“I’d like to,” he said. “You never lied to me or hurt me. But I don’t think I’d trust any of the Aldarans.”
“Is your mind still full of schoolroom bogeymen?” I asked.
“Do you believe they are all wicked renegades because they have an old political quarrel with Comyn? You have reason to distrust the Comyn too, Danilo.”
“True,” he said. “But can I trust a man who begins by kidnapping me and frightening my father to death? If he had come to me, explained what he wanted to do, and that you and he together thought my gift could be useful, then asked my father to give me leave to visit him . . .”
The hell of it was, Dani was entirely right. What had possessed Beltran to do such a thing? “If he had consulted me, that is exactly how I would have suggested he should do it.”
“Yes, I know,” Dani said. “You’re you. But if Beltran isn’t the kind of man to do it that way, how can you trust him?”
“He’s my kinsman,” I said helplessly. “What do you expect me to say? I expect his eagerness got the better of him. He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
Dani raged. “You’re talking just the way you said your father did about Lord Dyan!”
It wasn’t the same, I knew that, but I couldn’t expect Danilo to see it Finally I said, “Can’t you look beyond personalities in this, Dani? Beltran was wrong, but what we’re trying to do is so enormous that maybe it blinds people to smaller aims and ends. Keep your eyes on what he’s doing, and forgive him. Or are you waiting,” and I spoke deliberately, with malice, to make him see how cynical it sounded, “for the Comyn to make a better offer?”
He flushed, stung to the depths. I hadn’t overestimated either his intelligence or his sensitivity. He was a boy still, but the man would be well worth knowing, with strong integrity and honor. I hoped with all my heart he would be our ally.
“Danilo,” I said, “we need you. The Comyn cast you out in disgrace, undeserved. What loyalty do you owe them?”
“The Comyn, nothing,” he said quietly. “Yet I am pledged and my service given. Even if I wanted to do what you ask, Lew, and I’m not sure, I am not free.”
“What do you mean?”
Danilo’s face was impassive, but I could sense the emotion behind his words. “Regis Hastur sought me out at Syrtis,” he said. “He did not know how or why, but he knew I had been wronged. He pledged himself to set it right.”
“We’re trying to set many wrongs right, Dani. Not just yours.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But we swore an oath together and I pledged him my sword and my service. I am his paxman, Lew, so if you want me to help you, you must ask his consent. If my lord gives me leave, then I am at your service. Otherwise I am his man: I have sworn.”
I looked at the solemn young face and knew there was nothing I could say to that. I felt a quite irrational anger at Regis because he had forestalled me here. For a moment I wrestled with strong temptation. I could make him see it my way . . .
I recoiled in horror and shame at my own thoughts. The first pledge I had sworn at Arilinn was this: never, never force the will or conscience of another, even for his own good. I could persuade. I could plead. I could use reason, emotion, logic, rhetoric. I could even seek out Regis and beg bim for his consent; he too had reason to be disaffected, to rebel against the corruption in the Comyn. But further than this I could not go. I could not. That I had even thought of it made me feel a little sick.
“I may indeed ask Regis for your aid, Dani,” I said quietly. “He too is my friend. But I will never force you. I am not Dyan Ardais!”
That made him smile a little. “I never thought you were, Lew. And if my lord gives me leave, then I will trust him, and you. But until that time shall come, Dom Lewis”—he gave me my title very formally, though we had been using the familiar mode before this—”have I your permission to depart and return to my father?”