Domenic’s horse now drew even with Illona’s. She turned to him, her expression grave. Behind her eyes, he felt her own anguish. Her dignity and courage touched him deeply. They had no choice; they must go on, apart.
“We always knew this time would come, cario mio,” she said with a trace of sadness. “Do not mar the memory of what we had with regret.”
“Since you ask it,” he answered, forcing a smile, “I will try.”
They let their horses rest, breathing noisily, as Grandfather Lew and the rest of their escort caught up with them. Thus ended their last possibility of intimate conversation. Their journey was almost over, with the walls and towers of Thendara within sight.
Lew drew his horse to a halt beside them. Since they had first set out from Nevarsin, his spirits had seemed freer, his mood lighter, than Domenic could remember.
Looking toward Thendara, Domenic said, “I can never decide whether it is hideous or beautiful, this mixture of worlds.”
“Whatever it is,” Lew said, “we must make our peace with it. Darkover can never return to what it once was. For good or ill, the Federation has left its mark on us.”
Can never return… Domenic repeated silently. I am not the same person who set out on this very road. I have not yet found my true place in the world, but I am nonetheless moving irrevocably toward it. There is no looking back.
Lew proceeded down the incline, letting his horse pick its own pace. Domenic and Illona took their places in the middle of the convoy. This deep into Hastur lands, they no longer traveled in a tightly defended formation. Twice along the road from Nevarsin, however, they had been attacked by desperate, lawless men, too ragged and ill-armed to be rightly termed bandits.
“What’s this?” The captain signaled a halt and pointed below.
Outside the nearest gates, on either side of the road, an irregular encampment sprawled around an old, broken-down well. Domenic made out tents, rude sheds, and a cluster of livestock. The place looked for all the world as if a disorderly, ragtag army had set up outside the city.
Domenic shivered. We will have to pass through it.
They have made a city unto themselves here, Illona sent the thought to him. When winter comes, as it must, what will they do?
“We’d better see what’s going on.” Lew nodded to the captain. “Prepare yourselves in the event of trouble.”
“We will go cautiously, vai dom.” The captain motioned for his men to take up defensive positions. Swords ready, they proceeded downhill. Domenic’s mare tucked her hindquarters for balance, stepping carefully along the steep trail.
Illona dropped the hood of her traveling cloak over her shoulders, so that her flame-bright hair was readily visible. She looked very much a Keeper, so much the better. In some parts of the Domains, Domenic had seen, leroni were still treated with superstitious awe.
They had not gone very far through the outskirts of the encampment when they attracted attention. Men in farmers’ smocks or mountain furs emerged from their tents to stare.
As they went on, Domenic felt increasingly nervous. More men, and some hard-faced women too, gathered around the sides of the road. None bore any visible weapons, but many carried stout walking staves, and a few had axes, pitchforks, or other implements. So far, no one had made any threatening move, yet the mood was unmistakably strained, growing ever more so with each passing moment.
A few men pointed to Illona’s red hair and murmured, “Leronis!”
Their horses responded to the rising tension, jigging and dancing sideways. Domenic’s hands sweated on the reins. Even Lew’s normally sweet-tempered gelding tossed its head, ready to lash out. Only Illona sat easily in her saddle, in perfect control, as her mountain pony trudged along.
A man, young and black-haired, stepped onto the road, blocking their path. He carried a long stick, its tip fire-hardened into a point. A handful of others moved into position behind him. From every side, more people drew in on them.
The captain nudged his prancing mount forward. “Good people, what are you doing here, gathered on the road? What is going on?”
“It’s just as Liam told us!” someone muttered. “The Comyn know nothing! They don’t care!”
“Comyn!” One of the men barked out the word as if it were a curse. “I say, down with the lot of them!”
“Watch your tongue, man!” the captain said, lifting his sword.
“Get back, you fool!” said another in the crowd. “They’ve got a leronis with them! She’ll blast you into cinders as you stand!”
Domenic grasped the hilt of his sword, cold and heavy. He had never used it in earnest, to kill. In the back of his mind, he wondered if he could. These were his own people, men he had sworn to serve. There had to be a better way out of the confrontation than bloodshed!
A man spat on the road. Domenic’s horse, at the limit of her temper, reared and lashed out, but her hooves met only empty air. The nearest men scrambled back.
It was a respite only, Domenic knew. The air tasted of unspent lightning. He hauled on the reins, wrestling the mare back under control. She sidestepped and lashed her tail in protest.
“HOLD!”
A voice, raucous as the cry of a great-winged kyorebni, cracked the air. The sky reverberated with it. Every nerve in Domenic’s body shrilled in response. His horse stood like a carven statue except for the heaving of her ribs. The crowd paused, suddenly irresolute.
A single rider moved to the fore, the horse haloed in blue-white laran-generated fire. For an instant, Domenic did not recognize his grandfather, sitting so tall and strong, as if the hand of Aldones, Lord of Light, were upon him. His riding cloak whipped back from his shoulders.
Noises flooded Domenic’s hearing—the clatter of shod hooves, Illona’s bitten-off cry, a muted outcry from the crowd.
“It’s Lord Alton himself!”
“No, I heard he was dead—”
“Lord Alton!”
They drew back, some of them bowing or touching their foreheads.
“Enough,” Lew said in his normal hoarse voice. “Captain, have your men lower their swords. These people are not our enemies. You there! If you have a grievance against the Comyn, let me know what it is, and I will do what I can to help you.”
The black-haired man rose from where he had fallen to his knees. “I’ve heard of you, Lord Alton, that you stood against Sharra in my father’s time. Everyone says you are a man of honor, that you never break your word.”
A shudder went through Lew’s body. His horse moved restively beneath him. “What aid do you ask of us? What has driven you from your homes to the gates of Thendara?”
A sigh passed over the crowd. Like the breaking wave of a storm, their stories tumbled out. Grimly, Domenic listened. Despite all the work of the Council during the last year, the plight of these country people had not improved. One sorrow built upon another—flood or drought or fire, crops and herds sickening. Most of it seemed no worse than the normal cycle of bounty and famine, with all the troubles of scratching a life out of harsh land. They had come to Thendara seeking work, loans to buy new seed and livestock, or for relief from taxes or any of the hundred legal difficulties that arose from misfortune.
Domenic exchanged glances with his grandfather. The burst of laran energy had almost faded, leaving Lew’s face pale. His scars stood out like traces of lightning across his skin.
“An office has been set up in the Administrative Building,” Domenic said. “You can bring your petitions there, so that they may be directed to the proper authorities, even the Council itself.”
“Your pardon, young lord, but the last man of us who tried that has gone and disappeared,” one man said.
“And those before him were turned away!” someone else added.
“Surely, not all,” Domenic said, surprised. “Any worthy case must be heard—”
“That’s what Jeram believed,” the man retorted, “and now, for all we know, he sits rotting in a prison cell.”
> “If he’s not dead already!” one of the women added, shaking her fist.
“If there’s no justice for Jeram, what hope is there for the rest of us?” another voice demanded.
“Wait!” Illona cried. The simmering crowd fell back, muttering and averting their eyes. A few made warding signs against ill luck. “Jeram—do you mean Jeram of Nevarsin?”
The black-haired youth nodded. “That’s where he said he was from, or nearabouts.”
Domenic said to Lew, “Could this be the same Jeram I met?”
“I fear it is,” Lew said. “The story fits.” He pointed to the youth. “Good man, tell me what happened to our friend.”
“Vai dom, he went into Thendara to petition for a hearing at the Comyn Council and has not returned.”
“That does not mean anything untoward occurred,” Domenic said. “Could he not simply have remained within the city, the better to conduct his business?”
“Begging your pardon, young lord, but if that were true, Jeram would have come back for his tent and chervine. No, he’s met with foul play for sure. He was seen leaving the Administrative office, with a Guardsman following him.” The young man’s expression turned grim. “My own father went to search for him and was turned away.”
The others muttered in agreement. A few voices called out, “Free Jeram!” but the fight had gone out of the crowd.
Lew nudged his horse forward and bent down from his saddle to speak with the young black-haired leader. He gave his word that he would look into the matter. Amid expression of gratitude and suspicion, the way opened for them, and they clattered down the last stretch to the entrance to the city.
Domenic did not draw an easy breath until they were within sight of the Castle. Although Lew made no complaint, ever since he had faced the crowd at the tent city, his face had gone ashen. Shivering, he clung to the pommel of his saddle with his good hand. Illona glanced at him, looking worried.
The walls of the city closed around them; the streets were filled with people, wagons, laden pack animals. Domenic had forgotten how noisy Thendara was, how dirty and smelly, how narrow the spaces, cutting off the horizon. He could hardly sense the bedrock beneath the encrustation of wood and stone.
The captain did a superb job parting the traffic to speed their way through the city. In the Castle courtyard, grooms rushed to take their horses. Servants began unloading their baggage. Marguerida burst through the main doors, skirts flying as she raced toward them. She wore a gown of plain, undyed wool, the sort of comfortable clothing she liked to wear for writing music.
“Oh my dears, you are here at last!” She swept Domenic into her arms. “It’s so good to have you back again! How you have been missed!”
Illona, who had drawn herself up, her expression almost inhumanly composed, inclined her head and said, “It is a pleasure to see you again, Domna Marguerida.”
“Goodness, you’ve grown up,” Marguerida said. “You’re under-Keeper at Nevarsin now, I understand.”
“Mother, what’s been going on?” Domenic said. “We just passed through an encampment of very angry men outside the city gates.”
Marguerida’s mouth tightened. “The shanty town has ballooned over the last tenday. More people come all the time, and we haven’t the facilities for them inside the city. So far, there’s been no violence, but someone keeps stirring them up—”
“Your pardon, Domna,” Illona cut in, looking at Lew with an expression of concern. “This is not the time to discuss such matters,”
“What am I thinking, to keep you all out here?” Marguerida slipped one hand through her father’s elbow and held out the other to Domenic. Her golden eyes swept across her father’s drawn face. “You look exhausted. Once you’re settled and rested, we can talk.”
“I must attend to Dom Lewis first,” Illona said. “Where may I monitor him?”
Lew’s face hardened. “It will pass. I have ridden through worse pain.”
“Pain?” Marguerida looked aghast. “Father, are you hurt? Ill? Why did you not say so at once?”
At the same instant, Illona drew herself up, and her voice rang with authority. “Dom Lewis, we warned you that these episodes of chest pain might herald an even more serious condition.”
“Enough!” Lew silenced them all. Domenic remembered the stories of Lew’s own father, the formidable Kennard Alton. “It is nothing, I tell you, but if it will stop this chatter, then I will submit to Illona’s examination and have done with it. We have enough cause for concern as it is.”
Domenic’s room in the Alton family quarters closed around him like the walls of a prison. The bed with its carved headboard, the chest of inlaid blackwood and matching dresser, even the chair in which, as a boy, he had sat daydreaming for so many hours, were all as he had left them. Yet he felt as if he had returned to someone else’s room, to someone else’s life.
One of the Alton body-servants took his cloak and helped remove his riding boots. Once he had bathed, shaved, and dressed in clean indoor clothing, his mood lifted slightly.
On his small writing desk, he found a stack of papers his mother had left for him. Sighing, he picked up the top sheet. It was, not surprisingly, an agenda for the first Council session.
He looked up at the sound of footsteps and voices in the corridor outside. The door swung open and Alanna entered, carrying a tray of covered dishes. Her hair, braided and coiled elegantly on her neck, gleamed like polished copper. She set down the tray and rushed to him.
Once, Domenic had welcomed Alanna’s embraces as the most thrilling thing that had ever happened to him. Now he could not force a response. Her intensity dismayed him, like a storm sweeping away everything in its path. For a terrible moment, he froze. What could he say to her, when he knew now that what they had shared was not love but infatuation?
Illona, beloved… The very thought of her sent a pang of inexpressible longing through him. No, he must put those memories behind him. He must think only of Alanna, here before him.
To push Alanna away would have been unthinkably cruel. Gently, he took her hands and gazed into her eyes. She was so beautiful, it was not difficult to summon a smile of genuine pleasure.
“Oh, how thoughtless of me!” she exclaimed, misunderstanding his awkwardness, his silence. “Please, have something to eat. Castle gossip has it that you were attacked outside the city gates. Here I am, thinking only of how glad I am to see you and nothing of what you must have gone through! I am self-centered, I know, for Domna Marguerida is always telling me so. Now that you are home, I will try to behave more thoughtfully. I am always better when you are here.”
Alanna lowered herself to the footstool beside Domenic’s chair and watched him eat. As usual, the dishes reflected his mother’s taste: a delicate cream soup, fowl simmered in herbs and wine, a terrine of wild mushrooms, and a basket of exquisite little heart-shaped buns stuffed with nut paste. Everything smelled delicious and tasted even better. On the trail and at Nevarsin, he’d become accustomed to plainer fare.
“Please forgive me if I seem less warm in my greeting than you deserve.” Between bites, Domenic searched for the right words. “I have been on the road for some time, and, as you have heard, our arrival was eventful. But tell me, why has nothing been done to help those people? What did Mother mean, Someone keeps stirring them up?”
Alanna pouted, a pretty gesture. “I am never told anything of importance! Domna Marguerida does not even let me sit in on her meetings. Whenever I ask for anything useful to do, she tells me to go practice my sewing! I tell you, it is sometimes all I can do not to throw it in her face that soon I will be your wife, and I have every right to know these things! How can I be a proper help to you if I never hear what is going on?”
“I am glad you managed to say nothing about our engagement,” Domenic said, “for we must keep it secret for a little while longer.”
“I will try to please you in this, as in all things, my future husband,” Alanna said, looking up at him from be
low lowered lashes. “Domna Marguerida thinks that if she tells me nothing, I will remain ignorant. But I see things…” her voice changed suddenly, turning thick and dark. “I know things.”
“Your visions?” he asked, genuinely concerned. “You have had more of them?”
“No, no, only dreams…”
Alanna buried her face in her hands and burst into tears. Domenic put his arms around her and pulled her to him. Sobs racked her slender body. Murmuring, he stroked her hair and back. For a moment she only wept harder, but then a shudder went through her and she quieted.
“I must look a fright.” Sniffing, she straightened up. “What must you think of me? A silly girl, weeping at nothing.”
“I do not call your dreams nothing,” Domenic said. “Are you feeling well enough to tell me about them? Perhaps it will help to talk.”
“There is one dream that frightens me more than the rest. I look out into the city as it is now, filled with sunshine and festival flowers. But a shadow falls over my mind when I remember the vision of people lying dead everywhere. It will not go away! Night is falling, and I cannot hold it back.”
Alanna leaned against him, her eyes open and dry. “Hold me,” she whimpered. “Keep me safe.”
He pressed his lips to her forehead. “As long as it is in my power, no harm shall come to you.”
They both startled as a gentle tap sounded on the door. At Domenic’s invitation, Illona stepped into the room. She had changed into the long, loosely belted robe of a Tower worker. Her demeanor was composed, grave. She gave no sign of surprise at finding Domenic and Alanna in this intimate posture.
“I am sorry to invade your privacy, Dom Domenic, Damisela Alanna,” Illona said, “but your grandfather is not merely fatigued from the long journey. He has been taken ill.”