Traitor's Sun

  still was.

  Katherine choked, and Domenic gave her a few firm pats between her bare

  shoulders. She gasped for air and her eyes bulged. Then she recovered her

  breath, emptied her refilled glass in a few gulps, and stared at Mikhail. "You

  are serious, aren't you?"

  "Very. But I do not expect you to believe me, when my own mother very much

  doubts the truth of it. I can only say that I was there, and I know what

  happened. You do not have to believe me." He glanced at the heavy di catenas

  bracelet that encircled his wrist, made for another man whose name was a variant

  of Mikhail, then looked down the long table toward his wife, remembering that

  strange, magical time.

  "You traveled in time?" She was both amazed and disbelieving, but her curiosity

  got the better of her.

  "Yes."

  "What was it like?"

  Mikhail was rather taken aback by her question, for it was not the reaction he

  had anticipated. "It was very uncomfortable."

  Katherine began to laugh, and tears formed in the corners of her eyes. After a

  few moments, they began to trickle down her cheeks, and she dabbed at them with

  the corner of her napkin. Finally she regained control of herself and turned to

  Domenic. "Is he always this terse?"

  "Almost, unless he is lecturing Rory." Domenic gave his father a fond look,

  which took most of the sting out of the words. But not all. Mikhail could

  remember vividly the day Dani Hastur had told him that his father never seemed

  to have time to talk to him. Was this how Nico felt? Mikhail had promised

  himself he would be a great parent, that he would not neglect his children that

  way. Now he felt that he had failed.

  It is all right, Father. You listen more than you talk, that is all. And you

  worry too much.

  Thank you, Nico. You do know that you can always come to me, don't you?

  Yes, but I don't have much to say.

  Are you happy, son?

  No, but there is nothing you can do about it. And I don't want to discuss it,

  either now or any other time.

  Very well. Mikhail returned to eating glumly. Then he remembered himself at

  fifteen, and how prickly he had been. He forced himself to relax and let the

  matter go, for it was likely just the normal problem of being an adolescent, and

  would take care of itself in time. Was any teenager happy? Probably not.

  Mikhail looked up from his plate and found Marguerida looking at him from the

  other end of the table. She gave him one of her wonderful smiles, a look that

  never failed to reassure him and comfort him, then turned her attention back to

  Herm Aldaran. The deep pain of his uncle's sudden death, and the actuality that

  he was now the real ruler of Darkover seemed to lessen a little with her look.

  With Marguerida beside him, he knew he could face anything, no matter how

  impossible it seemed at the moment. He turned his attention to the food on his

  plate, while his son and Katherine talked, and let himself think of nothing in

  particular.

  At the other end of the table, Marguerida observed her son and husband, and

  sighed softly. She wondered what had provoked Katherine's outburst of merriment.

  The woman struck her as very serious, but she seemed less angry now, and

  Marguerida was glad of that.

  "I don't know what Mikhail said, but it is good to hear Kate laugh like that

  again. I was beginning to think . . . well, no matter." Herm smiled at

  Marguerida as he spoke.

  "She must be beside herself."

  "Do you know, I have never understood that phrase. How can one be beside

  themselves? But, yes, she has been very troubled, for which I cannot blame her.

  When I first met her, she was a young widow, and very sad. From all I can

  gather, Amaury's father was a very good fellow, and his sudden death was a great

  blow. I have often wished I had known him, although if he had still been alive,

  I would never have had the opportunity to marry Katherine, and that would have

  been intolerable for me!" He chuckled to himself. "I might have had to challenge

  him to a duel, or something equally preposterous."

  "You do not strike me as a marrying sort of man," Marguerida commented.

  "You are right on that, though how you could have discerned it after such a

  brief acquaintance I do not know. I was quite happy in my bachelorhood, until I

  encountered Katherine, and then the only thing I could think of was to marry her

  as quickly as possible, before someone else snatched her away."

  "Were there other suitors, then?"

  "No, not at all. But I kept imagining hordes of them, lurking in the corners of

  the ballrooms and drawing rooms. She is so beautiful that I could not help it.

  And why she agreed to marry me remains a mystery. I know I am not a handsome

  man." He gestured at his shining pate. "Whatever good looks I had, Robert

  damaged in a fist fight when we were lads." He rubbed his nose, which had

  clearly been broken at least once.

  "Robert in a fist fight? Now, that is a remarkable notion, for he has always

  seemed to me to be the best-tempered of men."

  "He is, but I was a very provoking boy. Not unlike your Rory, I suspect. But,

  tell me, how did you arrive at the conclusion that I was not the marrying type?

  My curiosity demands satisfaction."

  "Gisela suggested to me, long ago, that you were a confirmed bachelor. Indeed, I

  did not even know you had married, let alone were a father, until you arrived.

  Somehow you never mentioned it in your messages to my father, or in your

  infrequent letters to your sister. Why did you keep it such a secret? Didn't you

  want your father to know he had another granddaughter?"

  Herm grunted. "My father and I parted on poor terms, Domna Marguerida, and one

  reason I took the position in the Chamber of Deputies was to escape him. And

  because it was the chance of a lifetime for me. I had wanted to travel to the

  stars since I was a boy, all full of the tales told by the spacemen who

  frequented our home. But, I never wanted to be a spacer at all-the idea of being

  cooped up in a ship for long periods of time made me cringe. Besides having no

  talent for the mathematics and other disciplines that are needed. And it seemed

  that this was the only way to leave Darkover, until Regis decided to appoint me.

  I jumped at the chance, and, frankly, my father was furious with me."

  "But, why?"

  "I suspect it was because he never liked Regis, but I cannot say for certain.

  All I know is that he went into one of his rages, a drunken fury that had the

  servants scrambling for cover, and called me a number of things I cannot repeat

  in polite company."

  Marguerida grinned. "There is nothing you can say that would shock me, and

  Mikhail can tell you that occasionally my language would shame a drayman. But I

  appreciate your restraint, since I do not particularly want Rory learning any

  more choice phrases than he already knows. Do not be fooled by his pleasant

  demeanor-he was born to mischief." She glanced at her red-haired son fondly, and

  Roderick blushed deeply.

  "All boys his age are like that, even Amaury."

  Marguerida shook her head. "Not my Domenic. He has always been the best c
hild,

  so much so that I worry about him. I know it sounds silly, but I have often

  wished he would get into trouble of some sort. He is just too good sometimes."

  "Do not borrow trouble, domna. It is a very dangerous thing."

  "I know. But sometimes I cannot help myself." She cast a fond look at Lew Alton.

  "I am, after all, my father's child."

  To her delight, Hermes Aldaran roared with laughter, making everyone at the

  table stare at him. "Born to trouble. Yes, I know that one very well," he

  chortled.

  6

  Domenic stood at his post outside the Guard's Barracks and stared at the

  stonework of the buildings opposite, across the narrow street. A steady stream

  of foot traffic moved past him, the familiar faces of local merchants and

  householders, cheerful in the mild autumn weather. Distantly he registered the

  pleasant smell of woodsmoke, carried by a brisk but not unpleasant breeze. It

  was coming from the direction of the kitchens of Comyn Castle, so the odors of

  roasting fowl and baking bread mingled with the smoke. Usually this made his

  mouth water, but today he had no appetite.

  He shifted and stamped his feet, which were slightly cold from standing in the

  shadows at attention for over an hour. He wriggled his toes in the tips of his

  boots, trying to restore some circulation. The problem which had troubled his

  sleep returned to his mind, and he bit his lower lip, trying to find some answer

  to it. He glared at the white bulk of the Castle to his right, swore

  unconsciously, making his companion look at him curiously.

  "Something the matter, vai dom?"

  "No, Kendrick. I didn't sleep well and am feeling rotten, is all."

  "At your age, you should be sleeping like a log, no matter what, lad. Fire or

  flood."

  "If you say so." Nico shrugged and turned away. He had pulled his hair back

  tightly and bound it with a small thong, since Cisco Ridenow, the head of the

  Guards, did not approve of long hair. The tautness of it was giving him a

  headache.

  Nico wished he knew every aspect of what was bothering him, but he could not

  pull all the threads together, and that made it all the more maddening. Part of

  the problem, he knew, was Regis' sudden death, because that had changed

  everything for him. He was deeply saddened, but that was not all that was

  disturbing his mind. It was, primarily, the feeling that he would never have the

  opportunity to do anything that was not laid out for him by custom and heredity.

  Funny, that had never made a difference before. And he could not actually think

  of anything he wanted to do particularly, except not be Domenic Gabriel-Lewis

  Alton-Hastur. Rory was the lucky one, for he could do whatever he pleased.

  He shuffled his feet again and stared at the cobbles under them, trying to sort

  out the muddle in his mind. He had drunk more wine than he was accustomed to the

  previous night, under the pleasant influence of Katherine Aldaran, who was the

  most interesting woman he had ever met, except for his mother. And brave, too,

  because he could tell she was simply terrified of being around telepaths, but

  she managed to keep herself in hand. Her quiet steadfastness the previous

  evening had left him feeling a bit cowardly by comparison. Was this what was

  disturbing him, and might there be some truth in it? Might he be a coward?

  In moments, the thought grew from being a pebble in his mind into a boulder. He

  wondered if he were brave enough, good enough to be the heir of the Hastur

  Domain and all that entailed, now that Regis was gone. While Regis still lived,

  the prospect of ruling had remained distant and remote. And, he admitted to

  himself, he had very little ambition for the position in which fate had put him.

  He had assumed that Regis would live for another two decades, at the very least,

  by which time he would have been a father himself, and his own son could be made

  heir to the regency. How odd that he had never before acknowledged this

  fantasy-that he had never really believed that the task of governing Darkover

  would actually be his.

  He knew what Regis would have told him-that if he didn't want the life he had,

  he should have arranged to have different parents. He had heard this more than

  once, but now it failed to make him smile. All he could say for certain was that

  he felt as if the walls were closing around him, as if he were an animal trapped

  in some snare, ready to bite his paw off in order to escape. He would be watched

  over, even more than he already was, and that seemed intolerable. Hadn't he been

  a near prisoner in Comyn Castle all of his life? It had not bothered him

  before-so why now did he have this strange desire to run away, just to walk down

  the street, into a city he barely knew, despite having lived in it all of his

  life, and just to keep going until he reached the Wall Around the World. He

  wondered briefly if his father would change this arrangement-he knew that the

  Hasturs had not always immured themselves as Regis had-but decided it was very

  unlikely.

  There were dangers on Darkover-he was well aware of that. There were Terranan

  agents around, although they were few and apparently not terribly good at their

  jobs, if the mess they had made of causing troubles in the city were anything to

  judge by. There were beasts like catamounts and banshees-except that if he

  stayed in Comyn Castle he would never know what they looked like. And there were

  people on the Comyn Council who would do him harm, if they could. His own

  grandmother, Javanne, occasionally let herself wish him dead. But that was only

  an unhappy old woman's foolishness, and he was fairly certain she would never

  actually try to hurt him.

  Domenic shuddered. She would be arriving shortly, for the public ceremony and

  then to accompany the funeral train of Regis Hastur on its journey to the rhu

  fead. He had never seen that place, and it had an eerie reputation, but it was

  where the bodies of Darkover's rulers were laid to rest. And doubtless she would

  once again bring up the remarkable circumstances of his conception, and suggest

  that his status was nedestro rather than legitimate. If only his parents had

  been married in the ordinary manner, instead of being wed by Varzil the Good in

  the distant past. Even though several leroni, including his aunt Liriel, had

  attested to the truth of the experiences that Mikhail and Marguerida had

  reported, there were still people who chose to disbelieve them. And although he

  did not like to admit it, even to himself, he sometimes wondered if his

  grandmother was right. Not that it mattered, now that his father had named him

  heir designate, but the doubt and suspicion about his conception hurt him more

  than he cared to confess.

  His mother said that once Javanne got an idea in her head, nothing short of a

  bolt from Aldones could shake it loose, and that pretty much summed it up. And

  she was bound to make trouble in the Council. He had attended his first meeting

  of that body at Midsummer, right after he had his fifteenth birthday, and had

  been startled by the amount of shouting it included. Somehow he had always

  imagined it was stuffy and boring, but instead it had been
a series of arguments

  about everything from the state of the Towers to the status of the Guilds in

  Thendara.

  Afterward he had asked his father, "Is it always like that?"

  Mikhail had grinned ruefully and shaken his head. "This was a fairly orderly

  meeting, Nico."

  "Then I hope never to see a disorderly one. I thought Francisco Ridenow was

  going to try to punch Uncle Regis in the nose!"

  Part of the argument had been about the lease on the spaceport, which was due to

  run out in two years. Regis and Grandfather Lew had been in favor of extending

  it, at a greater fee, and Francisco had been against that. Domenic understood

  why-the Federation had failed to pay the rent for two years of the past five.

  They did not particularly need the money, since Darkover had kept her economy as

  free of Federation dependency as possible, but it was the principle of the

  matter. For its own part, the Federation had proposed that they be given the

  spaceport in perpetuity, and without any rents, since they had "developed" it.

  No one had even entertained that notion for a second-it was almost the only

  point of complete agreement in the entire meeting.

  And who knew what would happen, now that the Federation had dissolved its

  legislature. They might pull out, which would please people like his grandmother

  and Francisco Ridenow. Domenic didn't really care one way or the other, because

  the few Terranan he had known had not impressed him as either pleasant or

  particularly clever. He did not include Ida Davidson, who was like an aunt to

  him, and had even managed to teach him how to carry a decent tune. He thought

  glumly of the "advisor" who had been foisted off on Regis a few years before, a

  dry, clerkish man who had asked a great many questions and never given any

  answers at all. He still wasn't sure why his uncle and his grandfather had

  allowed the man into Comyn Castle. It seemed to be one of those grown-up things,

  some plot that he could not really grasp the purpose of. And where he would,

  when he had been younger, have asked any number of questions, Domenic now found

  himself tongue-tied a good deal of the time.

  His thoughts drifted toward Lyle Belfontaine, away from the unpleasant specter

  of Javanne, and more, he admitted to himself, from young Gareth Elhalyn,