Traitor's Sun (40 page)

“Well, I never!” Loret looked amazed. Then she turned on the girl, who had been standing quietly, watching all of this. “Are you planning to grow roots and flowers there, Illona? Get inside and work on the costumes. It will be dark soon, and you won’t be able to see well enough to sew.”

“Oh, Auntie! I’ve been cooped up for hours!”

“No sauce, girly! You do as you are told, or there will be no supper for you.”

Illona did not appear in the least frightened by this threat, and from the well-upholstered appearance of her aunt, it was probably an empty one. She just stuck out her tongue, as she had the first time Nico had seen her, and shrugged. “The dolls are fine,” she muttered sulkily.

“Nonsense! The ruffle on Cassilda’s costume needs mending.”

“I hate sewing!”

“We all have to earn our keep. Now do as you are told.” Illona looked as if she might refuse for just a moment. Then she gave a large, dramatic sigh and started to go back to the wagon. She glanced at Nico as she went past, and her eyes widened. “Don’t I know you?”

Domenic shook his head. “Not unless you saw me last night.” She had only seen him in the shadows of a doorway, and his hair had been pulled back, not hanging loose beside his face as it was now, but he had the feeling that very little escaped her sharp eyes. “I watched some of the performance while I was waiting for my uncle.”

“Oh. That must be it. You look very familiar.”

“Maybe I just have a common face.”

She giggled softly. “Hardly that.”
I know I didn’t see him last night, but where? Oh, well, I am probably imagining things again. Still, there is something about him.
“I’m Illona Rider.”

“Tomas MacAnndra.”

“I have to go sit in the wagon and sew,” she complained.

“And you hate sewing. Are you good at it?”

“Yes, very skilled. That’s why I have to do it. Aunty doesn’t understand that just because you are good at something doesn’t mean you enjoy it.”

“Yes, that’s true.” He was struck by her remark, because it had never occurred to him before that having the ability to do something might be a burden instead of a gift. Then he remembered a few things his father had said about the powers that Varzil’s matrix had presented him with, and decided she was probably more right than she guessed. Domenic wanted to continue talking to her, but felt hopelessly tongue-tied, at a loss for anything to say. “I never heard of any Riders before.”

“There are a lot of Riders in the Travelers, Tomas—hundreds. And it is not really my name, because I don’t know what that is. I mean, I am an orphan, and I was adopted by Aunt Loret when I was a very little girl.” She paused, thinking about herself, wondering as she had many times who her parents were. “And she isn’t bad, actually, just bossy.”

Herm was returning from the stables, striding confidently across the courtyard, looking amused. Nico watched his uncle, and shifted from foot to foot, eager to continue the conversation but unsure what to say next. “It must be very exciting to travel around and perform.”

“Not really, Tomas. It is very boring after a while. The performances are fun, but even they get stale. And Mathias keeps writing these new pieces, and I have to memorize them—odd sort of things, they are.”

“Are there scripts, then? I sort of had the idea that you made things up as you went along, getting the audience involved.” There, that was better, and he did not sound quite so idiotic.

“That’s how it used to be.” She looked troubled for a moment. “But since Mathias joined the troupe, he has been doing—”

“Illona!” It was an angry yell.

“Yes, Auntie! I’d better go, before she gives herself a fit. Come out and watch the show tonight.”

“Oh, yes, if my uncle says I can.”

“He will—he seems very nice.” She gave Nico a ravishing smile and scrambled up the folding stairs at the back of the wagon, her curiosity about him fading as she thought about thread and needles and lengths of fabric.

Herm rejoined Domenic and said, “What was that all about?”

“Oh, we were just talking, Uncle.”
She almost recognized me, but I managed to make her think she didn’t. And I am sure she has no business with these Travelers.

Well, she told me she was an orphan, and that the woman adopted her when she was very young. But I can sense her
laran.
It is completely untrained, but pretty strong even without any discipline. It makes me wonder how many other telepaths are roaming around, getting into trouble because they do not know how to manage their gifts.

Grandfather Lew says it is because the men of the Domains have been altogether too generous with their favors over the years, and they have fathered children they never knew about. And after a few generations,
laran
has spread out in the general population more and more. And if, say, a mother died in childbearing, and hadn’t told anyone that the father was the
nedestro
of some Domain, then no one would know until the child was grown and had threshold sickness. And then, if the sickness did not kill him or her, which is possible, since there is no way to predict the severity of it, then they would grow up and make more children, and pass it on. It is all very simple in theory, but as the generations pass, it becomes more and more complicated.

Why was the effort to locate these people not successful? I’m not sure, but I think that perhaps there are not enough
leroni
to manage the job. What Grandfather Lew says is that in the past, there were so few people with gifts that no one ever made a good plan for it becoming part of the greater population. And Mother thinks that we Darkovens still tend to think that only those of the Domains have gifts worth bothering about, so that ordinary people like, for instance, the innkeeper, never really think about it. So, if they have a small gift, they either ignore it, or turn to being street-corner seers.

They would, if they had any sense, or if they had a substantial Gift. And in the past, of course they would. But what if someone has just a little bit of
laran,
enough to start a fire, perhaps, or to be good with animals? Lew thinks that there are a lot of lesser powers, that are just so minor that we have never paid attention to them, because we were so focused on the Gifts of the Domains. He said something about recessive genes, which I don’t understand. And if two common folk, with minor powers, got married, then their children might be more powerful. He says that generations of inbreeding have made us complacent.

As they started for the entrance to the inn, there was the sound of hoofbeats on the cobbles of the yard. Nico glanced over his shoulder, and saw a wide-shouldered man awkwardly astride a sweating animal. He had a scowl on his broad face, and he dismounted gracelessly, swearing a little. A groom raced out and took the horse, gave the man a glare, and began to lead it away.

“Uncle, that man we saw talking to the driver this morning just rode in.”

Herm grinned without the slightest humor. “Yes, so he did. The pot is really starting to boil. Come on—don’t stare! Let’s get inside before we attract attention.”
What’s on his mind, I wonder?

M
arguerida stood outside the closed door of the room which had been given to Katherine Aldaran for a studio, and took a deep breath. She had gone to the suite to find the other woman, and the maid told her that
Domna
Aldaran had left right after breakfast, saying that she needed to start working. Lucky Katherine. Marguerida would have loved to be in her own office, although working on her opera was impossible now. A chill swept over her—would she ever be able to complete it, now that Regis was dead? She hadn’t written the work for him, but for herself, but she had been so looking forward to seeing him hear it for the first time. The pages were still on her desk, in kstained and ruined. It hurt to think about it.

The strain of the past few days weighed on her body, giving her aches that Marguerida knew were a combination of exhaustion and sorrow. Right now she did not want to see Katherine, or anyone else for that matter. She wanted a nice quiet cave and utter stillness. Marguerida grinned at herself. She was worried about Domenic, and Kate was probably worried about Herm, so she had a duty to try to ease Katherine’s fears. The problem was that she was sick and tired of duties, not to mention fractious personalities.

When Mikhail told her what her son had done, she had been furious with both of them. How dare her husband make a decision concerning Nico without consulting her! And sending Herm to join him? What good was that? It was only when she had thought of sending Rafaella n’ha Liriel and some of her sister Renunciates to follow them that her fears had lessened. And then Mik had told her that Lew suspected that Gareth Elhalyn might be up to some mischief where Nico was concerned, and her hard-won calm had gone up in smoke. She could not believe it for a second, and then she grasped the implications, and remembered how young Gareth was behaving with Javanne. As if I don’t have enough to worry about, she thought, but I have to look at a fourteen-year-old boy as a potential enemy of my own son.

Marguerida’s only comfort thus far was that the Aldaran Gift had not manifested, as it often did concerning those dearest to her. It was a feeble and undependable lack of information, however, and she wished she was free to pursue her eldest child along the North Road, and shake him until his teeth rattled. Right at that moment, she would have welcomed a vision, so long as it was rosy. Unlikely. The Aldaran Gift never seemed to show itself with good futures, only ambiguous and frightening ones.

She lifted her hand to knock, then lowered it. Marguerida was not ready to see Kate just yet. She wanted to be more serene before she encountered the other woman. If only she had not bumped into Javanne Hastur, on her way to the studio, and had an exchange of discourtesies that had left her trembling with rage and biting back cruel words. Her mother-in-law had demanded to know where Nico was. It would have been amusing, under any other circumstances, since she usually avoided the boy as much as possible. Mikhail had been adamant that his mother must not know about Domenic’s adventure, and Marguerida agreed.

Lady Javanne always managed to make her angry, but now she just felt slightly nauseated. She knew her mother-in-law was working against Mikhail, conniving with Francisco Ridenow to overset the agreement that had been reached years before. Javanne would do almost anything short of murder to unseat her youngest son from his position. And Francisco might even go that far, if he thought he could get away with it.

So much had fallen on her shoulders. It seemed unfair, and Marguerida banished that thought sternly. She was overseeing the arrangements for the public funeral, which would take place after the Council meeting. With all the servants in Comyn Castle, this should have been rather easy, but Regis’ death had been a shock, and the servants were less useful than they might have been. Everyone from the
coridom
to the head cook seemed to need her direction, until she thought that just one more question would drive her mad. But dealing with mourning servants was simple compared to her other duties.

She had to keep Javanne from driving poor Lady Linnea mad with her attentions. Marguerida had to reassure Katherine that Herm was safe, without revealing anything about the actual nature of his mission. There were so many secrets she had to keep—Kate did not know that there was a Federation arrest warrant for her husband, and Mikhail wanted to keep it that way. The fewer people that knew about that, apparently, the better. And it was all for the good of Darkover! Men! Just at that moment she would have cheerfully consigned every male on the planet to Zandru’s hells, even her beloved child, just to get a little peace and quiet, as long as she could have sent Javanne along with them.