How did Valdir know about the blasters? Regis had carefully avoided mentioning them when he stormed into Rinaldo’s council meeting.
“The Terrans have shown their willingness to ignore the Compact on more than one occasion!” Skillfully, Valdir maintained control. “That’s why I’ve argued for full Federation membership, so that we can stand among them with full rights. Now, thanks to this debacle, they’ll be screaming for justice—justice they won’t hesitate to take into their own hands. Whose responsibility will that be? Who will answer their charges?”
Valdir had not given up his dream of Federation membership. He had used Rinaldo only as long as the puppet king did his bidding. Now, when threatened with retaliatory martial law, he would not scruple to place the blame on Rinaldo. He would throw the Council into chaos, discredit the Comyn as rulers of the Domains, and then step in as the one man who could speak for Darkover.
In another moment, the Comyn would be all too happy to hand over Rinaldo, as the guilty party, to the Terrans.
Poor, deluded Rinaldo! He probably had no idea what was happening. Regis pitied his brother. It was like watching a drowning man as the tide carried him ever farther from the shore.
Regis faced Rinaldo once more. Throughout the Chamber, men paused in midsentence to listen. “My brother, I appeal to you and to the honor of the Hasturs. Our father and grandfather and all our ancestors, from the beginning of recorded time, devoted their lives to our world and its people. For their sake, you must step down. Only then can we convince the Federation that we are capable of handling this matter ourselves.”
For every Valdir Ridenow, there was a Varzil the Good, the visionary who brought about the Compact and ended centuries of horrific laran warfare. Dyan Ardais, Kennard-Dyan’s father, had sacrificed himself for the greater good as he saw it. His actions might have been disastrous, but his integrity had been beyond question; in the end, he had seen his error and paid for it with his life.
As he spoke, Regis searched for the phrases that might reach Rinaldo, bringing forth that same altruistic spirit. Surely, the cristoforos strove to emulate their own holy saints, men who placed the welfare of others above their own.
Regis shaped his argument in accord with that hope. He reminded Rinaldo of Nevarsin’s long tradition of service and humility. He tried to speak only to Rinaldo, to focus only on convincing his brother, not anyone else, and in so doing, he captured the entire audience.
The words slipped off the shield of Rinaldo’s single-minded determination like paper swords against a wall of stone. Within moments, Regis heard the rhythmic beat of men running in formation, converging on the Chamber. Rinaldo’s picked Guards would arrest or eliminate any man who stood against their King.
Despite the telepathic dampers, Regis read the thoughts behind Rinaldo’s simmering fury: Rebels and traitors, and Regis the most vile of them . . .
“I am no traitor!” Regis insisted. “When I have I ever dealt with you dishonorably? Have I lied to you or cheated you? Have I taken what was rightfully yours? I could have left you at Nevarsin, hidden away by your own family as if you were a shameful thing. Or brought you to Thendara as a nedestro, without rank or place.”
Something shifted behind Rinaldo’s eyes, like a stray beam of sun through storm-gathered clouds.
Regis stepped closer and held out his hands. His throat thickened, but he forced the words through. “You were the brother I longed for, the brother I chose to stand at my side, the brother I was proud to acknowledge. Compared to you, the privileges of Hastur meant nothing. Can you understand how important you were to me? How much I wanted to love you? You are the only brother I will ever have, just as I am yours.”
Rinaldo’s pale face took on a faint tinge of color and wetness gleamed in his eyes.
“Let us not be adversaries, each striving for power over the other,” Regis pleaded. “Can we not work together, each of us with our own gifts to offer our people?”
As if in a daze, Rinaldo passed one hand over his face. He mumbled a few words, a prayer, perhaps. As he swung open the gate and stepped onto the Chamber floor, he cried, “My brother! Everything you said is true! You have never been anything but generous and truthful. Yet . . . I do not know how to answer you. Have I not been given this power,” looking down at his heavily ornamented ceremonial garb, “by the Lord of All Worlds? Must I then break faith with either my brother or my God?”
“With neither of us,” Regis replied. “You will find a way to honor your spiritual calling. You will open the hearts of men by example, by goodness and compassion, not by fear and coercion. Is that not the way of St. Valentine, whose penitential life we once studied together?”
“The holy saint preached forgiveness as a path to salvation.” Tears spilled over Rinaldo’s cheeks. “I had all but forgotten that lesson. God will indeed find a way. Truly, I am a flawed instrument. For whatever harm has come from my best intentions, I must make restitution.”
Regis was moved beyond speech by the grace of his brother’s surrender. He had hoped but not expected that his words would make a difference. When he had used hard tactics, challenging Rinaldo’s position, he had met with equal resistance. Only when he had spoken from his heart and laid open his longing for a brother’s love had he succeeded.
The Chamber hushed in respect. Weeping openly now, Rinaldo stepped forward to embrace Regis.
“You snake!” A woman’s voice split the silence. “Seducer! Pervert! You’ve ruined it all—everything God has called us to accomplish!” Tiphani Lawton burst through the curtains at the back of the Aldaran enclosure.
“You can’t have him!” she shrieked at Regis. “He’s mine—God gave him to me!”
She reached the railing. Regis and Rinaldo, now only an arm’s-length apart, turned in unison. Danilo shouted out a warning. Already, Gabriel had risen from his place, and the Sergeant-at-Arms laid one hand on the hilt of his sword.
Tiphani stumbled onto the Chamber floor. She pawed at the folds of her robe.
With a savage cry, she brought out a Terran blaster and aimed it at Regis.
Regis stared at the gleaming cylinder. Behind him, Linnea yelled, “Go!” and Danilo hurtled over the railing.
Rinaldo grabbed Regis by the shoulders and spun him around, shielding Regis with his own body.
White fire erupted from the muzzle of the blaster.
Regis could not move. His breath had turned to ice in his throat. The stench of charred flesh enveloped him. Dazedly, he wondered if they had both been hit, or only he himself.
Rinaldo’s body stiffened. He landed in a graceless tangle, almost bringing Regis down with him. Regis caught his balance. Danilo flew past him, racing across the floor to tackle Tiphani. She waved the blaster, firing wildly. Danilo reached her an instant before the nearest Guardsman did.
Pandemonium erupted in the Chamber, people shouting, benches toppling, robes swirling as people rushed about. Gabriel reached the floor, and Valdir as well.
Between them, Danilo and the Guardsman wrestled Tiphani to the floor. The blaster went skidding across the smooth-worn stone. Tiphani spewed forth off- world curses. She lashed out with her fists, kicking hard.
“Uncle Regis!” Mikhail appeared beside Regis, taking his weight as Regis stumbled. “Are you hurt?”
Regis dropped to his knees beside his brother. Rinaldo lay on his back. His colorless eyes were open, filled with rainbow light. Regis stretched one hand over Rinaldo’s face, hovering his fingers over the pale, serene features, searching for a hint of breath and finding none.
The next instant, the telepathic dampers cut out. Laran sensations flooded through Regis, a maelstrom of emotions and wild, desperate thoughts.
“Regis.”
He lifted his head and met Linnea’s gaze.
I’m so sorry! Anguish rang through her telepathic thought. If only I’d disabled the dampers sooner, I would have known what that woman was up to!
“No, love,” he said. “None of us could have an
ticipated . . .” He lowered his gaze to his brother’s features, so still that Rinaldo looked ageless. “Least of all he, who trusted her.”
He turned his eyes away, folded his grief like a fragile thing in his heart, and stood once more. Someone must take charge, see that Tiphani Lawton was properly restrained, decide what to do with her, give orders about the . . . the body.
Around him, psychic currents surged like storm-whipped turbulence. His own feelings—grief and fury and things he could not name—clashed inside him.
I can’t do this.
As if in a mad dream, Regis watched Francisco Ridenow pick up the blaster. Francisco looked down at the gleaming metal for what seemed an eternity, weighing it. A strange, hard light glimmered in his eyes. Then Valdir grasped him by the shoulder and took the weapon away.
A short distance away, Tiphani had gone limp, sobbing in the arms of Gabriel and another Guardsman.
Regis. Linnea laced her fingers, cool and strong, through his. Danilo strode toward them. Their minds linked . . . held.
The roiling insanity receded. Regis knew who he was. What he was.
What he must do.
Regis felt as if he had been hurled down from a great height, certain he would smash into the rocky ground, only to find himself caught in an invisible net. Each strand was gossamer light, the thousand tiny threads that bound his life to those he loved. Together, they sustained him.
36
Regis would not allow Rinaldo to be buried in an unmarked grave at Hali with the generations of Comyn. Rinaldo had never been one of them; the softly green hills of Hali would have meant exile for a spirit longing for home.
“I myself will take him to St. Valentine’s,” Regis told Javanne, “and let him rest in the everlasting snows along with the holy men of his order.”
They had been sitting together in the Hastur apartments in Comyn Castle. With regret he had bowed to the necessity of moving back, although he refused to give up the townhouse. In the next room, Linnea was supervising the rearrangement of the furniture to be safer for an active toddler. Ariel, who had not stopped clinging to her mother since her return, sat on the floor beside Javanne, shoulder touching knee.
Javanne opened her mouth, then closed it with a sigh. The events of the past winter had left her gaunt, her tongue sharper than ever. Although pleased with Gabriel’s reinstatement as Guards Commander, she continued to hold Mikhail at a distance.
“It would not be fitting for a Hastur to be buried at Nevarsin,” she said, “but then, Rinaldo was never properly one of us. He had not the slightest sense of Comyn honor.”
“Let us not speak uncharitably,” Regis said, gentle with the pain beneath her words. “He was our brother.”
Javanne shrugged. “At least some good has come out of this. You are now settled and married, and no one can accuse you of shirking your duty. What is one nedestro more or less, when the Hastur succession has been properly secured?”
“Mama, can we go now?” Ariel moved restlessly against her mother’s skirts. Since her rescue, she had not been able to sit still for more than a few moments. Linnea said that with time and care, the girl might become less nervous, but Regis saw no sign of improvement. He feared she might never fully recover.
“In a moment, dearest,” Javanne murmured. “Regis, will you excuse us? There is so much to do, preparing for the move back to Armida. We must travel while the weather is still clement.”
Regis did not ask if she would miss Mikhail. He rose, kissed his sister on the cheek, and bade her good day. After Javanne and Ariel left, Linnea came into the parlor.
As chatelaine of the Castle and mistress of the Hastur suite, Linnea had set about arranging the sleeping and living quarters to accommodate both privacy and shared family activities. Danilo’s chamber was by mutual accord adjacent to that of Regis, while Linnea preferred to be closer to the baby. Her frank approach to intimacy and psychic shielding had eased the transition, and the three adults had come to a working understanding.
“I cannot say I will miss my sister-in-law’s meddling,” Linnea said, a trace less kindly than her usual manner.
“Javanne is unhappy,” he reminded her, “although I do not entirely understand why. The hardest thing to sympathize with is how relieved she acts that Rinaldo is dead.”
Linnea stood beside Regis and gazed up at him with her calm, assessing gray eyes. “She did not love him.”
“Did she even know him? Did I? Did any of us? Or did I see only a brother to shoulder the burdens I never wanted?”
“My dear, how long will you carry that guilt? It is not your fault that things turned out as they did. Perhaps your choices were not always the wisest, but you made them out of love and generosity.” She did not add that the same could not be said for others, namely Tiphani Lawton and Valdir Ridenow.
For the moment, he reminded himself, neither Tiphani nor Valdir posed any threat. Tiphani had been turned over to the Terran authorities and was soon to be shipped to another planet, Sirius IX most likely, for the treatment of the criminally insane. Dan had let her go without protest; Regis could not imagine his friend’s distress. At least the issue of Federation membership looked to be permanently stalled. The Terrans would be hesitant to meddle in Darkovan affairs for a long time to come.
Felix was making a good recovery and had already begun private lessons with Linnea. Eventually, the boy might need the disciplined community of a Tower, Arilinn most likely, with Jeff Kerwin as his Keeper, but that decision lay in the future.
As for Valdir Ridenow, he had stated his intention to retire to Serrais, taking Bettany and Francisco with him. Regis would rather have seen the girl entrusted to the Bridge Society healers or sent somewhere she might receive help and understanding. Clearly, the current Ridenow lord felt it was more important to forget the entire affair.
Poor child, I wonder what will happen to her. And Francisco, growing up under Valdir’s tutelage . . .
Recalling his thoughts to the present, Regis kissed his wife on the forehead. “You are right, of course. Danilo spouts similar wisdom at me on a daily basis.”
“As well he should,” she replied with an impish smile. “Perhaps the two of us will accomplish what neither one of us alone can. Getting you to see sense.”
“I?” Bemused by her playful turn, he raised one eyebrow.
The light in her eyes dimmed and Regis knew she was thinking of Kierestelli. In response, he said aloud what was in his mind, that he would go directly from Nevarsin to the Yellow Forest and bring their daughter home.
Linnea summoned a smile. “I’m sure you will try.”
“What do you mean?” Regis shivered inside, as if a gust from the everlasting snows touched his heart. The Storns were an old mountain family and undoubtedly had Aldaran blood. Linnea had never said she possessed the Gift of foreseeing, but . . .
Regis thought of his daughter, slim and graceful as a chieri, among the towers of Thendara, the raucous life of the city, the strangeness of the Terran Zone. He thought of men with blasters, with swords. “Are you saying it is not safe for her?”
She turned away. “Let it rest, love. We have endured more sadness in this last year than many people do in an entire lifetime. Go, bestow this last gift upon your brother, and know I will be waiting for you.”
Brother Valentine, once called Rinaldo Felix-Valentine Lanart-Hastur, was laid to rest in the burial area dedicated to those who had given their lives in holy service. The entire monastic community attended, except for one or two elderly monks too frail to make the journey. They climbed the rocky slope, following a path between the arms of glacial ice. Chanting, they shared the weight of the rough wooden coffin. Those who were young and strong took longer turns, but even the lame carried their brother in imitation of the Holy Bearer of Burdens.
The ceremony, conducted by the new Father Master, a tall, soft-spoken man named Conn, was brief. Regis found himself unexpectedly moved. After all that had gone before, he feared the traditional wor
ds might ring hollow. The priest recited the prayers with such tenderness that even Danilo had tears in his eyes when the final “May it be so” drew the mourners together. Afterward, Regis waited with Danilo as each monk and novice paused to say a word of consolation. Some had barely known Rinaldo, but others remembered him as a youth, a child, a teacher, a friend.
How they loved him, Regis thought with a heavy gladness. I should never have taken him away.
He and Danilo were in light rapport, as they had been almost continually during this pilgrimage. Danilo said aloud, “Do not take that sorrow on yourself, bredhyu. A hundred things might have happened differently. Old Lord Hastur could have educated him as befitted a Comyn or else buried all record of his existence, leaving him to a life of contemplative prayer. Rinaldo himself made many choices along the way.”
Rinaldo could have resisted Valdir’s seductive offer of power and Tiphani Lawton’s delusions as well.
“Sometimes I think the saddest thing in this whole affair is how few people in Thendara will remember him in the years to come,” Regis sighed. The procession of monks was already winding their way down to the monastery. Although it was still full afternoon, a frigid wind swept down over the ice.
They stayed that night in the monastery’s guest house, warmed by a fire, hot food, and thick blankets. Neither felt the need for speech. When the fire had died into glowing embers, Regis lay in his single bed, waiting for sleep, listening to Danilo’s breathing.
I shall never return to Nevarsin.
Once he could not wait to be free of this place, its harsh discipline and creed of chastity, not to mention its climate. Now he thought of all he had been given, not just the education of books and writing, but the struggle within himself, the clarity to discern the truth and the strength to act upon it. The condemnation of homosexuality had all but destroyed him, and yet, was he not a stronger, more honest person for having wrestled with it? If he had not come to terms with his feelings for Danilo, would he have had the resolve to insist upon a wife for whom he felt genuine love and respect?