Текст книги "Heritage Of Hastur"

Автор книги: Marion Zimmer Bradley

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He was gentle again. “Lew, you’re still very young. Some day you’ll learn that we all have compromises to make, and we make them with the best grace we can. You have to do the best you can within a situation. You can’t eat nuts without cracking some shells.” He stretched out his hand to me. “You’re my main support, Lew. Don’t force me to fight you too. I need you at my side.”

I clasped his hand between my fingers; it felt swollen and feverish. How could I add to his troubles? He trusted me. What right had I to set up my judgment against his? He was my father, my commander, the lord of my Domain. My only duty was to obey.

Out of his sight, my rage flared again. Who would have believed Father would compromise the honor of the Guards? And how quickly he had maneuvered me again, like a puppet-master pulling strings of love, loyalty, ambition, my own need for his recognition!

I will probably never forget the interview with Dyan Ardais. Oh, he was civil enough. He even commended me on my caution. I kept myself barriered and was scrupulously polite, but I am sure he knew how I felt, like a farmer who had just set a wolf to guard the fowl-house.

There was only one grain of comfort in the situation: Iwas no longer a cadet!

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Chapter FIVE

As the cadets walked toward the barracks, Regis among them, he heard little of their chatter and horseplay. His face was burning. He could cheerfully have murdered Lew Alton.

Then a tardy fairness came back to him. Everybody there obviously knew what was going to happen, so it was evidently something that went on now and then. He was just the one who stumbled into it. It could have been anyone.

Suddenly he felt better. For the first time in his life he was being treated exactly like anybody else. No deference. No special treatment. He brightened and began to listen to what they were saying.

“Where the hell were you brought up, cadet, not to answer to your name?”

“I was educated at Nevarsin,” Regis said, provoking more jeers and laughter.

“Hey, we have a monk among us! Were you too busy at your prayers to hear your name?”

“No, it was the hour of Great Silence and the bell hadn’t rung for speech!”

Regis listened with an amiable and rather witless grin, which was the best thing he could possibly have done. A third-year cadet, superior and highly polished in his green and black uniform, conveyed them into a barracks room at the far end of the courtyard. “First-year men in here.”

“Hey,” someone asked, “what happened to the Commander?”

The junior officer in charge said, “Wash your ears next time. He broke some bones in a fall. We all heard.”

Someone said, carefully not loud enough for the officer to hear, “Are we going to be stuck with the bastard all season?”

“Shut up,” said Julian MacAran, “Lanart-Alton’s not a bad sort. He’s got a temper if you set him off, but nothing like the old man in a rage. Anyway, it could be worse,” he added, with a wary glance at the cadet who was out of range for the moment. “Lew’s fair and he keeps his hands to himself, which is more than you can say for somepeople.”

Danilo asked, “Who’s really going to be cadet-master? Di Asturien’s been retired for years. He served with my grandfather!”

Damon MacAnndra said with a careful look at the officer, “I heard it was going to be you-know-who. Captain Ardais.”

Julian said, “I hope you’re joking. Last night I was down in the armory and … ” His voice fell to a whisper. Regis was too far away, but the lads crowded around him reacted with nervous, high-pitched giggles. Damon said, “That’s nothing. Listen, did you hear about my cousin Octavien Vallonde? Last year—”

“Chill it,” a strange cadet said, just loud enough for Regis to hear. “You know what happened to him for gossiping about a Comyn heir. Have you forgotten there’s one in the barracks now?”

Silence abruptly fell over the knot of cadets. They separated and began to drift around the barracks room. To Regis it was like a slap in the face. One minute they were laughing and joking, including him in their jokes; suddenly he was an outsider, a threat. It was worse because he had not really caught the drift of what they were saying.

He drifted toward Danilo, who was at least a familiar face. “What happens now?”

“I guess we wait for someone to tell us. I didn’t mean to attract attention and get you in trouble, Lord Regis.”

“You too, Dani?” That formal Lord Regis seemed a symbol of the distance they were all keeping. He managed to laugh. “Didn’t you just hear Lew Alton remind me very forcibly that nobody would call me Lord Regis down here?”

Dani gave him a quick, spontaneous grin. “Right.” He looked around the barracks room. It was bleak, cold and comfortless. A dozen hard, narrow camp-beds were ranged in two rows along the wall. All but one had been made up. Danilo gestured to the only one still unchosen and said, “Most of us were down here last night and picked beds. I guess that one will have to be yours. It’s next to mine, anyhow.”

Regis shrugged. “They haven’t left me much choice.” It was, of course, the least desirable location, in a corner under a high window, which would probably be drafty. Well, it couldn’t be worse than the student dormitory at Nevarsin. Or colder.

The third-year cadet said, “Men, you can have the rest of the morning to make up your beds and put away your clothing. No food in barracks at any time; anything left lying on the floor will be confiscated.” He glanced around at the boys waiting quietly for his orders. He said, “Uniforms will be given out tomorrow. MacAnndra—”

Damon said, “Sir?”

“Get a haircut from the barber; you’re not at a dancing class. Hair below the collarbone is officially out of uniform. Your mother may have loved those curls, but the officers won’t.”

Damon turned as red as an apple and ducked his head.

Regis examined the bed, which was made of rough planking, with a straw mattress covered with coarse, clean ticking. Folded at the foot were a couple of thick dark gray blankets. They looked scratchy. The other lads were making up the beds with their own sheets. Regis began making a mental list of the things he should fetch from his grandfather’s rooms. It began with bed linens and a pillow. At the head of each bed was a narrow wooden shelf on which each cadet had already placed his personal possessions. At the foot of the bed was a rough wooden box, each lid scarred with knife-marks, intertwined initials and hacked or lightly burned-in crests, the marks of generations of restless boys. It struck Regis that years ago his father must have been a cadet in this very room, on a hard bed like this, his possessions reduced, whatever his rank or riches, to what he could keep on a narrow shelf a hand-span wide. Danilo was arranging on his shelf a plain wooden comb, a hairbrush, a battered cup and plate and a small box carved with silver, from which he reverently took the small cristoforostatue of the Bearer of Burdens, carrying his weight of the world’s sorrows.

Below the shelf were pegs for his sword and dagger. Danilo’s looked very old. Heirlooms in his family?

All of them were there because their forefathers had been, Regis thought with the old resentment. He swore he would never walk the trail carved out for a Hastur heir, yet here he was.

The cadet officer was walking along the room, making some kind of final check. At the far end of the room was an open space with a couple of heavy benches and a much-scarred wooden table. There was an open fireplace, but no fire was burning at present. The windows were high and narrow, unglazed, covered with slatted wood shutters, which could be closed in the worst weather at the price of shutting out most of the light. The cadet officer said, “Each of you will be sent for some time today and tested by an arms-master.” He saw Regis sitting on the end of his bed and walked down the row of beds to him.

“You came in late. Did anyone give you a copy of the arms-manual?”

“No, sir.”

The officer gave him a battered booklet. “I heard you were educated at Nevarsin; I suppose you can read. Any questions?”

“I didn’t—my grandfather didn’t—no one sent my things down. May I send for them?”

The older lad said, not unkindly, “There’s no one to fetch and carry for you down here, cadet. Tomorrow after dinner you’ll have some off-duty time and you can go and fetch what you need for yourself. Meanwhile, you’ll just have to make out with the clothes on your back.” He looked Regis over, and Regis imagined a veiled sneer at the elaborate garments he had put on to present himself to his grandfather this morning. “You’re the nameless wonder, aren’t you? Remembered your name yet?”

“Cadet Hastur, sir,” Regis said, his face burning again, and the officer nodded, said, “Very good, cadet,” and went away.

And that was obviously why they did it, Regis thought. Probably nobody ever forgot twice.

Danilo, who had been listening, said, “Didn’t anyone tell you to bring down everything you’d need the night before? That’s why Lord Alton sent me down early.”

“No, no one told me.” He wished he had thought to ask Lew, while they could speak together as friends and not as cadet and commander, what he would need in barracks.

Danilo said diffidently, “Those are your best clothes, aren’t they? I could lend you an ordinary shirt to put on; you’re about my size.”

“Thank you, Dani. I’d be grateful. This outfit isn’t very suitable, is it?”

Danilo was kneeling in front of his wooden chest, brought out a clean but very shabby linen shirt, much patched around the elbows. Regis pulled off the dyed-leather tunic and the fine frilled shirt under it and slid into the patched one. It was a little large. Danilo apologized. “It’s big for me too. It used to belong to Lew—Captain Alton, I mean. Lord Kennard gave me some of his outgrown clothes, so that I’d have a decent outfit for the cadets. He gave me a good horse too. He’s been very kind to me.”

Regis laughed. “I used to wear Lew’s outgrown clothes the years I was there. I kept growing out of mine, and with the fire-watch called every few days, no one had time to make me any new ones or send to town.” He laced up the cords at the neck. Danilo said, “It’s hard to imagine you wearing outgrown clothes.”

“I didn’t mind wearing Lew’s. I hated wearing my sister’s outgrown nightgowns, though. Her governess taught her needlework by having her cut them down to size for me. Whenever she was cross about it, she used to pinch or prick me with her pins while she was trying them on. She’s never liked sewing.” He thought of his sister as he had last seen her, heavy-footed, swollen in pregnancy. Poor Javanne. She was caught too, with nothing ahead of her except bearing children for the house of Hastur. “Regis, is something wrong?”

Regis was startled at Danilo’s look of concern, “Not really. I was thinking of my sister, wondering if her child had been born.”

Danilo said gently, “I’m sure they’d have sent word if anything was wrong. The old saying is that good news crawls on its belly; bad news has wings.”

Damon MacAnndra came toward them. “Have you been tested yet by the arms-master?”

“No,” said Dani, “they didn’t get to me yesterday. What happens?”

Damon shrugged. “The arms-master hands you a standard Guardsmen sword and asks you to demonstrate the basic positions for defense. If you don’t know which end of it to take hold by, he puts you down for beginners’ lessons and you get to practice about three hours a day. In your off-duty time, of course. If you know the basics, he or one of his assistants will test you. When I went up last night, Lord Dyan was there watching. I tell you, I sweated blood! I made a damn fool of myself, my foot slipped and he put me down for lessons every other day. Who could do anything with that one staring at you?”

“Yes,” Julian said from the cot beyond, where he was trying to get a spot of rust off his knife. “My brother told me he likes to sit and watch the cadets training. He seems to enjoy seeing them get rattled and do stupid things. He’s a mean one.”

“I studied swordplay at Nevarsin,” Danilo said. “I’m not worried about the arms-master.”

“Well, you’d better worry about Lord Dyan. You’re just young enough and pretty enough—”

“Shut your mouth,” Danilo said. “You shouldn’t talk that way about a Comyn lord.”

Damon snickered. “I forgot. You’re Lord Alton’s protégé, aren’t you? Strange, I never heard that he had any special liking for pretty boys.”

Danilo flared, his face burning. “You shut your filthy mouth! You’re not fit to wipe Lord Kennard’s boots! If you say anything like that again—”

“Well, it seems we have a whole cloister of monks back here.” Julian joined in the laughter. “Do you recite the Creed of Chastity when you ride into battle, Dani?”

“It wouldn’t hurt any of you dirty-mouths to say something decent,” Danilo said and turned his back on them, burying himself in the arms-manual.

Regis had also been shocked by the accusation they had made and by their language. But he realized he could not expect ordinary young men to behave and talk like novice monks, and he knew they would quickly make his life unbearable if he showed any sign of his distaste. He held his peace. That sort of thing must be common enough here to be a joke.

Yet it had touched off a murder and near-riot in the Terran Zone. Could grown men actually take such things seriously enough to kill? Terrans, perhaps. They must have very strange customs, if they were even stricter than the cristoforos.

He suddenly recalled, as something that might have taken place years ago, that only this morning he had stood beside young Lawton in the Terran Zone, watching the starship break free from the planet and make its way to the stars. He wondered if Dan Lawton knew which end of a sword to take hold by, and if he cared. He had a strange sense of shuttling, rapidly and painfully, between worlds.

Three years. Three years to study swordplay while the Terran ships came and went less than a bowshot away.

Was this the kind of awareness his grandfather carried night and day, a constant reminder of two worlds rubbing shoulders, with violently opposed histories, habits, manners, moralities? How did Hastur live with the contrast?

The day wore on. He was sent for, and an orderly measured him for his uniform. When the sun was high, a junior officer came to show them the way to the mess hall, where the cadets ate at separate tables. The food was coarse and plain, but Regis had eaten worse at Nevarsin and he made a good meal, though some of the cadets grumbled loudly about the fare.

“It’s not so bad,” he said in an undertone to Danilo, and the younger boy’s eyes glinted with mischief. “Maybe they want to make sure we know they’re used to something better! Even if we’re not.”

Regis, aware of Danilo’s patched shut on his back, remembered how desperately poor the boy’s family must be. Yet they had had him well educated at Nevarsin. “I’d thought you were to be a monk, Dani.”

“I couldn’t be,” Dani said. I’m my father’s only son now, and it wouldn’t be lawful. My half-brother was killed fifteen years ago, before I was born.” As they left the mess hall, he added, “Father had me taught to read and write and keep accounts so that someday I’d be fit to manage his estate. He’s growing too old to farm Syrtis alone. He didn’t want me to go into the Guards, but when Lord Alton made such a kind offer, he couldn’t refuse. I hate to hear them gossip about him,” he said vehemently. “He’s not like that! He’s good and kind and decent!”

“I’m sure he doesn’t listen,” Regis said. “I lived in his house too, you know. And one of his favorite sayings used to be, if you listen to dogs barking, you’ll go deaf without learning much. Are the Syrtis people under the Alton Domain, Danilo?”

“No, we have always been under Hastur wardship. My father was hawk-master to yours, and my half-brother his paxman.”

And something Regis had always known, an old story which had been part of his childhood but which he had never associated with living people, fell into place in his mind. He said excitedly, “Dani! Your brother—was his name Rafael-Felix Syrtis of Syrtis?”

“Yes, that was his name. He was killed before I was born, in the same year Stefan Fourth died—”

“So was my father,” said Regis, with a surge of unfamiliar emotion. “All my life I have known the story, known your brother’s name. Dani, your brother was my father’s personal guard, they were killed at the same instant—he died trying to shield my father with his body. Did you know they are buried side by side, in one grave, on the field of Kilghairlie?”

He remembered, but did not say, what an old servant had told him, that they were blown to bits, buried together where they fell, since no living man could tell which bits were his father’s, which Dani’s brother’s.

“I didn’t know,” Danilo whispered, his eyes wide. Regis, caught in the grip of a strange emotion, said, “It must be horrible to die like that, but not so horrible if your last thought is to shield someone else … ”

Danilo’s voice was not entirely steady. “They were both named Rafael and they had sworn to one another, and they fought together and died and were buried in one grave—” As if he hardly knew what he was doing, he reached out to Regis and clasped his hands. He said, “I’d like to die like that. Wouldn’t you?”

Regis nodded wordlessly. For an instant it seemed to him that something had reached deep down inside him, an almost painful awareness and emotion. It was almost a physical touch, although Danilo’s fingers were only resting lightly in his own. Suddenly, abashed by the intensity of his own feelings, he let go of Danilo’s hand, and the surge of emotion receded. One of the cadet officers came up and said, “Dani, the arms-master has sent for you.” Danilo caught up his shabby leather tunic, pulled it quickly over his shirt and went.

Regis, remembering that he had been up all night, stretched out on the bare straw ticking of his cot. He was too restless to sleep, but he fell at last into an uneasy doze, mingled with the unfamiliar sounds of the Guard hall the metallic clinking from the armory where someone was mending a shield, men’s voices, very different from the muted speech of the monastery. Half asleep, he began to see a nightmarish sequence of faces: Lew Alton looking sad and angry when he told Regis he had no laran, Kennard pleading for Marius, his grandfather struggling not to betray exhaustion or grief. As he drifted deeper into the neutral country on the edge of sleep, he remembered Danilo, handling the wooden practice swords at Nevarsin. Someone whose face Regis could not see was standing close behind him; Danilo moved abruptly away, and he heard through the dream a harsh, shrill laugh, raucous as the scream of a hawk. And then he had a sudden mental picture of Danilo, his face turned away, huddled against the wall, sobbing heartbrokenly. And through the dreamlike sobs Regis felt a shocking overtone of fear, disgust and a consuming shame …

Someone laid a careful hand on his shoulder, shook him lightly. The barracks room was filled with the dimness of sunset. Danilo said, “Regis? I’m sorry to wake you, but the cadet-master wants to see you. Do you know the way?”

Regis sat up, still a little dazed by the sharp edges of nightmare. For a moment he thought that Danilo’s face, bent over him in the dim light, was actually red and flushed, as if he had been crying, like in the dream. No, that was ridiculous. Dani looked hot and sweaty, as if he’d been running hard or exercising. Probably they’d tested his swordplay. Regis tried to throw off the remnants of dream. He went into the stone-floored washroom and latrine, sluiced his face with the paralyzingly cold water from the pump. Back in the barracks, tugging his leather tunic over Dani’s patched shirt, he saw Danilo slumped on his cot, his head in his hands. He must have done badly at his arms-test and he’s upset about it, he decided, and left without disturbing his friend.

Inside the armory there was a second-year cadet with long lists in his hands, another officer writing at a table and Dyan Ardais, seated behind an old worm-eaten desk. Because the afternoon had turned warm, his collar was undone, his coarse dark hair clinging damoly around his high forehead. He glanced up. and Regis felt that in one swift feral glance Dyan had learned evervthing he wanted to know about him.

“Cadet Hastur. Getting along all right so far?”

“Yes, Lord Dyan.”

“Just Captain Ardais in the Guard hall, Regis.” Dyan looked him over again, a slow evaluating stare that made Regis uncomfortable. “At least they taught you to stand straight at Nevarsin. You should see the way some of the lads stand!” He consulted a long sheet on his desk. “Regis-Rafael Felix Alar Hastur-Elhalyn. You prefer Regis-Rafael?”

“Simply Regis, sir.”

“As you wish. Although it seems a great pity to let the name of Rafael Hastur be lost. It is an honored name.”

Damn it, Regis thought, I know I’m not my father! He knew he sounded curt and almost impolite as he said, “My sister’s son has been named Rafael, Captain. I prefer not to share my father’s honor before I have earned it.”

“An admirable objective,” Dyan said slowly. “I think every man wants a name for himself, rather than resting on the past. I can understand that, Regis,” After a moment, with an odd impulsive grin, he said, “It must be a pleasant thing to have a father’s honor to cherish, a father who did not outlive his moment of glory. You know, I suppose, that my father has been mad these twenty years, without wits enough to know his son’s face?”

Regis had only heard rumors of old Kyril Ardais, who had not been seen by anyone outside Castle Ardais for so long that most people in the Domains had long forgotten his existence, or that Dyan was not Lord Ardais, but only Lord Dyan. Abruptly, Dyan spoke in an entirely different tone.

“How tall are you?”

“Five feet ten.”

The eyebrows went up in amused inquiry. “Already? Yes, I believe you are at that. Do you drink?”

“Only at dinner, sir.”

“Well, don’t start. There are too many young sots around. Turn up drunk on duty and you’ll be booted, no excuses or explanations accepted. You are also forbidden to gamble. I don’t mean wagering pennies on card games or dice, of course, but gambling substantial sums is against the rules. Did they give you a manual of arms? Good, read it tonight. After tomorrow you’re responsible for everything in it. A few more things. Duels are absolutely forbidden, and drawing your sword or knife on a fellow Guardsman will break you. So keep your temper, whatever happens. You’re not married, I suppose. Handfasted?”

“Not that I’ve heard, sir.”

Dyan made an odd derisive sound. “Well, make the best of it, your grandfather will probably have you married off before the year’s out. Let me see. What you do in off-duty time is your own affair, but don’t get yourself talked about. There’s a rule about causing scandalous talk by scandalous behavior. I don’t have to tell you that the heir to a Domain is expected to set an example, do I?”

“No, Captain, you don’t have to tell me that.” Regis had had his nose rubbed in that all his life and he supposed Dyan had too.

Dyan’s eyes met his again, amused, sympathetic. “It’s unfair, isn’t it, kinsman? Not allowed to claim any Comyn privileges, but still expected to set an example because of what we are.” With another swift change of mood, he was back to the remote officer, “In general, keep out of the Terran Zone for your—amusements.”

Regis was thinking of the young Terran officer who, before they parted, had again offered to show him more of the spaceport whenever he wished. “Is it forbidden to go into the Terran Zone at all?”

“By no means. The prohibition doesn’t apply to sightseeing, shopping or eating there if you have a taste for exotic foods. But Terran customs differ enough from ours that getting entangled with Terran prostitutes, or making any sexual advances to them, is likely to be a risky business. So keep out of trouble. To put it bluntly—you’re supposed to be grown up now—if you have a taste for such adventures, find them on the Darkovan side of the line. Zandru’s hells, my boy, aren’t you too old to blush? Or hasn’t the monastery worn off you yet?” He laughed. “I suppose, brought up at Nevarsin, you don’t know a damn thing about arms, either?”

Regis welcomed the change of subject this time. He said he had had lessons, and Dyan’s nostrils flared in contempt. “Some broken-down old soldier earning a few coins teaching the basic positions?”

“Kennard Alton taught me when I was a child, sir.”

“Well, we’ll see.” He motioned to one of the junior officers. “Hjalmar, give him a practice sword.”

Hjalmar handed Regis one of the wood and leather swords used for training. Regis balanced it in his hand. “Sir, I’m very badly out of practice.”

“Never mind,” Hjalmar said, bored. “We’ll see what kind of training you’ve had.”

Regis raised his sword in salute. He saw Hjalmar lift an eyebrow as he dropped into the defensive stance Kennard had taught him years ago. The moment Hjalmar lowered his weapon Regis noted the weak point in his defense; he feinted, sidestepped and touched Hjalmar almost instantly on the thigh. They reengaged. For a moment there was no sound but the scuffle of feet as they circled one another, then Hjalmar made a swift pass which Regis parried. He disengaged and touched him on the shoulder.

“Enough.” Dyan threw off his vest, standing in shirtsleeves. “Give me the sword, Hjalmar.”

Regis knew, as soon as Dyan raised the wooden blade, that this was no amateur. Hjalmar, evidently, was used for testing cadets who were shy or completely unskilled, perhaps handling weapons for the first time. Dyan was another matter. Regis felt a tightness in his throat, recalling the gossip of the cadets: Dyan liked to see people get rattled and do something stupid.

He managed to counter the first stroke and the second, but on the third his parry slid awkwardly along Dyan’s casually turned blade and he felt the wooden tip thump his ribs hard. Dyan nodded to him to go on, then beat him back step by step, finally touched him again, again, three times in rapid succession. Regis flushed and lowered his sword.

Then he felt the older man’s hand gripping his shoulder hard. “So you’re out of practice?”

“Very badly, Captain.”

“Stop bragging, chiyu. You made me sweat, and not even the arms-master can always do that. Kennard taught you well. I’d halfway expected, with that pretty face of yours, you’d have learned nothing but courtly dances. Well, lad, you can be excused from regular lessons, but you’d better turn out for practice every day. If, that is, we can find anyone to match you. If not, I’ll have to work out with you myself.”

“I would be honored, Captain,” Regis said, but hoped Dyan would not hold him to this. Something about the older man’s intense stare and teasing compliments made him feel awkward and very young. Dyan’s hand on his shoulder was hard, almost a painful grip. He turned Regis gently around to look at him. He said, “Since you already have some skill at swordplay, kinsman, perhaps, if you like the idea, I could ask to have you assigned as my aide. Among other things, it would mean you need not sleep in the barracks.”

Regis said quickly, “I’d rather not, sir.” He fumbled for an acceptable excuse. “Sir, that is a post for an—an experienced cadet. If I am assigned at once to a post of honor, it will look as if I am taking advantage of my rank, to be excused from what the other cadets have to do. Thank you for the honor, Captain, but I don’t think I—I ought to accept.”

Dyan threw back his head and laughed, and it seemed to Regis that the raucuous laughter sounded a little like the feral cry of a hawk, that there was something nightmarish about it. Regis was caught in the grip of a strange deja vu, feeling that this had happened before.

It vanished as swiftly as it had come. Dyan released his grip on Regis’ shoulder.

“I honor you for that decision, kinsman, and I dare say you are right. And in training already to be a statesman, I see. I can find no fault with your answer.”

Again the wild, hawklike laugh.

“You can go, cadet. Tell young MacAran I want to see him.”

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