Hastur Lord (43 page)

Then Rinaldo’s face brightened. “I cannot, I
will not
abandon her!”

“My lord . . .”

“Do not fear, I will not ask anything of you that is contrary to your
honor
.” Rinaldo inflected the word to sound like an insult. “The moment must be right . . . You will speak to no one about this.
No one.
”

“Su serva, vai dom.”
Danilo bowed, a shade lower than necessary. Besides, who would he tell that the Head of Hastur and the wife of the Terran Federation Legate were caught up in a shared religious frenzy? Who would believe him?

Winter settled its grip on the city. Each day seemed shorter, bleaker and darker, as if the season hurried to its own death. The storms of autumn gave way to unrelenting cold. Temperatures plummeted, and layers of compacted snow blanketed streets and roof tops. A blizzard, the strongest anyone could recall, blew down from the Hellers. It swept through the Venza Hills to descend upon the city. Streets became impassable, even though crews of men struggled to clear the snow.

The walls of Comyn Castle kept out the worst gales, but the rest of Thendara was not so fortunate. Traffic through the city gates dwindled to a few desperate travelers. Those who reached Thendara brought reports of attacks on human habitations by starving wolves, human and animal, throughout the Kilghard Hills. Giant carnivorous banshees stalked the Hellers passes, venturing down from their usual territories in search of prey. In the city, many muttered that it was the worst winter in memory.

Marriage had not changed Rinaldo’s life in any way Danilo could detect. Occasionally, Rinaldo dined with his wife, but more often with Javanne and Gabriel. Javanne looked uneasy, as if she feared Danilo would think her a traitor to Regis by sharing a meal with his usurper. She was in an awkward position as Rinaldo’s sister and in her role as Castle chatelaine as well as the wife of the Guards Commander, who served at the pleasure of the Hastur Lord. As far as Danilo knew, Rinaldo had never spoken with Regis after the obligatory visit to admire the baby.

Rinaldo seemed immune to the weather. The monks at St. Valentine’s were said to be impervious to the cold, able to sleep on the glacial ice in their sandals and robes. Whether this was myth or a discipline of bodily control, Danilo did not know. Certainly, the monks did not mind the freezing temperatures as the novices and students did.

On all but the bitterest days, Rinaldo went into the city, wearing layers of fur and wool and stout lined boots. He did not insist that Danilo accompany him, but Danilo took pity on the poor Guardsman who would otherwise have had that duty and braved the icy streets himself.

Together they made a circuit of the new
cristoforo
shrines. Now that Rinaldo controlled the Hastur assets, he financed soup kitchens as an act of charity. Exultantly, he pointed out to Danilo how attendance at services had increased. Danilo privately thought these poor wretches were so desperate, they would sit through sermons from Zandru himself for a hot meal.

The days ran on, each darker than the one before, until Midwinter Night drew near. This time was also a great
cristoforo
holiday—the birth-date, they said, of the Bearer of Burdens.

Rinaldo would not permit any of the usual Midwinter celebrations, dismissing them as heretical. Instead, he invited Regis and Linnea as well as Javanne and Gabriel to a late-evening family party. The largest of the parlors had been decorated with strings of dried berries representing the droplets of blood shed by the holy saints, rather than the usual garlands of fir boughs. A generous fire warmed the air, and banks of beeswax candles gave off a gentle, honey-sweet perfume.

Regis arrived early to participate in the customary giving of gifts to the servants. At first glimpse, a fever raced through Danilo. All the things he wanted to say boiled over the cauldron of his mind so that for a moment, he could not even breathe. For a heart-stopping moment, Regis met his gaze.

Rinaldo was watching both of them intently, waiting like a hunter for the slightest lapse. Desperate to do nothing that might betray the depths of his emotions, Danilo threw all his concentration into barricading his mind. Regis answered him with an expression of unconcerned calm.

After the servants went off to their own holiday dinner, the rest of the family came in. Mikhail was not present, having remained at Ardais with Kennard-Dyan. Linnea entered a few minutes later, accompanied by one of the young Castamir ladies. As she and Danilo greeted one another, their eyes met in recognition. A heat rose from her skin, a scent more sensed than felt; she had been nursing little Danilo.

Javanne greeted everyone graciously. Thinner than usual, she wore a holiday gown elegant with lace and silver- thread embroidery but no jewels, as if she had been unable to determine the exact degree of formality of the occasion. Gabriel looked proper and formal in his uniform, with never a word or gesture out of place.

He’s angry . . . or afraid.
Danilo had known Gabriel since his days as a cadet and could not imagine what would cause fear in the older man. Caution, certainly, for Gabriel’s position as brother-in-law to Regis must make his every action suspect.

Servants brought in bowls of mulled berry wine and platters of little seed-cakes that, if not strictly traditional, created an atmosphere of festivity. Rinaldo, playing the generous host, made sure everyone had a full goblet.

“It is time for your gift, my brother.” Rinaldo lifted his goblet to Regis. Danilo noticed the hectic, almost feverish light in Rinaldo’s eyes.

“I have brought nothing for you,” Regis said, “save for my wishes for a peaceful season.”

A note in his voice tore at Danilo’s heart, a cold whisper slicing through the bright jollity. Danilo had none of the Aldaran Gift of precognition, but he sensed that whatever happened next would change the world forever.

Rinaldo smiled, saying, “Do not distress yourself. I am so happy tonight that nothing can displease me.”

The door swung open, and Bettany entered with two ladies in attendance. Her gown, an edifice of brocade and satin, rustled as she moved. A small fortune in Ardcarran rubies set in copper filigree lay upon her exposed bosom and dangled from her ears.

To Danilo’s surprise, one of the attendants was Tiphani Lawton. He did not recognize her at first glance, for she wore the long belted tunic over full skirts of an ordinary Darkovan woman. Her hair was caught back in a coil on her neck and covered with a demure coif. But she did not comport herself as a Darkovan woman. Her gaze was bold and direct, and her eyes glowed with brittle fire.

Danilo did not know how to react, whether he should acknowledge her presence. If Rinaldo had managed to spirit her away from Terran Headquarters, Danilo did not want to consider the consequences.

At Rinaldo’s gesture, Bettany came to stand beside him. Her color deepened as the other guests bowed to her. Certainly, there was an unwonted freshness to her skin, a new softness to her chin and a fullness to her partly bared breasts.

“Tell them our news, my dearest,” Rinaldo said.

She accepted a goblet from a servant and lifted it. “Drink a toast, my lords and ladies, to the son of my lord Rinaldo, which I shall bear come Midsummer’s Eve.”

For a fraction of a heartbeat, stunned silence reigned. Danilo wondered how it was possible, or how anyone but a
laran
-Gifted healer could determine that Bettany carried a boy child. He could not even begin to consider the political implications of Rinaldo producing an heir. Then Linnea, and a moment later Javanne, recollected themselves enough to utter feminine expressions of joy. Gabriel, moving swiftly to cover the lapse, bowed to Bettany and wished her and her child all happiness.

Regis, his expression unreadable, bowed first to Bettany, as a new mother-to-be taking her place of honor, and then to his brother. “Please accept my most sincere congratulations.”

Everyone applauded Bettany and drank several more toasts to her and her unborn child. Then the party split into two groups, the women sitting together, talking about pregnancy and baby clothes, while the men remained standing.

“I know what you are all thinking,” Rinaldo said, finishing his goblet and holding it out for a servant to refill. “None of you believed that I—an
emmasca
—could father a child. Admit it, you all believed me incapable.”

Gabriel clamped his jaw shut. Regis, meeting his brother’s challenging stare, said, “It does happen upon rare occasions, I suppose. Our
chieri
ancestry manifests in the
laran
of some and the six-fingered hands of others. It is said to be especially strong in those who are born as you were,
emmasca
. But the
chieri
are not infertile. They do produce offspring, although very few.”

Regis paused, his eyes softening, and Danilo sensed in him one of the few luminous memories from the days of the World Wreckers. A
chieri
, one of the fabled “Children of Light” of the ancient forests, had come forward to help the beleaguered planet.

Danilo closed his eyes, remembering the tall, slender creature, at times like a wild, heartbreakingly beautiful girl, then unquestionably masculine. Keral had given birth to a child, conceived on the same night as Kierestelli and so many others, before returning to the Yellow Forest and the remnants of the
chieri
race. Did Keral still dance under the four moons in yearning, in grief, in ecstasy? And the child, the hope of a fading people, did that child flourish?

“Nothing is impossible to him who puts his faith in the Divine,” Rinaldo said. His expression of triumph left Danilo profoundly uneasy.

At least motherhood might bring Bettany a measure of fulfillment. Most well-born girls hoped for nothing more than a comfortable home, a husband and children. Linnea and her sister
leroni
were the exception rather than the rule.

When Bettany moved apart from the other women, Danilo seized the opportunity to extend his felicitation. She responded with a sniff. “My happiness will come from my sons.”

After a fractional, astonished moment, Danilo hastened to say, “I hope they will grow to be honorable men.”

“They will be powerful and rich! All the world will kneel in fealty to them! Everyone will know that
I
gave them life!”

She paused, chest heaving. Perhaps she was aware that she could easily be overheard. Linnea and Javanne had averted their faces, but Tiphani was staring openly. Bettany turned her back on the off-world woman.

“Everyone said I was worthless. Oh, not when I could hear them, but I
knew
. I heard them whispering in my dreams. Now they will see—I will show them all! Even you with your
kindness
—” and here, Danilo remembered her angry words when he had suggested she seek out Linnea as a companion and guide. Bettany finished with, “
You
won’t ever have sons to bow down before mine!”

Danilo did not know which was more appalling, her spiteful delusions or the vision of all Darkover under the rule of her offspring. In such a world, what would become of Mikhail? Of little Dani?

As far as he knew, Danilo had no trace of the Aldaran Gift of precognition, so he could reassure himself that his fears were imaginings born of his own recent captivity and unsettled times, nothing more.

“Oh!” Bettany clapped her hands over her mouth. Her cheeks reddened, and her eyes brimmed with tears. “I didn’t mean that! It just popped out! I never know what I’m going to say or feel from one moment to the next!”

“Little one, I did not take it personally. You have not offended me.” The only offense came from those who thrust her, ill in mind and unprepared, into such a marriage, but he could not say so to her face.

She lowered her hands. Her lower lip, full and soft as a child’s, quivered. She summoned a tentative smile. “There—I am better when I am with you. I think the time on the trail with you and
Mestra
Darilyn and the others was the most fun I have ever had. Now I have no one except those silly maids, and they never tell me anything important.
You
always speak plainly and . . . you’re nice to me.” With a flutter of her eyelashes, she placed one hand on his arm.

Danilo’s chest tightened. By all that was holy, had the girl fallen in love with him? He knew he was reckoned handsome and could have had his pick of women—and more than a few men, too—had his heart not been so focused on Regis. For a hopeful moment, he decided he was mistaken, that she showed him no more favor than was proper to her husband’s paxman. Then he saw the sidelong glance and rise of her breasts, felt the caress of her fingers through the fabric of his sleeve, inhaled her perfume, a scent far too provocative for a young bride.

Did she have any idea what she was doing or how many others she placed at risk? She was the wife of the most powerful man on Darkover, and she carried his child, whereas Danilo’s freedom and, most likely, his life hung from the slender thread of her husband’s good will.