touch me."

His arm was like stone, supporting her along the road to Dolfya's
outskirts where her father's mansion lay. After a few minutes he dropped
the rope that held Dawvys. "Damn," he said loudly, "he will get away!"
and bent to retrieve it. Dawvys leaped off like a pinched frog, and Rack
said grimly, "No use to chase that one, he can sprint faster than a
dozen hulks like me."

"You let him go," said Nirea.

He turned his blue eye on her. "That is as you see fit to believe,
Lady."

She would turn him over to her father's huntsman, she thought. Or would
she? He'd saved her ... was this gratitude in her mind? It was a foreign
emotion. Wait and see, she told herself; don't fret now. She was very
tired.

They came to the house of Ewyo, a sprawling erection of field stone and
ancient brick dug from distant ruins of another time. No one could make
bricks like that now. She touched the gate in the wall and instantly a
dozen hounds, gaunt and savage, came leaping from the lawns. Recognizing
her, they fawned, and she opened the gate. "Come in," she said. He
grunted and obeyed, eyeing the dogs.

In the library of the house, which contained more than twenty priceless
books allowed her ancestors by the gods, she met her father, the squire
Ewyo. He scowled up at Rack.

"You bring this rucker, this miner, into the library, Nirea?"

Not a word of greeting, she thought, not a single expression of relief
at her safety. For the first time she began to contrast the manners of
the gentry with those of Revel. He was rough, true, and crude and
inclined to glory in his animal strength, and he had made love to her,
to boot; but if he had found her after thinking her dead, by the Orbs!
he wouldn't have snarled out something about an unimportant convention!

"The man saved me at great risk, and killed his own brother doing it,"
she said coldly. She would not mention Dawvys at all. Not now! "He
deserves a reward, Ewyo, and not harsh words from you."

* * * * *

He slapped his high sleek boots with a hunting crop. He was a burly,
beefy-looking man, nothing like the lean tough Mink. She felt a sense of
revulsion. She turned to Rack and stared at the big face, scarred by
whipping branches, firm and fearless, as hard as the heart of a
mountain. "Go home and get some sleep, Rack," she said kindly. "You'll
hear from me later."

"I have no home, Lady," he answered. "The gods destroyed our part of the
t