The Forbidden Tower

Chapter Eighteen

It was a gray morning, the sun hidden behind banks of fog and little spits and drizzles of sleet blowing around the heights, as the funeral procession rode northward from Thendara, bearing the body of Domenic Lanart-Alton to lie beside his forefathers of the Comyn. The rhu fead at Hali, the holy place of the Comyn, lay an hour’s ride northward from the Comyn Castle, and every lord and lady of Comyn blood who could come to the Council in the last three days rode with them to do honor to the heir to Alton, killed by tragic mischance so young.

All except Esteban Lanart-Alton. Andrew, riding with Cathal Lindir and young Valdir, remembered the scene which had broken out that morning when Ferrika, summoned by the old man to give him something to strengthen him for the journey, had flatly refused.

“You are not fit to ride, vai dom, not even in a horse-litter. If you follow him to his grave, you will lie there beside him before a tenday is out.” More gently, she had added, “The poor lad is beyond all helping or hurt, Lord Alton. We must think now of your own strength.”

The old man had flown into such a rage that Callista, hastily summoned, had feared that his very anger would bring on whatever catastrophe Ferrika feared for him. She had tried to mediate, saying tentatively, “Can it harm him as much as this kind of disturbance?”

“I will hear no woman’s ruling,” Dom Esteban had shouted. “Send for my body-servant and get out of here, both of you! Dezi—” He had turned to the lad for confirmation, and Dezi said, his smooth face flushing with color, “If you will ride, Uncle, I will go with you.”

But Ferrika had slipped away, and returned in a moment with Master Nicol, the hospital officer of the Guards. He felt the old man’s pulse, turned down his eyelid to look at the small veins there, then said curtly, “My lord, if you ride out today, you are not likely to return. There are others here who can bury the dead. Your heir has not even been formally accepted by Council, and in any case he is but a lad of twelve years. Your task, vai dom, is to save your own strength till that boy is grown to manhood. By a last sentimental service for your dead son, will you risk leaving your living one fatherless?”

Before these unwelcome truths there was nothing to say. Dismayed, Dom Esteban had allowed Master Nicol to put him back to bed. He clung to Dezi’s hand and the boy remained docilely at his side.

Now, riding northward to Hali, Andrew recalled the calls of condolence, the long talks with other members of the Council which had taxed Lord Alton’s strength to the utmost. Even if he survived the coming Council season and the homeward journey, could he live until Valdir was declared a man at fifteen? And how could a boy of fifteen possibly cope with the complex policies and politics of the Domain? Certainly not this sheltered, scholarly lad from a monastery!

Valdir rode at the head of the procession, in drab formal mourning, his face very pale against the dark garments. Beside him rode his sworn friend Valentine Aillard, who had come with him from Nevarsin, a big, sturdy boy with hair so blonde it looked white. Both boys looked solemn, but not deeply grieved. Neither of them had known Domenic well enough for that.

On the shores of the Lake of Hali, where legend said that Hastur, son of Light, had first come to Darkover, Domenic’s body was laid in an unmarked grave, as the custom demanded. Callista leaned heavily on Andrew as they stood beside the opened grave, and he picked up her thought: It does not matter where he lies, he has gone elsewhere. But it would have comforted my father, if he could rest in Armida soil.

Andrew looked around the burying ground and shivered. Here beneath his feet lay all that was mortal of countless generations of Comyn, with no sign to tell where they lay except for the irregular mounding of the ground, thrust into heaps by spring thaw and winter snow. Would his own sons and daughters lie here one day? Would he, himself, some day rest here under the strange sun?

Valdir, as nearest of kin, stepped first to the graveside. His voice was high and childish, and he spoke hesitantly.

“When I was five years old, my brother Domenic lifted me from my pony and said I should have a horse fit for a man. He took me to the stables, and helped the coridom choose a gentle horse for me. Let that memory lighten grief.”

He stepped back and Valentine Aillard took his place. “In my first year in Nevarsin I was lonely and miserable, as all the boys are, only more so, because I have neither mother nor father living, and my sister was fostered far away. Domenic had come to visit Valdir. He took me into the town and bought me sweets and gifts so that I would have what the other boys had after a visit from kinfolk. When he sent Valdir gifts at Midwinter festival he sent me a gift too. Let that memory lighten grief.”

One by one, the members of the funeral party stepped forward, each with some memory or tribute of the one who lay in his grave. Cathal Lindir could only stand silent, swallowing his sobs, and finally he only blurted out, “We were bredin. I loved him,” and stepped back, hiding himself in the crowd, unable even to speak the ritual words. Callista, taking his place at the graveside, said, “He was the only one in my family to whom I was not… not something apart and strange. Even when I dwelt at Arilinn, and all my other kinsfolk treated me as a stranger, Domenic was always the same to me. Let that memory lighten grief.” She wished that Ellemir were here, to hear the tributes to her favorite brother. But Ellemir had chosen to remain with her father. Domenic, she said, was past all help or hurt, but her father needed her.

Andrew stepped in his turn to the graveside. “I came a stranger to Armida. He stood beside me at my wedding, for I had no kinsman at my side.” As he ended with “Let that memory lighten grief,” he felt saddened that he had had so little time to know his young brother-in-law.

It seemed that every lord and lady of Comyn who had ridden to Domenic’s grave had searched their memory for some small kindness, some pleasant encounter for the mourners to remember the dead. Lorenz Ridenow, who, Andrew remembered, had schemed to oust Domenic from his command of the Guards on the grounds of his youth, spoke of how modest and competent the boy had been under the authority thrust on him so young. Danvan Hastur, a short, sturdy young man, with silver-gilt hair and gray eyes, cadet-master in the Guards, told how the young commander had interceded for the victim of a cruel prank among the cadets. Damon, who had been Domenic’s cadet-master when he was fourteen and new to the cadets, remembered, and told them, that in spite of Domenic’s perpetual pranks and mischief, he had never heard Domenic make a joke with any malice, or play a prank with anything of cruelty in it. Andrew realized, with a sorrowful pang, how much the boy would be missed. It would be hard on Valdir, to fill the place of a young man so universally liked and respected.

As they rode home the fog began to lift. Riding through the gap in the hills leading down into Thendara, Andrew looked again across the valley to the buildings which had begun to thrust upward within the enclosed walls of the Terran Zone, the hum of machinery, perceptible even from this distance, for the building there. Once he had been Andrew Carr and dwelt in a compound like that, yellow lights blotting out the color of whatever sun he lived under, and he had not cared what lay beyond. Now he looked indifferently at the small distant shapes of spaceships, the skeleton ribs of the unfinished skyscrapers. All that had nothing to do with him.

As he turned away he saw the eyes of Lorill Hastur resting on him. Lorill was Regent of Comyn Council, and Callista had explained that he was more powerful than the King, a man of middle age, tall, commanding, with dark-red hair fading to white at the temples. His eyes caught and held Andrew’s for a moment. The Terran remembered that Lorill was supposed to be a powerful telepath and looked quickly away. He knew that was foolish — if the Hastur lord wished to read his mind, he could do it without looking him in the eye! And he knew enough of the courtesies of telepaths now to know Lorill would not do so uninvited without good reason. Yet he felt ill at ease, knowing he was there under false pretenses. No one knew he was Terran. But he tried to appear indifferent, listening as Callista pointed out the banners of the Domains to him.

“The silver fir tree on the blue banner is Hastur, of course, you saw it when Leonie came to Armida. And that is the Ridenow banner with the green and gold, where Lorenz is riding. Damon has the right to a banner-bearer, but he seldom bothers with it. The red and gray feathers are the banner of Aillard, and the silver tree and crown belong to the Elhalyn. They were once a sept of the Hasturs.” Prince Duvic, Andrew thought, who had come to honor the heir to Alton, looked less regal than Lorill Hastur, or even young Danvan. Duvic was a spoiled, dissolute-looking youth, foppishly dressed in fur.

“And that is old Dom Gabriel of Ardais, and his consort Lady Rohana; see the hawk on their banner?”

“That’s only six counting Armida,” Andrew said, counting. “What is the seventh Domain?”

“The Domain of Aldaran was exiled long ago. I have heard all kinds of reasons given, but I suspect it was simply that they lived too far away to come to Council every year. Castle Aldaran is far away in the Hellers, and it is difficult to govern folk who live so far in the mountains that no man can tell whether or not they keep the laws. Some say the Aldarans were not exiled but seceded of their free will. Everyone you ask will tell a different tale of why the Aldarans are no longer the seventh Domain. I suppose some day one of the larger Domains will divide again, so that there are seven. The Hasturs did so when the old line of the Elhalyn died out. We are all akin anyway, and many of the minor nobility have Comyn blood. Father spoke once of marrying Ellemir to Cathal…” She was silent and Andrew sighed, thinking of the implications. He had married into an hereditary caste of rulers. Ellemir’s coming child, any child Callista might bear, would inherit an awesome responsibility.

And I started on a horse ranch in Arizona!

He felt equally overawed when, later that day, the Comyn Council gathered in what Callista called the Crystal Chamber, a room high in one of the turrets, fashioned of translucent stone, cut in prisms which flashed with the light of the sun, so that it was like moving in the heart of a rainbow. The room was octagonal, with tiers of seats, each of the Comyn Domains under their own emblem and banner. Callista whispered that every member of a family holding Council-right, and known to have laran, had an indisputable right to appear and speak in Council. As Keeper of Arilinn she had held such a right, though she had seldom bothered to come.

Leonie was there with the Hasturs; Andrew looked away from her. But for her, Callista might now be his wife in more than name and perhaps it would be Callista, not Ellemir, bearing his child.

But then, he thought, he would never have known Ellemir. How could he wish for that?

Dom Esteban, pale and drawn but straight and dignified in his wheeled chair, sat in the lowest ranks of seats, at floor level. On either side his sons were seated, Valdir pale and excited, Dezi’s face smooth and unreadable. Andrew saw the lifted eyebrows, the curious glances at Dezi. The family resemblance was unmistakable, and for Dom Esteban to seat Dezi at his side in the Crystal Chamber was like a belated public acknowledgment.

Lorill Hastur’s voice was deep and solemn. “This morning we paid our respects to the heir to Alton, tragically killed by misadventure. But life goes on, and we must now designate the next heir. Esteban Lanart-Alton, will you—” He amended, looking at the old man in the wheeled chair, “Can you take your place among us? If not, you may speak from where you are.”

Dezi rose and wheeled the chair forward, returning unobtrusively to his seat.

“Esteban, I call upon you to designate the next heirs to your Domain, that we may know them and accept them all.”

Esteban said quietly, “My nearest heir is my youngest legitimate son, Valdir-Lewis Lanart-Ridenow, by my lawful wife di catenas, Marcella Ridenow.” He beckoned Valdir to come forward; the boy knelt at his father’s feet.

“Valdir-Lewis Lanart-Alton,” Dom Esteban said, for the first time giving him the Domain title used only by the head of the Domain and his nearest heir, “as a younger son you were not sworn to Comyn even by proxy, and because of your youth, no formal oath may be required or accepted. I ask you only, then, if you will abide faithfully by vows sworn in your name, and repeat them for yourself when you are lawfully of an age to do so.”

The boy’s voice was shaking. “I will.”

“Then,” and he gestured to Valdir to rise and formally embraced him, kissing him on both cheeks, “I name you heir to Alton. Is there any to challenge this?”

Gabriel Ardais, a man in his sixties, tall and soldierly but graying and gaunt, with the pallor of ill-health, said in a harsh and rusty voice, “I do not challenge, Esteban, that the boy is lawfully born and looks healthy, and my fosterling Valentine, who was his playmate at Nevarsin, tells me he is quick and intelligent. But I like it not, that the heir to so powerful a Domain should be a minor child. Your health is uncertain, Esteban; you must consider the possibility that you may not live for Valdir to reach manhood. A regent, to the Domain should be appointed.”

“I am ready to appoint a regent,” Esteban said. “My next heir after Valdir is the unborn son of my daughter Ellemir. By your leave, my lords, I will designate her husband, Damon Ridenow, as regent of Alton, and guardian of Valdir and the unborn child.”

“He is not an Alton,” Aran Elhalyn protested, and Esteban answered, “He is nearer kin than many others; his mother was my youngest sister Camilla. He is my nephew, and bears laran, and he holds marriage-right in the Domain.”

Aran said, “I know Lord Damon. He is no youth, but a responsible man nearing his fortieth year. He has borne honorably many responsibilities given to Comyn sons. But we were not informed in Council of this marriage. May we ask why a marriage between Comyn son and comynara was made in such unseemly haste, and under only a freemate bond?”

“It was not Council season,” Esteban said, “and the young people did not want to wait half a year.”

“Damon,” said Lorill Hastur, “if you are to be named regent to a Domain, it would seem more suitable for your marriage to be made lawfully under Council law, di catenas. Are you willing to marry Ellemir Lanart with full ceremony?”

Damon replied good-naturedly, his hand on Ellemir’s, “I will marry her a dozen times if you will, under any ritual you like, if she will have me.”

Ellemir laughed aloud, a merry little ripple. “Can you doubt that, my husband?”

“Then come forward, Damon Ridenow of Serrais.” Damon made his way into the central space of the room, and Lorill asked solemnly, “Damon, are you free to accept this obligation? Are you heir to your own Domain?”

“Not within a dozen places,” said Damon. “I have four older brothers, and among them, I believe, they have eleven sons, or had when I last counted; it may be more by now. And Lorenz is already twice a grandfather. I will swear allegiance to Alton willingly, if my brother and Lord of Serrais will give me leave.”

“Lorenz?” Lorill asked with a glance at the side of the room where the Ridenow lords sat. Lorenz shrugged. “Damon may do as he will. He is of responsible years, and not likely to succeed to the heirship of Serrais. He is married into the Alton Domain. I consent.”

Damon glanced at Andrew with a comical lift of one eyebrow, and Andrew picked up his thought: Surely that is the first time Lorenz has ever approved entirely of anything I did. But outwardly he was solemn, as befitted this most serious of occasions.

“Kneel, then, Damon Ridenow,” Lorill said. “You have been named regent and guardian to the Alton Domain, as nearest of male kin to Valdir-Lewis Lanart-Alton, heir to Alton, and to the unborn son of Ellemir, your lawful wife. Are you prepared to swear allegiance to the lord of the Domain, Warden of Alton, and to renounce all other loyalties save that to the King and the Gods?”

Damon said steadily, “I do so swear.”

“Are you prepared to assume wardship of the Domain, should the lawful head of the Domain be unable through age, illness or infirmity to act in such capacity; and to swear that you will guard and protect the next heirs to Alton with your own life, if the Gods shall ordain it so?”

“I do so swear.”

Ellemir, watching from her place, could see the fine sweat at Damon’s hairline, and knew that Damon did not want this. He would do it for the sake of the children, Valdir and her son, but he did not want it. And fiercely, to herself, she hoped her father knew what he was doing to Damon!

Lorill Hastur said, “Do you solemnly declare that to the best of your knowledge you are fit to assume this responsibility? Is there any man who will challenge your right to this solemn wardship of the people of your Domain, the people of all the Domains, the people of, all Darkover?”

Kneeling, Damon thought, Who would be truly fit for such a responsibility? Not I, Aldones, Lord of Light, not I! Yet I will do the best I can, I swear it before all the Gods. For Valdir, for Ellemir and her child.

He said aloud, “I will abide the challenge.”

Danvan Hastur, commander of the Honor Guard for the Council, strode to the center of the room, where Damon still knelt, the rainbow light playing over his face. Sword in hand, he called in a loud voice, “Is there any to challenge the wardship of Damon Ridenow-Alton, Regent of Alton?”

Into the silence a young voice said, “I challenge.” Damon, startled, feeling Andrew’s consternation even from where he sat at the very back of the Alton seats, raised his head to see Dezi step forward, take the sword from Lorill’s hand.

“On what grounds?” Lorill inquired. “And by what right? You are not known to me, young man.”

Dom Esteban looked at Dezi in dismay. His voice trembled. “Do you not trust me, Dezi, my son?”

Deri ignored the words and the tenderness in them. “I am Desiderio Leynier, nedestro son of Gwennis Leynier by Esteban Lanart-Alton, as the only surviving grown son of the lord of the Domain, I claim the right to act as guardian to my brother and the unborn son of my sister.”

Lorill said sternly, “We have no records of any acknowledged nedestro sons of Esteban Lanart-Alton save for the two sons of Larissa d’Asturien, who are without laran and thus by law excluded from this Council. May I ask why you were never acknowledged?”

“As for that,” said Dezi, with a smile that barely escaped insolence, “you must ask my father. But I call the Lady of Arilinn to witness that I am Alton, and bear the gift of the Domain in full measure.”

At Lorill’s question, Leonie rose, her frown showing her distaste for this proceeding. “It is none of my affair to designate heirships in Comyn, yet since I have been called to witness, I must state that Desiderio speaks truth: he is son to Esteban Lanart and bears the Alton gift.”

Esteban said heavily, “I am ready and willing to acknowledge Dezi as my son if this Council will have it so; I brought him here for that purpose. But I do not feel him the most appropriate Guardian for my young son or my unborn grandson. Damon is a man of mature years, Dezi but a youth. I ask Dezi to withdraw the challenge.”

“With all respect, Father,” Dezi said deferentially, “I cannot.”

Damon, kneeling, wondered, what would happen now. Traditionally the challenge could be settled by combat, a formal duel, or one challenger could withdraw, or either one could present evidence to be examined by Council, purporting to prove that the other was unfit. Lorill was explaining this.

“Have you reason to think Damon unfit, Desiderio Leynier, nedestro of Alton?”

“I have.” Dezi’s voice was shrill. “I submit that Damon attempted to murder me, to make his own claim more secure. He knew me Esteban’s son, while he was but son-in-law to Alton, and therefore he stripped me of my matrix. It was only my own skill at laran which kept him from blood-guilt on a brother-by-marriage.”

Oh, my God, thought Andrew, feeling the breath catch in his throat. That bastard, that Goddamned stinking young bastard. Who but Dezi could cook up something like this?

Lorill Hastur said, “That is an extremely serious accusation, Damon. You have honorably served the Comyn for many years. We need not even listen to it, if you can give us some explanation.”

Damon swallowed and looked up, conscious of the eyes of all of them on his face. He said steadily, “I was sworn to Arilinn; I took oath there to prevent misuse of any matrix. I took it from Dezi under that oath, for he had misused laran by forcing his will upon my sister’s husband, Ann’dra.”

“True,” Dezi said defiantly without waiting for the challenge. “My sister Callista is besotted by this come-by-chance from nowhere, a Terranan. I sought only to get rid of this fellow from nowhere who has cast such an evil spell on her, so that she may make a marriage worthy of a Comyn lady, not disgrace herself in the bed of a Terranan spy.”

General uproar. Damon sprang to his feet, enraged, but Dezi stood facing him, defiant, slightly mocking. It seemed that everyone in the Crystal Chamber was talking, shouting, questioning at once. Lorill Hastur again and again vainly commanded silence.

When some semblance of order was restored he said, looking grave, “We must inquire into this matter privately. Very serious charges and counter-charges have been laid. For now, I bid you to disperse, and not to discuss this matter among yourselves. Gossip will not better it. Beware of careless fire in the forest; beware of careless talk even among the wise. But be assured, we will look into the rights and wrongs of this matter, and present it for your judgment within three days from now.”

Slowly the room emptied. Esteban deathly pale, looked sadly at Damon and Dezi. He said, “When brothers are at odds, strangers step in to widen the gap. Dezi, how can you do this?”

Dezi set his jaw. He said, “Father, I live only to serve you. Do you doubt me?” He looked at Ellemir, clinging to Damon’s arm, then said to Callista, “Some day you will thank me, my sister.”

“Sister!” Callistra looked Dezi full in the eyes, then, deliberately, she spat in his face and turned away. Laying her fingertips on Andrew’s arm, she said clearly, “Take me out of here, my husband. The place stinks of treachery.”

“Daughter—” Dom Esteban pleaded, but Callista turned her back and Andrew had no choice but to follow. But his heart was pounding, and his thoughts seemed to echo the troubled rhythm: What now?