Free Rediscovery by Marion Zimmer Bradley

subject of
    “psychic powers” in front of Commander Britton, she still had the feeling that, on some level, she knew what was happening—and that Elizabeth’s “wizard” theory wasn’t as far off as it sounded.

CHAPTER 6
    The sky was so heavily overcast that it might just as well have been twilight, not some time near midday. The garden paths were muddy, for the rain had been so heavy that it had washed much of the gravel into low spots. The trees sagged under their burden of rain-soaked leaves, and the few flowers that had survived the deluge intact drooped dispiritedly on their battered stems. The rest dripped water from their remaining petals. The garden was full of storm wrack: broken branches, leaves, flower petals.
    Leonie walked slowly through the battered gardens of the Tower, surveying her
    handiwork. The rain had been so very heavy that there were other tasks with higher priority—such as rescuing the fish who had been flooded out of their ornamental pond—
    and the gardeners had not yet gotten around to cleaning up. Even the swing dangled limply by one of its ropes, untouched, unmended.
    Leonie stared at it and felt nothing but despair. Isn’t there anything for an adult to do out here? she couldn’t help but wonder.
    Apparently not; not like the gardens at her own family’s estate, or the Castle at Thendara. There were mazes to solve, fountains to watch, cozy grottoes to curl up in, singly or—not. Nothing of the sort here. Nothing but an orderly little patch of trees and flowers, and not even particularly rare flowers, either. She turned and went back inside, restless and at loose ends.
    She prowled the lower floors of the Tower, finding them strangely silent and
    empty. The Tower might as well have been deserted, for all the company she found. Not even servants.
    She knew how few people truly populated Dalereuth, compared to how many it
    could hold. Was this what those Towers that had been closed were like, so silent, brooding? If she were to walk into one, would she have the same odd feeling of being watched, even though she knew there was no one there?
    After a time she found a deserted room filled with musical instruments. Finally—
    an occupation for adult hands! Leonie took down a rryl of carved and varnished rosewood, running her hands lovingly across the metal strings. After a moment she began to play an old folk ballad, improvising a bridge of notes, followed by a spray of odd harmonies. Playing, her restlessness dissolved, and she entered a kind of waking trance, so that when Fiora entered some hours later, Leonie saw with astonishment that the day was so far advanced that a low-hanging sun pierced the clouds, glowing huge and red. She was startled to see Fiora apparently looking at her intently.
    “I did not know you played so well,” Fiora said, and the admiration in her voice surprised Leonie. She had not thought that anything she could do would impress the Keeper. A pity it was something as minor as music. “Where did you learn?” Fiora asked.
    “I have had music masters since I was very small,” Leonie said, and shrugged. “It was simply a part of my education. I preferred it to tedious embroidery.”
    “Do you know how lucky you are?” asked Fiora, a trace of envy coloring her
    words. “My father was poor, so I had no such teaching till I came here. And when music teaching is delayed until so late in life it can never be learned properly. If I spent all of my waking hours in practice, I should never be as good as you are now, should I live to be a hundred.”
    “I suppose not,” murmured Leonie in surprise. “I never thought about it. I enjoyed learning new songs, but I used to run away from my governess because I did not want to practice. I used to say there was nothing she could make me do if I did not want to do it.”
    Fiora smiled, very faintly. “I can well believe that,” she said.
    Leonie almost laughed, and caught it at the last moment. “But I soon learned