Rebels Asending

Chapter 10

was when the Federation still maintained its Headquarters at Thendara, while men of good will on both sides worked together— and women, too, for the Renunciates had been training as midwives with the Terran Medical corps and working as guides and translators since the days of Magdalen Lome.

… Before the illegal, immensely powerful matrix known as Sharra drew them all into madness… Before he had loved and lost Marjorie Scott…

… Before interstellar civil war tore the Federation apart, before it closed its Base on Darkover, before the nightmarish Battle of Old North Road and its aftermath…

But all of that was over, best forgotten.

A chill crept along Lew’s bones. With his one remaining hand, he clutched the front of his shirt, where his stars tone lay wrapped in triple-insulated silk.

He dared not look into its luminescent blue depths.

The past is too much with me.

“Father, you are here at last!” Marguerida entered, wearing a shawl of the Alton tartan over a gown of green like the cool shade beneath a pine forest.

He turned toward her, holding out his hand. She smiled, enveloping him with her special warmth, and stepped into his embrace.

How good it is to have you with us again, she spoke with her mind to his.

Lew broke the embrace, holding her at arm’s distance to look into her eyes. Despite her outward poise, tension coiled through her muscles.

“What troubles you, my dear?”

“Come, sit down.” Leading him into the smaller family parlor, she gestured to the cushioned seat beside the fireplace. The andirons were new, shaped like graceful, intertwined trees. The fire had burned down into a bed of glowing coals, radiating a gently seductive warmth. Marguerida offered her father a choice of jaco or hot mulled wine from the sideboard. He refused both, but she poured herself a cup of the bitter stimulant brew, stirred in a spoonful of fragrant sage honey to her taste, and sat facing him.

“I am so glad to have you here to talk to. Mikhail’s tied up—a message arrived two days ago and he won’t tell me about it—but he’ll join us later.”

Marguerida spoke lightly, but Lew sensed her distress at her husband’s secrecy. Surely, any two married people as busy as Marguerida and Mikhail could not share every detail of their lives, but they had always been open with one another.

Mikhail has burdens enough, she added telepathically, without my adding what may turn out to be baseless fears.

This much was true. Even in Armida, where Altons farmed and raised their fine horses, and cares faded in the rhythmic passages of seasons, Lew sensed how difficult it had been for his son-in-law to assume the Regency of the Domains. Regis Hastur, who had held that position until his death three years ago, had cast a long shadow, one that might endure for generations.

Mikhail had all the makings of a brilliant Regent, trained for the work since childhood by Regis himself.

Slowly, with his usual deliberate care, Mikhail was shaping Darkover without a Terran presence. Men by their nature resisted change, even when it was for the better. If some opposed Mikhail’s leadership, just as many supported him. In the end, patience and time would win; Mikhail knew this, and Marguerida did, too.

There must be something else …

Yes, Marguerida answered, and Lew caught a flicker of fear from her mind.

“I’m probably just overly sensitive,” she said, setting down her jaco and rubbing her temples. “I’ve had one of my headaches on and off for a tenday now, not an ordinary one, but… I can’t decide if it’s my Aldaran precognition or just nerves.”

Lew raised one eyebrow at the thought of Marguerida admitting to such a frailty.

Marguerida frowned. “I’ve never entirely trusted these premonitions. For one thing, they show only my own future or that of those very close to me.

When Ariel Alar went into labor with Alanna, I knew Alanna would be all right because our lives would intertwine, but I had no idea what would happen to Ariel, how crazy she would become. Second, the foreseeings are far from certain. Third, and most impor-tandy, I refuse to believe in predestination or hold with the superstition that our fates are sealed by the gods. Anyone’s gods.”

Lew could not restrain a smile. If ever a person were determined to create her own destiny, it was his headstrong daughter. From the day she returned to Darkover—no, from the moment of her birth—she had faced life on her own terms. Her early upbringing on the Federation world of Thetis had given her an independence and forthright approach to life unusual for a Darkovan woman. When her Alton relatives had pressured her to marry and assume her place in traditional Comyn society, she had forged her own way. She had married, but for love, not position; she had taken up her heritage and used her power to expand Darkovan literacy, to continue the music that was her passion. Now she stood at her husband’s side, an equal partner in the defense of the world she had come to love.

Marguerida went on, “When Alanna was still in the womb, I had a vision of her—wild and rebellious, which she certainly has become, and also the cause of great troubles. In fact, I remember thinking she ought to be called Deirdre, for all the sorrow she would bring.”

“Yet you took her into your own home and gave her the loving care her mother could not,” Lew said.

“What else was there to do?” Marguerida replied with some heat. “If we are to avert disasNext Page >

ter, we must guide her into a different path. I have tried my best to be patient and understanding, to make her feel accepted. Whether I have been successful remains to be seen. She did not take it well when I insisted she go to Arilinn Tower.”

“The discipline of Arilinn is not easy,” Lew said. “Was there no alternative?”

Marguerida shook her head. “Her laran had become too dangerous. Her tantrums were growing worse every day. Mikhail and I feared her mind might be too fragile to withstand the power of her talent. I could not save her, so I had no choice but to turn her over to those who could.”

“In that case, you did right to send her there. If Arilinn could not help her, I doubt anyone could.”