I said, grimacing, “Don’t tell me Hastur wouldn’t be relieved if Beltran caught up with me—or I broke my neck!”
He looked down at his saddlehorn. Then he said very quietly, “I am Hastur too, Lew. My grandfather and I have had differences before this, and we will have them afterward. But you must believe me: he would not wish you to fall into Kadarin’s hands. That would be true no matter what he felt about you personally. And he bears you no ill will. He was stupid and wrong-headed about Marius, perhaps. But whatever he may have felt, you are Lord Armida, and head of the Alton Domain, and there is nothing he can do about that; and he will accept it with such grace as he must. Your father was his friend.”
I looked away across the hills. Danvan Hastur had never been unkind to me. I took up the reins, and we rode, side by side, for a little while. Mist from the Lake of Hali floated in wisps on our trail, covered Marius’s silent grave, where he lay among the Comyn before him. Their troubles were over; mine lay ahead of me, on the trail. My hand was busy about the reins; I could not let it go to grip at the hilt of my sword, and I felt uneasy, as if somewhere at the back of my mind I could seeKadarin, surrounded by his fanatics, could see Thyra’s strange golden eyes so much like Marjorie’s. Where was Rafe? Had Kadarin seized on him too? Rafe feared Sharra, almost as much as I, but could he stand against Kadarin?
Could I? Would I let them force me back again into those fearful fires? I had not had the courage to die, before— Would I live, craven, in Sharra, without courage to die…?
Gabriel was riding at the head of the Guards, and in the small detachment I noticed he had brought both his sons; the slender, dark, gray-eyed Rafael, like a younger, darker Regis, and sturdy young Gabriel, whose reddish hair made me think of my father. I supposed that sooner or later I would have to adopt one of them as my Heir, since I would father no more sons—
I heard Regis speaking and realized I had drifted very far away.
“Do you know if Marius had a son, Lew?”
“Why, no,” I said. “If he did, he never told me—” But there had been so many things he had never had any time to tell me. He had not been a boy, though Lerrys had called him so; when he died he was twenty, and at that age I had been three years at Arilinn, three years as cadet and officer in the Guard, had sold myself into slavery and fire in Sharra. “I suppose it’s possible. Why?”
“I’m not sure,” Regis said. “But my foster-son, Mikhail— Javanne’s son—told me that his brother Gabriel said something about a rumor going round among the Guards, just before Council. Everybody knew, of course, that the Alton Domain was to be declared forfeit, and—forgive me, Lew— that they wouldn’t hear of Kennard’s younger son taking it, because of his Terran education. But that the Council, or somebody, had found an Alton child, and they were going to declare it Head of the Domain, under Hastur Regency. Something of that sort. You know what sort of rumors get around in the cadet corps; but this seemed more persistent than most.”
I shook my head. “I suppose it’s not impossible Marius could have fathered a son. Or, for that matter, that my father might have left a bastard or two; he didn’t tell me everything about his life. Though, I should think, I would have known—”
“It’s possible that someone might have had his child, from a casual love affair, and not told anyone till he was gone,” Regis said, and I caught the unspoken part of that, that there were women enough who would enjoy the status of bearing a laranchild to Comyn, he should know—
“And,” I finished, “no woman would dare lie about it, not to a telepath, not to Comyn. But I’d think if it were true, your grandfather would have acted before this.”
“I’d think so too,” Regis said, and raised a hand to motion to Gabriel Lanart-Hastur to ride beside us. I think I myself would have questioned the boys, who had passed the rumor around, but perhaps Regis thought it beneath his dignity to interrogate boys in their teens. When Gabriel came riding close to us he said, “Brother-in-law, what’s this tale going about in the cadets about an Alton child?”
“I don’t know anything about it, Regis. Rafael said something, and the way I heard it, it was some bastard son of my own,” said Gabriel good-humoredly, while I found myself thinking: if I had a sharp-tongued wife like the lady Javanne, I would make damned sure she never found out anything about any bastard child I had fathered! Gabriel’s smile was rueful. “I could assure my son that it was none of mine, but there are other Alton kinsmen in the Domains. No doubt, if there’s anything to it, whoever’s backing him will bring the child forward when Council meets again.” His eyes apologized to me as he said, “You’re not all that popular anymore, Lew. The Guardsmen would follow you to hell—they still talk about how good an officer you were—but that’s a long way from being Warden of Alton.”
And for a moment I was heartily sick of the whole business. It occurred to me that the best thing to do, when I reached Thendara, was to come to some understanding with Gabriel about the Domain, then find a ship and take passage out, away from Darkover and Sharra and all of it… but I thought of Armida, far in the Kilghard Hills, and my homeland there. And I remembered, like a pain gripping me in the vitals.
Kadarin had the Sharra matrix. Twice I had tried to leave it behind, on another planet. Twice I had been drawn back to it… I was slave and exile for Sharra and it would never let me go, and somehow I must fight it and destroy it…fight Kadarin, too, if need be, and all his wild-eyed madman and followers—
Fight them? Alone? As soon face, with my single ceremonial sword, and my one hand, all of Beltran’s armies… and I was no legendary Comyn hero, armed with a magical spell-sword out of legend!
I twisted my head, looking back toward the Lake of Hali and the low, gleaming chapel on the shore. I could feel Regis and Gabriel thinking that I was saying farewell to the last resting place of my brother. But instead I was wondering if, in all the history of the Comyn, there was a weapon against Sharra.
Ashara must know. And if she knew, perhaps, my kinswoman Callina would know.
I said, “Gabriel, Regis, excuse me, I must go and speak to Linnell. She loved Marius and she is crying again.” I rode forward, feeling the prickling again in my back as if I were being watched, and I knew, that from somewhere, whether with some small band of ruffians or through the matrix, Kadarin was watching me… but because Regis and Dyan had brought a detachment of the Guard, with swordsmen, he would not, quite, dare attack us now.
He had access to Terran weapons. Marius had died with a bullet through his head. But even so, he could not face a whole detachment of Guardsmen… so for the moment I was safe.
Maybe.
Disregarding the pricking of warning, I rode forward to speak to Linnell, to try to comfort my foster-sister.
Linnell’s eyes were red and her face blotched, but she had begun to look peaceful again. She tried to smile at me.
“How your head must ache, Lew—it’s a bad cut, isn’t it? Jeff told me he put ten stitches in it. You should be in bed.”
“I’ll manage, little sister,” I said, using the word bredillaas if she were the child she had been. But Linnell must be two or three and twenty now, a tall poised young woman, with soft brown hair and blue eyes. I supposed she was pretty; but in every man’s life there are two or three women—his mother, his sisters—who simply don’t register on his mind as women. Linnell was, always, no more to me than my little sister. Before her big, sympathetic eyes, I wished suddenly that I could tell her about Dio. But I would not burden her with that dreadful story; she was still sick with grief about Marius.