little warmth. He watched her reach out and stroke the smooth wood, then smile
her secret grin. At least one of them was enjoying herself.
Katherine took a long breath, pulled her all-weather cloak closer around her,
thrust her hands under the blanket, and looked at her husband and
brother-in-law. "Don't you think it is about time you told me what the hell is
going on, Hermes?" She had returned to Terran, and her deep voice was calm.
Still, he recognized the danger signs. His wife was never more fearsome than
when she seemed reasonable. "Surely there are no listening devices in this
carriage."
"Yes, I should. You have been very patient with me."
"I am not stupid," she snarled, her cheeks flushing in a very becoming manner.
"You wake me up in the middle of the night with a look in your eyes like . . .
the demon cats of Ardyn were at your heels." She sputtered to a halt and
shuddered all over. "Then you tell me to pack, that we are leaving because you
have been called back to Darkover. How? When?"
Hermes found the children watching him with wide and curious eyes, and sensed
the mild amusement of Rafael beside him. At least he did not marry a
faint-hearted woman, came the wry thought.
"Well, I could hardly tell you the truth in the ship, Katherine."
"Well, you can now!" She was fighting her fear, concealing it with anger as best
she could.
"I had reason to believe that the Premier was about to disband the Senate and
the Chamber, Katherine, and it did not seem to me to be a good idea to wait
around until it happened." He used his most reasonable voice, but he could see
that it did not satisfy her-she had been stewing for too long.
Rafael cleared his throat. "It has been- We received word just a few hours ago,
after we knew you were arriving. All the members of the Senate and the lower
house are being detained, I believe, including a few of those who represent
Protected Planets. I don't have any information about what is going to happen to
them. Lew only had a few minutes to brief me. It all sounds quite mad to me."
"What!" Katherine exploded, her gray eyes blazing in the dim light of the
carriage. "Are you certain?" Her homeworld, Renney, was a Protected Planet, like
Darkover, and a cousin of hers was a Deputy. Herm regretted that there was no
way to have warned the woman, Cara, whom he liked.
"As sure as I can be, since I got the word from Lew, and he from Ethan
MacDoevid, who is at HQ-which means I only have thirdhand knowledge. I wish Rafe
Scott was still at HQ, for he could have been a great help just now." Rafael
Hastur shrugged. Rafe is a strong telepath, and could have been very useful.
"I am surprised that I was not detained, then, even though Darkover is
Protected." Herm voiced the question he knew was in Katherine's mind as well.
"We have a few sympathizers yet at HQ, and bribery is still possible," Rafael
answered tersely. There was something guarded about him now, and his pleasant
face looked grim and sad. Regis picked a damned inconvenient tame have a stroke!
And I don't know how much longer we can keep it a secret.
Herm heard his thought and winced. Something has happened to Regi's. The
remembered words rang in his mind. So, his clairvoyance had been correct. Whose
voice had he heard, across the light-years between Darkover and Terra? Odd. He
was gripped with profound sadness for a man he had never actually met. A
stroke-so at least he was not dead. That was good. But from the turmoil in his
brother-in-law's mind, it was also clear that he was not expected to recover. It
did not seem possible. He could not imagine Darkover without its white-haired
monarch. And clearly Rafael did not want to discuss it.
Rafael cleared his throat and continued speaking. "I am not privy to all the
details-Uncle Lew has been quite close-mouthed." His face twisted in an odd
grimace. I will never be completely trusted because of Gisela. The only reason I
was sent on this errand is because Herm is my brother-in-law, and my presence
would rouse no comment. Damn all the Aldarans! Then he flinched, as if aware
that he was, for all intents and purposes, shouting his thoughts to those who
could hear them, and gave Herm a helpless look. "All he told me was to meet you,
and to distribute enough substantial bribes to make sure you were not detained."
Visibly shaken, Katherine huddled against the wall of the vehicle. "This is
insane. Why didn't you find some way to tell me! And how did you know, when no
one else did?" I know that he couldn't have told me. Why am I being so
unreasonable? Wasn't there some way he could have suggested . . . no. Did he
even try?
Herm shifted uneasily on the bench. All his hens and chickens were going to come
home to roost, much sooner than he wished, it seemed. He should have told Kate
the truth years before, but there had never been just the right moment for the
revelation. Or so he had convinced himself. He would have to lie-again. And he
was so tired that it seemed impossible. "I was warned by a clerk of the
Premier's I have been cultivating," he answered, surprised his voice did not
quiver at all. There was a clerk whom he had gotten information from in the
past, a pretty woman who liked to flirt with him. He had never been unfaithful
to Katherine, but he had skirted the edges of it more than once for political
reasons.
"And you could not tell me?"
"No. I could not put you and the children at risk-there are too many listening
devices in too many places, dearest." She knew that personal privacy had nearly
vanished in recent years, and was aware that their apartments were not safe, but
she was not in a mood to be mollified. It was not just the Security Forces
either, although they were the most obvious spies. There were other groups,
covert bunches of shadowy people, nameless and faceless, who nurtured their own
suspicions of the Senator from Darkover and anyone else whom they did not own.
He had found hints of them in the unguarded thoughts of clerks who were nothing
of the sort, as well as in those of his fellow legislators. Herm wondered if the
Expansionist Party knew that there were traitors in their midst, plotting for
power over the decadent Federation. It did not matter any longer, did it? They
could all plot themselves to perdition, for all he cared. By Aldones, he was
tired!
As a Senator, Herm had taken a different tack than that of his predecessor, Lew
Alton, and cunningly played at being a bon vivant, a pleasant fellow who could
be bought occasionally. For Herm did not possess Lew's gift of forced
rapport-could not bend minds to his bidding-which he knew that Lew had done more
than once, with great subtlety and not a little remorse. But Lew had used what
he had, and paid the price. Lew's powers had cost him a great deal, and he had
been a heavy drinker during the years Herm had known him. He wondered if he
still was.
Instead of force, Herm used deviousness. For the most part he had managed to
keep Darkover from becoming a planet that demanded attention, that appeared as a
threat in any way. It had not been easy, for the paranoia of the Expansionists
&nb
sp; now bordered on obsession. They saw enemies everywhere, and many of them
sincerely believed that Protected Planets were getting away with something. They
were never able to define exactly what that "something" was, but that did not
keep them from thinking that they were being cheated somehow.
Herm had fought with his own peculiar talents, pretending that Darkover was just
a backward planet, poor in the metals that might be useful for building ships or
armaments, barely able to provide enough food to feed its inhabitants. He
painted a portrait of an impoverished world, and Darkover was far away and still
obscure enough that few had inquired too closely. During Lew's term as Senator,
he had cleverly managed to get a great deal of information about Darkover either
suppressed or classified in some fashion, so that access to it was limited. And
thankfully, Darkover did not have any particular strategic value, although that
might change soon. If the Federation fell apart, or split into factions, who
knows what the future might hold?
The real problem was in the mind-set of the Expansionists themselves. They
imagined enemies everywhere, and much of their energies for the past decade had
been devoted to building ships of war, not commerce, and to preparing for
combat. Their argument was that just because the Federation had never
encountered another space-traveling power, this did not mean that they would
not. Herm knew that they were wrong, that the enemies they feared were already
at work within the Federation, that it was almost inevitable that some ambitious
planetary governor was going to rebel and start the war they expected. He
suspected it would be a very unpleasant surprise, and could only hope that it
would happen on the other side of the galaxy. The last thing Darkover wanted was
to become involved in an internecine conflict.
The carriage rattled across cobbled streets, and the wind shifted the vehicle
back and forth. They went down the wider streets, and through the window he
could see the open shutters of the shops, adorned with gaily painted signs. They
were passing Tanners Way, and the pungent smell of boiling vats of leather
filled the crowded interior. Ter‚se made a face, but said nothing. Amaury gazed
out the rather misted window, his blue eyes alight with interest and curiosity.
At last Katherine stirred. "I am sure you did the best thing, Hermes," she said
in a voice full of exhaustion. Until that moment, he had not known how much her
silence during the journey had cost her. What about my family? 1 wish we had
gone there, instead of to this godforsaken place-why couldn't Herm have warned
me somehow? No, I must not blame him. He has always kept his own counsel-I wash
it were otherwise. It is not as if I didn't know that things were going badly,
that the Federation was starting to come apart at its seams. I just refused to
believe it was as bad as it was. I did not want to know, even though I kept
noticing things in the newscasts that disturbed me. Even with the rebellion on
Campta, and the riots on Enoch. And I only knew what the Federation wanted me to
know! Still, I must make the best of it. At least he has taught me some of the
language, and the children have never been able to sort out what words are from
Renney and what are from this place. It's so cold! What will happen to Nana and
the rest, if they try to house Federation troops at the Manse? She will probably
put a curse on them, or add some of her potions to the food. Nana may be
ancient, but I suspect she can take care of herself and my sisters. When are we
going to arrive? So cold and so tired. Surely I will feel better when I am warm
and really rested.
Herm reached across the carriage and patted Katherine's hand through the wool of
the blanket. She opened her eyes and looked at him for a long minute, then
slipped her hand out and grasped his wrist, feeling the warmth of his skin
against hers. "It will not be long now," he said quietly, as if he had heard her
disjointed thoughts. And perhaps he had, for often in the past he had seemed to
know what she was thinking without her speaking any words. No, it was
impossible! He was just very intuitive. Whatever it was, it made him a fine
lover. Nana had told her Herm had the Sight, on their single visit to her home
planet, and while she dismissed that as the old woman's superstition, she could
not deny that her husband was a very unusual man. When Ter‚se was an infant, he
would frequently get out of bed before the child began to cry, rushing to her
cot and catching her up against his broad shoulders just as the pink mouth
rounded for a wail. And he always seemed to know if she was wet or hungry or
just wanted to be rocked.
Ever since the day they had met, when he found her doing a portrait in the
offices of Senator Sendai, Katherine had realized that Hermes Aldaran was unlike
any man she had ever known or was ever likely to know. His eyes seemed to see
everything, down to details she herself had overlooked. She had found him
charming and intelligent, but also mysterious in a way she still could not
define. That had made him nearly irresistible.
And now, after more than ten years, she still felt that she did not know very
much about her husband. She knew he had several siblings, his sister Gisela and
his brother Robert, plus others who were nedestro, whatever that meant. But that
was about all. At first, he hardly spoke of Darkover, and when he did, he talked
of great snows, high mountains, and vast wilderness. His childhood was something
of a mystery, although he was very interested in hers, and there always remained
a certain remoteness in him. It was both frustrating and fascinating, and she
had learned not to demand more of him than he was willing to give. Now, looking
at his behavior with the ruthlessness of exhaustion, she felt cheated and more
than a little lost. Katherine chided herself for being unhappy then and tried to
let the nasty emotion go.
Herm had begun to teach her casta soon after they were married, and they had
discovered that it was akin to the Renney dialect, related to old Breton. The
inflections were subtle and different, but much of the vocabulary was similar
enough that she had picked it up quickly. She, in turn, had instructed him in
Rennian, and the two tongues had mingled into a harmonious stew that the
children used in preference to the less colorful Terran one.
But Katherine had never really expected to come to Darkover, and she was still
in shock over the sudden journey. A first class cabin on a Big Ship was not a
large space, and the carriage was not an improvement. She felt claustrophobic,
as if she could not get enough air in her lungs. Every time they hit an
unevenness in the street, the motion jolted her aching bones, and although the
brazier in the floor afforded some warmth, she felt chilled to the bone. It was
all she could do to contain her anger, but she refused to argue with Herm in
front of the children, and certainly not with this near stranger listening. But
she longed to raise her voice, to proclaim her still pent-up sense of ill-usage,
to express her fury and her fear. Hermes-Gabriel Aldaran
was going to be
fortunate if she let him kiss her for weeks to come.
Herm sighed as he watched his wife and children, realizing that perhaps he
should not have been quite so secretive. It was a policy he knew was going to
cause him regret, and soon. But for twenty-three years he had portrayed Darkover
as a rather primitive place, with few resources worthy of exploitation, in order
to keep the curious uninterested. He had no desire to see the Hellers
deforested, nor to have Darkovan foodstuffs shipped to other planets to feed the
ever enlarging populations. And certainly he did not want to have knowledge of
the Towers of Darkover to become general, as it nearly had a generation
previous. The Expansionist forces would occupy the planet in a flash, eager to
co-opt Darkovan telepaths for their own dreams of dominance.
The carriage rolled to a stop, and the door was opened. A gust of cold wind
billowed across them, and the children shivered. Katherine just drew herself
further into her shining all-weather cloak and looked grim. There was a servant
in the livery of the Castle waiting, and they climbed out one by one.
Two flights of broad steps led up from the cobbled court, and Herm herded his
family swiftly up them. Behind him, servants were unloading the luggage. Rafael
led them through a door and into a modest entryway. There were tapestries hung
along the stone walls, and a checkerboard pattern of tiles under their feet. It
smelled of woodsmoke and damp wool, and there were a number of heavy woolen
capes hung on pegs beside the door. But after the chill outside, it was
deliciously warm and cozy.
They followed Rafael up a long flight of stairs to the next floor, then down a
corridor, and up another set of stairs. He sensed the bewilderment of the
children at the flight of steps, since even the meanest hives, where the poor
huddled in misery, all had lifts. Herm had never been in Comyn Castle before,
but he had heard that the place was a regular warren of halls and stairs. The
children shucked off their cloaks and observed their surroundings with interest,
but Katherine just walked with her eyes straight ahead, her back rigid, and her
face empty, like the survivor of some unnatural disaster.
"We did not have much warning of your arrival, Herm, so your quarters are