Traitor's Sun

  sister Ariel went into labor with Alanna, and people were fainting and screaming

  and having fits. Mikhail and Marguerida left the Castle and rode away to Hali

  Tower, where somehow they . . . managed to get away into the past."

  "Yes. Mikhail said something about it at dinner last night, and at first I

  thought he was pulling my leg. Then I realized he was serious, which was even

  more difficult to take than being the butt of a joke. They really did?"

  "Well, they went somewhere-somewhen? I still have a hard time imagining it, and

  I always wished it were me, not her, of course! When they returned, several

  weeks had passed for them, but only a night had for us, and they were married

  and she was pregnant with Domenic! I tell you, this was a lot to believe, and

  there are a few people, like my mother-in-law, who still don't, even though the

  best leroni on Darkover have attested to the actuality of these events. Javanne

  didn't want Mik to marry Marguerida any more than I did, but for different

  reasons, and she still insists that it was not a valid marriage. That is mostly

  spite, because she had not given her consent."

  Gisela paused and shifted on the bench. "So there we all were, stuck with the

  situation. Rafael was very kind to me then, though I had never done anything to

  warrant it. And I knew then that Marguerida was right, that I had misinterpreted

  my foreseeing, and that Rafael was the man in my visions. I had known all along,

  but I had refused to see it."

  "How had you known?"

  "The Aldaran Gift, as I mentioned before. I saw myself married to a Hastur and I

  persuaded myself that it had to be Mikhail, because I wanted it to be. I was

  well aware he had two brothers. I just pretended to myself that Gabe and Rafael

  did not exist-what a goose of a girl I was!" The self-loathing in her voice made

  Kate want to cringe.

  During the ride to the Painters Guild, Katherine had almost managed to forget

  that the people around her had peculiar "gifts," that the woman sitting across

  from her was a telepath, and perhaps more. She had let herself be persuaded by

  Marguerida's assurances that her thoughts were safe. Now all her doubts and

  fears returned, at the mention of the Aldaran Gift, and she swallowed hard, and

  forced herself to sound calm and casual. "Yes, the Aldaran Gift. Herm told me a

  little about it, but I am not sure I believed him."

  Gisela gave a genuine laugh this time. "Oh, it is very real, but interpreting it

  is pretty chancy. And I never told anyone-I can't imagine why I am speaking so

  openly to you." She looked into Katherine's eyes then, a piercing gaze full of

  fear and a deep longing as well. "The only person who knows the most of it is

  probably Marguerida, and she is much too tactful to ever throw it in my face.

  Sometimes I wish she were not quite so . . . disciplined. Or that I could be

  more like her and less like myself."

  Kate returned the look, trying to put into it her unspoken intention to be a

  good friend, for the more she listened to Gisela, the more she found her to be

  both brave and lonely. "It is easier, sometimes, to tell things to strangers

  than to people you know well."

  "You see, that is exactly the problem. There are no strangers in my life-only

  folk I know so well that I can anticipate what they will say before they speak

  the words. Sometimes I think that if Rafael clears his throat before he asks me

  how I am today one more time, I will . . . go mad."

  "Please don't do that."

  Gisela laughed quietly and her shoulders drooped a little. "No, I guess I won't,

  I would surely have done so years ago if I were going to. All in all, life has

  not been terrible, just not terribly satisfactory. My husband cares for me a

  great deal. Even with all the naughty things I did."

  "What sort of things?"

  "Well, I listened to my father, which was my first mistake, and I did a few

  things that were . . . impolitic. They did not do serious damage to anyone

  except that Rafael was embarrassed and no longer completely trusted, because of

  me. He is a proud man, and I shamed him in the eyes of his own brother. There

  are days when I would give anything to undo that. But I can't, and I have to

  endure the consequences of my own stupidity."

  "What exactly did you do that was so terrible?" Katherine asked.

  "I suggested that perhaps Mikhail should not be Regis' heir, because of his

  travels into the past and his marrying Marguerida, but that Rafael should

  instead. To anyone that would listen." The pain in her voice was unmistakable.

  "And the most terrible part is that he has never chided me for what I did, never

  made me ask for forgiveness for being a foolish, immature, conniving wretch. All

  he has done for fifteen years is try to make me happy, to help me be content

  with my lot in life, as he is with his."

  "Umm . . . that rather goes beyond impolitic, Gisela."

  She spat a bitter sounding laugh from between white lips. "I know-it was near to

  treason, except that I wasn't taken very seriously. I never do anything by

  halves. And when I understood that it was hurting Rafael, I stopped and tried to

  be good. I studied chess, pretending that the pieces were the inhabitants of

  Comyn Castle, until I grew weary of that, and then I started to write a text on

  chess, which filled the empty hours, and read my way through the archives. I am

  probably the most well-read woman on the planet." She gave a feeble smile.

  "Marguerida even consults me on old books, sometimes, which should make me

  happy, but nothing really does."

  "But haven't you ever found anything you loved to do?" The words came out before

  Kate could restrain them. She could hardly bear the anguish in the voice of the

  other woman, and the sense of her pain.

  "No."

  "Even when you were a little girl?"

  To Kate's surprise, Gisela blushed along her high cheekbones and looked down at

  her hands. She mumbled something, but the folds of her cloak muffled the words.

  "I'm sorry, but I didn't quite catch that," Kate said.

  Gisela lifted her head and looked directly at Katherine for a minute without

  speaking. "There was something." She flexed her hands, with the extra finger

  that Herm had told Katherine was common in the Domain families, and which looked

  so peculiar. "I liked to carve-such a common thing. My nurse made me stop;

  because it was dirty and she said I might cut myself with the knife. I was so

  ashamed. I hadn't thought about that in years, until a few days ago." She

  stopped talking and looked out the window of the carriage. "It was the day you

  came, and I was looking at this fantastic chess set that Marguerida gave me for

  Midwinter, and thinking how lucky it was that the figures had escaped from the

  stone and bone they were made from. I felt as if I were somehow trapped in stone

  . . ."

  Kate was nearly squirming with discomfort now. She was angry, that a perfectly

  intelligent woman was caught in such a dreadful trap. Stone, indeed. She drew a

  harsh breath and said, "I think it is terrible that your nurse shamed you,

  Gisela, and I also think it is high time you stopped letting what other people

  expect of you rule your
life. I think you are terribly brave, too. I don't know

  if I could have been married to a drunk, and then held hostage!" The ugly word

  hung between them, almost visible, for a moment. "And as for wanting to be more

  like Marguerida and less like yourself-nonsense! If anything, you should want to

  be more like yourself!"

  Gisela managed a shaky laugh. "I think if I were any more like myself, someone

  would strangle me, Kate."

  "I don't mean being your lowest self, but being your very best." Kate could feel

  her impatience rise. Nana had always said it would be her downfall, and she had

  tried very hard to master it. Now she felt as if she had learned nothing over

  the years.

  "My best self? You are either the most generous woman ever born, or you just

  don't understand!"

  "Perhaps I don't or maybe it's you who don't understand. I was raised so

  differently than you were!"

  "Tell me about that, please."

  Katherine knit her brows for a moment, forcing herself to become calm again. She

  could not change the past for Gisela, but perhaps she could find a way to help

  her sister-in-law into a better future. "On Renney we believe that each person

  has a purpose, or more than one, and that we are obligated to discover what that

  is. We have a lot of complicated rituals that we use to find out what we are

  supposed to be. The idea of someone else deciding what we are going to do with

  our lives, of being trapped in place, is very hard for me to imagine."

  "So, how did you find out you were supposed to become a painter?" There was a

  friendly glint in the dazzling green eyes of the other woman, and Kate had no

  doubt she was genuinely interested. Gisela smiled encouragingly, and some of the

  tension between them faded.

  "I fasted for three days and then sat in a cold grove of trees for the night and

  waited. It was very unpleasant, but it was expected, so I did it anyway." She

  chuckled, more comfortable now. "My toes felt like ice and my belly was growling

  and nothing happened for hours and hours. I was just starting to feel as if I

  were going to fail when . . . something happened. Between one second and the

  next I wasn't cold any longer, and my head was filled with images, of people and

  places that I had never seen." She paused for a breath. "I was terrified and

  happy all at the same time, and my heart leaped in my chest. I just sat there

  feeling this incredible thing, and then it started to dawn, the light coming

  through the trees, making long shadows and coloring the trunks gold. And then I

  looked at my hands and discovered that I had a stick in one, and that the ground

  in front of me was covered with scratchings that I did not remember making,

  little figures of people and buildings. And I knew in my bones what I was

  supposed to be, and I went home and told my Nana, after eating a huge bowl of

  stew and giving myself a belly ache."

  "Your Nana?"

  "The mother of my mother."

  "It sounds very interesting, except the part about the fasting." She patted her

  waist and sighed. "And no one asked you if you were sure, or wondered if you had

  just made the whole thing up or anything?"

  "The Rennians believe that visions are a gift from the Goddess in her many

  forms, and to question one would be . . . unthinkable."

  "I see. How old were you when this happened?"

  "Twelve."

  Gisela sighed. "Well, we don't have that sort of vision here on Darkover, and I

  am much too old to start, I think. It does sound wonderful, though."

  "You are never too old to start something, Gisela. Stop talking as if your life

  were already over. You are younger than I am! I do not know your customs here.

  What harm would there be in you doing something that genuinely pleased you,

  instead of sitting around . . . feeling sorry for yourself."

  Gisela winced. "There is that. How did you get to be so wise?"

  "I'm not, but when you spend your days painting people, trying to capture them

  on canvas, you discover a great deal. The way they fold their hands or purse

  their mouths tells you something about them, often something they would rather

  not know."

  "Oh." Self-consciously, Gisela tucked her hands under the edges of her cloak,

  then shrugged. "I guess it is too late to escape your eye, isn't it? What have

  you divined about my character that you think I would prefer not to know?"

  "Are you sure you want me to answer that?"

  The other woman thought for a moment. "Yes, I think I do. All my life I have

  been . . . other people's Gisela. I was my father's pet, when he noticed me at

  all, and then his pawn. I was a wife, then a widow, and a wife again-but none of

  that seems to be about me. I can't explain it better than that."

  "You did fine. What I see is a very intelligent woman who does not really like

  pleasing others."

  "You mean that I am selfish? I already knew that."

  "No, because if you were really selfish, you would please yourself and not worry

  about the consequences. Instead you keep trying to be what other people expect

  of you, and it ends up making you angry. So, you punish yourself by doing mean

  things that make you dislike yourself."

  "Ouch!" Gisela started, then looked reflective.

  "Are you sorry you asked?"

  "No, but you are much too close to the bone for my comfort. Do you talk like

  this to Hermes?"

  "Not often enough!"

  Gisela shook her head in wonder. "It must gall him dreadfully."

  "Yes, it does. Now, tell me why you are afraid to do something you want to do?"

  "When I was little and I carved, I lost all track of time and got so . . . far

  away. I didn't pay attention to anything except finding the thing in the wood.

  And that is unwomanly, or so my nurse told me time after time."

  "Lost? Obsessed? Totally unaware of anyone else on the planet?"

  "Oh!" Tears swelled in Gisela's eyes. "You do know what I mean!"

  "Of course I do, and I am sure Marguerida would as well, although I can see that

  you never could have told her what you just told me. Now, I do not know Rafael

  very well yet, but somehow I can't see him objecting, as long as you don't come

  to bed with splinters in your nightdress."

  "You make it sound so easy," Gisela almost moaned.

  "Do you really want to spend the rest of your life being bored and . . . getting

  into mischief?"

  "No."

  "Then, for Birga's sake, do what you wish."

  "Birga?"

  "The goddess of craftsmen on Renney."

  "Do what I wish . . . I don't know if I dare."

  " 'She who dares nothing is truly lost.' I mean, it is not like you are

  proposing to establish a . . . joyhouse in Comyn Castle or something, is it?"

  "A . . . joyhouse?" Gisela laughed and laughed, until tears fell from her eyes.

  She hugged her sides and rocked from side to side. "Oh, my! What an idea! I am

  almost tempted to suggest it, just to see the looks on the faces of . . . no,

  that is more mischief, isn't it."

  "My Nana always told me that shocking people just to get attention was very

  naughty, and she is a wise woman." Then her own demon of wickedness stirred a

  little. "On the other hand, if you did suggest it, then t
he idea of you

  whittling or sculpting would seem perfectly wonderful by comparison!"

  "Quite right." She fell silent for a moment, thinking. "Katherine, what if I am

  no good at it?"

  "Irrelevant. What matters is the doing."

  "But I want to be good!" Her face twisted, as if she had heard her own words and

  grasped the depth of desire within them.

  "Of course you do-but you dare not let your fear of failure corrupt your

  intention. Renney is a world of forests and seas, and we use wood for everything

  we can. We have a great tradition of wood carving, therefore, and lots of

  proverbs as well. One is 'Be true to the wood, and the wood will be true to

  you.' "

  " 'Be true to the wood!' How beautiful! Oh, Katherine, I am so glad you came to

  Darkover!"

  "Do you know, I am starting to be glad I came here, too-although I confess I

  find some of your customs . . . distasteful. Well, you might feel the same if

  you went to Renney. Married off to a drunk! I have a feeling that my

  father-in-law and I will never see eye to eye."

  Gisela smiled fondly at her. "You will be part of a large group, then, for

  hardly anyone sees eye-to-eye with him!" The light through the carriage window

  caught her features for a moment, the green eyes gleaming and the mouth relaxed

  almost completely for the first time Katherine had seen.

  "Will you sit for me, for a portrait?" The impulse was irresistible because the

  subject was beautiful, and she itched to start to work.

  "Really? I would like that very much. Thank you, Katherine-for everything!"

  Gisela's hands stroked the fur on her lap and her eyes unfocused slightly. Her

  taut shoulders drooped softly now, as she mused. Then she roused, leaned across

  the carriage, and took Kate's hand in hers, tears brimming in viridescent eyes.

  "You have given me hope, at last."

  8

  Herm Aldaran sat down on the edge of the bed, bent over, and pulled off his

  boots. He wriggled his toes sensuously, then leaned back across the covers, his

  arms extended above his head. He gazed up at the hangings, and at the plastered

  ceiling, enjoying the utter silence of the suite. Katherine was gone, and he did

  not know where the children were, but he was too drained to worry. He had been

  with Lew Alton, Mikhail, and Danilo Syrtis-Ardais for hours, and his tongue