“I don’t know what my grandfather thinks, but I know what he will say if I do not breakfast with him,” Regis said, fastening his tunic-laces. “And now that I think of it, Council may not be so predictable as all that—it seems we are to have seven Domains again, after all. Did you know Beltran has brought and quartered an army above Thendara?”
“I heard he was calling it an honor-guard,” said Danilo. “I would not have thought, when we were his guests—” he gave the word an ironic inflection,— “at Aldaran, that he had so much honor as all that to guard.”
“I would say, rather, he needs an army to keep what little honor he has from escaping him,” said Regis, remembering the time when he and Danilo had been imprisoned in Castle Aldaran. “Are they really going to accept him in Council, I wonder?”
“I don’t think they have much choice,” said Danilo. “Whatever his reasons, I don’t like it.”
“Then, if you are given a chance to speak in Council you had better say so,” Regis said. “Dyan is expecting you, and Grandfather, no doubt, awaiting me. You had better go.”
“Is this the hospitality of the Hasturs?” Danilo teased. But he gave Regis a quick, hard hug, and went. Regis stood in the door of his room, watching Danilo cross the outer hallway of the suite, and briefly come face to face with Lord Hastur.
Danilo bowed and said cheerfully, “A good morning to you, my lord.”
Danvan Hastur scowled in displeasure, grunting the barest of uncivil greetings; it sounded like “H’rrumph!” He went on without raising his head. Danilo blinked in surprise, but went out the door without speaking. Regis, his mouth tightening with exasperation, went to comb his hair and ask his valet to lay out his ceremonial garb for Council.
Through the window the fog was lifting; high across the valley he could see the Terran HQ, a white skyscraper reddened with the glint of the red sun. His body-servant was fussing with the robes. Regis looked at them in distaste.
I am weary of doing things for no better reason than that the Hasturs have always done them that way, he thought, and the man flinched nervously as if Regis’s uneasy thoughts could reach him. Maybe they could.
He stared morosely at the skyscraper, thinking: if his grandfather had been wise, he should have had the same kind of Terran education as poor Marius. If his grandfather indeed perceived the Terrans as the enemy, all the more so, then— a wise man will take the measure of his enemy, and know his powers.
Regis stopped, the comb halfway to his hair. Suddenly he knew why Danvan Hastur had not done just that.
Grandfather is sure that anyone who had a Terran education would, of necessity, choose the ways of Terra. He does not trust me, or the strength of what I have been taught. Are the Terrans and their ways so attractive, then?
His grandfather, in the little breakfast room, was still scowling as Regis drew up his chair. Regis said a polite good morning and waited until the servant had gone.
“Grandsire, if you cannot be courteous to my sworn man, I will find quarters elsewhere.”
“Do you expect me to approve?” asked the old man in frigid displeasure.
“I expect you to admit I am a grown man with the right to choose my own companions,” Regis said hotly. “If I brought a woman here for the night, and she was any sort of respectable woman, you would show her civility, at least. Danilo is as well born as I—or you yourself, sir! If I spoke like that to one of your friends, you would say I deserved a beating!”
Old Hastur clamped his lips tight, and even a non-telepath could have read his thoughts: that was different.
Regis said angrily, “Grandfather, it is not as if I were carousing in common taverns, disgracing the Hastur name by letting myself be seen in brothels and such places as the Golden Cage, or keeping a perfumed minion as the Dry-towners do—”
“Silence! How dare you speak of such things to me?” Hastur clamped his lips in anger. He gestured to the breakfast table. “Sit down and eat; you will be late for Council.” As Regis hesitated he commanded dryly, “Do as you are told, boy. This is no time for tantrums!”
Regis clenched his fists. The quick wave of anger almost dizzied him. He said icily, “Sir, you have spoken to me as if I were a child for the last time!” He turned and went out of the room, disregarding his grandfather’s shocked “Regis!”
As he walked through the labyrinthine corridors of Comyn Castle, his fists were clenched, and he felt as if a weight were pressing inward on his chest. It had been only a matter of time; this quarrel had been building for years, and it was just as well it should be in the open.
In all save this I have been an obedient grandson, I have done everything he asked of me; I am sworn to obey him as the Head of the Domain. But I will not be spoken to as if I were ten years old— never again. When he entered the Ardais apartments he was still fighting back a wholly uncharacteristic fury. The servant who let him in said an automatic, “ Su serva, dom…” and broke off to ask, “Are you ill, sir?”
Regis shook his head. “No—but ask Lord Danilo if he will see me at once.”
The message was carried, but answered by Danilo himself coming to the outer room. “Regis! What are you doing here?”
“I came to ask if I may join you at breakfast,” said Regis, more calmly than he felt, and Dyan, appearing in the doorway, already in the ceremonial black and silver of Council, said quickly, “Yes, come and join us, my dear fellow! I wanted a chance to speak with you, in any case.”
He went back toward the breakfast room, and Danilo murmured in an undertone, “What’s wrong?”
“I’ll tell you later, if I may. Grandfather and I had words,” Regis muttered, “Leave it for now, will you?”
“Set another place for Dom Regis,” Dyan ordered. Regis took a seat. Danilo looked at him, a swift questioning look, as he unfolded a napkin, but asked nothing aloud, and Regis was grateful.
He must know that I quarreled with Grandfather, and why. But he said nothing more, except for a complimentary remark about the food. Dyan himself ate sparingly, a little bread and fruit, but he had provided an assortment of hot breads, broiled meat and fried cakes; when Danilo commented on this, Dyan said, with a comical emphasis, “I am quite experienced at judging the—appetites—of young men.” He caught Regis’s eye for a moment, and Regis looked at his plate.
When they had finished and were idling over some fruits, Dyan said, “Well, Dani, I’m glad Regis joined us; I really wanted to talk to both of you. Most of the business of the Council has finished; this will be the final session, and because of the mourning for Kennard, everything’s been put off to this last session. And there’s much to be done. The heritage of Alton has to be settled—”
“I thought it was settled when Lew came back,” Regis said, his heart sinking as he realized what Dyan was driving at.
Dyan sighed. “I know he is your friend, Regis, but look at realities, will you, without sentiment? It’s a pity Kennard died without formally disinheriting him—”
“Why would he do that?” Regis asked, resentfully.
“Don’t be a fool, lad! If he hadn’t been mortally wounded and ill, you know as well as I that he’d have stood trial before the Comyn for treason, for that Sharra business, and been formally exiled. I don’t have any ill will toward him—” but Dyan’s glance slid uneasily away as Regis faced him, “and I’ve no desire to see Kennard’s son cast out or stripped of wealth and power. Lew has no son, nor is likely to have, from something I heard—no, don’t ask me where. A compromise might be worked out whereby he could have Armida, or its revenues, or both, for his lifetime, but—”
“I suppose you want to set up Gabriel in his place,” Regis said. “I heard that song from Grandfather; I didn’t think you would sing it too!”