Yet she'd told Kate people in her world were guilty of pig-headed stupidity and ignorance. She knew as well as Val did that the physical differences between the two of them were merely external. The differences in upbringing and beliefs and society ran far deeper than that. Perhaps that was what Val meant when he said things would be easier for the two of them if they were trapped in this new world. If she never had to see censure in the eyes of her people, she would have no reason to doubt her attraction to Val. If he didn't have to face public mockery among the Kin of his straba, he would be free to love her as he chose.
If they went back, he would have to face such mockery, though. She would face worse. Her people would shun her, refusing to speak her name, refusing to see her if she showed her face in the streets. They would hold a proxy funeral for her, and when it was done, she would be as one dead to them. Were she a peasant girl, they would kill her in truth—the coffin would hold no straw woman, but a real one. And if a child were born before her shame was uncovered, the child would be killed with her.
The Watchmistress was eyra to a Kin, but she was human. No other humans lived in Glenraven, and after Jayjay had saved Glenraven, who would deny the Watchmistress love or happiness? No one. Besides, everyone knew humans were the children of the outcasts, and that in their blood ran the blood of Kin, Machnan, Aregen, and Kin-hera. So Rhiana couldn't look at the Watchmistress as an example upon which to base her own life.
Val said, "Fear stops so many of us from following our hearts," and she agreed. "The balladeers sing of dying for love, but few would choose to do it."
He touched her cheek lightly with one fingertip and she felt the heat of his hand, the hardness of his calloused skin. "Few indeed. But here and now we hunger for each other, and tomorrow we may die with love or without it, but certainly not for it."
"The second year of formal mourning for Lord Smeachwykke has passed," she said softly. "I am free to choose a consort…and a few young men have come calling. Those who think they would like to be elevated to the post of Lord Smeachwykke, with his lands and titles." Her voice grated when she said it. "Those third and fourth sons of other lords, who have no hope of title on their own."
"I could never be a Machnan lord, nor do I wish your title or your coffers or your land. In fact, I believe you were pursuing my land." He laughed when he said it, and she laughed, too.
"Then perhaps I ought to be attempting to seduce you, to get you to promise me more land in exchange for a few brief moments of pleasure. I have heard that such things are sometimes done."
"I've heard the same," he said, "but I suspect the men and women who do them don't tell the intended victim that's what they had in mind."
She clucked her tongue. "Then I'm failed as a seductress."
His voice grew suddenly low and rough, and he murmured, "Not failed at all. You have enchanted me."
"Would you kiss me?" she asked.
"Would you have me kiss you?"
Rhiana moved closer to him, close enough that she could feel the heat of his body drawing her like a magnet—close enough that the sweet scents of the night faded beneath his own warm, softly musky scent. She looked up at his face, dappled by the shadows of leaves thrown by one of those tall, bright streetlights. She placed both hands flat against his chest, her hands level with her chin when she did it, and pushed him backward lightly, into the deeper shadows. "I would," she said.
He leaned down, full lips parted, the dagger points of his eye-teeth visible for just an instant before he pulled her closer and she shut her eyes. He kissed her gently, letting his hands slide down her back, and she felt the tiny points of his claws kneading in and out, in and out, as if he were a very large cat, his claws pressing through her clothes and against her skin but never hurting her. She locked her fingers behind his head and pulled him harder against her, tasting his lips with her tongue, reveling in his scent and the smooth skin of his cheeks and the silk of his hair under her fingers.
She had been alone so long. So very long. And he was so beautiful.
Chapter Thirty-One
Tuesday morning, the Devourers came home sated, full of blood and power, torpid and heavy and dull, and Callion caught them up in a stronger cage and locked them away in the room in the center of the house. No matter how he tried, he could find nothing about them to tell him what had come over them; he saw no change in them except their slowness after their massive feeding in the mall across the street. Their numbers remained the same, and the amount of power he felt in them, as well as their size and colors and character. He'd considered the possibility that they had been spawning, or in season in some fashion—the thought frightened him, but he faced up to it. If they had been, however, they'd done whatever they did without leaving him any the wiser.
He worried at their behavior as he closed up the room. He couldn't spend a great deal of time thinking about it right then, but he found himself hoping that their brush with madness had a cause he could figure out and correct.
He wore a human guise—the face and body of a handsome man in his late forties, with thick hair already silvering, with bright blue eyes and a deep, even tan—and he checked its details as he moved from the Devourers' chamber up the stairs to his office. He had difficulty sometimes keeping the skin texture correct. In most instances the mere appearance of correctness was sufficient, but for today's interview, he needed to be sure his flesh felt human, too. Any slight grittiness or sandiness could lose him his prey.
He finished setting up the office—pamphlets and the policy handbook and all the legal paperwork; transfer of ownership on the house he'd chosen for the next one; the little kits for doing blood tests and a pregnancy test; the checkbook and the company credit card already made out in her name. He rehearsed his lines again, in character. He'd done the real thing so many times already he thought he probably didn't need rehearsal, but a slip would lose him this one, and her letter and his background check had proven her to be one of the best of his finds so far. He tugged on the white lab jacket and tucked the stethoscope into one of the roomy pockets. From tan suede Hush Puppies to neatly pressed khakis to the blue-gray polo shirt that complimented both his eyes and his hair, he was the perfect image of the doctor. The embroidered name on his jacket, Dr. C. Lytton-Smythe, just beneath the neat little Aregeni Foundation logo, added what he considered the perfect touch.
He was still admiring himself in the mirror when the doorbell rang. He trotted into the upstairs hall, swung on one hand around the newel post, loped down the stairs, and arrived at the front door grinning, looking rakishly disheveled and only slightly out of breath.
"Was upstairs," he said with a little laugh at his breathlessness, and she laughed, too. He held out a hand, concentrating on keeping the skin texture just right, and said, "I'm Dr. Constantine Lytton-Smythe. And you must be Angelina Calerni." He looked over his shoulder, back into the empty house, and shouted, "Darcy, I got the door. You needn't." Then he turned to her and said, "My housekeeper has a touch of arthritis and it's giving her a terrible time today."
Angelina Calerni looked even better in person than she did on paper. Twenty-three years old, she had the sparkling black eyes and olive complexion that testified to her Mediterranean descent, and the perfect skin and sound body that promised excellent health. When she smiled, her teeth were just crooked enough that he knew she hadn't needed braces, beautifully cared for and without any signs of early wear or decay. She was neither too slender nor too heavy, and her wrists and ankles tapered delicately. She had a good strong nose and a long, slender neck. Her hair, midnight-black with a gleam of blue, curled around her face where it had escaped from the heavy braid that hung straight to her waist.
She took his hand firmly and shook it. "Delighted to meet you, Dr. Lytton-Smythe. I can't believe how close you live to the mall. Weren't you scared?"
"I wasn't even home until after it happened…but I was scared when I heard about it. And call me Smitty, please, Angelina."
She laughed
again. "From talking on the phone to Mr. Aregeni, I assumed you'd be British, but you haven't any accent at all. And please call me Angie."
"Angie it is. Come in," he told her. "We'll go to my office for the final interview, if that's all right with you." He headed into the house and she followed him, completely trusting. He said, "I have a dual citizenship; both of my parents were British citizens, though I was born in the United States. When my parents split up, my father went back to Stratford-on-Avon, and my mother and I stayed here."
"My parents divorced, too."
"I noticed that in your bio. Both of them still living and in excellent health to the best of your knowledge?" He led her into the office and pointed out the seats facing his desk. He settled himself in his leather chair, letting his desk provide the barrier that would assure Angelina Calerni of his professionalism and honorable intentions.
"They're both fine. I don't see my father. My mother and I remain close."
He leaned back in his chair and crossed one ankle across his other thigh. "I know Mr. Aregeni discussed your education and reading habits with you, and your interests. And I know he told you that with your intelligence and wit, your sense of humor and your interest in so many things, he desperately wanted to hire you if you passed the physical examination."
She nodded. "He was a delightful old man to talk to."
"He's a wonderful employer, too. Did he mention to you, though, that he's dying?"
"Oh, no!" Her luminous eyes expressed a real and sudden sorrow. "He didn't say anything like that at all."
"He's known for quite a while. He moved to Florida for his health, but I'm afraid his condition has deteriorated beyond the point where even constant warm weather and high humidity will ease his suffering. He would have been here today to meet you, but he is currently in Switzerland receiving treatments from a specialist there. He may not survive this trip."
"Oh…I'm so sorry." She considered that for a moment. "But if he's dying, he's hardly going to want to hire someone now."
"On the contrary, now, especially, he wants to be sure that his dream lives on. And it can only live on if he—and once he's gone, his employees—can continue to find brilliant young people to make it happen."
Angie leaned forward. "What is his dream, Dr.—I mean, Smitty? We discussed everything in the world but that."
"I'll get to it. I have to do this the way he wants it to be done, and if you don't pass the physical, I can't hire you and there's no need for you to know."
"The physical is—"
"A urinalysis and a complete blood workup, a drug screen, a pregnancy test, a systems examination including a gynecological exam, an electrocardiogram to be sure your heart is healthy at rest, a cardiac stress test to be sure it stays healthy when you aren't—"
She held up a hand. "In other words, this is going to take a while."
"Yes. These are the permission forms for the exam." He shoved a clipboard across the desk to her. "If, after you've read through them, you decide you want to have them, I'll call my nurse and she'll be here in just a few moments. The value of the medical workup is several thousands of dollars, which we absorb." She was already skimming down the stack of forms, signing her name at the bottom of each one. "You'll note that we, as a private foundation, do not make information on you available to anyone for any reason, unless you are unwise enough to commit a crime." He chuckled. "If our records are subpoenaed, we will comply, of course. In no other way will anyone ever find out anything about you from us."
"Good," she said. "Go ahead and call your nurse." She glanced up at him for a moment, and the corners of her mouth curled up in a mischievous smile. "I didn't come this far to change my mind now."
He nodded, picked up his phone, and pressed 3 on the auto-dial.
When his nurse, a woman named Laramie Dodds, picked up the phone, he said, "Laramie, I have a physical for you." She said she needed ten minutes. He conveyed this information to Angie when he hung up, and she nodded but didn't say anything. She still sat bent over the forms, reading and signing.
Callion had tried, initially, to create a nurse for himself out of sand, but he found out that real nurses were willing to hire out for moderate sums of money, that they knew how to act in a manner his future employees found reassuring, and that they did an enormous amount of work he didn't want to bother with. Further, he found that, like lawyers, they considered the privacy of their clients a professional obligation. He hired several for each of his Aregeni Foundation locations, and had been more than pleased with his results.
He and Angie spent the next three hours in testing. By the time Angie finished the stress test, a coordination test, a memory test, a visualizations skills test, and two tests to check her latent magical potential and her magical aptitude, Laramie had the majority of the lab work done and waiting on his desk. Angie showered and changed back into her own clothes, and Callion studied the results.
He was smiling when she came back into the office and settled into the chair across the desk. "You're blue ribbon all the way," he said. "We're missing a few tests that require a couple of days, but none of those are critical. They're all just baselines."
Laramie Dodds leaned into the office and said, "I'm leaving now unless you have anything else."
"Thanks, no. I'll let you get back to Taversham."
Angie sat quietly until the door closed behind Dodds, then said, "So I'm employable."
"You're damn near perfect," he said, his smile growing broader. "Between your interview and your tests, you qualify to join us at our very top starting salary."
"Seventy thousand dollars a year?" Her voice squeaked just a little when she said it.
"Not including the company car, company housing, and benefits. Full medical and full dental with no deductible and no upper limit, full continuing education, paid travel, paid moves, company day-care and paid private school education for your children, and on and on." He laughed out loud at the expression on her face. "Oh. And company housing comes with a fully-equipped gym, an indoor heated pool, and access to such amenities as ice rinks, horseback riding, mountain climbing, beaches…" He shrugged. "Mr. Aregeni tries to keep his employees happy."
"Holy cow," she whispered. She took a deep breath, then said, "I almost hate to ask this, but…what am I supposed to do for seventy thousand dollars a year, plus perks?"
He handed her another form on a clipboard, leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, looked at her seriously, then said, "We want to hire you, Angie, but we need a guarantee that you won't discuss anything you've found out about the Aregeni Foundation with anyone, under any circumstances. This is a nondisclosure statement that discusses the legal ramifications should you ever discuss the top-secret business of the foundation with anyone, either as our employee or not."
She shrugged, read the form, and signed it.
"Good." He put it with her growing pile of paperwork. Then he leaned back and pointed at the heavy three-ring binder on top of his desk, and waved it toward her. It floated off of the desktop and into her lap. Her eyes got round, but she didn't shriek or panic.
Instead, she looked at him with a glowing smile.
"We're raising wizards," he said. "Not even our lawyers know the actual form and function of our business. The lawyers believe we are a philanthropic organization formed to give homes and futures to unwed mothers and their children." He smiled. "We are nothing that dull or that mundane."
She watched him, a hawk-still intensity in the dark eyes. "I've known of very few genuinely stupid lawyers, Dr. Lytton-Smythe. If they think you're running homes for unwed mothers, then I'm willing to bet that what you're doing at least looks like that on the surface."
"Good girl," he said. "It does indeed. We are not just training up a generation of talented young women. We are breeding children with magic in mind. I'm one of the first children born of the program, back when Mr. Aregeni started his foundation. That was more than forty years ago. I have a great deal of talent, but the
children who are being born today, with genetically enhanced magical abilities, are astonishing. If you join the Aregeni Foundation, you will have to have a child to maintain your salary past the first year. Your salary will increase by fifty percent with every subsequent child."
"I have the feeling that I won't get to pick my husband, if this is a selective breeding operation."
"You won't have a husband. We acquire sperm for our sperm banks from proven wizards. There aren't many, but more now than there were a few years ago." He kept himself professional and cool as he discussed the details with her. If he ever lost them, this was where he did it. "We artificially inseminate, and maintain very careful prenatal and postnatal care of mothers and infants. Once the babies are born, the mothers have complete say in how involved they are in their upbringing. We have some women who have a child every other year—which is our absolute maximum, incidentally—leave the babies with our nannies, and spend the majority of their time in universities or skiing in our facility in Gstaad. We have other mothers who spend all the time that their children aren't in school with them."
She nodded, looked down at her hands, studied them thoughtfully. Her eyes met his with a directness that surprised him. "And if I had one child and never had another, my value to the Aregeni Foundation would seem to deteriorate almost to nothing."
"Remember, Angie, our women aren't just breeders of babies. They're trained to be wizards in their own right. While few of them have the potential of their offspring, because they weren't selectively bred, none of them join us if they aren't at least trainable to a degree will make them full-fledged wizards."
"But having the babies is the job."
"It's what we're paying for. However, you might be interested to know that out of a current population of one-hundred seventy-nine young women in the active phase of the program, we have some very successful artists in the foundation, one famous rock musician, published authors including one who regularly hits the Times list, geneticists who have expanded into our R and D program, and a number of other professionals in challenging fields. The work that they do outside belongs solely to them, as does any additional money they earn. If you have something that you want to do or want to be, you can get the education you need to achieve your goals through us. You can get the time you need. You will have no worries."
Marion Zimmer Bradley & Holly Lisle - [Glenraven 02] Page 20