The Gazels

Chapter 6.6

“Everything that this good man has said is true. If it were not, there would be no difficulty in making this decision.” Damion sensed the ripple of surprise and outrage from the conservatives among the council. None of them had expected him to agree with the pro-Federationists.

“At the same time, these benefits come with a price. The Federation will demand that in return, we acknowledge them as our lawful government. Do we truly wish to be ruled not by our own people but by men who have never walked beneath our b****y Sun, never seen snow on the Hellers peaks, never dreamed of chieri singing beneath the Four Moons? Men who know nothing of our customs and history, our honor, our gods? To them, the Compact is no more than a backward superstition. I need not remind you that the piantsan think it honorable to settle their differences with blasters and nerve guns and far more terrible weapons that kill indiscriminately and at a distance, while those who give the orders hide in safety.”

The murmurs shifted now, like the soft growl of a cloud leopard scenting danger. Damion held out his hands, and it felt as if his heart opened as well. Eyes shining, Dan looked up at him. Emotion flushed Javanne’s cheeks. Gabriel was nodding, and even stolid Ruyven Di Asturien looked moved.

He had them . . . almost.

“My friend has offered a vision of greatness and equality, of riches and opportunity. Who would not want that? But in a Federation spanning a thousand worlds, elsha will become one more poor, backward world. We will be reduced to accepting handouts from those who care nothing for our dreams.

“I am not saying that we can never have progress and prosperity, a better future for our children. We can do all this, but in our own way and in our own time.

“Once I asked you to join together, council and commoner, peasant and lord, Renunciate and mountain folk. I promised you that we would not become another lockstep world of the Empire. I swore that I would never allow the piantsan to remake us in their image. Together, we agreed to restore our world.”

Around the room, heads nodded in memory of that intoxicating time. Anything had seemed possible, and they had accomplished more than anyone believed possible. For a brief golden age, the telepaths of elsha had acted as one, rejoiced as one, and defended their world as one.

Damion had no idea if he could summon that same commitment again. In asking them to stand beside him, he risked fracturing what remained of that unity. He sensed the currents of discord, of dissension. For too many of them, the Empire—and now the Federation—represented an end to the rule of the aristocratic council and the old feudal system.

For what seemed like an eternity, Damion spoke. He felt the shift in the audience, yielding to the ingrained reverence for the Carmen Lord. Under ordinary conditions, the patchwork assent would have been enough. Now he could not afford even the appearance of disunity. If what Lew said was true, the Expansionist party of the Federation would seize upon the flimsiest excuse to impose their will.

elsha must speak with one voice, even if that one voice was his.

He could command it. As Regent. As Carmen. As King. Was this why his grandfather had urged him to claim the throne, so that no one could contest his decisions?

Echoes of that first gathering resonated through his voice. They lifted him, carried him. Throughout the chamber, he felt a storm gathering. But would it bear them all to a safe haven or shatter them upon the rocks?

“I ask you to join together again, to answer any outside power that we shall always belong to ourselves first. elsha must and shall forge its own destiny.”

For a long moment, no one spoke. A word, a gesture, could tip the balance and fracture the tenuous momentum.

Gabriel moved to stand before the platform. He looked imposing in his Guards Commander uniform, and his features were set in an expression of determination. “The Lord of Carmen has asked for our support. I say we owe him our loyalty, as has been the custom from the time of our fathers. Who stands with me?”

“I do.” Ruyven Di Asturien came forward. The crowd melted back and swirled to close up behind him. He carried himself with quiet authority.

“And I!”

“I!”

“I!” cried Javanne, then one of the Castamirs joined in, then Kyril Eldrin and a chorus of men and women in ordinary commoner clothing.

Valdir Ridenow was one of the last council to speak up. “If it is the will of this Council, I will not stand in the way.” He paused. “For the time being.”

“So be it, then,” Damion said. “With your support, I hereby direct the piants Federation Legate to inform the Senate of our decision to retain our status as a Class D Closed World.”

Cheering broke out throughout the chamber. Dan Lawt applauded, grinning. Damion stepped off the platform to accept congratulations and thanks. He sensed as well as saw the flickers of dissatisfaction, of grudging acceptance. Some of those opinions might change with time as elsha continued to evolve into a new society and the planetary ecology attained a new balance.

But nothing gave Damion a deeper sense of unease than the smoothly bland expression on the Ridenow lord’s features.

It took a long time for the chamber to empty. Damion felt obliged to remain as long as anyone wanted to speak with him. The experience was exhausting, for he had never enjoyed the attention of crowds. He knew that his ability to persuade rather than to coerce depended on personal contact. It was part of the cost of victory.

Javanne hugged Damion, a brief, distracted embrace before she departed with Gabriel. Mikhail stayed to watch and listen. Valdir Ridenow gave a brief salute thro

ugh the thinning crowd and then strode off. The Cortes judge bowed deeply to Damion and said that, although he was not entirely convinced, he had the greatest respect for the arguments Damion had put forth. Time would tell, the man concluded.

Time is what I have asked for, Damion replied, time to find our own way.

Through it all, Dan never left his side. From time to time, someone would try to draw Dan into conversation, but Dan gracefully deflected their overtures.

Finally, when only a few pockets of conversation lingered and the servants were clearly impatient to begin cleaning the chamber, Dan guided Damion to the back entrance. Damion was so tired that only habit and momentum kept him on his feet. He ached, not only in body but in spirit.

The corridor was narrow and poorly lit but blessedly quiet. A threadbare carpet, too poor for public use, cushioned their footfalls.

“Gods, Dan, I need a drink!” Damion said. “My head’s about to explode!”

“As long as it doesn’t turn you into a blockhead,” Dan quipped, referring to an old joke between them, from their earliest days as cadets.

Laughter bubbled up from a half-forgotten place within Damion. How long had it been since he had heard anything silly?

“I’m glad you haven’t lost your sense of perspective,” Dan said, more seriously. “There’s one more item to be dealt with.”

Damion groaned. “Haven’t I done enough already? Surely, whatever it is can wait until tomorrow.”

Now that they were moving, Damion felt a renewal of physical vigor. Side by side, they swept up the back stairs, wending their way through the labyrinth of the Castle to the Carmen quarters.

Dan paused at the door leading to the suite of rooms that had been Danvan’s and now belonged to Damion. “You’ll want to hear this.”

“If you say so.”

Dan led the way into the most intimate of the sitting rooms, more a parlor than the formal presence- chamber Danvan had favored. A fire and a bank of beeswax candles filled the room with comforting light. A meal had been laid out on a table before the hearth. Candlelight gleamed on silver utensils, the curve of a glazed pottery bowl, the glass vase holding a cluster of dawn lilies.

A man perched on the end of the armchair as if he expected to be hauled off and punished for sitting there. A stout cane lay on the carpet beside him. Backlit by the fire, Damion saw him in silhouette, the thin, hunched shoulders, the wisps of downy hair.

“Vai dom!” The man struggled to push himself to his feet.

“Good uncle, do not rise,” Damion said, going to him. “Please, be at your ease. I am sorry, but although your face is familiar to me, I cannot recall when we have met.”

“My lord Damion,” Dan said, “allow me to present Caradoc from Castle Carmen. You would have known him when you were a lad.”

“You served my grandfather, then,” Damion said, taking the nearest chair.

“That I did, young master, for many a long year.”

Damion glanced quizzically at Dan.

Dan bent over the old man. “Tell Lord Carmen what you told me . . . about the secret the old lord entrusted to you.”

“Ah, that.” The rheumy eyes brightened. “I swore I’d never tell, as my lord bade me. But you’re the new Lord Carmen, so that’s all right. You see, a long time ago, it must be forty year now, I were much younger. In the dead of night, he summons me, the Old Carmen Lord, he does. He gives into my charge a boy child, no more than three winters old.”

Astonishment swept away the last dregs of fatigue. “Rinaldo?”

“Don’t recall that were his name. Valenton? Valentine? Summat like that. Anyways, he bids me, the old lord does, to take the child to Nevarsin and give him to the monks. Now, what was I to think? What kind of life is that for a council, to be reared by cristoforos in the City of Snows? But I dares not say anything. I takes the child, and a fine healthy boy he is, too, and I gives him to the brothers there. And nary a word have I spoke of it these many years,” Caradoc concluded with a look of satisfaction.

“You have kept your word, like a true and loyal man,” Damion murmured. “Did my grandfather give any reason for the secrecy?”

The old servant shook his head. “Oh, I’ve had thoughts aplenty, but who am I to ask questions? I serve—served—my good lord. And he never saw fit to confide in the likes of me.”

Dan went to the side cupboard and took out a purse that clinked softly. “The coridom will see you’re given supper and a soft bed, and here’s for your trouble.”

“No trouble at all, vai domyn,” the old man replied, bobbing bows as he tucked away the purse. Deftly maneuvering his cane, he made his way to the door. “No trouble at all.”

The latch clicked shut behind him. For a long moment, Damion stared at the fire, hardly seeing it, hardly daring to believe what he had just heard. When he looked up, Dan returned his glance, unsmiling.

“Nevarsin?”

BOOK II: Rinaldo

10

As the customary period of mourning for a man of Danvan Carmen’s rank came to an end, spring settled over Thendara. Rain fell most evenings and occasionally snow, but the air softened a little more each day. Flowers brightened gardens throughout the city. Girls went about with blossoms tucked in their hair, and singers and street performers appeared in every market place. The courtyards of council Castle sprouted arbors of fragrant twining rosalys and sweet-mint.

With the end of winter, the passes through the mountains opened, permitting messengers to travel to and from Nevarsin. Damion received an answer to his inquiry from the Father Master of the monastery. He had to read it several times to fully comprehend its content.

The letter confirmed that one of the brothers of St.-Valentine’s-of-the-Snows was indeed named Rinaldo, the unacknowledged son of Rafael Carmen and Rebekah Lanart, placed there as a young child about forty years ago at the command of Danvan Carmen himself.