Traitor's Sun (77 page)

You know what it is?
He was amazed, and vastly relieved at the same time. How could she know?

Is this what has been disturbing you? I just thought it was your feelings for Alanna . . . I feel rather foolish, son.
Her

mind seemed to clear, as if she was discarding everything irrelevant in a rush of concentration, holding back a tendril of fear that tried to claim her.

Domenic felt her organize her thoughts with an abruptness that was rather startling to observe. Had she always been so ruthless? Probably—he was her child, and he had never really thought about all the decisions she must have made over the decades, the adult choices that he was only now starting to understand, and he knew she must have always possessed this keenness of mind and spirit.
And will you explain it to Father?

You are a good son, Domenic—the best. I would do anything for you except what . . . you have just asked of me. I would rather give you a moon than let you . . .
Marguerida gave a gusty sigh and he saw that she was blinking tears away fiercely. His father’s was not the only heart that looked to be rent, and for a moment, he wished he had not chosen the course he had. Then the feeling passed, and he rode on, at ease for the first time in months.

 

It was early morning when the funeral procession reached the
rhu fead
at Hali. Under normal circumstances, Mikhail reflected, the burial would have been later in the day; even though Hali was only an hour’s ride northward from Comyn Castle, it would take time to gather the procession together, especially for someone as prominent as Regis Hastur. This was a burial that should have had the entire Comyn Council and most of their families in attendance.

But normally, a funeral procession was not ambushed.

So now a small group of people, the ones who had not been needed elsewhere to guard the children or the Castle—or who had not been seriously injured in the ambush and its aftermath, came to bury Regis Hastur. His body was laid in an unmarked grave as was the custom, and Mikhail waited silently for Regis’s son to begin the traditional remembrances.

After a few moments, Danilo Hastur stepped forward. As Regis’s closest kinsman, it was his place to speak first. “I did not know my father well,” he said, “and I am sure it was my loss. But I remember when I was very small, he played with me, even though he had little time to do so. Let that memory lighten grief.”

Danilo Syrtis stepped forward, looking immensely sad. He said, “Regis and I were in the cadets together. When I was in disgrace, he sought me out at Syrtis, and we swore the oath of
bredin.
He was willing to alienate a powerful man in order to befriend me, and since that time we have been together. Let that memory lighten grief.”

After a moment of silence, Mikhail stepped forward himself. “When I was adopted by Regis, he was still young and I was little more than a baby, and I remember that during the first few years, he treated me as just another child. But as I grew older, he spent more time with me and talked to me. I know that when he was young he wanted to travel beyond Darkover, but he gave up that dream to do his duty to Darkover and to all of us. Let that memory lighten grief.”

Hermes Aldaran said, “I never had the honor of meeting
Dom
Regis, but he appointed me to the Chamber of Deputies, in spite of the fact that my father’s actions gave him every reason to distrust any member of my family. By doing so he made it possible for me both to serve Darkover and to fulfill my dream of going into space. It is also thanks to him that I have my beloved wife and our children. Let that memory lighten grief.”

Young Donal Alar, Mikhail’s paxman, said, “I saw little of
Dom
Regis; but in all these years I never heard that he did any dishonorable thing, nor spoke an evil word. Let that memory lighten grief.”

This isn’t right,
Mikhail thought.
Lew should be here, and Linnea, and Javanne—he
was
her brother. There should be more people to speak of Regis. Hermes isn’t the only one of the people here who never even met him.

Marguerida looked around helplessly. Mikhail wondered if she had picked up an echo of his thought or if her thoughts were the same. He reached for her hand and clasped it reassuringly. “Regis was always gracious to me,” she said, “more than that, he was kind. Even though I don’t think he really wanted me to marry Mikhail, he accepted me as a daughter. Let that memory lighten grief.”

Mikhail waited until it was obvious that no one else was going to say anything. Then he stepped forward once more, picked up a handful of soil and cast it quietly into the grave. The other men joined him in filling the grave with the loose earth that had been dug from it. They finished the task in silence, a silence that continued as they gathered their horses and began the journey back to Thendara.

D
ays had passed, then weeks. Autumn had faded and winter had begun to grip Darkover. On an icy morning Marguerida and Mikhail stood on the parapets of Comyn Castle, on a space cleared of the most recent snow. Cold lingered in the swept stones, penetrating into her boots and up under the many flannel petticoats she wore. She barely noticed the discomfort as she drew her heavy cloak more closely around her. Thendara lay beneath them, in a blanket of white, glistening in the sullen light of the sun behind the clouds, but she had no eyes for the city.

Marguerida strained her eyes toward the complex that lay at the limits of her unaided sight. She could just make out the ugly square buildings of HQ, where the Federation had maintained a presence for a hundred years. The large sweeps of tarmac around the structures were covered with snow, and if there were people moving there, they were too far away to be seen except with a farviewer. The only one they had was being quite unfairly hogged by Rory, who was as excited as if this were a glorious occasion, not a difficult complex event. The damn boy was irrepressible.

Nothing was happening yet, and Marguerida let her attention lapse. She thought about what had happened since they returned to Thendara more than forty days before, caught between relief that it was finally over and sorrow at the cost of lives. She was tired to her bones, and depressed as well. Food and rest had restored her body, but her spirit—and Mikhail’s—remained despondent. Marguerida could only hope that with the final departure of the Federation, they could begin to return to their normal selves. She knew in her heart that they would not ever be as they had been; that what they had done together on the Old North Road would always be with them, as inescapable as the deaths they had caused.

It had demanded all the discipline they had acquired to endure the days that had followed their return to the city. Instead of a triumphant celebration of victory, there were a myriad of problems to be faced.
Dom
Francisco was healing from his injuries, and Comyn Council had yet to decide just how he would pay for his treachery against Mikhail. There was no question in their minds that he must give up his seat on the Council in favor of his son Cisco, but whether he should be executed or allowed to live remained an issue of lively debate for the future.

They had dealt with the few survivors of the battle on the road, ten techs and half a dozen soldiers, as kindly as they could. She shivered with something more than cold at that memory, for it had violated her standards of ethical behavior more than a little. She and her father had used the Alton Gift in a way that repelled them, to tamper with the memories of the techs and soldiers, so that while they remembered the general events of the fight on the Old North Road, they had no recollection of anything remarkable occurring. No memory of the globe of light that had smote their compatriots so mercilessly remained when they were finished with their vile task. Lew had shaken his head and muttered, “The things I have done for Darkover,” and gotten terribly drunk for the first time in years.

The hapless Planetary Administrator, Emmet Grayson, had stepped into the breach left by the capture of Lyle Belfontaine, expressing outrage at the attack on Comyn Castle and exerting himself to make the best of a bad situation. From him they learned that Dirck Vancof had not succeeded in his attempt to escape. When he had put the flyer down on the landing field and stepped out, dressed in native clothing, he had been mistaken for a Darkovan and shot before anyone bothered to ask questions. Marguerida suspected that his well-deserved execution had saved Grayson a great deal of further embarrassment, and wondered to herself if the shooting might not have been more deliberate than accidental.

Then for three weeks after their return, there had been no word from the Federation. The continued silence from the Regional Relay Station had nearly driven Grayson to distraction. When the Administrator had finally received a message, years had dropped from his face. After that, it had only been a matter of helping him organize their departure. Now, all they had to do was wait.

A distant booming sound brought her back to the present with a start, and then there was a bright flare of light. A Big Ship plummeted downward, sending billows of moisture up into the air as the heat of it vaporized the snow on the tarmac. It was a glorious sight, the flare of the landing jets and the smooth black hull of the ship standing out starkly against the whiteness behind it.

When the vapor began to settle, Marguerida could see heavy vehicles start across the field. They rolled over the now snowless tarmac, and she thought she could see ramps being lowered. It was very hard to be sure at this distance. The first carrier reached the ramp and started up, into the belly of the ship, the rest following. It was rather a letdown after all the anticipation. Grayson had organized everything ably, and in half an hour, the last carrier was loaded aboard. Marguerida could not help but wonder what awaited the men and women leaving Darkover. Grayson had let slip a few things about the present state of the Federation that suggested there was a civil war going on in parts of that far-flung comglomeration of planets, that worlds had rebelled against Premier Nagy and the Expansionist forces. She suspected they were lucky that they were being taken away at all, but she knew her information was spotty at best.

The ramps vanished back into the black hull, and for several minutes there was no activity to be seen. The sky was darkening and a few snowflakes began to fall as the little group waited. Then a blaze surrounded the Big Ship for a moment, and it ascended as swiftly as it had come down, lifting away as if it weighed nothing instead of tons and tons. Like a sword of light it rose until it pierced the clouds and was gone from view.

No one spoke for several seconds. “Well, that’s the last of them,” Roderick announced cheerfully.

Marguerida looked at her redheaded younger son, glad to see that even the most momentous events did not disturb his constant enthusiasm for everything. At least she still had him to cluck over, now that Domenic was with Istvana Ridenow in Neskaya.