I’m not Alton for nothing. Swiftly I thrust back, fighting his attempt to forceagreement “There’s no need for that, Father. I’m not your puppet!”
“But you’re my son,” he said violently, and it was like a storm, as his will pressed hard on me. “My son and my second in command, and no one, no oneis going to question that!”
His agitation was growing so great that I realized I could not argue further without harming him seriously.
I had to calm him somehow. I met his enraged eyes squarely and said, “There’s no reason to shout at me. I’ll do what you like, for now at least. We’ll argue it out later.”
His eyes fell shut, whether with exhaustion or pain I could not tell. Master Raimon, the hospital-officer of the Guards, came into the room, moving swiftly to his side. I made room for him. Anger, fatigue and loss of sleep made my head pound. Damn him! Father knew perfectly well how I felt! And he didn’t give a damn!
Marius was still standing, frozen, watching in horror as Master Raimon began to cut away my father’s shirt. I saw great purple, blood-darkened bruises before I drew Marius firmly away. “There’s nothing much wrong with him,” I said. “He couldn’t shout that loud if he was dying. Go get dressed, and keep out of the way.”
The child went obediently and I stood in the outer room, rubbing my fists over my face in dismay and confusion. What time was it? How long had I slept? Where was Regis? Where had he gone? In the state he’d been in when he left me, he could have done something desperate! Conflicting loyalties and obligations held me paralyzed. Andres came out of my father’s room and said, “Lew, if you’re going to take call-over you’d better get moving,” and I realized I’d been standing as if my feet had frozen to the floor.
My father had laid a task on me. Yet if Regis had run away, in a mood of suicidal despair, shouldn’t I go after him, too? In any case I would have been on duty this morning. Now it seemed I was to handle it on my own. There were sure to be those who’d question it. Well, it was Father’s right to choose his own deputy, but I was the one who’d have to face their hostility.
I turned to Andres. “Have someone get me something to eat,” I said, “and see if you can find where Father put the staff lists and the roll call, but don’t disturb him. I should bathe and change. Have I time?”
Andres regarded me calmly. “Don’t lose your head. You have what time you need. If you’re in command, they can’t start till you get there. Take the time to make yourself presentable. You ought to lookready to command, even if you don’t feel it.”
He was right, of course; I knew it even while I resented his tone. Andres has a habit of being right. He had been the coridom, chief steward, at Armida since I could remember. He was a Terran and had once been in Spaceforce. I’ve never known where he met my father, or why he left the Empire. My father’s servants had told me the story, that one day he came to Armida and said he was sick of space and Spaceforce, and my father had said, “Throw your blaster away and pledge me to keep the Compact and I’ve work for you at Armida as long as you like.” At first he had been Father’s private secretary, then his personal assistant, finally in charge of his whole household, from my father’s horses and dogs to his sons and foster-daughter. There were times when I felt Andres was the only person alive who completely accepted me for what I was. Bastard, half-caste, it made no difference to Andres.
He added now, “Better for discipline to turn up late than to turn up in a mess and not knowing what you’re doing. Get yourself in order, Lew, and I don’t just mean your uniform. Nothing’s to be gained by rushing off in several directions at once.”
I went off to bathe, eat a hasty breakfast and dress myself suitably to be stared at by a hundred or more officers and Guardsmen, each one of whom would be ready to find fault. Well, let them.
Andres found the staff lists and Guard roster among my father’s belongings; I took them and went down to the Guard hall.
The main Guard hall in Comyn Castle is on one of the lowest levels; behind it lie barracks, stables, armory and parade ground, and before it a barricaded gateway leads down into Thendara. The rest of Comyn Castle leaves me unmoved, but I never looked up at the great fan-lighted windows without a curious swelling in my throat.
I had been fourteen years old, and already aware that because of what I was my life was fragmented and insecure, when my father had first brought me here. Before sending me to my peers, or what he hoped would be my peers—they’d had other ideas—he’d told me of a few of the Altons who had come before us here. For the first and almost the last time, I’d felt a sense of belonging to those old Altons whose names were a roll call of Darkovan history: My grandfather Valdir, who had organized the first fire-beacon system in the Kalghard Hills. DomEsteban Lanart, who a hundred years ago had driven the catmen from the caves of Corresanti. Rafael Lanart-Alton, who had ruled as Regent when Stefan Hastur the Ninth was crowned in his cradle, in the days before the Elhalyn were kings in Thendara.
The Guard hall was an enormous stone-floored, stone-arched room, cobblestones half worn away by the feet of centuries of Guardsmen. The light came curiously, multicolored and splintered, through windows set in before the art of rolling glass was known.
I drew the lists Andres had given me from a pocket and studied them. On the topmost sheet were the names of the first-year cadets. The name of Regis Hastur was at the bottom, evidently added somewhat later than the rest. Damn it where wasRegis? I checked the list of second-year cadets. The name of Octavien Vallonde had been dropped from the rolls. I hadn’t expected to see his name, but it would have relieved my mind.
On the staff list Father had crossed out his own name as commander and written in mine, evidently with his right hand, and with great difficulty. I wished he had saved himself the trouble. Gabriel Lanart-Hastur, Javanne’s husband and my cousin, had replaced me as second-in-command. He should have had the command post. I was no soldier, only a matrix technician, and I fully intended to return to Arilinn at the end of the three-year interval required now by law. Gabriel, though, was a career Guardsman, liked it and was competent. He was an Alton too, and seated on Council. Most Comyn felt he should have been designated Kennard’s heir. Yet we were friends, after a fashion, and I wished he were here today, instead of at Edelweiss waiting for the birth of Javanne’s child.
Father evidently saw no discrepancy. He had been psi technician in Arilinn for over ten years, back in the old days of tower isolation, yet he had been able afterward to return and take command of the Guards without any terrible sense of dissonance. My own inner conflicts evidently were not important, or even comprehensible, to him.
Arms-master again was old Domenic di Asturien, who had been a captain when my father was a cadet of fourteen. He had been my own cadet-master, my first year and was almost the only officer in the Guard who had ever been fair to me.
Cadet-master—I rubbed my eyes and stared at the lists; I must have read it wrong. The words obstinately stayed the same. Cadet-master: Dyan-Gabriel, Lord Ardais.
I groaned aloud. Oh, hell, this had to be one of Father’s perverse jokes. He’s no fool, and only a fool would put a man like Dyan in charge of half-grown boys. Not after the scandal last year. We had managed to keep the scandal from reaching Lord Hastur, and I had believed that even Dyan knew he had gone too far.
Let me be clear about one thing: I don’t like Dyan and he doesn’t approve of me, but he is a brave man and a good soldier, probably the best and most competent officer in the Guards. As for his personal life, no one dares to comment on a Comyn lord’s private amusements.
I learned, long ago, not to listen to gossip. My own birth had been a major scandal for years. But this had been more than gossip. Personally, I think Father had been unwise to hustle the Vallonde boy away home without question or investigation. Part of what he said was true. Octavien was disturbed, unstable, he’d never belonged in the Guards and it was our mistake for ever accepting him as a cadet. But Father had said that the sooner it was hushed up, the quicker the unsavory story would the down. The rumors had never died of course, probably never would.