The Shadow Matrix (24 page)

fuller face. She was such a pretty child, though she was still anxious. And her sister,

Val, often looked hunted, as did Emun.

"Was that you looking down from the window upstairs? Did you see me almost bested

by a dummy?" Mikhail spoke with forced cheer. It had not been the girls' room

window, for that was on the other side of the house, where he had seen the white face.

She shook her head. "No, I was in the linen room with Wena. Since you fixed the

window in there, it is quite pleasant. And I only saw you for a minute, because Wena

wanted me to fold sheets with her." She groaned comically and stretched out her arms.

"It is hard to keep them from getting on the floor. You were dashing about changing the

sword from hand to hand."

"Are you a two-handed fighter then,
Dom
Mikhail?". Vincent almost bellowed the

words, for he seemed to have no concept of speaking moderately. Mikhail had

suggested several times that he might speak more quietly, but Vincent continued to

shout, to the extent that Mikhail wondered if he were not somewhat deaf.

"Yes, I am, Vincent."

"When are you going to teach me? Have you ever killed a man?"

"The purpose of swordsmanship is not so much to be able to kill, Vincent, as to be able

not to. We have not had

a war on Darkover in a long time, and I hope we never will again. We keep up the

practice of sword fighting because we want to be able to defend ourselves if the need

arises." His earlier idea of starting to train Vincent and Emun in basic swordsmanship

was less appealing now. Vincent was just a little too bloodthirsty to be trusted, and

Emun too frail.

"So you haven't killed anyone?" The boy looked disappointed. "If I knew how, I

would. There's a big crow that lives in the trees that I'd like to kill right now. When are

you going to start teaching me? I can't very well be king if I can't manage a sword, can,

I?"

Mikhail picked up a plate of over baked rolls and took one while he thought. The more

he saw of Vincent, the less Mikhail could envision him being even a puppet ruler. He

was too headstrong, too arrogant, and too cruel. And he was almost a year older than

Danilo Hastur, who would follow Regis. In Mikhail's estimation, Danilo and Vincent

were incompatible—a problem he had not even thought of when he had taken on his

onerous task. The Hastur boy was not forceful, and so far had shown nothing of Regis'

talent for bringing people together, Vincent would bully Danilo into tatters, as likely as

not.

He tried to tell himself it was not part of his assignment to decide which of Priscilla's

three sons would be best suited to become king, only to find one who was sane enough

to sit on the throne. But he felt a deep longing to choose someone with actual qualities

of leadership, not just a warm body. Of course, Regis might not have intended that he

find such a person—his uncle had been uninformative on the subject—and might have

assumed that any Elhalyn, so long as he was not overtly unstable, would suffice. That

the real power would remain in Hastur hands was a given, but the more he thought

about it, the less Mikhail liked it.

With sudden clarity he realized that if Darkover must have a king, it should be a real

job, not a makeshift traditional position to satisfy people like his father. And it should

be done by an able person, not a manipulable weakling. Otherwise, why have a king at

all?

Looking around the table, he had a sinking feeling. Even without testing for
laran
and

other qualities, he realized

that the only male present who was sane enough and sound enough to do that job was

himself, and the way things had been going, he was not that certain of his own mind

these days. It gave him a feeling of quiet desperation, that he would be trapped into

becoming the Elhalyn king, into being a dummy on a throne which had no real power,

only empty respect. He must not leap to any conclusions! If Vincent was unfit, there

was still Emun to hope for. And who knew what they would be like once they were

away from Priscilla? They might both be better, calmer lads. Then again, they might be

worse. The excellent appetite he had worked up at the quintain faded away.

His own sense of duty kept getting in his way! Mechanically, Mikhail took some

overcooked roots onto his plate and raged silently. He loved his cousin, Danilo Hastur,

but he understood the character of the young man well enough to realize that it was not

as strong as his own. Mikhail could not take the Elhalyn throne without doing damage

to his cousin's rather tenuous self-esteem. He knew that he would end up trying to run

things, and that Dani would resent it. And he cared enormously, he discovered, about

Danilo Hastur. It would not be good for Dani, and more, it would not be good for

Darkover, to have the balance of authority tilted so badly.

"When are you going to teach me to use a sword?" Vincent yelled, interrupting

Mikhail's thoughts. His face was red, as it often was when he did not get his way, and

his eyes seemed to swell in his skull. Mikhail could see the girls flinching, although

they should be used to the racket by now.

"As soon as you learn to moderate the tone of your voice while you are in the house,"

he snapped.

Vincent opened his mouth, then appeared to think better of it. He settled for glaring at

Mikhail, then pinched Val on the arm so hard she squeaked.

Mikhail was on his feet before he quite knew what he was doing. He swept around the

table, grabbed Vincent by his collar, and hauled him out of his chair. The lad was

almost as big as he was, and he resisted. But he was so surprised that all he could

manage was a flail of flabby arms, and a weak buffet along Mikhail's shoulder.

"Go to your room!"

"I won't! You have no right . . ."

Mikhail did not wait to hear more. He grabbed Vincent by the shoulder and the back of

his belt and frog-marched him to the door. Then he shoved him out of the dining room,

and closed the door behind him. He could hear Vincent yelling on the other side,

screaming with rage, almost incoherent. "How dare you! You can't treat a king like

that!"

Mikhail waited to see if Vincent would try to come back, but after a minute of

shouting, he heard the heavy sound of enraged adolescent footfalls storming away. He

turned around and discovered that the remaining children, as well as his Guardsmen,

were looking at him with unfeigned amazement. Emun was almost trembling, his pale

cheeks totally colorless, and his eyes very wide.

"I dislike having my meals disrupted with argument," he said, "It upsets my digestion."

It was more than that, of course. Mikhail had terrible memories of dinners at Armida,

with his parents either shouting at each other, or sitting in a cold, congealing silence

that was bad enough almost to ruin a normal adolescent appetite. When he had gone to

live at Castle Ardais, he had been relieved to discover that Lady Marilla Aillard, Dyan

Ardais' mother, never permitted disputes at the table. It had led to many a tedious

evening, but Mikhail preferred that to argument.

"You should not have done that," Miralys said quietly.

Mikhail returned to his chair, and looked at her with interest. The girls kept very quiet

most of the time, as if they were trying to hide themselves from something. Val seemed

to be the more energetic of the two, for she had a constant twinkle of merriment in her

eyes, and Mira the more confident. But the tone of her voice was not at all confident.

She sounded frightened, and he knew she was more afraid of her brother than he had

realized. Why? It was more than just bullying, but he could not put his finger on it.

He thought about
Dom
Gabriel and Lady Javanne, then about Regis and Lady Linnea,

who were, in many ways, more his real parents than his biological ones were. All of

them had been strict, and
Dom
Gabriel had a tendency to roar when he was thwarted.

But Mikhail had never felt really afraid of any of them, and, as far as he could tell,

neither his brothers nor his sisters were genuinely frightened of
Dom
Gabriel. No one

enjoyed his frequent bursts of ill-humor, but if his father had suddenly ceased to

express them, Mikhail would have thought him ill.

"Why is that, Mira?"

She did not answer, but pursed her lips and bent her head over her supper. Val looked

around the table, shrugged, and replied, "He will take it out on us. He always does."

A finger of unease seemed to run along Mikhail's nape. "What do you mean?"

Valenta looked at him as if he had lost his wits. "My brother
likes
to hurt people." She

said this in a cold, uninflected voice, as if she were stating a known fact, and could not

quite understand why he was asking the question.

Mikhail ignored the sinking feeling in his belly, and a sour taste filled his mouth. She

was absolutely right; he had known it for weeks. But he had refused to believe it, had

kept trying to convince himself that he was misjudging Vincent somehow. And with a

great sense of regret, Mikhail realized that he had been avoiding paying real attention

to these children, that he had let himself become absorbed in the problems of setting

the rackety house in some order because he -did not feel up to the challenge of

understanding these strange creatures. He knew that Vincent was cruel, and that the

younger children were afraid of him. He just didn't want to face it. Why the devil had

Regis given him this job—he wasn't up to it!

"That is going to stop." Mikhail barely believed what he said, but he wanted to

reassure the children.
Of course
—I
am going to watch Vincent every second of the day

and night! What a dreadful joke.

Val shook her head, sending black curls swirling around her catlike face. "You can't

stop Vincent. No one can."

"Why not?"

"Because if he can't get you with his hands, he'll give you the headache or the grippe."

"I see." Mikhail picked up his goblet and took a swig of local cider, sweet and dry at

the same time. He did see, for the first time since he arrived, that Vincent had been let

run wild, that if he had been sent to a Tower for training as soon as he showed signs of

laran,
he might not do the

things he did. He really had to sit down and do the testing he had come to do, and

soon.

This was Priscilla's fault, for refusing to let her children be trained, but it was too late

to start blaming. They could have gone to Dalereuth, the closest Tower, almost on the

sea for which it was named, if she had not let them come to Arilinn. If anyone was to

blame, it was Regis himself, for letting things go for so many years.

It all came back to
laran,
didn't it? Before he had encountered Marguerida Alton,

Mikhail had never really given a thought to what a double-edged blade the ability to

read minds could be. He had grown up in a telepathic community, where the trait was

both anticipated and desired, and because, as his beloved often reminded him, he was

inside Darkovan culture, he never saw that there was any liability in it.

Laran
was so much a part of Darkovan culture that he rarely thought about it, until

Marguerida had pointed out rather angrily that it affected everything. Her position was

that it was overvalued, to the point of obsession. And Until his sister Ariel had revealed

her enormous pain and self-hatred for her own lack of
laran,
he had not realized how

painful it was for those who did not possess the gift.

During his time at Arilinn, while Marguerida began her own training, Mikhail had

found himself forced to examine many things he took quite for granted. The scholarly

mind of his beloved was something he had never encountered before, either in man or

woman. She was able to argue—and even seemed to revel in dispute—any position,

clearly and incisively. This, she informed him, was called sophistry, and was frowned

on in academic circles. But during several of their afternoon walks, or their pleasant

rides in the meadows and fields around the Tower, she had cheerfully dissected

Darkovan culture. It seemed to release something vital in her, for her eyes always

sparkled like yellow agates, and he knew she missed her academic life at University

more than she ever admitted.

Sometimes she took the position that
laran
was a good thing, and other times that it

was not. Marguerida would make reference to other cultures she knew about, where

people bred for strength or intelligence or skin color. Mikhail was fascinated, filled

with longing to visit other worlds.

But what had come out of these discussions was a greater understanding on his part

that Darkover was not as simple as he had always imagined it to be. She was always

fair, but she also always followed her arguments to their logical conclusions, some of

which were not very appealing.

One of the matters they had often talked about was the problem of the untrained or