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Silence abruptly fell over the knot of cadets. They separated and began to drift around the barracksroom. To Regis it was like a slap in the face. One minute they were laughing and joking, including him intheir jokes; suddenly he was an outsider, a threat. It was worse because he had not really caught the driftof 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 hi two rows along the wall. All butone had been made up. Dauilo gestured to the only one still unchosen and said, "Most of us were downhere 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 acorner under a high window, which would probably be drafty. Well, it

68  Marion Zimmer Bradley

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 putaway 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 outtomorrow. MacAnndra-"

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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. Theother lads were making up the beds with their own sheets. Regis began making a mental list of the thingshe should fetch from bis grandfather's rooms. It began with bed linens and a pillow. At the head of eachbed was a narrow wooden shelf on which each cadet had already placed his personal possessions. Atthe foot of the bed was a rough wooden box, each lid scarred with knife-marks, intertwined initials andhacked or lightly burned-in crests, the marks of generations of restless boys. It struck Regis that yearsago 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 wasarranging on his shelf a plain wooden comb, a hairbrush, a battered cup and plate and a small box carvedwith silver, from which he reverently took the small cristoforo statue of the Bearer of Burdens, carryinghis 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. Heswore 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 theroom was an open space with a couple of heavy benches and a much-

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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 hi late. Did anyone give you a copy of the arms-manual?"

"No, sir."

The officer gave him a bartered booklet. "I heard you were educated at Nevarsin; I suppose you canread. Any questions?"

"I didn't-my grandfather didn't-no one sent my things down. May I send for them?"

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The older lad said, not unkindly, "There's no one to fetch and carry for you down here, cadet Tomorrowafter 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 Regisimagined a veiled sneer at the elaborate garments he had put on to present himself to his grandfather thismorning. "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 thenight 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 puton; you're about my size."

"Thank you, Dani. Td be grateful. This outfit isnt very suitable, is it?"

Danilo was kneeling in front of his wooden chest, brought out a clean but very shabby linen shirt, muchpatched around the elbows. Regis pulled off the dyed-leather tunic and the

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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 ofmine, and with the fire-watch called every few days, no one had time to make me any new ones or sendto town." He laced up the cords at the neck. Danilo said, "It's hard to imagine you wearing outgrownclothes."

"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?"

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Regis was startled at Danilo's look of concern, "Not really. I was thinking of my sister, wondering if herchild had been born."

Danilo said gently, "I'm sure they'd have sent word if anything was wrong. The old saying is that goodnews 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 todemonstrate the basic positions for defense. If you don't know which end of it to take hold by, he putsyou 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 sweat blood! I made a damn fool of myself, my foot slippedand he put me down for lessons every other day. Who could do anything with that one staring at you?"

**Yes,'t 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 protege, aren't you? Strange, I never heard that he hadany special liking for pretty boys.**

Danilo flared, his face burning. "You shut your filthy mouth! You're not fit to wipe Lord Kennard'sboots! 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 hecould not expect ordinary young men to behave and talk like novice monks, and he knew they wouldquickly make his life unbearable if he showed any sign of his distaste. He held his peace. That sort ofthing must be common enough here to be a joke.

Yet it had touched off a murder and near-riot in the Ter-ran Zone. Could grown men actually take suchthings seriously enough to kill? Terrans, perhaps. They must have very strange customs, if they were evenstricter than the cristo-foros.

He suddenly recalled, as something that might have taken place years ago, that only this morning he hadstood beside young Lawton in the Terran Zone, watching the starship break free from the planet andmake its way to the stars. He wondered if Dan Lawton knew which end of a sword to take hold by, and

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if he cared. He had a strange sense of shuttling, rapidly and painfully, between worlds.

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Three years. Three years to study swordplay while the Ter-ran ships came and went less than a bowshotaway.

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

The day wore on. He was sent for, and an orderly measured him for his uniform. When the sun washigh, a junior officer came to show them the way to the mess hall, where the cadets ate at separatetables. 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 Danflo's patched shut on his back, remembered how desperately poor the boy's familymust 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. *Tm 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 hehad never associated with living people, fell into place in his mind. He

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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 Stef an 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

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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?"