The Shadow Matrix (15 page)

arrived on Darkover, and she longed for the simplicity of her previous life. She might

as well have asked for the moons, she decided, and tried to put it out of her mind.

Margaret did not succeed. She found her mind running back to her own failings, and to

the hostility of the younger students at Arilinn. She had studied, and she had studied

hard, but she realized she had not enjoyed the experience, as she had enjoyed her time

at University. Part of it was the attitude of the other students, which she felt keenly.

The rest of it was her own resentment at being sent back to school, and to study

something so alien as telepathy. She realized that if she had studied it as a youngster, it

would

have been less difficult than it was now, but there was no help for that. Besides,

Margaret was fairly certain that if she had tried to confront the shade of Ashara Alton

in her teens, she would not have lived to tell the tale.

No matter how often she was told that she had nothing to fear from the long dead

Keeper, that Ashara had been completely undone during her battle in the overworld,

Margaret still had the certainty that she was not entirely finished with her ancestor. It

was not just the presence of the network of lines on her flesh, but something more. It

lacked the clarity of a foretelling, and she was relieved that she had not had any visions

of the haunting little woman. As far as Margaret was concerned, if she never had

another bout with the Aldaran Gift, it would be just fine. Telepathy she could deal with

—barely—but the ability to see into the future was just too terrible to be borne.

Of the three experiences she had had with the Aldaran Gift, it was the second which

disturbed her the most. This had been about the child which Ariel Alar carried in her

swelling womb—the girl they would call Alanna. There was something about the child

swimming in Ariel's womb that she found disturbing. She had had the vision

immediately after Domenic's accident. Margaret discovered she wanted very much to

dismiss it as some stressful imagining. But she did not believe that, and she was too

honest to pretend that she did.

As for the last vision, the sight of Hali Tower as it had existed in the past, it did not

bother her at all. She knew it worried Jeff and her father, but she could not help that.

Not all visions came true, or happened as they were foreseen. Liriel had explained that,

much to Margaret's relief. All she knew was that she had no great foreboding when she

thought of Hali, as she did when she considered the yet unborn baby. She had already

had more adventures, Margaret reflected, than most people had in three lifetimes; if

she could arrange it, she was not going to have any more.

Margaret chuckled, and Lew looked at her. "Might I share the joke?"

"I was just thinking that I don't want any more adventures in my life!"

Lew Alton roared with laughter, and it warmed her to hear it. His horse, however, took

umbrage, and reared its

head, jingling the rings on the bridle, and snorting. "Good luck," he said, when he

finally managed to stop his merriment. "I hope you have a very boring life, daughter,

but I doubt that you will. There is, it seems to me, something about us which attracts

trouble."

"Humph! I'd expect something like that from Aunt Ja-vanne, but not from you!"

"Your aunt is a canny woman, despite her character flaws, Marguerida. She often

called me 'storm crow,' and she was not far off the mark."

"She always manages to make me feel like a bug." Margaret paused. "One she'd like to

squash."

"Oh, certainly. Javanne is a strong woman, a determined woman. She has always been

that way. She likes to arrange things to suit herself. But I suspect she rather envies

you."

"What?"

"She would never, never admit it, of course. But,
chiya,
think. You have been educated,

have traveled between the stars, have seen other races—things she can hardly imagine.

Javanne has lived in a small circuit—raising children at Armida, visiting Thendara to

bully Regis, managing the lives of her young, without, you will notice, a great deal of

success. It is not just Mikhail who escaped her thrall. He is only the most obvious.

Liriel has chosen her own path which, in truth, is just as limited as Javanne's, but

somewhat more varied. Gabe and Rafael are still unmarried, despite her efforts to the

contrary. And Regis is not nearly as compliant as she wishes him to be. Not to mention

the wear and tear of being married to
Dom
Gabriel."

"I guess I had not thought about it like that. But why didn't she let Mikhail leave

Darkover? I've never really understood that. I mean, after Danilo Hastur was born,

when Regis didn't need Mik any longer, why did she oppose his leaving?"

"I suspect that she would not allow him what she could not have herself. Javanne is a

classic egotist, daughter. It is not a lovely thing, but since I suffer from something of

the same affliction, I can pardon her faults more than you can. You are still very young,

and very judgmental."

"Classic? That is not a thing I would ever call you—or her, for that matter!"

"No, but I am certainly an egotist. If I had not been, I

would never have endured." He chuckled. "I never thought of myself in that way when

I was young, of course, because one doesn't. If the young could have even an inkling

of their innate self-centeredness, they would make a great many fewer mistakes."

"I suppose that makes me an egotist, too." What a discouraging realization. Margaret

flinched, since she thought of herself as fairly generous and helpful, not like her more

gifted classmates at University, or even Ivor, who had been truly self-absorbed about

his music.

"Yes and no. You are a great deal more mature than I was at your age, I believe. The

result of your exposure to other cultures, one assumes. I think that seeing how others

live is always humbling. And you lack my besetting sin— foolish pride. So many

things in my life would have been different but for my pride, my refusal to ask for

help, and my insistence on doing things my own way."

"Well, if you end up surrounded by real talents, as I did in Ivor's house, you can't get

stuck-up. You have no idea how humbling it is to be a fine second fiddle in a house full

of musical geniuses! Not that they lorded over me, because Ivor and Ida did not permit

it. But I knew that I was never going to be a real creator, the way Jheffy was. Still,

being a Fellow of the University was a good thing, and I was extremely proud of it. I

still am, and sometimes I wish I could just go back there and pick up where I left off."

"Why?"

"Father, research is very satisfying. There are no personalities to cope with—well,

academic jealousies, of course— but you can bury yourself in the archives and just

learn. There are some Scholars at University who spend their lifetimes learning—

writing about their discoveries or giving lectures." She sighed, wondering if she could

ever convey the joy she felt in being an academic. "A well-documented paper is a

wonderful thing. It is real, something you can hold in your mind. An intellectual

artifact. It does not matter what world you came from, or what your sex is, or how old

you are. There is something very . . . pure about it."

"You are very wary of emotional entanglements, aren't you?"

"I have not had very good luck with them. I loved Ivor a great deal, as I would have

loved you, I suppose, if we

had known one another better. He died much sooner than he should have. I wish you

could have known him."

"The glimpse I had of him while you were trying to find Donal Alar in the overwork!

made me quite envious,
chiya.
Part of me rejoices that you had so fine a foster father,

and the rest of me regrets that I missed all that time with you."

"Yes, he was a good parent, if a wee bit absent-minded. But, you see, as much as I

loved Ivor and he probably loved me, there were no deep emotions. I mean, not like

the feelings I have about you or Dio. We were both, I suppose, the servants of music—

priest and priestess. We never discussed anything intimate, the way Mik and I or Liriel

and I do sometimes. We were attached, but it was more from circumstance than

anything else. He had had so many students—fifty-three years of young musicians—

and he had loved them all, in a nice, impersonal way. And his wife, Ida, loved us as

well. She was supportive and comforting, and all of us felt as safe in that house as we

would anywhere in the galaxy, but it was not . . . really warm. Well, now I think about

it, Ida is a very warm woman, but I never let myself get too close to her. She and Ivor

never had any children of their own, only those of other people. I don't know if she

missed it or not. I think, though, if she missed anything, it was giving up her own

career in favor of Ivor's. I know she was a budding synthiclavierist when they met.

And, from her occasional performances, she was extremely good, almost brilliant. But

instead of being a famous player, she became a clavier tutor, and dozens of well-known

musicians have studied with her. To have studied with Ida Davidson is considered a

great honor in musical circles."

"Do you think she regretted having a private rather than a public career?"

"I asked her once, and she said that being a famous musician is very wearing, and not

all it is cracked up to be."

"She sounds like a fine person, and I am deeply grateful to her for fostering you so

well. Your manners, when you left Thetis, were in a sorry state, and, truthfully, I

despaired a little. But, when I watched you at Arilinn, it struck me that you are every

inch a lady."

Margaret felt herself redden to the roots of her hair. "A lady? Me?
Domna
Marilla—

she's a lady! Or Linnea. I am

just a hoyden who happens to be the heiress to a Domain— quite a different thing!

They know what to do, what to say in any circumstance."

"And Javanne?" Lew asked, his voice brimming with amusement.

"Well, certainly my aunt is a proper lady—but she is of a different sort than Linnea or

Marilla. She knows what to say, but she does not always do it!"

"In other words, she is more like you than like
Domna
Marilla."

"Oh, my! I suppose she is—and how much she would loathe the comparison!" She

paused and thought for a moment. "I think I would say that both of us are somewhat

cold."

"How odd."

"Why?"

"Because I think I would have said that you and Javanne are very passionate people,

not cold at all. But, you were speaking of your wariness—I wish you would go on, if it

is not too uncomfortable for you to speak of it."

Passionate? Margaret had to take a minute to consider that. It was a new thought, and

not an entirely comfortable one. She knew she was deeply passionate about music, and

now about the planet of her birth. But those had a certain quality of abstraction, of

distance about them. She loved Mikhail—there was no question of that—but she was

not sure she felt passionately about him. She was passionate
toward
him, which was a

very different thing than her feelings about Darkover or music. It was too new an idea,

and too knotty a problem to sort out now, so she set it aside, a little reluctantly.

Margaret sorted through a muddle of thoughts and feelings, most of them freighted

with more emotion than she was ready to address. "Until I came to Darkover," she

began slowly, "I don't think I ever felt the real warmth of human contact, except a few

times with Dio. This was mostly because Ashara kept telling me to keep myself apart,

whispering in my brain like a piece of bad music, until I just stopped trying. I got very

good at keeping my distance, so maybe a part of my personality is suited to

remoteness. Sometimes it is very hard to tell where Margaret Alton starts, and where

Ashara leaves off. She must

have been a very bitter woman, and I wonder if I will ever know the reason for it. She

is so enigmatic, so present and so far away at the same time." Margaret gave a sigh.

"And then I have to go and take a fancy to the one man on Darkover that I cannot have.

So, yes, I am wary. I have good reason."

"Don't be defensive. I was not criticizing you. I know that nothing in your history

would lead you to trust others, and I am aware of my own part in that. As for Mikhail,

we shall have to see. Don't give up hope yet."

"Hope will break my heart, Father." Margaret was ashamed of the anger and bitterness

in her voice, and gave Dorilys a quick jab in the sides with her heels. The little mare

responded by lengthening her stride, and Margaret rode ahead, making further

conversation impossible.

When Margaret and Lew arrived at Comyn Castle just before nightfall, they were

greeted by servants. The horses were taken to the stables, and they went to the Alton

suite in silence. It was not an uncomfortable thing, the way it had been between them

when she was a child and Lew Alton had shunned her, just a respectful quiet where

both of them kept their thoughts to themselves.