Heritage and Exile (25 page)

Almost without volition, Regis drew his sword. Danilo, startled, took a step backward in fear; then he straightened and stiffened his mouth. “Do you punish blasphemy so quickly, lord? I am unarmed, but if my offense merits death, then kill me now where I stand! My life is no good to me!”

Shocked, Regis lowered the point of the sword. “Kill you, Dani?” he said in horror. “God forbid! It never crossed my mind! I wished . . .Dani, lay your hand on the hilt of my sword.”

Confused, startled into obedience, Danilo put a tentative hand on the hilt. Regis gripped hand and hilt together in his own fingers.

“Son of Hastur who is the Son of Aldones who is the Lord of Light! May this hand and this sword pierce my heart and my honor, Danilo, if I had part or knowledge in your disgrace, or if anything you say now shall be used to work you harm!” Again, from the hand-touch, he felt that odd little shock running up his arm, blurring his own thoughts, felt Danilo's sobs tight in his own throat.

Danilo said on a drawn breath, “No Hastur would forswear that oath!”

“No Hastur would forswear his naked word,” Regis retorted proudly, “but if it took an oath to convince you, an oath you have.” He sheathed the sword.

“Now tell me what happened, Dani. Was the charge a lie, then?”

Danilo was still visibly dazed. “The night I came in—it had been raining. You woke, you
knew
—”

“I knew only that you were in pain, Dani. No more. I asked if I could help, but you drove me away.” The pain and shock he had felt that night returned to him in full force and he felt his heart pounding again with the agony of it, as he had done when Danilo thrust him away.

Danilo said, “You are a telepath. I thought—”

“A very rudimentary one, Danilo,” said Regis, trying to steady his voice. “I sensed only that you were unhappy, in pain. I didn't know why and you would not tell me.”

“Why should you care?”

Regis put out his hand, slowly closed it around Danilo's wrist. “I am Hastur and Comyn. It touches the honor of my clan and my caste that anyone should have cause to speak ill of us. With false slanders we can deal, but with truth, we can only try to right the wrong. We Comyn can be mistaken.” Dimly, at the back of his mind, he realized he had said “We Comyn” for the first time. “More,” he said, and smiled fleetingly, “I like your father, Dani. He was willing to anger a Hastur in order to have you left in peace.”

Danilo stood nervously locking and unlocking his hands. He said, “The charge is true. I drew my dagger on Lord Dyan. I only wish I had cut his throat while I was about it; whatever they did to me, the world would be a cleaner place.”

Regis stared, disbelieving. “
Zandru!
Dani—”

“I know, in days past, the men who touched Comyn lord in irreverence would have been torn on hooks. In those days, perhaps, Comyn were worth reverence—”

“Leave that,” Regis said sharply. “Dani, I am heir to Hastur, but even I could not draw steel on an officer without disgrace. Even if the officer I struck were no Comyn lord but young Hjalmar, whose mother is a harlot of the streets.”

Danilo stood fighting for control. “If I struck young Hjalmar, Regis, then I would have deserved my punishment; he is an honorable man. It was not as my officer I drew on Lord Dyan. He had forfeited all claim to obedience or respect.”

“Is that for you to judge?”

“In those circumstances . . .” Danilo swallowed. “Could I respect and obey a man who has so far forgotten himself as to try to make me his—” He used a
cahuenga
word Regis did not know, only that it was unspeakably obscene. But he was still in rapport with Danilo, so there was no scrap of doubt about his meaning. Regis went white. He literally could not speak under the shock of it.

“At first I thought he was joking,” Danilo said, almost stammering. “I do not like such jests—I am a
cristoforo
—but I gave him some similar joke for an answer and thought that was the end of it, for if he meant the jest in seriousness, then I had given him his answer without offense. Then he made himself clearer and grew angry when I answered him no, and swore he could force me to it. I don't know what he did to me, Regis, he did something with his mind, so that wherever I was, alone or with others, I
felt
him touching me, heard his . . . his foul whispers, that awful, mocking laugh of his. He pursued me, he seemed to be inside my mind all the time. All the time. I thought he meant to drive me out of my mind! I had thought . . . a telepath could not inflict pain. . . . I can't stand it even to be
around
anyone who's really unhappy, but he took some awful, hateful kind of pleasure in it.” Danilo sobbed suddenly. “I went to him, then, I begged him to let me be! Regis, I am no gutter-brat, my family has served the Hasturs honorably for years, but if I were a whore's foundling and he the king on his throne, he would have had no right to use me so shamefully!” Danilo broke down again and sobbed. “And then . . . and then he said I knew perfectly well how I could be free of him. He
laughed
at me, that awful, hideous laugh. And then I had my dagger out, I hardly know how I came to draw it, or what I meant to do with it, kill myself maybe . . .” Danilo put his hands over his face. “You know the rest,” he said through them.

Regis could hardly draw breath. “Zandru send him scorpion whips! Dani, why didn't you lay charge and claim immunity? He is subject to the laws of Comyn too, and a telepath who misuses his
laran
that way . . .”

Danilo gave a weary little shrug. It said more than words. Regis felt wholly numbed by the revelation. How could he ever face Dyan again, knowing this?

Regis looked up, outraged, then realized Danilo had not spoken at all. They were deeply in rapport; he felt the other boy's thoughts. He sat back down on the log, feeling that his legs were unable to hold him upright.

“I touched you . . . only to quiet you.” he said at last.

“I know that now. What good would it do to say I am sorry for that, Regis? It was a shameful thing to say.”

“It is no wonder you cannot believe in honor or decency from my kin. But it is for us to prove it to you. All the more since you are one of us. Danilo, how long have you had
laran
?”

“I?
Laran?
I, Lord Regis?”

“Didn't you know? How long have you been able to read thoughts?”

“That? Why, all my life, it seems. Since I was twelve or so. Is
that
. . .”

“Don't you know what it means, if you have one of the Comyn gifts? You do, you know. Telepaths aren't uncommon, but you opened up my own gift, even after Lew Alton failed.” With a flood of emotion, he thought,
you brought me my heritage
. “I think you're what they call a catalyst telepath. That's very rare and a precious gift.” He forebore to say it was an Ardais gift. He doubted if Danilo would appreciate that information just now. “Have you told anyone else?”

“How could I, when I didn't know myself? I thought everyone could read thoughts.”

“No, it's rarer than that. It means you too are Comyn, Dani.”

“Are you saying my parentage is—”

“Zandru's hells, no! But your family is noble, it may well be that your mother had Comyn kinsmen, Comyn blood, even generations ago. With full
laran,
though, it means you yourself are eligible for Comyn Council, that you should be trained to use these gifts, sealed to Comyn.” He saw revulsion on Danilo's face and said quickly, “Think. It means you are Lord Dyan's equal. He can be held accountable for having misused you.”

Regis blessed the impulse that had brought him here. Alone, his mind burdened with the brooding, hypersensitive nature of the untrained telepath, under his father's grim displeasure . . . Danilo might have killed himself after all.

“I won't, though,” Danilo said aloud. Regis realized they had slid into rapport again. He reached out to touch Danilo, remembered and didn't. To conceal the move he bent and picked up a windfall apple. Danilo got to his feet and began putting on his shirt. Regis finished the apple and dropped the core into a pile of mulch.

“Dani, I am expected to sleep tonight at my sister's house. But I give my word: you shall be vindicated. Meanwhile, is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Yes, Regis! Yes! Tell my father the disgrace and dishonor were not mine! He asked no questions and spoke no word of reproach, but no man in our family has ever been dishonored. I can bear anything but his belief that I lied to him!”

“I promise you he shall know the full—no.” Regis broke off suddenly. “Isn't that why you dared not tell him yourself? He would kill—” He saw that he had, in truth, reached the heart of Danilo's fear.

“He would challenge Dyan,” Danilo said haltingly, “and though he looks strong he is an old man and his heart is far from sound. If he knew the truth—I
wanted
to tell him everything, but I would rather have him . . . despise me . . . than ruin himself.”

“Well, I shall try to clear your name with your father without endangering him. But for yourself, Dani? We owe you something for the injury.”

“You owe me nothing, Regis. If my name is clean before my kinsmen, I am content.”

“Still, the honor of Comyn demands we right this injustice. If there is rot at our heart, well, it must be cleansed.” At this moment, filled with righteous anger, he was ready to fling himself against a whole regiment of unjust men who abused their powers. If the older men in Comyn were corrupt or power-mad, and the younger ones idle, then boys would have to set it right!

Danilo dropped to one knee. He held out his hands, his voice breaking. “There is a life between us. My brother died to shield your father. As for me, I ask no more than to give my life in the service of Hastur. Take my sword and my oath, Lord Regis. By the hand I place on your sword, I pledge my life.”

Startled, deeply moved, Regis drew his sword again, held out the hilt to Danilo. Their hands met on the hilt again as Regis, stumbling on the ritual words, trying to recall them one by one, said, “Danilo-Felix Syrtis, be from this day paxman and shield-arm to me . . . and this sword strike me if I be not just lord and shield to you. . . .” He bit his lip, fighting to remember what came next. Finally he said,

“The Gods witness it, and the holy things at Hali.” It seemed there was something else, but at least their intention was clear, he thought. He slid the sword back into its sheath, raised Danilo to his feet and shyly kissed him on either cheek. He saw tears on Danilo's eyelids and knew that his own were not wholly dry.

He said, trying to lighten the moment, “Now you've only had formally what we both knew all along,
bredu
.” He heard himself say the word with a little shock of amazement, but knew he meant it as he had never meant anything before.

Danilo said, trying to steady his voice, “I should have . . . offered you my sword. I'm not wearing one, but here—”

That was what had been missing in the ritual. Regis started to say that it did not matter, but without it there was something wanting. He looked at the dagger Danilo held out hilt-first to him. Regis drew his own, laid it hilt-to-blade along the other before giving it to Danilo, saying quietly. “Bear this, then, in my service.”

Danilo laid his lips to the blade for a moment, saying, “In your service alone I bear it,” and put it into his own sheath.

Regis thrust Danilo's knife into the scabbard at his waist. It did not quite fit, but it would do. He said, “You must remain here until I send for you. It will not be long, I promise, but I have to think what to do.”

He did not say goodbye. It was not necessary. He turned and walked back along the lane. As he went into the barn to untie his horse, Dom Felix came slowly toward him.

“Lord Regis, may I offer you some refreshment?” Regis said pleasantly, “I thank you, but grudged hospitality has a bitter taste. Yet it is my pleasure to assure you, on the word of a Hastur”—he touched his hand briefly to swordhilt—“you may be proud of your son, Dom Felix. His dishonor should be your pride.”

The old man frowned. “You speak riddles,
vai dom
.”

“Sir, you were hawk-master to my grandsire, yet I have not seen you at court in my lifetime. To Danilo a choice even more bitter was given: to win favor by dishonorable means, or to keep his own honor at the price of apparent disgrace. In brief, sir, your son offended the pride of a man who has power but none of the honor which gives power its dignity. And this man revenged himself.”

The old man's brow furrowed as he slowly puzzled out what Regis was saying. “If the charge was unjust, an act of private revenge, why did my son not tell me?”

“Because, Dom Felix, Dani feared you would ruin yourself to avenge him.” He added quickly, seeing a thousand questions forming in the old man's eyes, “I promised Danilo I would tell you no more than this. But will you accept the word of a Hastur that he is blameless?”

Light broke in the troubled face. “I bless you for coming and I beg you to pardon my rough words, Lord Regis. I am no courtier. But I am grateful.”

“And loyal to your son,” Regis said. “Have no doubt, Dom Felix, he is worthy of it.”

“Will you not honor my house, Lord Regis?” This time the offer was heartfelt, and Regis smiled. “I regret that I cannot, sir, I am expected elsewhere. Danilo has shown me your hospitality; you grow the finest apples I have tasted in a long time. And I give you my word that one day it shall be my pleasure to show honor to the father of my friend. Meanwhile, I beg you to be reconciled to your son.”