Damon, feeling the premonition grip him and take hold, followed her, pleading, “Ellemir, what is it? Love, you must not stand here like this…”
“Father,” she whispered. “It will kill our father. Oh, blessed Cassilda, Domenic, Domenic!”
He urged her gently back toward the house, through the fine mist of the morning rain. Just inside the doors they found Callista, pale and drawn, Andrew troubled and apprehensive at her side. Callista went toward her father’s room, saying quietly, “All we can do now is be with him, Andrew.” Andrew and Damon stayed close beside the old man while his body-servant dressed him. Gently Damon helped lift him into the wheeled chair. “Dear Uncle, we can only wait for tidings. But whatever may come, remember that you still have sons and daughters who love you and are near you.”
In the Great Hall, Ellemir came and knelt beside her father, weeping. Dom Esteban patted her bright hair and said hoarsely, “Look after her, Damon, don’t worry about me. If… if evil has come to Domenic, that child you bear, Ellemir, is next heir to Alton.”
God help them all, Damon thought, for Valdir was not yet twelve years old! Who would command the Guards? Even Domenic was thought too young!
Andrew was thinking that his son, Ellemir’s child, would be heir to the Domain. The thought seemed so wildly improbable that he was gripped with hysterical laughter.
Callista put a small cup into the old dom’s hand. “Drink this, Father.”
“I want none of your drugs! I will not be put to sleep and soothed until I know—”
“Drink it!” she commanded, standing pale and angry at his side. “It is not to dim your awareness, but to strengthen you. You will need all your strength today!”
Reluctantly the old man swallowed the draught. Ellemir rose and said, “The housefolk and workmen must not go hungry for our griefs. Let me go see to their breakfast.”
They brought the old man to the table and urged him to eat, but none of them could eat much, and Andrew felt himself straining to hear beyond the range of his ears, to listen for the messenger, bringing the tidings they now took for granted.
“There it is,” said Callista, laying down a piece of buttered bread, starting to her feet. Her father held out his hand, very pale but in command of himself again, Lord Alton, head of the Domain, Comyn.
“Sit still, daughter. Ill news will come when it will, but it is not seemly to run to meet it.”
He lifted a spoonful of nut-porridge to his mouth, put it down again, untasted. None of the others were even pretending to eat now, hearing the sound of hoofbeats in the stone courtyard, the booted feet of the messenger on the steps. He was a Guardsman, very young, with the red hair which, Andrew already knew, meant that somewhere, nearby or far back, he had Comyn blood. He looked tired, sad, apprehensive.
Dom Esteban said quietly, “Welcome to my hall, Darren. What brings you at this hour, my lad?”
“Lord Alton.” The messenger’s voice seemed to stick in his throat. “I regret that I bear you evil tidings.” His eyes flickered around the hall. He looked trapped, miserable, unwilling to break the bad news to this old man, frail and drawn in his chair.
Dom Esteban said quietly, “I had warning of this, my boy. Come and tell me about it.” He held out his hand, and the young man came, hesitantly, toward the high table. “It is my son Domenic. Is he… is he dead?”
The young man Darren lowered his eyes. Dom Esteban drew a hoarse, shaking breath like an audible sob, but when he spoke he was under control.
“You are wearied with the long ride.” He beckoned to the servants to take the young Guardsman’s cloak, remove his heavy riding boots and bring soft indoor slippers, set a mug of warmed wine before him. They set a chair for him near the high table. “Tell me all about it, lad. How did he die?”
“By misadventure, Lord Alton. He was in the armory, practicing at swordplay with his paxman, young Cathal Lindir. Somehow, even through the mask, he was struck a blow on the head. None thought it serious, but before they could fetch the hospital officer, he was dead.”
Poor Cathal, Damon thought. He had been one of the cadets during Damon’s year as cadet-master, as had young Domenic himself. The two lads had been inseparable, had been paired off everywhere: at sword-practice, on duty, in their leisure hours. They were, Damon knew, bredin, sworn brothers. Had Domenic died by any mischance or accident, it would have been bad enough, but for a blow struck by his sworn friend to be the instrument of his death—Blessed Cassilda, how the poor lad would suffer!
Dom Esteban had managed to pull himself together, was questioning the messenger about other arrangements. “Valdir must be brought from Nevarsin at once, designated heir.”
Darren told him, “Lord Lorill Hastur has already sent for him, and he urges you to come to Thendara if you are able, my lord.”
“Able or not, we shall ride this day,” Dom Esteban said firmly. “Even if I must travel by horse-litter, and you must come with me, Damon, Andrew.”
“I too.” Callista’s face was pale but her voice firm, and Ellemir said, “And I.” She was crying noiselessly.
“Rhodri,” Damon said, beckoning the old steward, “find a place for the messenger to rest, and send one of our men at once to ride for Thendara on the fastest horse available, to tell Lord Hastur that we will be there within three days. And ask Ferrika to come at once to Lady Ellemir.”
The old man nodded acquiescence. Tears were streaming down old Rhodri’s wrinkled face, and Damon remembered that he had been here at Armida all his life, had held both Domenic and the long-dead Coryn on his knees when they were children. But there was no leisure to think of any of these things. Ferrika, brought to Ellemir, admitted that the ride would probably do no harm. “But you must travel at least part of the time in a horse-litter, my lady, for too much riding would be wearying.” When Ferrika was told that she must accompany them, she protested.
“There are many on the estate who need my services, Lord Damon.”
“Lady Ellemir bears the next heir to Alton. It is she who most needs your care, and you are her childhood friend. You have taught other women on the estate, now they must justify their training.”
This was so obvious, even to the Amazon midwife, that she spoke the polite phrase of respect and acquiescence, and went to speak to her subordinates. Callista had set the maids to packing what they would need for a possibly lengthy stay in Thendara. When Ellemir asked why, she said briefly, “Valdir is a child. Comyn Council may not be content to allow our father, crippled and with an ailing heart, to serve as head of the Domain; there may be a protracted struggle over a guardian for Valdir.”
“I should think Damon would be the logical guardian,” Ellemir said, and Callista’s lips stretched in a bleak smile. “Why, so he should, sister, but I have sat as Leonie’s surrogate in Council, and I know that to these great lords, nothing is ever simple or obvious if there is political advantage to some other way of settling it. Remember how Domenic said they were fighting over his right to command the Guards, young as he was? Valdir is younger still.”
Ellemir quailed, with an automatic gesture laying a protective hand over her belly. She had heard old tales of bitter feuds in Comyn Council, of struggles more cruel than blood-feud because the ones who struggled were not enemies but kinsmen. As the old saying went, when bredin were at odds, enemies stepped in to widen the gap.
“Callie! Do you think… do you think Domenic was murdered?”
Callista said, faltering, “Cassilda, Mother of Seveners, I pray it is not so. If he had died by poison, or of some mysterious illness, I would fear so indeed—there was so much strife over the heirship of Alton—but struck down by Cathal in play? We know Cathal, Elli, he loved Domenic as his own life! They had sworn the oath of bredin. I would sooner believe Damon an oath-breaker than our cousin Cathal!” She added, her face white and troubled, “If it had been Dezi…”
The twin sisters looked at one another, not willing to speak their accusation, yet remembering how Dezi’s ma
lice had come close to costing Andrew’s life. At last Ellemir said in a shaking voice, “Where, I wonder, was Dezi when Domenic died?”
“Oh, no, no, Ellemir.” Callista caught her sister close, cutting off the words. “No, no, do not even think it! Our father loves Dezi, even if he would not acknowledge him, so do not make it worse than it is! Elli, I beg you, I beg you, do not put that thought into Father’s head!”
Ellemir knew what Callista meant: somehow she must manage to guard her thoughts, so that the careless accusation would not reach her father. But the thought troubled her, as she went about the business of preparing the women servants to care for the household in their absence. She found a moment to slip down to the chapel, laying a small garland of winter flowers before the altar of Cassilda. She had wanted her child to be born at Armida, where he would live surrounded by the heritage which must be his some day.
All she had ever wanted in life was to be wedded to Damon, to bear sons and daughters to her clan and his. Was that so much to ask? she thought helplessly. She was not like Callista, ambitious to do laran work, to sit in Council and settle affairs of state. Why couldn’t she have that much peace? And yet she knew that in the days to come, she could not fall back on this refuge of womanhood.
Would they demand that Damon must command the Guards in his father-in-law’s place? Like all Alton daughters, she was proud of the hereditary post of commander which her father had borne, which she had thought would be Domenic’s for years to come. But now Domenic was dead and Valdir too young, and who would it be? She looked around the chapel at the painted gods on the walls, on the representation, stiff and stylized, of Hastur, Son of Aldones, at Hali with Cassilda and Camilla. They were the forebears of the Comyn; life was easier in their day. Wearily she left the chapel and went upstairs to talk about which of the maids should come with them, which be left to care for the estate in their absence.
Andrew too had much to occupy his mind as he talked to the old coridom—like all the other servants, stricken with grief at the news of their young master’s death—about managing the stock and the estate business during his absence. He thought that he ought to stay back, for he had no business in Thendara, and the ranch should not be left in the hands of servants. But he knew that part of his reluctance was because the Terran Empire HQ was at Thendara. He had been content that the Terrans should think him dead; he had no kin to mourn, and there was nothing there that he wanted. But now there was, unexpectedly, conflict again. He knew rationally that the Terrans had no claim on him, that they would not even know he was in the old city of Thendara, and certainly would not come after him. Just the same he felt apprehensive. And he too wondered where Dezi had been when Domenic died, and dismissed the thought as unworthy.
Damon had told him that Thendara was not much more than a day’s ride for a single man on a fast horse, in good weather, traveling alone. But for a large party, with servants, baggage, a pregnant woman and an elderly cripple who must travel in horse-litters, it might take four or five times that. Much of the work of readying the party’s horses and baggage came to Andrew, and he felt wearied but satisfied when at last the party rode forth between the great gates. Dom Esteban was in a litter drawn between two horses; another awaited Ellemir when she was weary of riding, but now she rode beside Damon, shrouded in a green riding cloak, her eyes swollen with crying. Andrew remembered Domenic teasing Ellemir at the wedding, and felt deeply saddened; he had had so little time to know this merry brother who had so quickly accepted him.
Then there was a long straggle of pack animals, servants riding the antlered beasts which had a surer gait on the mountain roads than most horses, and half a dozen Guardsmen at the rear to protect them against the dangers of travel in the hills. Callista looked tall, pale, other-worldly in her black riding cape. Looking at her haunted face under the dark hood, it was hard to remember the laughing girl in the golden flowers. Had it been only yesterday?
And yet, beneath the mourning solemnity of her dark garments and her pale face, she was still that laughing woman who had given and received his kisses with such unsuspected passion. Some day—soon, soon, he pledged himself fiercely, he would free her and have her always with him. He looked at her bent head and she raised her face with a wan smile.
The journey took four cold and exhausting days. On the second day Ellemir took to her litter and did not ride horseback again till just before they entered the city gates. In the notched pass which overlooked the city she insisted on leaving the horse-litter and mounting again.
“The litter jolts me, and the baby, worse than Shirina’s gait,” she insisted pettishly, “and I will not be carried into Thendara as if I were a spoiled queen or a cripple. I want them to know my child is no weakling!” Ferrika, appealed to, said that Ellemir’s comfort was more important than anything else, and if she felt comfortable and able to ride, ride she should.
Andrew had never seen the Comyn Castle except distantly from the Terran Zone. It stood high above the city, immense and ancient, and Callista told him how it had stood there since before the Ages of Chaos, how it had not been built by human hands at all. The stones had been lifted into place by matrix circles from the Towers, working together to transform the forces.
Inside it was a labyrinth, with enormous long corridors, and the rooms to which they were shown—rooms, Callista told him, reserved since time immemorial for the Altons at Council season—were almost as spacious as the adjoining suites they occupied at Armida.
Outside the Alton suite the castle seemed deserted. “But Lord Hastur is here,” Callista told him. “He remains in Thendara most of the year, and his son Danvan is helping to command the Guards. I suppose they wil summon council to act on the heirship of Alton. There are always questions, and Valdir is so young.”
As Dom Esteban was carried into the main hall of the Alton rooms, a slender, sallow boy with a sharp, intelligent face and hair so dark it hardly seemed red, about twelve years old, came forward to meet him.
“Valdir.” Dom Esteban held out his arms, and the boy knelt at his feet.
“You are so young, my boy, but you will have to be a grown man already!” As the boy rose, he clasped him close. “Do you know what has become of your brother’s…” He choked on the word. Young Valdir said quietly, “He rests in the chapel, Father, and his paxman is with him. I did not know what I ought to do, but”—he gestured, and Dezi came hesitantly into the main room—“my brother Dezi has been such a help to me, since I came from Nevarsin.”
Damon thought, uncharitably, that Dezi had lost no time, now that his protector was dead, in worming himself into the good graces of the next heir. Next to the thin, sallow Valdir, Dezi, with his bright red hair and freckled fac«, looked far more like a member of the family than did the legitimate son. Dom Esteban embraced Dezi, weeping.
“My dear, dear boy—”
Damon wondered how he could deprive the old man of the comfort of his only other remaining son, deprive Valdir of his only living brother? It was a true saying, bare is back without brother. In any case, Dezi, deprived of his matrix, was harmless.
Valdir came and hugged Ellemir. “I see you finally did marry Damon. I thought you would.” But before Callista he hung shyly back. Callista held out her hands, explaining to Andrew, “I went to the Tower when Valdir was an infant in arms; I have seen him only a few times since, and not since he was a tiny child. I am sure you have forgotten me, brother.”
“Not quite,” said the boy, looking up at his tall sister. “I seem to remember a little. We were in a room with colors, like a rainbow. I must have been very small. I fell and hurt my knee, and you took me on your lap and sang to me. You were wearing a white dress with something blue on it.”
She smiled. “I remember now, it was when you were presented in the Crystal Chamber, as every Comyn son must be so that they may be sure he has no hidden defect or deformity, when later he is pledged for marriage. I was only a psi monitor then. But you were not even five years old; I am surpri
sed you should even remember the blue veil. This is my husband, Andrew.”
The child bowed courteously but did not offer Andrew his hand, retreating to Dezi’s side. Andrew bowed coldly to Dezi; Damon gave him a kinsman’s embrace, hoping the touch would dispel the suspicions he could not be rid of. But Dezi was well barricaded against him. Damon could not read his mind even a little. Then Damon admonished himself to be fair. At their last meeting he had tortured Dezi, nearly killed him; how could he greet Damon with much friendship?
Dom Esteban was taken to his rooms. He looked pleadingly at Dezi, and the young man followed his father. When they had gone Andrew said with a grimace, “Well, I thought we were rid of him. But if it comforts our father to have him near, what can we do?”
Damon thought it would not be the first time that a bastard son, rascally in his youth, had become the prop and mainstay of a father who had lost his other children. He hoped for Dom Esteban’s sake, and for Dezi’s own, that it might prove to be so.
He joined Andrew and Callista, saying, “Will you come with me to the chapel, to see what has been done with Domenic? If all is seemly, we can spare our father this, and Ellemir. Ferrika has put her to bed. She knew Domenic best… there is no need to harrow her feelings more.”
The chapel was in the deepest part of the Comyn Castle, carved from the living rock of the mountain on which it stood. It had the cold, earthy chill of an underground cavern. Domenic lay in the echoing silence on a long trestled bier, before the carved image Andrew could already recognize as the Blessed Cassilda, mother of the Domains. In the carved stone figure Andrew fancied be could actually see a faint likeness to Callista’s own features, and to the cold and lifeless face of the young man who lay dead.