Traitor's Sun (57 page)

Before Gisela could rise and come toward the easel, there was a knock on the door, and a second later Roderick stuck his red head into the room, his eyes sparkling. Then he saw Gisela and he hesitated slightly. “Oh, sorry—Mother said you might be working.”

“It is fine, Rory—we are finished for today, aren’t we, Kate?”

“Yes, we are. Did you come about learning to draw, Roderick?”

The boy grinned and glanced around the studio, taking in the panel on the easel swiftly. “No, I didn’t. Mother asked me to bring you this. She just got a letter from Nico, and this one is for you—from Herm.” Rory held out a thick packet and shifted restlessly from foot to foot. He watched Kate with an air of anticipation. When she did not immediately react, he looked very disappointed. “Aren’t you going to take it?”

“Thank you,” Kate answered rather stiffly, and took the object from his hand.

“Aren’t you going to read it?”

“Roderick Rafael Alton-Hastur—you are being a pest!” Gisela scolded him, but there was no real anger in her voice. “It is private, you little scamp!”

“But, I just wanted to know how many Terranan he has killed so far!”

Gisela looked scandalized. “Shoo! Get along with you, you imp of Zandru! Both of us are going to swallow our curiosity and leave Katherine to enjoy her letter in peace.”

“Ah, Aunty Giz, that’s not fair! First Nico goes off and gets into trouble, and I am stuck here in the castle, and then . . .”

“Enough!” Gisela was on her feet, shaking out the folds of her tunic and petticoats.

“Please, Giz, don’t go.” Kate held the letter between her fingers, suddenly cold all over. She did not want to be alone right now. “Why don’t you make us some of that nice tea we had earlier, while I . . .”

“Of course! Just what we need on a rainy afternoon.” She walked over to the fireplace, shook a kettle sitting on the hearthstones, and poured some water into it from a jug nearby. Then she hung it on a hook, and turned around. “Are you still here, Roderick?”

“You are so mean,” he muttered, and then retreated and closed the door behind him. Once he was gone, Gisela began to laugh, and in spite of her own tension, Katherine joined in.

She sat down in the chair Gisela had been posing in and the merriment faded away. Kate looked at the packet in her hands, dreading what might be within its pages. She had said so many terrible things, in her fear, the night Herm had left Comyn Castle. What would she do if he decided she was right—that being married to a
laran
less wife was indeed impossible for him? And, knowing how much her husband disliked emotional conflict, it would be just like him to tell her in a letter, to avoid the inevitable confrontation it would mean.

“Kate, read your letter and stop your fretting.” Giz spoke in a gentle voice, and then turned away to clean out the pottery teapot.

Katherine sighed and broke the paper wafer which sealed the packet. Three sheets unfolded on her lap, and Herm’s large scrawl danced before her eyes. He had written to her a few times when they were courting, but she had not seen his handwriting since then, and the sight of it now made her heart leap in her chest. She remembered how the sight of one of his notes had made her blood race ten years before, how girlish and excited she had felt whenever she received one.

Katherine stopped reading and looked up. “Did you know that Herm had an arrest warrant out for him?”

“Yes,
breda,
I did, but Mikhail asked us—Rafael and me—not to tell you, because he felt you didn’t need to know about it so you wouldn’t worry.”

“I do wish everyone would stop keeping things from me and not meddle in my life!”

Gisela chuckled and then took the kettle off the fire to pour hot water into the teapot. “I’m not sure if that is possible on Darkover—everyone seems to meddle just for sport.”

“Sport!” Kate spat out the word and felt much better for it. “I suppose it is something to do when you are snowed in for weeks at a time,” she added, less angrily but with great feeling.

“It is better than killing each other, Kate.”

“I’m not completely sure of that.” She picked up the letter and went on reading.

“He says he isn’t perfect,” Kate told Gisela as the woman approached her with a mug of steaming tea, the pleasant minty smell wafting toward her.

“He is only now discovering that?”

“I don’t know, but he is admitting it now.” She took a sip and found the tea too hot to drink yet.

“I suppose that is progress of some sort,” Gisela answered with her usual tartness.

Katherine looked up and found there were tears in her eyes. She folded the letter over and picked up her tea. Then she wiped her wet cheeks with the sleeve of her blouse. The soft spider silk brushed across her skin like a lover’s kiss.

“Well?”

“He is very contrite.”

“Herm was always good at that, when he was a boy. He was always sorry for the mischief he got into. And he always meant it, too! Are you going to take him back?”

“What choice do I have?”

“Kate, you can do just as you please—something I never had a chance to do. The Aldaran Domain is not the richest on Darkover—Aldones knows it is certainly the coldest!—but you will never want for anything, should you decide that he has to sleep in the hawks’ mews for the rest of his life. My brother Robert will see that you are well provided for. So you don’t have to take Hermes back just because he says he is sorry. The question is—do you want him, imperfections and all?”

Katherine did not answer immediately, but drank some of her tea. Then she answered, slowly, “Yes, I do—as maddening as he is.”

“Well, then, that settles it.”

“Not exactly. Things can never be the same between us, Gisela, and I don’t know if he understands that. He is so good at manipulating me—everyone, for that matter—and being clever, that he doesn’t seem to realize the hurt it causes. So, I am going to have to insist that . . .”

“What?”

“That he not treat me like some adoring little woman who can be pushed aside when it pleases him!”

“That may be very difficult, Kate.”

“I know.” She bent her head forward and her shoulders drooped.

“Here, now, don’t go falling into the dumps on me. Why, if things don’t work out, there are always the Renunciates!”

“The Renunciates!” Gisela had told Kate about those women, and she had been fascinated. But the thought of herself living in a community of females was so bizarre that it was funny, and she began to chuckle. “What, and cut off my hair?”

Gisela rolled her eyes drolly. “There you are—saved by sheer vanity!”

 

Mikhail came into the sitting room of the suite and found Marguerida in a high-backed chair, with a sheet of thick paper in her lap. He realized that it was the first time, except for meals, that he had seen her seated in days. He studied her, noticing the slightest redness at the tip of her nose and the puffiness around her eyes—she must have been crying. And she looked so tired. He wanted to kill anyone who made his wife weep. She would not like that thought, since she preferred to take care of herself, but he could not entirely stem the feeling of outrage. After perhaps half a minute he realized that he was just using it as an excuse to vent his own emotions. Why shouldn’t she cry if she wished to?

“What’s the matter,
caria
?”

Marguerida looked up, as if she had not noticed he had entered the room, and stared slightly. “Nothing, really. Or perhaps everything. Nico has sent me a letter.”

“Really? Might I read it, or is it too private?”

“You may not like it.”

“I don’t like a great many things, dearest, but that does not prevent me from discovering them.” He tried to keep the sharpness out of his voice, and almost succeeded.

“I had no idea he was so dreadfully unhappy,” she said as she handed him the letter.

“All boys his age are unhappy, I think. I was, and Dani was. Fifteen is a terrible year. At least he does not have spots any longer—I still did, and my voice kept breaking, which embarrassed me no end.” He looked down at the piece of paper in his hand, realized he was looking at the back of it, and turned it over. “I wonder why he asked for your book?” he asked, noticing the writing above the salutation.

“I have no idea—maybe he is bored. I hope he is bored and not in danger.”

“Umm.” Mikhail was already deep in the first page and barely heard her remark. He frowned over the words, admiring the care he knew had been put into them. There was nothing he found very surprising, for he had suspected for some time that Nico was perturbed about himself. He had assumed that Alanna Alar was the cause, and had been happy at the way in which Domenic had walked the taut rope between his affection for his foster-sister and propriety. He turned the page over again, and looked at the back of the sheet.

Yes, Nico was upset about his feelings for his cousin, but that did not appear to be the real problem. The words danced before his eyes, and Mikhail sat down on the couch with a thump and reread them. When he was done, he shook his head. “It is a shame we could not have fostered him to someone.”

“I don’t really think that that would have helped, Mikhail. Are you feeling as if you were a poor parent? I know I am.”

“Yes, I am. If only he wasn’t such a prickly boy, so hard to . . . and you are right. Who would we have dared to foster him to? My brother Gabriel might have done, except that that would have placed him near to Javanne, and besides, Regis would never have agreed, would he?”

Marguerida sighed. “Your brother is an estimable man, when he isn’t being a complete jackass, but I don’t think he would have made any better a parent than we have done. We might just as well accept the fact that we did the best we could, and it wasn’t enough!”

“Marguerida, this is not the end of the world! I know you are exhausted, and that you have been wearing yourself out, handling all the arrangements and worrying about Nico at the same time. But he did manage to tell you that he feels like some sort of unnatural child, didn’t he?”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Her golden eyes sparkled with anger, and color came into her pale cheeks.