A thin, fine drizzle of rain was beginning to fall. Lew drew his hood up over his shoulders and the insignia of the City Guard showed on his cloak. So he’s taking the regular duties of a Comyn heir, Regis thought. He may be a bastard, but he’s more useful than I am.

Lew said aloud, as if picking up his thoughts, “I expect you’ll be going into the cadet corps of the Guard this season, won’t you? Or are the Hasturs exempt?”

“It’s all planned out for us, isn’t it, Lew? Ten years old, fire-watch duty. Thirteen or fourteen, the cadet corps. Take my turn as an officer. Take a seat in Council at the proper time. Marry the right woman, if they can find one from a family that’s old enough and important enough and, above all, with laran. Father a lot of sons, and a lot of daughters to marry other Comyn sons. They’ve got our lives all planned, and all we have to do is go through the motions, ride their road whether we want to or not.”

Lew looked uneasy, but he didn’t answer. Obediently, like a proper prince, Regis drew a little ahead, to ride through the city gates in his proper place beside Kennard and Lord Dyan. His head was getting wet but, he thought sourly, it was his duty to be seen, to be put on display. A little thing like a soaking wasn’t supposed to bother a Hastur.

He forced himself to smile and wave graciously at the crowds lining the streets. But far away, through the very ground, he could hear again the dull vibration, like a waterfall. The starships were still there, he told himself, and the stars beyond them. No matter how deep they cut the track, I’ll find a way to break loose somehow. Someday.

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Chapter TWO

(Lewis-Kennard Montray-Alton’s narrative)

I hadn’t wanted to attend Council this year. To be exact, I never wanted to attend Council at all. That’s putting it mildly. I’m not popular with my father’s equals in the Seven Domains.

At Armida, nothing bothers me. The house-folk know who I am and the horses don’t care. And at Arilinn nobody inquires about your family, your pedigree or your legitimacy. The only thing that matters in a Tower is your ability to manipulate a matrix and key into the energon rings and relay screens. If you’re competent, no one cares whether you were born between silk sheets in a great house or in a ditch beside the road; and if you’re not competent, you don’t come there at all.

You may ask why, if I was good at managing the estate at Armida, and more than adequate in the matrix relays at Arilinn, Father had this flea in his brain about forcing me on the Council. You may ask, but you’ll have to ask someone else. I have no idea.

Whatever his reasons, he had managed to force me on the Council as his heir. They hadn’t liked it, but they’d had to allow me the legitimate privileges of a Comyn heir and the duties that went with them. Which meant that at fourteen I had gone into the cadets and, after serving as a junior officer, was now a captain in the City Guard. It was a privilege I could have done without. The Council lords might be forced to accept me. But making the younger sons, lesser nobles and so forth who served in the cadets accept me—that was another song!

Bastardy, of course, is no special disgrace. Plenty of Comyn lords have half a dozen. If one of them turns out to have laran—which is what every woman who bears a child to a Comyn lord hopes for—nothing is easier than having the child acknowledged and given privileges and duties somewhere in the Domains. But to make one of them the heir-designate to the Domain, thatwas unprecedented, and every unacknowledged son of a minor line made me feel how little I merited this special treatment.

I couldn’t help knowing why they felt that way—I had what every one of them wanted, felt he merited as much as I did. But understanding only made things worse. It must be comfortable never to know whyyou’re disliked. Maybe then you can believe you don’t deserve it.

Just the same, I’ve made sure none of them could complain about me. I’ve done a little of everything, as Comyn heirs in the cadets are supposed to: I’ve supervised street patrols, organizing everything from grain supplies for the pack animals to escorts for Comyn ladies; I’ve assisted the arms-master at his job, and made sure that the man who cleaned the barracks knew hisjob. I disliked serving in the cadets and didn’t enjoy command duty in the Guard. But what could I do? It was a mountain I could neither cross nor go around. Father needed me and wanted me, and I could not let him stand alone.

As I rode at Regis Hastur’s side, I wondered if his choosing to ride beside me had been a mark of friendship or a shrewd attempt to get on the good side of my father. Three years ago I’d have said friendship, certainly. But boys change in three years, and Regis had changed more than most

He’d spent a few winters at Armida before he went to the monastery, before I went to Arilinn. I’d never thought about him being heir to Hastur. They said his health was frail; old Hastur thought that country living and company would do him good. He’d mostly been left to me to look after. I’d taken him riding and hawking, and he’d gone with me up into the plateaus when the great herds of wild horses were caught and brought down to be broken. I remembered him best as an undersized youngster, following me around, wearing my outgrown breeches and shirts because he kept growing out of his own; playing with the puppies and newborn foals, bending solemnly over the clumsy stitches he was learning to set in hawking-hoods, learning swordplay from Father and practicing with me. During the terrible spring of his twelfth year, when the Kilghard Hills had gone up in forest fires and every able-bodied man between ten and eighty was commandeered into the fire-lines, we’d gone together, working side by side by day, eating from one bowl and sharing blankets at night. We’d been afraid Armida itself would go up in the holocaust; some of the outbuildings were lost in the backfire. We’d been closer than brothers. When he went to Nevarsin, I’d missed him terribly. It was difficult to reconcile my memories of that almost-brother with this self-possessed, solemn young prince. Maybe he’d learned, in the interval, that friendship with Kennard’s nedestroheir was not quite the thing for a Hastur.

I could have found out, of course, and he’d never have known. But that’s not even a temptation for a telepath, after the first few months. You learn not to pry.

But he didn’t feelunfriendly, and presently asked me outright why I hadn’t called him by name; caught off guard by the blunt question, I gave him a straight answer instead of a diplomatic one and then, of course, we were all right again.

Once we were inside the gates, the ride to the castle was not long, just long enough to get thoroughly drenched. I could tell that Father was aching with the damp and cold—he’s been lame ever since I could remember, but the last few winters have been worse—and that Marius was wet and wretched. When we came into the lee of the castle it was already dark, and though the nightly rain rarely turns to snow at this season, there were sharp slashes of sleet in it. I slid from my horse and went quickly to help Father dismount, but Lord Dyan had already helped him down and given him his arm.

I withdrew. From my first year in the cadets, I’d made it a habit not to get any closer to Lord Dyan than I could possibly help. Preferably well out of reach.

There’s a custom in the Guards for first-year cadets. We’re trained in unarmed combat and we’re supposed to cultivate a habit of being watchful at all times; so during our first season, in the guardroom and armory, anyone superior to us in the Guards is allowed to take us by surprise, if he can, and throw us. It’s good training. After a few weeks of being grabbed unexpectedly from behind and dumped hard on a stone floor, you develop something like eyes in the back of your head. Usually it’s fairly good-natured, and although it’s a rough game and you collect plenty of bruises, no one really minds.