Exile's Song

  Stepping toward the open earth, Margaret bent and picked up a clod of dirt. As her fingers closed around it, she felt a disturbing tingle, as if the very soil itself could speak. She could not move for a moment, the sensation of the warm earth in her hand, as if Darkover were running along her blood. Then she dropped the bit of earth down onto the coffin, and went utterly still.

  Margaret stood frozen on the spot until a woman stepped forward. Her hair was dark, her skin pale, and she was dressed in blue. She raised her arms and began to sing in a strong soprano that rang out between the trees and headstones. It was a mournful melody, heart-piercing in its beauty and purity. The words were of springs Ivor would never see, food he would never taste, and flowers he would never smell. All the senses were celebrated, and Margaret, her composure shattered, sobbed helplessly.

  When the unknown woman was done, she stepped aside, and a large man took her place. Margaret recognized the voice as that of the man who would succeed Everard as head of the Guild. She could not recall his name just then. He sang a beautiful song in a form of Darkovan that was archaic, and Margaret struggled to follow the words. The warm vigor of his baritone filled her with a sense of release, and she found she could stop crying and just listen in silence. She wiped her face on her sleeve, the sudden calm enveloping her so unexpectedly she hardly knew what to do.

  At last, Margaret took Ivor’s ancient guitar out of the case, tuned it carefully, and stroked the strings. Roughly at first, she sang, her voice hoarse. But as she warmed up, she forgot herself in the music, picking pieces which the professor had especially loved, old Terran songs, and drinking songs from the University. She sang love songs from a dozen worlds, and when she grew too weary to continue, she concluded with a dirge so ancient no one knew where it had originated. It spoke of a hero, fallen before his time, brave and fearless.

  When she looked up, Margaret found that the little crowd of mourners had been touched by the music, weeping or holding back tears. She lowered the guitar and bowed her head. It was over.

  Everard touched her arm. “Come. Let’s go home now.”

  Home? Where was home? Where did she belong? All her sense of loss rushed back, gnawing at her and making her head hurt. “Thank you for everything, Master Everard. You have been so kind. But I’d like to sit here for a while, with Ivor. Then I will come back to the house. Would you be so kind as to take Ivor’s guitar with you?”

  “Certainly, but are you sure you’ll be all right on your own?”

  “Oh, yes. I know the way perfectly well now.”

  “I am sure you do. You are a very remarkable woman, Marguerida Alton.” With that, he left her.

  6

  Alone now, Margaret grieved. Birds sang on the branches of the trees in the cemetery; she heard them without really paying attention. At last, her body decided it was hungry and brought her back to the present with a start. It was irritating. Then she could almost hear Ivor chuckling and telling her not to be a complete idiot. She walked through the stone gates of the graveyard and started looking for someplace to eat.

  She found a little cookshop just before the Terran Zone. Most of the patrons were Terrans, sporting their black leather uniforms and speaking in loud voices. She winced at the noise, and found a table near the back of the shop, where it was relatively quiet. She let her mind wander idly, feeling numb.

  A plump girl in Darkovan dress came over and asked what she wanted. Too tired to choose, Margaret told her to bring something from the menu chalked behind the counter. Whatever it was, she was certain it would be good and filling.

  The serving girl brought her a bowl of steaming rabbit-horn stew, a basket of bread still warm from the oven, and a mug of beer. There were large chunks of tender meat in a thick sauce, and lots of vegetables which tasted hauntingly familiar. The herbs and spices still tasted strange to her tongue, long accustomed to the blandness of University cuisine. She found herself smiling over the food, remembering her early experiences with food at the Commons. As one of her classmates had informed her while she gazed in horror at a bowl of flavorless cereal masquerading as breakfast, “University food offends no one, being without either taste or character.” That pleasant memory made her chuckle softly.

  The stew definitely had character. She tucked into it without caution, or any thought of good manners. Despite Anya’s best efforts and strenuous protests, she had been running on tea and nerves, longing for coffee occasionally, but without any real urgency. Now she felt like making up for it with a vengeance. She let the enticing flavors dance across her tongue as she became more full, and found herself thinking that she had eaten the dish before. For a moment it was as if there was a small child sitting on her lap, a child who could barely reach the table, spooning the same stew into a hungry mouth.

  Margaret was almost finished when she noticed a man watching her. He wore the leathers of a Terran spaceport employee, but he lacked the physical attitude of a Terran. She puzzled over that realization for a moment, and finally decided he did not look as if he were slumming, the way most of the rest of the occupants did. She glanced away quickly, refusing to make direct eye contact, as she had been told was good manners, but she was aware that he continued to watch her. She began to be a little alarmed, and grew more so when he stood up and walked toward her table.

  Without asking permission, he sank into the empty chair on the other side of the table and smiled in a way that almost stilled her fears. “I know who you are,” he began without introduction. “You’re Lew Alton’s daughter, aren’t you?”

  Margaret could hardly deny her parentage, but she wondered how this stranger knew her. She didn’t look like the Old Man at all. He seemed to sense her puzzlement and went on speaking in his friendly way. “My name is Captain Rafael Scott, but most people call me Rafe.”

  Margaret just stared.

  When she didn’t speak, he went on. “We are relatives.”

  “What?”

  “I am your uncle. Didn’t Lew ever mention me?”

  Margaret wished she were not wearing Darkover clothing, that she were not so tired, and that people would stop talking to her as if she knew things she didn’t. The man was about forty, and he seemed pleasant enough. But she was suspicious. The serving girl was watching them now, and several of the men from the spaceport were looking at them as well. She looked like a native, and she felt vulnerable as she would not have if she were still in her Terran clothing—uncomfortable as it made her feel. She did not want to be mistaken for a spaceport whore—it was one of the few things that Dio had actually told her about Darkover that she had understood.

  “I am Lew Alton’s daughter, yes. The only uncle I know of is my father’s brother, and he has been dead for a long, long time.” She wondered what her father would make of this strange conversation, and silently cursed the Old Man for never telling her the important things she needed to know. It was just like him—to leave her in the dark like this! Her anger, which had receded into the background while she ate, rushed forward in her chest.

  “What do they call you?”

  “Marguerida,” she replied, using the Darkovan form of her name. “How can you be my uncle? I’ve never even heard of you!”

  “Actually, we have met before, but I was still just a stripling then, and you were a very small child.”

  “I don’t remember anything about it.” She could hear the doubt in her own voice, and wished she were a better actress. Margaret decided this was one of the oddest conversations she had ever had, even though it seemed that every conversation on Darkover had a quality of strangeness. She wondered if he were telling the truth, and as she asked herself the question, she had the feeling that she knew he was. It was more than his open friendliness. She sensed his honesty across the table, almost as if she could read him like a book. He is going to order himself another drink.

  A moment later Rafe Scott signaled the serving girl and gestured with his empty mug. Margaret squirmed, wondering how she had known that. If only sh
e did not keep having these maddening episodes of near-clairvoyance or whatever the devil they were. It made her feel warm with blushing, as if she had pried into something private.

  He turned his attention back to her. “I cannot believe Lew has never mentioned me. We were close friends, though I am much younger than he. I was older than Marius, Lew’s brother, but not by very much. Marius would have taken his place on the Council when he was thirteen, if they had allowed it. All those damn conservatives, like Dyan Ardais, refused to let him.” Margaret was surprised at the anger his voice held, old rage, ancient and hoary, but none the less vigorous for all that. And there was something else. That name—Dyan Ardais. She was sure she had never heard it before, but it made her want to hide under the table. She was so upset she almost missed his next statement. “He died before he was twenty. Your father was furious.”

  “What Council? What conservatives? And who are you?!” She snapped at the man, losing control of her frayed temper at last. It was a great relief to have something to be angry at, instead of having a bellyful of unexpressed rage eating at her. Shameful, too, because she was a grown woman, not a cranky child. Unfortunately, despite, or perhaps because of the hearty meal, Margaret felt very much like a small girl who needed a nap!

  Rafe Scott regarded her calmly, quirking one eyebrow as if confused. The serving girl brought his beer, and he sipped at the foaming brew. “I am Marjorie Scott’s brother Rafe. She was your mother, and that makes me an uncle. It’s very simple.”

  Margaret studied her companion and newly discovered relative. Her first reaction was that it was rather nice to have family. She had always envied her neighbors on Thetis and her few friends at University for having brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles, just a little. It was an empty place inside her, one she rarely allowed herself to dwell on. But, at that moment, with the dirt from Ivor’s grave still on her palms, it was oddly comforting.

  Marjorie Scott’s brother. The name of Lew Alton’s first wife did not bring any strong feelings into her heart, for she knew that woman was not her mother. Dio was her mother, all the mother she wanted. But she found it interesting that he did not seem to know that Marjorie was not her mother, but that she had been born to that sister, Thyra. Of course, if Thyra was Marjorie’s sister, as Lew had told her, then Rafe Scott was still her uncle. She thought about asking him about it, then decided not to. Something inside her did not want to talk about Thyra to anyone.

  “But you are Terran, not Darkovan, aren’t you?” She was surprised that she somehow knew this to be the truth.

  “My father, Zeb Scott, was Terran. He married Felicia Darriell of the Aldarans, who was your grandmother.” He sighed a little. “It was all a long time ago, and it was a sad page in Darkovan history. Marius died; your father lost his hand, and the Alton Domain . . . well, it is better not to dwell on the past.”

  Margaret resented his attitude. “It may all be in the past to you, but ever since I arrived here, people have been insisting I must know what they are talking about—but they never tell me anything. I feel as if I am trapped in the middle of a conspiracy of silence. And I am getting really tired of it!” Her voice rose, and several people at nearby tables stared. Her cheeks warmed again, aware of the attention she was drawing to herself, and she swallowed hard.

  “But, surely, Lew has told you . . .”

  “I have seen my father for only brief periods during the last decade, and he never told me much, on those rare occasions when I was favored by his presence.” The bitterness in her voice was unmistakable. “I am here on a fellowship from the University, to do musical research. Until a few days ago, I was in the company of my mentor, but he died suddenly.” Margaret stopped speaking, her eyes filling with fresh tears. “I have only just come from burying him! What I know about my history would be lost in a thimble!” She felt her entire body tremble and gritted her teeth in fury at her own weakness. If only she were not so tired!

  Rafe looked aghast. He leaned forward and spoke softly, but with great urgency. “You mean you aren’t here for the Telepathic Council?”

  “For the what?”

  “I am sorry. I assumed you were here with Lew, and that you had both come for the Council.”

  “As far as I know, the Senator is not planning to come here—he does not inform me of his movements, or of much else, it would appear.” Margaret felt herself withdraw into an icy formality, distancing herself from both her father and the man across the table. Anger burned in her chest for a few seconds, and she tried to return to some semblance of calm. “As for telepathic councils—why would he come, or I, for that matter? Mind reading is as mythical as dragons.”

  Captain Scott leaned back in his chair, thoughtful now. “Damn Lew for a stiff-necked idiot,” he said at last.

  “I could not have said it better myself!”

  Scott chuckled, and despite her fury, Margaret found herself responding to his laughter. “He was always as stubborn as a mule. But I don’t understand how he could have kept you ignorant of your heritage!” The Lew I knew was stubborn, but I never knew him to be plain stupid!

  Margaret ignored the words she heard, which did not leave the lips of her companion. She wished she could fly back to Master Everard’s and fall into her bed for a week—without the intervening walk through Thendara. “I suppose he had good reasons. He never thought I would come to Darkover. And I never would have, if one of the professors at the University hadn’t gotten himself in a pickle. It was completely unplanned and totally unexpected.” She frowned. “Well, he did tell me to keep my neck covered and not to look people right in the eye—which he said was polite behavior here. But that was all. I can sort of understand the first, but I still don’t know why I am supposed to avoid eye contact.”

  “The Alton Gift is forced rapport, and eye contact makes rapport less difficult. Not that Lew ever needed that.”

  “If you do not stop talking in riddles, I am going to pour the rest of my beer on your leathers! What ‘Gift’?” She felt a prickle of apprehension start at the nape of her neck and crawl up her scalp.

  “That would be a waste of excellent beer. I hardly know where to begin, and I am not sure it is my place to inform you. And this is certainly not the place—here, where there are a great many ears—to tell you what I know.”

  “It seems to me you have said quite a lot already! And none of it very informative.” She had the satisfaction of seeing him redden. He looked at her directly, very hard, and she noticed that his eyes were remarkable, flecked with gold, like her own, but more penetrating. A moment before he had seemed safe, but now Rafe appeared to be somewhat threatening, as if he could look into her mind. Her father had looked at her like that, sometimes, and she reacted as she always had, by thinking of something neutral. Margaret focused on the score of a complex piece of music almost reflexively, and after a moment he looked away. For the first time she noticed his hands, and saw that he had six fingers instead of five.

  The sight of his fingers brought a rush of memory, of another pair of hands, a woman’s hands playing across the strings of a ryll. They, too, had an extra finger. Margaret held back a shudder and refused to remember more, for she knew those hands belonged to the red-headed woman, to Thyra.

  The man shifted uneasily in his chair, and sighed deeply. “Your father is one of the finest men I ever knew, Marguerida, but he never could manage his personal life worth a damn! What a mess!”

  “Personal life? I think he hardly has one, except for Dio.”

  “You are very hard on him, aren’t you?”

  “Not nearly as hard as I would like to be,” she answered tartly. If she could have transported her father across the light-years at that moment, she would have cheerfully boxed his ears. The image gave her an immense amount of pleasure for a second.

  Rafe smothered a laugh. It made him even more handsome than before. “We can’t safely talk here. Under the circumstances, I think I had better escort you up to the Castle.”

 
“I think you’d better rethink that, Captain Scott. I am not going to any castle with you or anyone else who waltzes up and tells me they know the Senator. I may be ignorant of Darkovan customs, but I know better than to go gallivanting off with a total stranger.”

  But Margaret could not help feeling rather curious, even as she also felt very contrary and exhausted. She wished that she could manage to have one emotion at a time, that she was not being pulled in so many ways at once. She remembered how MacEwan and his wife had assumed she would be going to the Castle, how people had deferred to her, just on the basis of her appearance.

  Rafe leaned forward, pressing against the edge of the table, and lowered his voice. “Marguerida, you are a very important person, whether you know it or not. You have an obligation to fulfill and you are heir to the Alton Domain. It is critically important to the entire future of Darkover that you come with me.”

  For a moment she did not move, so compelling were the man’s words. “I think you must be mistaken,” she replied at last.

  “No. I was young when you left Darkover, but not so young that I was unaware that you had the Alton Gift in great measure—even though you were only a child.” There was no mistaking the urgency in his voice.

  “Are you trying to tell me I was some sort of mind reader when I was little?” A memory nagged at her, something about manners, and it was unpleasant. Someone had called her a snoop, though they laughed when they said it. The voice in her mind was her father’s, though it was a more gentle tone than she ever recalled him using afterward.

  “Not ‘some sort’ but a very skilled telepath, child.”

  “Well, I must have lost it when I grew up, because I certainly don’t have it now!” Margaret was not sure she believed what she said. It would certainly explain several curious incidents. She did not want to believe it, she realized. It made her think of the silver man, and the redheaded woman, and death.