Exile's Song (39 page)

S
ome days later, Margaret was up and about, and becoming thoroughly sick of being fussed over. She could eat, dress herself, and climb up and down the stairs without becoming exhausted. But everyone insisted on treating her like an invalid, until she felt like a baby chick with a whole troop of hens following her around and clucking. She needed privacy, complete privacy. It was remarkable how difficult that was to achieve, even in a building as large as Castle Ardais.

Part of the problem was her own independence. She had spent too many years being on her own, or at least being Ivor’s assistant, to take to being told what to do easily. The other was that everyone seemed to assume she would let them make decisions for her, that she would be an obedient woman. Istvana and Marilla wanted her to go to Neskaya Tower, and nothing she could say could convince them that she would not. Margaret looked down at her hand, now concealed in a soft leather glove that was not entirely comfortable, and tried to think why she was being so stubborn. It was as if she just
knew
that she wasn’t going to Neskaya or any other tower. Where else she might go she could not imagine, except back to Thendara and away from Darkover. And that, she knew in her bones, was not her path either.

She had explored the ground floor of the castle, trying to find a bolt hole where she could be alone, and stumbled upon the room which served as a library. The existence of such a place in Castle Ardais pleased her enormously, for books were still her favorite companions. Even though most of her reading at University was from disks on computer, she had grown up with bound volumes. The Thetans made a fine paper from seaweed; there was a small industry devoted to the production of beautiful books for collectors of such things. Margaret had always enjoyed the feel of a book in her hand, for unlike people, books were safe.

As libraries went, it was a pretty sorry one, but she was glad for the quiet of the little room, and the slightly musty smell of books and leather bindings. It felt cozy and secure and familiar, and she found she could think her own thoughts, and not dwell on the overworld and the terror it still held for her.

On one wall, there was a small grate with a fire flickering in it. A single bookcase stood opposite, and another smaller one sat on the wall beside the fire. Aside from the two bookcases, the room was sparsely furnished, suggesting that it was not much used by the inhabitants. There was one large and comfortable chair, where she now sat with a blanket over her legs. The only other place to sit was in the window, on a cushioned bench that ran beneath the panes of glass. It faced the rear of the castle and overlooked a small garden full of flowers and some rather noisy birds. It was good to be able to hear birdsong again without discomfort, and she spent many pleasant hours sitting on the window seat, staring out at the flowers, thinking of nothing in particular. The walls were bare, except for a rather moth-eaten embroidery that hung above the grate, so dark with smut from the fire that its subject was nearly invisible.

From the amount of dust on the shelves and on the forty-some volumes scattered there, Margaret deduced that the Ardais were not great readers. Still, it pleased her to see any reading material, for these were the first books she had found since she arrived on Darkover. When she studied the titles she realized why the books were not used much. Most of the books were translations of standard Terran textbooks of a highly technical sort. This was clearly a working library, not one designed for pleasure. She tried to imagine young Dyan Ardais delighting in
Nitrogen Replacement Fertilizers in Temperate Climes
by C. J. Bandarjee or Lady Marilla reading the four hundred pages of
Midwifery: A Survey,
and smiled. Just looking at them made her sleepy. But she found some sort of reminiscence, and she decided that would be good to read.

What she really wanted, she knew, was a concise history of Darkover—or better, a several-volume work with lots of footnotes. Margaret could not quite understand why such a thing did not exist, for she was sure that if it had, Istvana would have told her about it. It wasn’t that the Darkovans had no sense of history, for clearly they did, but just that they hadn’t written it down yet. Or maybe there were records locked up in that monastery, St. Valentine of the Snows, she had heard mentioned a few times. Where was it? Ah, yes, Nevarsin, wherever that might be. There were maps in her bag, but she was too tired to look at them. Still, she reminded herself that she must get them out soon.

Margaret flexed her left hand, now covered by the soft leather glove that Rafaella had given her, sensing the lines on her skin. Both Istvana and Lady Marilla seemed to find those lines intriguing, but worrisome as well. And they agreed that the strange design should be covered, that the lines were related to the matrix crystals they wore, though neither of them would hazard any guess about what it might mean.

She did not want to think about the lines on her hand, or the strange adventure which had produced them, but she had a very hard time concentrating on anything else. She glanced down, and for an instant she could “see” the lines, right through the soft leather. This was troubling, and she wondered if there might be some material that would prevent that. Leather was not the answer, although it allowed her to touch things without disturbance. The palm seemed hot and itchy, and her skin was still very tender.

Margaret forced herself to ignore her hand, and looked down at the page of the book she had finally selected. It was
Memoirs of a Vagrant Scholar
by Paula Lazarus, and had seemed promising. But it proved to be so dull and stiff that she had only managed to get to page seven after most of an hour. She stared at a paragraph she had already read several times without either pleasure or understanding. Then her eyes went to the moving flames in the small grate, and she let the book fall into her lap. Her eyes itched, even with all the sleep she had gotten in the past few days, and she closed them wearily. She wondered if she would ever feel rested again. Then she drifted off into a light doze.

Heavy footfalls echoing in the corridor roused her abruptly. The door was behind her chair, and she heard it open. A chilly draft swept in as she leaned out of the chair to see who it was. She expected Dyan, or perhaps Mikhail, for both of them had paid her brief visits in the little library, or even Julian Monterey, though his feet were never that heavy.

Three men entered the room, two in uniforms of gray and green. They had the look of policemen everywhere, for their eyes went to the corners, and their backs were straight with purpose and vigilance. The third man was thickset, broad of shoulder and strong-thewed, and had the square jaw of one used to imposing his will on all and sundry. Not really fully awake, Margaret wondered if the guards had come to arrest her for practicing unlicensed telepathy or creating a mess in the overworld. She would have been amused at this whimsy, but the seriousness of the three men kept her from enjoying her own thoughts.

The heavyset man stood before her and studied her for a moment. He had rusty red hair, going gray at the temples, and a neatly trimmed beard. His eyes were blue, cold, and penetrating. He studied her very directly, in a way she knew was rude by Darkovan standards, and Margaret had to work to resist the impulse to take an immediate dislike to him. She did not meet his gaze, but looked at the embroidery on her cuffs instead.

“Domna.”
He made a half bow, a grudging movement.
Look at her—arrogant brat. Just like her father! She fairly reeks of
laran,
and doesn’t she just know it!

Arrogant? She couldn’t understand why he thought that of her, but the comparison to her father seemed to be at the root of the matter. Odd. She had thought a great many unkind things of Lewis Alton, but arrogance was not one of them.
“Vai dom,”
Margaret replied as mildly as she was able, mimicking the manners of Lady Marilla while trying to ignore his agitated thoughts. She sensed he was a little afraid of her for no reason she could guess, afraid and hostile. Worse, she suspected that laughter was foreign to his personality.

“Your father is not here? What did he do? Send you to take his place?”
I won’t have it! I’ve held Armida for twenty years, and I won’t be ousted by a chit of a girl, no matter who she is.

As she often did when she felt threatened, Margaret retreated into mockery. “He is not hiding under my skirts, for certain,” she replied, and was pleased at the shocked look from one of the uniformed men. She waved a hand toward the bookshelves. “You might seek him among the dusty volumes there, if you like.”

“Did he send you to take his place?”

“I cannot imagine anyone who could take my father’s place, and certainly not me.” She was alert now, her mind clear of sleep, and getting more annoyed by the second.

Arrogant and smooth-tongued as well. Why did Javanne send me on this fool’s errand? Damn all women!
“I am your uncle—your only living uncle—Gabriel Lanart-Alton, and I want to know what you intend to do about Armida!” He spoke with effort, laboring under powerful emotions, and Margaret concluded that he was a man of action, not words, and that he was as uncomfortable as she was.

Ah, he was Mikhail’s father, the aged fellow he had assumed she intended to cast out into the snows of the mountains. He was not aged, obviously, nor the least bit feeble. Why had she had the impression that Mikhail’s parents were old? Her resistance to disliking him weakened. “How lovely for you, though I believe Rafael Scott would dispute your claim to be my only living uncle.”

“He doesn’t count,” Gabriel almost sneered. “He’s Terranan.”
She is trying to confuse me—this is not going as I planned! She’s probably clever like her father, and I was never that.

“Really? As a brother of my mother, he counts a great deal to me. As for Armida, why should I do anything at all about it? For no reason I can discover, half the people I meet assume I am going to rush over there—wherever it is—and insist on the keys to the pantry immediately.” Behind Gabriel, one of the guards was having a dreadful time keeping a straight face.

“Why else would you come to Darkover—and what the hells are you doing here at Ardais, for that matter?” Gabriel had the harassed expression of a man driven to the edge of his endurance by things beyond his control.

“I came to Darkover as a Scholar of the University, to collect folk music, quite unaware that I was some sort of heiress. As for my presence here at Castle Ardais, I think that is my own business, not yours.” Margaret was beginning to take the measure of this new uncle, and suspected he was not a thoughtful man, but one who bulled his way through things. She also believed that he had a grudge against her father, though she could not imagine why.

Gabriel’s face reddened, and his eyes bulged with barely suppressed frustration.
Didn’t know you were an heiress, I’ll believe that when Zandru’s hells melt! What is Lew playing at? He was always up to some mischief! Even when we were lads, and friends together. Why hasn’t he come himself?
“As my kinswoman,
domna,
anything you do is my business. I can’t have you dashing around the Hellers and . . .”

“I have hardly been dashing anywhere,
Dom
Gabriel. I arrived at Castle Ardais because I was ill and needed medical attention, and it was the nearest place. Lady Marilla has taken excellent care of me, and I am deeply in her debt.”

I’ll just bet she has, all the while putting forward that spineless son of hers. There isn’t a mother in the Domains who wouldn’t want this girl for her son, no matter how ill-born she might be. If only I had not been flat on my back with the fever, all of this might have been avoided.
“I have come to remove you to Armida immediately.”

“
Dom
Gabriel,” Margaret began, attempting to be conciliatory with the man who looked as if he might have a stroke if he became any angrier. “I realize you are accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed, but I am not someone you can bully into obedience. I had not planned to visit Armida at all, and I see no reason to change my plans.” The idea of getting on a horse and riding off was almost more than she could bear, for she still ached in all her muscles and bones. The guardsman behind him nearly disgraced himself entirely.
I never knew anyone to stand up to the
Dom
but Lady Javanne! If I tell this tale in the barracks, no one will believe it.

“You listen to me, young woman! You are here, and your father is not, and that means that you will do exactly what I say, with no back talk. I am your legal guardian in the absence of Lew Alton.”

They glared at each other for a second. “Precisely how are we related?” she asked mildly.

“My mother was your grandfather Kennard Alton’s sister. What does that have to do with anything?”

“I was just curious. Ever since I arrived on Darkover I have been meeting relatives I never knew I had, a family I never imagined. But I rather doubt that you are my guardian, legal or otherwise. When I saw Lord Hastur, he made no mention of it, so I think you are presuming something you have no right to.”

“I am the holder of the Alton Domain, and that gives me the right.”

“You come in here and demand to know if I am going to claim Armida and throw you out of your home. You don’t want that—no one would. You won’t believe me when I tell you I have no intention of making any claim. You wish me to accompany you there, but you don’t want me there at all. In short, you are behaving very badly, and we are getting off on the wrong . . .”

“Hold your tongue!” He swelled up once again, and Margaret tried to feel sorry for him, but could not manage it.

“I am not a child, nor am I your chattel. Perhaps you can order your wife and daughters around, but I am neither your wife nor am I your daughter.” She felt her shoulders tense with unexpressed fury. The man was maddening, and she wondered how “Javanne” put up with him.