“I promised I would see you safely back to the Castle, Domna,” he said, offering his arm.
She laughed; it was like a rainbow coming out through the cloud. “I thank you, my lord. Not necessary. I’ve walked unguarded in worse places than this!”
“That’s right, you’ve been offworld,” Regis said, feeling again the old longing, the old envy; for all his suffering, Lew was freer than he was himself, with all the worlds of an interstellar Empire at his command. Oh, to go beyond the narrow skies of his own world, to see the stars…he knew now that he would never go. For better or for worse, his fate lay here, whatever it might be; an unwanted crown, the new laranwhich so weighed on him that he felt he would split asunder like a butterfly from its constricting cocoon. He was Hastur; the rest he should put aside, all his old dreams, like the brightly colored tops and balls of his childhood. He walked at Dio’s side, along the Street of Coppersmiths, turning at the corner to take the road to the Comyn Castle, and heard the whispers, saw the crowd draw before him in awe and astonishment.
“Comyn…”
“It’s the Lord Hastur himself… the prince…”
“No, for sure not, what would the likes o’ he be doing here on the street and unguarded…”
“It’s the Hastur prince, yes, I saw him on Festival Night…”
He could not walk down a fairly narrow and unimportant street without collecting a crowd. Lew, a marked man and disfigured, one hand sacrificed to the fires of Sharra, was still more free than himself… If any man stared at Lew it was only with pity or curiosity, not this entire trust, that sense that whatever might come to Darkover, the Hastur-kin would protect them and shield them.
Like my own laran, it is too much for me… too much for any mortal man less than a God!
He drew a fold of his cloak over the concealment of his red hair, all unshielded to the mental leakage of the crowd, wonder, astonishment, curiosity— I cannot dance with a woman or walk with one down the street but my name is linked to hers…
“I’m sorry, Dio,” he said, trying for lightness, “but I’m afraid they have you marked out for my Queen already; it is a pity that we must disappoint them. Now, I suppose, I will have to explain to my grandfather that I do not intend to marry you, either!”
She gave him a small wry smile. “I have no wish to be a Queen,” she said, “and I fear, even if you wished to marry me, Lord Danvan would be scandalized…”
I have cheapened myself with other men on Vainwal; and now I am sister to the traitor who has fled from Darkover into the Empire—
He said, gently, “I did not know Lerrys was gone. But I do not blame him for running away, Dio. I wish I could.” After a moment he added, “And if you are a traitor’s sister, that does not make you traitor; but the more credit to you that you have remained when others have fled.”
They were standing now before the gates of the Comyn Castle; he saw one of the Guardsmen stare at him, alone and unattended and with Lady Dio Ridenow, and although he was trying not to read the man’s mind, he could sense the man’s shock and amazement; Lord Regis, here and without even a bodyguard, and with a woman… and a secret pleasure at this morsel of gossip he could spread among his fellows. Well, everything Regis did created gossip, but he was heartily sick of it.
He crossed the courtyard, wanting to say a polite word or two to Dio and dismiss her. He had too many troubles to share them with any woman, even if there was a woman alive with whom he could share anything except a brief moment of passion or pleasure. And, abruptly, looking at Dio, he was torn by her despair.
“What is it, Dio?” he asked gently, and felt it flood through him.
He was so sure he was going to die! All he sees is his own death…I would have gone to death, even that, beside him, but he can only see Callina…
He was struck numb by the quality of her pain. No woman had ever loved him like that, none ever shown him that kind of loyalty and staunchness—
He has gone to die, to hurl himself against death in finding the weapon against Sharra—
Regis realized that he should have gone with Lew himself; or he should have taken his matrix, cleansed it as he had done to Rafe’s. What gave him this strange power, not over Sharra, but over the Form of Fire? Kadarin was somewhere, with the Sharra matrix, and Lew might fall into his hands—
He should have gone with Lew, or cleansed Lew’s matrix. Or at least demanded that Callina take him to Ashara, so that the ancient Keeper of the Comyn could explain this new and monstrous Hastur Gift. Lew at least is Tower-trained, he knows what strengths he has… and what weaknesses; he faces death with full knowledge, not blinded as I am by ignorance! What was the good of being Hastur, and Lord of Comyn, if he could not even know what this new laranmight bring him?
Dio was trying to conceal her tears. Part of him wanted to reassure her, but he had no comfort for her and in any case Dio did not want facile lies; she was one of the sensitive Ridenow and she would see through them at once. He said quietly, “It may be that we are all going to die, Dio. But if I have a chance I would rather die to keep Sharra from destroying Darkover—Terran and Comyn alike. And so would Lew, I think; and he has the right to choose his own death… and to make amends…”
“I suppose so.” Beneath the understanding, she turned to him, no longer trying to conceal her tears, and somehow he realized that this was a kind of acceptance. “It’s strange; I have seen so much of his—his weakness, his gentler side, I forget how strong he is. He would never run away to the Terrans because he was afraid; not even if they burned off his other hand first…”
“No,” said Regis, suddenly feeling closer to her than to his own sister, “he wouldn’t.”
“You wouldn’t either, would you?” she asked, smiling at him through the tears in her eyes.
He is Hastur…and he will stand by Comyn… and then, even in Dio, the curious and inevitable question: I wonder why he has never married? Surely he could have any woman he wanted… surely it is not true that he is, like Lerrys, like Dyan, only a lover of men, he has had women, he hasnedestro children—
And then, Regis felt it, a return of her own despair and pain, our son, Lew’s and mine, that frightful thing, and I rebuffed him…it was only because I was so sick and weak, I did not hate him or blame him, and then Lerrys took me away, before I could tell him… Merciful Avarra, he has suffered so much, and I hurt him again, all that horror, when I had promised that he would never have to hide himself from me…
… and he will die still thinking I had rebuffed him because of that horror—
And suddenly Regis found himself envying Lew.
How he has been loved! I have never known what it was to love a woman like that or to be loved… and I shall die never knowing if I am capable of that kind of love…
Oh, yes, there had been women. He was capable of sudden flaring passion, of taking them with pleasure, given and received; but once the flare of mutual lust had burned out, sometimes even before the woman knew herself pregnant with his child, he had been all too aware of what it was they felt for him; pleasure at his physical beauty, pride that they had attracted the attention of a Hastur, greed for the status and privilege that would be theirs if they bore a Hastur child. Any one of the five or six would gladly have married him for that status; but he had never felt for any of them anything more than that brief flaring of passion and lust; the vague distaste and even revulsion, knowing that their feeling for him was based on greed or pride.
But never this kind of disinterested love… will I die without ever knowing if I am capable of attracting that kind of love from a woman? No one has ever loved me thus unselfishly but Danilo, and that is different, the love of comrades, a shared companionship… and even that, all men seem to despise… a thing to be put aside with boyhood…is there no more than this? Why can Lew attract this kind of love, and not I?