But Ferrika had slipped away, and returned in a moment with Master Nicol, the hospital officer of the Guards. He felt the old man’s pulse, turned down his eyelid to look at the small veins there, then said curtly, “My lord, if you ride out today, you are not likely to return. There are others here who can bury the dead. Your heir has not even been formally accepted by Council, and in any case he is but a lad of twelve years. Your task, vai dom, is to save your own strength till that boy is grown to manhood. By a last sentimental service for your dead son, will you risk leaving your living one fatherless?”

Before these unwelcome truths there was nothing to say. Dismayed, Dom Esteban had allowed Master Nicol to put him back to bed. He clung to Dezi’s hand and the boy remained docilely at his side.

Now, riding northward to Hali, Andrew recalled the calls of condolence, the long talks with other members of the Council which had taxed Lord Alton’s strength to the utmost. Even if he survived the coming Council season and the homeward journey, could he live until Valdir was declared a man at fifteen? And how could a boy of fifteen possibly cope with the complex policies and politics of the Domain? Certainly not this sheltered, scholarly lad from a monastery!

Valdir rode at the head of the procession, in drab formal mourning, his face very pale against the dark garments. Beside him rode his sworn friend Valentine Aillard, who had come with him from Nevarsin, a big, sturdy boy with hair so blonde it looked white. Both boys looked solemn, but not deeply grieved. Neither of them had known Domenic well enough for that.

On the shores of the Lake of Hali, where legend said that Hastur, son of Light, had first come to Darkover, Domenic’s body was laid in an unmarked grave, as the custom demanded. Callista leaned heavily on Andrew as they stood beside the opened grave, and he picked up her thought: It does not matter where he lies, he has gone elsewhere. But it would have comforted my father, if he could rest in Armida soil.

Andrew looked around the burying ground and shivered. Here beneath his feet lay all that was mortal of countless generations of Comyn, with no sign to tell where they lay except for the irregular mounding of the ground, thrust into heaps by spring thaw and winter snow. Would his own sons and daughters lie here one day? Would he, himself, some day rest here under the strange sun?

Valdir, as nearest of kin, stepped first to the graveside. His voice was high and childish, and he spoke hesitantly.

“When I was five years old, my brother Domenic lifted me from my pony and said I should have a horse fit for a man. He took me to the stables, and helped the coridom choose a gentle horse for me. Let that memory lighten grief.”

He stepped back and Valentine Aillard took his place. “In my first year in Nevarsin I was lonely and miserable, as all the boys are, only more so, because I have neither mother nor father living, and my sister was fostered far away. Domenic had come to visit Valdir. He took me into the town and bought me sweets and gifts so that I would have what the other boys had after a visit from kinfolk. When he sent Valdir gifts at Midwinter festival he sent me a gift too. Let that memory lighten grief.”

One by one, the members of the funeral party stepped forward, each with some memory or tribute of the one who lay in his grave. Cathal Lindir could only stand silent, swallowing his sobs, and finally he only blurted out, “We were bredin. I loved him,” and stepped back, hiding himself in the crowd, unable even to speak the ritual words. Callista, taking his place at the graveside, said, “He was the only one in my family to whom I was not… not something apart and strange. Even when I dwelt at Arilinn, and all my other kinsfolk treated me as a stranger, Domenic was always the same to me. Let that memory lighten grief.” She wished that Ellemir were here, to hear the tributes to her favorite brother. But Ellemir had chosen to remain with her father. Domenic, she said, was past all help or hurt, but her father needed her.

Andrew stepped in his turn to the graveside. “I came a stranger to Armida. He stood beside me at my wedding, for I had no kinsman at my side.” As he ended with “Let that memory lighten grief,” he felt saddened that he had had so little time to know his young brother-in-law.

It seemed that every lord and lady of Comyn who had ridden to Domenic’s grave had searched their memory for some small kindness, some pleasant encounter for the mourners to remember the dead. Lorenz Ridenow, who, Andrew remembered, had schemed to oust Domenic from his command of the Guards on the grounds of his youth, spoke of how modest and competent the boy had been under the authority thrust on him so young. Danvan Hastur, a short, sturdy young man, with silver-gilt hair and gray eyes, cadet-master in the Guards, told how the young commander had interceded for the victim of a cruel prank among the cadets. Damon, who had been Domenic’s cadet-master when he was fourteen and new to the cadets, remembered, and told them, that in spite of Domenic’s perpetual pranks and mischief, he had never heard Domenic make a joke with any malice, or play a prank with anything of cruelty in it. Andrew realized, with a sorrowful pang, how much the boy would be missed. It would be hard on Valdir, to fill the place of a young man so universally liked and respected.

As they rode home the fog began to lift. Riding through the gap in the hills leading down into Thendara, Andrew looked again across the valley to the buildings which had begun to thrust upward within the enclosed walls of the Terran Zone, the hum of machinery, perceptible even from this distance, for the building there. Once he had been Andrew Carr and dwelt in a compound like that, yellow lights blotting out the color of whatever sun he lived under, and he had not cared what lay beyond. Now he looked indifferently at the small distant shapes of spaceships, the skeleton ribs of the unfinished skyscrapers. All that had nothing to do with him.

As he turned away he saw the eyes of Lorill Hastur resting on him. Lorill was Regent of Comyn Council, and Callista had explained that he was more powerful than the King, a man of middle age, tall, commanding, with dark-red hair fading to white at the temples. His eyes caught and held Andrew’s for a moment. The Terran remembered that Lorill was supposed to be a powerful telepath and looked quickly away. He knew that was foolish — if the Hastur lord wished to read his mind, he could do it without looking him in the eye! And he knew enough of the courtesies of telepaths now to know Lorill would not do so uninvited without good reason. Yet he felt ill at ease, knowing he was there under false pretenses. No one knew he was Terran. But he tried to appear indifferent, listening as Callista pointed out the banners of the Domains to him.

“The silver fir tree on the blue banner is Hastur, of course, you saw it when Leonie came to Armida. And that is the Ridenow banner with the green and gold, where Lorenz is riding. Damon has the right to a banner-bearer, but he seldom bothers with it. The red and gray feathers are the banner of Aillard, and the silver tree and crown belong to the Elhalyn. They were once a sept of the Hasturs.” Prince Duvic, Andrew thought, who had come to honor the heir to Alton, looked less regal than Lorill Hastur, or even young Danvan. Duvic was a spoiled, dissolute-looking youth, foppishly dressed in fur.

“And that is old Dom Gabriel of Ardais, and his consort Lady Rohana; see the hawk on their banner?”

“That’s only six counting Armida,” Andrew said, counting. “What is the seventh Domain?”

“The Domain of Aldaran was exiled long ago. I have heard all kinds of reasons given, but I suspect it was simply that they lived too far away to come to Council every year. Castle Aldaran is far away in the Hellers, and it is difficult to govern folk who live so far in the mountains that no man can tell whether or not they keep the laws. Some say the Aldarans were not exiled but seceded of their free will. Everyone you ask will tell a different tale of why the Aldarans are no longer the seventh Domain. I suppose some day one of the larger Domains will divide again, so that there are seven. The Hasturs did so when the old line of the Elhalyn died out. We are all akin anyway, and many of the minor nobility have Comyn blood. Father spoke once of marrying Ellemir to Cathal…” She was silent and Andrew sighed, thinking of the implications. He had married into an hereditary caste of rulers. Ellemir’s coming child, any child Callista might bear, would inherit an awesome responsibility.