'You don't have to touch, Julia.' //Between Readers it's the same whether we're touching or not.//
//If it's the same, then I'd rather touch.//
He smiled, brushing her tears away and recalling that Torio had never formed a Reader's aversion to touching. We assumed he needed that reassurance because of his blindness, and we didn't force him as we did the other boys. Taking Julia's hand, he said, 'Very well… for now. I'm far behind in today's work. Come along and see if you can learn to Read where the drainpipes have broken.'
'Master Lenardo?' Julia's thoughts were guarded, and he did not seek to break her shield. 'You could be my father. You could adopt me.'
'I will take the matter under consideration.'
'What does that mean?'
'I'll think about it.'
'Oh.' She was silent for a moment and then said, 'I'll prove worthy. You'll see.'
His first impulse was to discourage such ideas. Then he recalled who he was and where he was. If Julia could be taught honesty and responsibility, one day she would make a far better leader than he was. I may need an heir, and where else am I going to find one?
By the time autumn approached, Lenardo's lands were in good shape, the storage bams were full, and a large section of Zendi was in livable condition. They had, however, very little to trade for goods they did not produce.
Lenardo's land had little forest. His first inclination had been to allow people to hunt freely, but Helmuth warned him, 'They'll kill off your game in one season, my lord. It would take years to replenish. You must appoint huntsmen to kill a proper limit and distribute the meat.'
Wulfston, on the other hand, had large forests and little farmland. Along the coast, his people fished, and Lenardo sought for something to trade this year, when he could not afford to give up grain. 'Trade your abilities,' Wulfston wrote to him. 'Come Read the iron deposits in the Western Hills and mark them for mining. Then negotiate with Aradia and me for a trade route across your land between my mines and her iron works.' It was all so obvious to Wulfston and Aradia, raised to rule.
Lenardo's wider concerns were interrupted one day by Arkus. 'My lord, I was your enemy, and you gave me the chance to become your friend.'
'You have proved a good friend, Arkus. What is disturbing you?'
'My lord, it's Helmuth.'
'Helmuth? But it was Helmuth who first suggested that I put you in charge of the troops from Zendi.'
'I know, my lord. He's been most fair with me, but he is your chief adviser, while I am still commander of a fifty-man troop.'
Lenardo was sorely tempted to Read exactly what was going on in Arkus' head. 'Has Helmuth refused you a promotion? No one's been thinking in military terms since-'
'No, it isn't that. It's Josa.' He blushed. 'Where she comes from, what she's used to. I'd want to, anyway. I mean-'
'You want to get married,' Lenardo finally interpreted.
'Yes, my lord.'
'Then what is the problem? Does Josa want to marry you?'
'I think so, but I must ask Helmuth's permission. Josa's father entrusted her to him, to arrange a good marriage for her.'
'Would you make her a good husband?'
Arkus sighed. 'I'm a soldier, my lord. I don't know how to be anything else, and in peacetime there's no advancement.'
Lenardo chuckled. 'Arkus, you have spent the past three months rebuilding a city, and there is more to be done-years of work. Go find Helmuth and ask his permission. I'm sure he would be happy to have his niece marry the chief architect of Zendi.'
Helmuth, coming to collect Julia for a lesson, was indeed pleased with Lenardo's appointment, but it was Julia who with childish bluntness told him, 'What a good idea. Make it a big public ceremony, Master Lenardo. That way he can't ever forget what he owes you.'
Lenardo agreed. 'It is time for a party, isn't it? Everyone has worked hard all summer. We should hold a festival.'
'Oh, yes,' the girl said in normal childish excitement at the prospect of a party. But immediately his little savage began to scheme. 'We must invite your Adept allies, Aradia and Wulfston and Lilith. That way everyone will see that you have powerful friends, and the Adepts will all be beholden to you.'
Helmuth smothered a grin. 'The child is right, my lord. I was about to suggest the same thing, although I would not have stated the motive so openly.'
Lenardo said, 'It was in my mind, too, although I was conscious only of wanting to invite my friends. I will write the invitations today.'
The next day, Arkus formally asked Helmuth for Josa's hand, and the wedding became part of the festival plans. Julia quickly found out, for the news spread at once, and she spent hours each day Reading for the workmen still repairing the city. She had, quite effectively, cut Lenardo's work load in half. It seemed wrong to place such a burden on an eight-year-old child, but for Julia Reading was not work but play, satisfying her avid curiosity. She was developing a sensitivity Lenardo had seen only once before in so young a child, in Torio.
Moreover, she was determined to win Lenardo's favor, disciplining herself to be on time, clean, obedient, and- most difficult for her-honest. That afternoon, she bounced into Lenardo's room for her Reading lesson, curls flying, to plop down on 'his bed and tell him of her excitement about the wedding.
'I never knew nobody-anybody-who really got married. Only rich people, to other rich people, with dowries and things. Will you find me a rich husband, Master Lenardo?'
'No, Julia. Not if you live up to your potential. Readers do not marry.'
He held his breath, but she didn't ask why. instead, in mock dismay, she said, 'Oh. I thought you didn't want to adopt me because you wanted me to grow up and marry you.'
He let the teasing pass, gratefully, and hoped that he could persuade Aradia to explain to Julia the necessity for both Adepts and Readers to be virgin-sworn. The girl should know before she was old enough to feel the stirrings of womanhood. With her streetwise ways, he feared that Julia would recognize and act on such feelings only too easily.
Lenardo knew well that Readers were not immune to fleshly temptations. In the Aventine Empire, young Readers were strictly watched during adolescence. He himself had nearly yielded to nature's promptings. No, he had yielded, not understanding the power the pretty innkeeper's daughter held over male desire.
She had not understood, either, he now knew. She had been just a girl in her first bloom, enjoying the newly wakened stirrings of sexuality. Lenardo, then age twelve, had wanted her without truly understanding what he wanted. If Master Clement had not caught them in the first stage of passionate kisses and clumsy fumblingLenardo's own willpower had had nothing to do with saving him that day. It was the horror he had Read in Master Clement's mind, much more than his punishment, that had made him understand what danger lurked within a Reader's normal human sensuality. Ever after he had avoided temptation, and eventually his adolescent fantasies had died away. He had helped to guide boys at the Adigia Academy through their own volatile years, but how was he to guide and protect a girl?
He would have to have Aradia's help, he decided as he went to the bathhouse. It was now in working order, ready for the influx of guests, but Lenardo admitted that if he had not had good reason for repairing the bathhouse, he would have invented one. The relaxing luxury of a proper bath was one sensory pleasure he had always savored.
As he sweated in the steam of the hot bath, his body relaxed and his mind wandered…back to a time at, Castle Nerius just after Aradia had healed his branded arm. Pain and infection were gone, but Lenardo was still very weak. Aradia had insisted on bathing him, her hands soft on his bodyHe pulled himself out of his reverie; such suggestive memories would not do! He missed Aradia and looked forward to seeing her again, but only as a friend, he instructed himself sharply.
Proceeding to the warm bath, Lenardo briskly scrubbed himself down. A group of young boys were spreading- soapy water on the marble and running and sliding down one side of the shallow pool. He smiled at their antics but
