Heritage and Exile (10 page)

“Father, whatever I may have done for amusement before I was a grown man is completely beside the point,” I said. “I have never abused authority—”

He said coldly, “It seems you abused it when you ignored my written orders.” His voice hardened. “I told you to sit down! Lew, I don't owe you any explanations, but since you seem to be upset about this, I'll make it clear. The world is made as it's made, not as you or I would like it. Dyan may not be the ideal cadet-master, but he's asked for this post and I'm not going to refuse him.”

“Why not?” I was more outraged than ever. “Just because he is Lord Ardais, must he be allowed a free hand for any kind of debauchery, corruption, anything he pleases? I don't care what he does, but does he have to have license to do it in the Guards?” I demanded. “Why?”

“Lew, listen to me. It's easy to use hard words about anyone who's less than perfect. They have one for you, or have you forgotten? I've listened to it for fifteen years, because I needed you. We need Lord Ardais on Council because he's a strong man and a strong supporter of Hastur. Have you become so involved with your private world at Arilinn that you don't remember the real political situation?” I grimaced, but he said, very patient now, “One faction on Council would like to plunge us into war with the Terrans. That's so unthinkable I needn't take it seriously, unless this small faction gains support. Another faction wants us to join the Terrans completely, give up our old ways and traditions, give up the Compact, become an Empire colony. That faction's bigger, and a lot more dangerous to Comyn. I feel that Hastur's solution, slow change, compromise, above all
time,
is the only reasonable answer. Dyan is one of the very few men who are willing to throw their weight behind Hastur. Why should we refuse him a position he wants, in return?”

“Then we're filthy and corrupt,” I raged. “Just to get his support for your political ambitions, you're willing to bribe a man like Dyan by putting him in charge of half-grown boys?”

My father's quick rage flared. It had never been turned full on me before. “Do you honestly believe it's my personal ambition I'm furthering? I ask you, which is more important—the personal ethics of the cadet-master or the future of Darkover and the very survival of the Comyn? No, damn it, you sit there and listen to me! When we need Dyan's support so badly in Council do you think I'd quarrel with him over his private behavior?”

I flung back, equally furious, “I wouldn't give a damn if it
was
his private behavior! But if there's another scandal in the Guards, don't you think the Comyn will suffer? I didn't ask to command the Guards. I told you I'd rather not. But you wouldn't listen to my refusal and now you refuse to listen to my best judgment! I tell you, I won't have Dyan as cadetmaster! Not if I'm in command!”

“Oh, yes you will,” said my father in a low and vicious voice. “Do you think I am going to let you defy me?”

“Then, damn it, Father, get someone else to command the Guards! Offer Dyan the command—wouldn't
that
satisfy his ambition?”

“But it wouldn't satisfy me,” he said harshly. “I've worked for years to put you in this position. If you think I'm going to let you destroy the Domain of Alton by some childish scruples, you're mistaken. I'm still lord of the Domain and you are oath-bound to take my orders without question! The post of cadet-master is powerful enough to satisfy Dyan, but I'm not going to endanger the rights of the Altons to command. I'm doing it for you, Lew.”

“I wish you'd save your trouble! I don't want it!”

“You're in no position to know what you want. Now do as I tell you: go and give Dyan his appointment as cadetmaster, or”—he struggled again, ignoring the pain—“I'll get out of bed and do it myself.”

His anger I could face; his suffering was something else. I struggled between rage and a deadly misgiving. “Father, I have never disobeyed you. But I beg you, I
beg
you,” I repeated, “to reconsider. You know that no good will come of this.”

He was gentle again. “Lew, you're still very young. Some day you'll learn that we all have compromises to make, and we make them with the best grace we can. You have to do the best you can within a situation. You can't eat nuts without cracking some shells.” He stretched out his hand to me. “You're my main support, Lew. Don't force me to fight you too. I need you at my side.”

I clasped his hand between my fingers; it felt swollen and feverish. How could I add to his troubles? He trusted me. What right had I to set up my judgment against his? He was my father, my commander, the lord of my Domain. My only duty was to obey.

Out of his sight, my rage flared again. Who would have believed Father would compromise the honor of the Guards? And how quickly he had maneuvered me again, like a puppet-master pulling strings of love, loyalty, ambition, my own need for his recognition!

I will probably never forget the interview with Dyan Ardais. Oh, he was civil enough. He even commended me on my caution. I kept myself barriered and was scrupulously polite, but I am sure he knew that I felt like a farmer who has just set a wolf to guard the fowl-house.

There was only one grain of comfort in the situation:
I
was no longer a cadet!

As the cadets walked toward the barracks, Regis among them, he heard little of their chatter and horseplay. His face was burning. He could cheerfully have murdered Lew Alton.

Then a tardy fairness came back to him. Everybody there obviously knew what was going to happen, so it was evidently something that went on now and then. He was just the one who stumbled into it. It could have been anyone.

Suddenly he felt better. For the first time in his life he was being treated exactly like anybody else. No deference. No special treatment. He brightened and began to listen to what they were saying.

“Where the hell were you brought up, cadet, not to answer to your name?”

“I was educated at Nevarsin,” Regis said, provoking more jeers and laughter.

“Hey, we have a monk among us! Were you too busy at your prayers to hear your name?”

“No, it was the hour of Great Silence and the bell hadn't rung for speech!”

Regis listened with an amiable and rather witless grin, which was the best thing he could possibly have done. A third-year cadet, superior and highly polished in his green and black uniform, conveyed them into a barracks room at the far end of the courtyard. “First-year men in here.”

“Hey,” someone asked, “what happened to the Commander?”

The junior officer in charge said, “Wash your ears next time. He broke some bones in a fall. We all heard.”

Someone said, carefully not loud enough for the officer to hear, “Are we going to be stuck with the bastard all season?”

“Shut up,” said Julian MacAran, “Lanart-Alton's not a bad sort. He's got a temper if you set him off, but nothing like the old man in a rage. Anyway, it could be worse,” he added, with a wary glance at the cadet who was out of range for the moment. “Lew's fair and he keeps his hands to himself, which is more than you can say for
some
people.”

Danilo asked, “Who's really going to be cadet-master? Di Asturien's been retired for years. He served with my grandfather!”

Damon MacAnndra said with a careful look at the officer, “I heard it was going to be you-know-who. Captain Ardais.”

Julian said, “I hope you're joking. Last night I was down in the armory and . . .” His voice fell to a whisper. Regis was too far away, but the lads crowded around him reacted with nervous, high-pitched giggles. Damon said, “That's nothing. Listen, did you hear about my cousin Octavien Vallonde? Last year—”

“Chill it,” a strange cadet said, just loud enough for Regis to hear. “You know what happened to him for gossiping about a Comyn heir. Have you forgotten there's one in the barracks now?”

Silence abruptly fell over the knot of cadets. They separated and began to drift around the barracks room. To Regis it was like a slap in the face. One minute they were laughing and joking, including him in their jokes; suddenly he was an outsider, a threat. It was worse because he had not really caught the drift of what they were saying.

He drifted toward Danilo, who was at least a familiar face. “What happens now?”

“I guess we wait for someone to tell us. I didn't mean to attract attention and get you in trouble, Lord Regis.”

“You too, Dani?” That formal
Lord Regis
seemed a symbol of the distance they were all keeping. He managed to laugh. “Didn't you just hear Lew Alton remind me very forcibly that nobody would call me Lord Regis down here?”

Dani gave him a quick, spontaneous grin. “Right.” He looked around the barracks room. It was bleak, cold and comfortless. A dozen hard, narrow camp-beds were ranged in two rows along the wall. All but one had been made up. Danilo gestured to the only one still unchosen and said,

“Most of us were down here last night and picked beds. I guess that one will have to be yours. It's next to mine, anyhow.”

Regis shrugged. “They haven't left me much choice.” It was, of course, the least desirable location, in a corner under a high window, which would probably be drafty. Well, it couldn't be worse than the student dormitory at Nevarsin. Or colder.

The third-year cadet said, “Men, you can have the rest of the morning to make up your beds and put away your clothing. No food in barracks at any time; anything left lying on the floor will be confiscated.” He glanced around at the boys waiting quietly for his orders. He said, “Uniforms will be given out tomorrow. MacAnndra—”

Damon said, “Sir?”

“Get a haircut from the barber; you're not at a dancing class. Hair below the collarbone is officially out of uniform. Your mother may have loved those curls, but the officers won't.”

Damon turned as red as an apple and ducked his head.

Regis examined the bed, which was made of rough planking, with a straw mattress covered with coarse, clean ticking. Folded at the foot were a couple of thick dark gray blankets. They looked scratchy. The other lads were making up the beds with their own sheets. Regis began making a mental list of the things he should fetch from his grandfather's rooms. It began with bed linens and a pillow. At the head of each bed was a narrow wooden shelf on which each cadet had already placed his personal possessions. At the foot of the bed was a rough wooden box, each lid scarred with knife-marks, intertwined initials and hacked or lightly burned-in crests, the marks of generations of restless boys. It struck Regis that years ago his father must have been a cadet in this very room, on a hard bed like this, his possessions reduced, whatever his rank or riches, to what he could keep on a narrow shelf a hand-span wide. Danilo was arranging on his shelf a plain wooden comb, a hair-brush, a battered cup and plate and a small box carved with silver, from which he reverently took the small
cristoforo
statue of the Bearer of Burdens, carrying his weight of the world's sorrows.

Below the shelf were pegs for his sword and dagger. Danilo's looked very old. Heirlooms in his family?

All of them were there because their forefathers had been, Regis thought with the old resentment. He swore he would never walk the trail carved out for a Hastur heir, yet here he was.

The cadet officer was walking along the room, making some kind of final check. At the far end of the room was an open space with a couple of heavy benches and a much-scarred wooden table. There was an open fireplace, but no fire was burning at present. The windows were high and narrow, unglazed, covered with slatted wood shutters, which could be closed in the worst weather at the price of shutting out most of the light. The cadet officer said, “Each of you will be sent for some time today and tested by an arms-master.” He saw Regis sitting on the end of his bed and walked down the row of beds to him.

“You came in late. Did anyone give you a copy of the arms-manual?”

“No, sir.”

The officer gave him a battered booklet. “I heard you were educated at Nevarsin; I suppose you can read. Any questions?”

“I didn't—my grandfather didn't—no one sent my things down. May I send for them?”

The older lad said, not unkindly, “There's no one to fetch and carry for you down here, cadet. Tomorrow after dinner you'll have some off-duty time and you can go and fetch what you need for yourself. Meanwhile, you'll just have to make out with the clothes on your back.” He looked Regis over, and Regis imagined a veiled sneer at the elaborate garments he had put on to present himself to his grandfather this morning. “You're the nameless wonder, aren't you? Remembered your name yet?”

“Cadet Hastur, sir,” Regis said, his face burning again, and the officer nodded, said, “Very good, cadet,” and went away.

And that was obviously why they did it, Regis thought. Probably nobody ever forgot twice.

Danilo, who had been listening, said, “Didn't anyone tell you to bring down everything you'd need the night before? That's why Lord Alton sent me down early.”

“No, no one told me.” He wished he had thought to ask Lew, while they could speak together as friends and not as cadet and commander, what he would need in barracks.

Danilo said diffidently, “Those are your best clothes, aren't they? I could lend you an ordinary shirt to put on; you're about my size.”

“Thank you, Dani. I'd be grateful. This outfit isn't very suitable, is it?”

Danilo, who was kneeling in front of his wooden chest, brought out a clean but very shabby linen shirt, much patched around the elbows. Regis pulled off the dyed-leather tunic and the fine frilled shirt under it and slid into the patched one. It was a little large. Danilo apologized.