Sharra's Exile

… Marjorie, saying gently; “You were a little in love with Thyra, weren’t you, Lew?”

Lew set the child down. “I’ll have to find a nurse for her; there’s no woman in my apartments to look after her.” He stooped down and kissed the small rosy cheek. “Stay here with my kinswoman Li

She caught at his hand and asked shakily, “Am I going to live with you now?”

“You are,” Lew said firmly, and gestured to Rafe and Regis to leave the room with him. Regis said, with a note of warning, “They are going to use her to depose you…”

“I’m damned sure they’ll try,” Lew said grimly, “A nice, peaceful puppet, pliant in Hastur hands—no, I don’t mean you, Regis, but the old man, and Dyan, and that precious kinsman of mine, Gabriel—the Council never did trust the male adult Altons too much, did they? So they exile me to Armida, or to a Tower, and bring this youngster up in the way they think she should go.” His face looked strained and he clenched his good hand so tightly that Regis was glad he was not the object of Lew’s wrath.

“Let them try,” he said, and his hand twitched as if he had it around the neck of some one, “Just let them try, damn them! She’s mine—and if they think they can take her away from me again, they are welcome to try!”

Regis and Rafe exchanged glances of mingled relief and dismay. Regis had hoped that something, somehow, would awaken Lew out of his deadly apathy, make him care for some one and something again. Now it seemed as if something had done just that. Well, they had raised the wind—but there might be hell to pay before this was over!

CHAPTER TEN

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Lew Alton’s narrative

The day was darkening toward twilight. Looking out over the city, I could see the streets begi

I thought regretfully of Dio. I had been too quick to dissolve our marriage. She had wanted my child, and even though our son had died, perhaps she would have allowed this one to fill the place left vacant… but no; that would be asking too much, that she should love another woman’s child as her own. When I thought of her, the old suffering and resentment surfaced. In any case, if she were here, I could consult her about the proper way to raise a girl child— I wondered how Callina would feel about it. And then I remembered that Callina had sworn to marry Beltran.

Over my dead body, I vowed silently, left Marja in Andres’s care (he said that he knew a decent woman, the wife of one of my father’s paxmen, who would come to care for her, if I took her home to Armida) and went to seek out Callina.

She looked weary and harried.

“The girl’s awake,” she said. “She was hysterical when she wakened; I had to give her a sedative. She’s calmed down a little, but of course she doesn’t speak the language, and she’s frightened in a strange place. Lew, what are we going to do now?”

“I won’t know till I see her. Where is she?”

So much had happened in the intervening hours that I had all but forgotten Ashara’s plan, the woman who had been brought through the Screen. She had been moved to a spacious room in the Aillard apartments; when we came in she was lying across the bed, her face buried in the covers, and she looked as if she had been crying; but it was a tearless and defiant face she raised to me. She was still Li

“Please tell me the truth,” she said steadily, as I came in. “Am I mad and locked up somewhere?” She spoke one of the dialects I knew perfectly well… of course; I had talked with her at length, that night on Vainwal when my son had been born, and died. And even as this crossed my mind I saw the memory reflected in her face.

“But I remember you!” she cried out, “The man with one hand—the one who had that—that—that terribly deformed—” My face must have done something she didn’t know about, because she stopped. “Where am I? Why have you kidnapped me and brought me here?”

I said quietly, “You needn’t be afraid.” I remembered saying the same thing to Marja; she had been afraid of me too. But I could not reassure her with the same words that had comforted a five-year-old child. “Allow me to introduce myself. Lewis-Ke

“I know who you are,” she said steadily. “What I don’t know is how I got here. A red sun—”

“If you’ll be calm, I’ll explain everything,” I said. “I am sorry, I ca

“Kathie Marshall,” she said.

“ Terranan?”

“Yes. But I know we’re not on Terra, nor on Vainwal,” she said, and her voice trembled; but she made no display of fear. I said, “The Terranancall this Cottman’s Star. We call it Darkover. We brought you here because we need your help—”

“You must be crazy,” she said. “How could I help you? And if I could, what makes you think I would, after you’ve kidnapped me?”

That was, I supposed, a fair question. I reached out to try to touch her mind; if she could not understand our language, at least this might reassure her that we meant no harm.

Callina said, “You were brought here because you were twi

She backed away. “Twi

“If you do not,” said Callina quietly, “how is it that suddenly you can understand what I am saying?”

“Why, you’re speaking Terran… no!” she said, and I saw the terror rise in her mind again. “Why, what language am I speaking—?”

It was reasonable that if she was Li

“Where am I, then?”

“In the Comyn Castle in Thendara.”

“But that’s halfway across the Galaxy…” she whispered, and turned frantically to stare out the window, at the red light of the declining sun. I saw her white hands clench on a fold of curtain. “A red sun—” she whispered, “Oh, I have nightmares like this when I can’t wake up…” She was so deathly white I feared she would collapse; Callina put an arm around her, and this time Kathie did not pull away.

“Try to believe us, child,” Callina said. “You are here, on Darkover. We brought you here.”

“And who are you?”

“Callina Aillard. Keeper of Comyn Council.”

“I’ve heard about the Keepers,” Kathie said, then, shakily, “this whole thing is crazy! You can’ttake a Terran citizen and pull her halfway across the Galaxy like this! My—my father will tear the planet apart looking for me—” She covered her face with her hands. “I—I want to go home!”

I wished that we had never started this whole thing. I was remembering the aureole of doom, fate, death which I had seen around Li