"You are very wary of emotional entanglements, aren't you?"
"I have not had very good luck with them. I loved Ivor a great deal, as I would have loved you, I suppose, if we
had known one another better. He died much sooner than he should have. I wish you could have known him."
"The glimpse I had of him while you were trying to find Donal Alar in the overwork! made me quite envious, chiya. Part of me rejoices that you had so fine a foster father, and the rest of me regrets that I missed all that time with you."
"Yes, he was a good parent, if a wee bit absent-minded. But, you see, as much as I loved Ivor and he probably loved me, there were no deep emotions. I mean, not like the feelings I have about you or Dio. We were both, I suppose, the servants of music—priest and priestess. We never discussed anything intimate, the way Mik and I or Liriel and I do sometimes. We were attached, but it was more from circumstance than anything else. He had had so many students—fifty-three years of young musicians—and he had loved them all, in a nice, impersonal way. And his wife, Ida, loved us as well. She was supportive and comforting, and all of us felt as safe in that house as we would anywhere in the galaxy, but it was not . . . really warm. Well, now I think about it, Ida is a very warm woman, but I never let myself get too close to her. She and Ivor never had any children of their own, only those of other people. I don't know if she missed it or not. I think, though, if she missed anything, it was giving up her own career in favor of Ivor's. I know she was a budding synthiclavierist when they met. And, from her occasional performances, she was extremely good, almost brilliant. But instead of being a famous player, she became a clavier tutor, and dozens of well-known musicians have studied with her. To have studied with Ida Davidson is considered a great honor in musical circles."
"Do you think she regretted having a private rather than a public career?"
"I asked her once, and she said that being a famous musician is very wearing, and not all it is cracked up to be."
"She sounds like a fine person, and I am deeply grateful to her for fostering you so well. Your manners, when you left Thetis, were in a sorry state, and, truthfully, I despaired a little. But, when I watched you at Arilinn, it struck me that you are every inch a lady."
Margaret felt herself redden to the roots of her hair. "A lady? Me? Domna Marilla—she's a lady! Or Linnea. I am
just a hoyden who happens to be the heiress to a Domain— quite a different thing! They know what to do, what to say in any circumstance."
"And Javanne?" Lew asked, his voice brimming with amusement.
"Well, certainly my aunt is a proper lady—but she is of a different sort than Linnea or Marilla. She knows what to say, but she does not always do it!"
"In other words, she is more like you than like Domna Marilla."
"Oh, my! I suppose she is—and how much she would loathe the comparison!" She paused and thought for a moment. "I think I would say that both of us are somewhat cold."
"How odd."
"Why?"
"Because I think I would have said that you and Javanne are very passionate people, not cold at all. But, you were speaking of your wariness—I wish you would go on, if it is not too uncomfortable for you to speak of it."
Passionate? Margaret had to take a minute to consider that. It was a new thought, and not an entirely comfortable one. She knew she was deeply passionate about music, and now about the planet of her birth. But those had a certain quality of abstraction, of distance about them. She loved Mikhail—there was no question of that—but she was not sure she felt passionately about him. She was passionate toward him, which was a very different thing than her feelings about Darkover or music. It was too new an idea, and too knotty a problem to sort out now, so she set it aside, a little reluctantly.
Margaret sorted through a muddle of thoughts and feelings, most of them freighted with more emotion than she was ready to address. "Until I came to Darkover," she began slowly, "I don't think I ever felt the real warmth of human contact, except a few times with Dio. This was mostly because Ashara kept telling me to keep myself apart, whispering in my brain like a piece of bad music, until I just stopped trying. I got very good at keeping my distance, so maybe a part of my personality is suited to remoteness. Sometimes it is very hard to tell where Margaret Alton starts, and where Ashara leaves off. She must
have been a very bitter woman, and I wonder if I will ever know the reason for it. She is so enigmatic, so present and so far away at the same time." Margaret gave a sigh. "And then I have to go and take a fancy to the one man on Darkover that I cannot have. So, yes, I am wary. I have good reason."
"Don't be defensive. I was not criticizing you. I know that nothing in your history would lead you to trust others, and I am aware of my own part in that. As for Mikhail, we shall have to see. Don't give up hope yet."
"Hope will break my heart, Father." Margaret was ashamed of the anger and bitterness in her voice, and gave Dorilys a quick jab in the sides with her heels. The little mare responded by lengthening her stride, and Margaret rode ahead, making further conversation impossible.
When Margaret and Lew arrived at Comyn Castle just before nightfall, they were greeted by servants. The horses were taken to the stables, and they went to the Alton suite in silence. It was not an uncomfortable thing, the way it had been between them when she was a child and Lew Alton had shunned her, just a respectful quiet where both of them kept their thoughts to themselves.
But Lew was called away almost before he had time to get out of his riding boots, and she was relieved to be totally alone. Margaret bathed, put on fresh garments, and asked her maid, Piedra, to bring her a tray of supper. She knew she really should go find Lady Linnea and be properly social, but she was too tired and too sad to want company.
Instead, after she had eaten, Margaret got out her recorder and listened to the notes she had made four months before, on the trail with Rafaella. She had added to it while she was at Arilinn, for she had discovered an entire body of songs that were sung only in Towers, written by Keepers and monitors and technicians, that no one had ever bothered to mention to her. The music was beautiful, closer to ancient plain chant than most Darkovan songs, and there was a quality of isolation in it that drew her. Margaret could almost picture long-dead Keepers whiling away cold nights over their rylls and guitars, creating the pieces to comfort themselves.
It was the first chance she had really had to concentrate on her work in a long time, and she was deep in thought, writing a few lines for what she hoped would someday be a monograph, when Lew finally returned. Part of her mind was completely absorbed, and while aware of his presence, she did not stop until she had her thoughts down. Then she started a little, and felt a little guilty. She turned off her machine and bit her lower lip anxiously.
"What are you up to," he asked cheerfully.
"I was just trying to organize my notes. Between trying to learn how to control my telepathy and the headaches I got from being around all those matrices, I haven't had the energy until now. I can't tell you how relieved I am to be away from the Tower, and I do not look forward to going to Neskaya, even though I will be with Istvana Ridenow."
"You seemed very far away when I came in. Tell me, chiya, do you miss it?"
"University? Yes, I do. I have spent a third of my life there. It has become a habit with me. I miss the discourse, the intense curiosity of other scholars, the opportunity for contrasts."
"Contrasts?"
"Well, all information at University gets analyzed through the parameters of comparison and interrelationship. Darkover has some pretty interesting variations on the human norm, and I don't have anyone to discuss them with! Oh, Mikhail always tries to understand what I am talking about—he is very curious about the places I've been—but he often doesn't see what is so fascinating to me. He accepts Darkovan customs as the norm of how human beings behave, instead of being merely one point along a broad spectrum of behavior."
"I understand completely! W
hen I first went to the Senate, I was constantly shocked by the wide variety of human behavioral "norms." And, for a Darkovan, I was fairly sophisticated. Some of the things I encountered seemed so strange, and I could not for the life of me figure out why some people did the things they did. But, I got used to it, after a couple of months of getting glared at for passing a Medinite on the left in the hall, instead of staying to the right. After some years acceptance of variation became second nature to me—now I have more trouble with the un-
yielding nature of my fellow Comyn than ever!" He smiled wryly. "This telefax came for you while I was away."
Margaret held out her hand for the thin sheet. She took it and saw that the sender's code was that of the University. Maybe they were revoking her fellowship. She tore it open and read through the script rapidly.
Then she grinned and looked up at her father. "It is from Ida Davidson. She thinks she can get passage to Darkover soon, to claim Ivor's body. There is some problem with travel permits."
"I am not surprised." Lew sounded almost angry.
"Why?"
"The Expansionists in the lower house are trying to prevent travel to Protectorate worlds, as a way to force them to become member worlds. They have tried to get two bills passed since I left the Senate to limit or exclude trade from worlds which are not willing to open their doors to Expansionist policies. The Senate has managed to defeat both of them, but it was a close thing."
"But that's crazy."
Lew shook his head. "I spent a lot of time while I was in the Senate studying the history of governments—without, I confess, the benefit of your scholarly training. Tell me— do they still use Kostemeyer's text on the life of empires at University?"
Margaret held back her sense of surprise. Somehow she had never thought of her father as a person who would have read the hoary central text of the Socio-Historists. It had been written two hundred years before, by a Centauri, and while it had been superseded by more recent works, it was still a classic. "Yes, and it is required, too. It is part of the core reading for History of Civilization, which everyone has to take—much to the annoyance of the engineering and technical students, who seem to think that history is something that happens to other people." Margaret realized that she was still thinking of Lew as the man he had been when she was very young, not the informed and intelligent Senator from Darkover. Of course, when she had left for University, they had never had discussions like this one. How wonderful to discover this man, this father she had been denied as a girl, and to find out that he was so interesting!
"Do you remember what he says about the cycles—what does he call them?"
"The tides, Father."
"Yes, that's it. Now I remember—'To ignore the ebb and neep of the tidal flow of all forms of governance is the folly of empires.' Rather grand, isn't it? He had a lovely way with the language. In my opinion, just now, the Terran Federation is in the beginning of an ebb, which is characterized by both oppression and various sorts of decadence."
"Decadence? I don't understand."
"When a culture runs out of ideas, it becomes decadent. And, in my opinion, the Federation is rapidly running out of both ideas and sense!" His face reddened a little along his cheekbones, and his eyes glittered with passion. "Instead of recognizing that each world is a unique and wonderful place, they have started to believe that imposing Terran technology and behavior on the member worlds is the road to control. What they do not appear to understand is that rather than gain control, they will only cause rebellion!"
"Why?"
"Because the Federation cannot know what's best for everyone, and particularly not for Darkover and other Protectorate worlds! There is this perception that Protectorate worlds are taking resources from the Federation and giving back nothing in return."
"Was that one of the reasons you gave up your seat in the Senate?"
"You mean did I see it coming?"
"Yes."
"Perhaps. I noticed that the bureaucracy was becoming more complex, which is" always a signal of oppression, in my understanding of history. There has been a proliferation of permits, taxes, and laws concerning the movement of goods and people. It has grown slowly, beginning just about the time you left for University, and at first it did not appear to be anything malignant. By the time Dio got ill, however, I could see the handwriting on the wall, and I knew that I could no longer function in the increasingly hostile environment of the Senate. The travel tax alone has been raised three times in the past nine years."
"I know. Don't forget, I made all the arrangements when Ivor and I went from world to world."
"Of course you did. I just didn't think of that."
"What I noticed was that our funding kept dwindling. When I began traveling with Ivor, we could go second class, but on the last two trips we had to go third because there were almost no travel funds. And I couldn't understand it. My fellowship grant was being eaten up with new taxes, and the stipend was less each year. They will probably revoke my grant eventually ... if I don't go back. And I don't suppose I will, ever." She felt more despondent than she would have thought possible.
"But, Marguerida, you don't need the grant. You are the heir to the Alton Domain, and you will never. ..."
"I earned that grant, Father! I worked for it. It isn't a great deal of money, of course, but it was mine. I don't want some damned Expansionist taking it away from me!"
He sighed. "I know it is important to you, but . . ."
"Father, I cannot submit papers to the University if I am no longer a Fellow. I could not complete Ivor's work, or do any of my own. That would be intolerable."
"You really loved it, didn't you?"
Margaret knitted her fingers together. "It was not exactly that I loved it, but it was totally mine. I was not a Fellow because of you or even because of Ivor. It was not something I could inherit. I had to work very hard to create an original piece of scholarship that earned me my fellowship, and while it is a rather obscure thesis that few people will ever dig out of the archives, it was completely original. I don't want to lose that. It isn't logical—I just don't!"
"There is something more to this than your fellowship, isn't there?"
"I am never going to be a 'good' Darkovan woman, Father. I am never going to be willing to submit meekly to men like Dom Gabriel, who imagine they know what is best for me. If you had sent me back here when I was an adolescent, I might have learned to be another sort of person. Now, it is too late. I am too used to being able to do what I like, regardless of my gender, and I resent the restrictions of having to have a chaperone or a groom and all the rest of it. The only reason I put up with it is because it would reflect badly on you if I behaved as I normally would on University."
"I didn't realize how much you chafed under Darkover's rein," Lew said slowly.
"There is nothing anyone can do about it. Oh, certainly sometimes I think about giving up my claim to the Domain, getting on the first ship I can find, and shaking the dust of Darkover from my skirts. Do you know, when I came here, I was very happy. Things smelled right and sounded right for the first time in my adult life. I had been longing for Darkover without even knowing it. That was before I really understood that I was only a pawn in a local game of chess, that I am Marguerida Alton, not just plain Margaret."
She took a deep breath and plunged ahead, releasing the
tension that had preyed on her for months. "I am an heir
ess." The words tasted foul in her mouth. "I am a thing to
be used for your purposes or Regis', to thwart Dom Gabriel
or someone else. I am not free to marry as I wish, to pursue
my own ends. I am not a person, but only an object." She
tried to keep the bitterness from showing in her vocal tone,
but she could not help it.
"I think you are mistaken in that."
"What would you do if I decided to become a Renunciate?"
He stared at her, astonished. "Anythi
ng in my power to stop you."
"Exactly!"
"But you love Mikhail, and you want to marry him, don't you?"
"And that is supposed to be enough? Marriage? Shall I wear a shackle on my arm until I die in childbed or just get old and doddering?"
He ran the fingers of his single hand through his hair, tumbling the tresses across his furrowed brow. "Well, I do wish to see you settled down, and—"
"And let my mind be blunted by counting linens, arranging meals and directing the servants! I do love Mikhail, but I do not think that being married to him, even if you can arrange that miracle, will ever satisfy me completely. I am too used to thinking, to studying and learning." She stood up from behind the desk. "We are never going to be able to see eye to eye on this, Father. I will do my best to be a dutiful daughter, but I cannot promise to enjoy it." She sighed and looked slyly at her father. "Now, is there any-
thing you can do to make it easier for Ida Davidson to travel to Darkover? I must send her the disks I've done, and a better guide to the language than I had when I arrived. I want her to feel as comfortable here as possible, and if she can get the basic language down before she lands, that will help enormously. I am sure Uncle Rafe Scott can help me—he enjoys making himself useful, and I have no hesitation in taking advantage of it." She grinned at her father.