Traitor's Sun (43 page)

“I feel the same way about music. And I will take your words as a hint to go away and let you get on with what you are doing. I won’t press you any further.” She wanted to ask questions about Amedi Korniel, but decided that it would keep for the present. “Well, I do have a favor to ask you—two, really.”

“What is it?”

“My son Roderick shows a certain talent for drawing—at least when he gets bored and can’t think of any mischief to get into, he takes colored chalks and puts them on any wall he likes. They are rather pretty, even though I cannot allow them to remain. Could you bring yourself to tutor him a bit?”

“I would be happy to. And the other favor?”

“Do you think you might ask Gisela to sit for a portrait? I know you did not get off to a good start, but she is so unhappy, and I believe it would please her.”

Katherine gave Marguerida a bemused look, with something secretive but not unpleasant in it. “She would make an excellent subject,” was all the answer she gave, but her dark eyes glinted with interest.

“Fine. And now I will leave you to work. I will see you later in the day.”

Marguerida was rather puzzled as she left Katherine’s studio. But she was satisfied that she had eased some of Kate’s fears, and let the matter go from her mind. She had not gone ten feet down the corridor before all her own concerns rushed back. Katherine had distracted her for a brief while, and she realized that she had gotten as much relief from the visit as she had given. She had to wait, to be patient. It was very hard to be a middle-aged woman with duties, when she really wanted to rush off and do something—anything! And then the grief returned, as if it had been waiting to capture her emotions once more. “Damn you for dying, Regis. Your timing was off for once,” she muttered, and felt her eyes go blurry with fresh tears.

 

Katherine did not return to her sketching after Marguerida left, but sat and stared out the window, thinking about what had been said in a disordered sort of way. Her mind was tired and she knew that she could not make sense of anything right away, which irritated her greatly. Talk to Ida Davidson, Marguerida had said. It sounded simple and sensible, but Kate was not sure she could just walk up to a total stranger and voice her concerns. No, she would wait for a while and see what happened. But it was good to know that she was not the only inhabitant of Comyn Castle who was frustrated and angry.

For a time she considered the matter of empathy. That was a normal human trait, wasn’t it? And yet on Darkover it seemed to be something more—one of these Gifts that people kept mentioning. She could endure being empathic, she supposed. Marguerida’s explanation sounded plausible at least.

When another knock came at the door, she could not decide whether she was glad or annoyed at a further distraction. “Come in.”

It was Gisela, looking a little shy and wary of her welcome. She was wearing a russet tunic and darker skirt, not dissimilar from the clothing she had brought Katherine the previous day. “Hello. Am I interrupting you terribly?”

“Not at all. I was just woolgathering.” Had Marguerida told Gisela to come so quickly? Katherine was not ready to start a portrait yet—she would require something for the model to sit on, and there was only the stool—but she could make a few sketches.

“Good.” Gisela looked her up and down. “Kate, why are you wearing a riding skirt?”

“Is that what this is?” Kate tugged at the folds of her lower garment. “I was looking for something comfortable, that wouldn’t show the dirt. Is it improper?”

“No, not exactly, but it looks rather eccentric with an apron!” She gave a little giggle, then sobered. “I hardly slept last night.”

“I am sorry about that.”

“Don’t be! I was thinking about what you said in the carriage and I was just too excited to close my eyes until nearly dawn. Are you well, Kate? You look like you did not get much more sleep than I did.”

“Yes, I am fine.” Katherine repressed a yearning to talk to Gisela about Herm. She liked her new sister-in-law, but she was not yet sure how trustworthy she was. “It is just taking me a while to get adjusted to Darkover, I think.”

“You seem worried.”

“Do I?”

“Still fussing about people poking into your mind?”

“Yes, a little, I suppose.” With a slight start, Katherine realized she had managed to go for nearly half an hour without thinking about that problem at all. How unkind of Giz to remind her of it.

“Well, don’t.” She hesitated again, shuffling her feet back and forth under her long skirts. “Can I show you something?”

Katherine looked at her, and now she noticed that she could sense something of the mood of the other woman. It was very odd, and she felt very uncomfortable for a moment. But all that she could feel was excitement in Gisela, with none of the other darker emotions Kate now realized she had noticed on the previous day. How much, she wondered, of this sort of thing had she refused to acknowledge over the years? Maybe Marguerida was right. “Certainly, as long as it is not something horrid.”

Gisela looked stricken and shook her head. “Kate, I swear to you that I will never do anything mean again! I want you to be my friend! I need you to be my friend!” Tears glistened in the vivid green eyes and she trembled.

Katherine set aside her sketchpad and stood up slowly, moved and just a little frightened by this outburst. Then she crossed the space separating them and put her arm around Gisela’s shoulders. She could smell the faint scent of lavender in the cloth and some perfume as well. “There, there. Don’t cry, dear. Marguerida just asked me to do your portrait,” she added, frantically trying to think of some way to stem the wave of despair that was wracking her sister-in-law and grasping at the first thing that came to mind.

“Really? And did you tell her you already asked me to sit for you?”

“No, I didn’t. She thought it would please you, and I didn’t wish to . . .”

Gisela straightened against her. “That was very kind of her, wasn’t it? After everything?”

“I think that Marguerida is probably a very kind person, Gisela, and genuinely wants everyone around her to be happy.”

Gisela wiped her eyes with her handkerchief. “She hasn’t had much luck with me, has she?” There was a rueful tone to her voice. “Do you know how much time I have wasted hating her?”

“No, and I really don’t want to.”

“Good—because it makes me very ashamed. And I don’t like that at all.” She sighed, shrugged her shoulders under Kate’s light embrace, then made a comical face. “You see before you a reformed Aldaran.”

Impulsively, Kate took Gisela’s chin in her hand, looked intently into her face, and said, “Yes, I can see the virtue almost seeping from your pores.” To her delight, Gisela giggled. “There is not another person, even Rafael, I would let tease me like that, dearest sister. Somehow, from you, it does not hurt.”

“I am glad of that. Now, you were going to show me something.” Katherine released Gisela, finding that she was not entirely at ease with the intimacy of contact.
Is this why I paint portraits then, to be close but not too close?

Gisela plunged her hand into her beltpouch and took out a small object. “It was in my jewelry box, and I remembered it when I was getting dressed this morning.” She opened her hand. A little figure, about six inches in length, lay across her palm. The wood was dark with age, and the carving was crude, but it was powerful nonetheless. “It is the last thing I made before my nurse . . . made me stop.”

Kate took the small figure and turned it over. She noticed how Gisela had used the grain of the wood to good advantage, only removing enough to suggest folds of cloth below, and a face above that was simple but moving. On the back of the carving, there was still some bark left, rough and dark. She could see the marks left by some crude instrument, not a carver’s chisel but something less deft. One of the belt knives that everyone seemed to wear, Kate suspected, and not a very good tool for the job demanded of it.

“I don’t think you need to worry much about being good, Giz. Any sculptor I know would have been pleased to make this.”

“Thank you.”

“Will you tell me something now?”

“Anything.”

“Why did you come to me yesterday?”

“Oh, that.”

“Yes, that.”

“I . . . don’t know, not really. I was ready to hate you, and after I saw you the first time, it got worse. And then, at dinner, when Danilo Syrtis-Ardais took me to task, because he took one look at you in your Terranan finery and knew exactly what had happened, I suddenly realized that I was behaving like a fool—that I didn’t need to have you for an enemy.” She shivered slightly. “It didn’t cross my mind, when Rafael came back from the spaceport with all of you, that you could even want to be my friend, because I never imagined anyone would want that. I always wanted a sister, you know. But I had ruined things for myself with Marguerida, and here I was, starting off to mess everything up with you. So—I took a risk. I was scared to death, but I knew if I didn’t at least try, I would regret it for the rest of my life.”

“I am glad you did, Gisela. I have several sisters, but they are halfway across the galaxy, and I expect I will never see them again now. You were very brave.”

“You said that yesterday, and I didn’t believe you, but if you say it a few more times, maybe I will start to.”

Katherine smiled and leaned over and planted a gentle kiss on Gisela’s warm cheek. Then she stepped away. “Now . . . how do we get you some proper carving tools?”

T
he air in the little study was stale and filled with the smell of tense bodies. Lew Alton watched Mikhail, standing in front of the fireplace, fiddling with some small carved figures that stood along the mantel. The younger man looked more rested than he had the night before, despite the looming anxiety about Domenic. He smiled at his father-in-law, as if he understood Lew’s concerns and was trying to reassure him. Donal stood a few paces away, alert and watchful. Then, aware of Lew’s regard, he winked. It must be wonderful to be twenty-three, Lew thought, although his memories of himself at that age were so painful that he dreaded their recollection.

Mikhail turned and took his place behind Regis’ scarred desk. He looked from face to face, studying each intently for a moment, as if measuring his advisors and weighing their strengths and weaknesses in his mind. Satisfied that his son-in-law was in as good a frame of mind as could be hoped for, Lew relaxed a little. Now they must decide how to proceed, and he had to find a way to keep himself in the background, to allow Mikhail to take the lead. Otherwise, he felt, Mikhail would not be confident in his own decisions, and he would need to be for the sake of all their futures.

Rafe Scott, formerly of Terran Intelligence, was sitting lazily in one chair, and Dani Hastur occupied another. Time had been kind to Scott, and while his hair had grayed and his tanned face was a bit wrinkled, he seemed much the same man that Lew had known decades before in a time so removed, so different, that it might as well have been another universe. When Lyle Belfontaine had forced him to retire from the Service, Rafe had started a venture with Rafaella, taking occasional parties of Terranan on mountaineering expeditions into the Hellers. It had made him rich by Darkovan standards. He had an additional pension from the Federation, which was even occasionally paid to him, much to his amusement. The loss of Scott at HQ had made things more difficult, for he possessed strong telepathy. Until a few days before, they had used Ethan MacDoevid, who while he did not have any
laran,
was quick and kept his wits about him. The man from Threadneedle Street had been a good channel of information, and they all regretted that his observations were no longer available to them.

Beside him, Dani Hastur, now thirty, was still the rather quiet person he had been in his adolescence, but he had more assurance than before. The death of his father was a blow, one that Lew knew he would only recover from with time. But Dani hated Thendara, and it was obvious from the set of his shoulders that he would rather be almost anywhere else than in what had been his father’s study for so many years.

The sixth person in the room was Danilo Syrtis-Ardais. Regis’ death had taken its greatest toll on him, and he had aged visibly in the past few days. But the look in his eyes remained vigilant, and it was clear that he was not going to allow his very real grief to impede the workings of his fine mind.

Mikhail sat, clenching and unclenching the hand that bore the great matrix of Varzil the Good, his lean jaw rigid. He seemed to be looking for something that Lew could not discern. Finally, he cleared his throat and began to speak. “As soon as
Dom
Damon favors us with his presence,” he began, the irony in his words evident to all, “we will have to hold a Council meeting. The question is, what are we going to tell them?”