Duke Kistur Bavol himself was almost lost in the heavy pile of pillows and bedcovers. He had always been a robust, energetic man until Pias had left Newforest the first time to seek the man who’d murdered his fiancée. The last time Pias had seen his father he was sickly, already well consumed by the mottle fever and looking every year of his age.
Now, in his late sixties, the duke was a gaunt parody of a human figure. Most of his hair was gone except for a few frazzled white strands here and there. His skin was drawn tight across his face, giving him a skull-like appearance, and his eyes were dark and sunken in his cheeks. The dark splotches in his complexion that gave his illness its name almost covered all of his body that was visible.
Pias dismissed the nurse with a gesture and took a step forward. The duke asked, “Who… ?” in a shaky voice that was barely audible.
“It’s Pias, Poppa.”
Despite his weakness, Duke Kistur tried to sit up to look at him; then, suddenly remembering that Pias had been disowned, he lay back down and turned over on his side, facing away from the door. He was prepared to ignore his son’s existence, no matter how much it hurt him.
Pias, though, was not going to give his father such an easy way out. Walking over to the bed, he sat down beside his father and said, “I’m going to take shameless advantage of the fact that you’re an invalid and can’t walk away from me. I know my being here is causing you pain because you’re supposed to ignore me like the kriss said you should. Well, it’s causing me pain to be here, too, but I love you, Father, and I’m not going to let it go that easily. You can try not to listen, but you’ll have to hear what I say. Then you can make up your mind about me and I’ll abide by whatever decision you choose because I’m a good and obedient son. I wasn’t able to tell you everything last time I was here. Now I can tell you the story and I hope you’ll approve.”
With that as prelude he began his story. He told his father that he’d been recruited into the Service of the Empire as a secret agent while he was away from New forest, and that Yvette, the woman he loved and had married, was also an agent. He’d wanted to tell his father this the last time he’d come home, but Tas had been in the room and Pias didn’t trust him. Confirming his worst fears, Tas had muddied the waters and made it look as though Pias were deserting his own people, eventually stirring up enough animosity to have Pias exiled by the kriss.
Pias told his father the story of his exploits since leaving Newforest, and of how he’d managed to save the Empire during the Coronation Day Incursion by being unable to pilot a spaceship. He described the beautiful little granddaughter he’d produced and how he’d named her after his mother. And most of all, Pias told him that he’d never turned his back on his people – but that the values he’d been raised with in this very house compelled him to a larger duty toward the Empire as a whole.
“That’s all I can say, Father,” he concluded. “I know my silence hurt you, and it has hurt me not to be able to tell you. But I was right not to trust Tas. I hope you’ll be able to forgive me – and if you can’t accept my choices, at least you’ll understand that I made them because you brought me up to care about people.”
He stopped abruptly as further words refused to come. He looked down at his father’s still form. Kistur Bavol lay silently, with only the slightest breathing to indicate he was alive – but Pias could see in the bureau mirror that his eyes were open and he’d heard every word his son had spoken. Pias waited, scarcely daring to breathe himself, wondering whether paternal love would overcome his father’s enormous pride and stubbornness.
After a couple of minutes, when there was no response, Pias stood up and turned sadly to leave the room. If he couldn’t convince his own father, he knew he’d stand no chance to reverse the edict of the kriss. But at least with Tas certain to be convicted of treason, the family title would pass to Fenelia, his oldest sister. She was a hard-nosed boor and her husband was a lout, but at least they were honest and would not bring disaster to the planet the way Tas had.
“Pias.” The duke spoke the name weakly. He turned slightly in the bed and raised his left hand feebly just a few centimeters – but even that tiny sign was enough.
Pias was at his father’s side in an instant, putting his arms around the frail body and holding tight. The two men wept openly and unashamed for several minutes, and by the time Pias left the room they were fully reconciled.
Pias walked out of his father’s bedroom feeling as though he were on a world of only one-fourth gee, so much weight had been taken from his soul. Let the kriss do what it wanted now; he’d won the true battle. His father had accepted him again, and the universe was no longer such an empty place.
As he was about to descend the stairs to ground level, a woman called his name. He turned and felt a sudden chill as he found himself facing Gitana Bavol, his brother’s wife. Gitana had long ago been his lover, until he fell in love with her ill-fated sister Miri, and then met Yvette while on his quest for Miri’s killer. Gitana could still twist knives of guilt within his soul, even though his passion for her had died long ago.
The intervening years hadn’t been as kind to Gitana as they’d been to him. There were tiny age lines at the corners of her eyes and the beginnings of a double chin.
Her waist-length black hair showed wisps of gray, and her always sumptuous figure was considerably plumper than Pias remembered it.
“Hello, Gitana,” he said, careful to keep his voice neutral.
“How… how are you?”
“Fine, thank you.”
“You’re on your way to the kriss now, aren’t you?”
“Yes, and I don’t want to be late.”
He turned to go, but Gitana grabbed him tightly by the sleeve and refused to let go. “Pias, wait. I . . . You know I’m a proud woman, but you’ve always been able to make me beg. I’m begging you now, Pias. Please be merciful at the kriss.”
“Tas will have to stand or fall by his own actions.”
“Oh, hang him! I don’t care what happens to him – I only married him because you spurned me for that… that other woman. But don’t make them do anything to me. If there’s any trace of the love you once said you felt for me, don’t make them exile me. I couldn’t take that.”
The tension in Pias released so suddenly he almost burst out laughing. How totally characteristic of Gitana – selfish to the end. Beti had told him about some of Gitana’s excesses as Marchioness of Newforest, lording it over everyone else and callously ignoring the feelings of those she deemed below her. But there was no evidence she’d engaged in treasonous activities; her worst misfortune was that she’d married a man who had allowed her to indulge her casual cruelties.
“I’ll do what I can,” he told her. “They’ll probably let you divorce Tas and give back a lot of the jewelry I hear you accumulated.” With Gitana’s father being one of the most influential marquises on Newforest, her sentence was unlikely to be stronger than that.
“Thank you.” She looked into his eyes and made it clear she wanted to kiss him, but Pias simply nodded, pulled away from her, and went downstairs to the formal meeting room where the kriss would convene.
Pias walked into the chamber with an air of confidence he’d lacked the last time – because now he knew he held the right cards. Many of the planetary nobles had suffered under Tas’s regime, seeing their power usurped and their rights reduced. They realized they’d made a mistake sending Pias away, and were looking for a chance to rectify it.
The first part of the session was the trickiest, since the kriss, by its own edict, was supposed to ignore Pias’s presence. Pias used his newly established legal identity as Gari Nav to argue the case for Pias Bavol, and the members of the convocation were willing to accept the legal fiction temporarily – if only to strike back at Tas Bavol.
Pias argued that at his previous trial he’d been accused of disloyalty to his people by wanting to marry an outsider and leave the planet without giving an adequate explanation. He said that he still could not explain his reasons to the general body of the kriss, but that he’d told them to his father and the duke had accepted them as valid. As proof, they established a vidicom link with the master bedroom upstairs, and Duke Kistur confirmed that Pias had explained the situation to his satisfaction, and he no longer believed the charges made against his son.