“You can go, cadet. Tell young MacAran I want to see him.”
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Chapter SIX
(Lew Alton’s narrative)
Father was bedridden during the first several days of Council season, and I was too busy and beset to have much time for the cadets. I had to attend Council meetings, which at this particular time were mostly concerned with some dreary business of trade agreements with the Dry Towns. One thing I did find time for was having that staircase fixed before someone else broke his leg, or his neck. This was troublesome too: I had to deal with architects and builders, we had stonemasons underfoot for days, the cadets coughed from morning to night with the choking dust and the veterans grumbled constantly about having to go the long way round and use the other stairs.
A long time before I thought he was well enough, Father insisted on returning to his Council seat, which I was glad to be out of. Far too soon after that, he returned to the Guards, his arm still in a sling, looking dreadfully pale and worn. I suspected he shared some of my uneasiness about how well the cadets would fare this season, but he said nothing about it to me. It nagged at me ceaselessly; I resented it as much for my father’s sake as my own. If my father had chosen to trust Dyan Ardais, I might not have been quite so disturbed. But I felt that he, too, had been compelled, and that Dyan had enjoyed having the power to do so.
A few days after that, Gabriel Lanart-Hastur returned from Edelweiss with news that Javanne had borne twin girls, whom she named Ariel and Liriel. With Gabriel at hand, my father sent me back into the hills on a mission to set up a new system of fire-watch beacons, to inspect the fire-watch stations which had been established in my grandfather’s day and to instruct the Rangers in new fire-fighting techniques. This kind of mission demands tact and some Comyn authorty, to persuade men separated by family feuds and rivalries, sometimes for generations, to work together peacefully. Fire-truce is the oldest tradition on Darkover but, in districts which have been lucky enough to escape forest fires for centuries, it’s hard to persuade anyone that the fire-truce should be extended to the upkeep of the stations and beacons.
I had my father’s full authority, though, and that helped. The law of the Comyn transcends, or is supposed to transcend, personal feuds and family rivalries. I had a dozen Guardsmen with me for the physical work, but I had to do the talking, the persuading and the temper-smoothing when old struggles flared out of control. It took a lot of tact and thought; it also demanded knowledge of the various families, their hereditary loyalties, intermarriages and interactions for the last seven or eight generations. It was high summer before I rode back to Thendara, but I felt I’d accomplished a great deal. Every step against the constant menace of forest fire on Darkover impresses me more than all the political accomplishments of the last hundred years. That’s something we’ve actually gained from the presence of the Terran Empire: a great increase in knowledge of fire-control and an exchange of information with other heavily wooded Empire planets about new methods of surveillance and protection.
And back in the hills the Comyn name meant something. Nearer to the Trade Cities, the influence of Terra has eroded the old habit of turning to the Comyn for leadership. But back there, the potency of the very name of Comyn was immense. The people neither knew nor cared that I was a half-Terran bastard. I was the son of Kennard Alton, and that was all that really mattered. For the first time I carried the full authority of a Comyn heir.
I even settled a blood-feud which had run three generations by suggesting that the eldest son of one house marry the only daughter of another and the disputed land be settled on their children. Only a Comyn lord could have suggested this without becoming himself entangled in the feud, but they accepted it. When I thought of the lives it would save, I was glad of the chance.
I rode into Thendara one morning in midsummer. I’ve heard offworlders say our planet has no summer, but there had been no snow for three days, even in the pre-dawn hours, and that was summer enough for me. The sun was dim and cloud-hidden, but as we rode down from the pass it broke through the layers of fog, throwing deep crimson lights on the city lying below us. Old people and children gathered inside the city gates to watch us, and I found I was grinning to myself. Part of it, of course, was the thought of being able to sleep for two nights in the same bed. But part of it was pure pleasure at knowing I’d done a good job. It seemed, for the first time in my life, that this was my city, that I was coming home. I had not chosen this duty—I had been born into it—but I no longer resented it so much.
Riding into the stable court of the Guards, I saw a brace of cadets on watch at the gates and more going out from the mess hall. They seemed a soldierly lot, not the straggle of awkward children they had been that first day. Dyan had done well enough, evidently. Well, it had never been his competence I questioned, but even so, I felt better. I turned my horse over to the grooms and went to make my report to my father.
He was out of bandages now, with his arm free of the sling, but he still looked pale, his lameness more pronounced than ever. He was in Council regalia, not uniform. He waved away my proffered report.
“No time for that now. And I’m sure you did as well as I could have done myself. But there’s trouble here. Are you very tired?”
“No, not really. What’s wrong, Father? More riots?”
“Not this time. A meeting of Council with the Terran Legate this morning. In the city, at Terran headquarters.”
“Why doesn’t he wait on you in the Council Chamber?” Comyn lords did not come and go at the bidding of the Terranan!
He caught the thought and shook his head. “It was Hastur himself who requested this meeting. It’s more important than you can possibly imagine. That’s why I want you to handle this for me. We need an honor guard, and I want you to choose the members very carefully. It would be disastrous if this became a subject of gossip in the Guards—or elsewhere.”
“Surely, Father, any Guardsman would be honor-bound—”
“In theory, yes,” he said dryly, “but in practice, some of them are more trustworthy than others. You know the younger men better than I do.” It was the first time he had ever admitted so much. He had missed me, needed me. I felt warmed and welcomed, even though all he said was, “Choose Guardsmen or cadets who are blood-kin to Comyn if you can, or the trustiest. You know best which of them have tongues that rattle at both ends.”
Gabriel Lanart, I thought, as I went down to the Guard hall, an Alton kinsman, married into the Hasturs. Lerrys Ridenow, the younger brother of the lord of his Domain. Old di Asturien, whose loyalty was as firm as the foundations of Comyn Castle itself. I left him to choose the veterans who would escort us through the streets—they would not go into the meeting rooms, so their choice was not so critical—and went off to cadet barracks.
It was the slack time between breakfast and morning drill. The first-year cadets were making their beds, two of them sweeping the floor and cleaning out the fireplaces. Regis was sitting on the corner cot, mending a broken bootlace. Was it meekness or good nature which had let them crowd him into the drafty spot under the window? He sprang up and came to attention as I stopped at the foot of his bed.
I motioned him to relax. “The Commander has sent me to choose an honor guard detail,” I said. “This is Comyn business; it goes without saying that no word of what you may hear is to go outside Council rooms. Do you understand me, Regis?”
“Yes, Captain.” He was formal, but I caught curiosity and excitement in his lifted face. He looked older, not quite so childish, not nearly so shy. Well, as I knew from my own first tormented cadet season, one of two things happened in the first few days. You grew up fast … or you crawled back home, beaten, to your family. I’ve often thought that was why cadets were required to serve a few terms in the Guard. No one could ever tell in advance which ones would survive.