who else would be to blame?'
Dumarest watched as, again, she helped herself to wine. The level now was low in the flagon, small motes of ruby clinging like miniature wounds to the upper crystal, scarlet tears suspended over an ocean of green. She moved with the careful precision of a person who lacks true coordination, over-reacting as the wine spilled over her hands, her laughter false and brittle.
'Green, Earl, the color of jealousy. Did you know I was jealous?'
The fruit of insecurity, of fear and hurt. Yes, he had known.
'As a child I did nothing but study. Learn and learn and learn all the time. Stuffing my brain with facts and figures until I dreamed of equations. A computer could have done better with far less effort and far greater efficiency, but my family was ambitious. Learn,' she repeated savagely. 'Deny yourself any pretense of childhood, sacrifice all your natural yearnings, eliminate all joys-and one day you'll win a degree and be rich and respected. Lies! God, Earl-how can they so torment a child?'
The glass snapped in her hand, the twisted stem turning into small spears which gashed her palm and sent red to mingle with the green. She dropped the shards with a small cry of pain, her lips gaining added color as she sucked at the wound.
'Let me see that!' The wound was nothing but his touch brought calm. He felt the quivering lessen as he wiped the flesh with a tissue, felt the heat, the sudden dawn of mounting desire. An emotion he did not share.
'Earl!' Her free hand rose to touch his hair. 'Why do we waste time in stupid memories?'
'Circe,' he said. 'Was there more?'
The caressing fingers froze against his hair and her voice shared their sudden ice. 'You prefer words to love, Earl? Talk to me?'
He said gently, 'You spoke of ancients-let me tell you of something once told me on a distant world. To all things there is a season; a time to eat, to sleep, to taste the wine. A time to sow and a time to reap. A time to rest and a time to love.' He paused while around them the pulsing music surged like the beating of muffled drums. 'A pleasure anticipated is a pleasure doubled, Myra-or did they fail to teach you that?'
'That among other things-but since when has wisdom been found in books?' Her hand lowered from his hair and she turned again to the wine, shrugging as she saw the broken glass, turning again to face him, to look at him with a new confidence. 'Wisdom,' she mused. 'You have it, Earl, the kind that must be learned and can never be taught. Kindness, too, so that you are gentle with a woman who lacks your strength. Compassion so you do not mock. Tolerance for her stupidities and, I hope, a measure of affection.' Her eyes grew bright with unshed tears. 'That, at least, Earl-do not deny me that.'
The moment lengthened as the music came to an end, the sudden silence seeming to gain added dimension from the tension between them. The silence shattered as, from beyond the windows, came a sudden crackling and flicker of light.
'What-'
'It's the tests, Earl. The decorations-didn't you see them?' She was at the window before he could answer, the doors swinging wide to reveal the night, the small balcony, the railed parapet. More light shimmered on the frost and ice on both.
'Myra!'
'Come and look!' She smiled before stepping from the warmth of the room. 'See? It's for the festival. The Ludernia-Earl, we'll have such fun! Look, darling! Come and look!'
The wind caught her hair, pressing the gown against her body as she moved toward the parapet and Dumarest saw her sway, one foot slipping on a patch of ice as she reached for the railing.
'Myra-be careful!'
He was moving as she stumbled, diving forward fast and low, seeing her turn, the sudden, startled look on her face, the eyes widening with horror as she fell back against the parapet. For a moment she seemed to hang suspended on the knife edge of a balance and then she had vanished and he was left with the wind in his hair, a shoe in his hand as he listened to her fading, dying scream.
Chapter Six
Welph Bartain was tall and thickly built with a face schooled to mask emotion and eyes which held a cynical weariness. A man in late middle age, his hair grizzled, his skin creped with a mesh of lines engraved with experience, he was a captain in the proctor's department. He waved Dumarest to a chair after he had introduced himself, smiling as, without instruction, Dumarest set his head against the rest, his hands on the wide arms.
'I see you understand our procedures. Madam Blayne noted that you were cooperative.' She had presided over Dumarest's second interrogation while a small, wasp-like man had conducted the first. Now, apparently, there was to be a third. Bartain smiled as if reading Dumarest's thoughts. 'No. I am here merely to conclude the examination. I must apologize for the unusual delay but trust you have not been too uncomfortable. You have no complaints?'
'None.' The guard had been accommodating; food and wine had been available at personal cost, books and tapes and means of passing the time on hand. For the rest the cell had been a place to wait, to sleep, to think. Dumarest said, 'Why the delay?'
'The Ludemia.' Bartain shrugged, his face dour. 'It happens twice a year in summer and in winter and I don't know which is the worse. The cold makes students desperate but the heat affects minds in strange ways and always we are kept busy. Now, as regards yourself, the charge was made by three independent witnesses that you threw Myra Favre over the balcony of her apartment on the evening that the festival decorations were being tested outside her building. She was seen standing on the balcony. You were seen rushing toward her. She was heard to scream as she fell. Correct so far?'
'Correct.'
'You protest your innocence?'
Dumarest said dryly, 'I understood you to say that this was not to be a third interrogation. Surely you trust your machines?'
'A matter of routine. Please answer.'
'I am innocent of the charge of murder.' Dumarest added, 'I am at a loss to know why I should be doubted. She slipped, I tried to save her but reached her too late. I have said that from the beginning.'
'As I explained, this is a matter of routine.' The officer picked up a sheaf of papers, apparently reading from them though, as Dumarest knew, his eyes never left the telltales set along the edge of his desk. 'Dumarest,' he mused. 'You claimed to have a doctorate but-'
'I made no such claim. That was a pretense of Myra Favre's.'
'A woman no longer young,' continued the officer. 'One vulnerable to attention and who would have been attracted to an intriguing stranger who claimed a mutual acquaintance. A person of responsibility who could help a man eager to make his way. Martial arts,' he said. 'An odd subject-did you honestly believe you would gain a large enough enrollment?'
'I've explained all that,' said Dumarest. 'But, since you put the question, yes. I believe that such a course would be attractive to those who come here for a quick and easy degree.'
'And others who live in less gentle cultures.' Bartain turned a page. 'Why did you come to Ascelius?'
'For knowledge.'
'And where better to obtain it.' The officer's tone matched the cynicism of his eyes. 'Or so those running our universities tell us. Well, to get on-did you provide the emerald and ruby wine?'
'No.'
A question he had been asked before-one of thousands repeated in various ways, set in different contexts, aimed like bullets or thrown like feathers. Probes to determine the truth of his story. The chair in which he sat was a, complex lie-detector and the interrogations had been his trial. Were still his trial. The captain was obviously conducting a series of random checks. It was an hour before he dropped the papers and leaned back in his seat.
'You're innocent,' he said. 'But we had to make certain. Myra Favre was no ordinary woman-as a member of the Tripart faculty she was in a highly sensitive position. And there were certain unusual and disturbing factors-the wine, for example. You drank none?'
