entourage. Twenty-five wagons and as many carriages were behind her, with about three hundred riders beside them. She was only grateful that she was mounted on Dyania, with the pleasant sensation of horsey muscles against her thighs, instead of enclosed in one of the vehicles as were Dom Gabriel and a few others. That would have been too much for her.

They had left Thendara at dawn, and ridden out of the city on the Old North Road, past fields covered with drifting autumn mist. It had been eerily quiet, and the soft folds of earth that were almost visible through the concealing veils of moisture had been empty of anything except flocks of sheep and cattle. This had gotten on everyone's already excited nerves, and when the sun rose and began to burn away the mist, she had sensed a little relaxation around her.

Now she rode beside Mikhail, surrounded by twenty Guardsmen, and Marguerida tried to force herself to think of something besides her son. Could it actually be only eight days since Regis had died? She turned in the saddle and looked back, to the coffin draped with the silver-and-blue Hastur colors, resting on an enclosed flat-bedded carriage, drawn along by six creamy horses. She knew that the funeral had provided closure for Mikhail, but she remained trapped with her own conflicted feelings, no matter how hard she tried to escape them.

There was something a bit puzzling about her emotions, for when Diotima, her stepmother, had died, Marguerida had been able to accept it almost immediately. True, she had been expecting Dio's death for several years, while Regis' death had come without warning, but surely after so many days she should be able to come to grips with herself. However, even after the astonishing intrusion of Regis during the Comyn Council meeting, she had not yet managed to absorb the sudden death of the man. And the lengthy and exhausting funeral the previous day had only left her tired, not free to mourn the man who had been so kind to her. She could only hope that once he was interred with his ancestors, she would at last be able to adjust her heart to the loss.

The Council meeting had given her husband fresh confidence, and he no longer seemed as doubtful and hesitant as he had in the days immediately following Regis' death. She did not understand all that had taken place within him, but she could see that he was ready to lead Darkover at last. Now, if they could just survive the expected attack-if it was not all a tempest in a chamber pot-and if she could keep herself in the background for the rest of her life!

She chewed on the problem, ruthlessly examining herself. She contrasted herself with Lady Linnea, who had never gone beyond the role of consort, and decided she could not imitate her very well. She was simply a different sort of person-too independent-and she was equal to Mikhail in the peculiar powers of her shadow matrix. Well, she could only be herself, and everyone would have to accept it. The thought refreshed her as the wind tugged at the hood of her cloak.

Marguerida wondered what Lew was doing right then. Pacing, probably. That was how he behaved when he was impatient. Would there be an attack on Comyn Castle? She hoped there would not be, yet, she was curious if the plan she had helped to conceive would be effective. She smiled slowly. Working closely with Cisco Ridenow for the first time had been a remarkable experience. He had grasped the nature of the problem immediately, swinging into action as if he had been preparing for such an eventuality for years. And, she thought, perhaps he had. She had not expected him to be so imaginative, nor sure of himself.

With the dampers in the Crystal Chamber destroyed, there had been no way to prevent a certain degree of leakage from the minds at the table, although everyone had been aware of this situation and done their best to shield their surface thoughts. So it had been something of a revelation to learn that Cisco was not nearly so much his father's creature as she and everyone else had always assumed. There was an undercurrent of mistrust between the two men which had surprised her. Watching the interplay between the two Ridenows, she finally decided that Cisco did not answer to anyone except himself, that he was stern and sober, confident in his own judgment, and wary of his sire as well.

It was Cisco who had suggested smuggling the children away from Comyn Castle in the carriages which had brought the leroni from Arilinn for the funeral, while the Tower people remained behind to aid in defending the castle. He had been able to give an exact count of the men available for both the defense of the castle and of the funeral train as well, and she suspected that he had independently considered the possibility of such attacks. Indeed, he had already organized the City Guards for this purpose, calling up the many retired Guardsmen who still lived in Thendara and putting them on alert.

He would bear watching, she decided, if they came out of this crisis in one piece. Still, she could not help mistrusting him just a little, because of his father, and after wrestling with her conscience for a moment, Marguerida decided she was probably wise rather than petty. It was always a good idea to keep a weather eye on cunning men, however loyal they might think themselves.

Getting the children away had been a great relief. Roderick had protested mightily, insisting he was old enough to go to the rhu fead. He was furious that Domenic was going to have an adventure from which he was excluded, but she was glad that she did not have him to worry about. And Gareth Elhalyn had been displeased as well. No, that was too puny a term to describe the boy's behavior. Gareth had been furious and had thrown something very like a tantrum. She almost pitied Gisela, and was still somewhat bemused by her offer to oversee both Katherine Aldaran's and Marguerida's children, along with her own. Marguerida did not envy her a carriage journey with eight youngsters, at least two of them in adolescent sulks.

It suddenly occurred to Marguerida that if they failed and perished in this mad adventure, then Gisela might see her youthful ambitions realized. As the aunt of Roderick and Yllana, and the wife of Rafael Lanart-Hastur, she would be one of the logical choices to care for the children, even though she was an Aldaran by birth. It would give her the power she had craved all her life. And, for no reason that Marguerida could bring to mind, she was not perturbed by this possibility. Giz would have to contend with Miralys Elhalyn, who had remained behind because of her pregnancy, as well as Javanne, who loathed Gisela even more than she did Marguerida. She let herself envision the encounter, for the sheer pleasure of it, to distract herself from other, even less wholesome thoughts. She succeeded for a short while, but then her doubts rushed back, and she started worrying again.

If they had been successful, then Lyle Belfontaine had no idea that the carriages were filled with armed men, not women and children as they ordinarily would have been. Six to a coach, and twenty coaches, gave them another hundred and twenty fighters who were not visible to any interested eyes, in addition to the two hundred and fifty Guardsmen and the company of Renuciates who rode at the rear of the procession. Not a great number to face the kind of armament that the Federation could bring to bear, although they did not anticipate there being more than a hundred of the enemy. And, too, the Federation had no idea of either Mikhail's powers, or her own. It seemed a slender thing on which to hang their future, but there had been no alternative, after hours of discussion that had lasted until every voice in the chamber was hoarse with weariness.

Suddenly Marguerida was struck by the irony of it all. For years people had feared Mikhail's matrix, so much so that they had almost forgotten the capacity of her shadow matrix. Lady Javanne, Dom Francisco and Lady Marilla had refused to believe he would not use his powers to further his own ambitions, and Regis had worried in his own way. Now they had turned about and decided Mikhail was to be their savior. It would have been amusing if it were not so terrible.

A cold wind from the west blew across her cheeks, and she breathed deeply, smelling the crisp air. It brought back memories of another journey up the Old North Road, sixteen years before, when she had gone to Neskaya with Rafaella and her sister Renunciates. Odd that her mind did not go to that other occasion, when she and Mik had dashed off in the middle of the night, to tumble into history.

Marguerida knew she was thinking of the trip to Neskaya because of the bandits they had encountered up in the mountains. She had killed two men during the fray, and used the Command Voice to stop the battle, much to her dismay and surprise. And now, if they were attacked as Herm and Nico thought they would be, she would probably slay more. The Aldaran Gift had visited her briefly that morning, offering her the sight of blasted corpses on a seared hillside. It had been frightening and useless, since she could not see the faces, and had no idea of their identity or what had been the cause of their deaths. And it had come and gone so quickly, a flicker more than a real vision.

Everything depended on Mikhail, on his matrix, and on hers as well. What had seemed quite plausible in the security of the Crystal Chamber seemed less so now. Was it really a plan, or just a foolish hope, that they could overcome an armed force in the way they believed? She tingled with anticipation and chill, acknowledging her own fears with as much calmness as she could muster. This was no time to have second thoughts. She glanced at the grim faces of the Guardsmen around them and made a silent prayer to the thousand gods from a hundred planets whose names she knew.

Still, it was very good to be on the road, riding toward whatever destiny awaited them. A sense of ease began to seep into her, unexpected and welcomed. She turned and smiled at Mikhail.

"That's better, caria. Your frets were giving my nerves a workout."

"Oh, dear-was I that loud?"

"Only to me, I think. Actually you have yourself well in hand, my love. I don't know if I could have done this thing without you at my side. I wonder what is happening back in Thendara?"

"With any luck, absolutely nothing. That would disappoint my father, who really wants Belfontaine to do something foolish, so he can hang him out to dry in a cold wind. And Val, too."

Mikhail chuckled softly. "Yes, she was practically rubbing her hands together with glee when we left. How is Katherine holding up?"

"Pretty well, but she is as anxious to see Herm as I am to see Nico. Perhaps I should drop back for the present and ride beside her."

"Yes. We know that the attack, if it comes, will be beyond Carcosa, so there is no danger right now. She is a very brave woman, Marguerida."

"I know. I'm not sure I could handle being headblind as well as she has. Her painting helps, I think. And her friendship with Gisela, too-do you know, I never would have imagined that happening. She seems to have turned Giz into another person, and I don't really know what to make of it. Still, I am very glad of it. Very glad."

Marguerida pulled her reins and turned back two horse lengths, causing the Guards on either side to shift their positions. She rode back, past the catafalque, and pulled alongside of Katherine's rather pokey mount. Herm's wife claimed to be able to ride, but no one would call her a good horsewoman. She held her reins too tightly, and her knees were clasped tautly against the sides of the animal. She would have been in one of the carriages but for her insistence that the close confines of the vehicle would make her ill.

"Kate, the horse will not run away with you. You will be exhausted if you keep hanging on for dear life like that. Let go of the pommel, relax your knees, and take a deep breath."

"I am sure that is excellent advice, and I will try to obey it. I haven't been on a horse since I was five, and that was a moor pony, and much lower to the ground! We don't have real horses on Renney, just barrel-bellied ponies with shaggy coats and docile dispositions. They are used to pull wagons, and for children to ride as treats."

"Did you enjoy it?" Marguerida was determined to put Katherine at ease. It gave her something to focus on besides her own worries and those of the woman beside her. Those were a constant murmur of thoughts of Herm, and about the safety of her children. She felt sorry for Kate, torn by two competing loyalties. If Gisela had not offered to take the children, she would have had a harder time of it. And now, in hindsight and less weary than the day before, Marguerida felt that her sister-in-law's decision had been genuine, founded on her real affection for Kate Aldaran, and that there was no mischief in it. More, if Gisela was as determined as she seemed to behave better, she would have to learn to trust her more. With all the history that lay between her and Giz, it was a startling idea, one she was not sure she could accept easily.

"I'm not sure. I seem to remember being rather concerned about all those teeth-to a little girl even a pony seems pretty dangerous. And we rode bareback, without reins. I just grabbed the mane-I remember it was wiry in my fingers-and hung on for dear life." She laughed a little. "I did not tell you that, and pretended to skills I lack," Katherine admitted.

"That is all right. It was not a lie that was intended to injure anyone, and I do understand that being cooped up in a carriage would have been difficult for you."

"How far is it now?"

"To the rhu fead or Carcosa?"

"Carcosa."

Marguerida glanced knowledgeably along the movement of the train. "We will reach the town about midday, if none of the carriages loses a wheel, and if we have no other delays, we might get to Lake Hali by nightfall." Thus far she had not told Katherine about the possibility of an attack on the funeral train, nor that she would have to get into a carriage when they left Carcosa. It had been hard enough to suggest that the castle might be attacked, in order to get her to let the children be taken to safety.

"Nightfall?" Katherine shivered in the wind, as if the prospect of riding through the entire day was finally making itself known. "Where will we spend the night? Is there a city there? No one has said."

"Nothing like that-the only real city, in terms you understand, on Darkover is Thendara. There are a few largish places, like Neskaya, which are almost cityish, but for the most part there are only villages, towns and hamlets. I sent people ahead three days ago, to prepare things. By now I expect there is an encampment with its own kitchens, tents for sleeping, and latrines."

"You sleep outside in tents, in this cold?"

Marguerida managed to swallow a laugh. "This is not cold, Kate, not by Darkovan standards."

"Then what do you consider too cold for comfort?"

"Um, when the temperature is way below freezing, and there is snow up to your eyeballs, I suppose. I've gotten so used to it now that I hardly ever think about it. When I first returned to Darkover, I thought I would die from cold, but I adjusted, and so will you."

"I'm not so sure of that, Marguerida. You were much younger than I am now, weren't you?"

"Yes, I was, but I'm sure you'll become used to the climate with time."

Katherine scanned the landscape, her eyes going towards the horizon as if she were trying to see something very distant. "Herm used to rhapsodize about winter, and sometimes when he talked about snow, he got positively poetic. I never understood that, and thought he was exaggerating, the way you do when you are far away from home. I mean, when we took Amaury and Terese home to Renney nine years back, I was stunned by how small the Manse seemed, because in my memory, it was a much bigger house than it is in reality. True, compared to the average Federation dwelling, it was huge-seven bedrooms and two parlors. But the ceilings seemed lower, and the rooms less spacious than I remembered. Now I think that perhaps Herm did not even give me a true idea of how different Darkover is-that the Hellers are taller than he said, and colder, too." She shuddered slightly, looking north.

"You will get used to it. I did. Now I cannot imagine living in one room, or perhaps two, as I did when I was at University. My parents had a home on Thetis, with wide verandas facing the ocean, which I thought was very grand, but which would have fitted into a tiny fraction of Comyn Castle without a ripple. It all seems like a dream to me now, although a very nice one-warm and smelling of flowers and saltwater." She let herself sigh for the world she knew she would never see again. "We will rough it for a night, with decent cots and lots of blankets, so I promise you will not freeze to death, or even take a chill. And, with any luck, we will have your Hermes back, and you can bundle up with him."

"He will be very lucky if I don't make him sleep on the ground with one thin blanket, for all the aggravation he has given me." Her deep voice was twisted with conflicting emotions, too many for Marguerida to sort out without probing invasively.

"I would never dare to advise you on how to conduct your marital relations, Kate, but you must not be too hard on him. He is still a Darkovan male, and they are reared to be high-handed, to treat their womenfolk like fragile bric-a-brac, and to do as they please, for the most part. He can't help not consulting you, any more than you can avoid resenting it."

"Bric-a-brac! Yes, that's how Herm made me feel once we arrived here-I just couldn't quite get my mind around it! And I don't understand it at all."

"It's our history, Kate. Darkover has a small population, and infant mortality has been high for centuries. Therefore women were protected fiercely-in some places more than others. Up in the Dry Towns they are shackled like criminals. Some of that has changed since the Federation came, but not as much as I would like. Even today, there is not a great deal of freedom here for females, unless they choose the Renunciate's path, which is not an easy one."

"You mean those women at the rear of the train? Gisela told me a little about them. We even joked that if things didn't work out with Herm, I could join them. They look tough as nails."

"Yes, those are Renunciates."

"There is so much I do not understand, which infuriates me and makes me feel even more . . . no matter. Tell me about this rhu fead. If it is such an important place, why is there no city or large town nearby? And, for that matter, why bury your kings there, instead of Thendara, if it is, as you say, the chief city? It doesn't make any sense to me, and I am driving myself to distraction trying to make heads or tails out of this planet my husband has plunked me down on."

Marguerida laughed aloud and nodded. "That seems perfectly reasonable to me, dear Kate. The short answer is tradition. Everything important on Darkover is done according to hoary traditions that no one remembers the reasons for any longer. One of these is that our dead rulers will be interred in the rhu fead, which is a very peculiar place to begin with. It stands near the shore of Lake Hali." She paused and took a slow breath. "I once spent several weeks submerged in the waters-except they are not really waters-of Lake Hali, and I know no more about it than I did before. So it is no good asking me about it. I wish I could tell you more. Just understand that Hali is a sacred place, and that Darkover is a planet which tends to be traditional rather than innovative." She grinned. "They don't examine their ideas much, and I think if you asked a hundred people at random why things were done in a certain way, ninety of them would just answer that if it was good enough for their grandfather, it is good enough for them."

"Oh, a religious site. Well, there is no explaining those sorts of things, is there? Even when you grow up with the beliefs, you never really understand them. I think that religion is just a box into which real mysteries are dropped, like old clothing."

Marguerida gave Kate a look of pleasure. She had nearly forgotten how delightful it was to have a discussion about ideas, for there were very few people on Darkover who had the education and intellectual curiosity she craved. And, until now, it had not occurred to her that Katherine might be a woman with unusual ideas of her own. "Now, that is a very interesting attitude. I never thought if it that way before, but you make good sense. I had the impression from a few things you said that Renney had a pretty complex religious life-your sacred groves and all. Don't you accept those things any longer?"

"Maybe my years living in the Federation have left me a bit cynical." Katherine gave a thoughtful sigh. "We have goddesses on Renney, and the people there believe in them. A day does not go by that my Nana doesn't offer her prayers and do her small rituals. When I was a child, they seemed to me to be wonderful, but when we went back there, so Nana could meet Terese, I was . . . almost embarrassed, I suppose. It seemed so backward and superstitious, and just a little silly. I would never suggest such a thing to her, of course. My Nana may be old, but she is still capable of reducing me to jelly without overly exerting herself." Katherine chuckled. "After living in the Federation for years, observing and being exposed to dozens of religions-the followers of which all insist that theirs is the only true religion-well, it all started to seem ridiculous to me. It is very hard to go on believing in the power of goddesses when you have never seen one, and are surrounded by people who believe so many diverse and contradictory things."

Marguerida did not answer, thinking about her own experiences. Her memory swept back to the moment when she married Mikhail, in the presence of Varzil the Good and another, the goddess Evanda. She had never doubted the actuality of that, but she found herself reluctant to share the experience with her new friend. It was a very personal remembrance, and even now, years after the fact, it was so awesome that she could not bring herself to speak of it to anyone except Mikhail.

At last she said, "The Darkovan mythology is fairly simple-two gods, two goddesses and no theology to speak of. They are more like forces of nature, invoked ceremonially on occasion, and otherwise not given much attention. There are other deities, lesser ones, as well. But I think that the general attitude of the people is that if the gods do not actively interfere in their lives, then they should just leave well enough alone." She paused for a second. "Up in Nevarsin there is a cult called the cristoforos. Their beliefs are monotheistic and not shared by most of the people of Darkover, but they have been a center of learning for centuries. In the past, many of the sons of the Comyn were sent there to be educated-including Regis Hastur. That custom has faded in recent years, although Gisela's oldest son, by her first marriage, went there and appears to have decided to join them. I can say, however, that there has never been a religious war on Darkover, although we have had several of the more ordinary sort."

"What about those men at the funeral yesterday-weren't they priests?"

"A good question, the answer to which is 'not quite.' The Servants of Aldones serve what on most worlds would be a priestly function, being the celebrants on certain important occasions, such as the Midsummer Festival. Where they differ from other religious bodies I have encountered is that they never tell the people what to believe or how to worship. There are no temples or churches on Darkover as you might know such places."

"So what do they do when they are not officiating at funerals?"

"They keep vigil over certain artifacts in a little chapel in the rhu fead, an eternal flame and some other things I don't know about. Yesterday was the first time I ever saw them in my life, even though I was the one who sent the message to them to come to Thendara."

"But they do not have religious authority?"

"No, they don't. For some reason I have never learned, the Darkovans have not developed a public religious structure. For them it is a private and almost a family matter."

"Marguerida, have you ever noticed that you speak of the Darkovans as if they were another people, not your own?"

"Do I? Yes, I suppose I do. For all that I have lived here for nearly seventeen years, I still feel a bit removed, something of an alien. Or perhaps it is the habit of scholarship, that I tend to try to assess everything as objectively as I can. Except for music. All I have there is passion, and Mik gets slightly jealous sometimes."

Katherine laughed. "Herm is the same about my painting, although he pretends otherwise. Once, when I was working in our apartment, the whole of which would almost fit into the studio space you gave me, and was staring at the canvas, trying to decide if a bit of vermilion would make the shadows better, he came in. I barely registered his presence, so after a few minutes, he cleared his throat and nearly scared me to death. 'You never look at me like that,' he said, and I wanted to clout him over the head, but I didn't. He is right, you know. As much as I adore him, from the top of his shiny pate to his extremely well-formed feet, there is a part of me that belongs only to my work. He never has to worry about infidelity, but he does have a rival."

"Yes. I know about that." Marguerida let herself sigh into the wind. "I was writing an opera for Regis' birthday when he died. I wanted to do something as grand as your ancestor's The Deluge of Ys, using the legend of Hastur and Cassilda, which is a very famous song cycle here. Now I don't know if I will ever be able to bring myself to complete it." It cost her a great deal to admit this, but somehow speaking the words eased an ache in her chest she had not noticed until it left her. She remembered the freshly copied pages of score, and how the ink had flowed over them when Regis had his stroke.

"You must, Marguerida. If you don't finish it, it will eat away at your guts and make you miserable."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I am an artist, and because I remember Amedi Korniel."

"I've been wanting to ask you about him, but it never seemed the right time," she answered, almost relieved that the topic had shifted away from gods and goddesses, or her feeling alienated on the world of her birth.

"Ask away-this is as good a time as any."

"What was he like, and why did he stop composing in his sixties?"

"My great-uncle was a very cantankerous man, who had an opinion about everything. He was in his mid-eighties when I was born, and he died just before I left Renney. Nana adored him, he was her older brother, but even she found him maddening sometimes. He was a complete egotist, and thought the world should revolve around him. And he did not stop composing-just refused to let any of his work after Ys be performed. There are boxes of his compositions sitting in the Manse."

"But why?" Marguerida's heart leaped at the thought of these unpublished compositions by one of her favorite musicians, then sank as she realized that she would never have the opportunity to see them. Years before, she had resigned herself to never leaving Darkover again, and the desire to travel to other worlds had left her, but now she found herself aching to go to Renney and rescue the works of Amedi Korniel. She shook the feeling away sharply, but it lingered like the aftertaste of some bitter fruit.

"He was never satisfied with anything he did after the success of that opera, Marguerida. And it ate at him, like some terrible disease. He was paralyzed by the fear that his next work would not be as good. So learn from his mistake. Don't let your music get corrupted by Regis' death, or anything else!"

Marguerida was moved by the fervor in Katherine's voice, and it gave her a sense of kinship as well. "I never realized until this second how much I have wanted another artist of some kind to talk to about . . . my work, Katherine. And you are right, of course, it would eat at me." And then she realized it was more than just having similar drives. At last there was someone who understood her need for the music, for as much as Mikhail loved her, he had never been able to know that part of her mind. Even her friends in the Musicians Guild could not share the urgency of her work, regarding her only as a well-born amateur.

"I wish we could travel faster," Kate said.

"If it were not for the wagons and carriages, we could. Mikhail and I covered the distance from the gates of Thendara to the ruins of Hali Tower in about four hours of hard riding, long ago, in the middle of the night, too, with a snowstorm coming in!"

"That sounds very exciting."

"If being cold and terrified and under a compulsion is exciting, then yes, it was. Don't fuss. We will get to Carcosa soon enough, and you can ring a peal over Herm's head as much as you please."

"And will you do the same with Domenic?"

"Probably not. I will just be so glad to have him back in my maternal clutches that I will forgive him. Except for this one instance, he has always been a very good boy."

"That doesn't surprise me, from my brief acquaintance at dinner that first time. He and Roderick are so different, aren't they?"

"Yes, they are. There is something I have wanted to ask you, and not dared to, Kate."

"Ask away."

"What have you done to my sister-in-law? I was only half jesting when I wondered if you had bewitched her."

"Well, in the first place, I haven't done anything, except perhaps see her as a person instead of an Aldaran." She hesitated, as if concerned she had been offensive. "When you are a portrait painter, you learn a great deal about people, because they will talk about themselves, even when I am trying to get their mouths down on canvas. So, I have been rather good at listening. And when Gisela took me to see Master Gilhooly, we talked during the journey, and I discovered that she was not a bad woman at all. She only needed to be heard without being prejudged because of her family." Kate hesitated briefly. "I think you are right about my having a great deal of empathy, by the way. I've noticed that I seem to have a sixth sense about people that was always there, only I did not pay much attention to it, except to be aware of which people made me squirm and fidget. Gisela doesn't, in the same way that Herm never did."

"And being listened to reformed her?" Marguerida was amused and somewhat disbelieving.