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office due to his blindness, the aging chief and his male kin commenced crash-course schooling in the duties, privileges and responsibilities of a chief and a
tahneestos
with Tim and Behrl, the two remaining. boy-children of Lady Mahrnee and Hwahltuh. More and more frequently, this training fell to the uncles and older cousins of the boys, for the health of the chief was failing. Nor was this failing remarkable to any, for Hwahltuh had counted more than threescore years when his first child was born.
    But the old chief gradually fell more and more under the sway of Mehleena, for only the potions brewed by her and her cousin, Neeka, served to relieve the unbearable headaches which had taken to plaguing him. These potions cast him into a deep and lengthy slumber, and for days after his eventual wakening, he was meek and biddable as a child, seemingly incapable of formulating his own opinions or of making his own decisions, bowing to Mehleena’s will in every particular. And that weakness was Tim’s downfall.

Chapter IV
    “I saw them myself, Hwahltuh!” Mehleena’s dark eyes were wide with horror and her voice strident with emotion; her soft, beringed hands were clasped tightly at her heaving bosom. “Tim and Giliahna, in her chamber, on her very bed!
Clipping
, they were, Hwahltuh, and…” Her voice sank to a horrified whisper. “And
kissing!”
    The bearded, white-haired man looked up from the arrows he had been fletching for his short, powerful bow. His bushy brows bunched and merriment shone from his light-blue eyes. “Well, Sacred Sun be praised for that much, wife. Or would it more please you to see them trading daggerthrusts or seeking to poison each other, as is the wont of siblings in some noble houses? I’d hate to go to Wind leaving the makings of a battle royal within my own house.”
    “But, Hwahltuh,
no
.” She bent closer. “It… it was not as brother with sister, Hwahltuh,
it was as man with woman
, they were! Embraced, kissing, their hands…
their hands
, husband, moving under each other’s clothing
in private places!”
    Mehleena moved back, expecting violent rage. But her husband just straightened a bit on his chair, shook his head slowly and chuckled.
    “Sweet Jesus save us!” burst out the stupified Ehleen woman. “Don’t you understand me, Hwahltuh? Your depraved son is about to have his incestuous way with his own blood sister, your daughter! You must do something to stop this nastiness or send him away until she be safely wed.”
    “Send my heir away? Nonsense,” grunted the old chief, then voiced another throaty chuckle. “He’s a Sanderz, right enough, shows good taste in womanflesh. Randy young colt, he is, as I was, and for all she’s only thirteen, Giliahna is a handsome filly and no mistake.”
    Mehleena’s earlier horror was magnified by his attitude. Hastily, she crossed herself to ward off evil and clutched her jeweled cross for comfort and strength.
    “Hwahltuh, Hwahlruh, he will take her flower. Then how win you find a decent husband for her? And… and everyone knows that if a child be gotten in incest, it always is either born dead or born an idiot. Have you thought on that?”
    “Hogwash!” the old man snorted derisively, casting down his arrow and split quills. “Ehleen hogwash, woman! Do I look like the spawn of idiots,
eh!
My great-grandfather married his sister and got my grandfather on her. If Tim wants Giliahna to wife, he’ll have her with my blessing and that of the clan. What better bloodline could he choose for breeding chiefs and warriors? And if his dalliances quicken her, he’ll have her to wife, like it or not. As for her maidenhead,
pah
, it’s of no importance. She’s a comely chit, wellborn and well-dowered, and there’ll be no lack of noble suitors, wife, believe me.”
    He picked up the arrow again, adding, “Mehleena, love, this is not your father’s hall. We are Kindred, here, not Ehleenee, and you must always remember that our ways,