“Marguerida, what is it?” Rafaella shook her wrist.
“I guess I am not as well as I thought,” Margaret murmured.
“You eyes rolled back in your head, chiya, and I thought you were going to have another seizure.”
“Another what?”
“A seizure—you had several during our journey here. Small ones, to be sure, but frightening nonetheless.”
“Did I? I am sorry if I frightened you.” Margaret spoke calmly, refusing to express the terror which gripped her heart. She had never shown any evidence of epilepsy before, but who could say what this strange illness might provoke. After a moment the fear subsided a little, and she thought that it was a pretty pickle to be ill so far from Terran medical aid. I really got myself into it this time, didn’t I? “Fevers sometimes cause fits, you know.”
“Do they?” Rafaella seemed reassured by Margaret’s apparent sanguinity. The frown lines between her light brows smoothed, and her mouth relaxed a little. Margaret looked at her, and found she felt a great fondness for her guide. She had never had many friends her own age. Her fellow students at University had been nice enough, but she always kept her distance from them. It was almost as if she were unwilling to get close to anyone. The Davidsons had been more than friends, but they were both two generations older than she was, and it was not the same.
Margaret let herself sink into the sensation of friendship in silence, clasping Rafaella’s callused hand. It was a new feeling to her, as fresh as spring blossoms, and she wanted to savor it. She knew, somehow, that she could trust Rafaella completely, in any situation.
No! You will keep yourself apart!
She flinched as she heard these words spoken in a soft but unyielding, female voice which belonged to no woman she knew. It was not Dio, nor Thyra. For a flash she saw the glass room once more, and she knew that the woman whose invisible presence occupied the throne there was the speaker. How she had created this barrier to any intimacy when Margaret was too young to protect herself, she could not guess. But she knew that this had happened, that it was real, not imagined. She felt herself being drawn toward the empty throne, sucked against her will to move toward the thing, and she almost screamed.
Then the vision was gone, and she was once again in the bed, tucked beneath warm covers and as safe as she could be. So long as she did not remember, and did not allow anyone to come too close, she was safe. Her mind was full of locked rooms, full of doors that must remain shut. But every moment she remained on Darkover, she was certain, the chance that she would remember what she must not grew greater. She could not escape from this terrible presence in her own mind as long as her body lived. That was what it had meant when it said she would be free soon.
Margaret felt despair rise in her throat. She was going to die. She almost wanted to die, rather than continue being a prisoner of her own mind, of elusive memories, and that thing which dwelt within her. Another part of her, however, was outraged. For a moment she understood that her many angers, so strange and powerful, came from this part of her. And that part not only wanted to live, but it wanted to revenge itself on . . .
She was still too weak to manage these conflicting emotions. She wanted to cry, scream, leap out of bed, take an ax to something, faint, and several other actions she lacked the energy to put names to. Instead of trying to deal with her turmoil, she said, “I think I’d better take another nap now. Even if I feel as if I have been sleeping since forever.”
“Yes, I think so, too. Your pulse is racing, and Beltrana will have my hide if anything happens while you are in my care.” Rafaella leaned forward and kissed Margaret’s cheek very tenderly.
Margaret was startled by this affection, startled and moved. She felt awkward. Clumsily she returned the gesture, then turned her face away, into the pillow, so that no one would see the blush that colored her cheeks.
Poor thing. I wonder what she would have done if I had given her a proper hug?
12
The following morning, Margaret was feeling somewhat better, but her pulse still raced if she tried to get up, and her knees were like jelly. This unpleasant discovery had presented itself when Rafaella had helped her out of bed while two maid servants changed the bedding, and she had cursed until she was too tired to continue. She also found that whenever she was alone in the room, she panicked.
Luckily, Rafaella seemed willing to stay with her, and she was almost able to convince herself that sudden attacks of fear when she was alone were due to her illness. She had the feeling that there was something she had remembered the previous day that was bad, very bad, but she couldn’t recall it now, and she was almost relieved that it was gone again.
To pass the time, she asked the guide to tell her about some of the things she had done on her other journeys, and the Renunciate, after a show of modesty, began to regale her with tales of snowstorms and great cliffs, brigands and the other dangers of the road. It was interesting, but it made Margaret feel that her own life had been rather dull by comparison. Not that she had particularly wanted adventures, of course—she was not that sort of person.
A soft rap on the door interrupted a quite good story concerning an encounter with a banshee, and Rafaella rose to answer it. Margaret heard the murmur of voices, and then the sound of two sets of boots moving toward the bed. One of the voices was male, and she hastily pulled the covers up over her chest and tucked her tangled hair down into the collar of her nightgown.
“Domna, may I present Lord Dyan Ardais,” Rafaella said, her body stiff with outrage. For shame! He knows he has no business barging into the room where a single female is sick. Just like an Ardais to claim a right that violates good manners!
The sound of the name made her want to shiver, but she knew this was not the man in her memories. He was dead, wasn’t he? She had seen him dead! She could just feel the shimmer of memory, hovering at the edge of her mind, and she forced it back into the recesses with every strength she possessed. This must be a son or grandson, or even some relative of Danilo’s, and no one to fear. There were probably ten people called Dyan Ardais running around Darkover. It was probably a very common name! So why didn’t she believe that?
Despite her wariness, Margaret found her curiosity stirring. She heard Rafaella’s thoughts with some disquiet. Since no further incidents of overhearing people’s thoughts had occurred during the morning, she had almost managed to convince herself that it was not a very important matter, that it was only a small talent, like the ability to juggle. Now she wondered why it came and went, why it happened sometimes and not others? Was it strong emotions that did it? There had to be a logical explanation, if only she could find it. Yet, as much as she wanted to ask, something inside her kept her silent and raging.
She was starting into another headache, trying to figure it out, so she made herself let go of the problem. Instead, she wondered what the Renunciate would have thought if she had seen Margaret with Ivor on Relegan, garbed in a few feathers and some large blossoms. Rafaella would have been scandalized, probably, even though Ivor was old enough to have been Margaret’s grandfather. From what she had managed to gather about Darkovan customs, that might have been all right. She was not sure. They seemed to have some very odd ideas about the relationship between the sexes, and she didn’t quite understand it yet. She felt herself quite old enough not to have need of any chaperone, but it was clear that Rafaella was ready to defend her honor, and if she had not been so weak, she would have laughed out loud.
The man who looked down at her from between the bed curtains was of moderate height, flaxen-haired and startlingly handsome. He appeared to be her own age or a little younger, and his eyes were so pale as to be nearly colorless. He did not resemble that other Dyan, the one of her memories, for that man had had dark hair, hadn’t he? He looked away, dropping his eyes hastily, and Margaret remembered that it was considered very rude to look directly at members of the opposite sex on Darkover.
For just a second she saw the older face
of Dyan Ardais superimposed upon the young man, and she began to tremble a little. They were very alike in their bone structure, but otherwise the newcomer looked more like Lady Marilla. There was none of the forcefulness she remembered from that other Dyan. This man had an arrogance about him, but no confidence in it. His chin was narrow, like Lady Marilla’s, and rather weak. He moved restlessly beside the bed, back and forth, and looked at the walls and curtains anxiously, as if he did not enjoy being indoors.
“Dom Dyan,” she said quietly. “I cannot thank you and your mother enough for taking care of me.”
He took hold of one of the bedcurtains and began to pleat it between his fingers. “Are you really Marguerida Alton?” The question burst from between his lips as if he could not prevent himself. She has the look of an Alton—too much nose for beauty. I do wish Mother were less ambitious. If she tells me it might be an advantageous alliance one more time, I will fall on my sword and be done with it!
“So far as I know, I am.” Margaret wanted to ignore these highly-colored underthoughts, intrusive as they were. “Too much nose for beauty,” indeed! It was a good thing Margaret wasn’t a vain person. He was, she decided, purposely distracting her from her own thoughts and the anxiety that played along her muscles, a very dramatic young man, still under his mother’s thumb.
“And have you really taken the Big Ships to Terra?”
“Well, I’ve never actually been to Terra, but I have visited a number of worlds, yes.”
“Oh.” He shifted his feet uneasily. “I wanted to do that, but I can’t, you see, because I have to stay here.”
“That must be difficult for you.”
“Here, now,” Rafaella interrupted. “You told me you wanted to see if Domna Marguerida was on the mend, not gabble on about places you can’t go.”
“I . . . I’m sorry. I hope you get better soon. Rafaella says you are a musician, so perhaps when you are feeling better, you could sing for us. My grandfather was a fine singer, they say. I never knew him. I don’t seem to have inherited the talent, but I love to listen to music.”
“That will be quite enough,” Rafaella said sternly. “You go off right now! She’s too weak to be pestered.” Especially by the likes of you!
Apparently the young Lord Ardais was accustomed to taking orders from women, for he made a little bow and exited hastily. “What was that all about?” Margaret asked when he was gone.
Rafaella gave one of her telling sniffs. “Men! They think every woman is just panting to get married and have their children—as if we had no other purpose in the world!”
Margaret was highly amused, but held back her smile. “All men, or just this one in particular?”
“Him! He has three nedestro sons, but he can’t seem to get himself a wife so far. He nearly married one of the Lanart-Hastur twins a few years back, but she had laran and went to a Tower instead. I can’t remember if it was Ariel or Liriel—I never can remember which is which, though for twins they are as unlike as milk and wine. He is foster-brother to Mikhail Lanart-Hastur, and he grew up with those girls. The comyn are a little wary of marrying an Ardais, ever since the Sharra Rebellion.” Her eyes narrowed, as she was suddenly aware of having said too much. “That’s old gossip. It has been a long morning for you. Why don’t you take a nap, and I’ll bring you a tray with some soup soon.”
The term foster-brother rang a distant chime in Margaret’s mind. In a vague sort of way, she knew that it was a common practice on Darkover to foster one’s children to another family. She could remember that the Senator had once or twice mentioned his own foster-brother, and she suddenly realized that he must have meant Lord Regis Hastur. It seemed to her a very strange custom, to give one’s children to relatives or strangers to rear, but she knew it was not an uncommon practice in other human societies. The idea seemed to be that strangers could discipline teenage children better than parents, that they were more objective. Margaret had definite opinions about the entire subject of objectivity. She thought it was fine for the sciences, and utterly silly for real people.
There was something in what Rafaella had said that she did not want to think about—that her mind seemed to avoid deliberately. Whenever she tried to concentrate on it, her brain refused to cooperate. There was a word, only a word, that insisted on slithering away, and this infuriated her. It was bad enough that her mind was full of locked rooms without single words provoking mental discomfort. Margaret suddenly thought of the old tale of Bluebeard, the man who killed his wives, and how he had given his last spouse the keys to the castle with the admonition that she must not open a particular room—which, of course, she had, being humanly curious.
What was the word? She groped in her mind for a moment. Ah, yes—Sharra. No, it wasn’t. It was another word, very similar, but another word entirely. It had something to do with that huge jewel she had dreamed of—or was it the jewel with the chair inside it? She felt herself shudder all over as she struggled to grasp fragments of memory.
What she had remembered the previous day returned, less vividly than before, so that she was able to think about it without doing more than tremble a little. The chair and the presence who sat on it in that icy chamber was her personal Bluebeard. She felt certain of that. People seemed to be pressing keys into her hands, but she did not know what rooms they opened, and she was afraid of what she might find behind them. To her it seemed much worse than the corpses of dead wives.
She would have wished that she had never come to Darkover, but it was much too late for that. Margaret forced herself to accept the present without regret. She did not like it, but she had to deal with it, no matter what. If only she hadn’t gotten sick.
Everything around her, the scent of the bedclothing, the sound of the rain pattering down, the very air, spoke to her heart of the home she had never found elsewhere. Her safe life as Ivor Davidson’s associate was fading into a kind of dream, and she resented that. It had been a happy, simple life, full of interesting intellectual puzzles and strange planets, without the complications of family.
Family! That word meant a great deal on Darkover. For the first time, she had an actual family that she had never known about. She had discovered an uncle who, like her, had a foot in the Terran Empire and on Darkover, and she suspected that Rafe was only the tip of an iceberg. It seemed as if everyone on Darkover—or at least those families in the Comyn—was related to everyone else, either by blood or by loyalties. What about Dio’s relatives? She might have a dozen aunts and uncles and hundreds of cousins she had never heard of, and while these would not be blood relations, they would be “family” as well.
For the first time she thought of the Senator and his lady as the exiles they were, cut off from the culture they had been born in, away from all the connections which bound the comyn into a body both politic and social. Margaret had never considered that her parents might be unhappy, that Lew might have drunk to excess to forget the smells and sounds of Darkover. And what about Dio? Margaret had never heard her complain, but sometimes she had sat looking into the fireplace in the evenings with an expression of sorrow in her features. She would poke the burning wood and sniff, and now Margaret knew she must have been yearning for the pleasant scent of burning balsam which seemed to linger in every place from Gavin’s hovel to the halls of Comyn Castle. If she responded to these remembered odors and noises so strongly after leaving Darkover when she was five or six, how dreadful it must be for Dio and Lew who had lived for so many of their years on the planet?
Margaret dwelled on her newfound empathy for her parents for a time, but after a while she acknowledged she was still absolutely furious that she had been kept in such ignorance of her heritage. It didn’t make any sense! There had to be a reason, some rational cause, for the silence. Her father had represented Darkover in the Senate, but he never discussed the planet at home.
Lew, I can’t stand it! Dio’s voice was as clear as if she had been in the bedroom at Castle Ardais. Every time I mention Darkover, Mar
ja starts to scream! She curls up in a ball and hides her eyes, and I am afraid she will start having convulsions or something!
I know, my love. I know! And I am sorry you have to deal with it. She was fine when we left—a normal child, if a little aggressive. She was too little to know how to be a polite telepath, wasn’t she?
I’ll never forget it! The little minx watched every time we made love—she was worse than impolite; she was damned intrusive! But, you know, I’d give a lot to have her like that again, instead of this remote adult in a child’s body. What has happened to her?
I think the voyage out was traumatic—her allergy to the space travel drugs—but I think there is something more. Somehow her channels have been . . . tampered with. I was only a mechanic; not a Keeper, but it doesn’t take a leronis to know that Marja has sustained some sort of deep shock. She will probably grow out of it, in time. Children are wonderfully resilient.
I don’t think so, Lew. You don’t spend as much time with her as I do, so you can’t really judge . . .
I can’t! Every time I look at her I remember Sharra and how small Thyra looked when she was dead, and how white Regis’ hair was. . . .
I think we should take her back to Darkover, Lew.
No, Dio. I think going back would kill her! And it would certainly kill me!
Margaret blinked. Had she actually overheard this conversation, or was her excellent imagination playing games with her? Her father had wanted to keep her safe, even though the sight of her had caused him pain. It must have gotten worse as she grew into womanhood, for she knew now that she had a strong resemblance to her mother, Thyra. How relieved he must have been when she left for University. The Senator must have thought she would be safe there. How could he have known that her work, so tame and simple, would eventually lead her back to the place which was more dangerous to her than any known disease. Well, he couldn’t have, unless he could see into the future, and no one could do that. Or could they?