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marry Cala?” she gulped.
    He did not even have to consider his reply. “Na. I am not going to marry Cala.” Then he added slowly, “Did you really ask the Old Woman if we would be allowed to marry?”
    Nel finally lifted her face from Nigak’s fur. “She said the blood tie is not within the forbidden closeness, but then she said something else that was very strange, Ronan. She said that, even so, the Mistress would never allow us to wed.”
    “Did she?”
    Nel watched his expression. “I don’t understand,” she said. “If the blood tie is acceptable, why should Fali think the Mistress would be opposed to a marriage between you and me?”
    “Didn’t Fali tell you?”
    “She said that I am the one next in line to follow Morna, that it would be dangerous because of that. But I still do not understand.”
    His dark eyes glittered. “Did she say ‘dangerous’?”
    “Sa.” Nel’s eyes were huge. “What can she mean, Ronan?”
    Ronan scooped up a handful of the small stones upon which they were sitting and began to toss them, one after the other, into the water. “Neihle thinks the Mistress is afraid that I will prove a threat to Morna’s leadership of the tribe,” he told her as he tossed the rocks.
    Nel scowled and chewed worriedly on the end of her braid. At last she said, “The Mistress is afraid the men of the tribe may desert Morna and follow you?”
    A small silvery stone arched high, then fell into the water with a splash. “So Neihle seems to think.”
    Nel continued to chew on her braid. “When I asked Fali what we had done to make a marriage between us impossible, she said, ‘It is not what you have done. It is what you are.’“
    “Stop that,” Ronan said crossly. “I have told you over and over not to chew on your hair.”
    Nel dropped her braid. “You are Arika’s son,” she said. And she fell silent as she contemplated her words.
    “Sa,” Ronan replied at last. “Much as she would like to forget it, I am Arika’s son. And you, Nel, are the granddaughter of Arika’s elder sister. If your mother had not been just a babe when Meli died, your mother would have become the Mistress, not Arika.” Nel began once more to chew worriedly on her braid. “There are some who might say you have more right to be Mistress than Morna, minnow.” He reached out and forcibly removed the hair from her mouth. “I am thinking that is why Arika would consider a marriage between us dangerous.”
    “But I would never want to be Mistress, Ronan!” Nel cried passionately. “It is much too lonely! I want to have a family.” Her face was fierce; her long green eyes glittered. “And I would never never give away my children!” she said. “Not even a boy, not even a twin. Never!”
    Ronan said, his faint amusement tinged with respect, “Dhu, you can look as dangerous as a cave lioness sometimes, Nel.”
    She flashed him a look, but did not reply. They sat in silence for some minutes, each thinking their own thoughts. Then Ronan reached out and gently touched the bruise on her cheek. “I will speak to your father,” he said. “He should be ashamed to allow his wife to so mistreat his daughter.”
    Nel did not agree, “Ronan, you know how afraid Father is of Olma. You will only make him feel bad, and you will accomplish nothing. I can handle my stepmother far better than he can. You are making a fuss over nothing.”
    “That bruise is not ‘nothing.’“
    Nel shrugged. “She didn’t hit me that hard. It is just that my skin marks so easily.”
    He said wearily, “We neither of us have had much luck in our families, have we, Nel?”
    In answer, she leaned her bruised cheek against his shoulder and closed her eyes. His arm slid around her in an accustomed, protective gesture, gathering her to his side. Linked thus, they sat in silence while the sun went down behind their backs.
    * * * *
    This was the first year Ronan would be allowed to take part in one of the most important of the men’s