Darkover: First Contact (71 page)

“I am not the keeper of anyone’s conscience,” Melisendra ventured. “Perhaps there are different callings for different women. . . .”

Carlina asked bitterly, “But where will you find a man to grant us that?” and the women were silent.

 

Neither of them had warning of what happened next. There was a small, faint, droning sound—all the survivors agreed upon that. A moment later, there was a great crash, a booming noise, the ground rocked under their feet, and they involuntarily caught at one another. The first explosion was followed by another and another.

“Erlend!” screamed Melisendra, and ran wildly down the corridor, stumbling as the walls rocked with a fourth explosion. “Erlend! Paolo!”

Paul shouted Melisendra’s name and caught her at the entrance to their rooms, grabbing her by force and dragging her under one of the doorways, where he stood, bracing himself against a further explosion. Melisendra clutched at him and stood, swaying, reaching out for the mind of her son. He was safe! Praise to all the gods, he was safe in the stables where he had gone to visit a litter of puppies! Paul felt her relief as his own, her mind open to him as she stood, swaying, holding to him with both hands. Again and again the floors rocked with repeated explosions, the rumble and crash of collapsing stone.

“Come on,” Paul said tersely. “We’ve got to get out!”

“The Lady Carlina—”

Paul followed Melisendra as she fled back. He found Carlina cowering under overturned furniture, and snatched her up in his arms, hurrying with her toward the small private stairway into the small garden where he had first seen Melisendra with her son. Melisendra hurried at his heels. Safely outside, he set Carlina on her feet. In the confusion of terror, she had not seen him; now, staring at him, she shrank away in renewed fear.

“You—but no, you are not Bard, are you?”

“No, my lady. But it was I who took you from the Island of Silence.”

“You are very like him,” she said. “It is very strange.”

Stranger than you can know,
Paul thought, but he could not tell her and knew that she would probably not believe him if he did. What could she possibly know of his world and the stasis box? That was behind him, anyway, that had been another life and the man he had been on that world was dead beyond recall. What good would it do to tell her?

Somehow, some way, he must make Bard believe that he, Paul, was no threat. Perhaps now, with Bard fled on some mysterious errand, and the castle in confusion, under attack like this—by sorcery?—was the time to take Melisendra and flee into the Kilghard Hills and farther, past the Hellers. Back in that wild and undiscovered country, perhaps, they could make another life somehow. But would Melisendra agree to leave her son?

“Look! Oh, merciful gods,
look!
” cried Melisendra, looking back at the building they had escaped. One whole wing of the castle bad fallen in, and she clutched at Paul in horror. Through her mind he saw. . . .

“Dom Rafael! Alaric!” Melisendra whispered, in horror. She began to weep. “The old man was always so kind to me. And the boy—his life had been so hard, poor little lad, and to die like this. . . .”

Carlina’s face was set and implacable. She said, “I am sorry for your grief, Melisendra. But the usurper of the throne of Asturias is dead. And I cannot find it in me to grieve.”

Now, all through the gardens and grounds of Castle Asturias, men and women, courtiers and servants, nobles and kitchen girls and grooms, were emerging, yelling and shouting in confusion, crowding together to look in horror at the fallen wing. But even while one of the majordomos was calling out, telling everyone not to go near the still-quaking building, there was a terrific final explosion, the remainder of the stonework of that wing collapsed and crashed down, with a rising of stone dust and muffled cries, and silence descended.

In that stillness Paul heard Master Gareth shouting, “Are there any of the king’s
leroni
yet alive? To me! Quickly! We must find out who is attacking us!”

“I must go,” said Melisendra, and hurried away before Paul could catch at her hand, urge her to escape during the confusion. He stood beside Carlina, watching the sorcerers, not now in their gray robes, but wearing everything from nightcaps and chamber robes to one, the young boy Rory, wrapped in a towel and evidently fresh from his bath, assembling beneath the flowering trees in the orchard. Master Gareth, hobbling on his bad leg gathered the
leroni
around him; two or three were missing, for some of them had been in the other wing in attendance on Dom Rafael and the king, but there were four women and two men besides the boy, and Master Gareth spoke to them in hushed tones. Paul, at this distance, could not hear what he said. The soldiers were rallying, trying to keep people away from the fallen walls. Paul went toward them—what had Bard said?

One of the men ran up to him and saluted. “Sir, you’ll be worrying about your son. He’s safe, one of the sergeants has him in charge, since his mother will be with the old wizard and all the other
leroni
. Come, sir, show yourself to him and let the little fellow know he’s still got a father and a mother.”

Yes, that was only fair. He saw Erlend, looking pale and shaken, clinging to a puppy with both hands.

“Your mother is safe, Erlend, she’s there with your grandda,” said the soldier, “and look,
chiyu,
here’s the Lord General come to take you to mammy.”

Erlend raised his head. He said, “That’s not—” and for a panicky moment Paul
knew
the game was over already, before it began, that Erlend was about to say,
That’s not my father,
but he met Paul’s eyes for a split second, and said instead, “That’s not the way to talk to me, Corus, I’m not a baby.” He thrust the puppy into the soldier’s hands and said, “Take
him
to his mammy, he’s the one howling for milk! I should be with the
leroni,
some of us are dead; they will need every starstone.”

“He’s a one, he is, Lord General,” said the soldier. “Like wolf, like cub! Good lad!”

Paul said to Erlend, carefully and with dignity, “I do not think they will need you, Erlend, but you may go and inquire if they have need of you.”

“Thank you, sir.” Erlend walked at his side, steadily, but Paul could feel that the boy was shaking, and after a moment he held out his hand. The boy gripped it in his small sweaty one. When they were out of earshot he said fiercely to Paul, “Where is my father!”

“He—he rode away this morning.” After a moment he said, “I feared they would think he had deserted them in trouble, so I answered to his name when they thought I was your father.” He wondered why he bothered to explain to a child of six.

“Yes. He should be here,” Erlend said, and there was a shade of condemnation in his voice. It made Paul wonder, for the first time, if or when Bard would return!

“He said before he left,
Until I return you are the Lord General,
” and Erlend looked up at him, strangely. He said, “I saw him ride away. I did not know, then, what it meant,” and was silent. At last he said, “You must do as he told you.”

As the boy walked away toward the little group of
leroni
under the trees, Paul watched, disturbed. Carlina was still standing where he had left her. She said, “Is that Bard’s son?”

“Yes, lady.”

“He does not look at all like Bard. I suppose he is like Melisendra—certainly he has her hair and eyes.”

“I should go and see what the soldiers are doing,” Paul said, resuming what he had been intending before finding Erlend. Melisendra would be reassured by the sight of her son; but the army was like an anthill somebody had kicked over, without any kind of leader, milling restlessly. He bawled, “Form up, men! Sergeants, take muster, find out who was buried in the wreckage! Then we can find out if we’re under attack! Form up!”

There were shouts of, “It’s the Wolf! The Lord General’s here!”

Leadership reestablished, the men went about the business of forming up, taking muster, listening for the silences when a called name was not answered. Some of the men considered dead in that first random muster would later be found alive, absent for some reason or other from their post, off-duty and in the village for a drink, or a woman, one or two soundly asleep in barracks, to turn up later wondering what all the shouting was about. But at least they had some faint idea of who was there and who was not, the form of the army had been reestablished if not its totality.

And still it continued to be silent. There was no sign of any further explosion, no sign of any enemy or attack, no attacking force. Paul wondered who was the enemy. Serrais had surrendered, Hammerfell had not the strength, the Hasturs had sworn to the Compact, and while their armies were still on the road, they had sworn not to use
laran
weapons. Had the Altons or the Aldaran joined the war, and the news somehow failed to reach Paul while he was on his errand to the Island of Silence? Was it the little kingdom of Syrtis, long known for powerful
laran?
There
had
been, so far, no word from the
leroni
who were searching out the direction of the attack. Paul wondered if they had accepted Erlend’s offer to work with them. Later that afternoon, with two of the army engineers, he was going into the undamaged part of the building to see what was safe and what was not, and make sure that any fires caused by collapsing braziers or untended lamps had been put out. He saw Erlend trotting busily off, and the boy saluted him gravely and said that the
leroni
had put him to work running errands for them, having food brought to them, and wine, because they had no isolated place to work, and the presence of a non-telepath waiting on them would be disturbing. Paul wondered what tactful
leronis
had thought of this, and whether it was just a way to use the boy’s energy and keep him out of trouble. It might even be true—it sounded reasonable.

Inside, the castle was chaos. One wing, and the main part, were almost totally undamaged, and most of the main Keep had not suffered. Whatever the strike, it must have hit a little off center. Paul, searching the wreckage, found no debris that would indicate actual, physical bombs smuggled in, which had been his first thought. He was inclined to agree with the appraisal of the army engineer, that it had been a strike with
laran
.

“We won’t know that until we get Master Gareth, or Mistress Melisendra, or Mistress Lori, up here to make sure,” the man said. “They can sniff out whether it’s
laran
or not; but for now they’re busy elsewhere, and rightly so, I suppose, trying to find who hit us, and how to hit back! They may end up by putting a shield over the castle—don’t be surprised I know something of that, sir, my sister was a
leronis
in Hali Tower; she died when the Tower was fire-bombed. And my father died thirty years ago when Neskaya was burned. Some day, sir, they’ve got to get rid of the
laran
weapons. Nothing against your lady, Mistress Melisendra’s a good woman, but with respect, sir, the army’s no place for women, not even in a corps of wizards, and I’d like to see wars fought honestly with steel instead of witchcraft!”

Paul surprised himself by saying heartily, “So would I! Believe me, man, so would I!”

“But as long as they’re sending
laran
weapons against us, I reckon that we’ll have to shield ourselves. Nothing evil about putting up a
laran
-proof shield, sir, that no sorcery can get through.”

“I’ll speak to them about it,” said Paul wryly, and the man said, “You do that, Lord General. And if the new king, whoever he is, wants to sign the Compact, sir, tell him the army’s all for it!”

Carlina, in her black mantle, was moving around among the few that had been dragged out of the rubble still alive, healing and supervising the healers. Paul saw that her very presence somehow inspired and comforted the sufferers. “Look, a priestess of Avarra, a woman from the Holy Isle has come to tend us!” The other healers did what they could, but reverent silences seemed to follow Carlina as she moved among the sufferers. No one knew or cared that she was, or had been, Ardrin’s daughter, the princess Carlina; it was the priestess of Avarra they cared about, and the few who recognized her did not speak of it—or if they did, there was no one to hear.

By nightfall, some semblance of order had been restored. The injured had been moved into the Great Hall, and were being cared for there. Carlina, looking around in a daze, realized that eight years ago she had been handfasted to Bard in this hall, and half a year later had heard him outlawed. It seemed like something in another life. It
had
been something in another life.

The body of King Alaric, crushed and pitiful, had been recovered from the ruin of the great stair in the far wing, and that of Dom Rafael, who had tried, apparently, to cover the boy with his own body as they fell. They were lying in state in the ancient chapel, watched over by old servants, among them old Gwynn. Paul took care not to go inside. He knew that his absence would be remarked—or rather, Bard’s absence would be remarked—but he did not trust old Gwynn’s sharp eyes.

But outside the chapel, Paul was accosted by two of the chief advisers.

“Lord General—we must speak with you.”

“Is this the time, with—” Paul drew a breath and said deliberately, “with my father and brother not yet laid to rest?” He had never seen Alaric; and of Dom Rafael he knew only that the man had brought him here by wizardry. He felt no grief and did not dare try to simulate it.