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 could not overcome his teacher's training.
"Don't you boys leave without rinsing all that soap away," he warned them. "You wouldn't want anyone to slip and fall."
Their momentary resentment turned to embarrassment when they recognized who had called them down. The intrusion of the adult world spoiled their fun, and with a "Yes, my lord," they cleaned up the soap and left. Lenardo could hear their voices echoing down the hall and the shouts and splashes as they jumped into the frigidarium pool.
NonReaders, nonAdepts-how young and free they were. They could do anything they wanted with their livesAnd so can I, Lenardo reminded himself, rinsing off in the warm water. They will choose responsibilities, limit their lives as everyone must.
He immersed himself up to his chin, and a fragmented vision rose before his eyes, fleeting and incomplete. He and Aradia, bathing together, laughing like children, flushed with desire.
It was gone as quickly as it had come, leaving Lenardo with the sensation of arousal. He fought it down, glad that he was alone. Fragmentary as it was, the vision had all the impact of one of his precognitive flashes, but it could not be true. He could not allow himself to desire Aradia. Even if he did, there could never be fulfillment of desire. She would never risk her powers. No, it was a fantasy, not a vision, and he put it firmly out of his mind.
The festival was Helmuth's responsibility. People from all over the land planned to come to the capital, for most had not yet seen their new lord. Lenardo's watchers worked harder than ever before to spread the news. The watchers were the savage means of sending messages in code, through lights flashed from one hilltop to another. Within a day, everyone in the land knew of the planned festivities.
The three Adepts sent whole trains of grain, fruit, wine, and cider; wagonloads of meat and fish; and herds of sheep and swine. The all-important feast would lack for nothing.
But while Zendi might house its people for the winter in minimum discomfort, there were no proper accommodations for a Lord and two Ladies Adept. Lenardo could provide a house for each but no furnishings. Even in his own house, he had the only bed. Julia's room had a couch that she would outgrow in a year or two, and everyone else still slept on pallets on the floor.
Helmuth had an answer. "Pavilions," he said. "Lord Wulfston thought of it, my lord. He sent a wagon full of blue, white, and black silk. The women wanted to make dresses of it, but I recognized Aradia's and Lilith's colors, and I assume Lord Wulfston has rather appropriately adopted black."
"Where would Wulfston get all that silk?" "He has a seaport, my lord. Merchants call there all the time. Tis a good thing you're allies. You can negotiate free passage between Zendi and the sea."
Lenardo sighed. "Always more plotting. Pavilions?^' ' 'When a Lord Adept makes a progress through his own land-not a march to battle but for some other purpose- he often sets up a silk pavilion as his quarters. Your guests will be appropriately housed. We can put the pavilions in the forum, and the Lords Adept can use their own travel goods inside them. Arkus and Josa will be busy, but we have others now who will see that rain does not spoil anyone's comfort."