The Shadow Matrix (47 page)

Precisely!

Even above the hubbub, Margaret could hear Mikhail's voice, continuing to talk to his

mother, as if no one else was in the chamber. "I passed Ariel on the stairs. She appears

to be in fine fettle, considering how advanced she is, and how ill she was this summer.

Your vigilance over her seems to have had a good result, Mother."

"Thank you, Mikhail. In truth, I am weary of the whole thing, and will be very glad

when the child is delivered. I am too old, I think, for this."

"Old? Mother—do stop fishing for compliments!" There was a gentleness in Mikhail's

voice, a kind of soft teasing, and Javanne smiled in answer, as if she enjoyed being the

focus of attention, even from her youngest son, the one she seemingly disliked and

often distrusted.

"I am not quite hagridden yet, am I?"

"Certainly not! Only a blind man would be unable to see that you are a splendid figure

of a woman, and will be for many years to come. You do not look at all like a granny,

you know." Mikhail seemed almost to be flirting with his mother, though in a perfectly

polite way.

"I am happy to hear it, I have started to feel as if I were ready to dodder into the grave.

You are looking well, son. And I enjoyed that letter you sent me—oh, months ago—

and have reread it a number of times. Would that either of your brothers could

understand >the difficulties of parenting."

During this somewhat stilted but nonetheless sincere exchange of pleasantries, Gisela

Aldaran kept putting her hand on Mikhail's elbow in a proprietary manner, and he kept

removing it in an annoyed one. Margaret observed this, her ill humor giving way to

mild amusement. Finally, unwilling to remain unnoticed any longer,, the woman said,

"Mikhail! Aren't you going to present me Jo your mother."

Her voice, as Margaret heard it, was sultry and suggestive, and her immediate dislike

of the other woman hardened into something close to hatred. There was a long moment

of silence, except for the continual chatter of the servants around them, while both

Javanne and her son looked at Gisela as if she had just sprung from the tiled floor of

the entry.

When neither of them spoke, she curled her hand back into the curve of Mikhail's arm,

and said, "I am Gisela Aldaran," in a warm way.

"I am sure you are," Javanne answered abruptly, then grasped her wide skirts and

swept past the startled Gisela, moving up the stairs with a grave dignity that was belied

only by the two burning patches of redness on her high . cheekbones.

Margaret observed this high-handedness with stunned admiration, swallowing a

guffaw that threatened to escape from her throat. Beside her, Lew gave in to his lower

self, and chuckled softly, bending his head down toward his chest to muffle the sound

of it.

Javanne has always had a gift for using manners to her own advantage.

But why was she
so ...
cutting, Father?

Think, Marguerida. If you are an impossible match for Mikhail, how much worse

would be that limb of the Aldaran?

Father, I am never going to be able to understand Darkovan politics! I would have

thought anyone other than me would be acceptable.

No, not anyone. And, reluctant as I am to deprive you of the pleasure of greeting

Mikhail, I suggest we get out of this room and go to our suite.

There will be time enough to see him, won't there?

There will be, Marguerida, I promise.

An hour later, Margaret, bathed and dressed in a white wool gown with a pattern of

black leaves around the hem and cuffs, emerged from her bedroom to meet her father.

Despite the refreshment of the bath, she felt tired and cross. She had not anticipated a

formal dinner on the evening of her arrival, and when Lew told her she must attend,

she had bowed to his wishes with as much grace as she could muster.

The new gown helped a little, as did the soothing presence of Piedra, the maid who

looked after her whenever she came to Comyn Castle. She had never seen the robe

before, but had found it laid out for her when she returned from her soak. She sat

patiently while Piedra brushed and combed her flyaway red hair into order, adding a

pretty butterfly clasp that, like the robe, Margaret had never seen before.

"Have you been poking into the closets again, Piedra?" she had asked as the maid

fussed over her hair.

"Yes and no. Your father ordered the dress when he knew you were returning. And

those mitts to match, I believe, for they came from the glovers only yesterday. But, I

confess, this hairpin is one I found when I was clearing out part of the Elhalyn Suite. It

is much too old for either of those girls. They are very pretty, but still too young for

such an ornament. I don't know who it belonged to, for it is very costly, with all that

white metal, and those pearls. I saw that it matched your big pearl, so I thought it

would not hurt to borrow it." The maid gave Margaret a sweet smile in the mirror.

"You take very good care of me, Piedra."

"I'm right pleased that you find my services worthy,
domna.
The head housekeeper

wanted to send one of the waiting women who does for Lady Linnea sometimes, but I

said to her that you did not like strangers about, and were used to me."

"Certainly not! Who else would leave me a fine lullaby on the pillow, so I sleep well?"

Slipping the butterfly clasp into place, Piedra patted the hair down, then reached

forward and picked up the enormous black pearl which Lew Alton had given her on

her first stay at Comyn Castle. It had belonged to her grandmother, Yllana Aldaran. It

gave Margaret a feeling of con-

nection with Yllana, whom she had never known, and a curious sense of security as

well. She had died bringing Lew Alton's younger brother Marius into the world.

There was something very sad about that story. Tragic might be a better word. The

Comyn Council had refused to recognize the marriage of Kennard Alton and Yllana,

and she had only had
barragana
status, not that of wife. It had been cruel, and on the

rare occasions when Lew was willing to discuss it, his voice had simmered with

ancient rage.

She frowned. No matter how she teased Mikhail about it, she knew she would never

agree to that position. It would be too "humiliating, not only for her but for her father

as well.

"Now what has put such a sad look on your face,
chiya?"

"I was looking at my pearl, and thinking of Grandmother Yllana, and how sad her life

was."

Lew chuckled, then shook his head. "My mother would laugh to hear you say that,

because she and my father loved one another deeply, and she did riot think of herself as

having a terrible life. I wish you could have, known her— hell, I wish I could have

known her longer. I was so young when she died!"

"We don't seem to have a lot of luck with our mothers, you and I, do we?"

"Luck is not something that I pretend to understand, Marguerida. These days, though, I

consider myself a very fortunate man, to have found you again and to know the woman

you are becoming." Lew smiled a little over this, and Margaret basked in his

unconcealed delight.

"Tell me about Gisela Aldaran."

"Must I?" He looked drolly discomforted. "Very well. She is, as you must have

guessed, your cousin through several connections. She is twenty-four, a widow with

two small children. And from what I have observed thus far, she is an intelligent if

obnoxious young woman. Her older son is over at the Medical Center recovering from

surgery, and the younger is here. Her father,
Dom
Damon Aldaran, is also in residence,

and he and Regis have spent a good deal of time closeted in various rooms, trying to

devise an agreement between them which will allow the Aldarans to

return to the Council table. Myself, I don't have high hopes just now."

"And Gisela has set her cap for Mikhail?"

"Oh, she certainly has. And she has made no secret of it. She and Mikhail were friends

when she was much younger—he visited them without anyone being the wiser— and

there might have been a bit of flirting. I don't know."

"But why didn't he say anything before?" Margaret could hear the distress in her own

voice, and knew it concealed a sense of betrayal. She had sensed that Mikhail was

disturbed about something since his return to Thendara, yet she had never suspected

this. She had thought they could say anything to one another, but it seemed she had

been wrong in that. Her only comfort, and it was a cold one, was that he did not appear

to fancy Gisela at all. Not that this would make any difference, if Regis decided that

the best way to solve the problem of the Aldarans was to marry his nephew to the

woman. She had been on Dark-over long enough to know that this was a real

possibility, and she wondered if Mikhail was obedient enough to accept it. It hurt, and

she swallowed hard.

Lew grew thoughtful and quiet for a moment. "You have always regarded Mikhail's

curiosity as an asset rather than a liability, have you not? Consider how things stood.

He was reared to take Regis's place, then set aside, though never officially. So, here we

have this intelligent young man with too much time on his hands, and no particular

direction."

"He told me that being Dyan Ardais' paxman was not a very challenging task," she

admitted.

Lew grunted in agreement. "I suspect that the most demanding thing he had to do was

keep young Dyan from creating too many scandals—drinking too much and bedding

where he oughtn't."

Margaret laughed in spite of herself. "Bedding where he oughtn't? Do you mean

whoring or seducing?"

"Both! Don't distract me. We will have to go down to dinner very shortly, and I want to

finish this. There is Mikhail, at loose ends, and there are the Aldarans, who have been

excluded from Darkovan society for years and years. What would you have done?"

"I would have sneaked off and taken a look."

"Exactly! And that is what he did, and became friends with Herm and Robert Aldaran,

Gisela's older brothers, just before Herm went to sit in the lower house of the

Federation Parliament. And met Gisela. That is all there was to it."

"And now?"

"Now is quite a different matter, and will probably result in a great many cries of

outrage. Gisela, for all her wit, does not seem to grasp the plain fact that no one would

permit a marriage between her and Mikhail, for reasons of power."

"I am all too aware that everything on Darkover comes down to power, and none of it

in the hands of the woman." She felt a little bitter, realizing that Gisela Aldaran was as

much a pawn as she was, and that she could not do what she chose. And, as far as

Margaret was concerned, Gisela could do what she wished, as long as she kept her

hands off Mikhail Hastur.

"I know it isn't fair,
chiya.
It was not fair that I fell in love with Marjorie Scott, who,

like my mother, was both Aldaran and Terranan. Now, let us ascend to the greater

dining room and do the best we can."

"Yes, Father."

Lew gave her a sharp look. "I never mistrust, you more than when you pretend to be

obedient."

Margaret smiled at him. "That proves that you are a very wise man."

Lew Alton sighed, cast his eyes ceilingward, and then nodded. When he looked at her

again, he seemed both grave and mischievous. "Women!"

"And what does that mean?"

"That females are both the greatest blessing and the greatest curse ever invented."

"Odd. I feel the same way about men—as well as thinking that we ought never have

taught them to speak!"

Lew Alton's raucous laughter echoed as they walked into the hall. "They say, quite

truthfully, that you cannot live with us, nor without us, and we cannot either."

19

Margaret had never been in the larger dining room of Comyn Castle before, so when

she entered it with her father, she looked around with interest. It was a wide chamber,

with a richly woven carpet sitting on a checkerboard of white and blue tiles. The walls

were hung with tapestries depicting scenes from Darkover's past, including one of

Hastur and Cassilda, the most popular subject in both song and art on the planet. This

was the finest example" she had ever seen. The weavers had used thousands of subtly

dyed threads to depict the figures, and in the foreground she could see tiny flowers, no

larger than her fingertip, dancing in the light that shone from the huge form of the

legendary Hastur.

Her attention was drawn not to the enormous figure of Hastur, but instead to a group of

musicians playing in one corner. Margaret had to resist the urge to go over and

examine that part of the tapestry. She wanted to study the instruments up close, even

though the hanging was up high enough that she knew she really would have needed a

ladder.

Margaret sighed with regret, then she looked around the room itself. In the center of