Mikhail is eleven. In two more years he will be old enough for the Cadet corps, and then for all the responsibilities of a Comyn son. Javanne’s elder sons, Gabriel and Rafael, are in the cadets now—fifteen and fourteen. If their father, the older Gabriel, is made Warden of the Alton Domain, will they be Alton or Hastur? Rank follows the higher parent; they are Hastur, then…
He glanced at Dyan Ardais. Today the Ardais lord wore, not his usual unrelieved black, but the glimmering black and silver of his Domain, somber and elegant. He said to Dyan, not quite a question:
“There is no one in the Domain of Alton—”
Dyan, if anyone, would know if Kennard had returned—
Perhaps I should tell him about—about what happened two nights ago, about Marius, and Rafe Scott—and Sharra.
But Dyan said, “Regis, the Domain will not fall unchallenged into the hands of the Hasturs. I promise you that.” And Regis, looking at the flat, metallic eyes of the Ardais lord, unreadable as if shuttered, knew he could not ask Dyan exactly what he had arranged. He bowed and went to his own place in the railed-off section, beneath the blue and silver fir-tree banner of the Hasturs.
Other men and women were coming in now, arranging themselves under the banners of the different Domains. A faint distant hum told him that someone was setting the telepathic dampers; when the Comyn Castle and the Crystal Chamber were built, it had been assumed that everyone here, everyone with blood-right in the Domains, was laran-gifted, and by tradition there were telepathic dampers set all about the Chamber at strategic intervals, to prevent involuntary (or voluntary) telepathic eavesdropping.
Everyone here, Regis thought, is my kinsman, or should be. Everyone in the Comyn held descent from the legendary seven sons of Hastur and Cassilda. Legend, all of that; legend called Hastur a god, son of Aldones who was Lord of Light. Hastur the god, so they said, had put off his godhead for love of a mortal woman. Whatever truth might lie behind the legend was veiled in time and prehistory, before ever the Ages of Chaos came down to split the country of the Domains into a hundred little kingdoms, and at the end of those ages, though the Hastur-kin had reclaimed their powers, all but a few Towers lay shattered and the laran of the Comyn had never recovered.
And yet, he thought, the Terrans claim, and say they can prove it that we here on Darkover, Seven Domains, Comyn and all, are descended from a colony ship which crashed here, Terran colonists. What is the truth? Even more, what does the truth mean? Whence came the legends? If we are all Terrans, where had the laran come from, the Comyn powers? In the Ages of Chaos, Regis knew from the history he had read at Nevarsin, there had been a time of great tyranny, when the Comyn Council had ruled over a breeding program which would fix the gifts of each Domain into their sons and daughters; matrix technology had reached its height, even meddling with the genes of the Comyn children.
And we are suffering still from that great inbreeding and genetic meddling. Look at Derik. And many of the Ardais are unstable; Dyan’s father was mad for decades before his death, and there are those in Council who think Dyan himself is none too sane.
Javanne Lanart-Hastur, with her husband, Gabriel, came in through the rear doors of the Hastur enclosure. She embraced Regis, in a flurry of scent, curls, ruffles, and took her seat. Gabriel—tall, burly, wearing the uniform of the Castle Guard as Commander—nodded good-naturedly to Regis as he took his place. Their oldest son, Rafael, a scrawny, darkhaired youngster of fifteen, who reminded Regis of his own mirrored face at that age, bowed to Regis and sat down on one of the back benches. He wore cadet uniform and side-arms.
Two more years and I will be expected to enroll Mikhail in the cadet corps. And in the name of Aldones, Lord of Light, and Zandru, lord of all the hells, what sense does it make for me to send the Heir to Hastur into the cadets, as I was sent, as Javanne is dutifully sending her sons? Yes, of course, if Mikhail is one day to inherit the power and might of the Hasturs—and I have never seen the woman I wish to marry, so it’s likely Mikhail will inherit—he must learn to command himself, and others. But with the Empire on Darkover, with the inevitability of an interstellar empire at our very doorstep, surely there is a better way to educate the Heir to Hastur than sending him to be schooled in swordplay and the code duello, and taught unarmed combat and the best way to keep drunks off the streets! Regis sighed, thinking of the inevitable outcry it would cause if he, Heir to Hastur, should choose to have his son given the Terran education which Marius, Kennard’s son, had had.
And where was Marius? Surely he should have come into the Alton Domain’s enclosure! He was old enough, now, and if he wished to lay claim to the Domain, before it was declared vacant, surely it should be now!
Perhaps he too has bowed to the inevitable, or decided he would rather leave the Wardenship of the Domain to Gabriel. Again, Regis sighed, remembering a time when he had told his grandfather that he would as soon leave the Domain to Javanne’s sons.
One, at least, of my sons, should have a Terran education. If not Mikhail, he thought, then his son by Crystal di Asturien. It was early to think about that—the boy was a hearty toddler not yet two years old, and Regis had seen him fewer than a dozen times. He had two other children, too, daughters, through similar liaisons. Terrans educate their daughters. I will see that the girls, at least, are educated, though I suppose there will be trouble about it; their mothers are conventional enough to think it an honor to bear a child to a Hastur Heir. He knew perfectly well the women had not had much interest in him aside from that, and his undoubted good looks— women pursued him for that and it grew a little wearying.
At this point his train of thought was interrupted by a loud cry from the Guardsmen at the door.
“Danvan Hastur of Hastur, Warden of Hastur, Regent of Elhalyn and of the Comyn!”
Regis rose with the rest as his grandfather—Hastur of Hastur, an aging man, his light hair still retaining some gold among the gray, clad in the ceremonial blue and silver of the Hasturs—came into the Crystal Chamber and went slowly to his seat. He seated himself in the front row and looked round the Crystal Chamber.
“Kinsmen, nobles, Comynari,” he said, in his rich voice. “I welcome you to Council. Highness—” he bowed to Derik— “will it please you to call the roll of the Domains?”
So Lord Hastur had decided that he must give Derik some privileges and responsibilities, however empty and ceremonial! Derik rose and came forward; like the Hasturs, he was wearing blue and silver with the golden crown of the Elhalyns across the fir-tree emblem.
“I speak for Hastur of Elhalyn,” he said. “Hastur of Hastur?”
Danvan Hastur rose and bowed. He said, “I am here at your service, my lord Derik.”
“Ardais?”
Dyan Ardais stood up and bowed. “Dyan-Gabriel, Warden of Ardais.”
“Aillard?”
There was a small stir behind the curtains of one of the boxes in the enclosure of the Aillards, and Callina Aillard, thin and pale, in the formal gray and crimson draperies of the Aillards, said quietly, “Para servirte, vai dom.” Regis saw Merryl, looking sullen, in a seat somewhat below his half-sister; then a handful of loosely related families, Lindir, Di Asturien, Eldrin. Regis did not know most of them by sight at all.
“Ridenow of Serrais.”
This was out of order, Regis thought; the Alton Domain was higher in rank than the Ridenow. But perhaps he was giving them ample time to answer.
“I speak for Ridenow, and I am here at your command, vai dom,” said Edric Ridenow. An enormously fat man, well into middle age, he sat with his half-grown sons and a small herd of his brothers; Regis recognized Lerrys, and Auster who had been in the Guards as officers. There were others he didn’t know. There were a few women behind the curtains in the private boxes; the Ridenow lived at the very borders of the Dry Towns and were of Dry-town blood, and while they did not follow Dryland customs and chain their women, they did keep them in somewhat greater seclusion than most of the mountain Domains.