Thendara House (38 page)

“Good idea,” the Coordinator said, “and at the same time we can find out about this man Carr. What the hell, if he wants to take some job over the wall, nobody’s stopping him, and after all, he didn’t come in to collect his severance pay!” He laughed uproariously, and Jaelle could not help but see the grimace of the other Terrans behind his back. Did anyone take this man seriously?

“But we’ve got to make sure,” the Coordinator went on, “that they’re not holding this man Carr out there to squeeze out everything they want to know about the Terrans. Brainwash him. We might wind up having to send someone out to rescue him!”

Peter said in his dryest tone, “Somehow I cannot imagine the Regent of Alton would be guilty of anything so dishonorable.”

“Look here, whose side are you on anyhow?” demanded Montray. “You always take all these native bastards right at face value and if they’re as simple as all that, how come they’re not doing what all the other natives on uncivilized planets do when the Empire lands on their world - coming up and begging for a piece of the action? Something’s going on out there that we don’t know about and I’ve got a gut feeling that those bastards you call
Comyn
have something to do with it!”

Monty said, and his tone would have frozen liquid hydrogen “However that may be, sir, I suggest you keep your voice down. We are, after all, in
their
territory and if there is anyone here who speaks even a little Terran standard, you have just insulted their highest nobility. We can discuss what Haldane is to do when we are safely behind the walls of the HQ again.”

Jaelle said in a tone almost as stiff as Monty’s, “If you question your safety, I venture to remind you that the word of a Hastur is proverbial, and Lord Danvan has assured us of our safety. Nevertheless, I suggest that we should be gone from here before we give him cause to regret his courtesy!”

“Let’s load up that stuff, then,” Li commanded. “We can give it to Spaceforce when we get down to the gates; until then, Monty, Haldane, you’re able-bodied, can you divide it up between you? Careful with that recorder box, I’ll take that,” he added, and tucked it into a uniform pocket. “I’ll turn it over to Flight Operations personally, though I don’t suppose it will tell us anything except bad weather. All right, let’s get going.”

One of the cadets remaining cleared his throat self-consciously and said to Jaelle, “
Mestra
, will you kindly inform the
Terranan
captain, or officer - I don’t know his proper designation, acquit me of deliberate failure in courtesy - that the Lord Hastur has required us to give any assistance desired in transporting your property through the gates and to the City. They need not burden themselves like animals; we are here to assist them.”

Jaelle relayed the information; the Coordinator said, “I’ll bet they’d like to get their hands on it, wouldn’t they?” but quickly, before that could sink in, Peter said, “Thank you, friends,” to the cadets in the most courteous inflection, then added, “Monty, let him take it, Li, hand him the Flight box; it will come to no harm, and when someone of Lord Danvan’s rank offers a courtesy it should be accepted gracefully.”

“Who the hell do you think you are, Haldane?” growled the Coordinator, but Aleki said under his breath, “He’s the resident expert on protocol, sir, he has the right to override you on matters of this kind; dammit, don’t make an issue of it!”

Russell Montray sullenly gave up the Recorder box to the leader of the cadets, and they went out toward the gates.

As they passed through the corridor outside the Presence Chamber, Peter said in a low voice, “Against the wall, everybody. Someone’s coming through and by their look I would say they were high placed in the Comyn. Let them pass and for God’s sake act respectful!”

Jaelle could almost hear the Coordinator’s snarl that they were Terrans and they didn’t bow down to feudal lords from any damned pre-space culture, but he did not speak aloud and they moved against the wall in varying attitudes of courtesy, grudged or real. The man in the lead was somewhat like the young Hastur-lord who had spoken with them, though his hair was gray through the silvery blond, and the others were crowded behind him. Then there was a cry of recognition.

“Jaelle! My dear child!” And in a moment Jaelle was in Lady Rohana’s arms.

Lady Rohana Ardais seemed to have shrunk; she was smaller, more frail. There was more gray in her dark-red hair than Jaelle remembered

“My dear, I looked for you in the Guild House, but I did not find you there, and the Guild Mother was not there to tell me where you could be found! Blessed be Avarra who guided me to this meeting, child!”

Lorill Hastur took Jaelle briefly into a kinsman’s embrace. She was surprised by that, as if it had happened to someone else. Surely he could see that she was a Renunciate, that she had among other things renounced what status she might ever have had in Comyn.

“I met you once as a child,” he said, and touched the feathery edges of her short hair, “It is almost all I remember about you; how lovely your hair was, and what a pity that the Renunciates should sacrifice it.”

She dropped him a confused curtsy and for the first time in her life the dress of a Renunciate seemed awkward.

“But who are all these people, my child, and how is it that you come among them?”

Danvan Hastur, behind his father, said quietly, “They are the Terran embassies who have come to speak about the downed aircraft on Armida lands, sir.”

Jaelle pushed Peter forward and said shyly, “This man, Lord Hastur, is my freemate. He was born in Caer Donn and has lived among Darkovans most of his life.”

“Rohana spoke of him,” said Lorill Hastur, “and I remember that he was among those who helped to formulate the concept of making
medical technology
available to our people through the employment of Renunciates in the Trade City.” He nodded courteously to Peter. “Rohana, if you would like to speak with your foster daughter, I can spare you for a time from our counsels,” and passed on.

“Do stay and talk with me,” Rohana said, clinging to Jaelle’s arm, “There are so many things we have to say.”

Jaelle looked hesitatingly at Peter. He said, “It’s very kind of you, Lady Rohana, but my duties - “

“Stay if you want to,” Montray said, but as the great door swung open before them, wind lashed through the room, and he shrank back. Jaelle realized that she should have expected this - why had she not been sensitive to the very unseasonable weather? This was the sudden late-spring blizzard that could sweep across from the pass unseen until it struck full force, blanketing the city in white-out within minutes and without warning. Once Jaelle had been caught out in it at Midsummer-Festival itself. “Zandru’s kiss,” she said aloud, then explained to Montray, hesitating. “I fear we must seek hospitality here - we cannot go out in this. My Lord Hastur - “

He turned back to her and nodded. He said to one of the waiting cadets, “Conduct the Terran dignitaries to guest quarters, if you will,” and Monty thanked him with flawless courtesy. Russell Montray had the good sense to keep quiet.

“And you, Jaelle, and your freemate,” Rohana said, “you will of course be my guests tonight.” She smiled gaily. “I did not know that the weather would be so favorable for my wishes!”

But as the Terrans were conducted away to guest suites, Peter watched uneasily; and when he and Jaelle were together in the luxurious guest rooms in the Ardais part of Cornyn Castle, he said restlessly, “I don’t feel right about this, Jaelle. I don’t think Montray knows enough of Darkovan protocol, and I should be there with him “

“Monty will get along all right,” said Jaelle, “and I’ve been working every day with Aleki; if he doesn’t know enough to keep the old man out of trouble, he’s not as good as I think he is.”

“That’s the point,” Peter almost snarled. “You really don’t understand all this, do you? You never have. I need to be there, Jaelle - not tucked away somewhere in the lap of luxury while somebody else reaps the reward. I want old Montray’s job, it’s just as simple as that, and if I’m not there, this newcomer, this Sandro Li, is going to step in and take over by being on the spot, and where am I? Out in the cold, good for a field agent, but never considered for top administration!”

Jaelle was, for a moment, speechless with shock. The idea that anyone would actually scheme for one of the tiresome administrative jobs, the kind of thing forced upon the Comyn by birth and the inescapable inherited requirements of nobility, struck her with such shock that for a moment Peter seemed a stranger to her.

“Then of course you must go at once,” she said when she could speak at all. “We cannot let you be passed over in your
ambition
.” She used the stinging derogatory inflection as one would speak of a toady office-seeker, sniffing around for bribes and preferment, but he seemed not to understand that she had insulted him, and Jaelle stood wondering why she had ever been able to endure his presence at all. He was not the man she had loved at Ardais, he was not anyone. He was a dirty little manipulating office-seeker, caring only for preferment and his work, why had she never seen it before?

“I knew you’d understand. After all, it’s to your benefit too, if I make good at this job,” Peter said, smiling -
of course, he is content now that he has his own way
- and dropped a quick kiss on her forehead before she could bend to escape it. She stood silent in the middle of the big room, not even taking off her outer garments, tears stinging her eyes. She had made so many excuses not to see him for what he was. And now she was trapped, she was bearing his child.

Melora
-
my mother
-
must have felt like this in the Dry Towns. She must always have believed that somewhere there was rescue, and that her kindred would ransom her. And then she knew I was to be born and that no matter what should happen, rescue or no, the world would never be the same
.

I am bound for my term of employment, and when Peter knows about the child he will never let me go.

… bear children only in my own time and season, at my own will and never for any man’s place or pride, clan or heritage
… the words of the oath rang in her mind, and she knew she was forsworn. She had known it in the Amazon Guild House that night when they spoke of children, and now there was no escaping the knowledge; she had been blind to it then, but now it was clear to her…

The servant at the doorway had stood unmoving, but now she came and gently took Jaelle’s cloak from her, laying it aside, and asked in a soft deferential way if she could bring the lady any refreshment. Jaelle had spent so many years, first in the Guild House where no woman was servant to another, and then among the Terrans where service was not personal at all, that she felt awkward as the woman took her cloak. She murmured thanks and declined refreshment, wanting only to be alone, to come to terms with the new and unwelcome knowledge thrust on her.

But the woman persisted: “If you are sufficiently refreshed, the Lady Rohana wishes you to attend her in her private sitting-room.”

That was the last thing Jaelle wanted. But she had come to Comyn Castle of her free will and now she was, like any other woman of the Domains, subject to Comyn. Rohana was her kinswoman; more, she was a patron and benefactor of the Guild House and there was absolutely no way to refuse her polite request. She could have stalled, said she was too tired for speech, delayed by asking for food or drink which Rohana would have been bound by hospitality to give her. But why did she not want to talk with Rohana, who had never showed her anything but the greatest kindness?

In the little sitting-room, which was the identical twin of the room at Ardais where Rohana went over her estate accounts with her steward, and saw Dom Gabriel’s clients and petitioners, Rohana was waiting for her.

“Come here, my dear child,” she said, and from habit Jaelle started to take her place on the little footstool at Rohana’s knee; then realized what she was doing and withdrew, taking an upright chair across the room from her kinswoman. Rohana saw what she was doing, and sighed.

“I sought you at the Guild House,” she said, “but the Elder in charge could tell me only that you were working among the Terrans, and I did not know how to look for you there. I came to Thendara at least partly for your sake, Jaelle, on Comyn business - “

Jaelle heard her own voice sounding as harsh as a stranger’s.

“I have no business with the Comyn. I renounced all that when I took oath, Rohana.”