Regis, his expression unreadable, bowed first to Bettany, as a new mother-to-be taking her place of honor, and then to his brother. “Please accept my most sincere congratulations.”
Everyone applauded Bettany and drank several more toasts to her and her unborn child. Then the party split into two groups, the women sitting together, talking about pregnancy and baby clothes, while the men remained standing.
“I know what you are all thinking,” Rinaldo said, finishing his goblet and holding it out for a servant to refill. “None of you believed that I—an emmasca—could father a child. Admit it, you all believed me incapable.”
Gabriel clamped his jaw shut. Regis, meeting his brother’s challenging stare, said, “It does happen upon rare occasions, I suppose. Our chieriancestry manifests in the laranof some and the six-fingered hands of others. It is said to be especially strong in those who are born as you were, emmasca. But the chieriare not infertile. They do produce offspring, although very few.”
Regis paused, his eyes softening, and Danilo sensed in him one of the few luminous memories from the days of the World Wreckers. A chieri, one of the fabled “Children of Light” of the ancient forests, had come forward to help the beleaguered planet.
Danilo closed his eyes, remembering the tall, slender creature, at times like a wild, heartbreakingly beautiful girl, then unquestionably masculine. Keral had given birth to a child, conceived on the same night as Kierestelli and so many others, before returning to the Yellow Forest and the remnants of the chierirace. Did Keral still dance under the four moons in yearning, in grief, in ecstasy? And the child, the hope of a fading people, did that child flourish?
Will any of us ever see them again?
“Nothing is impossible to him who puts his faith in the Divine,” Rinaldo said. His expression of triumph left Danilo profoundly uneasy.
At least motherhood might bring Bettany a measure of fulfillment. Most well-born girls hoped for nothing more than a comfortable home, a husband and children. Linnea and her sister leroniwere the exception rather than the rule.
When Bettany moved apart from the other women, Danilo seized the opportunity to extend his felicitation. She responded with a sniff. “My happiness will come from my sons.”
After a fractional, astonished moment, Danilo hastened to say, “I hope they will grow to be honorable men.”
“They will be powerful and rich! All the world will kneel in fealty to them! Everyone will know that Igave them life!”
She paused, chest heaving. Perhaps she was aware that she could easily be overheard. Linnea and Javanne had averted their faces, but Tiphani was staring openly. Bettany turned her back on the off-world woman.
“Everyone said I was worthless. Oh, not when I could hear them, but I knew. I heard them whispering in my dreams. Now they will see—I will show them all! Even you with your kindness—” and here, Danilo remembered her angry words when he had suggested she seek out Linnea as a companion and guide. Bettany finished with, “ Youwon’t ever have sons to bow down before mine!”
Danilo did not know which was more appalling, her spiteful delusions or the vision of all Darkover under the rule of her offspring. In such a world, what would become of Mikhail? Of little Dani?
As far as he knew, Danilo had no trace of the Aldaran Gift of precognition, so he could reassure himself that his fears were imaginings born of his own recent captivity and unsettled times, nothing more.
“Oh!” Bettany clapped her hands over her mouth. Her cheeks reddened, and her eyes brimmed with tears. “I didn’t mean that! It just popped out! I never know what I’m going to say or feel from one moment to the next!”
“Little one, I did not take it personally. You have not offended me.” The only offense came from those who thrust her, ill in mind and unprepared, into such a marriage, but he could not say so to her face.
She lowered her hands. Her lower lip, full and soft as a child’s, quivered. She summoned a tentative smile. “There—I am better when I am with you. I think the time on the trail with you and MestraDarilyn and the others was the most fun I have ever had. Now I have no one except those silly maids, and they never tell me anything important. Youalways speak plainly and . . . you’re nice to me.” With a flutter of her eyelashes, she placed one hand on his arm.
Danilo’s chest tightened. By all that was holy, had the girl fallen in love with him? He knew he was reckoned handsome and could have had his pick of women—and more than a few men, too—had his heart not been so focused on Regis. For a hopeful moment, he decided he was mistaken, that she showed him no more favor than was proper to her husband’s paxman. Then he saw the sidelong glance and rise of her breasts, felt the caress of her fingers through the fabric of his sleeve, inhaled her perfume, a scent far too provocative for a young bride.
Did she have any idea what she was doing or how many others she placed at risk? She was the wife of the most powerful man on Darkover, and she carried his child, whereas Danilo’s freedom and, most likely, his life hung from the slender thread of her husband’s good will.
He remembered riding beside Bettany on the trail, her face as he handed her the cup of jacoat the inn . . . himself speaking words of encouragement . . . dancing with her at the nuptial ball . . .
Now she was looking up at him with unseemly boldness—no, not boldness. Pleading.
“You will still be my friend, won’t you? You’ll come and visit me often?”
He removed her hand from his arm and led her back to the other women. “Lady,” he said with as much gentleness as he could summon, “that would not be wise for either of us. If you have need of a friend—”
She halted. “You mean Lady Linnea! Why are you always trying to pawn her off on me when it is youI want?”
“Because she can help you, truly help you, and I cannot.”
“Cannot? Or will not?”
Danilo gave Bettany a short bow. He raised his voice so that everyone could hear him as he wished her a healthy child. Bettany looked as if she would stamp her foot. He returned to the other men, and when he glanced back, she had rejoined the women. Linnea, without any sign of having overheard, complimented Bettany on her gown.
Tiphani left the group of women without a backward glance, deserting the lady she purported to attend. Regis, with his usual impeccable grace, bowed to her as to the Legate’s wife.
“ DomnaLawton, I did not anticipate the pleasure of meeting you here. May all the joys of the season be yours.”
“Lawton?” She tossed her head, sending the edges of her coif fluttering. “I have left that life behind me. I have a new name, one given to me by the Power we all must answer to. I am no longer Tiphani but Luminosa. Through me flows the Divine Light. I have no need for earthly attachments.”
Only,Danilo thought wryly, for the earthly protection of Rinaldo.But was he her creature, or she his?
“. . . only fitting that my unborn son should be attended by the one who foresaw his conception . . .” Rinaldo was saying.
All eyes, for the women had halted in their conversation and now listened openly, turned to Tiphani.
“From the moment of the wedding, the sacred union of masculine and feminine essences,” Tiphani said, “I sensed an imminence. You all must have felt the Presence among us! That very night, as I was deep in prayer, I was granted a vision. Light—oh, sweet Divine Light!—filled me. It raptured me beyond any earthly bliss. In the midst of my transport, I saw the Holy Seed flow through me into the womb of the new bride. I was given the knowledge that not only would the handmaiden of my lord Rinaldo be fruitful, but she would carry his firstborn son.”