“Calm yourself, Dom Francisco,” Mikhail said, raising both hands in a conciliatory gesture. “There has been enough uproar for one meeting. We will adjourn until the day after tomorrow. You will have your chance then to finish what you have to say.”
“By that time,” Francisco shot back, his face reddening, “you will have brought my witness over to your side, if you have not silenced him forever. You will not cheat me of my victory, not this time, or bury the evidence of your wife’s crimes!”
We should never have let him return, Lew thought with a sickening jolt. Marguerida was right.
“I am not your enemy,” Mikhail said.
“And I am no criminal!” Marguerida exclaimed. “If you have anything to say to me, do it in plain language. Put forth your evidence for everyone to hear!”
“The events of this morning have overwrought us all,” Mikhail said soothingly. “There is no point in continuing to hurl insults at one another—”
“Then you leave me no choice,” Francisco broke in. “Here, in the midst of an assembly of our peers, I declare a formal blood feud. I charge you, Mikhail-Regis Lanart-Hastur, with theft and dishonor, and I stand ready to prove the truth with my body!”
A collective gasp filled the room. Cisco stared at his father, plainly appalled by this turn of events. Donal took a step forward, one hand going to his sword. Mikhail restrained his paxman with a glance.
“You forget yourself, Dom Francisco,” Mikhail said, rising to his feet, “and you bring shame upon your house by these rash words. Retract them now, with full forgiveness and no stain on your honor, or suffer the consequence!”
“The only consequence I see is the end of your worthless life!” Francisco retorted. “Will you stand forth like a man, or must I hunt you down?”
Marguerida stood up, taking her place at her husband’s side. The air around her shimmered with intensity. “This has gone far enough. The Council is neutral territory, and we will not have it degenerate into a bar-room or a dueling arena. If you cannot behave in a civilized fashion, Dom Francisco, you will have to leave. Guards, escort him from the chamber.”
At her words, the Guardsmen at the doors glanced at one another, confusion written on their faces. They were accustomed to taking orders from the Regent himself, not from his off-world wife. Moreover, ancient tradition demanded that a challenge, once issued, must be properly answered.
Francisco spat on the floor at Marguerida’s feet. She turned scarlet. Rory’s hand moved to the hilt of his sword, but Domenic touched his brother’s shoulder and shook his head, restraining him.
Dani Hastur stepped forward, looking more like his father than Lew would have believed possible. As Regent of Elhalyn, which once claimed kingship over all the Domains, Dani was next in line after Mikhail to lead the Council. Like his father, Regis, he had never wanted power. At this moment, however, he carried himself with such authority that the clamor fell away.
“Vai domna,” Dani said to Marguerida with impeccable politeness, “that is not possible. This man is Comyn, with full Domain-right that none may deny. He has declared a blood feud before this assembly. No one has given challenge in this manner since before our grandfathers’ time, but, nonetheless, it is the law.”
“Then it is time the law was changed!” Marguerida insisted. “We cannot allow such a barbaric custom to continue! This is why we have courts and a Council to resolve our differences nonviolently! Or would you,” she raked the assembly with her fierce glare, “have us return to the Ages of Chaos, when might alone determined right?”
What had they come to, Lew wondered, when a man as decent as Mikhail must risk his life at the hands of a traitor, all for the sake of tradition?
“I am sorry,” Dani said, gently but firmly, to Marguerida. “You must be silent and let matters proceed. If you cannot control yourself, the Guards will escort you from the Chamber.”
“By what right do you—” Marguerida cried.
“Sit down, child!” Istvana’s voice, with all the authority of a Keeper, sliced through the air. “Sit down, before you make matters worse!”
Breathing hard, her face flushed, Marguerida lowered herself to her seat. Domenic reached out and took her hand. She shot him a look of gratitude.
“What are the nature of your charges?” Dani asked Francisco. “Can they not be satisfied in some peaceful way?”
“I will not be bought off with pretty Hastur speeches, not while my enemy continues to enjoy the fruits of his crimes.” Francisco’s voice coarsened to a cloud-leopard’s snarl. “Nor will I listen to the lies of the Terranan woman he has taken to wife, for she has conspired with him, to the dishonor of myself, my son, and my Domain.”
“Filthy nine-fathered bre’suin!” Rory cried. “How dare you!”
“Father, I beg you, please! Make no such claims in my name!” Cisco interrupted, horrified. “If you’re doing this for the honor of Ridenow, I hereby disavow all interest in your quarrel!”
Francisco ignored the outburst. “Mikhail Lanart has unlawfully seized a valuable heirloom belonging to the Ridenow clan—the ring of my ancestor, Varzil the Good. I demand that he either return the treasure or answer the challenge!”
Dani turned to Mikhail. “How will you answer?”
Mikhail was silent for a moment. His choices were few, Lew thought, for the psychoactive crystal in Varzil’s ring had keyed into his own starstone, and to separate them would surely cause him serious psychic injury, if not death. He could accept the challenge and fight it out on Francisco’s terms, or he could find a reason to refuse. The only legal bases for a refusal were gross disability or difference in rank, which were clearly not the case, or because his death would leave his Domain without an Heir. With two healthy sons and a daughter, Mikhail could hardly claim that hardship.
Marguerida had grasped Mikhail’s arm, pleading silently with him. Lew’s heart ached for her. He understood how she felt. Once, he too would have done anything to save the life of the one he loved.
Mikhail was no fool; he knew what Francisco had done. If he gave way to the pleas of his wife before the assembled Council, then he would lose all credibility, crippling his ability to govern effectively. Either way, Francisco would have won.
“I accept.”
The rush of exultation from Francisco’s mind was almost blinding.
NO! Marguerida’s telepathic denial roared through Lew’s thoughts. Even though it was not directed at him, her psychic blast sent him reeling. It resounded through the mind of every laran-Gifted person in the room.
Father, please—help me! Stop them!
Slowly, the effort clawing at his heart, Lew shook his head. He cursed himself for not having interrupted the proceedings when Francisco first brought Jeram in. But would anything he said have made a difference? Francisco wanted this fight, lusted for it with all his demented obsession. He would not stop until one of them was dead.
While Istvana reset the telepathic dampers so that there could be no unfair use of laran, Mikhail and Francisco prepared themselves. Like most of the adult men in the room, they both carried swords. The blades, Lew noticed, were well-balanced weapons, not ornamental toys.
Marguerida was right. The entire situation was unconscionable. The Terrans had good cause to call Darkover barbaric. Two Comyn lords, educated and literate men who had had contact with worlds beyond their own, intended to settle their differences by whacking one another with lengths of sharpened steel.
And what is the alternative? whispered through Lew’s mind. The unbridled force of laran? The Alton Gift?
Maybe it was better to settle differences with swords, rather than blasters or bombs or mental weapons capable of leveling an entire city, even as Caer Donn had burned in the fires of Sharra.
Mikhail stepped into the central area and stood, weapon raised, facing his opponent. The rainbow light glinted on his flaxen hair. He moved with the assurance of a man who has kept up his sword practice. In the Hastur enclosure, Domenic and Rory settle down to watch.
The two men circled one another, feinting. Lew watched them with the experience of his early years as a Guards officer. Mikhail was the better swordsman, Lew thought, but he would not try to kill Francisco, at least not right away. That hesitation would leave him vulnerable.
Francisco stepped in, hard on the offense, blade slashing. Mikhail parried, clearly surprised by the ferocity of the attack. He recovered, disengaged, circled. Again came that quick, almost feline onslaught. Again, the delayed defense.
They drew apart. Francisco stepped to the side, knees bent, shoulders loose. Lew caught the subtle movement as a dagger slipped from his sleeve into his left hand.
Silence filled the Crystal Chamber, broken only by the whisper of boot leather on stone, the harsh breathing of the combatants, and Alanna’s muted sobbing.
Mikhail shifted to the offensive, battering away at his opponent. The air shuddered with the power of his strokes. Francisco seemed to crumple under Mikhail’s greater weight and power, only to spiral free each time. Mikhail followed up, faster and more aggressively each time, pressing his advantage. He pushed Francisco until they were almost against the railing of the Aldaran section.
Katherine Aldaran let out a little shriek; she had lived on Darkover only a few years and still found swords barbaric and terrifying. Drawing her back, Hermes folded her protectively in his arms.
With a crash and the snapping of wooden rails, Mikhail bore down on Francisco, trapping his opponent’s sword. Breast to breast, Mikhail had the advantage of weight and greater muscular strength.
Suddenly, Francisco gave way, collapsing beneath Mikhail. Across the room, Marguerida cried out. Lithe as a catman, the Ridenow lord rolled free and to his feet. Mikhail pivoted to face him.
Francisco sidled in, moving sword and dagger in a circular pattern. Lew’s gut clenched as he recognized the distinctive fighting style of the Dry Towns. The men of that land were said to smear their blades with poison. The Ridenow Domain lay on their borders.
Would Francisco dare—would he stoop to poison? Or was he already too lost in madness, too consumed by ambition and revenge, to care about honor?
End it quickly, Lew thought, although Mikhail could not hear him through the telepathic dampers.
By this time, Mikhail dripped blood from half a dozen small cuts. Francisco was wounded too. He placed barely any weight on one leg; the supple black leather over that thigh gleamed, slick and red.
The two fighters closed again, blades clashing, slipping over one another, bodies colliding. They went down, rolling, a tangle of arms and legs. One sword—Lew thought it was Francisco’s—clattered free, sliding across the floor. Suddenly, the two men stopped struggling.
Adrenaline surging through his veins, Lew leaped to his feet, slammed open the railing door, and raced across the room.
Mikhail was sprawled on top, his ribs heaving in great tremulous breaths. Lew grabbed Mikhail’s shoulder with his one hand and rolled him free.
Francisco lay on his back, eyes open to the prismed ceiling. The rainbow light washed his face, heightening his expression of surprise. Lew touched him and felt a dim flicker, a fading spark…and then stillness.
The hilt of Francisco’s own dagger protruded from just beneath the arch of his ribs. From the angle, it had gone straight through his diaphragm and into his heart.
Marguerida raced across the room and threw herself down beside her husband. “Mikhail! Speak to me, love!”
Mikhail remained as Lew had placed him, on his back, one arm over his chest. Blood poured from the slash that ran from one hip bone diagonally upward. It drenched the front of Marguerida’s gown as she gathered him into her arms. Domenic was only a step behind her, his face ashen, followed by a dazed-looking Rory.
“Oh, no!” Marguerida sobbed. “No!”
“Cut the dampers!” someone shouted.
A moment later, the room roiled with emotion—pain, shock, terror.
In a single, decisive movement, Marguerida stripped off the glove from her left hand, revealing the shadow matrix on her palm.
Father… She reached out to Lew telepathically. He dropped into rapport with her, as if their minds clasped hands. Her moment of panic receded, held at bay by the need for swift action. After the Battle of Old North Road, she had used her shadow matrix to heal Hermes Aldaran’s injuries. Now Mikhail needed her…
Lew closed his eyes and steadied his daughter’s mind, adding his strength to hers. Power flowed from their joined laran. The shadow matrix vibrated with energy. Mentally, Lew followed Marguerida as she plunged deep into her husband’s wound. She sensed each severed blood vessel, each layer of torn, damaged tissue. Beneath these images, she touched the rhythms of heartbeat and respiration, the unique cell-deep texture of his life force.
Cario, I am here!
During the fraction of an instant when Marguerida paused, caught in the joy that always arose in her when in intimate contact with her beloved, Lew sensed a subtle wrongness in the blood pouring from Mikhail’s wound. Acrid…subtly malignant. He had never tasted anything like it before.
Lew felt his daughter’s sharp mental focus waver. In some way he could not understand, the physical wrongness was affecting her laran.
Marja!
Lew gathered himself to dissolve their mental bond, to somehow free her from the miasma that even now worked its way through her mind toward her body.
BREAK!
The mental command, like the ringing of an enormous bell, shattered the rapport. Lew’s eyes flew open. Marguerida swayed on her knees. Her eyes showed as gleaming crescents between half-closed, vibrating lids. Her face had gone so pale that her lips had turned white. Covered in blood, the shadow matrix flashed crimson, as if it drank in the gore.
Istvana Ridenow hurried over. Her naked starstone flared into blue-white brilliance. Laurinda, her face furrowed with concern, followed a step behind.
“The wound is poisoned,” Istvana said in a voice that rang with a Keeper’s authority. “If you close the wound, you will seal the pioson inside Mikhail’s body and make things worse.”
“No…” Shuddering, Marguerida opened her eyes.
A look passed between Istvana and Laurinda. Laurinda nodded, a brief inclination of her head. “I am no healer,” Laurinda said, with quiet modesty. “I leave the matter in your hands, Istvana, and will lend you whatever aid I can.”
“Thank you, vai leronis. Lew, you must take Marja away,” Istvana said. “Marguerida, chiya preciosa, there is no time to lose. Let us have the care of him. We will save him for you if we can.”
So had the Keeper Callina spoken to Lew as she held the broken form of his wife in her arms after the Sharra disaster. And Marjorie had died…
Numbly, Lew pulled Marguerida to her feet. She resisted only a little. Tremors shook her body. Any moment now, she would faint. He could not manage her weight with only one arm.
Marja dearest, come with me. You can do nothing here.
I should have stopped it! I should have killed Francisco myself—
She didn’t know what she was saying, but he could not find it in his heart to say so.
Come away, he repeated silently. Istvana will tend to him, and call you if—when it is time to help. You must rest and be strong.
For a long moment she searched his eyes, as if he were a stranger and not her father. He might hold her and touch her mind with his laran, and yet some part of her, perhaps the essence of who Marguerida Alton-Hastur was, had gone where he could not follow. Such was the unbridgeable gulf between parent and adult child.
The moment passed. Behind them, people milled about the Chamber. Cisco shouted orders for the disposition of his father’s body. Domenic recovered enough to go look after Alanna.
Marguerida allowed Lew to take her through the hallway and up the stairs to the Alton quarters. All the while, Lew thought that no man could survive a poisoned wound like that, not without Terran medicine. But the Terrans, for good or ill, had left Darkover and taken the dream of a union of the two worlds with them.