Traitor's Sun (20 page)

“Can you really defend this place?” the girl in the wagon asked him saucily, peering toward him still in shadow. “You look a little small for a Guard.”

“Here, now—don’t you go being rude to your betters, girl,” Kendrick growled as he stepped toward the wagon.

She shook her head, setting the curly mass of hair in motion, illuminated by the strip of sunlight that was making its way down the center of the street. It flashed brightly, like a nimbus of fire around her face. “Some overbred sprout of the Comyn isn’t
my
better, Guardsman.”

Kendrick made a soft growling sort of noise in his throat, but it was clear he knew he was not going to win any arguments with the Traveling girl. She was not going to give him the least respect. “Go along with you, now!”

As the driver slapped the reins against the hindquarters of his mules, and they started to move forward again, Nico caught a feeling of frustration coming from him. He looked uneasily over his shoulder at the girl still leaning out, and muttered something to himself.
Dratted wench!
That thought came through quite clearly, and Nico smiled to himself. In spite of knowing that he shouldn’t, he felt himself admiring her rudeness. He wished he had the courage to be rude to anyone, instead of always doing what was expected of him. And for a moment he enjoyed the notion of this girl encountering Lady Javanne Hastur and tried to imagine what she might say.

“If you come to the old Tanners’ Field by the North Gate, we will be putting on a show tonight,” the girl shouted at him as the wagon pulled away, sending his delicious fantasy right out of his head. “You aren’t on duty all the time, are you?”

Nico shook his head, suddenly mute and feeling rather like a dolt. He was getting the oddest set of impressions, and there was a thrumming in his head, an annoying sensation, and something more. He had an impulse to use the Alton Gift, to penetrate the girl’s mind, if only for a moment—just to discover her name. Or did he wish to know more? The girl was so unlike anyone he knew that he found himself drawn toward her for a moment.

The girl waved at him boldly, and the desire to do anything foolish faded away. He took a deep breath, relieved. His secret wish to do something unexpected did not extend to consorting with a Traveling lass. While that might have been acceptable in another, he knew that as his father’s heir, it would never be. What a scandal!

“Who are you yelling at, Illona?” The girl turned and looked into the dim interior of the wagon at the older woman lying on a narrow bed.

“Oh, just one of the Guards, Aunt Loret.”

“You keep away from them, lassie. And don’t go being forward, unless you want to be mistook for a whore.”

“Yes, Auntie.”

He caught the edges of her curiosity and found himself amused. Then, as if annoyed at being ignored, his bleak mood returned. What in Zandru’s coldest hell was the matter with him! He had felt completely miserable for weeks, even before Regis had died—restless and, worse, profoundly angry. He resented everything and everyone most of the time, keeping his emotions under an iron grip that left him exhausted and furious. Why couldn’t he be easygo ing, like Rory? He was too serious and dull. Well, not dull, exactly. He just never got into trouble, and much to his disgust, Nico discovered that he wanted to.

If only there was someone he could talk to without fear of feeling naked and vulnerable. His father had asked him on several occasions if he wanted to talk. Busy as he was, he always tried to make himself available for discussions, but Nico knew that this was impossible for him. How could Mikhail understand the silent rebellion that simmered in his belly and wracked his mind? He knew that his father would listen, because he always had, but he was certain that Mikhail would be distressed if he ever knew how unhappy Domenic was. Surely Mikhail had never felt like this! It did not matter how unhappy he was, he was still the heir, and he had
obligations
. Disgusting word! He had to put aside his own hazy yearnings and buckle down. He couldn’t burden his father with his own childish problems—especially now!

The sense of those duties was a heavy weight to bear. And he would never be free of them, so long as he drew breath. That made it even worse. He was trapped and alone, a prisoner of his heritage. . . . and his peculiar
laran,
which no one seemed to be able to understand, and which made quite a number of people uncomfortable, made it all much worse. Even Lew Alton, whom Nico adored, could not help him. Besides, how could someone as old as his grandfather even begin to understand what troubled him? He could not really explain his feelings to himself, so how could he explain them to someone else?

By the time the shift was over, Nico was deep in the doldrums. He yanked the thong out of his hair, left his post and returned to the Castle, climbing the long stairs from the entry to the upper floors. He knew he should be hungry, but he wasn’t. All he wanted to do was find a closet and get into it, shut out the world and the oppressive sense of his own obligations. He simply had no business feeling so unhappy, but he could not shake it away.

As Nico approached the family apartments, he heard a shrill shriek, followed by the sound of something smashing. Alanna, in one of her tempers. And no one could calm her down except him. For once he did not wish to play peacemaker, even for his beloved Alanna. He just wanted to be left alone, in the vain hope that he could find some solution to the inner fury which plagued him day and night.

Then a bubble of amusement seized him. He and Alanna were really a perfect match—she was rarely in a good humor and he always pretended that he was. Nico envied her the freedom of her tantrums. Her mother, Ariel, had spoiled her badly when she was small, then surrendered her reluctantly into the charge of her brother when the girl became completely unmanageable. Even the instructors at Arilinn had been unable to discipline her beyond certain basics.

When he entered the apartment, Alanna was standing in the center of the sitting room, scowling. There was a smashed teapot at her feet, and a stain of spilled liquid on the carpet. Her hands were clenched into fists, and her shoulders hunched beneath the fine linen of her blouse. She fairly bristled with energy, seemingly radiating from every cell of her slender form. It was an all too familiar and increasingly frequent sight these days.

“Are you single-handedly trying to support Lady Marilla’s pottery works, Alanna? That is the fourth teapot you have broken this month.” He looked at the shards at her feet. “I rather liked that one, too.” Maybe he could jolly her out of her mood, and help his own at the same time.

“The sixth, actually.” Her beautiful voice was thick with tension. “It is better to smash pottery than people, isn’t it?”

“If you absolutely must destroy things, than I suppose that innocent cups and pots are best,
breda
. But for the sake of the carpets, you might at least wait until the vessel is empty. What’s the matter now?” He spoke jovially, trying to tease her into a better mood, but his own patience was worn and frayed, and he wished himself in some other place—any other place!

“I can’t breathe! Everyone is walking on tippytoe, trying to be solemn. It makes my head hurt.” She spoke with great drama, but there was no question that she was genuinely suffering. Alanna had inherited much of her mother’s anxious disposition which, combined with her volatile temper, was an unholy mixture. He thought it a great pity that she could not become an actress, then wondered where that remarkable idea had come from. Daughters of Domain families, or even lesser ones, such as the Alars, were not free to join the Players Guild, or any other.

Alanna had voiced this complaint before, and no one, not even his mother, who was a powerful healer, had been able to discover the source of the girl’s discomfort. It was very real, however. There was no doubt of that. “Perhaps we should order a gross of crockery for you to throw,
chiya
.”

“I feel like I am going to burst, Nico! Bang! Into a million bits!”

“I can see that.” He was not unfamiliar with that sensation, for he often felt it himself, though not as strongly as his foster-sister. Perhaps it would be good for him to break a few cups himself, just to relieve the inner turmoil. No, that would not help. What Domenic wanted was to break the rules, and that he dared not do.

“Was it something specific, Alanna, or just the general atmosphere of hushed solemnity that provoked you?”

The girl unclenched her hands at last and shrugged. “I was playing the clavier, and my fingers seemed all thumbs, and that made me furious. But it is more. I feel . . . like I am coming apart. As if there are two of me, or perhaps more. And each wants something different.” She lowered her head after this admission, and began to cry quietly.

Nico put an arm around her shoulder and leaned her proud head down a bit. She felt warm in his light embrace, but she smelled of rage, a distinct odor which was unmistakable and rather unpleasant. Alanna was stiff, her muscles taut, as if she held herself in by will alone. Even as she wept, there was no lessening of the tension.

His mother came into the sitting room, looking very tired. She paused and looked at the two of them, and a slight shadow seemed to cross her fine features. It was gone almost as soon as it appeared, but Nico suspected that Marguerida knew something of his feelings for his foster-sister and that they worried her.

I can’t help it. You are my firstborn.
There was more, something deep in her mind which perturbed her, but he could not guess what it might be.

Often. But I know my duties.
Domenic felt Alanna stir against him, and was relieved for the distraction. He did not want his mother to discover how much he resented his duties. She had enough to think about, what with the death of Regis Hastur, and Alanna being impossible more often than not. She never complained, but he knew she chafed under her obligations, that no matter how much she loved him, his siblings, and his father, she wanted to devote more of her energy to her musical compositions and less to being a wife and mother.

She had never neglected him or his brother and sister, not to mention fostering Donal and Alanna. She had listened patiently when he boasted of his small accomplishments—the training of his beloved hawks or learning to take his horse over a hurdle. Marguerida had sat up with him when he had a bout of fever, refusing to let a servant press wet cloths to his hot brow, but insisting on caring for him herself. He was loved—well-loved—and he knew it.

At the same time Domenic knew that she had often been torn between her own ambitions and her duties. She did not like to sit in Council meetings, listening to disputes and smoothing ruffled feathers. She hated having to take a carriage everywhere, that she could no longer walk through the streets of Thendara even with an escort, as she had before he was born. Sometimes, he knew, she went down to one of the Castle courtyards in the middle of the night and paced across the cobblestones, just to release herself from the tension of a kindly confinement.

It had been thirty-five years since the World Wreckers had been on Darkover, murdering children in their cradles. Nothing that had happened since then was so threatening to the families of the Domains, but an attitude of alertness, of wary watchfulness, had taken possession of Regis as he had aged. They were embattled, although no foe had yet presented itself. Still, if some of the things he had overheard from his parents and Grandfather Lew were accurate, they might find themselves being very glad of their paranoia. The only problem, as far as Nico was concerned, was that it meant he could not go where he pleased, as his father had been able to do when he was younger. Right now, that chafed him more and more, and he almost shared Alanna’s feeling of being unable to breathe.

The desire to get away rose in his throat, and he swallowed it. There was no good thinking about it. He was stuck in Comyn Castle for the foreseeable future, and he must resign himself to that. And he must not complain of his captivity either, or envy Rory his relative freedom. Bile soured his mouth.

Alanna straightened up, pulling away, and he could feel her distress. She glanced at the mess on the floor, her mobile face becoming stiff and expressionless. “I am going to go take a bath.”

“That should relax you,” Marguerida replied placidly.

Alanna’s face turned into a mask of barely suppressed fury. “Nothing will relax me, nothing except. . . . I can’t even think of anything. I hate it here!” With that she turned and left the room.

“As dearly as I love that child, Nico, there are times when I despair. I tell myself that it is just adolescent hormones running amuck, but truthfully, I don’t believe that for a second. I don’t foresee Alanna settling down into marriage—the very idea is too fantastic—and she does not belong in a Tower, even with all her gifts. There is no place for a girl like Alanna on Darkover.” Marguerida frowned and her shoulders sagged. “Nor anywhere else I can think of.”