Dark-haired, dark-eyed, and pale as marble, slender Laika stares dully at the first course of the elaborate meal.  Greens, feather-tops and broad-leafs, dagger-edges and pale, veined smooth ones, glisten with the piquant salad oil that Cook Ranphalar is so fond of.  She is seated next to a fit, golden man, nice-looking but not extraordinarily so.  His rich tunic bears both a high-ranking shoulder knot in another Hold’s colors and an overdecorated Drummer’s badge.  Though he is in close proximity to Laika-indeed, her right hand is bound to his left with the Handfasting knots-he pays little attention to his new bride.  Instead, he converses pleasantly with the hard-jawed Journeyman Herder Jephos, whose close-set eyes regard Drummer Melles with suspicion.  “A toast!” roars out her father, and everyone is quick to agree with the Lord Holder.  “A toast to my lovely daughter Balalaika, and my new son!  May their wedding bring prosperity to both Holds!” Laika averts her eyes as glasses-real, long-stemmed glasses with gold around the rim, and no pottery mugs-clink together, and flinches as her eldest brother claps her on the back.  “Congratulations, Lai,” Tsynmon whispers in her ear, and goes to sit in the Heir’s place, at the left hand of the Lord, across from her lady mother.  She silently endures the feast, eating gracefully with her left hand if she suspects Lady Morkydise is watching, worried brandy-brown eyes wide beneath the ladylike pencil-curve of dark brows.  Laika looks as if she’d like to leave the feasting, but she is still bound to Melles, so she sits and forces a smile when she is spoken to.  At last, golden Melles is ready to retire, and he rises, dragging Laika and her prisoned arm with him.  They stand regally on the first broad marble step of the Grand Staircase as Harper Journeywoman Nikeara cuts the knot and ends the ceremony.  Emotionlessly, Melles scoops his bride up, her small, wiry frame dwindling to a drape of scarlet and white over his bared arms.  He nods a good night to the Lord Holder, and Nmorwein acknowledges him graciously.  Steadily, Melles’ golden glory vanishes up the long curve of the Staircase.  Laika is as helpless in his arms as a babe, but she is ramrod-straight, and her sharp little chin is set, though her dark eyes are enormous in her pale face.  He makes his way through the Hold Dorms, empty at this hour, and into the Drumtower, his step unerring.  Through the tiny Common Room and down a little to a curtained-off alcove marked as his, he carries her.  Quietly, he dresses for bed, his back turned modestly on a frozen Laika.  Even his bedclothes are opulent, fine linen tailored tightly to his tall frame.  He smiles at her…nods.  “Goodnight, Balalaika,” he bids, and rolls gently into the alcove-style bed, compacting himself politely next to the wall.  Laika peers at him, unsure, turns her back, and begins to make her way out of her Handfasting finery, fingers fumbling with gold frogging and tiny buttons, oval nails picking fretfully at the knots.  At last she stands in a simple undershift, and lays herself unhappily at Melles’ side, pulling the thick quilt up to her shoulders to avoid the sieve-of-a-tower’s drafts.  She lies there, quietly, eyes staring sightlessly at the stonework above her, one hand wound in the gauzy inner curtain.  After a while, she moves again, white against the dark gray the red quilt makes in the diffuse glowlight, to throw off the covers, a hand held disbelievingly a fingerwidth from Melles, feeling the heat radiate off him.  Finally, restlessly, she steals a pillow from his bed, and rises noiselessly, her bare feet as quiet as a cat’s on the rag rug beside the bed.  She makes a rough mattress of her gown and petticoats, and retires to it, dragging a corner of the quilt over herself.  Still musing, she calms her racing thoughts, and the rocky set of Laika’s jaw softens in repose. Laika awakens to a fantastic view of Melles’ profile as he settles his pale blue tunic on broad shoulders.  With eyes still slitted, she looks as though she’s asleep, and Melles smiles pityingly down at the childlike form of his wife before he brushes back the curtain and starts up to the Drumheights.  The days pass without event, without more than that solemn, pitying look from Melles.  He cares for her with dutiful tenderness, and casts no eye on the statuesque charm of the Healer Apprentice, as friendly as he and Ambrollia had been before the Handfasting.  Two months pass thus, and Laika, perhaps from stress, begins to be nauseous at the mere smell of breakfast.  She is thinner than ever, and the Hold whispers, not unkindly, about its ghost of a Holder’s daughter.  Worried, Healer Journeywoman Kalanin tails the slender girl as she ghosts from task to task, trying to discover what secret hangs like a shroud over Laika’s wide eyes. “Laika,” a strong soprano commands, imperiously.  “Balalaika.” She turns, hollow-eyed, to gaze upon the heroic sharpness of feature possessed only by Kalanin.  “Healer,” Laika greets, listlessly, and Kalanin’s brown face is drawn into an uneasy frown.  “Laika,” she beckons, “I need your help in the Infirmary, if you are free.” “I am never free, Healer, but I have little to do.  My hands are yours,” Laika replies, and Kalanin half-frowns again.  They make their way outside, and Laika turns from the brilliant colors and chill wind of the season as if she’s been slapped.  She follows Kalanin regally down the smoothed dirt ramp to the cool underground infirmary, flinching at the growl of the watchwhers on the other side of the wall.  As they enter the Infirmary, Kalanin turns and plants her hands on her hips.  “Laika, girl, you do know what’s happening, don’t you?  What’s wrong with you?  Don’t you like children?” Laika stares, stricken, and sits down abruptly, chest shaking with silent sobs.  Her eyes, when she raises them, are red-rimmed, and the long dark lashes cluster close together with tears.  “I…I…Oh, Kalanin, I’d so hoped it wasn’t so!”  She ducks her head, and hides her face in her hands.  “You see,” she says in a hoarse whisper, “it isn’t Melles’.” Kalanin blinks as she lights a tiny brazier.  “But at this stage, you can’t’ve…not after the wedding…” “No,” chokes Laika, miserably.  “Before.  Without my consent.  That’s why Da handfasted me off so quick-and why Haldar left without bidding anyone goodbye.” She shrugs, and continues brokenly,  “Da was furious, and he thought I needed someone else to protect me-so he found Heir-Second Melles, who so loved to drum, and who wouldn’t dream of being impolite.  He’s so polite, now he’s going to know for sure that the child isn’t his.” Kalanin hastily puts a pot of water and herbs on the brazier, and gingerly embraces the weeping Laika, stroking her short hair with a work-roughened hand.  The Healer watches the pot furtively, and when steam begins to rise from it, she gently wrests free of Laika’s damp misery.  Kalanin offers a mug of the result to Laika without taking any herself.  Wordlessly, Laika accepts it, sipping lightly at first, and then drinking in deep draughts of the ginger-scented tea.  At the last herb-flecked gulp disappears, she sways in her seat. “Lie down,” the Healer commands, voice gentle.  “I have some things I need to take care of.  There’s bound to be a way to help you.” Laika, panting on the bed after her dizzy stagger over to it, blinks muzzily at Kalanin.  “I don’t want to lose the baby,” she slurs, pupils contracting to pinpoints beneath their petal-veined lids.  “It’s not the baby’s fault…don’t take the baby, Healer.” “There will be a way,” Kalanin restates, firmly, and strides purposefully out the door.  ***** “Search,” golden Melles says gravely, patting his wife’s hand as she lays loose-jointed in a tilting chair.  “That’s the only way I know to dissolve the Handfasting without staining the honor of either Hold.  What dragonriders want, they get.  Your sister Anyghari is a rider, right?”  At Laika’s weary nod, he continues.  “The blood runs in the family, and you’ve a good chance at having enough of it to let one of the Searchriders of  Lasair Weyr sniff you out.  Be obvious, be commanding, be assertive, Balalaika.  You’ll come to their attention soon enough.”  He halts and stares down at her, half-pityingly, half-wistfully.  “I’m not agreeing with this because I dislike you, Balalaika.  I know that you aren’t ready to be Handfasted yet, and neither you nor I are in love with the other.  You aren’t hurting my feelings-I hope that I am not hurting yours.”  Melles drops a brotherly kiss on her forehead, and vanishes up into the drumheights.  The scent of roasting meat drifts through one of the unglazed windows, and Laika blanches, rising-still slim-from her chair in haste to trip to the privy.  There is no time in her chaotic little world for any further reflection on this hastily-begotten plan, or Melles’ words.