"It makes you ready to marry." Andrew smiled at him.

"Oh, no." Peter shook his head. "No, not at all. Not till I can figure out what the pattern is to when girls giggle. I don"t suppose there"s a law which covers that, is there?"

Andrew laughed again, and Peter, relieved that the hard part of the conversation was over, sat up. He had other questions, but he no longer feared that Andrew would be scandalized by having the Chara To Be consult him on such matters. After all, Andrew must have thought about such matters himself, since he was a boy too. Placing both their plates onto the sideboard, Peter said, "I suppose that you"ll marry as soon as you can?"

Andrew went rigid.

It was like seeing a soft clay ornament suddenly turn into the diamond-hard Sword of Vengeance. Every bone in his body, every piece of flesh, turned adamantine. All the laughter had fled from his face.

Peter remembered, too late, that slaves were not permitted to marry. "I meant ... I didn"t mean marry, of course. But I know that some of the slave-men mate with slave-women, so I thought, since you"re dreaming about girls ..."

Andrew"s eyes were as dark now as a night-shadowed pit. Peter was just trying to figure out whether he had cast a slur on Andrew"s honor by suggesting that the boy would sleep with a girl outside marriage when Andrew leapt up from the bed, so vigorously that the bed shook against the sideboard. Peter"s goblet, still filled with the sugar-laden wild-berry wine, tipped over and spilled onto the blanket.

Peter was trying to determine where his face-cloth had gone, so that he could hastily wipe up the liquid, when he became aware that Andrew was no longer standing by the bed. The slave was backing up slowly, his eyes fastened upon Peter in the same horrified expression a man might show if faced with the Sword of Vengeance.

"Andrew!" Peter jumped up from the bed, the ruined blanket forgotten. "What"s wrong?"

Andrew did not reply. He had reached the wall next to the hearth now, and he flattened himself against it, as though trying to hide from danger.

"Andrew, what-?" Peter had reached the other side of the room. On the point of stretching out to touch Andrew, he let his hand fall. His slave was staring at him, as dumb and aghast as a farmyard animal faced with some terrible fate.

"What is it?" whispered Peter.

"I thought you knew." Andrew"s voice emerged faintly, as though he were being strangled.

"Knew what?"

"I"m a eunuch."

A bit of log fell, soft into the ashes, sending sparks of flame up the chimney. In the corridor, the guards talked quietly with one another. Beyond the shutters, a mockingbird trilled at the night sky.

"No," said Peter, hearing his own voice as from far away. "No, you couldn"t be."

Andrew said nothing. The look of horror had gone; now his face was a mask, as blank as it had been on the evening when Peter had watched him serving Lord Carle.

"You couldn"t be," Peter repeated. He looked again at Andrew, seeing nothing he had not seen before: a boy wearing a slave-tunic, dark-skinned, but otherwise no different from himself.

Still Andrew made no reply. Still the mask stayed in place, as though it had always been there.

"Who ... ?" Peter had to stop to clear his throat. "Was it the soldier who enslaved you who did it?" They. Andrew had said they had done it. And there had been a physician from the city. From the Koretian capital?

"No. Lord Carle." Andrew"s voice turned toneless.

Peter stared at him, willing away the words. Then he shouted, "No! It couldn"t be! Not Lord Carle!"

Andrew said nothing. Peter tried to control the sickness that was overwhelming him. Lord Carle... . And he had spoken so lovingly of the Chara"s law... . He had given Peter the brooch with the royal emblem upon it, the balance between judgment and mercy... .

"You could give me back."

Peter stared, trying to make sense of Andrew"s words. "Give you back?"

"To Lord Carle. He would probably return all your money. You have only had use of me for a week."

The final, cold words, stiltedly formal, were like a blow. Peter asked, "Why should I want to do that?"

It took Andrew another minute to speak. Peter could see the struggle in him from the way in which his fists formed. Finally the slave said, in that same, dead voice, "Damaged goods."

"No!" Peter heard the anguish in his own voice and strove to take control of himself. "No, I don"t see you that way. You"re not damaged. You"re ... different. You"ve always been different from other people. I like you different. I ... like you this way."

He tried tentatively to touch Andrew. Andrew flinched. Peter hastily drew his hand back. He could not think of the right thing to say. He supposed it was cruelty itself for him to have hinted that he preferred Andrew gelded. He heard Andrew"s voice echoing in his head: "Buried, cold ... dead."

Peter said, unable to think of the right way to phrase his thought, "I still want you."

Andrew made no reply. The terrible, blank mask that he always wore around other palace residents remained in place; it made him look like a complete stranger.

Feeling as though he were floundering in an ice-cold avalanche, Peter said, "*They" ... you said they did it to you. Not Lord Carle."

"Not with his own hands." Something about the way Andrew spoke conveyed that the slave thought Lord Carle would gladly have wielded the gelding knife himself, if it had suited his fancy. "He gave me over to the dungeon torturers at the time he bought me. They brought in a city physician to advise them on how to do it."

Peter felt a cold sickness enter his stomach. The palace dungeon. An eight-year-old boy had been gelded in his own palace, and he had not even known.

He had been aware that men were sometimes gelded in the dungeon, of course. It was part of the so-called Slave"s Death a the manner of execution for disobedient palace slaves and for treacherous free-men. Sometimes a pardon was given to the condemned prisoner before the full death had been exacted a hence the presence of eunuchs in the palace.

But gelding a young boy?

"What did you do?" Peter could not imagine what the crime had been. Even if Andrew had tried to kill Lord Carle, surely the lord a who was said to be the finest bladesman in the council a could easily have defended himself against a small boy.

Andrew had been looking Peter straight in the eye all this time. Now, as though recollecting his proper place, he dropped his eyes. He said in his dead voice, "I looked straight at him. I told him I was Koretian a that I did not wish to be an Emorian."

In the silence that followed, the palace trumpets called the half-hour warning before the midnight hour. Peter turned away, feeling the chill on his skin turn to clamminess. Lord Carle. Lord Carle, of all people. The man Peter had revered most, next to his father. Peter had even pleaded to his father that the council lord be a.s.signed as his tutor.

Such a man had gelded an eight-year-old boy for a slight offense.

Peter stumbled his way over to the windows, seeking the freshness of the night air that was making its way through the cracks in the shutters. He felt a sudden urge to throw the royal emblem brooch in the fire. Lord Carle. How could Peter ever trust anything his new tutor would tell him about the Chara"s law? Gripping the mantelpiece, Peter stared blindly at the misshapen Balance of Judgment.

It was some time before he realized that Andrew had left the chamber.

Peter sat on his bed, next to the wet spot where the wine had spilled, trying to think. He knew that he ought to be readying himself for bed; his father was quite strict about his bedtime. But images were whirling themselves too fast in his head: Lord Carle smiling as he spoke of the Chara"s law. Andrew smiling at the creation basket. Andrew standing motionless against the wall, his face like that of a corpse.

A knock came at the door. Roused from his thoughts, Peter took an appalled glance at the floor. A bucket, moss, sap, bits of metal, clay ... and worst of all, a valuable bowl filled with earth. If the Chara had come to bid his son good night, the interview would not be a pleasant one for Peter.

But it was not the Chara, Peter found when he opened the door; the man who had knocked was one of the Chara"s guards, Emmett, whom Peter had always liked. "Your pardon, Lord Peter," he murmured. "Your slave-servant, Andrew, desires to know whether you wish him to complete the task you set for him, before he retires to bed."

Peter, having no idea what the "task" was, said immediately, "Yes, let him in now."

"He will need to be fetched," Emmett replied. Then, seeing Peter"s frown of puzzlement, he explained, "The slave-quarters are currently being locked for the night. Lord Carle"s free-servant delivered the message from your slave-servant, since Henry has just been checking on his master"s own slaves, and the matter regarding your slave appeared to be urgent." There was a faintly querying note in Emmett"s voice. Peter guessed that the underlying message was, "Merely say the word, and we"ll have this troublesome slave beaten."

"He was quite right to deliver the message," Peter replied. "Please thank him for me... . And Emmett?"

"Yes, Lord Peter?"

Peter licked his lips. "I shall need Andrew for the rest of the night. Have Henry tell the slave-keeper that he may lock the quarters once he has released Andrew to my service."

An expression flicked across Emmett"s face, too quick to be read. "Very well, Lord Peter. I shall see that you and your slave-servant are not disturbed."

He closed the door before Peter could think to ask what exactly Emmett envisioned he would be disturbing. Perhaps the guard had merely received a glimpse of what lay on the floor of the chamber of the Chara"s son, and he envisioned a lengthy clean-up.

Peter bit his lip, wondering whether he had gone too far. His father had made clear to him that he must not interfere with how the slave-keeper handled the slaves. But Peter simply could not settle matters between Andrew and himself in the brief interval between now and the midnight trumpets.

He must find some way to make an apology. Thinking back on how he had handled the conversation, he was appalled at his cruelty. He had allowed himself to become so absorbed in worries over Lord Carle that he had turned his back on Andrew a had let the slave regard himself as dismissed from Peter"s mind and heart. Andrew had been stripped of his virility, had been sold to a cruel master, had nonetheless trusted his new master enough to pull down his mask ... and had had his new master turn against him.

What could you give a slave who, by law, could own nothing?

Another knock came at the door. It was Emmett, ushering in Andrew. Apparently Andrew did not even possess enough self-confidence now to enter unbidden. As the door closed, Andrew stood in the posture of an obedient slave: stiff-backed, with his eyes down. In his right hand was an iron bucket, filled with water, with rags tied to its handle. He said, "If it please the Chara"s son, I would like to finish cleaning up after myself."

Peter cleared his throat. "Yes, of course. Andrew-"

But Andrew had taken his words as an order, not an invitation to conversation; he immediately fell to his knees and began scooping objects into the wooden bucket. Peter, retreating to the bed again, tried to think of what to say as Andrew cleared the clutter on the floor, took up a rag, and began cleaning the floor methodically. Peter could see the slave"s bandaged back from where he sat.

He struggled to find the words he wanted, and then cried out wordlessly as Andrew, with not so much as a moment"s hesitation, stood up, took the creation basket, and dumped its contents into the bucket, destroying the Koretian landscape he had created. Andrew glanced his way, then quickly lowered his eyes. "Have I failed to please the Chara To Be in some manner?"

Peter was beginning to realize why his slave had no friends in the slave-quarters; Andrew"s voice was as cold and hard as a mainland ice-block. Peter made some strangled sound in his throat, which Andrew evidently read as a negative, for he turned and carried the gla.s.s bowl over to the pitcher, poured water into it, and began to carefully wash the remaining dirt from it.

"I"ll help you with that," Peter said, stumbling in his eagerness to reach the sideboard.

"The Chara"s son need not trouble himself."

A thigh-dagger cutting prisoners in the Marcadian ice-prisons could not have been as chillingly biting as Andrew"s reply. Peter, who had just taken hold of the pitcher, stopped dead, feeling as though his life"s blood had been severed. He stared at the slave, who was masked with his blank expression; then, without any conscious thought of what he was doing, Peter turned and dashed the pitcher onto the floor. "I hate being the Chara"s son!" he cried, and then he fell to his knees amidst the broken pottery and covered his face with his hands.

Dimly, he heard the door open; dimly, he heard Emmett"s voice, making an enquiry; dimly, he heard Andrew respond. Whatever Andrew said must have rea.s.sured the guard, for he withdrew quickly. The door shut again, leaving the chamber in silence.

The chamber was so still that Peter guessed that Andrew had left as well. He tried to gather himself together, but he found he was shaking. A full minute pa.s.sed; the palace trumpets sounded in the new year. Finally, Peter managed to pull his hands from his face.

Andrew was kneeling beside him, mopping up the spilled water.

"I"m sorry," said the slave, without looking his way.

"Sorry?" Peter automatically reached forward to pick up one of the pieces of the broken pitcher.

"I"d forgotten that it"s the same for you. That you have to wear a mask as well."

Peter"s mind drifted back to the first conversation he had held with Andrew, concerning their shared burden of having to hide their true natures from other people. "My need isn"t as great as yours. Andrew, I didn"t mean to- I ought to have said-"

"It doesn"t matter," Andrew replied. "At least you didn"t break the gla.s.s bowl... . Some of the pitcher pieces have rolled under the bed."

"I"ll get them." Peter dived down and squeezed under the bed. As he did so, it occurred to him that, just a week before, he never would have thought to help a slave-servant do so menial a task.

The Chara, he thought, had been more right than he knew. Andrew was helping Peter learn how to rule his subjects, for Peter was beginning to get a hazy sense of why the dominion of Koretia had caused so many troubles to Emor ... and an even hazier sense of how he might be able to correct matters when he became Chara.

They finished cleaning the floor in silence, and then they worked together to clean the bowl and to place it back in the chest of treasures. Then they stood facing each other. Andrew appeared to be as much at a loss for words as Peter was.

Finally Peter asked, "Would you like to stay here tonight?"

And with those words, Andrew went rigid once more.

Feeling like a bladesman who has made a mortal mistake not once, but twice, Peter said quickly, "What is it?"

"You want me to sleep with you?" The mask, thankfully, had not returned yet, but what was there was nearly as bad: the same horror that had been in Andrew"s face in the moment after he realized that Peter did not know what he was.

Peter, hearing his own statement reworded thus, felt the same horror enter him. He remembered now a too late for the memory to be of use to him a how he had touched Andrew after saying that he liked the slave as a eunuch, and how Andrew had flinched.

May the high doom fall upon himself a how could he have been so blind? He lived in the same palace as Lord Sutton; he should have known what it was that Andrew would fear most from his master. And Lord Carle- But there his wildly darting speculation ran into a locked gate; he could not imagine Lord Carle in bed with a woman, much less with a eunuch. No, Peter was sure that could not have happened; he had heard Lord Carle speak with contempt concerning Lord Sutton"s penchant for eunuchs. Whatever Lord Carle"s motive might have been for gelding Andrew, it could not have been to obtain a bed-mate.

But there were other lords in the palace, and other dangers for a slave who was considered prime bedding material. Peter had once witnessed a lord pinch Laura"s bottom when she was trying to serve the Chara"s son at a public function. Peter had furiously made clear to the lord that he would not stand for such treatment of one of the Chara"s slaves, and the Chara, thankfully, had backed his words. But would Lord Carle bother to protect the slave whom he had gelded?

And who could Andrew expect to protect him, if the Chara"s son wanted him for such use?

Andrew said, his voice still rigid, "If you want me that way, I"ll do it."

Peter wanted to cry then a to cry at Andrew"s pain, to cry at the loyalty that forced Andrew to offer himself up to his new master for further pain. Furious at himself, he shouted, "No!" Then, seeing Andrew catch his breath at this evidence of his master"s anger, Peter said quietly but fiercely, "No, I don"t want you that way. You"re a boy. I don"t mate with boys."

Andrew seemed barely to be breathing now. Treading his way carefully, Peter said, "Don"t you see? That"s why it never occurred to me that you were a eunuch. You"re a boy like me. Whatever Lord Carle may have done to your body, he hasn"t changed what you are inside. You"re still a boy, and one day you"ll be a man."

Andrew had definitely stopped breathing. His eyes searched Peter"s face, seeking something.

More sure of himself now, Peter said, "You know it"s true, don"t you?"

Andrew said, in a very soft voice, "I"ve always wanted ..."

Peter waited; then, when Andrew did not speak further, he said, "But you didn"t think anyone else wanted you to be a man?"

Andrew nodded slowly.

"Well, I do." Speaking firmly, Peter gripped Andrew"s arm hard, as one grips a boy, not a girl or a eunuch. "So don"t pay attention to what anyone else thinks. I"m the Chara To Be, and my opinion is the only one that matters."

He half expected Andrew to smile at this pompous speech, but instead the boy dipped his eyes. After a moment, Andrew nodded. After another moment, he looked up and said, "So ... when you said you wanted me to stay here tonight ... did you mean I should sleep on the floor?"

Peter hesitated. The idea that had formed itself in his mind before seemed absurd in retrospect; worse, it could easily be taken the wrong way. "It doesn"t matter. I was being foolish."

All of Andrew"s uncertainty vanished in an instant, and Peter had a second in which to feel uneasy. He knew what that sudden change of expression meant. Andrew had the most ghastly talent for being able to tell what people were thinking. There were times when Peter thought their roles should have been reversed, and that Andrew should be the one training to be High Judge.

"On the bed, you meant?" Andrew said. Then, as Peter started to stammer some protest, "But not mating. Just ... sleeping?"

Peter sighed and wrapped his hands around the back of his neck, thoroughly embarra.s.sed now. "I was just thinking ... it was folly, but I was thinking about pallets."

"Pallets?" Andrew seemed interested now rather than concerned.