He said steadily to Dyan, “On the word of a Hastur, kinsman, I will never sit by and see our world handed over to the Terrans. We may not agree on the methods taken to avoid this; but we are in agreement otherwise.”
And as he said it, he realized that he was trying to placate Dyan, as if he were still a boy and Dyan his cadet-master.
Dyan and his grandfather were on the same side, aiming at the same goal. Yet he had quarreled with his grandfather; and he was trying hard to agree with Dyan. Why? he wondered. Is it only because Dyan understands and accepts me as I am?
He said abruptly, “Thank you for a fine breakfast, cousin, I must go and get myself into those damnable Council ceremonials, and try to persuade my grandfather that Mikhail is still too young to sit through an entire Council session, Heir to Hastur or no—he is nevertheless only a boy of eleven! Dani, I will see you in the Crystal Chamber,” and he went out of the room.
But it was Lerrys who caught up with him on the threshold of the Crystal Chamber. He was wearing the colors of his Domain, but not the full ceremonial robes, and he looked mockingly at Regis.
“Full fancy dress, I see. I hope Lew Alton has sense enough to turn up this morning wearing something like Terran clothes.”
“I wouldn’t call that very sensible,” Regis said. “They wouldn’t fit the climate, and it would just offend people without any reason. Why should it matter what we wear to Council?”
“It doesn’t. That’s the point. That’s why it makes me so damnably angry to see a dozen or so grown men and women behaving as if it made a difference whether we wore one kind of dress or another!”
Regis had been thinking something rather like this himself, as he got into the cumbersome and archaic robes, but for some reason it exasperated him to hear Lerrys say it. He said, “In that case, what are you doing wearing your clan colors?”
“I’m a younger son, if you remember,” said Lerrys, “and neither Head nor Heir to Serrais; if I did it, all they’d do would be to send me away for not following custom, like a horrid small boy who’s dressed up for the fun of it. But if you, Heir to Hastur, or Lew, who’s head of Armida by default— there’s literally no one else now—should refuse to follow that custom, you might be able to change things… things which will never be changed unless you, or somebody like you, has the brains and the guts to change them! I heard that Lord Damon, what-do-they-call-him, Jeff, went back to Arilinn. I wish he’d stayed. He’d been brought up on Terra itself, and yet he was telepath enough to become a technician at Arilinn—that would have let some fresh air into Arilinn, and I think it’s time to break a few windows in the Crystal Chamber, too!”
Regis said soberly, ignoring the rest of Lerrys’s long speech, “I wish I were as sure as you that they’d accept Lew by default. Have you heard anything about a rumor that they’ve found a child of one of the Altons and they’re going to set it up, like a figurehead, in Lew’s place?”
“I know there’s supposed to be such a child,” said Lerrys. “I don’t know all the details. Marius knew, but I don’t think he ever got the chance to tell Lew. You got him first, didn’t you?”
Regis stared at him in dismay and anger. “Zandru’s hells! Are you daring to say that Ihad anything to do with Marius’s death?”
“Not you personally,” said Lerrys, “but I don’t think we’d have to look too far for the murderer, do you? It’s just too convenient for that group of power-mad old freaks in Council.”
Regis shuddered but tried not to let Lerrys see his consternation. “You must be mad,” he said at last. “If my grandsire—and I suppose it’s Lord Hastur you’re accusing—had intended to send assassins to deal with Marius, why would he have waited this long? He arranged it with the Terrans to have Marius given the best education they could provide, he always knew where Marius was—why in all the hells should he send anyone round to murder him now?”
“You’re not going to tell me a boy Marius’s age had any personal enemies, are you?” Lerrys demanded.
Not in the Comyn— no more than he had any personal friends there, Regis thought, and said stiffly, “That touches the honor of Hastur, Lerrys. I warn you not to repeat that monstrous slander beyond this room, or I will—”
“You’ll what? Whip out your little sword and cut me to pieces with it? Regis, you’re acting like a boy of twelve! Do you honestly believe all this stable-sweepings about the honor of Hastur?” Even through his rage, something in Lerrys’s voice got through to Regis. His hand had gone to his dagger, without being fully aware of it; now he let go the hilt, and said, “Don’t mock that honor, Lerrys, just because you don’t know anything about it.”
“Regis,” said Lerrys, and now his voice was deadly serious, “believe me, I’m not implying that you are personally anything but a model of integrity. But it wouldn’t be the first time that a Hastur had stood by and watched someone murdered, or worse, because that person didn’t fit into the Comyn plan. Ask Jeff sometime who murdered his mother, because she dared to hint that a Comyn Keeper was not a sacrosanct virgin locked up in Arilinn to be worshipped. He himself had two or three narrow escapes from being murdered out of hand because the Council didn’t find him too convenient to their long-range plans. We can’t even blame the Terrans—assassination has been a favorite weapon here on Darkover since the Ages of Chaos. Do you know what the Terrans think of us?”
“Does it matter what the Terrans think of us?” Regis evaded.
“Damn right it matters! Whether you like it or not—” he broke off. “Ah, why should I waste this on you? You’re no better than your grandfather, and why should I give you the full speech I’m going to try to make in Council, if they don’t shut me up first?” He started to push on by Regis, who caught his arm and held him.
“My grandfather may not have mourned very much for Marius,” he said, “but I’d swear with my hand in the fires of Hali that he had nothing to do with his murder! I was there when the Alton’s town house was burned. Marius was killed by men trying to get the Sharra matrix—and they did get it, you know. You don’t think my grandfather had anything to do with that, certainly?”
Lerrys stared at him for a moment; then said contemptuously, “You’re worse than Lew—or you’ve been talking to him. He sees Sharraas the bogeyman under every bed! Damned convenient, isn’t it?” He pushed past Regis and went into the Council Chamber.
Thoughtfully, Regis followed. Most of the Council members were inside their railed enclosures, and his grandfather had already risen for the roll call of the Domains. He scowled at Regis, seeing him enter almost with Lerrys Ridenow, but they parted and went to their separate enclosures.
Was Marius’s death not the accidental death he had thought, killed in defending his father’s house and home against invaders searching for something he did not even know about? Certainly Marius knew nothing about the Sharra matrix except its danger—he thought of the night Marius had come to seek his help for Rafe Scott.
I wonder where he is? Maybe Lew would know. If I were young Scott, I think I would be hiding inside the Terran Zone and never put my nose outside it while Kadarin is loose with the Sharra matrix; and I think if Lew had any sense he would do the same. But Lew is not that kind of person. Terrans are cowards, he thought, his mind sliding over what he had taken for granted all his life; his own father had been killed in a war because some coward had trusted to Terran weapons which kill at a distance; and then he stopped and began to think about that.
They can’t all be cowards, any more than all Comyn lords are honorable and proud— he thought. And, as Derik began to call the roll of the Domains, he thought: I will have to go to the Terran Zone and find out what Rafe Scott knows about the Sharra matrix. Unless he’s joined forces with Kadarin— and that was not the idea I got of Rafe Scott!