what Elvair-ka-Virrion had meant. This must once have been a warm-spirited, accomplished young nobleman, full of ardor and enjoyment of his own ability and of the promise before him. He felt his disfigurement bitterly-however could it have happened? she wondered. Elvair-ka-Virrion had spoken of his skill as a hunter: a wild beast, then, perhaps?-but he'd be damned if anyone was going to be given the slightest cause either to pity or reject him because of it. Authority, self-possession, restraint, formidability, irreproachable correctness; these were the weapons with which he compelled the respect of his own people-no doubt a rough, superstitious lot who, unless he could make them fear, trust and admire him, would probably regard him as a man accursed. These were his harsh comforters, the tutelary demons who companioned him and gave meaning and purpose to his ravaged, deprived life. He lived with eyes in the back of his head. "Look at Trazet trying to exploit his affliction." "Look at Trazet making up to that shearna. Wonder how
The High Baron's face was incapable of adopting the normal expressions which commonly complement speech, yet soon she began to find his conversation full of interest and his company absorbing. Her beauty-which, she knew, constrained so many men because of their self-conscious sense of their own desire for her-plainly caused him no more of a tremor than Fordil's hinnari would bring to a man tone-deaf. Yet he was neither detached nor incurious; and this was flattering. He quickly set about establishing to his own satisfaction that peasant or no, she was no fool. And this discovery once made, he showed his respect for her by talking more freely and making his conversation more demanding. They spoke of Terekenalt and Katria, of King Karnat (with whom, he told her, he had hunted leopards) and the water-ways of Suba. He asked her for opinions, and seemed to weigh them as seriously as he might those of his own barons. She found herself talking to him of Meerzat and Serrelind, and then even of her life in Sencho's house; for here, she felt, was a man without contempt for another's misfortune; one who, on the con-
trary, actually admired suffering and loss which had not been allowed to defeat the sufferer. To him, as to no one else she had met-unless indeed it was Nasada-all human beings, men or women, slave or free, evidently came alike. That was to say, he had slight regard for their rank or station, but treated them in accordance with his own estimation of their capacities. Unlike Nasada, however, he had little use for compassion. She recalled that he was widely renowned as a hunter. Perhaps, she thought, he saw men and women as he might see a quarry. The courageous, resourceful and adroit-these he respected and felt to be worth contending with. The timorous or slow were merely tedious and a waste of time.
Now and then Ged-la-Dan, by contrast uncouth and insensitive, put in a few words, sometimes complimenting her on something which did not deserve a compliment or again, asking her some question which unconsciously revealed a half-envious and half-contemptuous notion of her life in Bekla as a kind of stream of luxurious and extravagant frivolity, and of herself as a girl available to anyone who could pay. Her response to this was a blend of Occula and Nennaunir-part worldly-wise banter, part simulated warmth. Yet Ta-Kominion, she sensed, could perceive very well that she was thus employing the courtesan's skills to humor a boor. He, for his part-a young man in the company of his elders-said little, but his eyes seldom left her, so that she found herself feeling an altogether un-shearna-like sympathy for Berialtis. True, she herself had come with a motive, and to this end she spared no pains to arouse the two Ortelgans. Yet she wished that, in accordance with the usual way of things, there could have been a third girl in the company. Perhaps Bel-ka-Trazet disdained such concessions to convention: no one need bother themselves to provide a girl for him. Or perhaps Elvair-ka-Virrion had been over-zealous to leave her a free hand. Still, it was becoming clear that conventions were going to matter less and less as the barrarz got under way. Several of the guests were fairly drunk already, and she had seen Nenoaunir and another girl whose name she did not know openly walking here and there among the tables, graceful, pausing and predatory as herons in a stream.
As the feasting began to draw to an end and she got up to fetch the Ortelgans a tray-full of sweet things from the central table already filled by the slaves, there suddenly
