Dyan is not to blame. The Council did not do their duty by him, but turned him loose, his Gift untrained, unchanneled…
As with mine! But again Regis stopped the flow of thought; thinking, in dismay and outrage, that the damper should have done that. Before they could speak, the door opened and Rafe came in, unannounced.
Lew’s face darkened; but Rafe said “Cousin—” in such a pleading way that Lew gave him an uneasy smile. He said, “Come in, Rafe. None of this is your fault; you’re a victim too.”
“It’s taken me all this time to get up courage enough to tell you this,” said Rafe, “but you have to know. Something the Legate said this morning meant that I didn’t dare wait any longer. I want you to come with me, Lew. There’s something you must see.”
“Can’t you tell me what it is?” Lew asked.
Rafe hesitated and said, “I would rather say this to you alone—” with an uneasy glance at Regis.
Lew’s voice was brusque. “Whatever you have to say; I’ve no secrets from Regis.”
Regis thought, I don’t deserve such confidence. But he slammed his mind shut, wanting no more of the telepathic leakage he suddenly seemed unable to shut out of his mind.
“There was no woman here to take charge,” said Rafe. “I went to your foster-sister. She agreed to take charge of her.”
“Of whom, in God’s name?” Lew demanded, then his mind quickly leaped to conclusions.
“This alleged child who’s been gossiped about in the Guards?”
Rafe nodded and led the way. It was not Linnell, however, who faced them, but Callina.
“I knew,” she said in a low voice. “Ashara told me… there are not many female children in the Domains who might be trained as I have been trained, and I think—I think Ashara wants her…” and she stopped, her words choking off. She gestured to an inner room. “She is there… she was afraid in a strange place and I made her sleep…”
In a small cot, a little girl, five or six years old, lay sleeping. Her hair was copper-red, freshly minted; scattered across her face, which was triangular, scattered with pale gold freckles. She murmured drowsily, still fast asleep.
Regis felt it run through Lew, like a powerful electric shock.
I have seen her before… a dream, a vision, a precognitive dream… she is mine! Not my father’s, not my dead brother’s, mine… my blood knows…
Regis felt his amazement and recognition. He said in a low voice, “Yes; it is like that.” When first he had looked upon the face of his newborn nedestro son there had been a moment of recognition, absolute knowledge, this is my own son, born of my own seed… there had never been any question in his mind; he had not needed the monitoring to tell him this was his own true child.
“But who was her mother?” Lew asked. “Oh, there were a few women in my life, but why did she never tell me?” He broke off as the little girl opened her eyes…
Golden eyes; amber; a strange color, a color he had never seen before, never but once— Regis heard the hoarse gasping cry Lew could not keep back.
“No!” he cried. “It can’t be! Marjorie died… she died… died, and our child with her— Merciful Evanda, am I going mad?”
Rafe’s eyes, so like the eyes Lew remembered, turned compassionately on them both. “Not Marjorie, Lew. This is Thyra’s child. Thyra was her mother.”
“But—but no, it can’t be,” Lew said, gasping, “I never— never once touched her—I would not have touched that hellcat’s fingertips—”
“I’m not quite sure what happened,” Rafe said. “I was very young, and Thyra—didn’t tell me everything. But there was a time, at Aldaran, when you were drugged… and not aware of what you were doing…”
Lew buried his face in his hand, and Regis, unable to shut out anything, felt the full, terrifying flow of his thoughts.
Ah Gods, merciful Evanda, I thought that was all a dream… burning, burning with rage and lust…Marjorie in my arms, but turning, in the mad way dreams do, to Thyra even as I kissed her— Kadarin had done this to me… and I remember Thyra weeping in my dream, crying as she had not done even when her father died…It was not her choice either, Thyra was Kadarin’s pawn too…
“She was born a few seasons after Caer Donn burned,” Rafe said. “Something happened to Thyra when this child was born; I think she went mad for a little while…I do not remember; I was very young, and I had been ill for a long time after the—the burning. I thought, of course, that it was Kadarin’s child, he and Thyra had been together so long…”
And Regis followed Rafe’s thoughts too, a frightening picture of a woman maddened to raving, turning on the child she had not wanted to bear, conceived by a shameful trick…with a man drugged and unaware. A child who had had to be removed to safety from time to time—
The little girl was awake now, sitting up, looking at them all curiously with those wide, improbable amber eyes. She looked at Rafe and smiled, evidently recognizing him. Then she looked at Lew, and Regis could feel it, like a blow, her shock at the sight of the ragged, ugly scars. Lew was scowling. Well, I don’t blame him—to find out, that way, that he had been drugged, used… Regis had seen Thyra only once or twice, and that briefly, but he had somehow, even then, sensed the tension of anger and desire between Thyra and Lew. And they had been together, sealed to Sharra…
The little girl sat up, tense as a small scared animal. Regis could feel again Lew’s shock at the sudden, frightening resemblance to Marjorie.
Then Lew said, his rough voice muted, “Don’t be scared, chiya. I’m not a pretty sight, but believe me, I don’t eat little girls.”
The little girl smiled. Her small face was charming, pointed in a small triangle. A tooth had come out of the middle of her smile.
“They said you were my father.”
“Oh, God, I suppose so,” Lew said. Suppose so. I know I am, damn it. He was wide open now, and Regis could not shut out his thoughts. Lew sat down uneasily on the edge of the cot. “What do they call you, chiy’lla?”
“Marja,” she said shyly. “I mean—Marguerida. Marguerida Kadarin.” She lisped the name in the soft mountain dialect. Marjorie’s name! “But I just be Marja.” She knelt upright, facing him. “What happen to your other hand?”
Regis had seen enough of Javanne’s children—and his own—to know how direct they were; but Lew was disconcerted by her straightforwardness. He blinked and said, “It was hurt and they had to cut it off.”
Her amber eyes were enormous. Regis could feel her thinking this over. “I’m sorry—” and then she said, trying the word out on her tongue, “Father.” She reached up and patted his scarred cheek with her small hand. Lew swallowed hard and caught her against him, his head bent; but Regis could feel that he was shaken, close to tears, and again could not shut out Lew’s thoughts.
I saw this child once, even before Marjorie and I were lovers, saw her in a vision, and thought it meant that Marjorie would bear my child, that all would be well with us—I foresaw; but I did not foresee that Marjorie would have been dead for years before ever this daughter of mine and I should meet…
“Where were you brought up, Marja?”
“In a big house with lots of other little boys and girls,” she said, “They’re orphans, but I’m something else. It’s a bad word that Matron says I must never, never say, but I’ll whisper it to you.”
“Don’t,” Lew said. He could guess; Regis remembered that there were still those who had called him bastard, even after he was acknowledged Heir to Alton. He had her snuggled on his lap now, in the curve of his arm.