"Agreed."
	My, they were eager. Whether they would stick to the agreement
 was something else.
	"In that case, my lady, you have a deal. Now, if you'll excuse
 me, I need a bath. "
	He turned to leave, but as he passed her she caught his arm.
	"I expect you to behave like a gentleman, Randrik alt
 Harbinnen," she declared sharply.
	He caught her hand and kissed it.
	"You worry too much, my lady," he said. "After all, you don't
 hire a blacksmith and then tell him how to shoe your horse. Until
 this afternoon."
***
	Perian watched the reprobate minstrel from the tavern strut out
 of the Prime Seeker's office, although not even Callisa would have
 known it.  She watched him because instinct warned her she was not
 seeing the last of him. Reading his aura would at least give her
 some information about why -- and how to deal with him when they
 met again.
	She was surprised when she failed. He was as shielded from her
 probe as a belted Master, something that shouldn't have been
 impossible for an untrained fortuneteller from the street. It also
 made her very nervous, a feeling she detested. She was a trained
 Adept and supposedly free of the lack of confidence that admitted
 to nervousness.
	"What troubles you, Perian?" Callisa asked her, crossing to sit
 behind her desk.
	Despite their differences in rank, Perian was able to speak her
 mind to the Prime Seeker without fear of retaliation. Even so,
 judging that there was some connection between Callisa and the
 musician, she hesitated. Oh, well, might as well say it and be
 done.
	"I cannot help wondering why the Council has sought that man
 out if it has no intention of recruiting him for the Temple. "
	"You don't care for him?"
	"He is rude, inconsiderate, arrogant and irreverent. And if the
 smell of perfume is any indication, he is given to immorality. He
 is certainly not the sort of person I would have expected you to
 make a special trip into the lower regions of the city to beg for
 help."
	"Not your sort of individual at all, is that it?"
	Perian's belly quivered again with warning, and she took two
 deep, calming breaths before she answered.
	"No, my lady."
	"That is unfortunate, because that you will be working closely
 with Randrik on the orders of the Council for the next several
 weeks."
	Perian managed to hide her trepidation, but only just. What
 possible reason could the Council have for wanting her to work with
 such a person?
	"May I ask the nature of the project?" she asked through
 clenched teeth.
	"We are hoping to unlock the barriers that are preventing you
 from using your full range of powers," Callisa said casually.
 "Randrik has certain -- talents -- that we feel may work where our
 standard methods haven't."
	"I must respectfully refuse, Prime Seeker," Perian answered
 promptly, not even having to think about it. "Such a program would
 be hazardous in the extreme and I will not endanger even someone
 like that man solely for my own advantage."
	Callisa looked at her silently for a much-too-long moment and
 then leaned back in her chair.
	"Your concern is commendable, Perian, but I'm afraid the matter
 isn't negotiable. I will explain more when Randrik returns. For
 now, I believe you have a report for me on the new class of
 recruits."
	Trained to obedience, Perian stifled the protest that beat
 against her lips and did as she was ordered. Had she been asked to
 remember the last time she had argued or complained or acted on a
 moment's impulse, she couldn't have complied. Rebellion was
 dangerous; emotions were to be tamed and kept on a tight leash if
 she were ever to overcome the inherent wildness of her nature.  If
 that meant being in the company of someone she found utterly
 abhorrent, then so be it. She would manage.
	She had been managing all her life.
***
	Resplendent in black leather that clung to his skin like a
 lover's kiss, guitar slung on his back, Randrik used the front gate
 to the temple when he returned just after noon.  A long, hot soak
 and a few hours of sleep had improved his attitude sufficiently
 that he was actually looking forward to cracking the frost on the
 Ice Princess. After considering what little Callisa had been
 willing to tell him, he was certain he could learn more about the
 Estlin situation if he could just spend enough time in the Temple
 enclave. There had to be more to this than a lot of old fairy tales
 and legends -- he'd done enough fortunetelling to know just how
 much credence to give prophesies. Even learning just what Talents
 the Council believed their Adept to have might give him a clue to
 what they knew.
	Callisa was alone when he reached her apartment, and again she
 bolted the door. He wondered briefly whether she was trying to keep
 other people out or him in. She looked him over carefully, her face
 expressionless.
	"As you see, Prime Seeker," he said, "The actor, the costume
 and the prop are all in place. Our little farce can begin anytime.
 Where is my leading lady?"
	"She'll be here shortly. I just wanted to make sure you
 understand what I want you to do."
	"I know what you want me to do, lady. What I don't understand
 is just what it is about this girl that has you tied up in knots.
 It can't just be because of a lot of antique poetry -- and bad
 poetry at that."
	Callisa paced to the desk and leaned on it with both hands, her
 head bowed. He waited while the silence went on to the point of
 discomfort. Shortening it himself, though, would be interpreted as
 curiosity and he knew better than to give her that much of an edge.
 Finally, she straightened up and turned to face him.
	"Do you know that each member of a Nomad clan carries a
 characteristic birthmark?"
	"I had heard something like that. Each clan has a particular
 shape -- a star, a crescent moon, a leaf. It passes from father to
 daughter and mother to son and they use it to avoid incest taboos,
 if I'm not mistaken."
	"You aren't. " She paused again, then took a deep breath.
 "Before I came to the Temple and Ellisia married your father, we
 lived in one of the Fringe villages where Nomads come to trade. On
 one market day, I met a boy -- a young man really. We fell in love.
	"It was hopeless, of course. He was already pledged to another,
 and such pledges are unbreakable among the Drevnya. He was Laurel
 Clan, his mark was a four-pointed star. Perian has that same mark."
	"I thought you were supposed to give up past personal
 attachments when you joined the Temple."
	Callisa sighed.
	"So we are, nephew, so we are. And had you asked me any time
 before I saw her mark, I would have sworn I had done so.  And will
 so swear if you mention this to anyone else. To see this child who
 might have been mine dying by inches because of the ignorance of a
 pair of dirty-minded backwoods farmers breaks my heart."
	"Come now, Aunt Callisa, isn't that a bit melodramatic?"
	"Gods save me, you mean there is actually something you don't
 know?" she smiled, though there was pain in it. "Randrik, Nomads
 aren't like you and me. If we repress our emotions and our Talents,
 we may become ill in one way or another, but the disease is rarely
 fatal. For them, it is. If Perian cannot be brought to accept her
 emotional side completely and unreservedly and so release her
 Power, she will die. And to do that she must -- make love."
	Randrik leaned his guitar against the desk and went to the
 window. He placed his foot on the seat and leaned on his knee,
 gazing at the activity in the courtyard below without really seeing
 it while he mulled over what she had said.
	"So," he said finally, "is this about opening up a Power for
 the Temple or saving your lover's clanswoman?"
	"For me? Both. I don't mind saying that what's going on in
 Estlin frightens me, not just because of what happened to Simeon,
 but because I sense a force there unlike anything I've ever known.
 And because I see and hear changes happening everywhere for which I
 have no logical explanation. But keeping that young woman alive
 means more to me than fulfilling a prophecy. I would want her set
 free even if afterwards she vanished into the Old Forest and was
 never heard of again."
	"What ‘changes'?" he prompted, catching the scent of something
 that might prove advantageous. His aunt always kept silent about
 Temple affairs. It was intriguing that suddenly she seemed to have
 forgotten all her vows, at least enough to confide her fears to
 someone she trusted. That didn't mean he wouldn't use any
 information he could gather to his advantage, only that he would
 need to find another source for it.
	"The weather, Randrik. Or are you going to tell me it's common
 for us to have midsummer weather a week after the equinox. It
 hasn't rained in two months, fields are turning to dust and in the
 east we have had reports of animals giving birth to strange,
 twisted offspring."
	She might have said more, but a tap on the door interrupted
 them and she hurried to throw the bolt. Perian glided in, her body
 held so stiffly that her robes barely moved. She looked right
 through Randrik, as though if she ignored his existence he would go
 away. 
	Callisa sat down behind her desk and looked back and forth
 between the two of them.
	"I won't waste any more time -- the project the two of you will
 be working on is much too important. So, Perian, this is my nephew,
 Randrik alt Harbinnen. He has been engaged to work with you on your
 latent Talents."
	From his vantage point behind them, Randrik could watch the
 girl without her being able to reciprocate. Callisa's announcement
 seemed to fall off her like rain off a slate roof, but he was more
 observant. He saw the minute twitch of her spine, the infinitesimal
 tremor of her shoulders as she reacted to the news of who he was.
 It told him what he needed to know. The lady wasn't without
 feelings. She simply had them penned in as tightly as she could,
 locked inside a cage of will and a determination that they were
 never going to escape.
	They would just have to see about that.
	"Does either of you have any questions about the nature of this
 project? No? Then, I suggest you begin at once."
	Perian bowed respectfully and turned to go, very careful to do
 it so she moved away from instead of toward him. She likely would
 have swept out just as swiftly and silently as she had swept in if
 he hadn't decided it was time for lesson one.
	"I'm not ready to leave yet."
	She stopped dead, so still she might have been marble. Callisa
 looked at him in surprise, then nodded once in understanding and
 leaned back in her chair as she realized what he was doing. Good,
 then, she was really going to let him do this his own way.
	Taking his time, he sauntered over to pick up his guitar and
 then went to Perian's side.
	"Just where were you going, anyway?" he asked her.
	"There are several suitable study rooms in the Academy. I'm
 certain any one of them will suffice."
	"Not today, sweetheart. I think I'd much rather work in the
 Watergarden. Shall we?"
	Without giving her a chance to start without him, he grabbed
 her hand and strode out the door fast enough that she had to trot
 to keep up with him. If she wanted to fight, she would have had to
 plant her feet and try to keep him from dragging her bodily down
 the stairs. He was gambling she was too much on her dignity for
 that. He was right.
	The Watergarden was one of many small, secluded groves
 scattered throughout the Temple complex. They were meant to provide
 the student, the master, the troubled civilian with a quiet,
 out-of-the-way spot in which to meditate or study or pray without
 danger of interruption. If they were also ideal spots for lovers to
 share a kiss -- or more -- well, that was purely Randrik's good
 fortune.
	This was one of his favorites, an oval of tall flowering hedges
 inset with arbors shading wide benches of white-painted wrought
 iron. A spiral walk of tiny gravel stones bordered on each side
 with beds of pale pink sweetbalm and dark rose ladybells wound
 through the close-clipped lawn to the fountain in the center of the
 enclosure. Surrounded by a balustrade lined with more benches, an
 artesian spring leaped into the air to cascade down
 artfully-arranged rocks to a shallow pool. From there a tiny
 streamlet wandered out through a narrow tunnel under the hedge.
	Escorting his reluctant pupil through the shaded arch of the
 entrance, Randrik turned the marker on the gatepost. That would
 warn any other potential user that the garden was occupied and
 privacy was desired. Perian yanked her hand from his grip the
 moment he stopped, shoving both hands into her sleeves out of
 reach. 
	"Do you know, I would almost suspect you weren't happy with my
 company."
	"The Council has commanded. It is not my place to question
 them."
	Ah, what a wonderful opening!
	"Why not?"
	The look she gave him would have done mortal damage to a
 thinner-skinned man.
	"Obedience to those whose wisdom surpasses our own is the
 greatest joy," she prated through stiff lips
	He laid his guitar on a bench under an arbor and returned to
 her, standing so close she would have had to look up to meet his
 eyes -- had she had the inclination to do so. Instead, she stared
 stubbornly straight ahead, which meant she had a closeup view of
 his bare chest through the open front of his vest.
	"I've never seen anyone look less joyful in my life, little
 one," he said softly, running his finger across her tight-pinched
 mouth.
	She jumped out of reach, twin streaks of peach on her
 cheekbones. He took one step forward, and she two back, maintaining
 the distance between them.
	"If you continue this, I will be forced to complain to the
 Prime Seeker," she hissed.
	"And tell her what, exactly?"
	He stepped toward her again, and again she fled.
	"I will not be treated like a common streetwalker."
	"Of course not."
	She had already opened her mouth to argue, only to find herself
 with nothing to say. Instead, she was left to analyze what he had
 said to see if it were really an insult in disguise. Before she
 could get her intellectual feet under her, he changed course again. 
	"Shall we begin, then, Adept Perian?" he said, all formality
 and distance. "If you'll be good enough to be seated there on the
 fountain."
	Automatically she obeyed the hint of command he put into his
 voice, perching uncomfortably on the edge of the base of the
 fountain. It was just high enough that she couldn't sit in her
 favorite position with both feet flat on the ground and too narrow
 for her to balance on. He waited to see if she would move to one of
 the benches, or at least protest the awkwardness of her seat. She
 didn't, apparently preferring to suffer the indignity in silence
 rather than assert herself in the face of a direct order.
	He picked up his guitar and sat down with his back propped
 against one arm of the bench. Apparently unnoticing of the
 uncomfortable woman on her precarious perch, he began to play.