Yes, it does, Regis thought, looking at Callina, who looked so frail it seemed a puff of air would waft her off her feet; at Derik’s shallow foolish face. Javanne had been lucky, being married outside direct Comyn lines. Her sons were all healthy and strong. Derik—looking at the young prince, Regis wondered if Derik would father anything but a string of halfwits like himself. And suddenly his blood iced; he looked at Derik and saw nothing, nothing but a grinning skull… a skull, laughing… he rubbed his hands over his eyes and Derik was simply sitting there with his good-natured dimwitted grin.
Hastur said quietly, “You have a good point, sir. But Prince Derik and comynara Linnell were childhood sweethearts, and it would be cruel to part them now. There are others who can bring fresh blood into Council.”
Regis thought, cynically, maybe that’s a good name for what I am doing, fathering nedestro sons wherever I wish… the women don’t seem to object, and neither do their fathers, since I am Hastur of Hastur.. .and his thoughts slid aside, as he saw Lady Callina rise, looking tall and stately in her crimson ceremonial robes.
“This matter is not for Council meddling,” she said, pale as death, “Linnell is my ward! I have given consent to her marriage and that is enough!”
“Meddling, lady?” asked Di Asturien, “That’s a strange way to put it. Marriages in Comyn are supposed to be settled by the Council, aren’t they?”
“I am Head of Aillard. Linnell’s marriage is not for the Council to agree or disagree.”
“But the prince’s is,” the old man insisted. “I protest it, and I’m sure there are others!”
Derik said amiably, “Can’t you trust me to choose my own wife, sir? Or am I to imitate a Dry-Towner and have half a dozen wives and barraganas? Even a prince should have a few areas of private choice.”
“What does the lady say about it?” asked old Di Asturien, and Linnell, sitting in Callina’s shadow, colored and shrank away.
“This marriage was approved by the Council a long time ago,” she said, almost in a whisper. “If somebody was going to protest against it, they should have done so years ago. Derik and I were handfasted when I was fourteen and he was twelve. There’s been time enough to protest it before this, and before we—before we had our hearts set on each other.”
“That was a long time ago, and the Council was stronger then,” said the old man, grumpily. “There are plenty of women in the Domains with good blood in ’em. He didn’t have to choose a sister of another Domain Head.”
“With respect, sir,” said Lord Hastur, “we have heard what you have to say. Is there anyone within Comyn who wants to speak on this?”
“I will not hear,” said Callina, in pale rage. “I have given consent to this marriage, and there is no other with the power by law to change it.”
“And if anyone tries,” said Derik, “I will challenge him anywhere.” He laid his hand to sword-hilt.
And for a moment it seemed to Regis that he saw the Council as Lerrys had seen it: children, squabbling over toys, that contemptuous You’ll whip out your little sword and cut me to pieces with it. Derik had spoken as honor and Comyn law demanded, yet he sounded like a blustering fool. Derik was a fool, of course. But had he ever had a chance to be anything else? Were they all, in Comyn, just such fools?
But Hastur was going, calmly, along with custom. He said to Di Asturien, “Sir, are you ready to accept Prince Derik’s challenge?”
The old man shrank.
“All Gods forbid, sir! I, challenge Hastur of Elhalyn and my lawful prince? I was just putting the question, Lord Hastur, no more than that.” He bowed to Derik. “Su serva, Dom.” And Regis, watching the dignified old man retreat, almost servile, heard again Lerrys’s question.. .playing at lords and ladies… why, because of his ancestry, should a fool like Derik make an old and honorable man, of excellent lineage and long service to his country, cringe like that?
I get it too. From the time I was ten years old, Guards following me around like so many governesses, for fear I would break a toenail—why, in heaven’s name?
Preoccupied again, he missed the next words of Hastur, and roused suddenly to shock when Hastur called out, “The Seventh Domain! Aldaran!”
Then Regis heard a voice he had never thought to hear again, speaking from behind the curtain; then the curtain rings clashed with a small metallic clamor, and a tall man came and stood at the edge of the railing.
He looked like Lew; older, and unscarred, but the resemblance was still there; he might have been Lew’s elder brother. He said, “I am here for Aldaran; Beltran-Kermiac, Lord of Aldaran and Scathfell.”
And the shocked silence in the Crystal Chamber was shattered by Lew’s loud cry.
“I protest!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
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Lew Alton’s narrative
I didn’t know I was going to protest until I heard myself doing it.
I heard them call Aldaran’s name, and realized that this was actually happening; it was not a nightmare. I had heard the voice in nightmares, often enough. He was still so much like me that I have seen twins less alike; although now, no one could mistake us… bitterness overwhelmed me. It was he who had worked to summon Sharra; and there he stood, unscathed; while I, who had suffered to stem the fire-storm he had raised, and contain Sharra again, so that it should not ravage our world from the Bay of Storms to the Wall Around the World—I stood here, scarred and mutilated, more of an outcaste than he.
“I protest!” I shouted again, leaping down until I stood at the center of the open space, facing him.
Hastur said mildly, “We have not yet called for a formal challenge. You must state the reasons for your protest.”
I fought to steady my voice. Whatever my own hate—and I felt that it would rise and swallow me—I must speak now calmly. Hysteria would only harm my cause; no matter what protests, incoherent accusations, were tumbling over one another in my mind, I must plead my cause with quiet rationality. I grasped at the presence in my mind, the alien memories I carried; how would my father have spoken? He had usually been able to make them do his will.
“I declare—” I began, trying to steady my voice against the flood, “I declare—the existence—of an unsettled blood feud.” Blood feud was held, everywhere in the Domains, to be an obligation surmounting every other consideration. “His life is—is mine; I have claimed it.”
To this moment our eyes had not met; now he raised his head, and looked at me, skeptical, concerned. I turned my own away. I did not want to remember that once I had called this man cousin and friend. Gods above, how could the man stand there and look me calmly in the eye and say, as he was saying now, “I did not know you felt that way, Lew. Do you blame me for everything then? How can I make amends? Certainly I was not aware of any such quarrel as that.”
Amends! I clenched the stump of my arm with my good hand, wanting to shout, can you make amends for this? Can you give me back six years of my life, can you bring back— Marjorie? For once in my life I was grateful for the presence of the telepathic dampers without which all this would have blasted through the room with the full force of the hyper-developed Alton rapport—but I said doggedly, “Your life is mine; when, where and as I can.”
Beltran spread his hands slightly, as if to say, “What is this all about?” Before the puzzled look in his eyes, I swear that for a moment I doubted my own sanity. Had I dreamed it all? My fingernails clenched in my wrist, and I reminded myself; this was no nightmare.
Hastur said sternly, “Your words are nothing here, Lord Armida.” I remembered, after a shocked second; this was my name, not my father’s; I was Lord Armida now.