He sighed. It was too late for that, he had gone too far. He said, “One thing more, sister. I go where I may never return. You know what that means. You must give me one of your sons, Javanne, for my heir.”
Her face blanched and she gave a low, stricken cry. He felt the pain in it but he did not look away, and finally she said, her voice wavering, “Is there no other way?”
He tried to make it a feeble joke. “I have no time to get one in the usual way, sister, even if I could find some woman to help me at such short notice.”
Her laughter was almost hysterical; it cut off in the middle, leaving stark silence. He saw slow acceptance dawning in her eyes. He had known she would agree. She was Hastur, of a family older than royalty. She had of necessity married beneath her, since there was no equal, and she had come to love her husband deeply, but her duty to the Hasturs came first. She only said, her voice no more than a thread, “What shall I say to Gabriel?”
“He has known since the day he took you to wife that this day might come,” Regis said. “I might well have died before coming to manhood.”
“Come, then, and choose for yourself.” She led the way to the room where her three sons slept in cots side by side. By the candlelight Regis studied their faces, one by one. Rafael, slight and dark, close-cropped curls tousled around his face; Gabriel, sturdy and swarthy and already taller than his brother. Mikhail, who was four, was still pixie-small, fairer than the others, his rosy cheeks framed in light waving locks, almost silvery white. Grandfather must have looked like that as a child, Regis thought. He felt curiously cold and bereft. Javanne had given their clan three sons and two daughters. He might never father a son of his own. He shivered at the implications of what he was doing, bent his head, groping through an unaccustomed prayer. “Cassilda, blessed Mother of the Domains, help me choose wisely….”
He moved quietly from cot to cot. Rafael was most like him, he thought. Then, on some irresistible impulse, he bent over Mikhail, lifted the small sleeping form in his arms.
“This is my son, Javanne.”
She nodded, but her eyes were fierce. “And if you do not return he will be Hastur of Hastur; but if you do return, what then? A poor relation at the footstool of Hastur?”
Regis said quietly, “If I do not return, he will be nedestro, sister. I will not pledge you never to take a wife, even in return for this great gift. But this I swear to you: he shall come second only to my first legitimately born son. My second son shall be third to him, and I will take oath no other nedestro heir shall ever displace him. Will this content you, breda?”
Mikhail opened his eyes and stared about him sleepily, but he saw his mother and did not cry. Javanne touched the blond head gently, “It will content me, brother.”
Holding the child awkwardly in unpracticed arms, Regis carried him out of the room where his brothers slept “Bring witnesses,” he said, “I must be gone soon. You know this is irrevocable, Javanne, that once I take this oath, he is not yours but mine, and must be sealed my heir. You must send him to Grandfather at Thendara.”
She nodded. Her throat moved as she swallowed hard, but she did not protest “Go down to the chapel,” she said. “I will bring witnesses.”
It was an old room in the depths of the house, the four old god-forms painted crudely on the walls, lights burning before them. Regis held Mikhail on his lap, letting the child sleepily twist a button on his tunic, until the witnesses came, four old men and two old women of the household. One of the women had been Javanne’s nurse in childhood, and his own.
He took his place solemnly at the altar, Mikhail in his arms.
“I swear before Aldones, Lord of Light and my divine forefather, that Hastur of Hasturs is this child by unbroken blood line, known to me in true descent. And in default of any heir of my body, therefore do I, Regis-Rafael Felix Alar Hastur y Elhalyn, choose and name him my nedestro heir and swear that none save my first-born son in true marriage shall ever displace him as my heir; and that so long as I live, none shall challenge his right to my hearth, my home or my heritage. Thus I take oath in the presence of witnesses known to us both. I declare that my son shall be no more called Mikhail Regis Lanart-Hastur, but—” He paused, hesitating among old Comyn names for suitable new names which would confirm the ritual. There was no time to search the rolls for names of honor. He would commemorate, then, the desperate need which had driven him to this. “I name him Danilo,” he said at last. “He shall be called Danilo Lanart Hastur, and I will so maintain to all challenge, facing my father before me and my sons to follow me, my ancestry and my posterity. And this claim may never be renounced by me while I live, nor in my name by any of the heirs of my body.” He bent and kissed his son on the soft baby lips. It was done. They had a strange beginning. He wondered what the end would be. He turned his eyes on his old nurse.