After all, she was Regis' older sister and part of the family. She took some
comfort in the fact that Javanne treated Gisela Aldaran, now the wife of
Mikhail's older brother Rafael, with even less courtesy. It was about the only
thing she and Giz had in common, for she had never managed to become friends
with her sister-in-law, and having her in Comyn Castle all the time could, at
times, be a real trial. Marguerida had done her best to reconcile with her
sister-in-law, taking an interest in Gisela's researches into the geneologies of
the Domain families, and also into the game of chess. She had even managed to
procure a three-dimensional chess set as a gift for her one Midwinter, and the
other woman had unbent for a brief time as a result.
But Gisela remained an aloof and disruptive presence in Comyn Castle, which
already housed enough strong personalities to overwhelm anyone. She understood
some of Giz's melancholy and sizzling rage. The woman had set her sights on
Mikhail when she was only an adolescent, and had failed to achieve her ambition.
That was hard enough. But she and Rafael lived in the Castle, and had to see
both Mikhail and Marguerida almost every day. She was a kind of gentle hostage
for the good behavior of the Aldaran Domain. Regis had never come to trust Dom
Damon Aldaran entirely, and as difficult as having Gisela underfoot might be, it
gave him a lever to hold the old man in check. Marguerida managed to forgive her
difficult relative much of her ill-temper, recognizing in her both intelligence
and ambition, and only wanted to strangle her once a tenday.
Her mother-in-law was another matter entirely, and even though she was not
present at Comyn Castle very often, the thought of the woman always roused her
to rage. Javanne doted on Roderick and Yllana, Marguerida and Mikhail's younger
offspring, but she treated Domenic as if he were invisible, or worse, as if he
smelled bad. And Nico was such a good lad, so serious and thoughtful, unlike
Rory, who was born for mischief. Yllana was still too young to be fully formed,
but was of reasonable intelligence, clever with her fingers, quick-tongued like
her mother, and cautious like Mikhail.
Grimly, she pushed aside these distracting thoughts. It was time to begin a
clean copy of the entire manuscript, and while she could have given the job to
someone from the Musicians Guild, Marguerida wanted to do it herself. She had
managed to sort out the usual morning's work quickly-the menu for the evening
meal with dishes that would not unsettle Regis' now finicky stomach, an ingress
of mice into one of the flour bins in the kitchens, and several other minor
matters. It was a normal day, full of trivial problems.
For the present, the children were occupied, although there was always the
chance that her difficult foster daughter, Alanna Alar, would interrupt her.
Nico, her secret favorite, was doing his Guard duty, and Rory was scrubbing a
wall he had adorned with chalks and paints a few days before. It was rather a
nice mural, and she was sorry to tell him to destroy it, but she could not allow
her troublesome middle child to get in the habit of defacing walls. It was bad
enough that he gorged himself to illness on stolen tarts from the kitchens,
showing every sign of taking up thievery as a fulltime occupation. Marguerida
wondered if some of that tremendous energy might not be channeled into art, at
which Rory seemed quite talented. But this was an idle thought, for in a few
months he would go to Arilinn for his first training, and after that, the Cadet
Guards would be his future. His life was laid out for him, as much as it could
be with things so uncertain.
Marguerida's years on Darkover had not been untroubled, and the Terran
Federation had been at the root of most of it. In the prior two decades the
Federation had increased pressure on Darkover to give up its Protected status
and join the Federation as a full member. This would have meant paying taxes
into the coffers of the ever more rapacious Terrans, as well as making drastic
alterations in the way in which Darkover was governed. When a planet became a
part of the Federation, it became subject to the Federation, and essentially
lost autonomy over its own resources and governance. For that reason, Lew had
strongly advised against surrendering their Protected status, a choice which had
allied him with Javanne Hastur. It had not particularly pleased Javanne to have
Lew agree with her, since her youthful dislike of him had now hardened into
something approaching fanatic hatred, but at least it had ended the rancorous
argument between them during Comyn Council meetings. Council meeting "debates"
tended to be emotionally heated and often vindictive, leaving Marguerida with a
profound desire for peace and quiet. But as Lew calmly told her, there was no
peace on Darkover because if everyone agreed, it would be unnatural.
Instead of starting to work, Marguenda found her thoughts drifting toward the
problems the Federation continued to create for Darkover. It was very annoying,
really, not to be able to concentrate. Then she paused, frowned down at the
music, and then gazed at the fire in the hearth. She had become extremely
disciplined while she studied with Istvana Ridenow, and it was unusual for her
mind to go off on tangents like this. Perhaps there was some reason for her
fussing.
Marguerida kept abreast of the deteriorating relationship between Darkover and
the Federation, even though she tried to remain in the background as much as
possible. One of the things which Javanne disliked about her was that she was in
a position to influence the views of her husband, her father, and others in
Comyn Castle. Javanne assumed she would interfere, because that was just what
Javanne would have done, given the same opportunity. To counteract these
suspicions, Marguerida had done her best to pretend she was a proper Darkovan
woman, interested in domestic matters, not those of state. She readily admitted
she had not succeeded very well. She was too strong-minded to sit quietly during
Council meetings, even though she promised herself each time that she would.
It was funny, really. She and Javanne were very similar in disposition, and
while Marguerida had the advantage of a Federation education, her mother-in-law
knew Darkover down into her aging bones. So, they disagreed on almost
everything, often painfully. Javanne just could not understand that the
Federation had to be dealt with; it could not be wished away or sent off.
Even when they were in agreement, as when the Station Chief had installed some
media screens in taverns in the Trade City, and Regis had ordered them
dismantled since they violated the treaty with the Federation, it was grudging
and unpleasant. Something niggled in Marguerida's mind as she thought about this
incident and she wondered if Belfontaine was about to attempt another intrusion
into the Darkovan way of life. There was no information she had to suggest such
a thing, but sometimes her unconscious mind seemed much more canny than her
waking mind.
Of course, there were those odd disturbances this past summer. A small riot in
br />
the Horse Market, and all manner of rumors, which had come and gone like the
clouds across the sky. It had been a summer fever, and the usually peaceable
populace of the city had turned ugly and resentful for a brief time. But why
should that trouble her just now, when she had a few uninterrupted hours to
work? She felt a frisson of unease, not the first since she had sat down, she
realized.
Something was troubling Marguerida, and it was not the Federation or her
children, or Mikhail or anything she could put her finger on. She had just the
hint of a headache, and her belly was queasy, almost as if she were pregnant
again. Since she knew this was not the case, she could not account for the
unease, unless she was coming down with some medical complaint. She dismissed
the idea abruptly and turned again to the work on the desk.
She really must bear down and focus. Marguerida had a self-imposed deadline to
meet. In three weeks it would be Regis' birthday, and it had become the custom
to present an evening's entertainment of music for the occasion. She planned to
premiere her opera then, since the subject was the legend of Hastur and
Cassilda, the legendary forbears of his house, as a gift for him. It was
fortunate that an increase in the number of musicians coming to the Castle was a
perfectly normal part of the preparations for the event, and more fortunate yet
that the singers and players of instruments regarded Marguerida as an ex officio
member of their Guild. Thus far, the whole project had remained a secret from
Regis, although she was sure he suspected something was going on. In a castle
containing many varied telepaths, it was difficult, but not impossible, to plan
a surprise.
Marguerida closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. Once again she let the
Alton Gift reach out, seeking the source of her unease. She had discovered this
particular feature of her Gift years before, in a long-destroyed keep, in the
distant past, where her life had changed forever. Nothing seemed to be wrong, so
she decided she was just being foolish, shrugged her shoulders, opened her eyes,
and picked up a pen.
Dipping it into the inkwell, she started to copy the first page. Darkovan
musical notation was unlike the form she had learned at University, but after
all this time, it was quite familiar to her, and easy to do. Yes, she had been
right to do this herself-there was a place on the page where it was unclear what
she had intended. Hardly surprising, since she had edited the original half a
dozen times. She hummed the notes to herself, vocalized a stanza softly, and
made the necessary corrections.
After half an hour, Marguerida had made clean copies of four pages, when a shaft
of ruddy sunlight came through the narrow window, brightening the desk and
making her blink. She got up to shut out the blinding light, but instead of
pulling the curtains, she stood for a moment, looking out. Her ivory wool gown
fell around her still slender body in comforting folds, and the apron she had
donned to prevent ink stains was crisp over her waist. There was a brisk breeze
snapping the pennons on the opposite roof, and the smell of autumn was
everywhere. On any other occasion, she would have been out riding with her groom
and two Guardsmen, chafing about having the escort, but enjoying the freshness
of the air. Her beloved mare, Dorilys, was eighteen now, and feeble, so she rode
one of her several foals, Dyania, a frisky, pewter-gray mare with a white star
on her chest. It was hard to spend such a fine day indoors, and she turned back
toward the desk with enormous reluctance.
Yllana's playing had ceased, and it was very quiet as she sat down once again.
Once more she had a stab of unease, but tried to ignore it. Perhaps she was just
anxious about the opera. Well, it was more of an oratorio, since there would be
neither sets nor costumes. Marguerida very much wanted those, and a public
performance of the work as well, in the newly built Music Hall on the other side
of Thendara. But in her position it was probably not a good idea. Javanne Hastur
and some of the other, more conservative members of the Domains, would likely
think that it was unseemly for her to compose something to be publicly
performed, as if she were a common musician and not the wife of Mikhail Hastur.
There was nothing she could do about the animosity of Javanne except, she hoped,
to outlive the woman. That might be a long time coming, since the Hasturs were
famous for their longevity. It would be decades before Mikhail became ruler of
their world, if he ever actually did. As things presently stood, he was Regis'
right-hand man, and Lew Alton was his left, with Danilo Syrtis Ardais, as
always, guarding his back.
Marguerida did not mind that, since once Mikhail was in control, her life would
become even more circumscribed than it already was. Fortunately, she expected to
be a very elderly woman by that time, and hoped she would not mind very much
being a virtual prisoner in Comyn Castle. Now, however, she minded a great deal.
Sometimes she wanted to scream. And occasionally, in the middle of the night,
she went out into one of the back courtyards and howled at the moons, just to
relieve herself, to be utterly alone and free of Guards and servants and the
fractious personalities that filled the Castle.
She returned to the work, and found a very rough passage that needed attention.
Maybe it would be a good idea to delay the thing for another occasion-next year
even. Marguerida took a fresh sheet and sorted out the parts on it, found where
the problem was, and fiddled with it until she was satisfied. How could she have
been so clumsy? She wondered if Korniel, the fine composer of operatic works
from Renney, in the previous century, had had these problems. Very likely. The
Deluge of Ys, his best known work, was her standard of excellence, and she knew
she was unlikely to ever achieve anything so grand and moving. Still, there were
some bits in what she had done, drawing on the lengthy ballad tradition of
Hastur and Cassilde, that were not half bad. She had expanded the lyrics
slightly-not enough, she sincerely hoped, to offend the sensibilities of her
audience too much-and introduced a few diverse elements she had collected from
sources in the north. Erald, the son of the deceased former head of the
Musicians Guild, Master Everard, had been very helpful. He was not in Thendara
very often, since he lived with the Travelers, the wandering jongleurs of
Darkover, but when he was, he always came to the Castle and talked with her. A
strange man, but she thought of him as a friend.
Yes, this refrain she had introduced was quite good. Either that, or her eyes
were filling with tears for some other reason. Marguerida put down the pen,
lifted her left hand, mitted in silk, and now soiled with inkstains, and wiped
away the moisture. It was really very silly to be moved by one's own creation.
On the other hand, if it brought tears to her eyes, it would likely have the
same effect on her audience. Thus heartened, she returned to the copying with
fresh enthusiasm.
But between one stanz
a and the next something changed. One moment Marguerida was
deeply focused on her copying, and the next she felt a chill in her body that
made her hand shake violently. The pen sputtered, left several blots, and
slipped from her fingers. There was a sharp stab of pain above her left eye,
gone so quickly she almost thought she had imagined it. She blinked several
times, and the room went from fuzzy to clear at last.
For a few seconds, she just sat there, too surprised to think at all. It had
felt like a seizure of some sort, but she had not had one of those in years. It
took Marguerida a minute to realize that what she had just experienced had not
actually happened to her, but to someone else. Her first thought was of Mikhail,
or the children. Her earlier unease, she decided, was almost certainly one of
those unwelcome visitations of the Aldaran Gift of foresight. She did not have
them often, and they always seemed to center around events that affected her
directly.
Then, without any clear understanding of how she knew, Marguerida realized what
was wrong. She stood up abruptly, banging against the edge of the desk and
knocking the inkwell over. Dark liquid flowed across the blotter, the freshly
copied pages, and the front of her gown, but she barely noticed.
Mikhail! The Alton Gift soared from her mind, breaking into the attention of
every telepath in the great building.
What is it?
Something has happened to Regis!
2
A blast of cold air struck her face, and Katherine Aldaran gasped. After the
heated port building, it was a shock. The fear that had gripped her since Herm
had awakened her in the middle of the night and told her to pack for Darkover
seemed to loosen its hold on her throat for an instant, and anger rushed into
the breach. She would never forget the way he looked in the dimness of their
bedroom that terrible night, the way his pupils had been constricted even in the
inadequate light. The desperate expression on his usually calm, familiar face
had terrified her so that she had not even questioned him but just done as she
was asked.
She had endured her fear in the tiny cabin on the ship, and through the change
at Vainwal. Katherine swallowed hard and opened her mouth to demand an
explanation at last, but the frigid wind snatched the words away as it pulled