Gabriel laid his hand on Merryl’s arm and spoke to him, in a low, urgent voice. Despite the telepathic dampers, I had no trouble in following the general import of what Gabriel said: that if Merryl didn’t sit down and shut up, he would have him carried out by force. Teeth clenched, Merryl glanced at Dyan Ardais, as if for support, then at Prince Derik.
Derik said uneasily, “Come, come, Merryl, that’s no way to talk before ladies. We’ll discuss it later, my dear fellow. Let’s have peace and quiet here, by all means.”
Merryl sank into a seat, glowering.
Callina said quietly, “As for this marriage, I think everyone here knows that it is not marriage which is being discussed. It is power, my lords, power in the Comyn. Why should we not call things by their right names? The question before us, and I think my brother knows it as well as I do, is this: do we want to put that kind of power within Comyn in the hands of the Aldarans? I think not. And there sits one who can attest to the truth of what I say. Would you like to tell them, DomLewis, why it would be—unwise—to put that much power in the hands of Aldaran, or to trust him with it.”
I felt my forehead breaking out in cold sweat. I knew I should explain myself, calmly and quietly, how at one time I had trusted Beltran, and how I had been—betrayed. Now I must speak calmly, without undue emotion.
Yet, to drag it all out here, in Council, before all those kinsmen who had tried to deny me my very place in this room… I could not. My voice failed me, I felt it strangle in my throat, and knew if I spoke aloud I would crack completely. My father’s voice, the ravening flames of Sharra, the continuous unrhythmic waves of the telepathic jangle—my head was pandemonium. Yet Callina was standing there, waiting for me to speak, and I opened my mouth, trying to force myself to find words. I heard only a raw meaningless croak. I finally managed to say, “You—know. You were there at Arilinn—”
And I cringed before the pity in her eyes. She said, “I was there when Lew came to Arilinn with his wife, after they both risked their lives to break the link with Sharra.”
“Sharra is not relevant here,” said Dyan harshly. “The link was broken and the matrix controlled again. We are talking now of Beltran of Aldaran. And he, too, has a strong interest in seeing that nothing like that ever happens again. As for Lew—” his eyes turned on me. “I am sorry to say this, kinsman, but those who meddle with forces as strong as Sharra should not complain if they are—hurt. I cannot but think that Lew brought his trouble upon himself, and he has had his lesson—as Beltran has had his.”
I bent my head. Perhaps he was right, but that made it no easier. I had learned to live with what had happened, after a fashion. That did not mean I was willing to hear Dyan lecture me about it.
Regis Hastur rose to his feet within the Hastur enclosure. He said, not looking at me, “I cannot see that Lew was so much to blame. But whether or nor, I do not think we can trust Beltran. It was Beltran’s doing, and Kadarin’s. And Lew was Beltran’s kinsman, his guest and under the safeguard of hospitality. He imprisoned him; he imprisoned me; he kidnapped Danilo and attempted to force him to use his laranfor the Sharra circle. And if Beltran did thisto a kinsman—” he turned and gestured, with what seemed mute apology for turning all eyes to me—“how could anyone trust him?”
I could read the horror in the eyes turned on me; even through the telepathic damper their horror surged into my mind, the shock and horror… the scars on my face, the arm ending abruptly at the wrist, the horror that had surged into my mind from Dio when she saw in my mind the horror that had been our child… Merciful Avarra, was there no end to this agony? I dropped my forehead on my arms, hiding my face, hiding my mutilated arm. Marius laid his hand on my shoulder; I hardly felt it there.
Danilo’s voice, shaken with emotion, took up the tale where Regis had left off.
“It was Beltran’s doing; he had Lew tied and beaten. He stripped him of his matrix. All of you Comyn who have been in a Tower know what that means! And why? Because Lew begged him to use caution with Sharra, to turn it over to one of our own Towers and see if a safe way could be found for its harnessing! And look at Lew’s face! This—this torturer is the man you want to invite courteously into Comyn, to marry the head of a Domain and Ashara’s Keeper?”
Dyan’s voice lashed. “I did not give you leave to speak!”
Danilo turned to him. He was very pale. “My Lord, with all respect, I am testifying only to the truth of what I witnessed with my own eyes. And it is relevant to what is being discussed in the Comyn. I have Council-right; am I to sit silent?”
Hastur said, his displeasure evident in his voice, “It seems this is the day for all the unruly younger members of the Domains to speak in Council without leave of their elders!” His eyes rested on Merryl, on Danilo, then on Regis, and the younger man drew a deep breath.
“By your leave, sir, I can only repeat what my paxman said: I am testifying to what I myself saw and witnessed. When we see our elders and—and our betters, about to take a step which they could not honorably take if all the facts were known to them, then, for the—” again he hesitated, almost stammering—“for the honor of the Comyn, we must bring it to the light. Or are we to believe, sir, that the Comyn consider it of no importance that Beltran was capable of betraying, and torturing, a kinsman?” The words were impeccably courteous, and the tone; but his eyes were blazing.
“All this,” said Dyan, “took place a long time ago.”
“Still,” said Regis, “before we bring Beltran of Aldaran into Comyn itself—whether by marriage-right or any other way—should we not first assure ourselves that he has come to think otherwise about what has happened?” And then he said what I knew I should have said myself. “In the names of all the Gods, do we want the kind of thing that happened in Caer Donn to happen in Thendara? Do we want—Sharra?”
Lerrys Ridenow came down to the center of the dais. I had not seen him since shortly after my marriage to Dio; but he had not changed: slender, elegant, dressed now in Darkovan clothing, the green and gold of the Ridenow Domain, but exhibiting the same foppish grace as he had had in the clothing he had worn on the pleasure world.
He said, “Are you going to raise the bogey of Sharra again? We all know the link was broken and the matrix controlled again. The Sharra matrix is no trouble to anyone now—or rather,” he said, raising his head and cocking it a little to one side with a calculating glance at me, “it may be very grave trouble to Lew Alton, but he asked, after all, for his trouble.”
How could he have known that? Dio must have told him! How could she… how could she have betrayed to him what was so personal to me? And what else had she told him, what else had she betrayed? I had trusted her implicitly— My hand clenched and I bit back a rising surge of nausea. I did not want to believe that Dio could have betrayed me this way.
But next to me, Marius rose to his feet. I was startled, almost turned to him to remind him sharply that he had no voice here—then I remembered. He was one of the official claimants for the Alton Domain; they could no longer refuse to acknowledge his existence.
He said, and his voice was only a shred of sound. “That’s not true, DomLerrys. The matrix is—is active again. Lord Regis, tell that what you saw… in my father’s house, not three days ago.”
“It’s true,” Regis said, and he was very pale. “The Sharra matrix is alive again. But I did not know, at that time, that Lew Alton had returned to Darkover. I think he must have brought it back with him.”
I had had no choice, but there was no way I could tell them that. While Regis spoke, I listened, transfixed with horror. I clutched at Marius’s sleeve and said, “Rafe. He is in Thendara—”
But I hardly heard Marius’s reply.
Rafe was in Thendara.
That meant Kadarin and Thyra were—somewhere.