Hastur Lord (44 page)

He remembered riding beside Bettany on the trail, her face as he handed her the cup of
jaco
at the inn . . . himself speaking words of encouragement . . . dancing with her at the nuptial ball . . .

Now she was looking up at him with unseemly boldness—no, not boldness. Pleading.

“You will still be my friend, won’t you? You’ll come and visit me often?”

He removed her hand from his arm and led her back to the other women. “Lady,” he said with as much gentleness as he could summon, “that would not be wise for either of us. If you have need of a friend—”

She halted. “You mean Lady Linnea! Why are you always trying to pawn her off on me when it is
you
I want?”

“Because she can help you, truly help you, and I cannot.”

“Cannot? Or
will not
?”

Danilo gave Bettany a short bow. He raised his voice so that everyone could hear him as he wished her a healthy child. Bettany looked as if she would stamp her foot. He returned to the other men, and when he glanced back, she had rejoined the women. Linnea, without any sign of having overheard, complimented Bettany on her gown.

Tiphani left the group of women without a backward glance, deserting the lady she purported to attend. Regis, with his usual impeccable grace, bowed to her as to the Legate’s wife.

“
Domna
Lawton, I did not anticipate the pleasure of meeting you here. May all the joys of the season be yours.”

“Lawton?” She tossed her head, sending the edges of her coif fluttering. “I have left that life behind me. I have a new name, one given to me by the Power we all must answer to. I am no longer Tiphani but
Luminosa
. Through me flows the Divine Light. I have no need for earthly attachments.”

Only,
Danilo thought wryly,
for the earthly protection of Rinaldo.
But was he her creature, or she his?

“. . . only fitting that my unborn son should be attended by the one who foresaw his conception . . .” Rinaldo was saying.

All eyes, for the women had halted in their conversation and now listened openly, turned to Tiphani.

“From the moment of the wedding, the sacred union of masculine and feminine essences,” Tiphani said, “I sensed an imminence. You all must have felt the Presence among us! That very night, as I was deep in prayer, I was granted a vision. Light—oh, sweet Divine Light!—filled me. It raptured me beyond any earthly bliss. In the midst of my transport, I saw the Holy Seed flow through me into the womb of the new bride. I was given the knowledge that not only would the handmaiden of my lord Rinaldo be fruitful, but she would carry his firstborn son.”

She rushed on, each glowing phrase building upon the one before. Danilo wanted to roll his eyes. He had been taught, as a child of a devout
cristoforo
family, to believe in the saints, but Tiphani Lawton was not among them. Whatever had happened to her sprang from her own unstable mind.

For an instant, Danilo wondered whether the pregnancy was genuine or a concoction of wishful thinking. Such things were possible when weak minds and strong emotions came together. Certainly, the prospect of a legitimate heir would consolidate Rinaldo’s power among the Comyn. But how could anyone be sure? Rinaldo was as head-blind as any man Danilo had ever met. Silently, Danilo blessed his choice of Renunciate escorts, for no man could now say he himself had anything to do with her child. The two of them had never been alone for even five minutes.

Unless she had already been pregnant when he brought her from Serrais. Horrified, he put the thought from his mind.

Bettany jumped to her feet, chattering about her miraculous motherhood. With quiet dignity, Linnea took her aside.

“You must not excite yourself overly,
chiya.
A calm manner and sweet words are beneficial to a woman in your condition. Come and sit beside me.”

“You must not address me in such a fashion,” Bettany said coldly. “I am Lady Hastur and mother to the future Hastur Lord.”

Javanne gasped at this blatant rudeness to a Comynara and former Keeper.

“Your rank is indeed higher than mine,
vai domna,
” Linnea replied with the easy confidence of one who need never bow to anyone. “But I have somewhat more experience in matters of childbearing, have I not?”

“That is all very well, but when my son is born,
your
son will have to do whatever he says.”

“I hope our sons will be true and loyal kinsmen,” Linnea said. “Let us not argue. If we wish our children to be friends, we must set an example. I have no interest in usurping your precedence, only in your happiness and welfare. I wish to be of help to you.”

Tiphani had fallen silent. The men had turned to listen, Rinaldo with a fleeting, black expression, Regis with outright pride, Gabriel with barely disguised relief. Javanne attempted to put a soothing arm around Bettany’s shoulders, but Bettany shrugged her off.

“I myself will attend the blessed mother,” Tiphani intoned. “We have no need of primitive midwifery or native superstitions. Our guide shall be the Holy Seed itself. Let us retire to pray.”

With Bettany at her heels, she swept from the room. An awkward pause followed until Linnea and Javanne joined the men. Little of consequence was said, and the party broke up shortly. Danilo wished beyond words that he were free to leave with Regis and Linnea.

L
ate morning sun poured through the windows of the townhouse parlor. After a month of almost continuous snowstorms, the skies had finally cleared. How long the respite would last, no one knew. In the streets, people seized the opportunity to dig out passageways through snow piled higher than a man’s head.

Regis, sitting beside the hearth, roused from his musings. The brightness of the day, coupled with the warmth of the parlor, had lulled him halfway into dreaming. On the divan opposite him, Linnea had just rocked Dani to sleep.

Much to her husband’s surprise, Linnea had insisted on a separate bedroom down the corridor from his and adjacent to Kierstelli’s. Regis thought at first that she wanted to preserve a measure of her former independence. He soon realized the benefits of separating the space in which she devoted herself to her children from the life they shared as a newly married couple. He gave up little of his own customs and preferences, but instead gained from the addition of hers. Each time she came to his bed, she brought a sense of new delight.

Linnea’s shawl of soft ivory wool had slipped away, revealing the baby’s mouth still pressed to her breast. The sun burnished her hair to a halo of rose-gold. At her feet, Kierstelli sat cross-legged, picking out a melody on the child-sized
ryll
Regis had given her as a Midwinter gift. Sensing his awareness, she looked up and met his gaze without pausing in her music.

A pang brushed his heart. Here he was, warm and comfortable, never hungry, for the cellars and larder were always well supplied. He had at last been freed of the responsibility he had never wanted. He had a wife he loved and respected. More than that, he had a family he had never dreamed possible. To his son, he would be the father he had never known. And yet . . .

And yet, his thoughts kept returning to those who still suffered. The poor, who had little food and no way to buy any, even if they could afford it. The country folk, even colder and hungrier, eating their seed crop from desperation.

And Danilo . . .
Always his thoughts came back to Danilo, like an unhealed wound in his heart.

Surely, Rinaldo would value Danilo, would treat him fairly if not kindly. The pain of separation might never pass, but Danilo would be safe and well.

The threat posed by the Federation had receded but was far from resolved. The situation was unstable, dependent on Rinaldo’s whim. Since the Midwinter announcement of Bettany’s pregnancy, Rinaldo had become increasingly unpredictable, effusive one moment and darkly suspicious the next. Tiphani Lawton now wielded far more persuasive power than Valdir ever had. Valdir and his supporters had not given up their ambitions.

As for poor Bettany, she vacillated from remote and arrogant to childishly needy. In a combination of those moods, she had demanded that Linnea attend her as lady-in-waiting. Regis could not imagine a more perilous situation.

Merilys, who had come to serve Regis and Linnea after their marriage, slipped into the room. She took the sleeping baby into her arms, moving gently so as not to waken him. Regis wondered how she knew when to come, and he decided this knowledge was yet another women’s mystery.

When the door closed behind Merilys and the baby, Linnea rearranged the top of her gown, arched her back, and stretched. She looked very young, her movements unselfconscious in their grace, but her expression was somber.

“Regis, with this fine weather, the city will soon be abustle. I will no longer be able to blame being snowed in for not answering Bettany’s summons. I fear any further delay will be taken as discourteous at best.”

Regis found that his chair had suddenly become too comfortable. He pushed himself to his feet and strode to the window. Over the wall of the garden, he glimpsed people on the street. A rider in the short cloak of a City Guardsman guided his mount between the pedestrians. This district, with its wealthy mansions, was the first to be cleared of snow.

“Then we shall find another reason,” he said. “It is an insult to expect you to play nursemaid.”

“She has no kinswoman to attend her and is most likely as confused and frightened as any woman pregnant for the first time.”

Regis suppressed a smile. “That is compassionate, but it changes nothing.”

She came to stand beside him. He felt her ambivalence, her fierce desire to remain with her own baby, to protect both her children.

“What is it,
preciosa
?” he asked. “What troubles you?”

“I cannot set aside the feeling that this poor child needs me. Something is wrong. When I last saw her, at Midwinter, I couldn’t monitor her, nor would it have been ethical to do so without her leave. I offered, telling her that Comyn women have done so through the ages. It poses no danger to mother or babe. She grew angry, as if I had insulted her. Should she ask me now, I would not refuse—but I fear the worst.”

“And that is?”

She looked up, her gray eyes troubled. “I don’t know.”

“Do you think she truly wants your help or only to boast that the woman who might have been lady to the Hastur Lord, an Arilinn-trained Keeper, now dances attendance on her?”

From her expression, she thought the same. Carefully, he picked his way through the words so as not to reveal the depth of his fears. “For the sake of our children, I ask you to keep yourself apart from the court and its perils.”

It was not so long ago that anyone I loved became a target for kidnapping and threat of worse. The moment Linnea passes through the Castle gates, she becomes vulnerable . . .
He could not bear the thought of her in the clutches of his enemies.

But who, he wondered, were his enemies now? Valdir and the other Ridenow? Tiphani Lawton? Or Rinaldo himself?

She shook her head. “What about the risks of defiance? We do not know if this is a passing whim of hers or a test of loyalty. I do not want to move to Comyn Castle, but I would not put you or anyone we care for at risk. Danilo is still in Rinaldo’s custody, no matter what it’s called.”

“That’s all the more reason for you to stay here. Bettany cannot command you. She may be Lady Hastur, but she is not queen. I will speak with my brother. If this is his wish rather than hers, if he wants to be sure of me, then I will find another way of demonstrating my compliance.”

Linnea arched one eyebrow.
You have never been
compliant.

Regis wanted to laugh and scowl at the same time. True, if old Danvan Hastur, with all his manipulative wiles and force of personality, had not been able to bend Regis to his wishes, then a monk dressed in Hastur robes had little chance. And yet . . .
Grandfather could not force me to marry, and here I am.

“I do not wish to raise a rebellion against Rinaldo,” Regis said, trying to keep his voice light. “If anything, I owe him a brother’s love and all the help he will accept. He may have odd ideas, having been raised by Nevarsin monks, but he is not unintelligent. He is perceptive and idealistic. With time and good advice, he will come around.”

“You trust him more than I do.” She fell silent for a moment. “Still, you are right in one thing. Your brother means to do right. If you can persuade him that I am unsuitable as a waiting-woman, that would be the best solution to this problem.”

“Then I will try.”

It still seemed odd to be out in the city without Danilo beside him. Regis felt half-dressed, as if he had left home without his boots. He did what he could to appear inconspicuous. Muffled in a cloak of muted green, his distinctive white hair covered by the hood, he hardly resembled the legendary Regis Hastur. He rode, rather than walked as he once might have, not his Armida-bred mare but a stout gelding, big enough to shoulder its way through a crowd. The dun was shaggy with winter coat, each sturdy foot covered with feathering. It stepped out eagerly, pleased to be free of the stable on such a fine day.