Grandfather has aged overnight; I have always known he was very old, but until that Festival Night he had never shown his age.
“Perhaps,” Dani said quietly, “he has borne this burden all these years because he knew Derik could not rule in his place if he gave up the Regency—but now he trusts you to guard the Comyn in his place.”
Regis bowed his head as if this new burden had been piled physically on him, like a heavy weight. I have known all along that this day would come; I have wished that my grandfather did not treat me like a child; and now when he does not, I am afraid to be a grown man in command of myself and others. It was now his decision to make. He said, “Send a message to the Legate, asking him as a personal favor to me—emphasize that, Dani, as a personal favor to me—to withdraw uniformed Spaceforce men from the Old Town, and restrict them to the Trade City. Or better; write it and I’ll sign it, and have it sent by the most prestigious escort you can find.”
Danilo said, with a wavering grin, “We never thought it would come to this when we were together in Nevarsin and I learned to write a better hand than you. Now you can keep me on hand as your private secretary.”
Regis knew what Danilo was trying to say without putting it into words. As Heir to Hastur he had been visible enough, always in the public eye. But he had done his duty to ensure heirs to the Hastur Domain, and for the rest he had told himself, fiercely, I am not the only lover of men in the Domains! But now, as Prince of the Comyn, he would be even more the public representative of the Comyn. Centuries ago, the Hastur-kin had separated the Hastur Domains of Hastur and Elhalyn, allotting to the Elhalyn all the ceremonial and public duties with the crown.
“A crown on a stick, that’s what they want,” he said grimly. “Something they can hang up in the marketplace and bow down to!” He thought, but did not say, that the Domains had effectively been without a King all during the two-and-twenty years of the Regency, ever since the infant Prince Derik was left fatherless, and the Domains had been none the worse for that lack.
“We had better make sure that there are any Domains to rule over,” he said, when the message had been written, “Derik may not have been the only one to die. And whom shall we send with this message?”
“Lerrys?” Danilo suggested. “He knows the Legate personally—”
Regis shook his head. “Lerrys is too much a Terran sympathizer—I’m not sure he’d deliver the message at all,” he said. “Lerrys’s view is that the Terrans have every right to be here since we are a Terran colony. Merryl?”
“Couldn’t trust him to keep his temper,” Danilo replied promptly.
Regis said hesitantly, “I would send Lew Alton; but he was wounded Festival Night—”
And he is personally concerned in this business of Sharra— “I wonder, Danilo; if I asked Lord Ardais to go—”
“I think he would be pleased to carry such a message to the Legate,” Danilo said, “for he knows what it will do to the city, having uniformed Spaceforce about, and he is always eager to keep the people calm.”
“I won’t order him to do it,” said Regis. “I know he does not like to go among Terrans, but he may be willing to go if I ask it personally as Lord Elhalyn—”
And again the tragedy struck him; Derik was older than he was himself, yet Derik had died without so much as a nedestro son to carry on his name. He had loved Linnell and had waited for their marriage, so that Linnell might bear his Heir; and now they were both dead.
And I have never cared so much for any woman. So I have two sons and a daughter, since I had no hesitation in using a woman for that purpose. Gods! What irony!
Yet I shall not share my throne with any woman, at least not for a time, nor until I find one with whom I am content also to share my life.
“I will go and ask Dyan myself,” he said, glancing at the climbing sun, and suddenly aware that he had had no sleep and that he was weary. “He should still be sleeping, but for this he will not mind being wakened.”
But in the Ardais quarters there were only servants, and one of them told Danilo that Lord Ardais had gone out early.
“Do you know where he is?”
“Zandru’s hells, sir, no! Do you think the Lord Ardais tells his comings and goings to the likes of me?”
“Damn! Now I’ll have to hunt all through the Castle for him,” Regis said, wondering whether Dyan had gone to the Guard hall to see if he, an experienced officer, could be of some help to Gabriel, or whether he had left the ballroom earlier on some private errand and was still abed somewhere with a new favorite. If so, he might not know anything of the destruction that had raged in the Comyn!
Had it been only the day before that he had discussed this very possibility—sending Spaceforce into the Old Town of Thendara to find Kadarin? He had advised against it then; but Lawton had that authority, and now Kadarin had appeared actually within the Comyn Castle, to try and lure Lew Alton back to them… had he any right to keep Lawton from finding this man who was wanted for murder, and other crimes, by both Terran and Darkovan?
“Gabriel may know,” he said, “and there are guardsmen at the doors of the Aldaran suite; they may be able to tell us where Gabriel is—in the Guard Hall, or out hunting for our wanted man!”
The suite of rooms allotted in Comyn Castle to the Aldarans had stood empty ever since Regis could remember; it was in a wing of the Castle which Regis had never knowingly entered before. Two big Guardsmen stood outside the door which was bolted shut on the outside. They saluted Regis, and he greeted them politely.
“Darren, Ruyven—I have to speak with my brother-in-law. Do you know if Dom Gabriel is in the Guard Hall, or if he’s gone into the city? I have to locate Lord Ardais—”
“Oh, I can tell you where the Lord Ardais is, sir,” the Guardsman Ruyven said. “He’s in there, talking to Lord Aldaran.”
Regis frowned and said, “I heard Captain Lanart-Hastur give orders that no one should be allowed to speak with Aldaran—”
“I didn’t hear him say that, sir, I only came on at dawn,” Ruyven said, “and anyhow—” he looked down at his boots, but Regis knew perfectly well what the man was thinking; was he supposed to give orders to a Lord of Comyn, and, moreover, one who had been his own superior officer for many years? Regis said, “Never mind, then, Ruyven, but you’ll have to let us in to see him, too.”
When Regis was small, he had been curious about the locked, empty Aldaran apartments. As the Guardsman let him in, he noticed that a dank and empty smell still clung about the walls and the embroidered hangings with the Aldaran double-headed eagle. They found Beltran in the main presence-chamber; someone had brought him some breakfast and he was eating porridge and nut-bread from a tray on his lap. Dyan sat at ease in a nearby chair, drinking something hot from a mug.
He looked up curiously at the younger men, but Beltran grinned widely. Regis had forgotten how much alike he and Lew really were, even through Lew’s scars.
“Well, Regis,” he said, “at last we are even; you came as kinsman to my castle and I imprisoned you—and now I come as kinsman to yours, and you imprison me. I suppose it’s only fair you should have your day.”
It was like Beltran, Regis supposed, to put him immediately on the defensive. He said stiffly, “A word with you, if you please, Lord Ardais.” He was not going to discuss Comyn business with Beltran present.
“Lord Aldaran is party to Comyn business,” Dyan reminded them.
“Not this,” Regis said coldly. “Are you aware, Lord Dyan, that Prince Derik died during the night?”