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will do well together as shall we but we need no more
worry about them. I am of rtath Ilyei of Vadath, the second rtath
to bond with humans. We go away now and find someplace quiet.”
    This was easier
said than done. Peter’s fellow instructors were clustering around
them, offering their congratulations. It was some time before he
and Sarya could escape and by that time Tana and Tavei were long
gone.
    Tana and Tavei
spent their first long summer night together in an empty stable
which usually held the Garda’s horse-cavalry mounts, the unit was
off on patrol and the remaining horses temporarily emptied into the
nearby paddocks. The nights were not as warm as they would be later
on and there was no way the Lind could fit into the barracks’ rooms
with their narrow-tiered bunks. There was nothing to be gained by
sending the new paired off to the Stronghold with a plethora of
head colds and chills. The Lind were largely impervious to the
cold, their human partners were not.
    It was warm in
the stable block and snuggled into Tavei’s side Tana began to fall
into a joyful sleep. She had been chosen by a Lind! She was going
to Vadath, her dream had come true; she was to become a full-time
soldier!
    : A small
soldier : Tavei teased.
    : Good
things come in small bundles : Tana retorted in the same vein,
nestling into his warmth . : This is what I’ve always dreamed of
but never thought would happen. I was just one of the temporary
students and the smallest one at that. How many have paired?
:
    : Thirty-one
: Tavei replied : a fair number :
    : What about
those who didn’t? :
    : We come here
first, the unattached now go out in search :
    : But we go
to Vada : answered Tana with satisfaction : tell me about it
:
    Tired out, Tana
fell asleep before Tavei could.
    A few days
later the new pairs set out for the Vada Stronghold.
    No longer for
Peter Littleman the solitary life of the unmarried soldier, he left
the Garda, a soldier still but now with a lifelong partner; only
death would separate them.
    The serious
little Tana went with them, perched atop Tavei like a little vuz,
her feet barely reaching round the barrel of his torso and clinging
on to the riding straps like grim death. Horse riding was not
taught until the second term.

     
    * * * * *
     
     
    The fourth
member of the quartet had never in a million years thought she
would get the chance.
    When, as an old
woman, Hannah Knutson looked back on her eventful life she always
thought of her childhood as a happy time. She had had the normal
upbringing of her class on her parent’s large kura farm north of
Loch Stewart, the largest expanse of inland water in the Northern
Continent.
    Her first
fourteen years were uneventful; the farm was too far from the coast
to be bothered by the pirate raids that so troubled the inhabitants
of the coasts.
    She and her
siblings had run wild in the paddocks and nearby woods. That had
had to stop when the peripatetic teachers came, trying to install
some semblance of an education into their young minds and there
were chores to be done, but in a large family like hers, these were
never very onerous nor time-consuming.
    At the time
this story opens Hannah had just celebrated her fourteenth
birthday. She was a tall, rather overweight youngster with a mass
of dark curls that, try as she might, she could never get to lie
straight. Only her next oldest sister remained at home by the
summer of AL156, a lively and determined young lady of fifteen who
led Hannah a fine dance at every opportunity. If there was trouble
at the farm, Lucy was in it up to her armpits and she usually
dragged Hannah into the mess as well.
    Their elder
sisters were all married with homes of their own now and did not
often visit. Travelling, unless one was rich and could afford a
comfortably sprung coach, was a lengthy and uncomfortable business.
They had been able to keep Lucy from her greatest excesses but,
with them gone, she went her own way.
    All the
mischievous Lucy wanted