On the upper floor, Damon and Andrew sought out Leonie. Damon said, “I wanted to ask you, out of earshot. I understand enough to know Dom Esteban will never walk again. But otherwise how is he, Leonie?”
“Out of earshot?” The Keeper laughed faintly. “He has laran, Damon; he knows all, though perhaps he has wisely refused to understand what it will mean to him. The flesh wound has long healed, of course, and the kidneys are not damaged, but the brain no longer communicates with legs and feet. He retains some small control over body functions, but doubtless as time passes and the lower part of his body wastes away, that will go too. His greatest danger is pressure sores. You must be sure his body-servants turn him every few hours, because, since there is no feeling, there will be no pain either, and he will not know if a fold in his clothing, or something of that sort, puts pressure on his body. Most of those who are paralyzed die when such sores become infected. This process can be delayed, with great care, if his limbs are kept supple with massage, but sooner or later the muscles will wither and die.”
Damon shook his head in dismay. “He knows all this?”
“He knows. But his will to live is strong, and while that remains, you can keep his life good. For a while. Years, perhaps. Afterward…” A small, resigned shrug. “Perhaps he will find some new will to live if he has grandchildren about him. But he has always been an active man, and a proud one. He will not take kindly to inactivity or helplessness.”
Andrew said, “I’m going to need a hell of a lot of his help and advice running this place. I’ve been trying to get along without bothering him—”
“By your leave, that is mistaken,” said Leonie gently. “He should know that his knowledge is still needed, if not his lands and his skill. Ask him for advice as much as you can, Andrew.”
It was the first time she had addressed him directly, and the Terran glanced at the woman in surprise. He had enough rudimentary telepathy to know that Leonie was uncomfortable with him, and was troubled to feel there was something more now in her regard. When she had gone away he said to Damon, “She doesn’t like me, does she?”
“I don’t think it is that,” Damon said. “She would feel uneasy with any man to whom she must give Callista in marriage, I think.”
“Well, I can’t blame her for thinking I’m not good enough for Callista; I don’t think there’s any man who is. But as long as Callista doesn’t think so…”
Damon laughed. “I suppose no man on his wedding day feels worthy of his bride. I must keep reminding myself that Ellemir has agreed to this marriage! Come along, we must find rooms for our wives!”
“Shouldn’t it be up to them to choose?”
Damon recalled that Andrew was a stranger to their customs. “No, it is custom for the husband to provide a home for his wife. In courtesy Dom Esteban is giving us a way to find such a place and ready it before the wedding.”
“But they know the house—”
Damon replied, “So do I. I spent much of my boyhood here. Dom Esteban’s oldest son and I were bredin, sworn friends. But you, have you no kinsmen in the Terran Zone, no servants sworn to you and awaiting your return?”
“None. Servants are a memory out of our past; no man should serve another.”
“Still, we’ll have to assign you a few. If you’re going to be managing the estate for our kinsman” — Damon used the word usually translated as “uncle” — “you won’t have leisure to handle the details of ordinary life, and we can’t expect the women to do their own cleaning and mending. And we don’t have machines as you do in the Terran Zone.”
“Why not?”
“We’re not rich in metals. Anyhow, why should we make people’s lives useless because they cannot earn their porridge and meat at honest work? Or do you truly think we would all be happier building machines and selling them to one another as you do?” Damon opened a door off the hallway. “These rooms have not been used since Ellemir’s mother died and Dorian was married. They seem in good repair.”
Andrew followed him into the spacious central living room of the suite, his mind still on Damon’s question. “I’ve been taught it is degrading for one man to serve another, degrading for the servant — and for the master.”
“I’d find it more degrading to spend my life as servant to some kind of machine. And if you own a machine, you are in turn owned by it and spend your time serving it.” He thought of his own relationship to the matrix, and every psi technician’s on Darkover, to say nothing of the Keepers’.
Instead, he opened doors all around the suite. “Look, on either side of this central living room is a complete suite: each with bedroom, sitting room and bath, and small rooms behind for the women’s maids when they choose them, dressing rooms and so forth. The women will want to be close together, and yet there’s privacy too, for when we want it, and other small rooms nearby if we need them someday for our children. Does this suit you?”
It was far more space than any young couple would have been assigned in Married Personnel HQ. Andrew agreed, and Damon asked, “Will you have the left-hand or right-hand suite?”
“Makes no difference to me. Want to flip a coin?”
Damon laughed heartily. “You have that custom too? But if it makes no difference to you, let us have the left-hand suite. Ellemir, I have noticed, is always awake and about with the dawn, and Callista likes to sleep late when she can. Perhaps it would be better not to have the morning sun in your bedroom window.”
Andrew blushed with pleasant embarrassment. He had noticed this, but had not carried it far enough in his mind to think ahead to the mornings when he would be waking in the same room as Callista. Damon grinned companionably.
“The wedding’s only hours away, you know. And we’ll be brothers, you and I — that’s a good thought too. It seems sad, though, that you should not have a single kinsman or friend at your wedding.”
“I’ve no friends on this planet anyway. And no living relatives anywhere.”
Damon blinked in dismay. “You came here without family, without friends?”
Andrew shrugged. “I grew up on Terra — a horse ranch in a place called Arizona. When I was eighteen or so, my father died, and the ranch was sold for his debts. My mother didn’t live long after that, and I went into space as a civil servant, and a civil servant goes where he’s sent, more or less. I wound up here, and you know the rest.”
“I thought you had no servants among you,” Damon said, and Andrew got into a tangle of words trying to explain to the other man the difference which made a civil servant other than a servant. Damon listened skeptically and finally said, “A servant, then, to computers and paperwork! I think I had rather be an honest groom or cook!”
“Aren’t there cruel masters who exploit their servants?”
Damon shrugged. “No doubt, just as some men ill-treat their saddle horses and whip them to death. But a reasoning man may some day learn the error of his ways, and at the worst, others may restrain him. But there is no way to teach a machine wisdom after folly.”
Andrew grinned. “You know, you’re right. We have a saying, you can’t fight the computer, it’s right even when it’s wrong.”
“Ask Dom Esteban’s hall-steward, or the estate midwife Ferrika, if they feel ill-used or exploited,” Damon said. “You’re telepath enough to know if they’re telling the truth. And then, perhaps, you’ll decide you can honorably let some man earn his wages as your body-servant and your groom.”
Andrew shrugged. “No doubt I will. We have a saying, When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Rome, I think, was a city on Terra; it was destroyed in a war or an earthquake, centuries ago, only the proverb remains.—”
Damon said, “We have a similar saying; it runs, Don’t try to buy fish in the Dry Towns.” He walked around the room be had chosen for his bedroom and Ellemir’s. “These draperies have not been aired since the days of Regis the Fourth! I’ll get the stewards to change them.” He pulled a bell-rope, and when the steward appeared, gave orders.