She followed my thoughts and shook her head. She said wryly, “I have never had any wish to marry, nor met any man who would tempt me to leave the Tower. Why should I bear a double burden? Janna of Arilinn—she was your Keeper, was she not?—left her post and bore two sons, then fostered them away, and came back to her work. But I have served my Domain well; I have sisters, Linnell will soon be married, even Merryl, I suppose, will some day find a woman who will have him. There is no need…” but she sighed, almost in despair. “I might marry if there was another who could take my place— but not Beltran. Merciful Avarra, not Beltran!”
“He’s not a monster, Callina,” I said. “He’s very like me, as a matter of fact.”
She turned on me with wild anger, and her voice caught in her throat. “So you’d have me marry him too? A man who would bring an army against Thendara, and blackmail my kinsmen into giving him the most powerful woman in the Council for his own purposes? Damn you! Do you think I am a thing, a horse to be sold in the market, a shawl to be bartered for?” She stopped, bit her lip against a sob, and I stared at her; she had seemed so cold, remote, dispassionate, more like a mechanical doll than a woman; and now she was all afire with passion, like a struck harp still vibrating. For the first time I knew it; Callina was a woman, and she was beautiful. She had never seemed real to me, before this; she had only been a Keeper, distant, untouchable. Now I saw the woman, trapped and frantic behind that barricade, reaching out— reaching out to me.
She dropped her face into her hands and wept. She said, through her tears, “They have put it to me that if I do not marry Beltran it will plunge the Domains into war!”
I could not stop myself; I reached out, drew her into my arms.
“You shall notmarry Beltran,” I said, raging. “I will kill him first, kinswoman!” And then, as I held her against me I knew what had happened to us both. It was not as kinswoman that I had vowed to shelter and protect her. It went deeper than that; it went back to the time when she had been the only woman in the Comyn who understood my rebellion against my father, to the time when she had fought to save Marjorie’s life and had shared my agony and despair. She was Tower-trained, she was a memory of the one good time in my entire life, she was home and Arilinn and a time when I had been happy and real and felt my life worthy; a time when I had not been damned.
I held her, trembling with fright, against me; clumsily, I touched her wet eyes. There was something else, some deeper, more terrible fear behind her.
I murmured, “Can’t Ashara protect you? She is Keeper of the Comyn. Surely she would not let you be taken from her like this.”
We were deeply in rapport now; I felt her rage, her dread, her outraged pride. Now there was terror. She whispered, her voice only a thread, as if she feared that she would be heard, “Oh, Lew, you don’t know—I am afraid of Ashara, so afraid… I would rather marry Beltran, I would even marry him to be free of her…” and her voice broke and strangled. She clung to me in terror and despair, and I held her close.
“Don’t be afraid,” I whispered, and felt the shaking tenderness I had thought I would never know again. Burned and ravaged as I was, scarred, mutilated, too deeply haunted by despair to lift my one remaining hand to save myself—still, I felt I would fight to the death, fight like a trapped animal, to save Callina from that fate.
… still there was something between us. I dared not kiss her; was it only that she was still Keeper and the old taboo held me? But I held her head against my breast, stroking her dark hair, and I knew I was no longer rootless, alone, without kin or friends. Now there was some reason behind my desperate holding on. Now there was Callina, and I promised myself, with every scrap of will remaining to me, that for her sake I would fight to the end.
CHAPTER SEVEN
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There’s only one good thing about Council season,” said Regis sleepily, “I get to see you now and then.”
Danilo, barefoot and half-dressed at the window, grinned back at him. “Come now, is that the spirit in which to face the final day of Council?”
Regis groaned and sat up. “I suppose you had to remind me. Shall I send for breakfast?”
Danilo shook his head, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “I can’t stay; Lord Dyan asked me to dine with him last night, he even said I could bring you if I wished; but I told him I’d be engaged elsewhere.” He smiled at his friend. “So he said breakfast would do. I suppose, too, that I’ll have to wear Council robes.” He made a wry face. “Without disrespect to our worthy forefathers, did you ever see any robes as ugly as full Council ceremonial dress? I am sure the cut and fashion have not changed since the days of Stephen the Fourth!”
Regis chuckled, swinging his feet out of bed. “Longer than that, surely—I am certain they were designed by Zandru’s great-grandmother.”
“And she made him wear them as punishment when he was more wicked than usual,” laughed Danilo. “Or do you suppose they were designed by cristoforos, so that while we sit at Council we will be doing suitable penance for our sins?”
“Sitting in Council is penance enough,” said Regis glumly.
“And the Ardais colors—gray and black, how dismal! Do you suppose that is why Dyan is so morose—the result of wearing black and silver in Council for so many years? If I were no more than your paxman, at least I could wear blue and silver!”
“We shall have to design you a special robe for your divided loyalties,” said Regis, mock-serious. “Patchwork of black and blue. Suitable enough, I suppose, for anyone who comes under Dyan’s influence—like my ribs when he was my arms-master!” After all these years, Regis could make a joke of it. But Danilo frowned.
“He spoke again of my marriage, a day or two ago. It seems his nedestroson is three years old, and looks healthy, and likely to live to grow up; he wants me to foster the boy, he said. He has neither time nor inclination to bring him up himself—and to do this I must have a household and wife. He said that he understood why I was reluctant—”
“He should, after all,” said Regis dryly.
“Nevertheless, he said it was my duty, and he would take care to find me a wife who would not trouble me too much.”
“Grandfather speaks in the same vein—”
“I think,” Danilo said, “that I shall take one who will find herself a devoted Lady-companion; and after I have given her a child or two to raise, she will not weep if I absent myself from her bed and fireside. Then we should both be content.”
Regis pulled on tunic and breeches, slid his feet into indoor boots. “I must breakfast with Grandfather; time enough to haul myself into ceremonials later. There seems little sense in attending Council—most of the speeches I will hear today I could say over from memory!”
Danilo sighed. “There are times when I think Lord Dyan— and some others I could mention—would rather see the Ages of Chaos come again than wake up to realities! Regis! Does your grandsire really think the Terrans will go away if we pretend they are not there?”