Good for him, Regis thought, looking at the angry youngster, knife in hand, crouched into a stance of readiness for a fight. Merryl blinked; then whipped out his knife and backed away, giving himself room to move. He said, “It will be a pleasure, Alton bastard—”
Lerrys tried to move toward them, laid a hand on Marius’s wrist. “Wait a minute—”
“Keep out of this, sir,” Marius said, between gritted teeth.
Good, the boy has courage! Good-looking, too, in his own way! Zandru’s hells, why didn’t Kennard— For a moment Regis could not identify the source of the thought, then Dyan said aloud, “Put your knife up, Merryl! Damn it, that’s an order! You too, Marius, lad. Council never acknowledged your father’s marriage, but it’s not hard to see you’re your father’s son.”
Marius hesitated, then lowered the knife in his hand. Merryl Lindir-Aillard snarled, “Damn you, are you afraid to fight me, then, like all you coward Terrans—ready to kill with your coward’s weapons and guns from a distance, but frightened of bare steel?”
Lerrys stepped between them, saying, “This is no place for a brawl! In Zandru’s name—”
Regis saw that the others in the tavern had drawn back, making something like a ring of spectators. When kinsmen quarrel, enemies step in to widen the gap! Does it give them pleasure to see Comyn at odds? “Stop it, both of you! This is not a house of bandits!”
“Get back, both of you,” said a new, authoritarian voice, and Gabriel Lanart-Hastur, Commander of the Guard, stepped forward. “If you want to fight, make it a formal challenge, and let’s not have any stupid brawls here! Are you both drunk? Lerrys, you are an officer, you know no challenge is valid unless both challengers are sober! Marius—”
Marius said, fists clenched, “He insulted my father and mother, kinsman! For the honor of the Alton Domain—”
Gabriel said quietly, “Leave the honor of the Domain in my hands until you are older, Marius.”
“I am sober enough to challenge him!” Marius said, angrily, “and here I call challenge—”
“Merryl, you damned fool—” Dyan said urgently, laying a hand on his shoulder, “this is serious—”
“I’m damned if I’ll fight a Terran bastard with honor,” shouted Merryl, enraged, and rounded on Gabriel Lanart-Hastur. He said, “I’ll fight you, or your whole damned Domain—if I can get any of them back here on Darkover where they belong! But your Lord Alton is no better than any of his bastards, off gallivanting all over the Empire when they’re needed in Council—”
Gabriel took a step forward, but there was a glare of blue fire and Merryl went reeling back staggering. The telepathic slap was like a thunder in the minds of everyone there.
BRIDLE YOUR STUPID TONGUE, LACK-WIT! I HAVE LONG SUSPECTED THAT DOMNA CALLINA IS TRULY THE MAN OF YOUR HOUSEHOLD, BUT MUST YOU PROVE IT HERE IN PUBLIC LIKE THIS? ARE YOUR BRAINS ALL WHERE YOU CAN SIT UPON THEM? It was followed by an obscene image; Regis saw Merryl cringe. He felt it in Danilo’s mind too; Danilo had known what it was to be abused by Dyan, mercilessly, with sadistic strength, until Danilo had cracked and drawn a knife on him— Regis, feeling Danilo cower, felt his friend’s agony and stepped back, blindly, to stand close to him. Merryl was dead white; for a moment Regis thought he would weep, there before them all.
Then Dyan said aloud, coldly, “Lord Regis, Danilo, I believe we have an engagement to dine. Dom Lerrys, I thank you for the drink.” He nodded to Regis, then turned away from them all. There was nothing Regis or Danilo could do but follow him. Merryl was still numbly holding the knife; he slid it into his sheath and went after them. With a swift look backward, Regis saw the tension had evaporated; Gabriel was talking in an urgent undertone to Marius, but that was all right; there was no malice, Regis knew, in his brother-in-law; and after all, in Kennard’s absence, Gabriel was Marius’s guardian.
Outside, Dyan frowned repressively at Merryl. “I had intended to ask you to join us; I want you and Regis to know one another. But you’d better stay away until you learn how to behave in the city, boy! The first time I take you into the company of the Comyn, you get yourself into a stupid brawl!”
Neither tone nor words need have been changed a fraction if he had been speaking to a boy of eight or nine who had bloodied his nose in a dispute over a game of marbles. Inexcusable as Merryl’s behavior had been, Regis felt sorry for the youngster, who stood, crimson, accepting Dyan’s tongue-lashing without a word. Well, he deserved it. Merryl said, swallowing, “Was I to stand there and be insulted by Terrans and half-Terrans, kinsman?” He used the word in the intimate mode which could mean Uncle, and Dyan did not reprove him; he reached out and slapped him very lightly on the cheek.
“I think you did the insulting. And there’s a right way and a wrong way to do these things, kiyu. Go think about the right way. I’ll see you later.”
Merryl went, but he no longer looked quite so much like a puppy that had been kicked. Regis, acutely uncomfortable, followed Dyan through the street. The Comyn lord turned into the doorway of what looked like a small, discreet tavern. Inside, he recognized the place for what it was, but Dyan shrugged and said, “We’ll meet no other Comyn here, and I can endure to be spared the company of any more like the last!” The flicker of unspoken thought again, if you value your privacy, lad, you might as well get used to places like this one, was so indifferent that Regis could ignore it if he chose.
“As you wish, kinsman.”
“The food’s quite good,” Dyan said, “and I have ordered dinner. You needn’t see anything else of the place, if you prefer not to.” He followed a bowing servant into a room hung with crimson and gilt, and talked commonplaces—about the decorations, about the soft stringed music playing—while young waiters came and brought all kinds of food.
“The music is from the hills; they are a famous group of four brothers,” said Dyan. “I heard them while they were still in Nevarsin, and it was I who urged them to come to Thendara.”
“A beautiful voice,” said Regis, listening to the clear treble of the youngest musician.
“Mine was better, once,” said Dyan, and Regis, hearing the indifference of the voice, knew it covered grief. “There are many things you do not know about me; that is one. I have done no singing since my voice broke, though when I was in the monastery for a time last winter, I sang a little with the choir. It was peaceful in the monastery, though I am not a cristoforo and will never be so; their religion is too narrow for me. I hope a day will come when you will find it so, Danilo.”
“I am not a good cristoforo,” Danilo said, “but it was my father’s faith and will be mine, I suppose, till I find a better.”
Dyan smiled. He said, “Religion is an entertainment for idle minds, and yours is not idle enough for that. But it does a man in public life no harm to conform a little to the religion of the people, if the conformity is on the surface and does not contaminate his serious thinking. I hold with those who say, even in Nevarsin, There is no religion higher than the truth. And that is not blasphemy either, foster-son; I heard it from the lips of the Father Master. But enough of this—I had something to say to you, Danilo, and I thought to save you the trouble of running at once to pour it into Regis’s ears. In a word; I am a man of impulse, as you have known for a long time. Last year I dwelt for a time at Aillard, and Merryl’s twin sister bore me a son ten days since. Among other business of the Comyn, I am here to have him legitimated.”
Danilo said correctly, “My congratulations, foster-father.”