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arranged than any other week in the year.
    “Have you any specific candidates in mind, Father?”
    “There are several possibilities; you know that. I hope you also understand that I’ll make no commitments at this early date. Still, we must begin to study some of the possibilities more closely.”
    Alexand nodded, again feeling that curious sense of isolation. It was unlikely that any definite commitment would be made before he reached Age of Rights. There would be tentative explorations, and the promise of a union with DeKoven Woolf would be useful as a bargaining lever. But Age of Rights was a comfortable five years in the future.
    “Father, why haven’t you and Mother had more children?”
    He was a little surprised at the question himself: it seemed to come without conscious thought. Woolf’s surprise was obvious, and it was more than surprise. Alexand saw him go pale.
    “I suppose it’s because Elise found it difficult to face having more children after . . . after Rich . . .”
    “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.” The grief always waited; it crouched in ambush to spring at unexpected moments. He forced it back—he’d become adept at that—and brought out a smile. “Am I correct in assuming I’m to meet a potential bride?”
    “Yes.”
    “What House? Desmon Fallor?”
    “No, although Julia Fallor is still a possibility. You’ve met Julia.” It was a question, even if it had no questioning inflection.
    “Yes. She’s . . . very attractive.” The adjective was bitterly apt for the daughters of the Court of Lords. That was their function: to
attract
mutually profitable political and economic unions. “And Fallor
is
a Directorate House.” This wasn’t the time to comment further on Julia herself.
    “Yes, but that isn’t a prerequisite, although it might be desirable.”
    “You’re considering a non-Directorate House?”
    “Yes. Camine Eliseer.”
    Alexand frowned. The Lord of Castor must be a rising power indeed if Phillip Woolf was considering an alliance by marriage with his first born. Camine Eliseer was a young House, established after the Fall of the Peladeen Republic. Not a likely candidate for a union with DeKoven Woolf.
    He turned to his father. “Is it a controlling influence in the Centauri System that attracts you?”
    “That and keeping Orin Selasis
out
of Centauri.”
    Selasis. It was all but inevitable that Selasis would have a bearing even on this.
    The House of Badir Selasis had held all extraplanetary transport franchises for eight generations and a seat on the Directorate for six, and, through all those generations, a bitter antagonism existed with DeKoven Woolf and Daro Galinin at one pole, Badir Selasis at the other, and the prize of the Chairmanship of the Directorate always in the middle.
    And Alexand wondered for how many generations the name of Selasis had been universally evocative of fear and even loathing. Certainly it was true of this generation.
    He couldn’t think of Lord Orin Selasis without remembering the black eyepatch; it seemed to sum up the man somehow. He had lost his left eye in his youth in a point of honor duel with Kiron Woolf, Alexand’s grandfather. What was revealing was that the patch wasn’t necessary; an artificial eye would make the loss unnoticeable. But Orin Selasis chose to wear the patch, and for him it was a symbol of a pledge of retribution. That Kiron Woolf was twenty years dead now didn’t diminish his fierce resolve. Only the downfall of the House of Woolf itself would satisfy that pledge.
    “Then Selasis is trying for a foothold in Centauri?”
    Woolf laughed caustically. “ ‘Stranglehold’ would be more apt, and the Selasids have been working at that since the Fall of the Republic.”
    “He already has something of a stranglehold over D’Ord Hamid.”
    “Yes, but Hamid can no longer claim to be the most powerful House in Centauri. Lazar isn’t the man his father was.”
    Alexand restrained a smile. That was an