But Terran blood, so Linnea had said, was no disgrace in the mountains. It had amazed her that I thought it so. And the Aldarans, too, were kinsmen.
My father had allowed me to think the Terrans and the Aldarans were evil. It had suited his purposes to let me think so.
And maybe that was another lie, a step on his road to power.
I bowed with ironic submissiveness. “I am entirely at your command, Lord Alton,” I said and turned my back, leaving him without a farewell embrace or a word.
And sealed my own doom.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Since Danilo’s departure the cadet barracks had been silent, hostile, astir with little eddies of gossip from which Regis was coldly excluded. He was not surprised. Danilo had been a favorite and they identified Regis with the Comyn who had brought about his expulsion.
His own suffering, his loneliness—all the worse because for a time it had been breached—was nothing, he knew, to what his friend must have been feeling. Dani had turned on him that night, he realized, because he was no longer just Regis, he was another persecutor. Another Comyn. But what could have made him so desperate?
He went over it again and again in his mind, without reaching any conclusions at all. He wished he could talk it over with Lew, who had been just as shocked and horrified by it. Regis had felt it in him. But Lew had gone to Aldaran, and Regis had no idea when he would be back.
The day before the cadets were dismissed to their homes, to return next summer in Council season, Regis was scheduled for his regular practice session with Dyan Ardais. He went with the usual blend of excitement and apprehension. He enjoyed his reputation among the cadets as a swordsman too expert for ordinary teaching and the sessions with Dyan challenged him to the utmost, but at the same time he knew these sessions alienated him further from the other cadets. Besides he emerged from them battered, bruised and completely exhausted.
Cadets were readying for practice in the little dressing room off the armory, strapping on the padded surcoats which were worn to protect against the worst blows. The heavy wood and leather practice swords could not kill, but they could inflict substantial injury and pain and even break bones. Regis flung off his cloak and tunic, pulling the padded coat over his head and flinching as he twisted his body to fasten the straps. His ribs were always sore these days.
As he fastened the last buckle, Dyan strode in, threw his jerkin on a bench and got quickly into his own practice outfit. Behind the thick fencing-mask he looked like some giant insect. Impatiently he gestured Regis toward the practice room. In his haste to obey Regis forgot to pick up his gauntlets, and the older man said harshly, “After all these months? Look here—” He thrust out his own clenched fist, pointed to the lump on the tendons on the back of the hand. “I got that when I was about your age. I ought to make you try it one day without gloves; forget again and I will do just that. I promise you’d never forget another time!”
Feeling like a slapped child, Regis went back hastily and snatched up the heavily padded gauntlets. He hurried back. At the far end, one of the arms-master’s aides was giving young Gareth Lindir a lesson, patiently positioning and repositioning his arms and legs, shoulders and hands, after every separate stroke. Regis could not see their faces behind the masks, but they both moved as if they were bored with the business. Bruises were better than that, Regis thought as he hurried to join Dyan.
The bout was brief today. Dyan moved more slowly than usual, almost awkwardly. Regis found himself recalling, with a faint embarrassment, a dream he had had some time ago, about fencing with Dyan. He couldn’t remember the details, but for some unremembered reason it filled him with anxiety. He touched Dyan at last and waited for the older man to regain his stance. Instead Dyan flung the wooden sword aside.
“You will have to excuse me for today,” he said. “I am somewhat—” He paused. “Somewhat—disinclined to go on.” Regis had the impression that he had intended to plead illness. “If you want to continue, I can find someone to practice with you.”
“As you wish, Captain.”
“Enough, then.” He pulled off his mask and went back into the dressing room. Regis followed slowly. Dyan was breathing hard, his face dripping with sweat. He took up a towel and plunged his head into it. Regis, unbuckling his padding, turned away. Like most young people, he felt embarrassed at witnessing the weakness of an elder. Under the thick surcoat his own shirt was dripping wet; he pulled it off and went to his locker for the spare one he had learned to keep there. Dyan put aside the towel and came up behind him. He stood looking at Regis’ naked upper body, darkened with new and healing bruises, and finally said, “You should have told me. I had no idea I’d been so heavy-handed.” But he was smiling. He reached out and ran both his hands, firmly and thoroughly, over Regis’ ribs. Regis flinched from the touch and laughed nervously. Dyan shrugged, laughing in return. “No bones broken,” he said, running his fingers along the lowest ribs, “so no harm done.”
Regis hurriedly drew on his clean shirt and tunic, thinking that Dyan knew precisely to the inch every time he hit an old bruise—or made a fresh one!
Dyan sat on the bench, lacing up his boots. He threw his fencing-slippers into his locker. “I want to talk to you,” he said, “and you’re not on duty for another hour. Walk down to the tavern with me. You must be thirsty too.”
“Thank you.” Regis picked up his cloak and they went down the hill to the inn near the military stables, not the big one where the common soldiers went to drink, but the small wineshop where the officers and cadets spent their leisure time. At this hour the place was not crowded. Dyan slid into an empty booth. “We can go into the back room if you’d rather.”
“No, this will do very well.”
“You’re wise,” said Dyan impersonally. “The other cadets would resent it if you kept away from their common haunts and amusements. What will you drink?”
“Cider, sir.”
“Nothing stronger? Please yourself.” Dyan called the waiter and gave his order, commanding wine for himself. He said, “I think that’s why so many cadets take to heavy drinking: the beer they serve in the mess is so near undrinkable they take to wine instead! Perhaps we should improve the beer they’re given as a way of keeping them sober!”
He sounded so droll that Regis could not help laughing. At that moment half a dozen cadets came in, started to sit at the next table, then, seeing the two Comyn seated there and laughing together, went back and crowded at a smaller table near the door. Dyan had his back turned to them. Several of them were Regis’ barracks-mates; he nodded politely to them, but they pretended not to see.
“Well, tomorrow your first cadet season will be over,” Dyan said. “Have you decided to come back for a second?”
“I’d expected to, Captain.”
Dyan nodded. “If you survive the first year, everything else is easy. It’s that first year which separates the soldiers from the spoiled children. I spoke to the arms-master and suggested he try you as one of his aides next year. Do you think you can teach the brats some of the things I’ve been trying to pound into you?”
“I can try, sir.”
“Just don’t be too gentle with them. A few bruises at the right time can save their lives later on.” He grinned suddenly. “I seem to have done better by you than I thought, kinsman, judging by the look of your ribs!”
The grin was infectious. Regis laughed and said, “Well, you haven’t spared the bruises. No doubt I’ll be properly grateful for them, some day.”
Dyan shrugged. “At least you haven’t complained,” he said. “I admire that in someone your age.” He held Regis’ eyes for a split second longer than Regis felt comfortable, then took a long drink from his mug. “I would have been proud of such behavior from my own son.”
“I didn’t know you had a son, sir.”
Dyan poured himself more wine and said, not looking up, “I had a son.” His tone did not alter even a fraction, but Regis felt the genuine pain behind Dyan�
��s carefully steady voice. “He was killed in a rockslide at Nevarsin a few years ago.”
“I am sorry, kinsman. I had never been told.”
“He came to Thendara only once, when I had him legitimated. He was in his mother’s care so, I saw him very seldom. We never really got to know one another.”
The silence stretched. Regis could not barricade the sharp sense of regret, of loss, he could feel in Dyan. He had to say something.
“Lord Dyan, you are not yet an old man. You could have many sons.”
Dyan’s smile was a mere mechanical stretching of his mouth. “More likely I shall adopt one of my father’s bastards,” he said. “He strewed them all about the countryside from the Hellers to the Plains of Valeron. It should be easy enough to find one with laran, which is all the Council cares about. I have never been a man for women, nor ever made any secret of it. I forced myself to do my duty by my clan. Once. That was enough.” To Regis’ awakened sensitivity he sounded immeasurably bitter. “I refuse to think of myself as a very special sort of stud animal whose fees are paid to Comyn. I am sure that you”—he raised his eyes and met Regis’, again prolonging the glance with intensity—“can understand what I mean.”
Dyan’s words struck home, yet his intent look, the feeling he was apparently trying to create, that there was a special rapport between them, suddenly embarrassed the boy. He lowered his eyes and said, “I’m not sure just what you mean, kinsman.”
Dyan shrugged and the sudden intensity was gone as quickly as it had come. “Why, just that, being heir to Hastur, they’ve already begun placing you under pressure to marry, just as they did with me when I was your age. Your grandsire has a reputation in Council as a most persistent and tenacious matchmaker. Do you mean he let Festival Night pass without parading a dozen suitable maidens in front of you, in the hope you’d develop an intolerable itch for one of them?”
Regis said stiffly, “Indeed he did not, sir. I was on duty Festival Night.”
“Truly?” Dyan raised an expressive eyebrow. “There were a dozen high-born maidens there, all pretty, and I thought they were all intended for you! I’m surprised he allowed you to stay away.”
“I’ve never asked to be excused from duty, sir. I’m sure Grandfather would not have asked it for me.”
“A most commendable attitude,” Dyan said, “and one I might have expected from your father’s son. But how disappointed the old man must have been! I’ve accused him to his face of being a disgraceful old procurer!” Dyan was grinning again. “But he assured me that he is always careful to have the wedding properly in order before the bedding.”
Regis could not help laughing, although he knew he should be ashamed to join in making fun of his grandfather. “No, Lord Dyan, he hasn’t spoken of marriage. Not yet. He only said that I should have an heir as young as possible.”
“Why, I’m ashamed of him!” Dyan said and laughed again. “He had Rafael married off by the time he was your age!”
Regis had resented the memory of his father, whose death had robbed him of so much; now he felt an almost wistful longing to know what kind of man he had been. “Kinsman, am I so like my father as they say? Did you know him well?”
“Not as well as I could have wished,” Dyan said, “He married young, while I was in Nevarsin where my father’s . . . debaucheries . . . could not contaminate me. Yes, I suppose you are like him.” He looked attentively at Regis. “Although you are handsomer than Rafael, handsomer by far.”
He was silent, staring down at the swirl in his wineglass. Regis picked up the mug of cider and sipped at it, not looking up. He had grown sensitive to the far-too-frequent comments on his good looks at Nevarsin and in the barracks. From Dyan they seemed somehow more pointed. He gave a mental shrug, recalling what else they said in the barracks, that Lord Dyan had an eye for pretty boys.
Dyan looked up suddenly from his glass. “Where do you intend to spend the winter, kinsman? Will you return to Castle Hastur?”
“I think not. Grandfather is needed here, and I think he would rather have me close at hand. The estate is in good hands, so I’m not needed there.”
“True. He lost so much of Rafael’s life, I suspect it’s a mistake he doesn’t want to repeat. I imagine I’ll be here too, with crisis on crisis in the city and Kennard ill much of the time. Well, Thendara is an interesting place to spend the winter. There are concerts enough to satisfy any music-lover. And there are fashionable restaurants, balls and dances, all manner of amusements. And, for a young man your age, one should not omit the houses of pleasure. Are you familiar with the House of Lanterns, cousin?”
In contrast to the other flashes of intensity, this was almost too casual. The House of Lanterns was a discreet brothel, one of the very few which were not specifically forbidden to the cadets and officers. Regis knew that some of the older cadets visited the place occasionally but although he shared the curiosity of the other first-year cadets, curiosity had not yet overcome his distaste for the idea. He shook his head. “Only by reputation.”
“I find the place tiresome,” Dyan said offhandedly. “The Golden Cage is rather more to my liking. It’s at the edge of the Terran Zone, and one can find various exotic entertainments there, even aliens and nonhumans, as well as all kinds of women. Or,” he added, again in that carefully casual tone, “all kinds of men or boys.”
Regis blushed hard and tired to hide it by coughing as if he’d choked on his cider.
Dyan had seen the blush, and grinned. “I had forgotten how conventional young people can be. Perhaps a taste for . . . exotic entertainments . . . needs to be cultivated, like a taste for fine wine instead of cider. And three years in a monastery hardly cultivates the taste for any of the finer amusements and luxuries which help a young man to make the most of his life.” As Regis only blushed more furiously, he reached out and laid a hand on his arm. “Cousin, the monastery is behind you; have you truly realized that you are no longer bound by all its rules?”
Dyan was watching him carefully. When Regis said nothing, he continued, “Kinsman, one can waste years, precious years of youth, trying to cultivate tastes which turn out to be mistaken. You can miss too much that way. Learn what you want and what you are while you’re young enough to enjoy it. I wish someone had given me such advice at your age. My own son never lived to need it. And your father is not here to give it . . . and your grandfather, I have no doubt, is more concerned with teaching you your duty to family and Comyn than with helping you enjoy your youth!”
Dyan’s intensity did not embarrass him now. Regis realized that for a long time he had felt starved for just such an opportunity to talk about these things with a man of his own caste, one who understood the world he must live in. He set down his mug and said, “Kinsman, I wonder if that isn’t why Grandfather insisted I should serve in the cadets.”
Dyan nodded. “Probably so,” he said. “It was I who advised him to send you into the cadets, instead of letting you spend your time in idleness and amusements. There’s a time for that, of course. But it’s true I felt that time spent in the cadets would teach you, more quickly, the things you’d failed to learn before.”
Regis looked at him eagerly. “I didn’t want to go in the cadets. I hated it at first.”
Dyan laid a light hand on his shoulder again and said affectionately, “Everyone does. If you hadn’t, I’d be disturbed; it would mean you’d hardened too young.”
“But now I think I know why Comyn heirs have to serve in the cadets,” Regis said. “Not just the discipline. I got plenty of that in Nevarsin. But learning how to be one of the people, doing the same work they do, sharing their lives and their problems, so we—” He bit his lip, searching carefully for words. “So we’ll know what our people are.”
Dyan said softly, “That was eloquent, lad. As your cadetmaster, I’m content. As your kinsman, too. I wish more boys your age had that kind of understanding. I’ve been accused of being ruthless. But whatever I’ve done, I’ve done it out of all
egiance to Comyn. Can you understand that, Regis?”
Regis said, “I think so.” He felt warmed, somehow less lonely, by having someone care how he felt or what he thought.
Dyan said, “Do you also understand what I said about how the other cadets would take it ill if you shunned their common amusements.”
Regis bit his lip. He said, “I know what you mean. I do, really. Just the same, I feel very strange about—” He was suddenly embarrassed again. “About places like the House of Lanterns. Maybe it will wear off as I get older. But I’m a . . . a telepath—” How strange it felt to say it! How strange that Dyan should be the first one he told! “And it feels . . . wrong,” he said, stumbling from phrase to phrase.
Dyan lifted his glass and drank the last in it before he answered. “Maybe you’re right. Life can be complicated enough for a telepath, without that, too. Some day you’ll know what you want, and then will be the time to trust your instincts and your needs.” He fell silent, brooding, and Regis found himself wondering what bitter memories lay behind the pensive look. Finally Dyan said, “You’d probably do well, then, to keep clear of such places and wait until, if the Gods are good to you, someone you can love helps you discover that part of your life.” He sighed heavily and said, “If you can. You may discover needs even more imperative than those instincts. It’s always a difficult balance for a telepath. There are physical needs. And there are needs which can be even stronger. Emotional needs. And that’s a balance which can tear any of us to pieces.” Regis had the curious feeling that Dyan was not really talking to him at all, but to himself.
Abruptly, Dyan set down his empty wineglass and rose. He said, “But one pleasure which has no danger attached is to watch young people grow in wisdom, cousin. I hope to see much of that growth in you this winter, and I’ll watch with interest. Meanwhile, keep this in mind: I know the city well and it would be a pleasure to show you anything you wish to see.” He laughed aloud suddenly and said,
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