They left the Lowlands, climbing higher into the mountains. Snow-l aced peaks rose on either side. Inns became scarcer and fellow travelers few. There seemed to be no end to the mountains, for as soon as they scaled one pass, another line of cragged heights came into view. The air grew thinner, and the black mare stumbled with fatigue toward the end of each day.
Around midmorning, they reached the village of Nevarsin. Markets offered ice-melons, furs, and small items of carved chervineantler. Vendors did a brisk business in statues of St. Christopher bearing the World Child on his shoulders. Danilo pointed out an old woman selling leaf-cones of roasted nuts, a treat they had relished as students.
The monastery itself lay some distance beyond the village, up a narrow trail. Glacial snow covered the rocks above. Indeed, with its gray stone walls, weathered by centuries, the monastery seemed to spring from the mountain itself.
A cold, hard place for a cold, hard land,Regis thought gloomily. And not much warmer than Zandru’s hells.Yet men had found peace here, as well as useful work in service to their fellows. Who was he to judge them, based on a few tormented years as a student and an aversion to their narrow discipline?
The monk who greeted them at the gates looked overawed at the sight of so many armed men. He could not have been twenty, with a pale, homely face with a wine-colored mark over one side of his forehead.
“Come this way, vai domHastur, DomSyrtis,” he stammered in accented casta. “Father Master, he awaits you. In fact, he warned me this very morning that you soon would be arriving. He instructed me to make you comfortable and to bring word to him. If you will please for to follow me—”
“Gladly, but first I must see to my men and our horses,” Regis pointed out.
The monk ran off to one of the stark gray stone buildings, leaving them standing in the paved courtyard. Regis glanced up at the buildings, remembering that the founders of the monastery prided themselves on placing every single stone by human hands without the use of laran. Such could not be said for any Comyn dwelling.
A few moments later, the young monk returned with several older brothers, who took away the horses and directed the Guardsmen to the kitchen.
Blinking and stammering, the young monk led Regis and Danilo to the Stranger’s Room, luxurious by monastery standards but modest compared to Comyn Castle. Unlike the other rooms in the monastery, it boasted a fireplace and cushioned chairs. Wood had been laid on the andirons, with flint and tinder nearby. The monk set about lighting the fire, then asked if he could be of further service.
Regis sent him off to let the Father Master know of their arrival. Shortly thereafter, Regis and Danilo found themselves in the study of the venerable old monk. Regis was struck by the sensation that time had been suspended since he had last passed the monastery gates. Sun flooded the room, touching the battered surface of the desk and the alcove where a statue of the Bearer of Burdens stood eternal vigil. The figure looked as if it had never been dusted, or perhaps it was so ancient and fragile that it might fall to pieces at the slightest touch.
“Lord Regis—Lord Hastur you are now, I bid you welcome back to St. Valentine’s.” The Father Master remained in his seat and gestured for Regis to take the single cushioned visitor’s chair. Danilo remained by the door.
“It has been a long time,” Regis replied with a practiced smile. “You must also remember Danilo Syrtis, my sworn paxman.”
The Father Master inclined his head in Danilo’s direction. “No doubt, you are eager to meet with Brother Valentine. You will find him in the scriptorium.”
Thanking the old monk for his kindness, the two young Comyn took their leave. They knew the way as intimately as the path to their own chambers. As they threaded their way along the narrow corridors, the stone walls rough and unadorned, they passed a number of monks. Almost all the brothers covered their faces with their cowls; they might have been the very same ones as years ago.
If anything, the scriptorium was brighter than the Father Master’s study, for the windows were situated to take advantage of every moment of daylight. A handful of students bent over their desks. A fat, elderly monk strolled up one aisle and down the next, pausing now and again to inspect a line of text, to reposition a pen in clenched fingers, or to draw a wandering gaze back to its purpose.
Regis remembered the hours that he, too, had labored to produce a legible document. Perhaps the Terrans, with their instruments for perfect duplicates or vocal recordings, had the right idea. Why, in this age of starfaring ships and technological marvels, must young boys strain their eyes at such a task?
The thought came to him that the benefit lay not only in the creation of beautiful letters but in the mastery of discipline and concentration.
At the far end of the chamber, beside the unlit fireplace, a monk sat alone at a copying table. Light streamed from a high window, bathing his tonsured head. For an instant, he looked like a carven figure, silver and palest gilt. Unlike the students, who fidgeted at their desks and cast surreptitious glances at the two lords who had just entered, this monk gave no sign he was aware of the intrusion.
The monk supervising the boys came forward, a smile lighting his wide, generous features .“Good friends,” he said, using the inflection of beloved comradeswith a naturalness that touched Regis deeply, “you are most welcome.”
When Regis introduced himself and Danilo, the brother nodded in obvious delight. With a conspiratorial wink, he turned and clapped his hands three times. The boys scrambled to put aside their work, cap their inkwells, and file out of the room. Regis gathered, from their excited whispers, that their practice session had been cut short and that now they were at leisure for a few brief hours. He remembered how precious such times were.
The fat monk crossed the room to wait silently beside his brother at the fireplace. After a long moment, the other monk lifted his head. Bathed in the overhead light, his skin was as pale as milk, as if he had never walked beneath the sun, only in twilit forest. In those thin, almost delicate features, Regis saw echoes of the ethereal, nonhuman chieri,the ancient Beautiful People who had inhabited Darkover since before the lost colony ship crashed in these hills. They were now all but extinct, yet their blood and their telepathic abilities flowed in Comyn veins.
Rinaldo? Or rather, Brother Valentine?
No, the tall, thin man was no chieri,but that graceful hermaphroditic race had left their mark in other ways . . . in the six fingered hands of many of their descendants . . . and in the occasional emmasca.Was Rinaldo such a one?
Regis could not be sure. General appearance was not proof. Many Comyn were thin and pale, and decades indoors might bleach the color from any man’s face.
The emmascacondition was much rarer now than in former times, but the old attitudes lingered. Such individuals were said to be long- lived but sterile, and therefore in the past they had been barred from holding Domain-right. Regis thought it barbaric to measure the worth of a man by his reproductive performance. As to the requirement of fathering sons, or even being capable of lying with a woman, Regis had already provided Hastur with an heir, Mikhail, without doing either.
Yet the prejudice would explain why Danvan had hidden Rinaldo away, rather than raising him as a member of the family. The old man must have believed him to be emmasca,although male enough in appearance to be acceptable to the monks.
Regis ached for his brother. He determined not to add in any way to Rinaldo’s lifetime of shame and rejection.