Exile's Song (26 page)

 

Margaret sat up in the bed, her head throbbing. She stared at the whitewashed walls and the heavy wooden beams above her, and felt disoriented for a moment. Then she remembered that she was in the inn with the sign of the deer outside it, and not trapped in some snowy landscape with her mother and her aunt and a furious Lew. Relief flooded her, and she felt her hands unclench. Her rapidly beating heart returned to normal after a few minutes.

She looked around and found that Rafaella was asleep on a mattress on the floor beside the bed. A large gray cat was curled in the curve of her legs, and it looked up at her and yawned. The sheer ordinariness of it all calmed her. She swung her legs from under the covers and found that she had been undressed completely, and Darkovan nightclothes had been put on her. The pungent smell of the trail still clung to her skin, though, and she longed for a bath.

Rafaella prized an eye open and examined her. “There is a bathing tub two doors down the hall, and
Mestra
Hannah washed your clothes. They should be dry by now. How do you feel?”

“Much better, thank you. It must have been the altitude.”

“I am glad. I was very worried. Go bathe while I get a little more sleep. You must have had some fearsome dreams—you kept whimpering—when you weren’t screaming.”

“I am sorry if I disturbed your sleep, Rafaella.”

“Not me—I can sleep through anything—but the horse merchants in the next room might have lost some.” She grinned, showing all her teeth. “They deserved it—if they are horse merchants, then I am a rabbit-horn.” With this cryptic comment, she turned over and went back to sleep.

 

Bathed and dressed in the outfit she had originally purchased from MacEwan, Margaret felt almost herself for the first time in twenty-some hours. The sense of a headache just a breath away persisted, but her stomach seemed to be the reliable organ it usually was, one which could consume almost anything without discomfort. She decided not to overdo it and ate a light breakfast with several mugs of tea.

Rafaella joined her as she was sipping her tea, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “I talked to old Gavin last night in the taproom, and he is expecting us later this morning,” she announced. “He wasn’t glad to see me, but I promised him a few
reis
for his song, and told him you were a Terranan.”

“Why did you do that?” Margaret was surprised, because she had been to some effort to appear as a Darkovan.

“The man is very selfish—egotistical, I guess. He was ready to say he wouldn’t sing until I told him his songs would be heard in far places. They will, won’t they? I wouldn’t want to have lied to him.”

“Certainly. My recordings will go into the archives on University, and students of music will listen to them. And after that, who knows?”

“What does that mean?” Rafaella asked, helping herself to a huge bowl of porridge.

“A few years ago some popular musicians got hold of some folk songs from New Hispaniola and turned them into hits.”

“Hits? Did they strike people with the songs?”

Margaret nearly choked on her mouthful of tea. The Darkovan word she had used meant a “blow” and lacked any other meaning. She coughed and recovered her breath. That would teach her to try to translate Terran into Darkovan without thinking first!

“No, nothing so violent. What I meant was that the songs were recorded and much acclaimed—played over and over until everyone in the Federation got totally sick of them. They call that a hit.”

“Oh. Why didn’t you say so?”

 

At mid-morning the two women approached the cottage of Gavin MacDougal. It was still cool, and the street was a little muddy from rain the previous night. Margaret carried her precious equipment in a bag over her shoulder, and looked around with interest. She had been too ill to notice much the previous afternoon.

MacDougal’s cottage was something of a hovel. The little garden beside the building was full of rank weeds and a few drooping bushes, and the walk to the door was littered with oddments. Margaret saw a broken plow, a saddle which had sat out in the weather for several seasons, and several other things she could not immediately identify.

Rafaella opened the poorly-hung wooden door and entered without knocking. It was dark and fairly ripe within. It smelled of old man, wood-smoke, cooking, and dirty clothing. Margaret was shocked. Somehow she had created an image in her mind where all Darkovan homes were clean and smelled of balsam and freshness. How did the old man live in this filth?

A form crouched beside the hearth stirred, and as her eyes adjusted to the dim light, Margaret saw Gavin. He was small and wizened, his head entirely hairless and his shoulders stooped with age. He coughed and hawked into the fireplace, and the sound of sizzling broke the silence for a moment.

“Welcome,” he muttered gruffly. He peered nearsightedly at the women. “I thought you told me she was Terranan.”

Rafaella scuffled her boots on the floor and looked slightly uncomfortable. “Well, she is, and she isn’t.”

“Don’t you try to riddle me, girl. I may be old, but I am not senile! She is one or the other.” He moved closer, and she could smell ancient sweat on his garments and beer on his sour breath. He looked at her closely in the poor light.

Margaret was annoyed at being discussed as if she were invisible. “In truth, I am both. I was born on Darkover, but I have spent most of my life . . .”

“Forgive me,
domna,
” he interrupted. “Even these old eyes can see you are of the
comyn.
You honor my house.” He glared at Rafaella. “What are you playing at—trying to pass this woman off as a Terranan to me? You are a bad girl, and you will come to a bad end. And none too soon either. Dashing around like a hoyden, instead of behaving like a proper woman.”

Rafaella bristled and was about to answer in her forthright and heedless way when Margaret spoke. “My father was
comyn, Mestru
MacDougal.”

“I knew it! Think you can fool me! May I know his name, my lady?” He managed to combine spite and servility in a way Margaret found extraordinarily distasteful. She could see why Jerana had not wished to marry him, for she was sure he had been an extremely unpleasant young man.

“My father is Lewis Alton, the Imperial Senator for Darkover.” She saw the look of startlement on Rafaella’s face, and realized that somehow she had never mentioned her father by name before. It didn’t really matter that he had resigned, because he would always carry the rank of Senator. Besides, these people probably never thought about the Senate, or the Terran Federation, if they were anything like the back-country people she had encountered on other planets.

An expression of distaste came across Gavin’s face, and he pursed his wrinkled mouth. “I wish you nothing but good,
domna,
but if I were you, I would not be too quick to claim that lineage here in the hills. There are many who are old enough to remember the burning of Caer Donn, and some of them bear old grudges.”

“I know nothing of that,” she replied abruptly, silently cursing the Senator for being a close-mouthed old—She cut off that thought. “I don’t even know what Caer Donn is.”

“Was,
domna,
was. It was one of the oldest cities in the world. The Terranan came there and built their first spaceport, making pacts with those blasted Aldarans. I visited there long ago, and sang my songs, but it was never a generous place. Those Aldarans hardly give a man a drink for his song. And some years back, it was destroyed.”

“I am sad to hear that, but since I was not yet born, I can’t see it has much to do with me. I can’t be held responsible for something that occurred so long ago.”

Gavin MacDougal gave a snort. “That is Terranan thinking, for sure. We in the hills have long memories, especially for that time. Here, the very name Alton will remind many who do not wish to be reminded of the burning of Caer Donn and of the Forbidden Tower.”

“You are croaking like a raven of ill-fortune, old man,” Rafaella replied.

“You are too young and too headstrong to know what you speak of, so keep your tongue behind your teeth. Your father Lewis was part of the reason Caer Donn was destroyed, though he was only a child when the last members of the Forbidden Tower were slain. We make no songs of those times, but we remember.”

Margaret tried to imagine what role her father might have played in the events old Gavin referred to, but could not manage it. The mists of Darkovan history were too thick, too impenetrable for her. Then she remembered her dream, and how her father had come between the two women, and had still had both hands. She held back a shudder with a great effort.

“I came here to listen to you sing,
Mestru
MacDougal, not to hear old tales.” This was not entirely true, but that part of her which was cold and distant insisted that she quell her curiosity. It was a frustrating feeling, for the questions formed in her mind, but did not seem to be able to get to her mouth. She felt silenced, as she had as a small child, and outraged.

Margaret realized she was extremely interested in this story, but at the same time, she did not
want
to know what had happened. She remembered how Lord Hastur and Brigham Conover had hinted at terrible events in the past, and realized now that they had not told her everything because they knew it would only distress her.

“Well, if it is song you want, then song you will have.” He waddled over to the wall and took down an ancient bowed
ryll,
caressing it gently. “Let’s go out into the sunlight.”

They sat on some stones in front of the cottage, and Gavin tuned his instrument while Margaret set up her equipment. He had a thready voice now, the remnants of a good tenor, but his memory was capacious, and by the time the sun was descending, he had considerably enlarged Margaret’s store of Darkovan music. Her bottom ached from sitting on a rock, and she was glad to stand up and stretch.

She thanked the old man and offered him payment, but he shook his head. “I would take money from a Terranan as quick as a rabbit-horn, but it goes against the grain to accept payment from an Alton. You mind yourself, young woman, and don’t you let Rafaella get you into mischief.” Then he walked into his hovel and slammed the door.

Margaret put away her equipment in the bag, and she and her guide started back to the inn. “Tell me about this Forbidden Tower,” she said, ignoring her sense of fatigue and a sudden rush of dizziness, just managing to get the question out before her interior censor silenced her again. Her heart pounded, and her blood seemed to reverberate in her ears.
You will not ask questions!
She swallowed hard, to keep her stomach from rebelling again.

Rafaella walked beside her in silence for several minutes. Then she said, “It is better not to speak of those times, Marguerida.”

Margaret still felt like protesting, but when Rafaella was this determined, she had already learned it was not much use to argue. And the urgency she had managed to summon up a few minutes before was gone, leaving her empty. She shifted her bag against her shoulder, and let it go. The excitement of hearing new songs faded, and her body began to ache. When the inn came into sight, she was delighted. She would spend a little time transcribing some of the songs and making notes, and then she would go to bed. In the morning they would turn back to Thendara, and she would leave her exhaustion and the feeling of oppression behind her. Someone else could finish the work. She was going back to the security of University on the first ship she could find!

 

 

Morning found her feverish and giddy, her head spinning like a top when she tried to sit up. Margaret sat up, then sagged back onto the pillows, swallowing with difficulty. Her throat was parched, and her stomach heaved. She tried to get up again, but found she could not.

Rafaella bent over her, smoothing her hair away from her face. “You are ill, Marguerida. You must stay in bed today.”

“Altitude,” she muttered. “I must go back to Thendara.”

“You aren’t going anywhere today. You rest, and I will bring you something cool to drink.”

Margaret felt too weak to argue, so she lay beneath the covers and tried to breathe slowly, to relax her body. She closed her eyes wearily, and the face of Danilo, the paxman, swam behind her lids. He looked down at her, and somehow she was certain he had something to do with her illness. Then she realized how ridiculous that was.
I am behaving like a superstitious idiot. Before long I will be thinking I have been bewitched by a man who is hundreds of miles away. I’ll just lie here for a few minutes, and then I’ll be fine!

The morning passed, but she was not fine. Her skin got hotter and hotter, until it felt as if it were shrinking into her muscles. The weight of the covers was too much to bear, so she pushed them aside, then lay shivering, exhausted by the effort. Her skull pounded with a dull throbbing that seemed to increase every second. She tried to drink the stuff Rafaella brought her, but it refused to stay down, and she was sick repeatedly into a bowl. She felt cool cloths pressed onto her brow, and all sense of time faded.

Margaret began to shiver, and clawed at the covers with a hand that felt cold and dry. She cried out sharply. Every movement was an agony. She felt a gentle hand touch her cheek, and the covers were drawn up around her. “Dio—Mother!” She felt she was falling into a vast void, and closed her aching fingers around the bedclothes.