Darkover: First Contact

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  And then, Bard thought, such a Golden Age might return as had not been known since the Lord of Carthon made compact with the forest folk!

  Central to this plan, though, was the military genius of Bard di Asturien and the particular charisma of the Kilghard Wolf. Paul, riding slowly behind Bard and Dom Rafael—as his assumed character of a poor relation demanded—could pick up a little of his thought, even now. So I am to be Dog to his Wolf? We’ll see about that!

  Paul thought about the theory that had brought him here; that he and Bard were, in essence, the same man. He was inclined to believe it. He had always known himself to be larger than his fellows, not in body alone—though that helped—but cut out, in mind, for a bigger and more heroic age than the one into which he’d been born.

  The way he put it to himself was that most men had brains but no guts, or maybe vice versa; and of the rare men who had brains and guts, most had no imagination whatever. Paul knew himself to have all three; but they were wasted in the world he lived in. One of his early psychiatrists, back when they were still trying to reclaim him for the establishment, had told him frankly that be belonged on a frontier, that in a primitive society he would have been outstanding. Which hadn’t helped at all. The psychiatrist had owned up, just as frankly, that in Paul’s own society, unless he could resign himself to conform, his assets would all be liabilities.

  Now he was putting both brains and imagination to work on Bard’s world. The four colored moons had already told him that this was none of the known colonies of the Confederated Worlds. Yet the inhabitants were perfectly human, so far, which would have strained credibility beyond endurance if they were not of Terran stock; and although he was no linguist, he knew that the casta, with its admixture of Spanish words, could not possibly have descended from anything but a Terran culture. He could only hypothesize, tentatively, that they had been descended from one of the Lost Ships—sent out, in the old days before hyper-drive, for colonization in a universe they had already found to be all but unpopulated. One of these ships had formed the Alpha colony, others the early ones, but most of them had vanished without trace and been assumed lost, with all aboard. Paul knew that the Confederated Worlds were prepared to find one or two survivor colonies, isolated, some day. He hoped they wouldn’t find this one in his lifetime. It would be a tragedy to see it beaten down to the same mediocrity as Terra, or Alpha, or any other known world!

  Riding down toward Castle Asturias, a little before midday, Paul realized that it was a form of fortified building which had not been built on Earth for a few thousand years. It did not look much like the pictures of historic castles he had seen. The building materials were different, the life-style which dictated the architecture was different. But in the past few days be had been introduced to the theory of fortifications and strategies, and he set his mind to the problem of wondering how he would take this castle. It wouldn’t be easy, he thought. But it could be done, and he was fairly sure that if it came to that, he could do it.

  However, he reflected, it would be easiest with an accomplice inside....

  Dom Rafael went ceremoniously with his retainers to make his return known to Alaric and the councillors. Bard assigned Paul a couple of servants, a room or two in his own suite, and took himself off about unexplained business. Paul, left alone, went to explore the rooms he had been given.

  He found a little stair which led down into a small enclosed courtyard, filled with late-summer flowers—though to Paul the climate still seemed cold for any kind of flowers. There were flagged walks everywhere, and the fragrance of herbs, and an old well. He sat down to enjoy the rare late-day sun, and think over the curious situation in which he found himself.

  He heard a noise behind him and whirled—he had been a fugitive too long to ignore anyone or anything behind him—then relaxed, with a sense of foolish relief, to see that it was only a very small boy, bouncing a ball along the walks.

  “Father!” the child cried. “They didn’t tell me you were back—” Then be stopped his headlong rush toward Paul, blinked and said with a charming little dignity, “My apologies, sir. Now I see that you are not my father, though you are very like him. I ask pardon for disturbing you, sir—I suppose, I should say kinsman.”

  “That’s all right,” he said, deciding—it didn’t take much thought to figure it out—that this must be Bard’s son. Funny—he hadn’t thought Bard would be the kind to have a wife and kids, to tie himself down that way, any more than he was himself. Come to think of it, Bard had said something about arranged marriages, they’d probably married him off to somebody without asking, though he couldn’t imagine Bard tamely going along with that, either. Well, he supposed he’d learn.

  “I’ve been told that there is a resemblance, after all, to your father.”

  The child reproved solemnly, “You should say ‘the Lord General’ when you speak of my father, sir, even if he is a kinsman. Even I am supposed to say ‘the Lord General’ except among the family, for Nurse says I will be sent to be fostered soon, and I must learn to speak of him with the proper courtesy. So, she says, I should always call him so except when we are alone. But King Alaric says ‘my father’ when he speaks of my grandsire, Dom Rafael, and he does not call my father ‘Lord General’ even when they are in the throne room. I don’t think that’s fair, do you, sir?”

  Paul, hiding a smile, said that royalty had privileges. Well, he had wanted a society where people were not worn down to a tiresome egalitarianism, and now he had it. At that, he had probably gotten a higher place in it than he deserved at the start!

  “I suppose, kinsman, that you are from beyond the Hellers. I can tell by the way you speak,” said the child. “What is your name?”

  “Paolo,” Paul said.

  “Why, that is not so strange a name after all! Do you have names like ours in the far lands beyond the Hellers?”

  “That is the casta for my name, or so your father tells me. My own name would sound strange enough to you, probably.”

  “Nurse says it is rude to ask a stranger’s name without giving one’s own. My name is Erlend Bardson, kinsman.”

  Well, Paul had guessed that already. “How old are you, Erlend?”

  “I shall be seven at midwinter.”

  Paul raised his eyebrows. He would have thought the boy was nine or ten, at least. Well, perhaps their year was a different length.

  “Erlend,” called a woman’s voice. “You must not bother your father’s guests or his sworn men!”

  “Am I bothering you, sir?” Erlend asked.

  Paul, amused by the child’s dignified manner, said, “No, indeed.”

  “It’s all right, my lady,” said Erlend, as a woman came along the curving path. “He says I am not bothering him.”

  The woman laughed. She had a sweet laugh, very low and mirthful. She was young, her face round and freckled, and she had two long braids that hung almost to her waist, as red as the boy’s. She was not shabby, but she was dressed plainly, without richness or any jewelry except a small and shabby locket with a blue stone around her neck. She was probably the boy’s nurse, he thought; some poor relation or hanger-on. From what he knew of Bard, the Wolf would have dressed his mistress or fancy-woman in something more elaborate, and his wife would have been dressed according to her rank.

  But how had Bard managed to overlook her? For to Paul it seemed that the rounded, womanly body, the low laugh and graceful hands and quick, mirthful smile, were the very embodiment of woman—yes, and of sex. He wanted her, suddenly, with such violence that it was all he could do to keep his hands off her! If the child had not been there....

  But no. He wasn’t going to risk his position here, not right away, anyhow, by woman trouble. That, he knew grimly, was what had wrecked the plot and the reason he’d wound up in the stasis box. He hadn’t had the brains and judgment to keep his hands off the wrong woman. He had guessed, from random conversation among the bodyguards and paxmen, that the Kilghard Wolf was quite a man for the wo
men—he’d have expected that, if Bard was his own duplicate—and he wasn’t going to quarrel with him on trivial grounds like that. There were plenty of women.

  But this one. . . . He watched her with fascination, her delicate hands, the movement of the ripe, womanly body in her plain, simple dress. Her cheek was dimpled, curving into a light laugh as she admonished the boy.

  “But I have to know all their names, domna,” said Erlend. “When 1 am old enough to be my father’s paxman I will have to know all his men by name!”

  She was wearing a rust-colored dress. Strange that he had never realized how that color set off red hair. The dress was the exact color of her freckles.

  “But Erlend, you are not to be a soldier or paxman, but a laranzu,” she said, “and in any case this is disobedience, for you were told to play quietly in the other court. I shall have to ask Nurse to watch you more carefully.”

  “I’m too big for a nurse,” the boy grumbled, but went along obediently at the woman’s side. Paul watched till she was out of sight. God, how he wanted that woman! It was all he could do to keep his hands off her. . . . He wondered if she were someone accessible to him. Well, a child’s governess couldn’t be very exalted in station, even if she was a relation—as he suspected from her faint resemblance to the boy. He wondered where Bard’s wife was. Dead, perhaps. On primitive worlds, childbearing was a risky business and, he knew, the mortality rates were fairly high.

  He thought, with a cynical grin, that he was reacting normally. Reprieved from death, recalled out of the stasis box, what better way to spend a few odd hours than with women? But just in case this was real, he wasn’t going to make the same mistake that had got him into the box in the first place. If by some strange chance this was one of Bard’s women, he’d adopt a strict hands-off policy! There were plenty of other women....

  But damn it, that was the one he wanted! Too bad the child had been there; he wasn’t quite enough of a bastard to grab a woman with a youngster looking on. He had a feeling she wouldn’t be coy. The ripeness of that bosom, the red mouth which looked well kissed, told him she was no innocent virgin! To do her justice, he couldn’t say she’d given him any clear signals ; she’d been modest enough, but he bet his life she wouldn’t make any fuss once he got his hands on her!

  Bard sent for him late that evening, and they sat before the fire over a stack of campaign maps which Bard had insisted Paul should understand thoroughly. It was not too early to start. They talked for a long time about tactics and campaigns, and although it was professional, strictly business, Paul had the sense that Bard welcomed this companionship, enjoyed teaching him this; that he seldom had anyone to share his interests.

  He’s like me, a man who doesn’t often find anyone he can talk to as an equal. They call him Wolf, but I have a feeling that “Lone Wolf” would be more like it. He’s been a loner all his life, I bet. Like me.

  There just weren’t that many people who could follow his mental processes. It wasn’t at all an unmixed blessing—to be brighter than ninety percent of the people you met. It made men seem like fools, and women like worse fools, and most people never had the slightest idea what he was talking about or thinking about.

  Even when Paul led the rebellion that had brought him to disaster, he had already known that it was hopeless. Not because the rebellion was impossible—it could have been successful, if he’d had a couple of intelligent allies who knew what the hell he was really trying to do—but because, basically, the men he led weren’t half so committed as he was himself. He’d been the only one who really cared, deep down, what they were fighting about. The other men didn’t have that rage at the center of themselves; he had suspected, sooner or later, that most of them would climb down—as, in fact, they had done—and crawl to the powers that be for another chance; even if that chance meant having their whole selves carved up until there was nothing left of them. Well, there’d been nothing much to them in the first place, small loss! But it meant he had always been alone.

  I can make myself necessary to the Wolf.

  Because I’m his equal, his duplicate, the nearest to an equal he’ll ever have. He looked at Bard for a minute with something very akin to love, thinking, He’d understand. If I’d had just one follower like him, we could have put some steel into the spines of the men who followed me. We could have done it, together. Two like us could have changed the world!

  Rebellions, Paul knew, usually failed, because the brains and guts and imagination to lead them came along only once in a century or so. But this time there were two of them.

  I couldn’t change my world alone. But the two of us can change his, together!

  Bard looked up sharply, and Paul felt sudden disquiet. Was he doing that thought-reading trick again? But the Wolf only stretched and yawned and said it was late.

  “I’m for my bed. By the way, I forgot to ask, shall I have the steward send you a woman? There are enough useless females, heaven knows, and most of them just as eager for a man in their bed as the men are for them. Have you, perhaps, seen one that’s to your liking?”

  “Only one,” said Paul. “Your son’s governess, I suppose; long braids, bright red, freckled—curvy, not very tall. That one—unless she’s married, or something. I don’t want trouble.”

  Bard flung his head back and laughed.

  “Melisendra! I wouldn’t advise—she has a tongue like a whip!”

  “It was all I could do to keep my hands off her.”

  “I should have expected that,” Bard said, still laughing. “If we’re the same man! That was how I reacted when I was seventeen, and she wasn’t, I suppose, fourteen yet! She made a great fuss, and my foster mother has never forgiven me for it, but damn it, it was worth it! Erlend’s her son. And mine.”

  “Oh, well, if she’s yours—”

  Bard laughed again. “Hell, no! I’m sick to death of her, but my foster mother’s shoved her off on me, and she’s getting above herself! I’d enjoy teaching her a lesson, prove to her she’s no better than any of the other women around here and that it’s only by my good nature, not as a right, that she’s allowed to be my woman and stay here to raise my son! Let me think—if I told her to go to you, she’d run whining to Lady Jerana, and I haven’t the heart for a quarrel with my father’s wife. But just the same—” He grinned with mischief. “Well, you are supposed to be my duplicate! I wonder if she would even know the difference? Her room is there, and she’ll think it’s me, and know better than to make a fuss!”

  Something in Bard’s tone bothered him, as Bard added with a sarcastic grin, “After all, you are me; she can’t complain that I’ve given her to someone else!”

  Who the hell did Bard think he was, to fling him at Melisendra this way? But the thought of the red-haired woman’s lovely ripe body stopped any thought of resistance. No woman had ever aroused him so, like that, at first glance!

  His heart was pounding, as, later, he went toward the darkened room Bard had pointed out to him. And behind the excitement, the thought of the woman, was a note of cynical caution.

  Bard would find it hilarious, he sensed, to guide him, not into Melisendra’s room, but into the room of some withered old hag, some ancient virgin who would rouse the house screaming.

  But even if Bard tried that, he’d find her; somehow he’d hold Bard to his promise.

  He’s my size and he’s been fighting all his life. And right now, after God knows how long in the stasis box, he’s probably more fit than I am; but he’s not any stronger. I bet I could take him. I doubt, for instance, if he knows much karate.

  But he dropped the thought of their inevitable confrontation from his mind as he came into the room. Moonlight from an open window lay across the bed, and he could see the loosened waves of the copper hair, rich and thick, the freckled face he had seen before. Her eyes were closed and she slept. She was wearing a long nightgown, embroidered at neck and sleeves, but it could not conceal the round ripeness of her body. Carefully, he shut the door. In th
e darkness, how would she know he was not Bard? He wanted her, somehow, to know, to want him too! And yet, if this was the only way he could have her . . . what the hell was he delaying for? If she was the kind of woman who could be handed from man to man, would it matter? But she obviously was not that kind of woman, or Bard would simply have handed her over, without this ruse. . . .

  Or perhaps not. He found that thinking of Bard’s body, his own body, entangled with this woman, was curiously arousing. Somehow it gave him a charge to think of it. Did Bard have the same kink, that it would give him some kind of kick to think of his duplicate, making love to his woman?

  He sat on the edge of the bed to take off his clothes. It was pitch dark, but he would not risk a light. She could have told the difference, perhaps, by the fact that he did not have the warrior’s braid of hair. . . . He discovered, with an amused grimace, that he was actually shaking with anticipation, like a boy about to take his first woman.

  What the hell?

  And Bard had given Melisendra to him, not to please Paul but, he sensed, to humiliate Melisendra. Suddenly he was not sure he wanted to collaborate with Bard on humiliating this woman.

  But she would probably never know the difference anyway; and if this was the only way he could have her, he wasn’t going to give up that chance! He got into bed beside her, and lay a hand on her under the blankets.

  She turned toward him with a little sigh, not of acceptance or welcome, but of resignation. Was Bard so inept a lover as all that, or did she simply dislike him? Surely there was no love lost between them now! Well, perhaps he could change her tune; no woman who gave him half a chance had ever failed to welcome him as a lover.