The Alton Gift

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  And if not…then he must find a way to endure it. The monks at St. Valentine’s lived in celibacy, so it was possible. Assuming, he reflected bitterly, you could call that being alive.

  As for the other problem, the necessity of offspring, one night Domenic hit upon a solution. At the time of the Sharra disaster, Regis had had no heirs, so he had designated one—his sister’s son, Mikhail, who had indeed gone on to be Warden of Hastur and Regent of the Domains. There was no reason why, given such a precedent, Domenic could not do the same. He could wait a suitable time for everyone to conclude that his marriage was not fruitful and to determine the most likely candidate. Not Gareth Elhalyn, who was heir to his own Domain, for all that he was Regis’ grandson. Maybe Gareth’s younger brother, Derek, or one of the Carcosa Hasturs…

  Consumed with these thoughts, Domenic rolled away from Illona’s sleeping form. All but one of the moons had set, leaving her chamber in near darkness. A terrible silence filled him, as if the night had swallowed up his heart. He felt too empty to weep.

  Nico? With a soft rustling of sheets, Illona reached for him. Her fingers, gentle and strong, slid over his bare shoulder, caressed his cheek.

  For an instant, he stiffened. Why torment himself with what he could never have again?

  We have tonight. We have this moment.

  Tenderness swept through him as their minds merged into rapport. He turned toward her and wrapped her in his arms, holding her tight against his heart. She said nothing, for neither had words for moments such as these. As long as he thought of nothing beyond this present moment, it was enough.

  23

  Jeram had hoped to reach Thendara well before sunset, but the chervine carrying his supplies had gotten a stone wedged in its cloven hoof that morning, slowing his progress. By the time he led the little antlered beast down the slopes and could see the old houses of Thendara ringed by remnants of the Trade City and the abandoned spaceport, dusk had crept across the sky.

  A rough encampment came into view just off the main road. To Jeram’s eyes, the place bore the hallmarks of a crude bivouac rather than a proper traveler’s resting place. He guessed there might be four or five dozen men spread out over the site.

  Tents and a shed or two clustered around a well of gray, weathered stone. Beyond them, shaggy mountain ponies, chervines, and a swaybacked horse pulled at grass along a picket line. A tall blond man had set up an open-sided shed, its sides draped with blankets, apart from the others. He whistled between his teeth as he used a hand stone to whet a knife.

  Jeram approached the camp, one hand holding the lead rope of his chervine, the other extended, palm out and open, to show that he carried no weapon.

  One of the men around the fire called out a greeting and gestured for Jeram to join them. His hair was more white than gray, and he wore a fur shirt and boots, mountain style. Neither his accent nor the name of his village sounded familiar, but Jeram was not surprised at the offer of a shared fire. The ancient habits of hospitality and comradeship on the trail under often deadly weather conditions ran deep.

  After settling his chervine along the picket line, Jeram brought his rolled-up trail tent and saddlebags to join Ulm, the man who had greeted him, and the others.

  Jeram took his seat around one of the fires and accepted a thick-walled pottery cup filled with hot, bitter-smelling liquid. He swallowed, tasting blackroot.

  Blackroot. Poor man’s jaco …

  Ulm hunkered around the fire beside his black-haired son, Rannirl, and three or four others, including a grizzled old man in a shearling jacket. A crockery pot holding stew, clearly a communal meal cobbled together from various ingredients, simmered on a bed of cinders. Jeram was reminded once again of the rarity of metals on Darkover. Poor people, such as these travelers, could not afford an iron vessel to boil water in or a tin cup to drink it from.

  One of the men handed Jeram a wooden bowl and spoon of carved chervine horn. His stomach growled as he tasted the mixture of boiled grain, potatoes, wild purple onions, and pleasantly pungent herbs. The simple, hearty food nourished his spirit as well as his body.

  “That’s feeling right better now, eh?” Ulm said as Jeram finished the stew.

  “Right better, yes,” Jeram replied. “My thanks.”

  “A good story will set that debt to rights,” Ulm said, his eyes twinkling beneath grizzled brows. “By your speech, you come from a far distance.”

  “A far distance, yes.” Jeram noticed that the other men had gathered around, listening. The pale-haired man had strolled over to join them.

  For a moment the old habit of secrecy closed around him. In all likelihood, these men had never seen a Terranan in the flesh, let along spoken with one. Although the Federation had maintained a presence on Darkover for several generations, most of it had been confined to a few cities or researchers who, while not exactly clandestine, went to a great deal of trouble to avoid attracting undue attention.

  To the west, the sun sank with a rush. Darkness, dense and swift, covered the sky like great soft wings. Leaping out in a blaze of sudden brilliance came the crown of stars and the two smaller moons, like colored gemstones.

  The time for hiding was over…

  “I’ve been living in a small village near Nevarsin,” Jeram said, “trapping and farming. I was not born there, but far away, on a planet circling a star right about there…” He pointed upward, to a cluster of glittering pinpoints.

  Jeram went on to say that when the Federation departed, he had remained behind. He omitted his part in the Battle of Old North Road and its aftermath. Until he had settled matters with the Comyn Council, he thought it better not to mention it. He had no idea how many laws he had broken or how these men might react. Darkovans had strong notions of honor, and many still held the Comyn in almost superstitious awe.

  “Thee has a strange way of speaking, truly.” The old sheepherder peered at Jeram and looked as if he’d like to poke the younger man with a stick to make sure he was solid flesh. “I never held with the notion that folk from the stars had horns and tails, like Zandru’s demons,” he cackled.

  “As you can see, I am a man like any other,” Jeram said, holding out his hands, “perhaps stranger, but certainly no wiser.”

  That remark elicited chuckles all around, except from Liam, the blond man. He’d been quiet throughout Jeram’s story. Jeram had seen the same stillness, the same concentrated listening, in men in the Terran elite special forces.

  “What brings you to Thendara?” Ulm asked.

  “Believe me, I would rather have stayed in Rock Glen,” Jeram said. “I have business with the Comyn Council that has been too long delayed. I understand the session is to begin within the tenday.”

  Rannirl let out a whistle. The white-bearded sheepherder shook his head and looked away. On the picket lines, one of the ponies stamped and swished its tail.

  “Did I say something offensive?” Jeram said.

  “No, lad,” Ulm said kindly. “You must truly be from another world. Here, a common man cannot simply walk into the Crystal Chamber. The Comyn do not concern themselves with ordinary people. In my father’s day, our own lord often came down among us. He helped us in times of trouble. Now the steward does not know our faces, or we, his. You’ll find no favor from that quarter.”

  “Aye,” several men agreed.

  “Mine is another sort of problem,” Jeram said. “I am not asking for help. Surely, there must be some way to bring a petition before the Council.”

  “Well…” Ulm scratched his head. “The Cortes are for city folk who cannot settle their own arguments.”

  “Where, then, do you go for justice?” Jeram searched his memory, but the d-corticator programs had said little about the Darkovan government beyond the loosely organized feudal Comyn, their central Council, and a system of local courts. He gathered that most problems were handled locally, through a village headman or the owner of the nearest estate. This made sense, given the difficulty of communication and
travel. He wished he’d asked Lew more questions.

  “Justice! Justice is for those who can pay for it,” Liam said, and several others muttered agreement. “Do you know what the usurper Regent and his cronies say when a man like you or me asks for his rights? They laugh in your face and throw you out!”

  “Why, is that how they treated you?” Jeram said warily. The blond man clearly had an axe to grind. The last thing Jeram needed was to be diverted into one man’s private crusade.

  “I?” the blond man said. “I speak only what everyone here knows!”

  A young man, barely past adolescence and dressed more shabbily than the others, said, “Twice now my kinsman and I have tried to take our case to the City Administrative Offices, where we had been told we might petition the Council for a hearing. They told us to go home, but they do not understood there’s no home to go to.”

  An undertone of agreement ran through the little assembly, resonant with hopeless desperation.

  “Jorek speaks true enough,” the sheepherder said.

  Ulm’s gray-laced brows tightened. He lifted the pot of blackroot tea and offered it around. The boy and several others took some. “The world goes as it will, and not as you or I would have it.”

  “We speak of rights, my friends. Was it right that when wolves set upon Ewen’s flock last winter—” Liam’s gaze flickered to the old sheepherder—“and Lord Ardais, who should have protected him, did nothing? Ardais was doubtlessly too busy whoring to be bothered. So is it right that Ewen should have to pay his rents and taxes all the same?”

  Ulm looked unhappy. “It’s not wise to say such things about the Comyn lords.”

  “Why not, when they are true?” Rannirl muttered, drawing a sharp look from his father.

  “I call no man of us a fool,” Liam went on, “but there will be a heat wave in the Hellers before the present Ardais lord—or any of the Regent’s pet cronies—honors the promises given by his fathers.”

  “Let it rest,” the old sheepherder interjected. “No good comes from poking a festering sore.”

  Liam clearly had more to say. “For every one of us with a grievance against the Comyn, there are a hundred—a thousand others—who are still silent. Who will speak for us? Who will shake the Comyn out of their rich palaces and make them see what is going on?”

  “Aye, and do something about it?” Rannirl said.

  Ulm got up to add a few twisted branches to the fire. Cinders shot upward like motes of brilliance against the night.

  “What can we do?” Jorek asked, growing agitated. His eyes gleamed in the heightened flames. “Storm the castle gates?”

  “Some tried just that, last summer,” one of the other men said. “The Guards came out with swords and it looked to be a nasty fight.”

  “And did they get what they were after?”

  The man shook his head. “That part of the story I never heard, only that there was no more trouble.”

  With that, the little gathering began to disperse. Liam went off with two or three others, the boy Jorek among them, still talking. Jeram remained by the fire with Ulm as the encampment around them fell silent.

  From the west, thin clouds stretched across the sweep of stars, dimming their light. The air turned chill and damp.

  “What about your story, friend?” Jeram said, holding out his hands to the fire. “It doesn’t sound like you found what you came for, either.”

  “There’s little enough to tell. My own tale is much the same as any other man’s. You see us, herdsmen and farmers, driven from our homes by famine and fire. Some came here to find work, others for help in restoring their lands. Their fathers were promised protection, and it has taken much hardship to bend their pride enough to ask. A few of them, like old Ewen, still hope that when the Council meets at Midsummer, something might be done.”

  “And the others, do you think they have given up hope?”

  “Some linger for a time. You heard Jorek say there is no home to go back to, and he’s not the only one.” Sighing, Ulm shook his head and drained the last of his blackroot tea. “My son Ranirrl says if we only keep asking, we will find work. He is just as stubborn and headstrong as I was at his age. There may be hope in this sad world of ours, but not for us.”

  “So you will give up and go home?”

  Ulm paused for a long moment before replying. He looked away, into the night, where even now the stars were fading. Jeram sensed rather than saw the unshed tears. Then, gathering himself, the older man said, “Aye, and scratch out a living from what the fires left. Maybe Rannirl has the right of it. It’s no life for a young man, to stay behind when the land itself dies.”

  The old man’s look of hopelessness tore at Jeram, as if he were seeing something strong and fine thrown on a garbage heap. The thought came to him that if he needed an ally, someone to watch his back, it would be someone like Ulm.

  But was Ulm’s battle one that he wanted to fight? He had come here to face the Comyn Council and any unresolved charges against him. Not to rally powerless men into seizing their rights, as Liam seemed bent on doing.

  Jeram lifted his head. Around him, men sat around the campfires that dotted the site, attending to the tasks of informal living. These were proud, independent people who asked only what was owed them.

  Justice, denied, festers…

  If there were some way he could help these people, he would.

  The next morning, Jeram rose early. A fine misty rain had fallen during the night. Droplets clung to the tents and wooden sheds. The gray stones of the well glistened. Even the patches of grass looked brighter, washed new. Only a few filmy clouds remained. The smells of damp charcoal, crushed grass, and horse dung tinged the air.

  Jeram determined to be first in line at the Administrative office. A petition seemed his best hope of obtaining a hearing with the Council. Failing that, he supposed he could he could search out Lew’s daughter, but from what Ulm and the others said, it wouldn’t be easy to speak privately with her. His business was with the Council itself, so with the Council he would start.

  Walking toward the picket line to tend to his chervine, Jeram smelled freshly brewed jaco. Real jaco, not blackroot. His mouth watered. Jaco wasn’t coffee, but it had a satisfying aroma and a pleasant, bitter-edged taste. Liam waved at him from the shelter of the shed. Jeram accepted a mug of the steaming drink and hunkered down to savor it.

  “You’re up early,” Liam said conversationally. “Off to try for a hearing?”

  Jeram nodded, cradling the mug between his hands. Warmth spread through his fingers. The mug was skillfully made, the walls of uniform thickness, the orange glaze as fine as any he’d seen off-world. Handmade pottery fetched good prices on Vainwal or Sandoz Three, but there was no hope of ever selling it there.

  “I wish you luck,” Liam said.

  “The same to you, with whatever you’ve come here for.” Jeram sipped his jaco and sighed in appreciation. Jaco lacked the rich fullness of coffee, but was a lot more satisfying than blackroot.

  “I think we are alike,” Liam peered at Jeram over the rim of his own mug. His blue eyes glinted, measuring. “We each have something hidden, some untold piece of our story.”

  Jeram snorted. “What is this, a game? I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours?”

  Liam did not seem to take offense, but calmly sipped his jaco. After a long moment, he said, “Do you think one man of arms would not recognize another? You are no ordinary Terran, no trader or seeker of adventure. You are a man who has fought. And lost…And run.”

  Out of old habit, Jeram’s muscles tightened. He had had enough of secret games and seemingly innocent questions that were really probing for something else. “If I am, what business is it of yours?”

  Liam shrugged and reached for the pot to refill Jeram’s mug. “Only this. That there is only one reason I can imagine for a Terranan to remain hidden when the Federation left. You fought in the Battle of Old North Road, didn’t you? Now you weary of living as an
outlaw? Or perhaps you have come to petition the Council to contact your superiors off-planet so that you can go home?”

  Jeram shook his head. “Nothing like that. You still have not given me a reason to trust you, or why you should concern yourself with my affairs. All right, it’s your turn to come clean. You said you had something to hide, as well. What’s your story? Were you one of the defending soldiers?”

  Did I kill your comrades? Are you out for vengeance?

  “Trust for trust, then. Truth for truth,” Liam said. “I did not take part in that ambush on either side. I have no particular quarrel with the soldiers that did. Some would say that wiping out the old Council—or certain members of it—would have done us all a favor and rid the Domains of a tyrant.”

  Jeram blinked in surprise. Whose side was the man on, anyway?

  “Do you think one man of arms would not recognize another?” Liam had asked. Jeram could well believe it, from the way Liam handled his knife. Liam did not behave like a deserter but a man with a mission. He certainly carried a grudge against the current Regent and had found a receptive audience here.

  “My lord is not without influence, and he is sympathetic to cases such as yours,” Liam said.

  “Your lord? And who might that be?”

  “I served Dom Francisco Ridenow,” Liam said. “And still do, in a number of ways. He no longer holds Serrais, as is his right, or speaks for his Domain. But that is all old history. Today my lord has allies on the Council. Allies with the power to accomplish things. So you see, neither of us is entirely friendless. It may well be, if you are who I think you are, that we can help one another.”

  Jeram thought for a moment. What did he have to lose in speaking the truth? He had, after all, promised himself that the time of hiding was over.

  “You were right,” he said, nodding. “I was part of the Terran attack force. I’ve been living in hiding ever since, and I’m tired of it. It’s time to face up to the consequences of what I did so I can make a fresh start.”