A Flame in Hali (53 page)

“Varzil,” she faced him directly. “I would give anything to unsay those careless words. If, knowing what I have done, you now feel I am unfit to work as a Keeper or in any Tower position, I will accept your decision.”

He stared straight ahead at the road, broken by shadows cast by the line of willows. She could not read a single hint of emotion from him. At last, he broke the silence.

“One thing is certain, and that is the Dyannis who spoke so impetuously, who acted so rashly, could never have behaved with such dignity and restraint as you did in accepting your obligations, first to your family, then to the future of the Towers and Darkover itself. If you are speaking of your fitness as a Keeper, it is by your present actions you are to be judged, not a foolish mistake in the past.”

Moved as she was by his compassion, Dyannis could not let the issue pass. “Yet we are still responsible for those ‘foolish mistakes’ when they result in terrible harm to others, are we not? I am still guilty of an action that eventually led to—”
to the death of the woman you loved, a fellow
leronis
, a person who had as much right to fulfill her promise as I do. How can I then aspire to become what she was, a woman Keeper, with her blood on my hands?

“Let us not speak of guilt and retribution,” he answered her gently, “or at least, not yours. Did you hold a knife to Eduin’s throat and force him to kill Felicia, or command Hali’s attack upon Hestral? You are in no way to blame for his actions.”

“I spoke without care, heedless of the consequences,” Dyannis said miserably. “If I had not betrayed her, Eduin might never have discovered who she was.”

“You do not know that. He was resourceful and tenacious. I believe he would have found out eventually. Besides, how could you have known he was not trustworthy? You had been lovers once, and he was still a
laranzu.
No, let him alone bear the responsibility for what he chose to do. You have more than repaid whatever harm you caused.”

For a long time, they rode on in silence. The land began to rise, but not steeply. Dew rose from the earth as the great Bloody Sun climbed higher. Birds sang from the hedgerows and then fell silent, only to begin again.

Life was like that, Dyannis thought, full of beginnings and endings. Joy surged in her, as well as excitement for the new life that awaited her.

There was one aspect of Felicia’s death that still gnawed upon her mind. Well before they reached the Tower, she spoke of it to Varzil.

“Why would Eduin want to harm
both
Felicia and Carolin? Carolin must surely have made enemies, first as prince and then as king. What powerful lord does not? Perhaps he injured Eduin in some way, and Eduin pretended to be his friend until he could strike back.”

“I have wondered that, too,” Varzil answered. “At the time, I believed Eduin resented my friendship with Carolin out of jealousy, but it could also have been because I came between him and his intended victim.”

“That does not explain Eduin’s assault upon Felicia,” Dyannis pointed out.

Varzil sighed, a barely-audible whisper of breath. “Before Felicia came to Arilinn, she and Eduin had never met. I am sure of it. More than that, I cannot believe he hated her personally.”

Dyannis frowned. “It doesn’t make sense—Felicia and Carolin came from different branches of the Hastur family, and so far as I know, none now remain of Queen Taniquel’s lineage. That’s why the crown passed to Felix of Carcosa when King Rafael II died. You see,” she added with a smile, “I have been studying my history. If you are right, Eduin killed Felicia not because of anything she herself had done, but because she was the last remaining child of Queen Taniquel.”

“There was this, too,” Varzil went on. “As I followed the mental trace of the Blue Lake assassin into the Overworld, I caught a glimpse of a castle whose banners bore a white-and-black diamond pattern.”

Dyannis frowned. “I’m not familiar with that one.”

“That’s because it no longer exists. It belonged to the family Deslucido.”

“The one from the ballads?” She remembered the stories from her childhood, although few harpers sang the songs these days. King Damian Deslucido had overrun his smaller neighbors, including Acosta, home of the famous Queen Taniquel. She fled the slaughter and, with the aid of her uncle, King Rafael Hastur II, returned with an army at her back. “How could that be the connection? It was a generation ago.”

“You of all people, a Ridenow among Hasturs, ought to know that hatred and suspicion do not resolve themselves overnight.”

“I meant only that if the family was extinct, there should be no one left to carry on the feud.” A thought shivered through her. “Could Eduin have had some connection with them?”

Eduin had never spoken of his childhood or his relations. Dyannis had supposed he was ashamed of coming from poor or ignoble folk, and she was too caught up in the romance of the moment to care.

“I think he must have,” Varzil said, ‘’although we may never know what it was. If Eduin were involved in the attacks on Carolin, including the Blue Lake attempt, then his motive went beyond personal hatred or resentment. The exact word the dying assassin had in his mind was
revenge
.”

Varzil and Dyannis stayed briefly in the city of Hali, in the old palace of the Hasturs. They intended to pass through it to the Tower itself, but Varzil’s business delayed them.

When Dyannis had a little free time, she went into the palace library to see what she could discover about the war with Deslucido. She hoped to find some record of those followers of King Damian who survived, perhaps even the name MacEarn. If any such record existed, it was uncataloged and forgotten, for she never found any trace of it. Indeed, the entire victory seemed shrouded in such vague, flowery, and poetic language, she felt sure that the chronicler had never seen the battle with his own eyes. Half of what she read seemed to be traditional descriptions that could have applied to almost any battle, and the other half were filled with oddly incomplete details. Just as in the Archives at Hali, these records seemed to be a deliberate attempt to mislead by omission. What, Dyannis wondered, were they trying to hide?

Dyannis decided to do a little investigating on her own. Perhaps there was some elderly courtier who might remember King Rafael or Taniquel herself. If she could draw that person into reminiscence, she might learn of some connection, some forgotten grievance never recorded in the chronicles.

She remembered the palace from her first visit, that Midwinter Festival when she had met Eduin. Although still in use, the rooms seemed shabby around the edges. The woodwork had lost the fine, hard gloss of daily polish, and the tapestries that softened the stone walls had gone dusty with the years. Still, she found her chambers comfortable, the evening fires generous, the feather bed soft, and the food well-prepared.

While Varzil was about some errand or other for King Carolin, Dyannis made her inquiries. Most of the older courtiers had long since gone, and those few who remained lived in Thendara. Lady Bronwyn had already been elderly on that first Midwinter Festival, and Dyannis was half-expecting to hear that the old lady had died.

“Oh, no,
vai leronis,
” the maid said, curtsying for the fourth or fifth time, “though these days, the only ones who see her are her own personal companion and sometimes
Dom
Raimon, when he comes from the Tower. She has no other visitors, and I don’t think she’s left her own chambers these five years.”

Dyannis sent a page to inquire if the lady would meet with her. A few hours later, she received an invitation. The page guided her to the old royal wing, past suites of rooms that were now shut up, unused. Lady Bronwyn’s quarters must have been built for some long-ago child princess, for the doorway, carved like two trees arching toward each other, was narrow and almost too short for a normal woman.

Dyannis lifted the latch and entered. The beautifully proportioned octagonal room was lined by windows and deeply cushioned seats. A small fire burned merrily in the hearth of Temoran marble, carved with sea-maidens trailing real inset pearls from their long, intertwined locks of hair. Thin rows of translucent blue stone rose upward to join in a star pattern on the ceiling.

An old woman lay on a divan beside the fireplace, her form hidden beneath the lace-edged blankets. A cap of snowy gauze framed her face. She lifted one hand, the knuckles huge and twisted, and beckoned Dyannis closer.

Dyannis felt as if she ought to curtsy, just as the maid had done. Then she felt the presence of the older woman’s mind, a ripple of silvery bells.

Forgive me, I had not realized you, too, were a
leronis
.

“Oh, yes, although my power is but a shadow of what it once was.” The voice was thin and uncertain, the words broken by pauses to draw breath. “I cannot speak to your mind in return, so it is you who must forgive me.”

Dyannis drew up a footstool as she was bid. This close, the old woman’s face was like a faded flower, the skin pleated into a hundred tiny wrinkles, each reflecting a moment of her life, of pain, of joy, of strength. Soon they were speaking easily to one another.

“So you are the sister of young Varzil, who was Felicia’s love. Very interesting boy, that Varzil. He and Carlo are at that age, you know, when they think they can change the whole world.” Lady Bronwyn had surely seen several generations of young men filled with idealistic zeal.

“Tell me about Felicia,” Dyannis said. “I believe you knew her mother, Queen Taniquel.”

“Tani? You remind me of her. Not the hair, for hers was black, you know, but something in the way you hold yourself. No, it was Coryn I knew best, from the time he was a boy. I was escorting Liane Storn to Tramontana—that was before it was burned to the ground—and I remember . . . Such clarity of voice,” she tapped one temple. “Such force. I thought half the Hellers must have woken from his call.” Lady Bronwyn fell silent and her gaze dimmed, as her eyes turned inward toward a past only she could see.

Gently, Dyannis said, “Coryn helped Taniquel to defeat King Deslucido. Do you remember that?”

“I remember Deslucido, and the terrible things he did, setting one Tower against the other.” A shiver ran through the old woman’s frame, visible even beneath her wrappings. “So many talented
leronyn
lost their lives, and even more lived on as cripples. Bernardo, whom I loved as a brother, could never work again after that. His heart was badly damaged, so the healers said, but I think the worst hurts were not to the body but to the spirit.”

“Could any of that family, the Deslucidos, have survived?” Dyannis asked, leaning forward.

“I hardly think so. Rafael hanged both father and son after the last battle. Strange, it was not like him to take such a harsh measure, not when victory was already his, but he must have had his reasons. Men do not always behave honorably in battle. Still, what was to be gained? Deslucido’s army was shattered, his conquests in rebellion. Rafael had never been cruel, and never was again. I was sorry when he died.”

“I thought there was a brother, the
laranzu
who commanded Tramontana in the battle that destroyed the Towers.”

“Ah, yes. Rumail. He was
nedestro,
but never had any ambitions to the throne that I heard of. Had a reputation as a bad sort. Neskaya expelled him for unethical use of
laran
and I fear he never forgot the insult.”

“What happened to him?”

“Oh, he surely perished when Tramontana burned, for he was never seen again.” Lady Bronwyn’s head nodded, and the companion who had been hovering in the back stepped forward.

“She must rest now.”

Dyannis made her apologies and withdrew, not sure whether she had learned anything of value or not. Although it seemed unlikely, Eduin’s own family must have been among the few who remained loyal to the Deslucidos. She was troubled by the portrait of Rafael Hastur and the legendary Taniquel as vindictive, slaughtering a helpless, defeated adversary. Whatever Damian had done, he had already been removed from power. He could have been exiled with his son retained as hostage, as was the usual practice.

Why kill both of them? What was so evil or so dangerous that they both must die? Or had Rafael and his niece acted out of malice and the exercise of power because there were none left to oppose them?