Regis was giving Dani an honorable escape if he wanted it. He could not, by Comyn immunity, fight Dyan in his place. But he could do this much.
Danilo made Regis a formal bow. He avoided his eyes. He went directly to Dyan, faced him and said, “I call challenge upon you, Lord Dyan.”
Dyan drew a deep breath. He was as pale as Danilo himself. He said, “I accept the challenge. But by law, a challenge of this nature may be resolved, at the option of the one challenged, by the offer of honorable amends. Is that not so, my lord Hastur?”
Regis could feel his grandfather’s confusion like his own, as the old Regent said slowly, “The law does indeed give you this option, Lord Dyan.”
Regis, watching him closely, could see the almost-involuntary motion of Dyan’s hand toward the hilt of his sword. This was the way Dyan had always settled all challenges before. But he steadied his hands, clasping them quietly before him. Regis could feel, like a bitter pain, Dyan’s grief and humiliation, but the older man said, in a harsh, steady voice, “Then, Danilo-Felix Syrtis, I offer you here before my peers and my kinsmen a public apology for the wrong done you, in that I did unjustly and wrongfully contrive your disgrace, by provoking you willfully into a breach of cadet rules and by a misuse of laran; and I offer you any honorable amends in my power. Will this settle the challenge and the blood-feud, sir?”
Danilo stood as if turned to stone. His face looked completely stunned.
Why did Dyan do it? Regis wondered. Dyan could have killed him now with impunity, legally, and the matter could never be raised against him again!
And suddenly, whether or not he received the answer directly from Dyan, or his own intuition, he knew: they had all had a lesson in what could happen when Comyn misused their powers. There was disaffection among the subjects and even among themselves, in their own ranks, their own sons turned against them. It was not only to their subjects that they must restore public trust in the integrity of the Comyn. If their own kinsmen lost faith in them they had lost all. And then, as for an instant Dyan looked directly at him, Regis knew the rest, right from Dyan’s mind:
I have no son. I thought it did not matter, then, whether I passed on an unsullied name. My father did not care what his son thought of him and I had no son to care.
Danilo was still standing motionless and Regis could feel his thoughts, too, troubled, uncertain: I have wanted for so long to kill him. It would be worth dying. But I am sworn to Regis Hastur, and sworn through him to the good of the Comyn. Dani drew a long breath and wet his lips before he could speak. Then he said, “I accept your honorable amends, Lord Dyan. And for myself and my house, I declare no feud remains and the challenge withdrawn—” Quickly he corrected himself: “The challenge settled.”
Dyan’s pallor was gradually replaced by a deep, crimson flush. He spoke almost breathlessly. “What amends will you ask, sir? Is it necessary to explain here, before all men, the nature of the injustice and the apology? It is your right … ”
Regis thought that Dani could make him crawl. He could have his revenge, after all.
Danilo said quietly, “It is not necessary, Lord Ardais. I have accepted your apology; I leave the amends to your honor.”
He turned quietly and returned to his place beside Regis. His hands were shaking. More advantages to the custom of formality, Regis thought wryly. Everyone knew, or guessed, and most of them probably guessed wrong. But now it need never be spoken.
Hastur spoke the formal words which confirmed Dyan’s legal status as Lord Ardais and warder of the Ardais Domain. He added: “It is required, Lord Ardais, that you designate an heir. Have you a son?”
Regis could feel, through the very air, his grandfather’s regret at the inflexibility of this ritual, which must only inflict more pain on Dyan. Dyan’s grief and pain, too, was a knife-edge to everyone there with laran. He said harshly, “The only son of my body, my legitimate heir, was killed four years ago in a rockslide at Nevarsin.”
“By the laws of the Comyn,” Hastur instructed him needlessly, “You must then name your choice of near kinsmen as heir-designate. If you later father a son, that choice may be amended,”
Regis was remembering their long talk in the tavern and Dyan’s flippancy about his lack of an heir. He was not flippant now. His face had paled to its former impassivity. He said, “My nearest kinsman sits among the Terrans. I must first ask if he is prepared to renounce that allegiance. Daniel Lawton, you are the only son of the eldest of my father’s nedestrodaughters, Rayna di Asturien, who married the Terran David Daniel Lawton. Are you prepared to renounce your Empire citizenship and swear allegiance to Comyn?”
Dan Lawton blinked in amazement. He did not answer immediately, but Regis sensed—and knew, when he spoke a minute later—that the hesitation had been only a form of courtesy. “No, Lord Ardais,” he said in casta, “I have given my loyalty and will not now renounce it. Nor would you wish it so; the man who is false to his first allegiance will be false to his second.”
Dyan bowed and said, with a note of respect, “I honor your choice, kinsman. I ask the Council to bear witness that my nearest kinsman has renounced all claim upon me and mine.”
There was a brief murmur of assent.
“Then I turn to my privileged choice,” Dyan said. His voice was hard and unyielding. “Second among my near kinsmen was another nedestrodaughter of my father; her son has been confirmed by the Keeper at Neskaya to be one who holds the Ardais gift. His mother was Melora Castamir and his father Felix-Rafael Syrtis, who is of Alton blood. Danilo-Felix Syrtis,” Dyan said, “upon the grounds of Comyn blood and Ardais gift, I call upon you to swear allegiance to Comyn as heir to the Ardais Domain; and I am prepared to defend my choice against any man who cares to challenge me.” His eyes moved defiantly against them all.
It was like a thunderclap. So these were Dyan’s honorable amends! Regis could not tell whether the thought was his own or Danilo’s, as Danilo, dazed, moved toward Dyan.
Regis remembered how he’d thought Dani should have a seat on Comyn Council! But like this? Did Kennard engineer this?
Dyan said formally, “Do you accept the claim, Danilo?”
Danilo was shaking, though he tried to control his voice. “It is … my duty to accept it, Lord Ardais.”
“Then kneel, Danilo, and answer me. Will you swear allegiance to Comyn and this Council, and pledge your life to serve it? Will you swear to defend the honor of Comyn in all just causes, and to amend all evil ones?” Dyan’s speaking voice was rich, strong and musical, but now he hesitated, his voice breaking. “Will you grant to me … a son’s duty … until such time as a son of my body may replace you?”
Regis thought, suddenly wrung by Dyan’s torment, who has taken revenge on whom? He could see that Danilo was crying silently as Dyan’s wavering voice went out: “Will you swear to be a … a loyal son to me, until such time as I yield my Domain through age, unfitness or infirmity, and then serve as my regent under this Council?”
Dani was silent for a moment and Regis, close in rapport with him, knew he was trying to steady his voice. At last, shaking, his voice almost inaudible, he whispered, “I will swear it.”
Dyan bent and raised him to his feet. He said steadily, “Bear witness that this is my nedestroheir; that none shall take precedence from him; and that this claim”—his voice broke again—“may never be renounced by me nor in my name by any of my descendants.”
Briefly, and with extreme formality, he embraced him. He said quietly, but Regis heard, “You may return for the time to your sworn service, my son. Only in my absence or illness need you take a place among the Ardais. You must attend this Council and all its affairs must be known to you, however, since you may need to assume my place unexpectedly.”