Dying of the Light

darkness on his plump, smiling face. He sipped, sucking the drink noisily, and very briefly Dirk despised him.

'A long day,' he said noncommittally.

'Truth,' Ruark agreed. 'A day of Kavalars, heh, always long. Sweet Gwen and Jaantony and last Garsey, enough to make any day last forever. What do you say?'

Dirk said nothing.

'But now,' Ruark said, smiling, 'you have seen. Me, I wanted that, for you to see. Before I told you. But I was sworn to tell you, yes, a swearing to myself. Gwen, she has told me. We talk, you know, as friends, and I have known her and Jaan too since Avalon. But here we've grown closer. She cannot talk of it easily, ever, but she talks to me, or has, and I can tell you. Not violating trust. You are the one to know, I think.'

The drink sent icy fingers down into his chest, and Dirk felt his weariness lifting. It seemed as if he had been half asleep, as if Ruark had been talking for a long time and he had missed it all. 'What are you talking about?' he said. 'What should I know?'

'Why Gwen needs you,' Ruark said. 'Why she sent… the thing. The red tear. You know. I know. She has told me.'

Suddenly Dirk was quite alert, interested and puzzled. 'She told you,' he began, then stopped. Gwen had asked him to wait, and long ago the promise he had made-but it fit. Perhaps he should listen, perhaps it was simply hard for her to tell him. Ruark would know. Her friend, she had said in the forests, the only one she could talk to. 'What?'

'You must help her, Dirk t'Larien, somehow. I don't know.'

'Help her how?'

'To be free. To escape.'

Dirk set his drink down and scratched, his head. 'From who?'

'Them. The Kavalars.'

He frowned. 'Jaan, you mean? I met him this morning, him and Janacek. She loves Jaan. I don't understand.'

Ruark laughed, sucked from his drink, laughed again. He was dressed in a three-piece suit of alternating brown and green squares, like motley, and as he sat spouting nonsense Dirk wondered if the short ecologist was indeed a fool.

'Loves him, yes, she said that?' Ruark said. 'You are sure of it, are you? Well?'

Dirk hesitated, trying to remember her words when they had talked by the still, green lake. 'I'm not sure,' he said. 'But something to that effect. She is– What was it?'

'Betheyn?' Ruark suggested.

Dirk nodded. 'Yes, betheyn, wife.'

Ruark chuckled. 'No, utter wrong. In the car I listened. Gwen said it wrong. Well, not really, but you took the wrong impression. Betheyn is not wife. Part truth the biggest lie of all, remember? What do you think teyn is?'

The word stopped him. Teyn. He had heard the word a hundred times on Worlorn. 'Friend?' he guessed, not knowing what it meant.

'Betheyn is more of wife than teyn is friend,' Ruark said. 'Learn the outworlds better, Dirk. No. Betheyn is woman-to-man word in Old Kavalar, for a heldwife bound by jade-and-silver. Now, there can be much affection in jade-and-silver, much love, yes. Though, you know, the word used for that, the standard Terran word, there is no like word in Old Kavalar. Interesting, eh? Can they love without a word for it, t'Larien friend?'

Dirk did not reply. Ruark shrugged and drank and continued. 'Well, no matter, but think of it. I spoke of jade-and-silver and yes, often the Kavalars have love in that bond, love from betheyn-to-highbond, from highbond-to-betheyn sometimes. Or liking, if not love. But not always, and not necessarily! You see?'

Dirk shook his head.

'Kavalar bonds are custom and obligation,' Ruark said, leaning forward very intently, 'with love late- coming accident. Violent folk, I told you. Read history, read legends. Gwen met Jaan on Avalon, you know, and she did not read. Not enough. He was Jaan Vikary of High Kavalaan, and what was that, some planet? She never knew. Truth. So their liking grew-call it love, perhaps-and sex happens and he offers her jade-and-silver wrought in his pattern, and suddenly she is betheyn to him, still not quite knowing. Trapped.'

'Trapped? How trapped?'

'Read history! The violence of High Kavalaan is

long past, the culture is unchanged. Gwen is betheyn to Jaan Vikary, betheyn heldwife, his wife, yes, his lover, and more. Property and slave, she is that too, and gift. She is his gift to Ironjade Gathering, with her he bought his highnames, yes. She must have children if he orders, whether she wishes or no. She must take Garse as lover also, whether she wishes or no. If Jaan dies in duel with a man of a holdfast other than Ironjade, a Braith or a Redsteel, Gwen passes to that man like baggage, property-to become his betheyn, or a mere eyn-kethi if the victor already wears jade-and-silver. If Jaan dies of natural causes, or in duel with another Ironjade, Gwen goes to Garse. Her will in the matter is no concern. Who cares that she hates him? Not the Kavalars. And when Garsey dies, eh? Well, when that time comes, she is an eyn-kethi, holdfast breeder, degraded forever, free to use for any of the kethi. Kethi meaning holdfast-brothers, more or less, the men of the family. Ironjade Gathering is all huge family, thousands and thousands of family, and any can have her. What did she call Jaan, husband? No. Jailer. That is what he is, he and Garse, loving jailers maybe if you think that such can love truly as you or I would. Jaantony honors our Gwen, and should, for he is high-Ironjade now, she is his betheyn-gift, and if she dies or leaves him, he is fre-Ironjade, an old man, mocked, empty-armed, without voice in council. But he slaves her, does not love her, and she is years after Avalon now, older and wiser, and now she knows.' Ruark had delivered the last in a breathless fury, his lips drawn tight.

Dirk hesitated. 'He doesn't love her, then?' 'As you love your property, so a highbond and his betheyn. It is a tight bond, jade-and-silver, never to be broken, but it is a bond of obligation and possession. No love. That is elsewhere, if the Kavalars have it at all, to be found in chosen-brother, the shield and soulmate and lover and warrior twin, the ever-loyal bringer-of-pleasure and taker-of-blows and lifter-of-pain, the lifetime strongbond.'

'Teyn,' Dirk said, a little numbly, his mind racing ahead.

'Teyn!' Ruark nodded. 'The Kavalars, all violent as they are, have great poetry. Much celebrates the teyn, the bond of iron-and-glowstone, none the jade-and- silver.'

Things fell smoothly into place. 'You are saying,' Dirk began, 'that she and Jaan don't love each other, that Gwen is all but a slave. Yet she doesn't leave?'

Ruark's chubby face was flushed. 'Leave? Utter nonsense! They would only force her back. A highbond must keep and protect his betheyn. And kill the one who tries to steal her.'

'And she sent the jewel to me…'

'Gwen talks to me, I know. What other hope has she? The Kavalars? Jaantony has twice killed in duels. No Kavalar would touch her, and what good if they did? Me? Am I a hope?' His soft hands swept down his. body, and he dismissed himself in contempt. 'You, t'Larien, you are Gwen's hope. You who owe her. You who loved her once.'

Dirk heard his own voice, as if from far away. 'I still love her,' he said.

'Good. I think, you know, that Gwen… though she would never say it, yet I think… she too still feels. As she did. As she never has for Jaantony Riv Wolf high-Ironjade Vikary.'

The drink, the odd green wine, had touched him more than he would have imagined. Only one glass, a single tall glass, and strange the room ran around him, and Dirk t'Larien held himself upright with an effort and