He came back to barracks near midnight, wondering what duty Danilo had been assigned at this mid-year rotation. It was strange to walk in and see the night officer simply marking off his name as being on late duty, rather than scolding him for being tardy. He paused to ask the man, “Do you know anything about Julian—cadet MacAran, sir?”
“MacAran? Yes, he has a concussion, they took him to the infirmary, but he’ll be all right in a few days. They sent for his friend to come and stay with him there. His wits were wandering, and they were afraid he’d climb out of bed and hurt himserf. But he recognized Damon’s voice. He didn’t seem to hear anyone else but when MacAnndra told him to keep quiet and stay put, they say he went to sleep quiet as a baby. Concussion’s like that sometimes.”
Regis said he was glad to hear Julian was no worse, and went in to his bed. His end of the dormitory was almost empty, with Damon and Julian in the infirmary. Danilo’s bed, too, was empty. He must be on night duty. He felt regretful, having hoped for a word with him, a chance, perhaps, to find out what was troubling him, make friends again.
He was wakened, an hour or two later, by the sounds of heavy rain on the roof and raised voices at the doorway. The night officer was saying, “I’ll have to put you on report for this,” and Danilo answering roughly, “I don’t give a damn, what do you think it matters to me now?” A few minutes later he came into the room with blundering steps.
What is the matter with him? Regis wondered. Was he drunk? He decided not to speak to him. If Danilo was drunk enough, or agitated enough, to be rude to the night officer, he might make another scene and find himself in worse trouble yet.
Danilo bumped into Regis’ cot, and Regis could feel that Danilo’s clothing was soaked through, as if he had been wandering around in the rain. By the dim light left in the washroom at night Regis could see him blundering around, flinging his clothes off every which way, heard the bumpas he threw his sword down on his clothing chest instead of hanging it on the wall. He stood under the window for a moment, naked, hesitating, and Regis almost said something. He could have spoken in a low voice without attracting attention; with Damon and Julian both out of the barracks, they were a considerable distance from the other cadets. But the old agonizing fear of a rebuff seized him. He could not face the thought of another quarrel. So he remained silent, and after a time Danilo turned away and got into his own bed.
Regis slept lightly, fitfully, and after a long time woke with a start, hearing again the sound of weeping. This time, although the vibration of misery was there, direct to his senses, Danilo was awake and he was really crying, softly, hopelessly, miserably. Regis listened to the sound for some time, wretchedly torn, unwilling to intrude, unable to endure such grief. Finally his sense of friendship drew him out of bed.
He knelt beside Danilo’s cot and whispered, “Dani, what’s the matter? Are you sick? Have you had had news from home? Is there anything I can do?”
Danilo muttered drearily, his head still turned away. “No, no, there’s nothing anyone can do, it’s too late for that. And for that, for that—Holy Bearer of Burdens, what will my father say?”
Regis said, in a whisper that could not be heard three feet away, “Don’t talk like that. Nothing’s so bad it can’t be helped somehow. Would you feel better to tell me about it? Please, Dani.”
Danilo turned over, his face only a white blob in the darkness. He said, “I don’t know what to do. I think I must be going mad—” Suddenly he drew a long, gasping sob. He said, “I can’t see—who—Damon, is that you?”
Regis whispered, “No. Damon’s in the infirmary with Julian. And everyone else is asleep. I don’t think anyone heard you coming in. I wasn’t going to say anything, but you sounded so unhappy … ” Forgetting their quarrel, forgetting everything except this was his friend in some desperate trouble, he leaned forward and laid his hand on Danilo’s bare shoulder, a shy, tentative touch. “Isn’t there anything I can—”
He felt the explosion of rage and something else—fear? shame?—running up his arm through his fingers, like an electric shock. He drew his hand away sharply as if it had been burned. With a violent, tigerish movement, Danilo thrust Regis angrily away with both hands. He spoke in a strained whisper.
“Damnable—filthy— Comyn, get the hell away from me, get your stinking handsoff me, you—” He used a word which made Regis, used as he was to Guard hall coarseness, gasp aloud and draw away, shaking and almost physically sick.
“Dani, you’re wrong,” he protested, dismayed. “I only thought you were sick or in trouble. Look, whatever’s gone wrong with you, I haven’t done anything to you, have I? You’ll really make yourself ill if you go on like this, Dani. Can’t you tell me what’s happened?”
“Tell you? Sharra’s chains, I’d sooner whisper it to a wolf with his teeth in my throat!” He gave Regis a furious push and said, half aloud, “You come near me again, you filthy ombredin, and I’ll break your stinking neck!”
Regis rose from his side and silently went back to his own bed. His heart was still pounding with the physical shock of that burst of violent rage which he had felt when he touched Danilo, and he was trembling with the assault on his mind. He lay listening to Danilo’s strained breathing, quite simply aghast and almost physically sick under that burst of hatred and his own failure to get through to him. Somehow he had thought that between two people, both with laran, this kind of misunderstanding could not possibly arise! He lay listening to Danilo’s gasping, heard it finally subside into soft sobbing and at last into a restless, tossing sleep. But Regis himself hardly closed his eyes that night.
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Chapter TEN
(Lew Alton’s narrative)
Heavy rain after midnight had turned to wet snow; the day I was to leave for Aldaran dawned gray and grim, the sun hidden behind clouds still pregnant with unfallen snow. I woke early and lay half asleep, hearing angry voices from my father’s room. At first I thought Marius was getting a tongue-lashing for some minor naughtiness, but so early? Then I woke a little further and detected a quality in Father’s voice never turned on any of us. All my life I have known him for a harsh, hasty and impatient man, but usually his anger was kept on a leash; the fully-aroused anger of an Alton can kill, but he was tower-disciplined, control normally audible in every syllable he spoke. Hastily I put on a few clothes and went into the central hall.
“Dyan, this isn’t worthy of you. Is it so much a matter of personal pride?”
Lord of Light, it happened again! Well, at least, if I knew that note in Father’s voice, he wouldn’t get off unpunished!
Dyan’s voice was a heavy bass, muted to a rumble by the thick walls, but no walls could filter out my father’s answering shout; “No, damn it, Dyan, I won’t be party to any such monstrous—”
Out in the hall I heard Dyan repeat implacably, “Not personal pride, but the honor of the Comyn and the Guards.”
“Honor! You don’t know the meaning of—”
“Careful, Kennard, there are some things even you cannot say! As for this—in Zandru’s name, Ken, I cannot overlook this. Even if it had been your own son. Or mine, poor lad, had he lived so long. Would you be willing to see a cadet draw steel on an officer and go unpunished? If you cannot accept that I am thinking of the honor of the Guards, what of discipline? Would you have condoned such conduct even in your own bastard?”
“Must you draw Lew into every—”