“Is that for you to judge?”
“In those circumstances . . .” Danilo swallowed. “Could I respect and obey a man who has so far forgotten himself as to try to make me his—” He used a cahuenga word Regis did not know, only that it was unspeakably obscene. But he was still in rapport with Danilo, so there was no scrap of doubt about his meaning. Regis went white. He literally could not speak under the shock of it.
“At first I thought he was joking,” Danilo said, almost stammering. “I do not like such jests—I am a cristoforo—but I gave him some similar joke for an answer and thought that was the end of it, for if he meant the jest in seriousness, then I had given him his answer without offense. Then he made himself clearer and grew angry when I answered him no, and swore he could force me to it. I don’t know what he did to me, Regis, he did something with his mind, so that wherever I was, alone or with others, I felt him touching me, heard his . . . his foul whispers, that awful, mocking laugh of his. He pursued me, he seemed to be inside my mind all the time. All the time. I thought he meant to drive me out of my mind! I had thought . . . a telepath could not inflict pain. . . . I can’t stand it even to be around anyone who’s really unhappy, but he took some awful, hateful kind of pleasure in it.” Danilo sobbed suddenly. “I went to him, then, I begged him to let me be! Regis, I am no gutter-brat, my family has served the Hasturs honorably for years, but if I were a whore’s foundling and he the king on his throne, he would have had no right to use me so shamefully!” Danilo broke down again and sobbed. “And then . . . and then he said I knew perfectly well how I could be free of him. He laughed at me, that awful, hideous laugh. And then I had my dagger out, I hardly know how I came to draw it, or what I meant to do with it, kill myself maybe . . .” Danilo put his hands over his face. “You know the rest,” he said through them.
Regis could hardly draw breath. “Zandru send him scorpion whips! Dani, why didn’t you lay charge and claim immunity? He is subject to the laws of Comyn too, and a telepath who misuses his laran that way . . .”
Danilo gave a weary little shrug. It said more than words. Regis felt wholly numbed by the revelation. How could he ever face Dyan again, knowing this?
I knew it wasn’t true what they said of you, Regis. But you were Comyn too, and Dyan showed you so much favor, and that last night, when you touched me, I was afraid . . .
Regis looked up, outraged, then realized Danilo had not spoken at all. They were deeply in rapport; he felt the other boy’s thoughts. He sat back down on the log, feeling that his legs were unable to hold him upright.
“I touched you . . . only to quiet you.” he said at last.
“I know that now. What good would it do to say I am sorry for that, Regis? It was a shameful thing to say.”
“It is no wonder you cannot believe in honor or decency from my kin. But it is for us to prove it to you. All the more since you are one of us. Danilo, how long have you had laran?”
“I? Laran? I, Lord Regis?”
“Didn’t you know? How long have you been able to read thoughts?”
“That? Why, all my life, it seems. Since I was twelve or so. Is that . . .”
“Don’t you know what it means, if you have one of the Comyn gifts? You do, you know. Telepaths aren’t uncommon, but you opened up my own gift, even after Lew Alton failed.” With a flood of emotion, he thought, you brought me my heritage. “I think you’re what they call a catalyst telepath. That’s very rare and a precious gift.” He forebore to say it was an Ardais gift. He doubted if Danilo would appreciate that information just now. “Have you told anyone else?”
“How could I, when I didn’t know myself? I thought everyone could read thoughts.”
“No, it’s rarer than that. It means you too are Comyn, Dani.”
“Are you saying my parentage is—”
“Zandru’s hells, no! But your family is noble, it may well be that your mother had Comyn kinsmen, Comyn blood, even generations ago. With full laran, though, it means you yourself are eligible for Comyn Council, that you should be trained to use these gifts, sealed to Comyn.” He saw revulsion on Danilo’s face and said quickly, “Think. It means you are Lord Dyan’s equal. He can be held accountable for having misused you.”
Regis blessed the impulse that had brought him here. Alone, his mind burdened with the brooding, hypersensitive nature of the untrained telepath, under his father’s grim displeasure . . . Danilo might have killed himself after all.
“I won’t, though,” Danilo said aloud. Regis realized they had slid into rapport again. He reached out to touch Danilo, remembered and didn’t. To conceal the move he bent and picked up a windfall apple. Danilo got to his feet and began putting on his shirt. Regis finished the apple and dropped the core into a pile of mulch.
“Dani, I am expected to sleep tonight at my sister’s house. But I give my word: you shall be vindicated. Meanwhile, is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Yes, Regis! Yes! Tell my father the disgrace and dishonor were not mine! He asked no questions and spoke no word of reproach, but no man in our family has ever been dishonored. I can bear anything but his belief that I lied to him!”
“I promise you he shall know the full—no.” Regis broke off suddenly. “Isn’t that why you dared not tell him yourself? He would kill—” He saw that he had, in truth, reached the heart of Danilo’s fear.
“He would challenge Dyan,” Danilo said haltingly, “and though he looks strong he is an old man and his heart is far from sound. If he knew the truth—I wanted to tell him everything, but I would rather have him . . . despise me . . . than ruin himself.”
“Well, I shall try to clear your name with your father without endangering him. But for yourself, Dani? We owe you something for the injury.”
“You owe me nothing, Regis. If my name is clean before my kinsmen, I am content.”
“Still, the honor of Comyn demands we right this injustice. If there is rot at our heart, well, it must be cleansed.” At this moment, filled with righteous anger, he was ready to fling himself against a whole regiment of unjust men who abused their powers. If the older men in Comyn were corrupt or power-mad, and the younger ones idle, then boys would have to set it right!
Danilo dropped to one knee. He held out his hands, his voice breaking. “There is a life between us. My brother died to shield your father. As for me, I ask no more than to give my life in the service of Hastur. Take my sword and my oath, Lord Regis. By the hand I place on your sword, I pledge my life.”
Startled, deeply moved, Regis drew his sword again, held out the hilt to Danilo. Their hands met on the hilt again as Regis, stumbling on the ritual words, trying to recall them one by one, said, “Danilo-Felix Syrtis, be from this day paxman and shield-arm to me . . . and this sword strike me if I be not just lord and shield to you. . . .” He bit his lip, fighting to remember what came next. Finally he said,
“The Gods witness it, and the holy things at Hali.” It seemed there was something else, but at least their intention was clear, he thought. He slid the sword back into its sheath, raised Danilo to his feet and shyly kissed him on either cheek. He saw tears on Danilo’s eyelids and knew that his own were not wholly dry.
He said, trying to lighten the moment, “Now you’ve only had formally what we both knew all along, bredu.” He heard himself say the word with a little shock of amazement, but knew he meant it as he had never meant anything before.
Danilo said, trying to steady his voice, “I should have . . . offered you my sword. I’m not wearing one, but here—”
That was what had been missing in the ritual. Regis started to say that it did not matter, but without it there was something wanting. He looked at the dagger Danilo held out hilt-first to him. Regis drew his own, laid it hilt-to-blade along the other before giving it to Danilo, saying quietly. “Bear this, then, in my service.”
Danilo laid his lips to the blade for a moment, saying, “In your service alone I bear it,” and put it into his own sheath.
Regis thrust Danilo’s knife into the scabbard at his waist. It did not quite fit, but it would do. He said, “You must remain here until I send for you. It will not be long, I promise, but I have to think what to do.”
He did not say goodbye. It was not necessary. He turned and walked back along the lane. As he went into the barn to untie his horse, Dom Felix came slowly toward him.
“Lord Regis, may I offer you some refreshment?” Regis said pleasantly, “I thank you, but grudged hospitality has a bitter taste. Yet it is my pleasure to assure you, on the word of a Hastur”—he touched his hand briefly to swordhilt—“you may be proud of your son, Dom Felix. His dishonor should be your pride.”
The old man frowned. “You speak riddles, vai dom.”
“Sir, you were hawk-master to my grandsire, yet I have not seen you at court in my lifetime. To Danilo a choice even more bitter was given: to win favor by dishonorable means, or to keep his own honor at the price of apparent disgrace. In brief, sir, your son offended the pride of a man who has power but none of the honor which gives power its dignity. And this man revenged himself.”
The old man’s brow furrowed as he slowly puzzled out what Regis was saying. “If the charge was unjust, an act of private revenge, why did my son not tell me?”
“Because, Dom Felix, Dani feared you would ruin yourself to avenge him.” He added quickly, seeing a thousand questions forming in the old man’s eyes, “I promised Danilo I would tell you no more than this. But will you accept the word of a Hastur that he is blameless?”
Light broke in the troubled face. “I bless you for coming and I beg you to pardon my rough words, Lord Regis. I am no courtier. But I am grateful.”
“And loyal to your son,” Regis said. “Have no doubt, Dom Felix, he is worthy of it.”
“Will you not honor my house, Lord Regis?” This time the offer was heartfelt, and Regis smiled. “I regret that I cannot, sir, I am expected elsewhere. Danilo has shown me your hospitality; you grow the finest apples I have tasted in a long time. And I give you my word that one day it shall be my pleasure to show honor to the father of my friend. Meanwhile, I beg you to be reconciled to your son.”
“You may be sure of it, Lord Regis.” He stood staring after Regis as the boy mounted and rode away, and Regis could sense his confusion and gratitude. As he rode slowly down the hill to rejoin his bodyguard, he realized what he had, in substance, pledged himself to do: to restore Danilo’s good name and make certain that Dyan could not again misuse power this way. What it meant was that he, who had once sworn to renounce the Comyn, now had to reform it from inside out, single-handedly, before he could enjoy his own freedom.
CHAPTER TWELVE
(Lew Alton’s narrative)
The hills rise beyond the Kadarin, leading away into the mountains, into the unknown country where the law of the Comyn does not run. In my present state, as soon as I had forded the Kadarin I felt that a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
In this part of the world, five days’ ride north of Thendara, my safe-conducts meant nothing. We slept at night in tents, with a watch set. It was a barren country, long deserted. Only perhaps three or four times in a day’s ride did we see some small village, half a dozen poor houses clustered in a clearing, or some small-holding where a hardy farmer wrested a bare living from the stony and perpendicular forest. There were so few travelers here that the children came out to watch us as we passed.
The roads got worse and worse as we went further into the hills, degenerating at times into mere goat-tracks and trails. There are not many good roads on Darkover. My father, who lived on Terra for many years, has told me about the good roads there, but added that there was no way to bring that system here. For roads you needed slave labor or immense numbers of men willing to work for the barest subsistence, or else heavy machinery. And there have never been slaves on Darkover, not even slaves to machinery.
It was, I thought, small wonder that the Terrans were reluctant to move their spaceport into these hills again.
I was the more surprised when, on the ninth day of traveling, we came on to a wide road, well-surfaced and capable of handling wheeled carts and several men riding abreast. My father had also told me that when he last visited the hills near Aldaran, Caer Donn had been little more than a substantial village. Reports had reached him that it was now a good-sized city. But this did not diminish my astonishment when, coming to the top of one of the higher hills, we saw it spread out below us in the valley and along the lower slopes of the next mountain.
It was a clear day, and we could see a long distance. Deep in the lowest part of the valley, where the ground was most even, there was a great fenced-in area, abnormally smooth-surfaced, and even from here I could see the runways and the landing strips. This, I thought, must be the old Terran spaceport, now converted to a landing field for their aircraft and the small rockets which brought messages from Thendara and Port Chicago. There was a similar small landing field near Arilinn. Beyond the airfield lay the city, and as my escort drew to a halt behind me, I heard the men murmuring about it.
“There was no city here when I was a lad! How could it grow so fast?”
“It’s like the city which grew up overnight in the old fairy tale!”
I told them a little of what Father had said, about prefabricated construction. Such cities were not built to stand for ages, but could be quickly constructed. They scowled skeptically and one of them said, “I’d hate to be rude about the Commander, sir, but he must have been telling you fairy tales. Even on Terra human hands can’t build so quick.”
I laughed. “He also told me of a hot planet where the natives did not believe there was such a thing as snow, and accused him of tale-telling when he spoke of mountains which bore ice all year.”
Another pointed. “Castle Aldaran?”
There was nothing else it could have been, unless we were unimaginably astray: an ancient keep, a fortress of craggy weathered stone. This was the stronghold of the renegade Domain, exiled centuries ago from Comyn—no man alive now knew why. Yet they were the ancient Seventh Domain, of the ancient kin of Hastur and Cassilda.
I felt curiously mingled eagerness and reluctance, as if taking some irrevocable step. Once again the curiously unfocused time-sense of the Altons thrust fingers of dread at me. What was waiting for me in that old stone fortress lying at the far end of the valley of Caer Donn?
With a scowl I brought myself back to the present. It needed no great precognition to sense that in a completely strange part of the world I might meet strangers and that some of them would have a lasting effect on my life. I told myself that crossing that valley, stepping through the gates of Castle Aldaran, was not some great and irrevocable division in my life which would cut me off from my past and all my kindred. I was here at my father’s bidding, an obedient son, disloyal only in thought and will.
I struggled to get myself back in focus. “Well, we might as well try to reach it while we still have some daylight,” I said, and started down the excellent road.
The ride across Caer Donn was in a strange way dreamlike. I had chosen to travel simply, without the complicated escort of an ambassador, treating this as the family visit it purported to be, and I attracted no particular attention. In a way the city was like myself, I thought, outwardly all Darkovan, but with a subliminal difference somewhere, something that did not quite belong. For all these years I had been content to accept myself as Darkovan; now, looking at the old Terran port as I had never looked at the familiar one at Thendara, I thought that this too was my heritage . . . if I had courage to take it.
I was in a curious mood, feeling a trifle fey, as if, without knowing what shape or form it would take, I could smell a wind that bore my fate.
There were guards at the gates of Aldaran, mountain men, and for the first time I gave my full name, not the one I bore as my father’s nedestro heir, but the name given before either father or mother had cause to suspect anyone could doubt my legitima
cy. “I am Lewis-Kennard Lanart-Montray Alton y Aldaran, son of Kennard, Lord Alton, and Elaine Montray-Aldaran. I have come as envoy of my father, and I ask a kinsman’s welcome of Kermiac, Lord Aldaran.”
The guards bowed and one of them, some kind of majordomo or steward, said, “Enter, dom, you are welcome and you honor the house of Aldaran. In his name I extend you welcome, until you hear it from his own lips.” My escort was taken away to be housed elsewhere while I was led to a spacious room high in one of the far wings of the castle; my saddle bags were brought and servants sent to me when they found I traveled with no valet. In general they established me in luxury. After a while the steward returned.
“My lord, Kermiac of Aldaran is at dinner and asks, if you are not too weary from travel, that you join him in the hall. If you are trail-wearied, he bids you dine here and rest well, but he bade me say he was eager to welcome his sister’s grandson.”
I said I would join him with pleasure. At that moment I was not capable of feeling fatigue; the fey mood of excitement was still on me. I washed off the dust of travel and dressed in my best, a fine tunic of crimson-dyed leather with breeches to match, low velvet boots, a dress cape lined with fur—not vanity, this, but to show honor to my unknown kinsman.
Dusk was falling when the servant returned to conduct me to the great dining hall. Expecting dim torchlight, I was struck amazed by the daylight flood of brilliance. Arc-light, I thought, blinking, arc-light such as the Terrans use in their Trade City. It seemed strange to go at night into a room flooded by such noonday brilliance, strange and disorienting, yet I was glad, for it allowed me to see clearly the faces in the great hall. Evidently, despite his use of the newfangled lights, Kermiac kept to the old ways, for the lower part of his hall was crammed with a motley conglomeration of faces, Guardsmen, servants, mountain people, rich and poor, even some Terrans and a cristoforo monk or two in their drab robes.
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