“Catenas” she said scornfully. “I had as soon marry a Dry-Towner and go in chains!”
“Good for you, sister.” He turned to Andrew as they went into the hall. “Father said in his message that you were a Terran. I have talked with some of your people in Thendara. They seem good enough folk, but lazy. Good Gods, they have machines for everything, to walk on, to lift them up a flight of stairs, to bring them food at table. Tell me, Andrew, do they have machines to wipe themselves with?” He shouted boisterous boyish laughter, while the girls giggled.
He turned to Damon. “So you’re not coming back to the Guards, cousin? You’re the only decent cadet-master we’ve had in ages. Young Danvan Hastur’s trying his hand at it now, but it’s not working. The lads are all too much in awe of him, and anyway, he’s too young. It needs a man of more years. Any suggestions?”
“Try my brother Kieran,” Damon suggested, smiling. “He likes soldiering more than I ever did.”
“You were a damn good cadet-master, though,” Domenic Said. “I’d like you back, though I suppose it’s no job for a man, being a sort of he-governess to a pack of half-grown boys.”
Damon shrugged. “I was glad enough to have their liking, but I am no soldier, and a cadet-master should be one who can inspire his cadets with a love of a soldier’s trade.”
“Not too much love of it, though,” said Dom Esteban, who had listened with interest as they approached, “or he’ll harden them and make them brutes, not men. So you have come at last, Domenic, my lad?”
The boy laughed. “Why, no, Father, I am still carousing in a Thendara tavern. What you see here is my ghost.” Then the merriment slid off his face as he saw his father, thin, graying, his useless legs covered with a wolfskin robe. He dropped to his knees beside the wheelchair. He said brokenly, “Father, oh, Father, I would have come at any moment, if you had sent for me, truly—”
The Alton lord laid his hands on Domenic’s shoulders. “I know that, dear lad, but your place was in Thendara, since I could not be there. Yet the sight of you makes my heart more glad than I can say.”
“I too,” said Domenic, scrambling up and looking down at his father. “I am relieved to see you so well and hearty; reports in Thendara had you at the point of death, or even dead and buried!”
“It is not as bad as that,” Dom Esteban said, laughing. “Come sit here beside me, tell me all that goes on in Guard-hall and Council.” It was easy to see, Andrew thought, that this merry boy was the very light of his father’s eyes.
“I will, and gladly, Father, but this is a wedding day and we are here for merrymaking, and there is little mirth to that tale! Prince Aran Elhalyn thinks I am all too young to have command of the Guards, even while you lie here sick at Armida, and he whispers that tale night and day into the ears of Hastur. And Lorenz of Serrais — forgive me for speaking ill of your brother, Damon—”
Damon shook his head. “My brother and I are not on the best of terms, Domenic, so say what you will.”
“Lorenz, then, damn him for a warped scheming fox, and old Gabriel of Ardais, who wants the post for that bullying wretch of a son of his, are quick to sing the same chorus, that I am all too young to command the Guards. They are about Aran night and day with flattery and gifts that stop just that one step short of being bribes, to persuade him to name one of them Commander while you are here in Armida! Will you be back before Midsummer festival, Father?”
A shadow passed over the crippled man’s face. “That must be as the Gods will have it, my son. Would the Guards be commanded, think you, by a man chair-bound, with legs of no more use than fish-flippers?”
“Better a lame commander than a commander who is no Alton,” Domenic said with fierce pride. “I could command in your name, and do all for you, if you were only there, to command as the Altons have done so many generations!”
His father gripped his hands, hard. “We shall see, my son. We shall see what comes.” But even that thought, Damon could see, had fired the Alton lord with a sudden hope and purpose. Would he, indeed, be able to command the Guards again from his chair, with Domenic at his side?
“Alas that we have now no Lady Bruna in our family,” Domenic said gaily. “Say, Callista, will you take up the sword as Lady Bruna did, and command the Guardsmen?”
She laughed, shaking her head. Damon said, “I do not know that tale,” and Domenic repeated it, smiling. “It was generations ago — how many I do not know — but her name is written in the rolls of Commanders, how Lady Bruna Leynier, when her brother, who was Lord Alton then, was slain, leaving a son but nine years old, took the lad’s mother in freemate marriage to protect her, as women may do, and ruled the Guards till he came of age to command. In the annals of the Guards, it says she was a notable commander too. Would you not have that fame, Callista? No? Ellemir?” He shook his head with mock sadness as they declined. “Alas, what has come to the women of our clan? They are not what they were in those days!”
Standing around Dom Esteban’s chair, the family resemblance was overwhelming. Domenic looked like Callista and Ellemir, though his hair was redder, his curls more riotous, his freckles a thick golden splotch instead of a faint gilt sprinkle. And Dezi, quiet and unregarded benind the wheeled chair, was like a paler reflection of Domenic. Domenic looked up and saw him there, giving him a friendly thump on the shoulder.
“So you are here, cousin? I heard you had left the Tower. I don’t blame you. I spent forty days there a few years ago, being tested for laran, and I couldn’t get away fast enough! Did you get sick of it too, or did they chuck you out?”
Dezi hesitated and looked away, and Callista interposed. “You learned nothing there of our courtesies, Domenic. That is a question which must never be asked. It is between a telepath and his own Keeper, and if Dezi chooses not to tell, it is inexcusably rude to ask.”
“Oh, sorry,” said Domenic good-naturedly, and only Damon noticed the relief in Dezi’s face. “It’s just that I couldn’t get out of the place fast enough, and wondered if you felt the same way. Some people like it. Look at Callista, she had nearly ten years of it, and others — well, it wasn’t for me.”
Damon, watching the two lads, thought with pain of Coryn, so like Domenic at this age! He seemed to taste again the half-forgotten days of his own boyhood, when he, the clumsiest of the cadets, had been accepted as one of them because of his sworn friendship with Coryn, who, like Domenic, had been the best liked, the most energetic and outrageous of them all.
That had been in the days before failure, and hopeless love, and humiliation had burned so deep… but, he thought, it was also before he knew Ellemir. He sighed and clasped her hand in his. Domenic, feeling Damon’s eyes on him, looked up and smiled, and Damon felt the weight of loneliness slip away. He had Ellemir, and he had Andrew and Domenic for brothers. The isolation and loneliness were gone forever.
Domenic took Dezi’s arm in a companionable way. “Look here, cousin, if you get tired of hanging around here at my father’s footstool, come to Thendara. I’ll get you a commission in the cadet corps — I can do that, can’t I, Father?” he asked. At Dom Esteban’s indulgent nod, he added, “They always need lads of good family, and anyone can see to look at you that you’ve got Alton blood, haven’t you?”
Dezi said quietly, “I have always been told so. Without it I could never have passed through the Veil at Arilinn.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter a damn in the cadets. Half of us are some nobleman’s bastard” — he laughed again uproariously — “and the rest of us poor devils are some nobleman’s legitimate son suffering and sweating to prove ourselves worthy of our parents! But I lived through three years of it, and you will too, so come to Thendara and I’ll find you something. Bare is back that has no brother, they say, and since Valdir’s with the monks at Nevarsin, I’ll be glad to have you with me, kinsman.”
Dezi’s face flushed a little. He said in a low voice, “Thank you, cousin. I will stay here while your father has need of me. After that,
it will be my pleasure.” He turned quickly, attentively to Dom Esteban. “Uncle, what ails you?” For the old man had gone white and slumped against the back of his chair.
“Nothing,” Dom Esteban said, recovering himself. “A moment of faintness. Perhaps, as they say in the hills, some wild thing pissed on the ground for my grave. Or perhaps it is only that this is my first day upright after lying flat for so long.”
“Let me help you back to bed, then, Uncle, to rest until the wedding,” Dezi said. Domenic said, “I’ll come help,” and as they fussed around him, Damon noticed that Ellemir was watching them with a strange look of dismay.
“What is it, preciosa?”
“Nothing, a premonition, I don’t know,” said Ellemir, shaking, “but as he spoke I saw him lying like death here at this table—”
Damon recalled that now and again in the Altons, a flash of precognition accompanied the gift of laran. He had always suspected that Ellemir had more of the gift than she had ever been allowed to believe. But he stilled his unease and said lovingly, “Well, he is not a young man, my darling, and we are to make our home here. It stands within reason that we would some day see him laid to rest. Don’t let it trouble you, my beloved. And now, I suppose, I must go and pay my respects to my brother Lorenz, since he has chosen to honor my wedding with his presence. Do you suppose we can keep him and Domenic from coming to blows?”
And as Ellemir became enmeshed again in thoughts of guests and the celebration to come, her pallor lessened. But Damon wished he had shared her prevision. What had Ellemir seen?
Andrew watched, with a sense of unreality, as the wedding drew near. Freemate marriage was a simple declaration before witnesses, and it was to be made at the end of the dinner for the guests and neighbors from adjoining estates who had been invited to take part in the celebration. Andrew had no kinsmen or friends here, and although he had dismissed the lack easily enough, as the moment approached, he found he even envied Damon the presence of the dour-looking Lorenz, standing at his side for the solemn declaration which would make Ellemir, by law and custom, his wife. What was the proverb Damon had quoted? “Bare is back that has no brother.” Well, his was bare indeed.
Around the long table of the Great Hall of Armida, laid with the finest cloths and decked out with holiday ware, all the farmers, small-holders and noblemen within the day’s ride were gathered. Damon looked pale and tense, handsomer than usual in a suit of soft leather, dyed and richly embroidered, made in what Andrew had heard were the colors of his Domain. The oranga and green looked gaudy to Andrew. Damon reached his hand to Ellemir, who came around the table to join him. She looked pale and serious, in a green gown, her hair coiled into a silver net. Behind her two young girls — she had told Andrew they had been her playmates when she and Callista were children, one a noblewoman from a nearby holding, one a village girl from their own estates — came to stand behind her.
Damon said steadily, “My friends, nobles and gentlefolk, we have called you together to witness our pledging. Be you all witness that I, Damon Ridenow of Serrais, being freeborn and pledged to no woman, take as freemate this woman, Ellemir Lanart-Alton, with the consent of her kin. And I proclaim that her children shall be declared the legitimate heirs of my body, and shall share in my heritage and estate, be it large or small.”
Ellemir took his hand. Her voice sounded like a child’s in the huge room. “Be witness all of you that I, Ellemir Lanart, take Damon Ridenow as freemate, with consent of our kin.”
There was an outcry of applause and laughter, congratulations, hugs and kisses for both bride and groom. Andrew clasped Damon’s hands in his own, but Damon put his arms around Andrew for the embrace that was customary here, between kinsmen, his cheek briefly touching his friend’s. Then Ellemir pressed herself lightly against him, standing on tiptoe, her lips for a moment on his. For a moment, dizzied, it was as if he had received the kiss Callista had never yet given him, and his mind blurred. For a moment he was not sure which of them had actually kissed him. Then Ellemir was laughing up at him, saying softly, “It is too early for you to be drunk, Andrew!”
The newly married couple moved on, accepting other kisses, embraces, good wishes. Andrew knew that in a moment it would be his turn to make the declaration, but he must stand alone.
Domenic leaned close to him and whispered, “If you wish, I will stand as your kinsman, Andrew. It is only anticipating the fact by a few moments.”
Andrew was touched by the gesture, but hesitated to accept. “You know nothing of me, Domenic…”
“Oh, you are Callista’s choice, and that is quite enough testimony to your character,” Domenic said lightly. “I know my sister, after all.” He rose with him, seeming to accept it as settled. “Did you see the sour face on Dom Lorenz? It’s hard to imagine he’s Damon’s brother, isn’t it? I don’t suppose you’ve seen the woman he married! I think he envies Damon my pretty sister!” As they moved around the table, he murmured, “You can use the words Damon used, or any others which happen to occur to you — there is no set formula. But leave it to Callista to declare your children legitimate. Without offense, that is for the parent of higher rank to do or leave undone.”
Andrew whispered his thanks for the advice. Now he was standing at the head of the long table, facing the guests, dimly aware of Domenic behind him, of Dezi facing him across the long table, of Callista’s eyes steadily before him. He swallowed, hearing his own voice roughened and hoarse.
“I, Ann’dra” — a double name in Darkovan denoted at least minor nobility; Andrew had no lineage any of them would have recognized — “declare that in your presence, as witnesses, I take Callista Lanart-Alton as freemate, with consent of her kin…” It seemed to him that there should be something more than this. He remembered a sect on Terra which had performed their own marriages this way, before witnesses, and out of vague memory he paraphrased, translating the words from an echo in his mind:
“I take her to love and to cherish, in good times and bad, in poverty and wealth, in health and in sickness, while life shall last, and thus I pledge before you all.”
Slowly she came around the table to join him. She was wearing flimsy draperies of crimson embroidered with gold. The color quenched her pale hair, made her look paler still. He had heard that this was the color and the dress reserved for a Keeper. Leonie, behind her, was similarly garbed, solemn and unsmiling.
Callista’s quiet voice was, nevertheless, the voice of a trained singer. Soft as it was, it could be heard throughout the room. “I, Callista of Arilinn,” and her fingers tightened on his almost convulsively as she spoke the ritual title aloud for the last time, “having laid down my holy office forever with the consent of my Keeper, take this man, Ann’dra, as freemate. I further declare” — her voice trembled — “that should I bear him children they shall be held legitimate before clan and council, caste and heritage.” She added, and it struck Andrew that there was defiance in the words, “The Gods witness it, and the holy things at Hali.”
At that moment he saw Leonie’s eyes fixed on him. They seemed to hold a fathomless sadness, but he had no time to wonder why. He bent his head, taking Callista’s hands in his own, touching his lips lightly to hers. She did not shrink from the touch, but he knew that she was barricaded against it, that it did not truly reach her, that somehow she had managed to endure this ritual kiss here before witnesses, only because she knew it would have been scandalous if she did not. The desolation in her eyes was agony to him, but she smiled and murmured, “Your words were lovely, Andrew. Are they Terran?”
He nodded, but had no time to explain further, for they were swept into a round of hugs and congratulations like that which had encompassed Damon and Ellemir. Then they were all kneeling for Dom Esteban’s blessing, and for Leonie’s.
It was quickly apparent, as the festivities began, that the real purpose of this celebration was for the nearby neighbors to meet and judge Dom Esteban’s sons-in-law. Damon, of course, was known by name and rep
utation to all of them: a Ridenow of Serrais, an officer in the Guards. Andrew, however, was pleasantly surprised at how he was welcomed and accepted, how little attention he attracted. He suspected — and later knew he was right — that in general whatever a Comyn lord did was assumed to be beyond question.
There was a lot of drinking, and he was quickly drawn into the dancing. Everyone joined in this, even the staid Leonie taking the arm of Lord Serrais for a measure. There were some boisterous games. Andrew was dragged into one which involved a lot of kissing, under confusing rules. In a quiet moment on the edge of the game, he voiced some of his confusion to Ellemir. Her face was flushed; he suspected that she had been drinking quite a lot of the sweet, heavy wine. She giggled. “Oh, it’s a compliment to Callista, that these girls should show that they find her husband desirable. And besides, they see no one from Midwinter to Midsummer but their own brothers and kinsmen; you’re a new face and exciting to them.”
That seemed reasonable enough, but still, when it came to playing kissing games with drunken girl children, many of whom were hardly into their teens, he suspected he was simply too old for this kind of party. He had never cared much for drinking anyhow, even among his own compatriots where he knew all the jokes. He looked longingly at Callista, but one of the unwritten rules seemed to be that a husband was not to dance with his own wife. Every time he came near her, others rushed between them and kept them apart.
It finally grew so obvious that he hunted up Damon to ask about it. Damon chuckled and said, “I had forgotten that you are a stranger to the Kilghard Hills, brother. You don’t want to cheat them of their fun, do you? It’s a game at weddings, to keep husband and wife apart so they cannot slip away and consummate their marriage in private, before being put to bed together. Then everybody can have the fun of making the kind of jokes that are traditional here at weddings.” He chuckled, and Andrew wondered suddenly what he was in for!
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