“Maybe I trust people more than you do, sir. I think that if we gave them more education, more knowledge—maybe they’d know what they were fighting and know why you were refusing it.”
“I’ve lived longer than you have,” pointed out the old man dryly, “long enough to know that most people want what’s going to give them the most profit and the least effort, and they won’tthink about the long-range consequences.”
“That’s not always true,” said Regis. “Look at the Compact.”
Hastur said, “That was forced on the people by one singleminded fanatic, when they were already frightened and exhausted by a series of suicidal wars. And it was kept only because the keepers of those old weapons destroyed them before they could be used again, and took the knowledge to their graves. Look how it’s been kept!” His lip curled. “Every now and then someone digs up an old weapon and uses it— or so they say—in self-defense. You’re not old enough to remember the time when the catmen darkened all the lands of the Kilghard Hills, or when some of the forge-folk—I suppose—raised Sharra against some bandits a couple of generations ago. If the weapons are there, people are going to use them, and to hell with the long-range consequences! Your own father was blown to pieces by smuggled contraband weapons from the Terran Zone. So much for the strength of our way of life against the Terrans!”
“I still think that could have been avoided if people had been dully warned against the consequences,” Regis said, “but I’m not saying we must become a Terran colony. Even the Terrans aren’t demanding that.”
“How do you know what they want?”
“I’ve talked with some of them, sir. I know you don’t really approve, but I feel it’s better to know what they’re doing—”
“And as a result,” said his grandfather coldly, “you stand here and defend them to me.”
Regis fought back a surge of exasperation. He said at last, “We were speaking of Derik, Grandfather. If he can’t be crowned, what’s the alternative? Why can’t we just marry him to Linnell and rely on her to keep him within bounds?”
“Linnell’s too good for him,” Danvan Hastur said, “and I hate to see him come any further under the influence of Merryl. I don’t trust that man.”
“Merryl’s a fool and a hothead,” said Regis, “and dangerously undisciplined. But I imagine Lady Callina can help there—if you don’t tie her hands by letting Merry marry her off. I don’t, and won’t, trust the Aldarans. Not with Sharra loose again.”
“I cannot go directly against the heir to the Throne, Regis. If I cause him to lose kihar—” deliberately, Danvan Hastur used the untranslatable Dry-Town word meaning personal integrity, honor, dignity—less and more than any of these, “before the Council. How can he ever rule over them after that?”
“He can’t anyway, Grandfather. Will you let him marry off Callina to save his face before Council? If you have to crown him—and I think perhaps you do—you must let him know beforehe’s crowned that the Council can always veto his decisions, or you’ll have him playing the tyrant over us in all kinds of foolish ways. Callina Lindir is Head of a Domain in her own right, and has been Keeper of Neskaya and Arilinn, and now here under Ashara. What about Callina’sloss of kihar?”
His grandfather scowled; Regis knew, though it was not— quite—telepathy, that Hastur was reluctant to allow Callina also that much Council power.
Not unless he’s sure she’ll support him and his isolationist notions. Otherwise he’ll marry her off just to get her out of the Council!
“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to marry her yourself?”
“Callina?” he asked in horror, “She must be twenty-seven!”
“Hardly senile,” said the old man dryly, “but I was speaking of Linnell. She’s too good for that fool Derik.”
Evanda’s mercy, is the old man harping on that string again? “Sir, Derik and Linnell have been sweethearts since Linnie’s hair was too short to braid! And you’ve encouraged it. She’s the only woman Derik would, perhaps, consent to be ruled by. You’d break both their hearts! Why separate them now?”
“I’d like to be firmly allied to the Aillards—”
“We’re that already, sir, with Linnell handfasted to Derik. But we won’t be if you alienate them by losing face for Callina by marrying her off against her will—and to Aldaran,” Regis said. “And you’re forgetting the most important thing, Grandfather.”
“What’s that?” The old man snorted, getting up and pacing the room restlessly. “All this business about Sharra?”
“Don’t you see what’s happening, Grandfather? Derik did this behind our backs, and Beltran will be here on Festival Night. Which means he’s already on the road, unless he’s patched things up enough with the Terrans to get an aircraft or two, and it’s not very easy to fly through the Hellers.” He remembered someone telling him that they had been, profanely, dubbed worse things than that by the only Terrans to try to fly over them in anything slower and lower than a rocketplane; they were a nightmare of updrafts, down-drafts and wild thermal patterns. “So when he gets here, what do you say? Please, Lord Aldaran, turn around and go home again, we’ve changed our minds!”
Old Hastur grimaced. “Wars have been fought for a lot less than that on Darkover.”
“And the Aldarans haven’t always observed the Compact that well,” Regis pointed out. “Either we have to let him marry Callina—or we have to insult Beltran by saying, maybe in public, ‘Sorry, Lord, Aldaran, the woman won’t have you,’ or by telling him that our Prince and Ruler is a ninny who can’t be entrusted even with the making of a marriage for his paxman! Either way, Beltran will have a grievance! Grandfather, I find it hard to believe you couldn’t have foreseen this day!”
Hastur came and dropped in his carved and gilded presence-chair. He said, “I knew Derik couldn’t be trusted to make any important decision. I said again and again that I didn’t like him going about with Merry! But could I have foreseen that Merryl would have the insolence to speak for the head of his Domain—or that Aldaran would listen?”
“If you had faced the fact that Derik was witless—well, not witless, not a ninny who should be in leading-strings with a he-governess to look after him, but certainly without the practical judgment of a boy of ten, let alone the presumptive Heir to the Throne—” Regis began, then sighed. He said, “Sir, done is done. There’s no point in arguing what we should have done. The question now is, how do we get out of this without a war?”
“I don’t suppose Callina would consent to marry him, just to go through the ceremony as a formality—” Hastur began, but broke off as his servant entered and stood near the door.
“Yes?”
“ DomnaJavanne Lanart-Hastur and her consort, Dom Gabriel.”
Regis went to kiss his sister’s hand and draw her into the room. Javanne Hastur was a tall, handsome woman, well into her thirties now, with the strong Hastur features. She glanced at both of them and said, “Have you been quarreling with Grandfather again, Regis?” She spoke as if reproving him for climbing trees and tearing his best holiday breeches.
“Not quarreling,” he said lightly. “Simply exchanging views on the political situation.”
Gabriel Lanart grimaced and said, “That’s bad enough.”
“And I was reminding my grandson and Heir,” said Dan-van Hastur sharply, “that he is old to be unmarried, and suggesting that we might even marry him to Linnell Aillard-Lindir, if that will convince him to settle down. In Evanda’s name, Regis, what are you waiting for?”
Regis tried to control the anger surging up in him and said, “I am waiting, sir, to meet a woman with whom I can contemplate spending the rest of my life. I’m not refusing to marry—”
“I should hope not,” his grandfather snorted. “It’s—undignified for a man your age, to be still unmarried. I don’t say a word against the Syrtis youngster; he’s a good man, a suitable companion for you. But in the times that are coming, one of the things we don’t need is for anyone to name the Heir to Hastur in contempt as a lover of men!”