Hastur was calling us all to order again, and I saw Prince Derik, in the Elhalyn enclosure with some people whom I did not know. I supposed they were his elder sisters and their families, or some of the Elhalyn connections: Lindirs, perhaps, Di Asturiens, Dellerays. Mentally I counted on my fingers; why had Derik not been crowned? I remembered that he had been somewhat too immature at sixteen, but now he must be well into his twenties. There was so much I did not know; I was being thrown into Council without any time to find out what had happened! Why, in the name of all the probably nonexistent Gods of the Comyn, had I agreed to come?

— last command— fight for your brother’s rights—despite the dampers, the mental command kept reverberating in my mind till I began seriously to wonder, as I had done several times on the ship which brought me from Vainwal, if there had been damage to the brain! The unbridled anger of an Alton can kill—I had always known that; and my father’s mental Gift was unusually powerful. Now, when he was dead and I should have been free of that dominating voice in my mind, I seemed more bound than ever, more hag-ridden. Would I ever be free of it?

Marius saw the nervous gesture, hand to head, and leaned close to whisper, “What’s wrong, Lew?” But I shook my head restlessly and muttered, “Nothing.” I had that eerie sense of being watchedfrom somewhere. Well, I had always had that, in Council. I tried to pull myself together and focus on what was going on.

Hastur said gravely, “My lord Derik, before the Council was interrupted—” I could hearhim saying what he had started to say, disrupted, “—by the arrival of an unexpected Heir to Alton—” at least he admitted I was that—“you had spoken of an alliance which you had made. Will it please you to explain it to us, vai dom?”

“I think I should let Merryl do that,” Prince Derik said, “since it concerns the Aillards.”

Merryl came down slowly from the enclosure; but was stopped by a clear feminine voice.

“I object to this,” said the voice, which I recognized. “ DomMerryl does not speak for the Aillards.” And I looked up and saw my cousin Callina coming slowly down the center of the enclosure. She paused at the rails and waited. That clear voice troubled me; I had heard it last when Marjorie… died. She had died in Callina’s arms. And I… once again it seemed that I could feel the old agony in my wounded hand, tearing through every nerve and finger and nail which had been long gone… This was madness; I caught at vanishing self-control and listened to what Callina was saying.

“In courtesy, Lord Hastur, if something concerns the Domain of the Aillards, I should be asked to give my consent before DomMerryl speaks.”

She was slight and slender; she wore the ceremonial regalia and the crimson veils of a Keeper in Council, and I, who had spent years on Vainwal seeing women who looked as if they were free and alive, thought that she looked like a prisoner, with the heavy robes, the ceremonial ornaments weighing down her slight body so that she appeared fettered, like a child trying to wear the garments of an adult. Her hair was long and dark as spun black glass, what little I could see of it shining through the veil.

Merryl turned on her, with a look of pure hatred. He said, “I have been left to manage the affairs of the Domain while you were isolated at Neskaya and then at Arilinn, my lady; am I now to turn all these things over to you again at your whim? I think my management of the Domain speaks for my competence; what of yours?”

“I do not question your competence,” she said, and her voice was like molten silver. “But where your arrangements for the Domain alliances concern me, I have a legitimate right to question, and if need be, to veto. Answer what Hastur has asked you, my brother.” She used the most formal and distant mode of that word. “I cannot comment until I know what is being proposed.”

Merryl looked disconcerted. I didn’t know him; I didn’t know most of the younger Aillards, even though Callina’s younger sister Linnell was my foster-sister. Now he stood shifting nervously from foot to foot, glanced at Derik, who was grinning and gave him no help, and finally said, “I have made arrangements that the Lady Callina should consolidate a new alliance by marriage with DomBeltran of Aldaran.”

I saw shock come over Callina’s face, but I could not keep silent. I burst out, “You people must all have gone mad! Did you say—alliance with Aldaran? Beltran of Aldaran?”

Hastur glanced repressively at me, and Derik Elhalyn said, “I see no reason against it.” He sounded defensive, very young. “The Aldarans are already allied to one major Domain by marriage, as you of all people should know, DomLewis. And in this day and age, with the Terrans at our very doorstep, it seems well to me that we should take this opportunity to line up their allegiance with the Comyn.”

He repeated this as a child repeats his lesson. I wondered who had schooled him in that theory. Glancing at Merryl, I decided that the answer was not far to seek.

But— ally with Aldaran? With that damned renegade clan—?

Callina said, “When before this has a Keeper been subjected to the whims of the Council? I am the head of the Aillard Domain in my own right; and not subject to DomMerryl. I think there need be no further discussion of this—” I could almost hear her sorting through her mind for an inoffensive adjective, and she finally compromised—“this ill-advised plan. I am sorry, my prince; I refuse.”

“You—refuse?” Derik turned to stare at her. “On what grounds, lady?”

She made an impatient gesture; her veil fell back, revealing dark hair braided with gems. She said, “I have no will to marry at this time. And if I should, and when I do, I shall, no doubt, be capable of finding myself a husband who will be suitable. And I do not think I will look for him among the Aldaran Domain. I know more of that Domain than I wish to know, and I tell you, we might as well hand ourselves over here and now to the accursed Terrans than ally with that—” again the mental sorting, the visible search for a word—“with that renegade, exiled Domain.”

Dyan said, “ Domna, you have been misinformed.” His voice held that exquisite, indifferent courtesy which he always had when speaking to women. “The Aldaran are no longer in the laps of the Terrans. Beltran has broken that alliance to Terra, and for that reason, if for no other, I do not think we can afford to hold aloof from Aldaran.” He turned to the Council and explained: “Alliance with Aldaran would give us more strength, and that is what we need now, to stand united against the pull of the Terran Empire. Granted, there are those among us who would turn us over to the Terrans—” His eyes moved toward the Ridenow enclosure—“but there are also those who remain loyal to our world and to the old ways. And of these, I am convinced, Beltran of Aldaran is one. Our forefathers—for reasons which seemed good to them, no doubt—cast out the Domain of Aldaran from the Comyn. But there were seven Domains; there should be seven Domains again, and this move, I am sure, would catch the imagination of the common people.”

She said, “I am a Keeper—”

He shrugged and said, “There are others. If Beltran has asked for alliance to the Aillard Domain—”

“Then I say for the Aillards that we will have none of it,” said Callina. And, unexpectedly she turned to me.

“And here sits one who can prove the truth of what I say!”

“You damned, incredible fools!” I heard my own voice, and as Hastur turned to me, there was first a stir of voices, then a mutter, then a clamor, and I realized that once again I had disrupted Council, that I had jumped head-first into an argument I really knew nothing about. But I had started and I must go on.