Renata laughed. “I have but a small dower of my own; I have three older sisters. And my father is so displeased that I have come here without his consent that he may even refuse me that! Such dower as I have is from Dom Mikhail, for my care of Dorilys, and he will hardly be sorry to keep it in his own family!”
“Still, he has been kinder to me than any father of my own blood could have been, and he deserves better of me than this double-dealing. Nor do I want your kinsmen to think I have seduced you while you dwelt under my foster-father’s roof, perhaps for the sake of that very dower.”
“Oh, that wretched dower! I know you do not care for that, Donal.”
“If it is necessary, my love, I will give up all claim on it and take you in your bare shift,” he said seriously.
Renata laughed and pulled his head down to her. “You would take me better without it,” she teased, loving the way he still blushed like a boy half his age.
She had never believed she could be so wholly lost to everything except her love. She thought, For all my years in the Tower, for all the lovers I have taken, I might as well have been a child Dorilys“s age! Once I knew what love could be, all the rest meant nothing, nothing at all, less than nothing…
“Still, Renata,” Donal said, resuming the conversation at last, “my foster-father should know.”
“He is a telepath. I am sure he knows. But I think he has not yet decided what he means to do about it,” Renata said, “and it would be quite unkind of us to force it upon his attention!”
Donal had to be content with that, but he wondered. How could Dom Mikhail ever have thought that Donal would go against custom this way, and turn his thoughts, unpermitted, upon a marriageable woman without the consent of her kin? He felt strange, alienated from the pattern he knew his life should have taken.
Looking at the troubled face of her lover, Renata sighed. In her solitary struggles with conscience in the Tower, she had realized that inevitably she must break away from the traditional patterns allotted to a woman of her clan. Donal had never, till now, faced the necessity for change.
“I shall send to my father, then, when it is too late for him to reply before midwinter, telling him that we are to be married at midwinter-night—if you still want me.”
“If I still want you? Beloved, how can you ask?” Donal reproached, and the rest of their conversation was not held in words.
Summer drew on. The leaves began to turn, Dorilys celebrated her birthday, and the first of the harvest was gathered in. On a day when all of Aldaran’s people had gone out to see the great wagons filled with sacks of nuts and jugs of the oil pressed from them borne into one of the outlying barns, Allart found himself standing next to Renata in an outlying part of the courtyard.
“Are you to remain for the winter, kinsman? I shall not leave Dorilys till she is safely past puberty; but you?”
“Donal has asked me to stay, and Dom Mikhail as well. I shall remain until I am summoned by my brother.” Beyond the words Renata sensed weariness and resignation. Allart was painfully longing for Cassandra; in one of his secret dispatches he had asked leave to return, which Damon-Rafael had refused.
Renata smiled, an ironic smile. “Now that your brother has a legitimate son, he is in no hurry for you to rejoin your wife, and perhaps father sons who might contest that claim to the Domain.”
Allart sighed, a sound too weary, Renata thought, for a man as young as Allart. “Cassandra will bear me no children,” he said. “I will not bring that danger upon her. And I have sworn in the fires of Hali to support the claim of my brother’s sons, legitimate or nedestro, to the Domain.”
Renata felt the tears which had been so near the surface for days now welling up and brimming over in her eyes. To keep them back, she made her voice hard and ironic. “To the Domain—yes, you have sworn. But to the crown, Allart?”
“I want no crown,” Allart said.
“Oh, I believe you,” Renata’s voice was waspish. “But will that brother of yours ever believe that?”
“I do not know.” Allart sighed. Did Damon-Rafael truly believe that Allart could not resist the temptation to wrest the Domain—or the crown—from his hands? Or did he simply wish to place the powerful lord Aldaran under an obligation to Elhalyn? Damon-Rafael would need allies, if he chose to struggle with Prince Felix for the throne at Thendara.
That struggle would not come for a while. Old King Regis still clung to life, and the Council would not disturb his deathbed. But when the king lay in an unmarked grave at Hali beside his forefathers, as the custom was, then—then the Council would not be slow to demand that Prince Felix display his fitness to inherit his father’s throne.
“An emmasca might make a good king,” Renata said, following his thoughts effortlessly, “but he can found no dynasty. Felix will not inherit And I read the last dispatch, too. Cassilde never recovered after the birth of her son, and died a few tendays after. So your brother has a legitimate son, but is seeking again for a wife. Now, no doubt, he repents he was so quick to marry you to Cassandra.”
Allart’s mouth curled in distaste, remembering what Damon-Rafael had said on that subject. “If Cassilde should die, as she has been likely to do any time these past few years, I would be free to take Cassandra myself.” How could even his brother have spoken that way of the woman who had borne him a dozen children, only to see them die?
Allart said, “Perhaps it is better this way,” but he sounded so dreary that Renata could not keep back the tears. He tipped her face gently up to his. “What is it, cousin? You are ever eager to comfort my troubles, yet you speak never of your own. What ails you, kinswoman?” His arms went out to encircle her, but it was the affectionate touch of a brother, a friend, not a lover, and Renata knew it. She sobbed, and Allart held her gently.
“Tell me, chiya,” he said, as tenderly as if she were Dorilys’s age, and Renata struggled to hold back her tears.
“I haven’t told Donal. I wanted to have his child. If it were so with me, my father could not force me to come home to Edelweiss and marry whatever man he had chosen for me… And so I conceived, but after a day or so, monitoring, I discovered that the child was female; and so I—” She swallowed, and Allart could feel her pain like a great agony within himself. “I could not let it live. I—I don’t regret it; who could, with that curse on the line of Rockraven? And yet—I look at Dorilys and I cannot help but think, I have had to destroy what could have been like that, beautiful and—and—” Her voice broke and she sobbed helplessly for a moment against Allart.
And I thought I could force a choice like this upon Cassandra… There was nothing Allart could say. He held Renata, letting her cry softly against him.
She quieted at last, murmuring, “I know I did right. It had to be. But I—I couldn’t tell Donal, either.”
What in the name of all the gods, are we doing to our women? What have we wrought in our blood and genes, to bring this on them? Holy Bearer of Burdens, it is your blessing, not your curse, that I am parted from Cassandra…
Even as he spoke he seemed to see Cassandra’s face, racked with fear, fear like Renata’s. Trying to put it aside, he tightened his arms around Renata and said gently, “Still you know you have done right, and that knowledge will strengthen you, I hope.” Then, slowly, searching for words, he told her of the moment of foresight, when he had seen her far advanced in pregnancy, terrified, despairing. “I have not seen that of late in my visions,” he reassured her. “Probably that possibility existed only during the short time you were actually pregnant, and afterward—afterward, that future simply ceased to be; since you had taken the action which could prevent it. Don’t be regretful.”
Still, he was unsure: he had not seen anything of late. He had tried hard to blot out any use of his foresight and its dreadful thronging possible futures. Was it true that now, with the female child Renata had conceived already destroyed, there was no cause for fear? But he had reassured her. She looked calmer, and he would not disturb her a
gain.
“I know I did right,” Renata said. “Yet of late Dorilys has grown so sweet, so biddable and gentle. Now that she has some command of her laran, the storms seem to rage no longer.”
Yes, thought Allart. It has been long since my sleep or my waking was disturbed by those dreadful visions of a vaulted room, of a child’s face framed in awful lightnings… Had all these tragedies, too, moved out of the realm of the possible, as Dorilys mastered her terrible gift?
“Yet, in a way, that makes it worse,” Renata said, “to know there might have been another such child, and now she will never live… Well, I suppose I must simply think of Dorilys as the daughter I shall never dare to have… Allart, she has invited her father and Donal to hear her play and sing this afternoon; will you come, too? She has begun to develop a truly fine singing voice; will you come and hear it?”
“With pleasure,” Allart said sincerely.
Donal was there already, and Lord Aldaran, and several of the women of the household, including Dorilys’s music-mistress, a young noblewoman of the house of Darnel. Darkly beautiful, with dark hair and dark-lashed eyes, she reminded Allart briefly of Cassandra, though they were not really much alike. Still, as Lady Elisa sat with her head bent over the rryl, tuning the strings, he noted that she, too, had six fingers on her hands. He remembered what he had said to Cassandra at their wedding, “May we live in a time when we can make songs, not war!” How brief that hope had been! They lived in a land torn with war among mountains and Domains alike, Cassandra in a Tower beset by air-cars and incendiaries, Allart in a land aflame with forest fire and raging lightnings, striking like arrows. Startled, he looked around the quiet room, out at the quiet skies and hills beyond. No sound of war, no breath. His damned foresight again, no more, in the calm room where Lady Elisa touched the sidebars of the harp, and said, “Sing, Dorilys.”
The child’s voice, sweet and mournful, began an old song of the far hills:
“Where are you now?
Where does my love wander?”
Allart thought such a song of hopeless love and longing ill placed on the lips of a young maiden, but he was entranced by the loveliness of the voice. Dorilys had grown considerably that autumn; she was taller, and her breasts, though small, were already well formed under her childish smock, the young body nicely rounded. She was still long-legged, awkward—she would be a tall woman. Already she was taller than Renata.
Dom Mikhail said as she finished her song, “Indeed, my darling, it seems you have inherited your mother’s superb voice. Will you sing me something less mournful?”
“Gladly.” Dorilys took the rryl from Lady Elisa. She adjusted the tuning slightly, then began to strum it casually and sing a comical ballad from the hills. Allart had heard it often at Nevarsin, though not in the monastery; a rowdy song about a monk who carried, in his pockets, as a good monk should, all the possessions he was allowed to own.
“In the pockets, the pockets,
Fro’ Domenick’s pockets.
Those wonderful pockets he wore round his waist.
The pockets he stuffed every morning in haste;
Whatever he owned at the start of the day,
He stuffed in his pockets and went on his way.”
The audience was chuckling before long at the ever-increasing and ridiculous catalog of the possessions borne in the legendary monk’s pockets.
“Whatever he owned at the start of the day,
He stuffed in his pockets and went on his way.
A bowl and a spoon and a book for his prayers,
A blanket to shield him against the cold airs,
A pencase to write down his prayers and his letters.
A warm cozy kneepad to kneel to his betters,
A nutcracker handled in copper and gold…”
Dorilys herself was struggling to keep her face straight as her audience began to chuckle, or giggle, or in the case of her father, throw back his head and guffaw with laughter at the absurdity of some of the contents of:
“The pockets, the pockets, Fro’ Domenick’s pockets…”
She had reached the verse which detailed:
“A saddle and bridle, some spurs and a rein
In case he was given a riding chervine,
A gold-handled basin, a razor of—”
Dorilys broke off, uncertainly, as the door opened, and Lord Aldaran turned in anger on his paxman, who had entered with such lack of ceremony.
“Varlet, how dare you break into the room of your young mistress this way!”
“I beg the young lady’s pardon, but the matter is extremely urgent. Lord Scathfell—”
“Come, come,” Aldaran said irritably. “Even if he were at our gates with a hundred armed warriors, my man, it would not excuse such a lack of courtesy!”
“He has sent you a message. His messenger speaks of a demand, my lord.”
After a moment Mikhail of Aldaran rose. He bowed to Lady Elisa and to his daughter with as much courtesy as if Dorilys’s little schoolroom had been a presence-chamber.
“Ladies, forgive me. I would not willingly have interrupted your music. But I fear I must ask permission to withdraw, daughter.”
For a moment Dorilys gaped; he asked her permission to come and go? It was clearly the first time he had extended this grown-up formal politeness; but then the beautiful manners in which Margali and Renata had schooled her came to her aid. She dropped him so deep a curtsy that she nearly sank to her knees.
“You are welcome to come and go at your own occasions, sir, but I beg you to return when you are free.”
He bent over her hand. “I shall indeed, my daughter. Ladies, my apologies.” he added, extending the bow to Margali and Renata, then he said curtly, “Donal, attend me,” and Donal rose and hurried after him.
When they had gone, Dorilys tried to resume her song, but the heart had gone out of the occasion and after a little it broke up. Allart went down into the courtyard where the riding animals were stabled, and the escort of the diplomatic mission from Scathfell was tethered. Among them he could see other badges of different mountain clans, that armed men came and went in the courts, but they shifted like water and were not there when he looked again. He knew that his laran painted hallucinations for him of things that might never be. He tried to thread his way through them, to see into time, but he was not calm enough, and what he sensed—he was not consciously reading the minds of those who had brought Scathfell’s demand, but they, too, were broadcasting their emotions all over the landscape—was not conducive to calm.
War? Here? He felt a pang of grief for the long beautiful summer, so irrevocably shattered. How could I sit at peace when my people are at war and my brother prepares to strive for a crown? What have I done to deserve this peace, when even my beloved wife faces danger and terror? He went to his room and tried to calm himself with the Nevarsin breathing disciplines, but he could not concentrate with the visions of war, storms, and riots crowding eyes and brain, and he was grateful when, after a considerable time, he was summoned to Aldaran’s presence-chamber.
He had expected to confront the embassy from Scathfell, as he had seen them so often in his vision, but no one was there except Aldaran himself, staring gloomily at the floor in front of his high seat, and Donal, pacing nervously back and forth.
As Allart came in Donal gave him a quick look of gratitude and entreaty mingled.
“Come in, cousin,” Dom Mikhail said. “Now indeed do we need the advice of kinsmen. Will you sit?”
Allart would have preferred to stand, or to pace like Donal, but he took the seat Dom Mikhail indicated. The old man sat with his chin in his hands, brooding. At last he said, “Do you sit, too, Donal! You drive me mad pacing there like a berserker possessed by a raging wolf,” and waited for his foster-son to seat himself beside Allart. “Rakhal of Scathfell—for I will not yield him the name of brother—has sent me an envoy with demands so outrageous that I can no longer bear them in calm. He sees fit to demand that I shall choo
se without delay, preferably before midwinter, one of his younger sons—I suppose I should be honored that he leaves it up to me to choose which of his damned whelps I will have—to be formally adopted as my heir, since I have no legitimate son, nor, he says, am I likely to have one at my age.” He picked up a piece of paper lying on the seat where he cast it, and crumpled it again in his fist. “He says I should invite all men to witness what I have done in declaring a son of Scathfell my heir, and then—will you listen to the insolence of the man!—he says, then you may live out your few remaining years in such peace as your other deeds allow.” He clenched the offending letter in his fist as if it were his brother’s neck.
“Tell me, cousin. What am I to do with that man?”
Allart stared, appalled. In the name of all the gods, he thought, what does he mean by asking me? Does he think seriously that I am capable of advising him on such a matter?
Aldaran added, more gently, and also more urgently, “Allart, you were schooled at Nevarsin; you know all our history, and all the law. Tell me, cousin. Is there no way at all that I can keep my brother of Scathfell from grasping my estate even before my bones are cold in my grave?”
“My lord, I do not see how they can compel you to adopt your brother’s son. But I do not know how you can keep Lord Scathfell’s sons from inheriting after you; the law is not clear about female children.” And if it were, he thought almost in despair, is Dorilys truly fit to rule? “When a female heir is given leave to inherit, it is usually because all concerned feel that her husband will make a suitable overlord. No one will deny you the right to leave Aldaran to Dorilys’s husband.”
“And yet,” Aldaran said, with painstaking fingers smoothing out the crumpled letter, “look—the seals of Storn, and Sain Scarp, and even of Lord Darriel, hung about this letter, as if to lend their strength to this—this ultimatum he has sent. No wonder Lord Storn made me no reply when I sought his son for Dorilys. Each of them is afraid to ally himself with me lest he alienate all the others. Now, indeed, do I wish the Ridenow were not entangled in this war against your kin, or I should offer Dorilys there.” He was silent a moment, brooding. “I have sworn I will burn Aldaran over my own head ere it goes to my brother. Help me find a way, Allart.”
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