Marriage had not changed Rinaldo’s life in any way Danilo could detect. Occasionally, Rinaldo dined with his wife, but more often with Javanne and Gabriel. Javanne looked uneasy, as if she feared Danilo would think her a traitor to Regis by sharing a meal with his usurper. She was in an awkward position as Rinaldo’s sister and in her role as Castle chatelaine as well as the wife of the Guards Commander, who served at the pleasure of the Hastur Lord. As far as Danilo knew, Rinaldo had never spoken with Regis after the obligatory visit to admire the baby.
Rinaldo seemed immune to the weather. The monks at St. Valentine’s were said to be impervious to the cold, able to sleep on the glacial ice in their sandals and robes. Whether this was myth or a discipline of bodily control, Danilo did not know. Certainly, the monks did not mind the freezing temperatures as the novices and students did.
On all but the bitterest days, Rinaldo went into the city, wearing layers of fur and wool and stout lined boots. He did not insist that Danilo accompany him, but Danilo took pity on the poor Guardsman who would otherwise have had that duty and braved the icy streets himself.
Together they made a circuit of the new cristoforo shrines. Now that Rinaldo controlled the Hastur assets, he financed soup kitchens as an act of charity. Exultantly, he pointed out to Danilo how attendance at services had increased. Danilo privately thought these poor wretches were so desperate, they would sit through sermons from Zandru himself for a hot meal.
The days ran on, each darker than the one before, until Midwinter Night drew near. This time was also a great cristoforo holiday—the birth-date, they said, of the Bearer of Burdens.
Rinaldo would not permit any of the usual Midwinter celebrations, dismissing them as heretical. Instead, he invited Regis and Linnea as well as Javanne and Gabriel to a late-evening family party. The largest of the parlors had been decorated with strings of dried berries representing the droplets of blood shed by the holy saints, rather than the usual garlands of fir boughs. A generous fire warmed the air, and banks of beeswax candles gave off a gentle, honey-sweet perfume.
Regis arrived early to participate in the customary giving of gifts to the servants. At first glimpse, a fever raced through Danilo. All the things he wanted to say boiled over the cauldron of his mind so that for a moment, he could not even breathe. For a heart-stopping moment, Regis met his gaze.
Rinaldo was watching both of them intently, waiting like a hunter for the slightest lapse. Desperate to do nothing that might betray the depths of his emotions, Danilo threw all his concentration into barricading his mind. Regis answered him with an expression of unconcerned calm.
After the servants went off to their own holiday dinner, the rest of the family came in. Mikhail was not present, having remained at Ardais with Kennard-Dyan. Linnea entered a few minutes later, accompanied by one of the young Castamir ladies. As she and Danilo greeted one another, their eyes met in recognition. A heat rose from her skin, a scent more sensed than felt; she had been nursing little Danilo.
Javanne greeted everyone graciously. Thinner than usual, she wore a holiday gown elegant with lace and silver- thread embroidery but no jewels, as if she had been unable to determine the exact degree of formality of the occasion. Gabriel looked proper and formal in his uniform, with never a word or gesture out of place.
He’s angry . . . or afraid. Danilo had known Gabriel since his days as a cadet and could not imagine what would cause fear in the older man. Caution, certainly, for Gabriel’s position as brother-in-law to Regis must make his every action suspect.
Servants brought in bowls of mulled berry wine and platters of little seed-cakes that, if not strictly traditional, created an atmosphere of festivity. Rinaldo, playing the generous host, made sure everyone had a full goblet.
“It is time for your gift, my brother.” Rinaldo lifted his goblet to Regis. Danilo noticed the hectic, almost feverish light in Rinaldo’s eyes.
“I have brought nothing for you,” Regis said, “save for my wishes for a peaceful season.”
A note in his voice tore at Danilo’s heart, a cold whisper slicing through the bright jollity. Danilo had none of the Aldaran Gift of precognition, but he sensed that whatever happened next would change the world forever.
Rinaldo smiled, saying, “Do not distress yourself. I am so happy tonight that nothing can displease me.”
The door swung open, and Bettany entered with two ladies in attendance. Her gown, an edifice of brocade and satin, rustled as she moved. A small fortune in Ardcarran rubies set in copper filigree lay upon her exposed bosom and dangled from her ears.
To Danilo’s surprise, one of the attendants was Tiphani Lawton. He did not recognize her at first glance, for she wore the long belted tunic over full skirts of an ordinary Darkovan woman. Her hair was caught back in a coil on her neck and covered with a demure coif. But she did not comport herself as a Darkovan woman. Her gaze was bold and direct, and her eyes glowed with brittle fire.
Danilo did not know how to react, whether he should acknowledge her presence. If Rinaldo had managed to spirit her away from Terran Headquarters, Danilo did not want to consider the consequences.
At Rinaldo’s gesture, Bettany came to stand beside him. Her color deepened as the other guests bowed to her. Certainly, there was an unwonted freshness to her skin, a new softness to her chin and a fullness to her partly bared breasts.
“Tell them our news, my dearest,” Rinaldo said.
She accepted a goblet from a servant and lifted it. “Drink a toast, my lords and ladies, to the son of my lord Rinaldo, which I shall bear come Midsummer’s Eve.”
For a fraction of a heartbeat, stunned silence reigned. Danilo wondered how it was possible, or how anyone but a laran-Gifted healer could determine that Bettany carried a boy child. He could not even begin to consider the political implications of Rinaldo producing an heir. Then Linnea, and a moment later Javanne, recollected themselves enough to utter feminine expressions of joy. Gabriel, moving swiftly to cover the lapse, bowed to Bettany and wished her and her child all happiness.
Regis, his expression unreadable, bowed first to Bettany, as a new mother-to-be taking her place of honor, and then to his brother. “Please accept my most sincere congratulations.”
Everyone applauded Bettany and drank several more toasts to her and her unborn child. Then the party split into two groups, the women sitting together, talking about pregnancy and baby clothes, while the men remained standing.
“I know what you are all thinking,” Rinaldo said, finishing his goblet and holding it out for a servant to refill. “None of you believed that I—an emmasca—could father a child. Admit it, you all believed me incapable.”
Gabriel clamped his jaw shut. Regis, meeting his brother’s challenging stare, said, “It does happen upon rare occasions, I suppose. Our chieri ancestry manifests in the laran of some and the six-fingered hands of others. It is said to be especially strong in those who are born as you were, emmasca. But the chieri are not infertile. They do produce offspring, although very few.”
Regis paused, his eyes softening, and Danilo sensed in him one of the few luminous memories from the days of the World Wreckers. A chieri, one of the fabled “Children of Light” of the ancient forests, had come forward to help the beleaguered planet.
Danilo closed his eyes, remembering the tall, slender creature, at times like a wild, heartbreakingly beautiful girl, then unquestionably masculine. Keral had given birth to a child, conceived on the same night as Kierestelli and so many others, before returning to the Yellow Forest and the remnants of the chieri race. Did Keral still dance under the four moons in yearning, in grief, in ecstasy? And the child, the hope of a fading people, did that child flourish?
Will any of us ever see them again?
“Nothing is impossible to him who puts his faith in the Divine,” Rinaldo said. His expression of triumph left Danilo profoundly uneasy.
At least motherhood might bring Bettany a measure of fulfillment. Most well-born girls hoped for n
othing more than a comfortable home, a husband and children. Linnea and her sister leroni were the exception rather than the rule.
When Bettany moved apart from the other women, Danilo seized the opportunity to extend his felicitation. She responded with a sniff. “My happiness will come from my sons.”
After a fractional, astonished moment, Danilo hastened to say, “I hope they will grow to be honorable men.”
“They will be powerful and rich! All the world will kneel in fealty to them! Everyone will know that I gave them life!”
She paused, chest heaving. Perhaps she was aware that she could easily be overheard. Linnea and Javanne had averted their faces, but Tiphani was staring openly. Bettany turned her back on the off-world woman.
“Everyone said I was worthless. Oh, not when I could hear them, but I knew. I heard them whispering in my dreams. Now they will see—I will show them all! Even you with your kindness—” and here, Danilo remembered her angry words when he had suggested she seek out Linnea as a companion and guide. Bettany finished with, “You won’t ever have sons to bow down before mine!”
Danilo did not know which was more appalling, her spiteful delusions or the vision of all Darkover under the rule of her offspring. In such a world, what would become of Mikhail? Of little Dani?
As far as he knew, Danilo had no trace of the Aldaran Gift of precognition, so he could reassure himself that his fears were imaginings born of his own recent captivity and unsettled times, nothing more.
“Oh!” Bettany clapped her hands over her mouth. Her cheeks reddened, and her eyes brimmed with tears. “I didn’t mean that! It just popped out! I never know what I’m going to say or feel from one moment to the next!”
“Little one, I did not take it personally. You have not offended me.” The only offense came from those who thrust her, ill in mind and unprepared, into such a marriage, but he could not say so to her face.
She lowered her hands. Her lower lip, full and soft as a child’s, quivered. She summoned a tentative smile. “There—I am better when I am with you. I think the time on the trail with you and Mestra Darilyn and the others was the most fun I have ever had. Now I have no one except those silly maids, and they never tell me anything important. You always speak plainly and . . . you’re nice to me.” With a flutter of her eyelashes, she placed one hand on his arm.
Danilo’s chest tightened. By all that was holy, had the girl fallen in love with him? He knew he was reckoned handsome and could have had his pick of women—and more than a few men, too—had his heart not been so focused on Regis. For a hopeful moment, he decided he was mistaken, that she showed him no more favor than was proper to her husband’s paxman. Then he saw the sidelong glance and rise of her breasts, felt the caress of her fingers through the fabric of his sleeve, inhaled her perfume, a scent far too provocative for a young bride.
Did she have any idea what she was doing or how many others she placed at risk? She was the wife of the most powerful man on Darkover, and she carried his child, whereas Danilo’s freedom and, most likely, his life hung from the slender thread of her husband’s good will.
He remembered riding beside Bettany on the trail, her face as he handed her the cup of jaco at the inn . . . himself speaking words of encouragement . . . dancing with her at the nuptial ball . . .
Now she was looking up at him with unseemly boldness—no, not boldness. Pleading.
“You will still be my friend, won’t you? You’ll come and visit me often?”
He removed her hand from his arm and led her back to the other women. “Lady,” he said with as much gentleness as he could summon, “that would not be wise for either of us. If you have need of a friend—”
She halted. “You mean Lady Linnea! Why are you always trying to pawn her off on me when it is you I want?”
“Because she can help you, truly help you, and I cannot.”
“Cannot? Or will not?”
Danilo gave Bettany a short bow. He raised his voice so that everyone could hear him as he wished her a healthy child. Bettany looked as if she would stamp her foot. He returned to the other men, and when he glanced back, she had rejoined the women. Linnea, without any sign of having overheard, complimented Bettany on her gown.
Tiphani left the group of women without a backward glance, deserting the lady she purported to attend. Regis, with his usual impeccable grace, bowed to her as to the Legate’s wife.
“Domna Lawton, I did not anticipate the pleasure of meeting you here. May all the joys of the season be yours.”
“Lawton?” She tossed her head, sending the edges of her coif fluttering. “I have left that life behind me. I have a new name, one given to me by the Power we all must answer to. I am no longer Tiphani but Luminosa . Through me flows the Divine Light. I have no need for earthly attachments.”
Only, Danilo thought wryly, for the earthly protection of Rinaldo. But was he her creature, or she his?
“. . . only fitting that my unborn son should be attended by the one who foresaw his conception . . .” Rinaldo was saying.
All eyes, for the women had halted in their conversation and now listened openly, turned to Tiphani.
“From the moment of the wedding, the sacred union of masculine and feminine essences,” Tiphani said, “I sensed an imminence. You all must have felt the Presence among us! That very night, as I was deep in prayer, I was granted a vision. Light—oh, sweet Divine Light!—filled me. It raptured me beyond any earthly bliss. In the midst of my transport, I saw the Holy Seed flow through me into the womb of the new bride. I was given the knowledge that not only would the handmaiden of my lord Rinaldo be fruitful, but she would carry his firstborn son.”
She rushed on, each glowing phrase building upon the one before. Danilo wanted to roll his eyes. He had been taught, as a child of a devout cristoforo family, to believe in the saints, but Tiphani Lawton was not among them. Whatever had happened to her sprang from her own unstable mind.
For an instant, Danilo wondered whether the pregnancy was genuine or a concoction of wishful thinking. Such things were possible when weak minds and strong emotions came together. Certainly, the prospect of a legitimate heir would consolidate Rinaldo’s power among the Comyn. But how could anyone be sure? Rinaldo was as head-blind as any man Danilo had ever met. Silently, Danilo blessed his choice of Renunciate escorts, for no man could now say he himself had anything to do with her child. The two of them had never been alone for even five minutes.
Unless . . .
Unless she had already been pregnant when he brought her from Serrais. Horrified, he put the thought from his mind.
Bettany jumped to her feet, chattering about her miraculous motherhood. With quiet dignity, Linnea took her aside.
“You must not excite yourself overly, chiya. A calm manner and sweet words are beneficial to a woman in your condition. Come and sit beside me.”
“You must not address me in such a fashion,” Bettany said coldly. “I am Lady Hastur and mother to the future Hastur Lord.”
Javanne gasped at this blatant rudeness to a Comynara and former Keeper.
“Your rank is indeed higher than mine, vai domna,” Linnea replied with the easy confidence of one who need never bow to anyone. “But I have somewhat more experience in matters of childbearing, have I not?”
“That is all very well, but when my son is born, your son will have to do whatever he says.”
“I hope our sons will be true and loyal kinsmen,” Linnea said. “Let us not argue. If we wish our children to be friends, we must set an example. I have no interest in usurping your precedence, only in your happiness and welfare. I wish to be of help to you.”
Tiphani had fallen silent. The men had turned to listen, Rinaldo with a fleeting, black expression, Regis with outright pride, Gabriel with barely disguised relief. Javanne attempted to put a soothing arm around Bettany’s shoulders, but Bettany shrugged her off.
“I myself will attend the blessed mother,” Tiphani intoned. “We have no need of
primitive midwifery or native superstitions. Our guide shall be the Holy Seed itself. Let us retire to pray.”
With Bettany at her heels, she swept from the room. An awkward pause followed until Linnea and Javanne joined the men. Little of consequence was said, and the party broke up shortly. Danilo wished beyond words that he were free to leave with Regis and Linnea.
BOOK IV: Regis
26
Late morning sun poured through the windows of the townhouse parlor. After a month of almost continuous snowstorms, the skies had finally cleared. How long the respite would last, no one knew. In the streets, people seized the opportunity to dig out passageways through snow piled higher than a man’s head.
Regis, sitting beside the hearth, roused from his musings. The brightness of the day, coupled with the warmth of the parlor, had lulled him halfway into dreaming. On the divan opposite him, Linnea had just rocked Dani to sleep.
Much to her husband’s surprise, Linnea had insisted on a separate bedroom down the corridor from his and adjacent to Kierstelli’s. Regis thought at first that she wanted to preserve a measure of her former independence. He soon realized the benefits of separating the space in which she devoted herself to her children from the life they shared as a newly married couple. He gave up little of his own customs and preferences, but instead gained from the addition of hers. Each time she came to his bed, she brought a sense of new delight.
Linnea’s shawl of soft ivory wool had slipped away, revealing the baby’s mouth still pressed to her breast. The sun burnished her hair to a halo of rose-gold. At her feet, Kierstelli sat cross-legged, picking out a melody on the child-sized ryll Regis had given her as a Midwinter gift. Sensing his awareness, she looked up and met his gaze without pausing in her music.
A pang brushed his heart. Here he was, warm and comfortable, never hungry, for the cellars and larder were always well supplied. He had at last been freed of the responsibility he had never wanted. He had a wife he loved and respected. More than that, he had a family he had never dreamed possible. To his son, he would be the father he had never known. And yet . . .