“Well, tomorrow your first cadet season will be over,” Dyan said. “Have you decided to come back for a second?”

“I’d expected to, Captain.”

Dyan nodded. “If you survive the first year, everything else is easy. It’s that first year which separates the soldiers from the spoiled children. I spoke to the arms-master and suggested he try you as one of his aides next year. Do you think you can teach the brats some of the things I’ve been trying to pound into you?”

“I can try, sir.”

“Just don’t be too gentle with them. A few bruises at the right time can save their lives later on.” He grinned suddenly. “I seem to have done better by you than I thought, kinsman, judging by the look of your ribs!”

The grin was infectious. Regis laughed and said, “Well, you haven’t spared the bruises. No doubt I’ll be properly grateful for them, some day.”

Dyan shrugged. “At least you haven’t complained,” he said. “I admire that in someone your age.” He held Regis’ eyes for a split second longer than Regis felt comfortable, then took a long drink from his mug. “I would have been proud of such behavior from my own son.”

“I didn’t know you had a son, sir.”

Dyan poured himself more wine and said, not looking up, “I hada son.” His tone did not alter even a fraction, but Regis felt the genuine pain behind Dyan’s carefully steady voice. “He was killed in a rockslide at Nevarsin a few years ago.”

“I am sorry, kinsman. I had never been told.”

“He came to Thendara only once, when I had him legitimated. He was in his mother’s care so, I saw him very seldom. We never really got to know one another.”

The silence stretched. Regis could not barricade the sharp sense of regret, of loss, he could feel in Dyan. He had to say something.

“Lord Dyan, you are not yet an old man. You could have many sons.”

Dyan’s smile was a mere mechanical stretching of his mouth. “More likely I shall adopt one of my father’s bastards,” he said. “He strewed them all about the countryside from the Hellers to the Plains of Valeron. It should be easy enough to find one with laran, which is all the Council cares about. I have never been a man for women, nor ever made any secret of it. I forced myself to do my duty by my clan. Once. That was enough.” To Regis’ awakened sensitivity he sounded immeasurably bitter. “I refuse to think of myself as a very special sort of stud animal whose fees are paid to Comyn. I am sure that you”—he raised his eyes and met Regis’, again prolonging the glance with intensity—”can understand what I mean.”

Dyan’s words struck home, yet his intent look, the feeling he was apparently trying to create, that there was a special rapport between them, suddenly embarrassed the boy. He lowered his eyes and said, “I’m not sure just what you mean, kinsman.”

Dyan shrugged and the sudden intensity was gone as quickly at it had come. “Why, just that, being heir to Hastur, they’ve already begun placing you under pressure to marry, just as they did with me when I was your age. Your grandsire has a reputation in Council as a most persistent and tenacious matchmaker. Do you mean he let Festival Night pass without parading a dozen suitable maidens in front of you, in the hope you’d develop an intolerable itch for one of them?”

Regis said stiffly, “Indeed he did not, sir. I was on duty Festival Night.”

“Truly?” Dyan raised an expressive eyebrow. “There were a dozen high-born maidens there, all pretty, and I thought they were all intended for you! I’m surprised he allowed you to stay away.”

“I’ve never asked to be excused from duty, sir. I’m sure Grandfather would not have asked it for me.”

“A most commendable attitude,” Dyan said, “and one I might have expected from your father’s son. But how disappointed the old man must have been! I’ve accused him to his face of being a disgraceful old procurer!” Dyan was grinning again. “But he assured me that he is always careful to have the wedding properly in order before the bedding.”

Regis could not help laughing, although he knew he should be ashamed to join in making fun of his grandfather. “No, Lord Dyan, he hasn’t spoken of marriage. Not yet. He only said that I should have an heir as young as possible.”

“Why, I’m ashamed of him!” Dyan said and laughed again. “He had Rafael married off by the time he was your age!”

Regis had resented the memory of his father, whose death had robbed him of so much; now he felt an almost wistful longing to know what kind of man he had been. “Kinsman, am I so like my father as they say? Did you know him well?”

“Not as well as I could have wished,” Dyan said. “He married young, while I was in Nevarsin where my father’s … debaucheries … could not contaminate me. Yes, I suppose you are like him.” He looked attentively at Regis. “Although you are handsomer than Rafael, handsomer by far.”

He was silent, staring down at the swirl in his wineglass. Regis picked up the mug of cider and sipped at it, not looking up. He had grown sensitive to the far-too-frequent comments on his good looks at Nevarsin and in the barracks. From Dyan they seemed somehow more pointed. He gave a mental shrug, recalling what else they said in the barracks, that Lord Dyan had an eye for pretty boys.

Dyan looked up suddenly from his glass. “Where do you intend to spend the winter, kinsman? Will you return to Castle Hastur?”

“I think not. Grandfather is needed here, and I think he would rather have me close at hand. The estate is in good hands, so I’m not needed there.”

“True. He lost so much of Rafael’s life, I suspect it’s a mistake he doesn’t want to repeat. I imagine I’ll be here too, with crisis on crisis in the city and Kennard ill much of the time. Well, Thendara is an interesting place to spend the winter. There are concerts enough to satisfy any music-lover. And there are fashionable restaurants, balls and dances, all manner of amusements. And, for a young man your age, one should not omit the houses of pleasure. Are you familiar with the House of Lanterns, cousin?”

In contrast to the other flashes of intensity, this was almost too casual. The House of Lanterns was a discreet brothel, one of the very few which were not specifically forbidden to the cadets and officers. Regis knew that some of the older cadets visited the place occasionally but although he shared the curiosity of the other first-year cadets, curiosity had not yet overcome his distaste for the idea. He shook his head. “Only by reputation.”

“I find the place tiresome,” Dyan said offhandedly. “The Golden Cage is rather more to my liking. It’s at the edge of the Terran Zone, and one can find various exotic entertainments there, even aliens and nonhumans, as well as all kinds of women. Or,” he added, again in that carefully casual tone, “all kinds of men or boys.”

Regis blushed hard and tried to hide it by coughing as if he’d choked on his cider.

Dyan had seen the blush, and grinned. “I had forgotten how conventional young people can be. Perhaps a taste for … exotic entertainments … needs to be cultivated, like a taste for fine wine instead of cider. And three years in a monastery hardly cultivates the taste for anyof the finer amusements and luxuries which help a young man to make the most of his life.” As Regis only blushed more furiously, he reached out and laid a hand on his arm. “Cousin, the monastery is behind you; have you truly realized that you are no longer bound by all its rules?”

Dyan was watching him carefully. When Regis said nothing, he continued, “Kinsman, one can waste years, precious years of youth, trying to cultivate tastes which turn out to be mistaken. You can miss too much that way. Learn what you want and what you are while you’re young enough to enjoy it. I wish someone had given me such advice at your age. My own son never lived to need it. And your father is not here to give it … and your grandfather, I have no doubt, is more concerned with teaching you your duty to family and Comyn than with helping you enjoy your youth!”