“So I noticed,” Aton said, appraising her figure.

She put her hands in front of her, unconsciously defensive. “I’m not that kind of slave, and I wouldn’t care to be judged on such terms.”

“Forgive me,” Aton said contritely, “for being male. I value you very much on whatever terms you consider to be applicable. But surely you sometimes have trouble with men in lonely places like this?”

“Sometimes,” she admitted. “But we are trained to protect ourselves.”

Aton thought of some of the tricks he knew. “Even against spacemen?”

“Especially against spacemen.”

He laughed. “My pride will not let me believe that, but I like you very well as you are.” She laughed with him, and he felt a warm glow. But the Malice image hovered in the background, undead.

He banished that thought. “You are surprisingly strong for a woman, Coquina. Where are you from?”

“I shouldn’t tell you...”

Suddenly she didn’t need to. “Hvee,” he exclaimed. “They don’t grow women like you anywhere else in the galaxy. Only on my home world.” With this discovery his interest in her blossomed. His interest was no longer idle—if idle it had been. “Name your Family.”

“Please don’t.”

Aton snapped his fingers. “Four?” he demanded, and she had to nod. “I should have known. Aurelius’ judgment was always impeccable. He swore he had arranged the finest match—and he had, oh, he certainly had. I would have loved you.”

Her expression did not change, but he sensed the hurt in her immediately. “I was speaking of the past,” he said lamely, but the damage had been done. “It was the song, the broken song. It was driving me, and I could not turn aside. Now I am suspended, a fish on a hook: I can only acknowledge what might have been.”

“You have mentioned this before.”

Yes, of course—I have been telling her everything, not knowing to whom I spoke. Not knowing!

“How did you come here?” he asked, trying to hide his embarrassment.

“I never saw the man I was to marry, or knew his name,” she said, almost inaudibly. “But I—I hated him, when he brought the shame upon my Family. To be refused sight unseen...and the Families would not annul the liaison. I couldn’t stay.”

Aton tried to take her hands, but she eluded him. “I did not know. ‘Third daughter of Eldest Four’—it was only a designation, not a person.”

“Slaves, too, have pasts,” she said. “But they do not matter.”

“But you must have known. We were not thrown together by coincidence.”

“No. You were my assignment. Your face and your name were not familiar. Until you talked about your past, and I began to understand. The Families could not introduce us formally—”