For a moment it seemed that would be the last argument to move him. Danilo was no ordinary cadet, expendable to salve Dyan’s bruised pride. He must be saved for the Comyn at all costs!

With the very words on my lips, I stopped. No. If I told Father that, he would find some way to use Danilo too, as a tool in his driving quest for more power! Danilo was well freed of the Comyn and lucky to be beyond our reach!

My father drew back his extended hands. He said coldly, “Well, it’s a long road to Aldaran; maybe you’ll calm down and see sense before you get there.”

I felt like saying Aldaran, hell! Go do your own dirty work this time, I’m still sick from the last job! I don’t give a fart in a high wind for all your power politics! Go to Aldaran yourself and be damned to you!

But I didn’t. I recalled that I, too, was Aldaran, and Terran. I’d had it flung in my face often enough. They all took it for granted that I would feel enough shame at the disgrace of my origins to do anything, anything, to be accepted as Comyn and my father’s heir. He’d kept me subservient, unquestioning, all my life, that way.

But Terran blood, so Linnea had said, was no disgrace in the mountains. It had amazed her that I thought it so. And the Aldarans, too, were kinsmen.

My father had allowed me to think the Terrans and the Aldarans were evil. It had suited his purposes to let me think so.

And maybe that was another lie, a step on his road to power.

I bowed with ironic submissiveness. “I am entirely at your command, Lord Alton,” I said and turned my back, leaving him without a farewell embrace or a word.

And sealed my own doom.

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Chapter ELEVEN

Since Danilo’s departure the cadet barracks had been silent, hostile, astir with little eddies of gossip from which Regis was coldly excluded. He was not surprised. Danilo had been a favorite and they identified Regis with the Comyn who had brought about his expulsion.

His own suffering, his loneliness—all the worse because for a time it had been breached—was nothing, he knew, to what his friend must have been feeling. Dani had turned on him that night, he realized, because he was no longer just Regis, he was another persecutor. Another Comyn. But what could have made him so desperate?

He went over it again and again in his mind, without reaching any conclusions at all. He wished he could talk it over with Lew, who had been just as shocked and horrified by it. Regis had felt it in him. But Lew had gone to Aldaran, and Regis had no idea when be would be back.

The day before the cadets were dismissed to their homes, to return next summer in Council season, Regis was scheduled for his regular practice session with Dyan Ardais. He went with the usual blend of excitement and apprehension. He enjoyed his reputation among the cadets as a swordsman too expert for ordinary teaching and the sessions with Dyan challenged him to the utmost, but at the same time he knew these sessions alienated him further from the other cadets. Besides he emerged from them battered, bruised and completely exhausted.

Cadets were readying for practice in the little dressing room off the armory, strapping on the padded surcoats which were worn to protect against the worst blows. The heavy wood and leather practice swords could not kill, but they could inflict substantial injury and pain and even break bones. Regis flung off his cloak and tunic, pulling the padded coat over his head and flinching as he twisted his body to fasten the straps. His ribs were always sore these days.

As he fastened the last buckle, Dyan strode in, threw his jerkin on a bench and got quickly into his own practice outfit. Behind the thick fencing-mask he looked like some giant insect. Impatiently he gestured Regis toward the practice room. In his haste to obey Regis forgot to pick up his gauntlets, and the older man said harshly, “After all these months? Look here—” He thrust out his own clenched fist, pointed to the lump on the tendons on the back of the hand. “I got that when I was about your age. I ought to make you try it one day without gloves; forget again and I will do just that. I promise you’d never forget another time!”

Feeling like a slapped child, Regis went back hastily and snatched up the heavily padded gauntlets. He hurried back. At the far end, one of the arms-master’s aides was giving young Gareth Lindir a lesson, patiently positioning and repositioning his arms and legs, shoulders and hands, after every separate stroke. Regis could not see their faces behind the masks, but they both moved as if they were bored with the business. Bruises were better than that, Regis thought as he hurried to join Dyan.

The bout was brief today. Dyan moved more slowly than usual, almost awkwardly. Regis found himself recalling, with a faint embarrassment, a dream he had had some time ago, about fencing with Dyan. He couldn’t remember the details, but for some unremembered reason it filled him with anxiety. He touched Dyan at last and waited for the older man to regain his stance. Instead Dyan flung the wooden sword aside.

“You will have to excuse me for today,” he said. “I am somewhat—” He paused. “Somewhat—disinclined to go on.” Regis had the impression that he had intended to plead illness. “If you want to continue, I can find someone to practice with you.”

“As you wish, Captain.”

“Enough, then.” He pulled off his mask and went back into the dressing room. Regis followed slowly. Dyan was breathing hard, his face dripping with sweat. He took up a towel and plunged his head into it. Regis, unbuckling his padding, turned away. Like most young people, he felt embarrassed at witnessing the weakness of an elder. Under the thick surcoat his own shirt was dripping wet; he pulled it off and went to his locker for the spare one he had learned to keep there.

Dyan put aside the towel and came up behind him. He stood looking at Regis’ naked upper body, darkened with new and healing bruises, and finally said, “You should have told me. I had no idea I’d been so heavy-handed.” But he was smiling. He reached out and ran both his hands, firmly and thoroughly, over Regis’ ribs. Regis flinched from the touch and laughed nervously. Dyan shrugged, laughing in return. “No bones broken,” he said, running his fingers along the lowest ribs, “so no harm done.”

Regis hurriedly drew on his clean shirt and tunic, thinking that Dyan knew precisely to the inch every time he hit an old bruise—or made a fresh one!

Dyan sat on the bench, lacing up his boots. He threw his fencing-slippers into his locker. “I want to talk to you,” he said, “and you’re not on duty for another hour. Walk down to the tavern with me. You must be thirsty too.”

“Thank you.” Regis picked up his cloak and they went down the hill to the inn near the military stables, not the big one where the common soldiers went to drink, but the small wineshop where the officers and cadets spent their leisure time. At this hour the place was not crowded. Dyan slid into an empty booth. “We can go into the back room if you’d rather.”

“No, this will do very well.”

“You’re wise,” said Dyan impersonally. “The other cadets would resent it if you kept away from their common haunts and amusements. What will you drink?”

“Cider, sir.”

“Nothing stronger? Please yourself.” Dyan called the waiter and gave his order, commanding wine for himself. He said, “I think that’s why so many cadets take to heavy drinking: the beer they serve in the mess is so near undrinkable they take to wine instead! Perhaps we should improve the beer they’re given as a way of keeping them soberl”

He sounded so droll that Regis could not help laughing. At that moment half a dozen cadets came in, started to sit at the next table, then, seeing the two Comyn seated there and laughing together, went back and crowded at a smaller table near the door. Dyan had his back turned to them. Several of them were Regis’ barracks-mates; he nodded politely to them, but they pretended not to see.