“May I ride Melisande down to the stables?” Gabriel begged, and Regis lifted the child into the saddle and went up to the house with Javanne.

“You have been ill; you are thinner,” Javanne said. “I had word from Grandfather you were on your way to Neskaya. Why are you here instead?”

He glanced at the darkening sky. “Later, sister, when the boys are abed and we can talk privately. I’ve been riding all the day; let me rest a little and think. I’ll tell you everything then.”

Left alone, he paced his room for a long time, trying to steel himself to what he knew he must do.

He touched the small bag around his neck, started to draw it out, then thrust it back, unopened. Not yet.

He found Javanne before the fire in her small sitting room; she had just finished nursing the smaller of the twins and was ready for dinner. “Take the baby to the nursery, Shani,” she told the nurse, “and tell the women I’m not to be disturbed for any reason. My brother and I will dine privately.”

“ Su serva, domna,” the woman said, took the baby and went away. Javanne came and served Regis herself. “Now tell me, brother. What happened?”

“Armed men have taken Danilo Syrtis from his home.”

She looked puzzled. “Why? And why should you disturb yourself about it?”

“He is my paxman; we have sworn the oath of bredin,” Regis said, “and it may well be private revenge. This is what I must find out.” He gave her such an edited version of the affair in the cadet corps as he thought fit for a woman’s ears. She looked sick and shocked. “I have heard of Dyan’s … preferences, who has not? At one time there was talk he should marry me. I was glad when he refused, although I, of course, was offered no choice in the matter. He seems to me a sinister man, even cruel, but I had not thought him criminal as well. He is Comyn, and oath-bound never to meddle with the integrity of a mind. You think he took Dani, to silence him?”

“I cannot accuse him without proof,” Regis said. “Javanne, you spent time in a tower. How much training have you?”

“I spent one season there,” she said. “I can use a matrix, but they said I had no great talent for it, and Grandfather said I must marry young.”

He drew out his own matrix and said, “Can you show me how to use it?”

“Yes, no great skill is needed for that. But not as safely as they can at Neskaya, and you are not yet wholly well. I would rather not.”

“I must know now, at once, what has come to Danilo. The honor of our house is engaged, sister.” He explained why. She sat with her plate pushed aside, twirling a fork. At last she said “Wait” and turned away from him, fumbling at the throat of her gown. When she turned back there was something silk-wrapped in her hands. She spoke slowly, the troubled frown still on her features. “I have never seen Danilo. But when I was a little maiden, and old DomFelix was the hawk-master, I knew DomRafael well; he was Father’s bodyguard and they went everywhere together. He used to call me pet names and take me up on his saddle and give me rides … I was in love with him, as a little girl can be with any handsome man who is kind and gentle to her. Oh, I was not yet ten years old, but when word came that he had been killed, I think I wept more for him than I did for Father. I remember once I asked him why he had no wife and he kissed my cheek and said he was waiting for me to grow up to be a woman.” Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes far away. At last she sighed and said, “Have you any token of Danilo, Regis?”

Regis took the dagger with the Hastur crest. He said, “We both swore on this, and it was cut from his belt when he was taken.”

“Then it should resonate to him,” she said, taking it in her hands and laying it lightly against her cheekbone. Then, the dagger resting in her palm, she uncovered the matrix. Regis averted his eyes, but not before he got a glimpse of a blinding blue flash that wrenched at his gut. Javanne was silent for a moment, then said in a faraway voice, “Yes, on the hillside path, four men—strange cloaks—an emblem, two eagles—cut away his dagger, sheath and all— Regis! He was taken away in a Terran helicopter!” She raised her eyes from the matrix and looked at him in amazement.

Regis’ heart felt as if a fist were squeezing it. He said, “Not to Thendara; the Terrans there would have no use for him. Aldaran!”

Her voice was shaking. “Yes. The ensign of Aldaran is an eagle, doubled … and they would find it easy to beg or borrow Terran aircraft—Grandfather has done it here in urgency. But why?”

The answer was clear enough. Danilo was a catalyst telepath. There had been a time when Kermiac of Aldaran trained Keepers in his mountains, and no doubt there were ways he could still use a catalyst.

Regis said in a low voice, “He has already borne more than any untrained telepath was meant to bear. If further strain or coercion is put on him his mind may snap. I should have brought him back with me to Thendara instead of leaving him there unguarded. This is my fault.”

Bleakly, struggling against a horrible fear, he raised his head. “I must rescue him. I am sworn. Javanne, you must help me key into the matrix. I have no time to go to Neskaya.”

“Regis, is there no other way?”

“None. Grandfather, Kennard, the council—Dani is nothing to them. If it had been Dyan they might have exerted themselves. If Aldaran’s men had kidnapped me, they’d have an army on the road! But Danilo? What do you think?”

Javanne said, “That nedestroheir of Kennard’s. He was sent to Aldaran and he’s kin to them. I wonder if he had a hand in this.”

“Lew? He wouldn’t.”

Javanne looked skeptical. “In your eyes he can do no wrong. As a little boy you were in love with him as I with DomRafael; I have no child’s passion for him, to blind me to what he is. Kennard forced him on Council with ugly tricks.”

“You have no right to say so, Javanne. He is sealed to Comyn and tower-trained!”

She refused to argue. “In any case, I can see why you feel you must go, but you have no training, and it is dangerous. Is there such need for haste?” She looked into his eyes and said after a moment, “As you will. Show me your matrix.”

His teeth clenched, Regis unwrapped the stone. He drew breath, astonished: faint light glimmered in the depths of the matrix. She nodded. “I can help you key it, then. Without that light, you would not be ready. I’ll stay in touch with you. It won’t do much good, but if you … go out and can’t get back to your body, it could help me reach you.” She drew a deep breath. For an instant then he felt her touch. She had not moved, her head was lowered over the blue jewel so that he saw only the parting in her smooth dark hair, but it seemed to Regis that she bent over him, a slim childish girl still much taller than he. She swung him up, as if he were a tiny child, astride her hip, holding him loosely on her arm. He had not thought of this in years, how she had done this when he was very little. She walked back and forth, back and forth, along the high-arched hall with the blue windows, singing to him in her husky low voice … He shook his head to clear it of the illusion. She still sat with her head bent over the matrix, an adult again, but her touch was still on him, close, protective, sheltering. For a moment he felt that he would cry and cling to her as he had done then.

Javanne said gently, “Look into the matrix. Don’t be afraid, this one isn’t keyed to anyone else; mine hurt you because you’re out of phase with it. Look into it, bend your thoughts on it, don’t move until you see the lights waken inside it … ”

He tried deliberately to relax; he realized that he was tensing every muscle against remembered pain. He finally looked into the pale jewel, feeling only a tiny shock of awareness, but something inside the jewel glimmered faintly. He bent his thoughts on it, reached out, reached out … deep, deep inside. Something stirred, trembled, flared into a living spark.