“Teray, whatever it is, go along with him.” She was leaning over him, looking down into his eyes. “Please. Go along with him. I don’t want to be a thing won in a fight. I want to be your wife. Please.”
He drew a ragged breath. “Do you think I’d miss a chance?any real chance?to get what we both want?”
She seemed to relax. She kissed him and brought him to stronger awareness of her body softly against him. She was what he needed now. He slipped his arms around her. She would always be what he needed.
************************************
Early the next morning, as the rest of the House awoke and began the day’s work. Teray announced himself outside Coransee’s private quarters. He stood in the great common room that he had entered the day before with Joachim. He had not realized then how big the room was. The fireplace seemed a long way off at the other end of the room. Right now there were two mutes in it, cleaning it. There were couches, chairs, and low tables scattered around the room, and the walls were lined with cases of books, learning stones, game boards, small figurines, and more. Yet the room was not cluttered. In fact, at this hour, it seemed far too empty. There were only a few mutes cleaning, and a Patternist who had chosen for some reason to come down the front stairs and walk around to the huge dining room.
Abruptly, Teray received Coransee’s invitation to enter. Teray followed the invitation and found himself not in the Housemaster’s office but in a comfortable-looking carpeted sitting room. There, Coransee, wearing only a black robe of some glossy material, was having breakfast, served to
him by a blond mute woman. The woman had set two places.
Coransee glanced at Teray and waved him into the empty chair at the small window table. Just as though they hadn’t been trying to kill each other only hours before, Teray thought. He sat down, was served steak and eggs from the mute’s cart, and, like Coransee, ate silently until the mute left. Then Coransee spoke.
“Have you ever seen our father, Teray?” His tone was surprisingly friendly.
“No.”
“I thought not. You look like him, though?much more than I do. That’s what caught my attention about you yesterday.”
Teray was interested in spite of himself. Rayal did almost no traveling. Probably only a small fraction of the Patternists had actually seen him. He was the Pattern. He was strength, unity, power. Every adult Patternist was linked to him, but the link did not involve tracing out his features. Most Patternists neither knew nor cared what he looked like.
“You and I are full brothers, you know,” said Coransee. Same father and mother. I awakened the Schoolmistress last night to find that out, though I already suspected it.”
Teray shrugged. He knew nothing of his mother. Rayal had many wives.
“Our mother was Jansee, Rayal’s sister and
lead wife.”
Teray froze, a forkful of steak halfway to his mouth. He put down the fork and looked at Coransee. “So that’s it.”
“That’s it.”
“ Are you going, to kill me?’
“If I was, you would have died last night.”
Teray turned his attention back to his food, not wanting to be reminded of his defeat. The informality of the scene suddenly seemed incongruous to him. He had expected to stand before Coransee’s desk like an errant schoolboy and listen to the Housemaster’s sarcasm. Yet here he was having breakfast with Coransee. And not once had he called the Housemaster “Lord.” Nor would he, Teray decided. He might as well find out now just how far he could go. What could Coransee possibly want?
“As it is,” said Coransee, “we both might live. It would be best if we did, now that our father is dying.”
“Dying? Now?”
“He’s been cheating death for twenty years,” said Coransee. “Even at the school, you must have learned that.”
“That he has the Clayark disease, yes. But I thought you meant he was really about to die from it.”
“He is.”
Teray ate silently, refusing to ask more questions.
“He’s let me know that he can last perhaps a year longer,” said Coransee. He lowered his voice slightly. “Do you want the Pattern, brother?”
“You’re asking me if I want you to kill me.”
“I mean to succeed Rayal.”
“I can see that.”
“So you’re right. If you contest, I will have to kill you.”
“Others will contest. You won’t just step into Rayal’s place.”
“I’ll worry about them when they reveal themselves. Now, you are my only concern.”
Teray said nothing for a long moment. He had never really thought that he had a chance to succeed Rayal. The Patternmaster simply had too many children, a number of them not only older but, like Coransee, already Masters of their own Houses. Clearly, though, Coransee thought Teray had a chance?and was now demanding that he give up that chance. Teray had no doubt that Coransee could and would kill him if he refused. If the Housemaster was not actually stronger?and that was still in doubt?he was more versatile, more experienced. And if it was possible for Teray to live the kind of life he had planned for himself without fighting, he would rather not challenge his brother again.
“I won’t contest,” he said quietly. The words
were surprisingly difficult to say. To be Master of the Pattern, to hold such power…
“I let you live thinking that you wouldn’t.” Coransee looked across at him calculatingly. “Shall I accept you as my apprentice?”
