When the door opened again, Damon raised his head in irritation which he quickly controlled — the servant, after all, had his work to do. “Do you want to take the dishes? A moment… Andrew, have you finished?”
“Su serva, dom,” the man said, “the Lady of Arilinn and her leroni from the Tower have begged the favor of a word with you, Lord Damon.”
Begged? Damon thought skeptically, not likely. “Tell them I will see them in the outer chamber in a few minutes.” Privately he thanked whatever God might be listening that Callista was with Ellemir and they had not asked for her. If Leonie saw those scratches on her face… “Come along, Andrew,” he said. “They probably want all four of us, but they don’t know it yet.”
Leonie led the group. Margwenn Elhalyn was with her, and a couple of telepaths from Arilinn who had come since Damon’s time, and one, a man named Rafael Aillard, who had been there with him, though he was now stationed at Neskaya. It was incredible, Damon thought, that at one time this man was part of his circle, closer to Damon than blood kin, a beloved friend. Leonie was veiled and this struck Damon with irritation. Surely it was seemly for a comynara and Keeper to go veiled among strangers. He could have understood it if Margwenn had veiled herself. But Leonie?
But he spoke as if it were an ordinary thing to have his chamber invaded by four strange telepaths and the Keeper of Arilinn. “Kinswoman, you lend me grace. How may I serve you?”
Leonie said bluntly, “Damon, you were sent from Arilinn years ago. You have laran, and you have been trained in the use of a matrix, so you may not be forbidden to use it for such personal purposes as are lawful. But the law forbids that any serious matrix operations shall be undertaken outside the safeguards of a Tower. And now you have used your matrix to kill.”
As a matter of fact, he thought, it had been Callista who killed Dezi. But that didn’t matter. It was his responsibility. He said so.
“I am regent of Alton. I put to death, lawfully, a murderer who had killed one and attempted to kill another within the Domain. I claim privilege.”
“Privilege denied,” Margwenn said. “You should have slain him in a lawful duel, with legitimate weapons. You are not empowered, outside a Tower, to use a matrix for an execution.”
“The attempted murder, and the murder, were both done by matrix. Being Tower-trained, I am sworn to prevent such misuse.”
“Misuse to prevent misuse, Damon?”
“I deny that it was misuse.”
“That decision was not yours to make,” Rafael Aillard said. “If Dezi had broken the laws of Arilinn — and from what I knew of him I find it easy to believe, but that is neither here nor there — you should have laid it before us, and left it to us to take action.”
Damon’s answer was monosyllabic and obscene. Andrew had never believed Damon would speak so in the presence of women. “The first offense was committed in my presence. He sought to force his will on my sworn brother, driving him into a storm without shelter; only good luck saved him from death. And now he has slain my wife’s brother, the heir to Alton, and everyone came near to letting it pass as an unlucky accident! Who but I should deal the punishment? All my life I have been taught that it is my responsibility to deal with an offense against kin. Or what else is Comyn?”
“But,” said Leonie, “your training was given you for use within a Tower. When you were sent forth—”
“When I was sent forth, was I to spend the rest of my life without the knowledge and skill of my training? If I could not be trusted with the knowledge, why was it given? Should I live the rest of my life like a toddler in a walking-harness, not moving unless my nurse holds the reins?” He looked directly at Leonie. He did not say it aloud, but everyone there could follow it: I should never have been sent from Arilinn. I was dismissed upon a pretext which I now know to have been false. Aloud he said, “When I was sent away, I was set free to act upon my own responsibility, like any Comyn son.”
And even now, Leonie, you will not face me.
How dare you! The woman put back her veil. She had, Damon thought with detachment, quite lost the last remnants of her remarkable beauty. She drew herself to her full height — an inch or two taller than Damon — and said, “I will not hear this quibbling!”
Damon said with cold, deliberate insolence, “I did not invite any of you here. Is the guardian of Alton to listen and keep his tongue behind his teeth, like a naughty child being scolded, in his own chamber?”
Leonie frowned. “Would you rather we formally lay these matters before all the Comyn in the Crystal Chamber?”
Damon shrugged and said, “Speak, then.” He nodded to chairs about the room. “Will you sit? I have no taste for discussing weighty matters while I stand shifting from one foot to another like a cadet on punishment detail. And may I offer you refreshment?”
“Thank you, no.” But they took chairs, and Damon sank into another. Andrew remained standing. Without knowing it, he had fallen into the traditional stance of a paxman behind his lord, a step behind where Damon sat. The others saw it and frowned, as Leonie began.
“When you left Arilinn, we trusted you to observe the laws, and in general we made no complaint. From time to time we followed your matrix in the monitor screens, but most of the things you had done were minor and lawful.”
“Excellent,” said Damon with sarcastic emphasis. “I am relieved to know you thought it lawful for me to use my matrix to lock my strongbox, to find my way through a wood if I mistook my path, or to stanch the bleeding of a friend’s wound!”
Rafael Aillard scowled at Damon. “If you will hear us without trying to make bad jokes, we will have done with this painful task more quickly!”
Damon said, “I am not short of time to hear what you have to say. Still, my wife is ill and pregnant, and my father-in-law at death’s very threshold, so it is true I could spend what remains of this day more profitably than listening to this pile of stable-sweepings you are mouthing at me!”
“I am sorry Ellemir is not well,” Leonie said, “but is Esteban so seriously ill as all that? In the Council chamber but this day, he was hearty and strong.”
His mouth set in hard lines, Damon said, “The news of the treachery done by the bastard son he had loved laid him low. It is possible he will live through the day, but he is not likely to see another winter’s snow.”
“So you took it on yourself to avenge him and act as Dezi’s executioner,” Leonie said. “I have no grief for him. He had not been in Arilinn a tenday before I saw such flaws in his character that I knew he would not stay.”
“And, knowing this, you took the responsibility of training him? Who picks a tool unsuited to a task should not complain if it does nothing more than cut the hand that holds it.” Remotely he realized that as recently as Midwinter, it would have been unthinkable to question the motives and decisions of any Keeper, certainly not the Lady of Arilinn.
Margwenn said impatiently, “What would you have had us do? You know it is not easy to find Comyn sons and daughters with full laran, and whatever Dezi’s faults, his gifts were great.”
“You would have done better to train a commoner with less of noble blood, and more of decency and character!”
Rafael said, “You know that no one not of Comyn blood can come within the Veil at Arilinn.”
“Then, damn it,” said Damon, thinking of Ferrika’s gentle touch as she monitored Ellemir, “maybe it’s time to tear down the Veil and make some changes at Arilinn!”
Leonie’s lip curled in distaste. “Where do you get these ideas, Damon? Is this what comes of taking a Terranan into your household?” But she gave him no time to answer.
“We did not complain when you used your matrix lawfully. Even when you took Dezi’s matrix from him, we made no complaint. But you were not content with that. You have done many things unlawful. You have taught this Terranan some rudiments of matrix technology. You will recall that Stefan Hastur decreed, when first they came here, that no Terran was even to be allowed to witness any matrix operation.”