Exile's Song (29 page)

Then what Rafaella had said sank in, and Margaret shrank into the pillows. Her mind recoiled, as if it were trying to escape itself. She
knew
that name, and she possessed the memory of a face to go with it. She could see a hawk-faced man, handsome and fierce. And the name Dyan Ardais triggered another memory, of a cold room, and something . . .
“You must not remember, and you must not question. I will not let you destroy me—you are sick, and soon, you will not be sick any longer. You will be free of pain and fear, little one. Just do as I say, and soon it will all be over.”

Margaret did not know who spoke in her mind, but she found she was trembling all over. The voice was peculiar, familiar and yet not. There was something about it that made her think of mirrors, and how she disliked them. She didn’t want to think about it, or about that man, that Dyan person. He had picked her up, hadn’t he, and taken her to a cold place. The memory frightened her even more than the one of the silver-eyed man did, and she wanted to run away. Only her legs were child limbs, too short to escape from the peril.

A familiar vision erupted before her eyes, one she had seen many times, and each time she had managed to bury it away deep in her mind. Margaret could see a battle, with light and swords. It had gone on and on, and yet it was actually very brief. Her tired brain could not deal with the contradictions, so she stopped trying to figure it out.

The events played themselves out, like some ancient vid-dram, and when it was over, he lay dead, the man called Dyan Ardais. She was certain of it—that she had actually witnessed this memory. He looked quite harmless in defeat, nothing to be frightened of. But now Margaret knew why she had been so uneasy when she met Danilo at Comyn Castle. It had nothing to do with Regis Hastur’s quiet paxman, except that he bore a name which disturbed her.

The body of Dyan lay on the floor, and beside him there was another body. In memory, the face was turned away, but the wild red hair spread on the stones told her it was Thyra. She had not seen her mother die, but she had seen her dead, and for a moment she was furious. Why hadn’t she been protected from that? Where was Lew in all this—she was certain he was nearby, but her memory told her nothing. The empty husk that had been Thyra, who had terrified her, seemed now a tragic thing, a broken vessel.

She wanted to reject the memories, but now she knew that she would never again be able to stamp them out. It was pointless to even try. She sighed a little, and noticed Rafaella watching her with some alarm in her weary face. Margaret shrugged. “It is all right. I was only remembering something I wanted to forget.”

“Oh. Your face got so white—I didn’t think it could get any whiter, and then it did. You looked like you wanted to faint.”

“No—I am not going to faint, though that would be something of a mercy just now.”

For the first time she wondered what else she had deliberately forgotten, and now she wondered why she had done it. She had been very small, very young and vulnerable. People had moved her from room to room, and if they were not cruel, neither were they kind. It was almost as if she were not important except as some sort of bargaining piece to make her father do something. He wasn’t the old man then, but younger than she was now, and already one-handed, and probably just as uncertain of himself as she knew herself to be.

Her thoughts unwillingly returned to Dyan Ardais, so tall and stern. He had been, she realized, quite an attractive man, but very remote and cold. What had made him so? She could remember his movements, how he never hurried, and how hard and strong his hands had been when he picked her up. Why had he done that? There was something . . .

He had taken her to a place which was both empty and occupied, a narrow room with blue glass in the walls. But it was not glass, it was stone, and the light came through it. It was not only the walls either. The high ceiling and the floor beneath were made of the same stuff. It was like being inside a blue diamond—quite impossible, of course. The room was incredibly cold, and she had shivered because she was only wearing a nightdress. And because she was frightened.

Margaret felt impressions bob about in her mind more than actual memories now. The room seemed quite empty, except for a high-backed chair, carved of gray stone, placed at the center of the chamber. It was like a throne, she thought. She wanted to look away, but her eyes seemed drawn to the vacant seat. She could almost make out a presence, the figure of a very small woman with eyes that ate light and sound and, most of all, feeling. When the strange entity looked at her, she had felt empty, no longer Marja, but a small nothing without identity.

The name Ardais had triggered a wisp of memory. So why did she still have the feeling that there was something dangerous about Danilo Syrtis-Ardais? It was quite a distinct emotion—something different from her remembered fear in that crystalline chamber. Was it because he would do anything to protect Regis Hastur? That had nothing to do with her, did it? Perhaps he was no threat at all, but simply a man who reminded her of what she did not wish to be reminded. She knew that since she had come to Darkover the sounds, and particularly the smells, had conjured up all the things she had hidden away in the recesses of her mind. Something had occurred which she did
not
want to remember, something to do with that little woman shimmering on a seat of stone. Where was that room, that crystal place? She did not want to know, and yet she knew she must!

It was more than not wishing to recall the past, she realized with a start. That voice! The cold voice that told her not to question, not to remember! It wasn’t Dyan nor was it that other man, the silver man, who haunted her dreams. It was a woman’s voice, she was certain, and it had something to do with the blue crystalline chamber. It made her dizzy to think about it.

“Marguerida, what is it?” Rafaella shook her wrist.

“I guess I am not as well as I thought,” Margaret murmured.

“You eyes rolled back in your head,
chiya,
and I thought you were going to have another seizure.”

“Another what?”

“A seizure—you had several during our journey here. Small ones, to be sure, but frightening nonetheless.”

“Did I? I am sorry if I frightened you.” Margaret spoke calmly, refusing to express the terror which gripped her heart. She had never shown any evidence of epilepsy before, but who could say what this strange illness might provoke. After a moment the fear subsided a little, and she thought that it was a pretty pickle to be ill so far from Terran medical aid.
I really got myself into it this time, didn’t I?
“Fevers sometimes cause fits, you know.”

“Do they?” Rafaella seemed reassured by Margaret’s apparent sanguinity. The frown lines between her light brows smoothed, and her mouth relaxed a little. Margaret looked at her, and found she felt a great fondness for her guide. She had never had many friends her own age. Her fellow students at University had been nice enough, but she always kept her distance from them. It was almost as if she were unwilling to get close to anyone. The Davidsons had been more than friends, but they were both two generations older than she was, and it was not the same.

Margaret let herself sink into the sensation of friendship in silence, clasping Rafaella’s callused hand. It was a new feeling to her, as fresh as spring blossoms, and she wanted to savor it. She knew, somehow, that she could trust Rafaella completely, in any situation.

She flinched as she heard these words spoken in a soft but unyielding, female voice which belonged to no woman she knew. It was not Dio, nor Thyra. For a flash she saw the glass room once more, and she knew that the woman whose invisible presence occupied the throne there was the speaker. How she had created this barrier to any intimacy when Margaret was too young to protect herself, she could not guess. But she knew that this had happened, that it was real, not imagined. She felt herself being drawn toward the empty throne, sucked against her will to move toward the thing, and she almost screamed.

Then the vision was gone, and she was once again in the bed, tucked beneath warm covers and as safe as she could be. So long as she did not remember, and did not allow anyone to come too close, she was safe. Her mind was full of locked rooms, full of doors that must remain shut. But every moment she remained on Darkover, she was certain, the chance that she would remember what she
must not
grew greater. She could not escape from this terrible presence in her own mind as long as her body lived. That was what it had meant when it said she would be free soon.

Margaret felt despair rise in her throat. She was going to die. She almost wanted to die, rather than continue being a prisoner of her own mind, of elusive memories, and that thing which dwelt within her. Another part of her, however, was outraged. For a moment she understood that her many angers, so strange and powerful, came from this part of her. And that part not only wanted to live, but it wanted to revenge itself on . . .

She was still too weak to manage these conflicting emotions. She wanted to cry, scream, leap out of bed, take an ax to something, faint, and several other actions she lacked the energy to put names to. Instead of trying to deal with her turmoil, she said, “I think I’d better take another nap now. Even if I feel as if I have been sleeping since forever.”

“Yes, I think so, too. Your pulse is racing, and Beltrana will have my hide if anything happens while you are in my care.” Rafaella leaned forward and kissed Margaret’s cheek very tenderly.

Margaret was startled by this affection, startled and moved. She felt awkward. Clumsily she returned the gesture, then turned her face away, into the pillow, so that no one would see the blush that colored her cheeks.

T
he following morning, Margaret was feeling somewhat better, but her pulse still raced if she tried to get up, and her knees were like jelly. This unpleasant discovery had presented itself when Rafaella had helped her out of bed while two maid servants changed the bedding, and she had cursed until she was too tired to continue. She also found that whenever she was alone in the room, she panicked.

Luckily, Rafaella seemed willing to stay with her, and she was almost able to convince herself that sudden attacks of fear when she was alone were due to her illness. She had the feeling that there was something she had remembered the previous day that was bad, very bad, but she couldn’t recall it now, and she was almost relieved that it was gone again.

To pass the time, she asked the guide to tell her about some of the things she had done on her other journeys, and the Renunciate, after a show of modesty, began to regale her with tales of snowstorms and great cliffs, brigands and the other dangers of the road. It was interesting, but it made Margaret feel that her own life had been rather dull by comparison. Not that she had particularly wanted adventures, of course—she was not that sort of person.

A soft rap on the door interrupted a quite good story concerning an encounter with a banshee, and Rafaella rose to answer it. Margaret heard the murmur of voices, and then the sound of two sets of boots moving toward the bed. One of the voices was male, and she hastily pulled the covers up over her chest and tucked her tangled hair down into the collar of her nightgown.

“Domna,
may I present Lord Dyan Ardais,” Rafaella said, her body stiff with outrage.
For shame! He knows he has no business barging into the room where a single female is sick. Just like an Ardais to claim a right that violates good manners!

The sound of the name made her want to shiver, but she knew this was not the man in her memories. He was dead, wasn’t he? She had seen him dead! She could just feel the shimmer of memory, hovering at the edge of her mind, and she forced it back into the recesses with every strength she possessed. This must be a son or grandson, or even some relative of Danilo’s, and no one to fear. There were probably ten people called Dyan Ardais running around Darkover. It was probably a very common name! So why didn’t she believe that?

Despite her wariness, Margaret found her curiosity stirring. She heard Rafaella’s thoughts with some disquiet. Since no further incidents of overhearing people’s thoughts had occurred during the morning, she had almost managed to convince herself that it was not a very important matter, that it was only a small talent, like the ability to juggle. Now she wondered why it came and went, why it happened sometimes and not others? Was it strong emotions that did it? There had to be a logical explanation, if only she could find it. Yet, as much as she wanted to ask, something inside her kept her silent and raging.

She was starting into another headache, trying to figure it out, so she made herself let go of the problem. Instead, she wondered what the Renunciate would have thought if she had seen Margaret with Ivor on Relegan, garbed in a few feathers and some large blossoms. Rafaella would have been scandalized, probably, even though Ivor was old enough to have been Margaret’s grandfather. From what she had managed to gather about Darkovan customs, that might have been all right. She was not sure. They seemed to have some very odd ideas about the relationship between the sexes, and she didn’t quite understand it yet. She felt herself quite old enough not to have need of any chaperone, but it was clear that Rafaella was ready to defend her honor, and if she had not been so weak, she would have laughed out loud.