The man in the yellow tunic said something in his own language, and her eyes narrowed. But she turned to Kerrel and said mildly, "Edri doesn't approve of me."
"I don't think any of us do right now," said Kerrel. "You should have let the man alone."
"Michael doesn't think so—do you, Michael? I didn't tempt him to follow me. That was his idea."
"Well, he followed you," said Edri, and there was a deep anger in his voice.
"But not all the way," murmured Shairn, and smiled into Trehearne's eyes. "Only the first step, Michael. You were annoyed with me when I wouldn't tell you about the Vardda, very much annoyed. So now you're going to find out." She reached up her fingers and drew them slowly across his cheek. "You look like a Vardda, you bear yourself like one, you even think like one. But are you one?"
Kerrel said irritably, "That's impossible, and you know it." He began to speak to Edri and the other men, in that language that Trehearne had never heard before. They seemed disturbed and ill at ease, men beset by a problem to which there was no good solution. Their attitude, and the particular way in which the women looked at him, took away the fine edge of Trehearne's excitement. "They act," he said to Shairn, "as though they're planning where to bury me."
She shrugged. "Oh, they're discussing all sorts of alternatives, but there's only one possible answer." She sat down on the edge of the table, watching him in the catlike way that she had. "Nervous?"
"Cold. The rain was very wet." That was only half the truth, but he was damned if he was going to admit it to her. "And I'm curious. Where do you people come from? What are you doing here? What's all the mystery about?"
"Don't be impatient, Michael. It can't all be told at once." She had been listening intently to what the men were saying, and now she rose again. "I think it's time I took a hand in this. Men always talk in circles."
She joined the group. Trehearne finished off his wine and poured more from a queer stone bottle. It was good, but he couldn't place it on any list of vintages. There was beginning to be a nightmare quality about this culmination of his long search. Everything was too business-like, too solemn—and too insane. He wished they would stop talking about him. He wished somebody would explain to him what was going on out here. The voices went on and on, and suddenly he realized that Shairn had shifted into a language he could understand.