Sharra's Exile (10 page)

“I know what they would say, and so I have not asked them,” he said, with a flicker of humor, then returned to the former urgency. “Lew, promise me; if you find you cannot monitor Dio, then promise me—Lerrys is still on Vainwal, though I think he will soon leave for Council season. If you cannot monitor her, send for Lerrys and make him do it. He is a Ridenow—”

“And Dio is a Ridenow, and has
laran
rights in the estate, and the legal right to sit in Council,” I said.

“Lerrys quarreled with her because she had not married me; he said her children should have a legal claim to the Alton Domain!” I swore, with such violence that my father flinched again, as if I had struck him or gripped his thin crippled hands in a vise-grip.

“Like it or not, Lew,” my father said, “Dio’s child is the son of the Heir to Alton. What you say or think cannot change it. You can forswear or forgo your own birthright, but you cannot renounce it on your son’s behalf.”

I swore again, turned on my heel and left him. He came after me, his step uneven, his voice filled with angry urgency.

“Are you going to marry Dio?”

“That’s
my
business,” I said, slamming down a barrier again. I could do it, now, without going into the black nothingness. He said, tightening his mouth, “I swore I would never force or pressure you to marry. But remember; refusing to decide is also a decision. If you refuse to decide to marry her, you have decided that your son shall be born
nedestro
, and a time may come when you will regret it bitterly.”

“Then,” I said, my voice hard, “I will regret it.”

“Have you asked Dio how she feels?”

Surely he must know that we had discussed it endlessly, both of us reluctant to marry in the Terran fashion, but even less willing to bring my father, and Die’s brothers, into the kind of property-based discussions and settlements there would have to be before I could marry her
di catenas
. It had no relevance here on Vainwal, in any case. We had considered ourselves married in what Darkovans called freemate marriage—the sharing of a bed, a meal, a fireside—and desired no more; it would become as legal as any
catenas
marriage when our child was born. But now I faced that, too; if our son was born
nedestro
, he could not inherit from me; if I should die Dio would have to turn to her Ridenow kin.

Whatever happened, I must provide for her.

When I explained it that way, as a matter of simple and practical logic, Dio was willing enough, and the next day we went to the Empire HQ on Vainwal and registered our marriage there. I settled the legal questions, so that if I died before her, or before our child had grown to maturity, she could legally claim property belonging to me, on Terra or on Darkover, and our son would have similar rights in my estate.

I realized, somewhere about halfway through these procedures, that both of us, without any

prearrangement, had mutually begun referring to the child as “he.” Father had reminded me that I was part Aldaran, and precognition was one of those gifts. I accepted it as that. And knowing that, I knew all that I needed to know, so why trouble myself with monitoring?

A day or two later, Dio said, out of a clear blue sky, as we sat at breakfast in our high room above the city, “Lew, I lied to you.”

“
Lied,preciosa
?” I looked at her candid fair face. In general one telepath cannot lie to another but there are levels of truth and deceit. Dio had let her hair grow; now it was long enough to tie at the back of her neck, and her eyes were that color so common in fair-haired women, which can be blue or green or gray, depending on the health, and mood, and what she is wearing. She had on a loose dress of leaf-green—her body was heavy, now—and her eyes glowed like emeralds.

“Lied,” she repeated. “You thought it was an accident— that I had become pregnant by accident or oversight. It was deliberate. I am sorry.”

“But why, Dio?” I was not angry, only perplexed. I had not wanted this to happen, at first, but now I was altogether happy about it.

“Lerrys—had threatened to take me back to Darkover for this Council season,” she said. “A pregnant woman cannot travel in space. It was the only way I could think of to make sure he would not force me to go.”

I said, “I am glad you did.” I could not, now, envision life without Dio.

“And now, I suppose, he will use the knowledge that I am married, and have a son,” I said. It was the first time I had been willing to ask myself what would become of the Alton Domain, with both my father and myself self-exiled. My brother Marius was never accepted by the Council; but if there really was no other Alton Heir, they might make the best of a bad bargain and accept him. Otherwise it would probably go to my cousin Gabriel Lanart; he had married a Hastur, after all, and he had three sons and two daughters by his Hastur wife. They had wanted to give it, and the command of the Guards, to Gabriel in the first place, and my father would have saved a lot of trouble if he had permitted it.

It would all be the same in the end anyhow, for I would never return to Darkover.

Time slid out of focus. I was kneeling in a room in a high tower, and outside the last crimson light of
the red sun set across the high peaks of the Venza mountains behind Thendara. I knelt at the bedside of
a little girl, five or six years old, with fair hair, and golden eyes… Marjorie’s eyes
…
I had knelt at
Marjorie’s side like this… and we had seen her together,
our
child
, that
child… but it had never been, it
would never be, Marjorie was dead… dead
…
a great fire blazed, surged through my brain… and Dio
was beside me, her hand on the hilt of a great sword
—

Shaken, I surfaced, to see Dio looking at me in shock and dismay.

“Our child, Lew—? And on Darkover—”

I gripped at the back of a chair to steady myself. After a time I said shakily, “I have heard of a
laran
—I thought it was only in the Ages of Chaos—which could see, not only the future, but many futures, some of which may never come to pass; all of the things which
might
someday happen. Perhaps—perhaps, somewhere in my Alton or Aldaran heritage there is a trace of that
laran
, so that I see things which may never be. For I have seen that child once before—with Marjorie—and I thought it was
her
child.”

Dimly I realized that I had spoken Marjorie’s name aloud for the first time since her death. I would always remember her love; but she had receded very far, and I was healed of that, too. “Marjorie,” I said again. “I thought it was our child, our daughter; she had Marjorie’s eyes. But Marjorie died before she could bear me any child, and so what I thought was a true vision of the future never came to be. Yet now I see it again. What does it mean, Dio?”

She said, with a wavering smile, “Now I wish my
laran
were better trained. I don’t know, Lew. I don’t know what it means.”

Nor did I; but it made me desperately uneasy. We did not talk about it any more, but I think it worked inward, coloring my mood. Later that day she said she had an appointment with one of the medics at the Terran Empire hospital; she could have found any kind of midwife or birth-woman in Vainwal, which spanned a dozen dozen cultures, but since she could not be tended as she would be on Darkover, the cool impersonality of the Terran hospital suited her best.

I went with her. Now, thinking back, it seems to me that she was very quiet, shadowed, perhaps, by some weight of foreknowledge. She came out looking troubled, and the doctor, a slight, preoccupied young man, gestured to me to come and talk with him.

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said at once. “Your wife is perfectly well, and the baby’s heartbeat is strong and sound. But there are things I don’t understand. Mr. Montray-Lanart— ” my father and I both used that name on Terra, for Alton is a Domain, a title, rather than a personal name, and
Lord Armida
meant nothing here—“I notice your hand; is it a congenital deformity? Forgive me for asking—”

“No,” I said curtly. “It was the result of a serious accident.”

“And you did not have it regenerated or regrown?”

“No.” The word was hard and final and this time he understood that I would not talk about it. I understand there are cultures where there are religious taboos against that kind of thing, and it was all right with me if he thought I was that sort of idiot. It was better than trying to talk about it. He looked troubled, but he said, “Are there twins in your family, or other multiple births?”

“Why do you ask?”

“We checked the fetus with radiosound,” he said, “and there seems to be—some anomaly. You must prepare yourself for the fact that there might be some—minor deformity, unless it is twins and our equipment did not pick up exactly what we intended; twins or multiple births lying across one another can create rather odd images.”

I shook my head, not wanting to think about that. But my hand was
not
a congenital deformity, so why was I worried? If Dio was carrying twins, or something like that, it was not surprising that we could not clearly identify male or female.

Dio asked, when I came out, what the doctor had said.

“He said he thought you might be carrying twins.”

She looked troubled, too. She said, “He told me the placenta was in a difficult position—could not see the baby’s body as clearly as he could wish,” she said. “But it would be nice to have twins. A boy
and
a girl, perhaps.” She leaned on my arm and said, “I’m glad it won’t be long now. Not forty days, perhaps.

I’m tired of carrying him, or them, around— it will be nice to let you hold him for a while!”

I took her home, but when we arrived we found a message on the communicator which was an integral part of all Empire apartments; my father was ill and asking for me. Dio offered to go with me; but she was tired after the morning’s excursion, so she sent him loving messages, and begged his pardon for not attending him, and I set off for the city alone.

I had expected to find him abed, but he was up and around, his step dragging. He motioned me to a chair, and offered me coffee or a drink, both of which I refused.

“I thought I’d find you laid up. You look as if you ought to be in bed,” I said, risking his wrath, but he only sighed. He said, “I wanted to say good-bye to you; I may have to go back to Darkover. A message has come from Dyan Ardais—”

I grimaced. Dyan had been my father’s friend since they were children together; but he has never liked me, nor I him. My father saw my expression and said sharply, “He has befriended your brother when I was not there to guard his interests, Lew. He has sent me the only news I had—”

“Don’t you throw that up at me,” I said sharply. “I never asked you to bring me here! Or to Terra, either.”

He waved that aside. “I won’t quarrel with you about that. Dyan has been a good friend to your brother

—”

“If I had a son,” I said deliberately, “I would want a better friend for him than that damned sandal-wearer!”

“We’ve never agreed on that, and I doubt we ever will,” said my father, “but Dyan is an honorable man, and he has the good of the Comyn at heart. Now he tells me that they are about to pass over Marius, and formally give over the Alton Domain to Gabriel Lanart-Hastur.”

“Is that such a tragedy? Let him have it! I don’t want it.”

“When you have a son of your own, you will understand, Lew. That time is not very far away, either. I think you should come back with me to Darkover, and settle things at this Council season.”

He heard my refusal, like a shout of rage, before what I actually said, which was a quiet “No. I cannot and I will not. Dio is too pregnant to travel.”

“You can be back before the child is born,” he said reasonably. “And you will have settled his future properly.”

“Would you have left my mother?”

“No. But your son should be born at Armida—”

“It’s no good thinking about that,” I said. “Dio is here, and here she must stay until the baby is born.

And I will stay with her.”

His sigh was heavy, like the rustling of winter leaves. “I am not eager for the journey, alone, but if you will not go, then I must. Would you trust me to stay with Dio, Lew? I do not know if I can bear the climate of the Kilghard Hills. Yet I will not let Armida go by default, nor let them pass over Marius’s rights without being sure how Marius feels about it.” And as he spoke I was overwhelmed with the flood of memories—Armida lying in the fold of the Kilghard Hills, flooded with sunlight, the great herds of horses grazing in the upland pastures, the streams rushing, or frozen into knotted and unruly floods, torrents arrested in motion and midair; snow lying deep on the hills, a line of dark trees against the sky; the fire that had ravaged us in my seventeenth year, and the long line of men, stooped over their fire-shovels in back-breaking work; camping on the fire-lines, sharing blankets and bowls, the satisfaction of seeing the fires die and knowing that our home was safe for another season… the smell of resins, and bloom of
kireseth
, gold and blue with the blowing pollen in a high summer… sunset over the roofs… the skyline of Thendara… the four moons hanging behind one another in the darkening sky of Festival… my home. My home, too, loved and renounced…

Get… out
! Were even my memories not my own?

“There’s still time, Lew. I won’t leave for more than a tenday. Let me know what you decide.”

“I’ve already decided,” I said, and slammed out, not waiting for the concerned questions I knew would follow, his scrupulous inquiries about Dio, his kind wishes for her well-being.

The decision had been made for me. I would not return with my father. Dio could not go and so I would not go, it was as simple as that, I need not listen to the thousand memories that pulled me back—

It was that night that she asked me to monitor the child. Perhaps she sensed my agitation; perhaps, in that curious way that lovers share one another’s preoccupations and fears (and Dio and I, even after the year and more we had spent together, were still very much lovers), she felt the flood of my memories and it made her eager for reassurance.