"You should have phoned," she said. "I waited for you to call."
"I was busy." He smiled and added casually, "And I thought you could be engaged."
"With Moultrie? Earl, must you remind me of my folly? Must I admit I was jealous?" Her hand rose to touch his arm, the fingers caressing. "Jealous and a little afraid. Happiness is such a fragile thing, Earl. A look, a word, and it can shatter into misery. Sometimes our own fear of losing it makes it happen. And some of us have too much pride." Her hand fell from his arm as she turned to where a table stood bearing a flagon filled with emerald and drifting flecks of ruby. "Some wine, my dear?"
It was new as was her gown, her appearance, the scent which hung in the air. Items bought to ease her misery or gifts for duty done? Dumarest remembered the greeting, the heat of her body, the pressure, the muscular quiverings as if she had exploded in a paroxysm of gladness or relief.
"You look tired." Again her hand rose to touch him, the fingers lingering in a caress, nails smooth and cool on his cheek. "I worried about you, darling. What were you doing?"
"Walking. Talking."
"To Ragin and his cronies?" Her shrug dismissed them. "Are you hungry? Shall I cook you something? Do you want to bathe?" Light flashed from the gems in her shoes as she crossed the floor to switch on a player. "Ieten's Seventh," she said as music throbbed in a low, passionate threnody. "Why don't you drink your wine?"
She had served it in a crystal container no larger than an eggcup set on a spiraling stem. Dumarest lifted it, let the liquid rest against his lips, tasted the ghost of fire and chill.
As he lowered it he said, "Why didn't you tell me you'd been Rudi's mistress?"
For a moment she froze, an image of glittering drapes caught in a fraction of time then, as fast as it had come, the moment had gone and she turned, smiling with her lips if not her eyes.
"Does it matter, darling?"
"Of course not. But it's a matter of mutual interest. Why not mention it as we're so close?"
"Perhaps that's the reason." She finished her wine and stood twirling the glass in her fingers. "Anyway it was a long time ago."
"Twelve years," said Dumarest blandly. "Nearer thirteen. Just what did happen on that journey?"
"Earl?"
He said flatly, "Rudi booked passage on a ship bound for Karig but we both know he never intended to go there. In fact I doubt if he left on the Mantua at all. What he actually did do was to join you on the Toratese. Or did you rendezvous on Alba?"
A guess but a good one and he saw by her eyes that he had hit the target. This luck added to that he had gained at the last when Sheen Agnostino had gained the item of information from the computer banks.
"You shouldn't keep such things secret, my dear," he said quietly as he took the glass from her hand and poured her more wine. "What did it matter what you did or where you did it? A relationship-who could have denied your right?"
"A man," she said. "My professor at the time. His name is unimportant but he had influence and he wanted me and I was ambitious. And Rudi was wanting in courage-I realize that now if I didn't then. We were lovers but to him it was a game. He wanted company on the journey and I hoped to-well, what does it matter now? It didn't work out."
"But you traveled together?"
"Yes." She looked at her glass and drank and set it down empty to straighten and look at Dumarest with bold admission. "A game, he called it, and he played it as if acting a part. The passages booked, the separate embarkations, the later meeting in a hotel on Alba. Our honeymoon he called it-the bastard!"
She was a woman hurt and unable to forget the pain of the wound, the damage to her pride. A promise had been broken and her body used as a convenience by a man from whom she had expected love. This passion had been little more than lust when robbed of affection.
Dumarest said, "But you lived together. You hoped he would draw closer. You spoke of his hopes and plans and ambitions." His hope, the only one left, that Boulaye would have told her what he had erased from the computer. The clue he had gained-the answer, perhaps. "Myra?"
"We talked," she admitted. "Or rather he talked and I listened. You must understand the situation," she added as if it were of momentous importance. "You've seen Jussara and the others. You know how spiteful they can be. The academic world isn't a gentle one, Earl. It's dog eat dog all the way. That's why I had to be careful. A matter of self-preservation. You can appreciate that."
"Of course. What did you talk about?"
Her hand rose to touch her hair as if seeking reassurance as to her appearance. Crystal tinkled as she refilled her glass, the thin tintinnabulation blending with the pulse of sound from the recording. Emerald and ruby gave her lips the moistness of newly shed blood.
"Things," she said when the need to answer became a demand. "General things."
"Did he ever mention Erce?"
"I'm not sure."
"Try to remember," he urged. "Try."
Remember the nights and the whispers in darkness, the voids needing to be filled when desire had fled and only emptiness remained. When the ego needed to reassert itself and savor the sense of mastery and a joke could be enjoyed if a joke had been played. He saw her eyes veil with ruptured time and her mouth grow hard before she shrugged and laved her lips with more wine. She drank too much wine for her own good but it could provide the key to unlock repressed memories.
She smiled as he handed her more.
"Aren't you drinking with me, Earl?"
"Of course." A lie compounded with further pretense. "To a happy meeting, Myra!"
"To love!" She looked at her empty glass. "Rudi never knew what it was," she said to the crystal. "To him it was a joke-why else should he have laughed?"
Dumarest's silence was question enough.
"I thought at first he was laughing at me but it was more than that. He had nothing but contempt for those who'd trusted him. An educated man, a professor, taking pleasure in his ability to lie and cheat and delude." She looked up with a sharp movement to hold Dumarest's eyes with her own, "Erce? You said Erce?"
"You've heard of it?"
"I'm not sure." Her frown traced creases between her eyes.
"There was something like it-a scrap of legend he mentioned one night after he'd rutted like a beast. Erce? No- Circe. That was it. Circe. Something to do with an ancient who had turned men into swine. A woman, naturally, 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.