“I will be pawn to no king,” Varzil promised, thinking of Carolin and of Felix Hastur, who still occupied the throne at Hali.
Ally and friend, he vowed, but never servant.
Until that moment, Varzil realized, there had always been the possibility that Carolin might ask of him something which ran counter to his own conscience. He had never seriously considered it, for he could not imagine anything which Carolin wanted that he could not agree to. But Carolin was not yet King.
“... answer to your own conscience ...”
Varzil bent over until his cheek brushed the aged hands. His tears wet the clasped fingers. From this time onward, he must look to no other man as the Keeper of his conscience. He would be responsible not only for himself, but for the men and women who served under him.
Auster’s voice was now very low, so that only Varzil could hear his whispered syllables.
“... name you ... tenerézu ...”
Varzil held his breath, waiting. Listening with his laran, with his heart, praying there would be one more word, one more moment of communion. Silence and stillness answered him. Then came a shimmering at the very edges of his senses, both physical and mental. He knew it for the very moment when life extinguished, leaving only a frail husk.
It seemed that the heavens themselves mourned the passing of Auster Syrtis, Keeper of Arilinn Tower. As the year hastened to its end, the weather, which had been unseasonably mild, turned bitterly cold. Auster’s family had sent a message requesting that he be buried in the small plot Arilinn kept for its own. Here, in an unmarked grave just as at the rhu fead, he would join generations of nameless Keepers before him.
Almost overnight, however, the ground froze so hard that no wooden tool could scratch its surface. Gavin went out with one of the precious metal spades and came back shaking his head.
“My uncle Aran said this often happens in the Hellers,” Felicia remarked, looking at the dented tip. “The poor pack the bodies in the snow banks, where they stay frozen solid until the spring thaws. At Tramontana, it is said, they had other ways.”
The farewell service for Auster was even simpler than the one Varzil attended for Taniquel Hastur. The Tower community gathered in their own common room, instead of the gravesite, to share their memories and comfort one another. They began just as the brilliance of the day, hard-edged with cold, began to seep from the sky. Sunset colors streamed in through the windows. By the time they were finished, a dense and velvety darkness surrounded them.
As if, Varzil thought, a night of the spirit as well as the body had fallen.
Immediately afterward, Barak, as sole remaining Keeper, ordered the body brought into the laboratory which had been Auster’s favorite. Here he gathered a circle. Varzil was included, along with those who had worked most closely with Auster. Together, they created a protective field around Auster’s body, a sphere of mental space in which time itself was held in suspension.
Afterward, Barak summoned Felicia for a private meeting. Varzil felt uneasy, for Barak had been the staunchest opponent of any expanded training for Felicia.
Making his way down to the Tower kitchen, Varzil found Lunilla pulling trays of seed buns from the oven. The familiar smells wafted through him. With a sigh, he poured out a mug of jaco and took his place at the battered worktable beside Valentina. Across the table, two of the new arrivals, one just qualified as monitor, stared at him with rounded eyes. A smile twisted Varzil’s mouth. Here he was, Auster’s chosen successor, down in the kitchen along with the youngsters.
“Just like old times.” Smiling, Lunilla slid the buns on to a wooden platter and placed it in the center of the table. Seeing the novices hesitate, she said, “Go on, before Varzil snatches them all!”
“And don’t think I wouldn‘t,” Varzil said, reaching for one. He dropped it, blowing on his fingertips.
With an elegant toss of her head, Valentina used the edge of her shawl to pick up her own bun. She tore off one tiny morsel after another, blew on them and lifted them delicately to her mouth.
They ate in companionable silence for the next few minutes. Only when she’d refilled everyone’s hot drinks did Lunilla sit down herself. She reminded Varzil of a mother barnfowl clucking over her chicks. He was no longer the stripling lad who’d spent a night half-frozen at Arilinn’s gates. Nor could jaco and seed-buns, no matter how filling, solve the problems before him.
Barak meant to rule Arilinn, an Arilinn bound by tradition. An Arilinn in which there was no place for a woman Keeper.
Or, perhaps, came the chilling thought, Tower neutrality.
Varzil! I have news!
The corridor door swung open and Felicia burst in. High color stained her cheeks and her breath came quick and light, as if she’d been running. Her excitement, like a freshening breeze, swept through the room.
“What is it?” Varzil asked as his pulse quickened. “Has Barak changed his mind?”
“About training me?” She shook her head. A few tendrils had come free from the braid coiled low on her neck and framed her face like a coppery aureole. “No, he’s as unmovable as the Twin Peaks. But not everyone on Darkover thinks like him, thank all the gods at once!”
“What happened?” Varzil demanded.
Other voices joined his in a murmur. “What is it, child?” Lunilla asked.
“Hestral Tower has asked for me. They want to train me as a Keeper!” Felicia threw her arms wide, dancing like a child. Triumph rang in her voice.
Varzil caught her in an embrace. For a moment, as their bodies pressed together, he felt that silken oneness of mind. Joy suffused him; his body quivered with its delirium.
“This is news indeed,” Lunilla said in measured tones. “I don’t pretend to know where this will lead to, or that I’m not glad Arilinn’s out of it. Even Durraman’s fabled donkey can see that the world is changing.”
Felicia sobered for a moment. “Perhaps Barak and the others are right and I shall fail. But, oh Lunilla! I will have had a chance to try!”
“You won’t fail,” Varzil said. At the back of his mind, he glimpsed a woman in the crimson robes of a Keeper, lightning bursting from her upraised hands.
Then the image was gone, leaving a sense of disquiet. Had it been Felicia she saw, or some other woman, perhaps in the future ? And why did she call up such power? What need had she of lightning?
“The blessings of the gods go with you, child,” Lunilla was saying in her kind, gentle voice. No matter what her personal opinion of women as Keepers, she genuinely cared for every person in Arilinn.
“When will you go?” Valentina asked. “Next spring?”
The hectic color seeped from Felicia’s cheeks, though her eyes still shone. “I think so, when the weather permits.” Her glance sought Varzil. “At least, I’ll be here for Year’s End.”
29
All the way back from Thendara, whipping his horse into a lather, Carolin heard his wife screaming in his mind. With his paxman at his heels, he galloped into the courtyard and jumped to the ground before his horse slid to a stop. His spurs clanged against the stones as he raced through the outer halls and up the stairs to the royal quarters. Ignoring the protests of the waiting-women, he rushed to her bedchamber. Even if he had no shred of laran, no awareness of her, he would have seen the frantic expressions of the maidservants rushing down the corridor. His paxman remained outside, brow furrowed in concern but asking no questions.
Common men might leave the mysteries of the birthing bed to the women, but Carolin was Comyn as well as Prince. Where else should he be, but by the side of his wife, lending her his strength, sharing her suffering? Was he not half the parentage of this child?
The room felt closed in, drenched with fear and sweat, curtains drawn against the brightness of the day, candles and oil lamps flickering. A woman moaned and writhed on the high, wide bed. Midwives on either side tried to soothe her. One held her hand, murmuring words of encouragement, while the other sponged her forehead.
&n
bsp; Carolin hardly recognized Alianora, who had always seemed so composed, so formal. Heat flushed her cheeks; her unbound hair hung in damp, lank strands. Through the thin gown stretched across her belly, her muscles tensed. She tore her hands away from the midwives and clawed at the roundness. Her breathing became hoarse. Convulsing, she shrieked like an animal.
He went to her side and gently took one hand. There was no response. She was locked away from him, her mind engulfed in the demanding urgency of each moment.
Alianora. I’m here with you. You’re not alone.
The older midwife, her gray hair bound neatly under a head scarf, bent over the laboring woman. “Just keep breathing through the pains, that’s a love, there now, it will pass in a moment, don’t fight it, just breathe.”
Carolin felt the pains peak and then subside, leaving a cold, boring ache. He felt it shiver through his own body and knew something was wrong. Childbirth was painful, that was the way of the world, but not this icy grip, this touch of Zandru’s deepest frozen hell.
Alianora turned toward him. The crazed fear in her eyes diminished for an instant. Her features softened in recognition.
“I am here,” he said, tightening his grasp on her hand.
She rolled away, her eyes squeezing shut. “Ahhh! Ahhh!” came once again, that cry of mindless agony.
The midwife met his eyes, and he saw her own fears.
“Have you sent to Hali Tower for a healer?” he asked.
“Aye, there’s one on the way,” she said, not adding any hon orific, for this was her realm and no time for courtly manners. For all the good it’ll do the lass and her wee bairn.
She rose and led him back to the door, out of Alianora’s hearing. “The child’s placed wrong and for all that it’s early, willna be turned. There’s little ye can do here—”
Women had said those very words to husbands since Hastur, Lord of Light, first courted Cassilda.
Carolin drew himself up. The midwife swallowed the rest of her words. He said, “I will wait.”
The other women exchanged glances, but made no further protest. One brought a chair for him, so that he might sit at the side of the bed. His presence seemed to calm Alianora during those times when her screams died down. He spoke to her, but could never be sure she understood.
How could a woman, so small and weak, bear such pain? A man would have been exhausted—or driven mad—by what she endured. Yet the pains came in wave after unrelenting wave.
After what seemed an age, the door swung open and a woman in a green riding cape burst in. She carried with her the smells of fresh air, saddle leather, and wildflowers. Her hair, as red as his own, had come loose from its single long braid, curling in tendrils around her wind-whipped face. She nodded once to Carolin and went directly to Alianora. He did not know her, but he recognized what she was—a trained monitor, a healer, a leronis of skill and power.
She bent over the laboring woman and laid the back of one hand gently against the fevered cheek. Alianora lay quiet except for the rapid rise and fall of her chest.
The monitor looked up, raking the room in a single glance. “I must have a secure place to work. You—” indicating the head midwife with a tilt of her head, “—bring me these things,” and then she rattled off supplies, linens, boiled water, herbal infusions, and yet more clean linens.
“Will she—” Carolin was surprised at the unsteadiness of his own voice, “is she—”
“I do not know!” the leronis snapped. “And I cannot find out if you keep interrupting me!”
“Husha!” one of the maids cried. “Do you not know who this is? It is Prince Carolin, her husband!”
“I don’t care if it’s Aldones himself, he and you are to leave immediately.” At her words, midwife and maid retreated toward the door.
“Vai leronis,” Carolin said respectfully. “I passed a season at Arilinn. Please allow me to help.”
“Yes, you may have some small measure of skill. Certainly you have laran. But this woman’s life hangs by a thread and I do not have time to instruct an apprentice. If you care at all for her, leave me to do my work!”
There was nothing for it but to obey. He paused once at the door, seized by the fear that he would never see her again alive. The healer’s starstone flared in a burst of blue-white radiance. Laran power surged, filling the room. He glimpsed Alianora’s face, her eyes rimmed with white. Then the door closed behind him.
“Sir?” His paxman was still waiting, holding the riding crop Carolin had shoved into his hands.
Carolin hesitated, irresolute. The light was stronger here, and the familiar carpeted hallway and furnishings struck him as outlandish.
The head midwife had lingered a few paces away. She nodded to him. “Ye might comfort the bairns.”
Avarra’s sweet grace! The boys! Young though they were, and not yet come into their laran Gifts, they might have sensed something was wrong. This was the time Alianora usually played with them.
“Sir?” the paxman repeated.
“Go on, tend to the horses. I’ll send if I need you.”
What can you, or I, or any man do here?
Carolin took a few moments to compose himself before entering the nursery. Rafael and little Alaric were playing with a puzzle spread over the fine-woven carpet while their nurse watched from a corner chair, her fingers flying over her needlework. They ran to him, but silently, not with their usual clamor. He threw himself to his knees, heedless of boot and spur, and caught them up in his arms. They smelled of herb-scented soap and that unmistakable sweetness of children’s skin. Joy, so unexpected it was almost a physical pain, swept through him.
“Hush, hush,” he found himself saying, as much for himself as for them. After a long moment, he rose and settled them all upon the cushioned divan.
“Tell us a story, Papa,” Rafael pleaded.
“A story?” What would Alianora have told? A comical tale of Durraman and his ancient but always resourceful donkey? A jingle about the notorious monk Fra’ Domenic and the contents of his many pockets?
No, she would not have jested about a cristoforo monk. Gods, was he going to cry?
“Carlo.” The voice was low, yet feminine. Maura.
She stood just inside the door, having slipped through it so quietly he had not noticed. Like the healer now tending to Alianora, she must have ridden hard from Hali Tower, for her cheeks were bright, her hair an aureole of curls.
Looking at her, with her gray eyes brimming with tears, he could not speak. She went to him. He reached out to her, thinking to take her hands, but instead his arms went around her. The divan was of such a height that his head rested naturally between her breasts. He felt her hands tighten about him.
Dear heart, I am so sorry. Her words rang like a bell in his mind. So clear, so simple, with such undemanding love.
Stripped bare by the moment, by worry and frustration, he had no defenses against her. She had slipped, gentle as dew, past the barriers of rank and history. Without judgment, without expectation, she seemed to peer directly into his heart. She saw everything that he was, everything that he thought and felt and dreamed, and accepted it all. The moment shook him to the core.
Gently, Carolin pushed her away and clambered to his feet, lest in a moment of weakness he betray his own response. What honor could come of it? She was a pledged virgin and he—his own wife lay dying just a short distance away.
When Carolin returned to Alianora’s chambers, the healer had just finished straightening the covers. Buckets overflowing with blood-soaked linens sat just inside the door. Their smell hung in the air. The healer went to the curtains and pulled them open.
So that she may look her last upon the glory of the day. Our poor child never even had the chance.
She bowed and slipped out the door, leaving Carolin alone with his wife.
For a terrible moment, he feared she had already slipped away, she lay so pale and still. When he lifted one hand, he was surprised at how cool it felt. T
he copper catenas bracelet lay loose around the fragile wrist.
Her eyes fluttered open. Pale, bloodless lips moved, shaped his name, but only a whisper of breath emerged. A film had fallen over the blue eyes, giving her the appearance of blindness.
He pressed his lips to the back of her hand. “Alianora. My good and dutiful wife.”
“My ... husband.”
By the grace of Evanda, there was time for one last gesture, one last farewell. What could he say to her? Nothing, he realized, that had not already been said in those few words. He remembered the first night they had lain together. In a moment of mental intimacy such as they had not shared in all the years together, he saw what was in her mind, the one thing she wished for above all else.
Yes, they were there, hidden in the toe of an old pair of boots. Not in her jewelry case or in any other place where they might be easily discovered.
He placed the cristoforo beads into her hands, closed her fingers around them, and felt the answering pulse of relief and joy. Though he did not know more than a phrase or two, he sensed her own thoughts rising and falling in the ancient rhythms of prayer. When the final echoes had grown still, he realized that she was gone.
He leaned over and pressed his lips to her brow. She looked more at peace than she ever had in life. “May Holy St. Christopher, Bearer of the World’s Burdens, sustain your spirit.” Perhaps the words were wrong, for he knew little of her faith, but he spoke them with reverence. Surely, her god would understand. Surely her god would embrace her and their unborn child.
Sounds outside the door returned him to the present moment. He must go inform the King, and Rakhal and Lyondri. Maura would keep the children safe. Sustained by her gentle wisdom, he would find a way to tell them, too.
First, though, Carolin slipped the prayer beads from between Alianora’s limp fingers. He could not leave them here, where her secret would surely be revealed. To bury or destroy them was abhorrent, a negation of her entire life. There was one place, though, where he could take them—the monastery of Saint Valentine of the Snows at Nevarsin. They had planned to send the boys when they were older, as royal children often were, for the superb education and training in self-discipline. When the time was right, he would go with them, on an errand of his own.