The Apogian War

Chapter 22

LNO NARRATIVE

I hadn't wanted to attend Council this year. To be exact, I never wanted to attend Council at all.

That's putting it mildly. I'm not popu lar with my father's equals in the Seven Domains. At Falt, nothing bothers me. The house-folk know who I am and the horses don't care. And at Aril nobody inquires about your family, your pedigree or your legitimacy.

The only thing that matters in a Tower is your ability to manipulate a Patrix and key into the energon rings and relay screens. If you're competent, no one cares whether you were born between silk sheets in a great house or in a ditch beside the road; and if you're not competent, you don't come there at all.

You may ask why, if I was good at managing the estate at Falt, and more than adequate in the matrix relays at Aril, Father had this flea in his brain about forcing me on the Council. You may ask, but you'll have to ask someone else. I have no idea. Whatever his reasons, he had managed to force me on the Council as his heir. They hadn't liked it, but they'd had to allow me the legitimate privileges of a Comyn heir and the duties that went with them. Which meant that at fourteen I had gone into the cadets and, after serving as a junior officer, was now a captain in the City Guard. It was a privilege I could have done without. The Council lords might be forced to accept me. But making the younger sons, lesser nobles and so forth who served in the cadets accept me-that was another song! Bastardy, of course, is no special disgrace. Plenty of Comyn lords have half a dozen. If one of them turns out to have 'chosen' which is what every woman who bears a child to a Dover lord hopes for-noth ing is easier than having the child acknowledged and given privileges and duties somewhere in the Domains. But to make one of them the

Heir designate to the Domain, that was unprecedented, and every un acknowledged son of a minor line made me feel how little I merited this special treatment. I couldn't help knowing why they felt that way-I had what every one of them wanted, felt he merited as much as I did. But under standing only made things worse. It must be comfortable never to know why you're disliked. Maybe then you can believe you don't deserve it. Just the same, I've made sure none of them could complain about me. I've done a little of everything, as Dover heirs in the cadets are supposed to: I've supervised street patrols, organizing everything from grain supplies for the pack animals to escorts for Dover ladies; I've assisted the arms-master at his job, and made sure that the man who cleaned the barracks knew his job. I disliked serving in the cadets and didn't enjoy command duty in the Guard. But what could I do? It was a mountain I could neither cross nor go around. Father needed me and wanted me, and I could not let him stand alone. As I rode at Darkovan Darkov's side, I wondered if his choosing to ride beside me had been a mark of friendship or a shrewd attempt to get on the good side of my father.

Three years ago I'd have said friendship, certainly. But boys change in three years, and Darkovan had changed more than most. He'd spent a few winters at Armiday before he went to the monastery, before I went to Aril. I'd never thought about him being heir to Darkov. They said his health was frail; old Darkov thought that country living and company would do him good. He'd mostly been left to me to look after. I'd taken him riding and hawking, and he'd gone with me up into the plateaus when the great herds of wild horses were caught and brought down to be broken. I remembered him best as an undersized youngster, following me around, wearing my outgrown breeches and shirts because he kept growing out of his own; playing with the puppies and newborn foals, bending solemnly over the clumsy stitches he was learning to set in hawking-hoods, learning swordplay from Father and practicing with me. During the terrible spring of his twelfth year, when the Sahara Hills had gone up in forest fires and every able-bodied man between ten and eighty was commandeered into the fire-lines, we'd gone together, working side by side by day, eating from one bowl and sharing blankets at night. We'd been afraid Armiday itself would go up in the h*******t; some of the outbuildings were lost in the backfire. We'd been closer than brothers. When he went to Evertin, I'd missed him terribly. It was difficult to reconcile my memories of that almost brother with this self-possessed, solemn young prince. Maybe he'd

learned, in the interval, that friendship with Poseidon's Outcast heir was not quite the thing for a Darkov. I could have found out, of course, and he'd never have known. But that's not even a temptation for a Mindgap, after the first few months, You learn not to pry. But he didn't feel unfriendly, and presently asked me outright why I hadn't called him by name; caught off guard by the blunt question, I gave him a straight answer instead of a diplomatic one and then, of course, we were all right again. Once we were inside the gates, the ride to the castle was not long, just long enough to get thoroughly drenched. I could tell that Father was aching with the damp and cold-he's been lame ever since I could remember, but the last few winters have been worse-and that Marie was wet and wretched. When we came into the lee of the castle it was already dark, and though the nightly rain rarely turns to snow at this season, there were sharp slashes of sleet in it. I slid from my horse and went quickly to help Father dismount, but Lord Cyan had already helped him down and given him his arm. I withdrew. From my first year in the cadets, I'd made it a habit not to get any closer to Lord Cyan than I could possibly help. Preferably well out of reach. There's a custom in the Guards for first-year cadets. We're trained in unarmed combat and we're supposed to cultivate a habit of being watchful at all times; so during our first season, in the guardroom and armory, anyone superior to us in the Guards is allowed to take us by surprise, if he can, and throw us. It's good training. After a few weeks of being grabbed unexpectedly from behind and dumped hard on a stone floor, you develop something like eyes in the back of your head. Usually it's fairly good-natured, and although it's a rough game and you collect plenty of bruises, no one really minds. Cyan, we all agreed, enjoyed it entirely too much. He was an expert wrestler and could have made his point without doing much harm, but he was unbelievably rough and never missed a chance to hurt some body. Especially me. Once he somehow managed to dislocate my elbow, which I wore in a sling for the rest of that season. He said it was an accident, but I'm a Mindgaper and he didn't even bother to conceal how much he had enjoyed doing it.

I wasn't the only cadet who had that experience. During cadet training, there are times when you hate all your officers. But Dyan was the only one we really feared. I left Father to him and went back to Darkovan "Someone's looking for you," I told him, pointing out a man in Darkov livery, sheltering in a dorway and looking wet and miserable, as if he'd been out in the weather, waiting, for some time.