“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. Laransensations 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 anticipated . . .” 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 nedestromore 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, ta
king 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 words 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?
For a tenday, Regis scoured the hills in search of the Yellow Forest, and he did so alone. Danilo had been reluctant to allow Regis to ride off by himself, but Regis refused to explain what he was doing or why he must go alone. Kierestelli’s safety no longer depended on no one else knowing where she was hiding, but in all likelihood, the continued existence of the chieridid. Regis in no way distrusted Danilo, but the secret was not his to divulge. The Yellow Forest, sanctuary for a dwindling and near-magical race, had been revealed to him alone.
Revealed once, but not now. Every time he thought he recognized a hillside, a mountain or grove of green-leafed trees, the path led only to more of the same. The Yellow Forest had turned invisible, its entrance just beyond human senses. He called out until his throat was raw as he trotted his horse up and down the place where he thought it must be.
Nothing.
Nothing, like an echo that betrayed something.
Each passing day fueled his anxiety. He imagined Danilo, waiting for him at the village on the far side of the Kadarin, fretting and fearful. Imagined Linnea back in Thendara, her heart aching for the loss of her daughter, and then that strange resignation.
Had she known what would happen?
She would never ask, never cast even a whisper of blame on him. She understood, as he was only now beginning to, that Kierestelli, like her namesake, had never belonged to the world of greed and betrayal, hatred and manipulation, the world that kidnapped children for dogmatic ends. The world that so callously obliterated the brightest of hopes.
The world he must return to and serve as best he could.
When Regis arrived home, he learned that Valdir and Francisco had departed for Serrais, but not Bettany. Her kinswoman, Istvana Ridenow, had come to Thendara, packed up the girl and her belongings, and taken her back to Neskaya Tower.
“Really, it was Danilo’s doing,” Linnea told Regis.
Danilo, coming into the parlor where breakfast was laid out, mumbled that he deserved no credit.
“It was kindly done,” Regis said. “From what you’ve told me, no one at Serrais cares about her.”
“Or is equipped enough to deal with such severe mental trauma,” Linnea put in. “Did you know she’d survived a Ghost Wind? Danilo suspected, and Istvana confirmed it. There’s strength in that young woman and more than a trace of empathy.”
“I couldn’t stand by and see her life thrown away,” Danilo said.
“You have feelings for her?” Regis asked, surprised.
“No more than for any human creature in pain,” Danilo explained, “although Bettany fancied herself in love with me. Poor thing, with no one to love. She’d been rejected and betrayed so many times, I couldn’t turn my back on her.”
“Danilo was marvelous,” Linnea said. “She wouldn’t have anything to do with me, but he kept her talking—”
“—and crying,” Danilo added.
“—until Istvana came. Kinswoman or not, when Istvana sees a poor lost chick, she swoops in like a mother hen. We trained together for a time, and I know. Bettany ate up all that attention as if she were starving.”
“She was,” Danilo said quietly.
You could not give her the affection she needed, so you—and Linnea—found someone who could.Regis felt a rush of pride and love. He did not need to ask what Linnea’s part had been. How she’d gotten word so quickly to Neskaya, he didn’t know and suspected he never would.
Above the city of Thendara, the great crimson sun of Darkover crept toward midday. Winter was drawing t
o a close. Shadows stretched like pools of darkness from the walls of Comyn Castle.
Regis Hastur, the Lord of his Domain and Regent of the Comyn, stood on a balcony of the Castle and gazed over the spires of the Old Town to the Terran Trade city, the rising steel edifice of the Terran Empire Headquarters complex and, still further, the spaceport.
Even without the sounds of hushed footsteps, Regis knew by the lightening of his heart that Danilo and Linnea had come into the room behind him. He closed his eyes, opening the space in his mind where their thoughts met. Linnea’s skirts whispered as she moved. She interlaced her fingers with his. With a click of the latch, Danilo closed the door and came to stand beside them both.
They would, none of them, be the same people they were before Rinaldo had touched and twisted their lives, but they no longer lived in the same world. The Terran Federation remained a vastly powerful, unstable force. Regis now took up the role of Regent, with everything that implied. The questions of his marriage and the heritage of Hastur were settled, although how the relationship between Mikhail and little Dani might evolve, no one could say.
As for Kierestelli, enfolded into the hidden world of the chieriand warned never to reveal her identity, Regis could only pray that her life would be as rich as his and as blessed with love.
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