He turned towards his father and stopped. A slender woman stood before him, the colorful plaid of the Beaufort-circling MacTaggart Clan's chieftain blowing from her shoulders. Age had not dulled the flying red of Dame Penelope MacTaggart's hair, yet she looked frail and slight as the eternal Beaufort wind sang about her. She stood with all the dignity and strength of her authority, and Ladislaus stopped before her, feeling suddenly gross and huge as he confronted the calm, emerald eyes in which pride and composure glistened over a sea of sorrow.
"Dame Penelope," he said softly, his deep voice frayed by the wind.
"Lad," she said quietly.
"I--was He broke off and swallowed, feeling the familiar burning behind his eyes once more. "It's sorry I'm to be, Dame Penelope," he said humbly. "Warned I was, but too late. Gone she was, before I was knowing, but it's to be my fault.
I owe a life." "His head bent and he felt the crowd stiffen as he spoke the formal acknowledgment of blood guilt.
In a Beaufort court, such an admission was tantamount to accepting sentence of death. This was not a court of law, but Ladislaus had still given his life into Dame Penelope's hands, to do with as she willed. He sensed the shock of the crowd, yet even that admission was too little to express the depth of his guilt.
"Ladislaus Skjorning, I am hearing you," Dame Penelope's voice rang through the wind in formal response, and Ladislaus raised his eyes to her face, its graceful planes so like Fionna's. "But to be telling me this, Ladislaus Skjorning -comwas it not that both the killers died by her hand? And was it not that you it was caused her to be armed? Was it not that you had warned her?
Was it not that you protected her for ten long years before they had the killing of her?" Ladislaus" face was grim as her questions underscored his ultimate, unforgivable failure, but he nodded.
"hen, Ladislaus Skjorning, do not be telling me you owe a life!" Dame Penelope's voice cut the tension like a knife. "It's proud we're to be--proud of my daughter, who did not go alone to death, and of you, the man who made it so! There's to be no blood debt between you and the MaeTaggarts, Ladislaus Skjorning, fo it's one of our own you're to be, my son!" Ladislaus" head came up, and tears tracked his bearded cheeks as Dame Penelope's strong arms reached around his waist and she laid her proud head on his massive chest, her last words burning in his heart like new hope. They were the formal words of adoption, and the foster tie she offered meant almost more than blood on cold, harsh Beaufort. Hi[ hands fluttered helplessly over her slight shoulders, feeling the strength of Beaufort in them, and he bent his head, his blond beard mingling with the windblown red of the MacTaggarts.
"Ah, Lad, my Lad," she murmured in his ear, stroking his heaving shoulders, "it's always a son you've been to me did you not know it?" And she led him to his father's side.
Seapine burned on the huge hearth. The dried, treelike kelp glowed with a clear, blue flame, and Ladislaus was grateful for the rolling heat, for his blood was thin by Beaufort standards, and he was still shaken by the emotional catharsis he'd endured. Firelight flickered across the metal and stonework with which the people of Beaufort brightened their homes, and the dancing light rippled like sun off water. His father sat across the hearth, his craggy face, sculpted by sea and wind into a cliff of character, gilded by the fire. His brother Stanislaus sat behind him, even taller and broader than he in the seawool tunic with the crossed-harpoons shoulder badge of the master doom-whaler, and Dame Penelope sat beside Sven Skjorning.
Ladislans let his eyes rest on her and remembered his own mother, Ireena Skjorning, thirty years dead, and her unborn daughter with her. Even with the best of medical science--which Beauforters had not been offered before the doomwhale brought them wealth-- Beaufort's high gravity and hostile environment exacted a high price of its women. Beaufort weeded its people mercilessly; only the strong survived its unyielding harshness.
"It's to be good to be having you home, Lad. I was feared they were to have your life, as well." Sven Skjorning's voice was even deeper than his son's, and bitter with hate. He had given a son to the Federation already, dead in the destruction of his heavy cruiser.
"I had the same thinking for long," Ladislaus agreed soberly, "but it's too smart they're to be for that, Father, and they're to place their harpoons with care. They let me go, because it's to suit their purpose to paint us as barbarians and themselves as "civilized" men!"" His face twisted, and he felt the same fury. simmering in his audience.
"Sven," Dame Penelope said into the silence, "it's too long we've been waiting." Her voice was cold as disthe Beaufort sea. "Foo many have had the giving of too much, and what's it to be bringing us?
Shame and oppression, Sven Skjorning!" Ladislaus nodded unconsciously, watching his father with burning eyes. Sven Skjorning stared into the heart of the fire, and his face was hard.
"Ave," he said slowly, "you've the right of it, Penny--as always. Thirtv vears past I gave Ireena my word, but ff she'd lived, 'x" to agree with you she'd be, I think." Ladislaus straightened in his chair. His father stood high in Beaufort's sparse community., but for thirty-three years he'd honored his promise to his dying wife, throttling the hatred which had burned in his heart since the death of his eldest son. The heavv cruiser Fearless had died for one reason only: a Corporat World merchant prince had possessed this political power to demand her service as an escort for a "vital" cargo during the height of a Tangri raid. "It's our children they're to be taking," he rumbled like slow-flowing' magma. "Our wealth they cannot touch, our fights they've had the taking of long since--but no more of our children will they be having!" He looked up from the fire, and his eyes were as bright and blue as the flames. "A son from me, a daughter from you--- enough! It's to be ending!" His fist slammed the thick arm of his chair, and the expensive wood cracked under the blow.
"No, Father. But it's to speak to others before the government I must. It's to be taking time, and when we strike, it's to be with care." "You're to ie talking treason," Stanislaus said softly.
"Aye," Ladislaus replied levelly, "and past time for it, too." "No argument from me," Stanislaus said, "but to be thinking what it's to mean to Beaufort if you fail, Lad." "I have," Ladislaus said bleakly.
"Stanislaus, it's to be better to die than accept some things. There's no stomaching more--I'm not to be standing by any longer. Can you be seeing that?" "Aye, Lad, of course," Stanislaus said simply, gripping his brother's shoulder, "but it's to be sure tou do before you have the starting of a war upon your head. For you're to see it's you must have the doing of it here." "I know," Ladislaus said softly. "God help me, I know." The planetary government of Beaufort was not the sprawling bureaucracy that was the Federation, or, for that matter, any of the Innerworld governments. There were less than six million people on the planet, and the Beaufort Assembly reflected the sparseness of its population base. There were only fifty-six members, all told, and for the most part they were the elders of the great clans which had formed in the Years of Abandonment. The social and survival requirements of an environment humanity was never bred to face had created a paternalistic order, a semi-feudalism, that carried over into xs political processes, as well.