The Alton Gift

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  As Mikhail sank into one of the cushioned seats, Marguerida shot her husband a worried glance.

  Mikhail leaned forward. “You may think I flatter you, Lew, but I cannot tell you how glad I am to have you here, especially at this time.”

  “Why now?” Lew asked.

  “What has happened?” Marguerida said, almost at the same time.

  Mikhail reached into an inner pocket of his robe and drew out a letter. “This came two days ago. I did not mention it before, because I have been considering how to answer it.”

  Mikhail handed the letter to his wife. The paper crackled as she spread it open. She read, her lips moving as she formed the words in Darkovan script. The blood drained from her face.

  Is this the danger warned of by my Gift? ran through her mind, easily sensed by Lew.

  “You cannot seriously—” Marguerida stammered aloud. “Mik, you must not agree to this!”

  “Let Lew read the letter,” Mikhail said. “Domenic already knows what it contains.”

  Lew took the paper and read slowly, trying to block out the distress radiating from his daughter’s mind. The letter, addressed to Mikhail in his capacity as Regent, began with polite expressions of sympathy for the loss of his mother. The writer had an elegant command of the niceties of Comyn etiquette, at once respectful and intimate.

  This could not, Lew thought, be what had upset Marguerida. He went on to the next section. The language was no less flowing, the desire for the reconciliation of old quarrels beautifully stated. It was, on the surface, a gracious request for permission for the sender to present himself at the upcoming Council meeting.

  It was from Francisco Ridenow.

  “I have already answered the letter.” Mikhail spoke slowly, as if choosing each phrase with special care. “I have given him leave to attend.”

  In a tight voice, Marguerida said, “I wish you had not. That man is not to be trusted.”

  Lew felt a surge of compassion for his daughter. Losing Mikhail was the one thing in all the world that Marguerida truly feared.

  “Dom Francisco is in an awkward situation, but we must give him a chance,” Mikhail replied. “Very possibly, he is making an effort to establish a good reputation again.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have your enduring faith in human nature.” Marguerida’s eyes darkened, like weathered bronze. “I know we all change, and men can improve their ways, but I find it hard to forgive him. He was our friend once. We trusted him! And look at what he did!”

  Francisco Ridenow had long claimed that the ring of Varzil Ridenow, called the Good, which now rested on Mikhail’s finger, should have come to him as a family inheritance. Relentlessly ambitious, Francisco had seized the opening created by the Old North Road ambush, with all the attendant confusion, and attempted to assassinate Mikhail.

  “You forget, dear heart, that he did not succeed,” Mikhail said. “No lasting harm was done. We must give him the chance to make a new place among us, if that is what he truly intends. It will not help if we throw his past actions in his face, or turn everyone against him.”

  If all men were judged by their past, without any possibility of redeeming themselves, then we should all freeze in Zandru’s coldest hell, Lew thought grimly. And I, most of all.

  Why Mikhail had allowed Francisco to return to the family estate at Serrais after the assassination attempt, Lew could never understand. A generation ago, old Dyan Ardais would have run Francisco through without a second thought. Maybe Mikhail thought there was still some good in Francisco, something worth redeeming, or perhaps he was simply less bloody-minded than other Comyn.

  Mikhail did, however, remove Francisco as head of the Ridenow Domain, or rather, forced the Council to do so. Much of that, Lew suspected, was due to his very angry and determined daughter. Francisco’s son had assumed control, a post for which his training as City Guards Captain prepared him well.

  Was Mikhail wise in agreeing to Francisco’s request? Rightly or not, traditions died hard. The Ridenow Domain was ancient and honorable, and Francisco was entitled to full Domain-right. For this reason, if no other, he would have supporters on the Council. If Mikhail denied such a request he would hand Francisco a powerful weapon of diplomacy. Lew knew the temper of the Council only too well. Javanne had forged a variety of alliances in her crusade against Mikhail, and his enemies would be only too happy to paint him as power-hungry and vengeful.

  “I think you had no choice,” Lew said slowly. “Despite all he has done, Francisco is still Comyn.”

  “Grandfather Lew is right,” Domenic spoke up. “It would be difficult to justify a refusal.”

  “I see you are all ranged against me,” Marguerida said with a wan smile. “I understand your reasons, even if I do not agree with them. Mik, if you have given your word, then I must make the best of it and stand by you. I do not think, however, that I will draw a single easy breath until that man is back on his own estates.”

  Relief passed over Mikhail’s fair features. “It may all turn out for the best. We have friends on the Council—your father and the Elhalyn-Hasturs, and others who seek a peaceful, united Darkover. We will have time to prepare.”

  Mikhail took Marguerida’s gloved hand in his, and for an instant, the jewel of his ring glowed with the light of their joined powers.

  Watching them together, Lew thought that as long as these two people were together, nothing could dim their happiness. But if anything should happen to Mikhail, if Marguerida’s premonition turned out to be right, what then?

  What then?

  4

  That night, after the formal dinner following Javanne’s funeral, Domenic went to Alanna’s room. He was more than a little drunk, so he had an excuse to disregard his conscience and all his mother’s rules of propriety.

  The day had been the longest, most emotionally exhausting he could remember. The funeral cortege had departed early, in a drizzle of half-frozen rain, traveling the Old North Road from Thendara to Hali. Cisco Ridenow, as Captain of the City Guards, had taken charge of security arrangements with ruthless efficiency. Even so, memories of the ambush three years ago lingered in everyone’s memory.

  The younger Gabriel Lanart-Alton, as the deceased woman’s eldest son, led the procession. His name, like his father’s, had originally been Lanart-Hastur, but when he assumed control of the Alton Domain, he had taken that name as well. Mikhail and Marguerida followed him, along with Grandfather Lew, then Domenic himself and Rory, who had been released from his duties in the Guards to attend. Ylanna rode in a carriage further back, along with her aunt Ariel and Ariel’s husband Piedro Alar. Miralys Elhalyn rode beside her husband, Dani Hastur, and his namesake, Danilo Syrtis-Ardais. Kennard-Dyan Ardais had not returned to Thendara for the funeral, nor had Mikhail’s sister, the leronis Liriel. It was not as grand or large a party as the one that had accompanied the body of Regis Hastur, but it did honor to the woman who had been his sister.

  They arrived at the field along the shores of Lake Hali. Pale green dusted the mounded earth. The drizzle cleared and clouds parted, revealing the swollen red sun. As Domenic took his appointed place, something roused his unusual laran. A silent keening rose and fell, reverberating through his skull. Perhaps it was a residue from the eerie cloud-lake of Hali, said to be the result of an ancient cataclysm, or perhaps it was only the accumulation of centuries of grief.

  Domenic tried to shut out the waves of fear and suspicion that emanated from the assembly, masquerading as grief. Whatever the cause, his grandmother had been an ambitious, unpleasant old woman. At one time, she had formed an alliance with Francisco Ridenow to replace Mikhail as Regent and Head of the Hastur Domain. Half the mourners here had been forced to take sides. Perhaps, with Javanne’s passing, the old quarrel might at last be laid to rest.

  Family and friends had gathered in a circle as Javanne’s casket was lowered into an unmarked grave. One by one, each person had shared a private remembrance of the departed. The two sons of the dead woman
who had been able to attend came forward first. Following Gabriel, Mikhail spoke briefly of the mother who had nurtured him, with no mention of her later animosity. He concluded with the traditional formula, “Let that memory lighten grief.”

  When Domenic’s turn came to speak, his throat had closed up. He wished there were some way to give voice to the sadness welling up from the layered mounds, from the ancient earth.

  “The most important thing I know about my grandmother,” he finally forced out the words, “is that she was loved.”

  He offered the words as a gift to her spirit. Let her be remembered for this, and nothing less.

  Then he added, “Let that memory lighten grief,” and in that moment, it did.

  Emotionally drained, Domenic had returned with the others for the funeral dinner, laid out in the Grand Hall of the Castle, a vast echoing space better suited to a Midwinter Ball than to such a sad occasion. Rosettes and streamers of blue and silver, edged with black, intensified the gloom. It seemed half the Council attended the meal, all of them looking at him as if he were a high-bred horse they wished to purchase. Alanna had not been present, nor Yllana. Rory said he had City Guards duty that night, but Domenic suspected that his brother intended to spend the night drinking with his closest friend.

  To make matters worse, Domenic could not shake the sensation of that mournful wail, like the cry of a banshee, now rippling through the stone foundations of the Castle. He had learned from experience that he could suppress the most unpleasant manifestations of his Gift with wine. At the time, getting drunk seemed the best way to deal with the social situation, as well.

  The meal seemed to go on forever, through meat and fowl and cheese courses, sweet wine and pastries, and, when he feared he could hold no more, shallan and Thetan tea from his mother’s dwindling private stores. The coffee she loved so much had been used up last Midwinter Festival. Only the prospect of seeing Alanna again sustained Domenic through the interminable hours.

  Now back at the Alton quarters, Domenic paused outside her door, drew himself up to an approximation of steadiness, and raised one fist to knock. From inside came the muffled sound of weeping.

  “Alanna?” He tapped gently and, when there was no response or pause in the sobs, lifted the latch and went in.

  Shadows lay thickly across the room, the same one Alanna had used since she first came here as a child. A small fire flickered in the hearth, casting an uncertain light. The oval rug in front of the fireplace, normally a cheerful pattern of pink and red rosalys, looked as if it were covered with dark, irregular stains.

  Alanna lay curled on her bed, facing the wall, fully dressed, clutching her favorite childhood toy, a stuffed rabbit-horn. Although he could not see her clearly, he felt her trembling.

  “Alanna?”

  “Domenic?” She sat up in a rustling of cloth and ran to him, tender and warm and exhilarating in his arms. When she pressed her cheek against his, he felt the wetness of her tears. He brushed them away with his fingertips.

  “Breda, don’t cry. What has happened?”

  “Oh, Domenic, it’s so awful here without you! No one cares anything about me! They all want me out of the way, or dead!”

  Domenic put his arm around Alanna and led her back to the bed. He sat beside her and took her hands in his. “That cannot be true. It only appears that way because you’re upset. I love you, and so does my mother and Aunt Liriel, and my father loves you, too. Remember how, when we were little, he used to say how bright you were, like his own little star come down to earth?”

  Alanna gave a little hiccough, somehow endearing. “You—you love me?”

  “Yes, of course…” Domenic’s voice trailed off. His head was spinning again, only this time not from too much wine, but from Alanna’s closeness.

  She lifted her face to his. He felt the warmth of her breath on his cheeks, saw the tiny droplets on her lashes. Her eyes were pools of green-tinted shadow, deep and mysterious. Her lips parted, and he wondered what they would feel like against his, how she would taste, the smell of her neck if he buried his face in the graceful curves, the feel of her skin.

  Just as he leaned toward her, Alanna shifted, wrapping her arms around his waist. Her face fit into the hollow of his shoulder. She sighed, and another thrill, part exhilaration, part rapture, rose up in him. An image sprang to his mind of them together and naked, how her body would look, what it would be like to run his hands over her breasts and thighs and the mysterious places between them—

  Oh, gods…

  A sensation like fire kindled in his groin and surged to his face. His heart beat like galloping hooves.

  Domenic slammed his laran barriers shut. Like him, Alanna was psychically Gifted; they had each studied at a Tower, he for almost three years at Neskaya and she for one brief season at Arilinn. By every standard of proper behavior among telepaths, what he had just done—his lustful thoughts—amounted to assault.

  How could he treat her like this? Domenic asked himself, horrified. How could he behave in such a barbaric way to this tender, lovely young woman, someone he had loved since they were children together?

  Oh, Alanna! he thought, even though she could not hear him, I would not for the world offend you, but I had no idea I felt this way, or what you could do tome…

  Alanna gave no sign she was aware of what had just transpired. Instead, she radiated almost childlike innocence. Yet there was passion, he sensed it deep within her, and laran too. Both her sexuality and her psychic talents seemed strangely muted.

  Domenic shivered, suddenly sober. She studied at Arilinn…once the most prestigious of all the Towers…

  Arilinn, where even now the leroni preserved the old ways of training Keepers. Because the same channels carried laran and sexual energy, Keepers once endured unimaginable training, remaining not only chaste but incapable of normal sexual response. It was all nonsense, of course. Cleindori Aillard, the Golden Bell of Arilinn, had proven that generations ago.

  Surely, the workers at Arilinn would not have…no one today believed in such superstitions.

  Gently, as if she were glass about to shatter, Domenic took Alanna’s face between his hands. In the dim light, her eyes shone. He could not read what lay in their depths—fear, willingness, desire? Or did his own wild hope put such answers there?

  She did not resist as he bent his head and touched her mouth with his own. Her lips felt as soft as new-opened petals, yet firm and warm.

  Domenic kissed her more deeply, moving his lips over hers. She tasted like honey, like flame…

  She made a sound deep in her throat, or he thought she did. Had there been a flicker of answering desire in her kiss? Or had he imagined it, created it from his own yearning? He drew away, once more gazing into her eyes.

  “Is this distasteful to you?” he asked, hoping that his voice did not tremble.

  For a long moment, she was silent, and he wondered whether he had indeed offended her. His senses whirled, and he could scarcely hear his own voice over the pounding of his heart.

  In response, she reached up and pulled him toward her. Her lips moved against his with an odd combination of hesitancy and eagerness. The touch of her fingers on his neck excited him more than he had believed possible.

  The kiss seemed to go on forever. Domenic’s blood sang in his ears, and waves of dizziness shook him. He could hardly believe this was happening to him. He wanted to touch her throat, her breasts, her thighs. Yet he was afraid to make the slightest move, for fear the movement would shatter what was building between them.

  Alanna shifted, pressing her body against his. He tightened his arms around her. Wherever they touched, his skin seemed unbearably sensitive. A throbbing began from the deepest core of his pelvis, streaming upward along his laran channels through gut and lungs and heart. When Alanna opened her lips and ran the tip of her tongue over the inside of his mouth, the contact ignited a cascade of molten pleasure.

  Domenic broke away, gasping.

  “
Is it—is it all right?” she asked, her voice a breathless whisper.

  Gods, yes! When had he ever felt so intensely alive, soaring on each pulse beat?

  He recollected himself enough to ask, “Do you want to go on?”

  “I—I feel so strange, Domenic, as if my body belongs to someone else, and yet I am remembering something. Something strong and deep. Some almost-lost part of who I am. Do you recall how I once thought I was two people—”

  “Hush, love. Don’t think about that now.”

  Alanna took his hand and, wonder beyond wonders, placed it over her breast. She closed her eyes, curving his fingers around the soft flesh. Through gown and chemise, he felt a point, like a small nut, growing harder. She murmured—in pleasure, he thought—and each tiny sound reverberated through him.

  Domenic slipped his free hand under Alanna’s hair, aware that in the traditions of the Domains, the only man who might see—or caress—the nape of a woman’s neck was her lover. Sweat dampened her skin. He cupped the back of her head and tilted her head up for another kiss. When her lips met his, parting eagerly, he gave himself over to the answering surge of exhilaration. Was he drunk on wine from the dinner or her closeness? He didn’t care.

  Somehow, his mouth slipped from hers. He covered her face with kisses, then the side of her neck and down the sweet slope of shoulder and the swell of her breast. The fragrance of her skin filled him, heady and compelling. He wanted to draw her in, to inhale her, to bury himself in her.

  “Oh, Alanna…Oh, my sweet love…”

  She shifted, her arms tightened around him. “Don’t ever leave me,” she whispered. “Don’t ever let me go.”

  Some harmonic in her voice, a shade of childlike pleading, broke through his surging arousal.

  What was he doing?

  Domenic caught his breath and sat straighter, cradling her close. For a long moment, he could not speak as he wrestled himself under control. No matter how he felt, whatever impulses raged through him, he owed it to her—not to mention to all standards of proper, decent conduct—to treat her with all the respect due a Comynara.