not pay it again. This time it has to be my son, conceived upon my bracelet.'
'You don't understand anything!' she cried in frustration.
He paused, knowing the mystery to be yet unfathomed. 'Did it die?'
'No! That's not the point. That-oh, you stupid, stupid clubhead! You-' She choked over her own emotion -and faced away from him, sobbing.
She was more artful, too, than she had been, he thought. He did not yield. He let her run down, unmoving.
Finally she wiped her face and crawled out of the tent. He -was alone.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sol was a little leaner, a little more serious, but retained the uncanny grace his coordination provided. 'You came!' he exclaimed, grasping Sos's hand in an unusual display of pleasure.
'Yesterday,' Sos said, somewhat embarrassed. 'I saw Vit, but he wouldn't let me talk to your' wife, and I hardly know the others here.' How much should he say?
'She should have come to you anyway. Vit knows nothing.' He paused refiectively. 'We do not get along. She keeps to herself.'
So Sol still didn't care about Sola. He had protected her for the sake of the coming heir and no longer even bothered with pretense. But why, then, had he kept her isolated? It had never been Sol's way to be pointlessly selfish.
'I have a weapon now,' Sos said. Then, as the other looked at him:'The rope.'
'I am glad of it.'
There did not seem to be much else to say. Their reunion, like their parting, was an awkward thing.
'Come,' Sol said abruptly. 'I will show her to you.'
Sos followed him into the main tent, uncomfortably offbalance. He should have admitted that he had talked with Sola and prevented this spurious introduction. He had come on a matter of honor, yet he was making himself a liar.
Nothing was falling out quite the way he had expected- but the differences were intangible. The subtle wrongnesses were entangling him, as though he had fallen prey in the circle to the net.
They stopped before a homemade crib in a small compartment. Sol leaned down to pick up a chuckling baby 'This is my daughter,' he said. 'Six months, this week.'
Sos stood with one hand on- his rope, speechless gazing at the black-haired infant. A daughter! Somehow that possibility had never occurred to him.
'She will be as beautiful as her mother,' Sol said proudly. 'See her smile.'
'Yes,' Sos agreed, feeling every bit as stupid as Sola had called him. The name should not have gone to his bird.
'Come,' Sol repeated. 'We will take her for a walk.' He hefted the baby upon his shoulder and led the way. Sos followed numbly, realizing that this was the female they had come to see, not the mother. If he had only known, or guessed, or allowed himself to hear, last night.
Sola met them at the entrance. 'I would come,' she said
Sol sounded annoyed. 'Come, then, woman. We only walk.'
The little party threaded its way out of the camp and into the nearby forest. It was like old times, when they had journeyed to the badlands yet completely different. What incredible things had grown from the early coincidence of names!
This was all wrong. He had come to claim the woman he loved, to challenge Sol for her in the circle if he had to yet he could not get the words out. He loved her and she loved him and her nominal husband admitted the marriage was futile-but Sos felt like a terrible intruder.
Stupid flew ahead, happy to sport among the forest shadows; or perhaps there were insects there.
