“My dear, dear boy—”
Damon wondered how he could deprive the old man of the comfort of his only other remaining son, deprive Valdir of his only living brother? It was a true saying, bare is back without brother. In any case, Dezi, deprived of his matrix, was harmless.
Valdir came and hugged Ellemir. “I see you finally did marry Damon. I thought you would.” But before Callista he hung shyly back. Callista held out her hands, explaining to Andrew, “I went to the Tower when Valdir was an infant in arms; I have seen him only a few times since, and not since he was a tiny child. I am sure you have forgotten me, brother.”
“Not quite,” said the boy, looking up at his tall sister. “I seem to remember a little. We were in a room with colors, like a rainbow. I must have been very small. I fell and hurt my knee, and you took me on your lap and sang to me. You were wearing a white dress with something blue on it.”
She smiled. “I remember now, it was when you were presented in the Crystal Chamber, as every Comyn son must be so that they may be sure he has no hidden defect or deformity, when later he is pledged for marriage. I was only a psi monitor then. But you were not even five years old; I am surprised you should even remember the blue veil. This is my husband, Andrew.”
The child bowed courteously but did not offer Andrew his hand, retreating to Dezi’s side. Andrew bowed coldly to Dezi; Damon gave him a kinsman’s embrace, hoping the touch would dispel the suspicions he could not be rid of. But Dezi was well barricaded against him. Damon could not read his mind even a little. Then Damon admonished himself to be fair. At their last meeting he had tortured Dezi, nearly killed him; how could he greet Damon with much friendship?
Dom Esteban was taken to his rooms. He looked pleadingly at Dezi, and the young man followed his father. When they had gone Andrew said with a grimace, “Well, I thought we were rid of him. But if it comforts our father to have him near, what can we do?”
Damon thought it would not be the first time that a bastard son, rascally in his youth, had become the prop and mainstay of a father who had lost his other children. He hoped for Dom Esteban’s sake, and for Dezi’s own, that it might prove to be so.
He joined Andrew and Callista, saying, “Will you come with me to the chapel, to see what has been done with Domenic? If all is seemly, we can spare our father this, and Ellemir. Ferrika has put her to bed. She knew Domenic best… there is no need to harrow her feelings more.”
The chapel was in the deepest part of the Comyn Castle, carved from the living rock of the mountain on which it stood. It had the cold, earthy chill of an underground cavern. Domenic lay in the echoing silence on a long trestled bier, before the carved image Andrew could already recognize as the Blessed Cassilda, mother of the Domains. In the carved stone figure Andrew fancied be could actually see a faint likeness to Callista’s own features, and to the cold and lifeless face of the young man who lay dead.
Damon bowed his head, burying his face in his hands. Callista gently bent and kissed the cold brow, murmuring something Andrew could not hear. A dark form, crouched kneeling beside the bier, suddenly stirred and rose. It was a short, sturdily built young man, disheveled and heavy-eyed, his eyelids reddened with long weeping. Andrew knew who he must be, even before Callista held out her hands.
“Cathal, dear cousin.”
He stared at them pitifully for a moment before he found his voice. “Lady Ellemir, my lords…”
“I am not Ellemir, but Callista, cousin,” she said quietly. “We are grateful that you should have remained with Domenic till we could come. It is right there should be someone near who loved him.”
“So I felt, and yet I felt guilty, I who was his murderer—” His voice broke. Damon embraced the shaking lad.
“We all know it was mischance, kinsman. Tell me how it happened.”
The red-eyed stare was pitiable. “We were in the armory, working with wooden practice swords as we did every day. He was a better swordsman than I,” Cathal said, and his face came apart. He too, Andrew noticed, had Comyn features; “cousin” was not just politeness.
“I didn’t know I had hit him so hard, truly I didn’t. I thought he was shamming, teasing me, that he would spring up and laugh — he did that so often.” His face twisted. Damon, remembering a thousand pranks during Domenic’s cadet year, wrung Cathal’s hand. “I know, my boy.” Had the lad gone like this, uncomforted, burdened since the death?
“Tell me about it.”
“I shook him.” Cathal was white with horror. “I said, ‘Get up, you silly donkey, stop playing the fool.’ And then I took off his mask and I saw he was unconscious. But even then I didn’t think much about it — someone is always getting hurt.”
“I know, Cathal, I was knocked senseless half a dozen times in my cadet years, and look, my middle finger is still crooked where Coryn broke it with a practice sword. But what did you do then, lad?”
“I ran off to fetch the hospital officer, Master Nicol.”
“You left him alone?”
“No, his brother was with him,” Cathal said. “Dezi was putting cold water on his face, trying to bring him around. But when I came back with Master Nicol he was dead.”
“Are you sure he was alive when you left him, Cathal?”
“Yes,” Cathal said positively. “I could hear him breathing, and I felt his heart.”
Damon shook his head, sighing. “Did you notice his eyes. Were the pupils dilated? Contracted? Did he react to light in any way?”
“I… I didn’t notice, Lord Damon, I never thought to look.”
Damon sighed. “No, I suppose not. Well, dear lad, head injuries do not always follow the rules. A Guardsman in my year as hospital officer was knocked against a wall in a street fight, and when they picked him up he seemed quite well, but at supper he went to sleep with his head on the table, and never woke, but died in his sleep.” He stood up, his hand resting on Cathal’s shoulder.
“Set your mind at rest, Cathal. There was nothing you could have done.”
“Lord Hastur and some of the others, they questioned and questioned me, as if anyone could ever believe I could hurt Domenic. We were bredin — I loved him.” The boy went and stood before the statue of Cassilda, saying vehemently, “The Lords of Light strike me here if I could ever harm him!” Then he turned and knelt for a moment at Callista’s feet. “Domna, you are a leronis, you can prove at will that I held no malice toward my dear lord, that I would have died myself to shield him, would that my hand had withered first!”
Tears had begun to flow again. Damon bent and raised him, saying firmly, “We know that, my lad, believe me.”
Grief and guilt flooded him. The boy was wide open to Damon’s mind, but the guilt was only for the careless blow, there was no guile in Cathal. “Now a time has come when more weeping is only self-indulgence. You must go and rest. You are his paxman; you must ride at his side when he is laid in the earth.”
Cathal drew a long breath, looking up into Damon’s face. “You do believe me, Lord Damon. Now, now I really think I can sleep.”
He watched the boy turn away, sighing. Whatever reassurances he might give, Cathal would live the rest of his life with the knowledge that he had slain his kinsman and his sworn friend by evil chance. Poor Cathal. Domenic died quickly and without pain. Cathal would suffer for years.
Callista was standing before the bier, looking down at Domenic, dressed in the colors of his Domain, his curly hair combed unnaturally smooth, his eyes peacefully closed. She felt at his throat.