“I was certainly issued no polite invitation, Lord Aldaran. Do you disarm all your honored guests?”
I said, “Go and send that message, Beltran. Let me talk to him alone.” Beltran went and I mended the fire, leaving Danilo to recover his composure. At last I asked, “Tell me the truth, Danilo, have you been ill-treated?”
“No, though they were not gentle. We were some days riding, then the sky-machine. I do not know its name….”
The helicopter. I had seen it land. I knew I should have gone after Beltran. If I had been there when Danilo was brought from it—well, it was done. I said, “A helicopter is safer, in the peaks and crossdrafts of the Hellers, than any ordinary plane. Were you very frightened?”
“Only for a little, when we were forced down by weather. Mostly I feared for my father.”
“Well, a message will be sent. Have you had anything to eat?”
“They offered me something when we first landed,” he said. He did not say he had been too shaken and frightened to eat, but I surmised that. I called a servant and said, “Ask my uncle to excuse me from his table, and say that Lord Beltran will explain. Then send some food here for my guest and myself.” I turned back to the boy. “Dani, am I your enemy?”
“Captain, I— “I’ve left the Guards,” I said. “Not captain, now.”
To my amazement he said, “Too bad. You were the only officer everybody liked. No, you’re not my enemy, Lew, and I always thought your father was my friend. It was Lord Dyan—you do know what happened?”
“More or less,” I said. “Whatever it may have been this time, I know damn well that by the time you drew your dagger he’d given you enough provocation for a dozen duels anywhere else. You don’t have to tell me all the nasty little details. I know Dyan.”
“Why did the Commander—”
“They were children together,” I said. “In his eyes Dyan can do no wrong. I’m not defending him, but didn’t you ever do anything you thought was wrong, for a friend’s sake?”
“Did you?” he asked. I was still trying to think how to answer when our supper was brought. I served Dani, but found I was not hungry and sat nibbling at some fruit while the boy satisfied his appetite. I wondered if they had fed him at all since his capture. No, boys that age were always hungry, that was all.
While he ate I worried what Marjorie would think when she woke and found herself alone. Was Rafe really all right, or should I go and make certain? Had Kermiac suffered any lasting ill-effects from Thyra’s rashness? I didn’t approve of what Beltran had done, but I knew why he had been tempted to do it. We needed someone like Danilo so badly that it terrified me.
I poured Dani a glass of wine when he had finished. He merely tasted it for courtesy’s sake, but at least now he was willing to go through the motions of courtesy again. I took a sip of mine and set it aside.
“Danilo, you know you have laran. You also have one of the rarest and most precious Comyn gifts, one we’ve thought extinct. If Comyn Council finds out, they’ll be ready and willing to make all kinds of amends for the stupid and cruel thing Dyan did to you. They’ll offer you anything you want, up to and including a seat in Comyn Council if you want that, marriage with someone like Linnell Aillard—you name it, you can probably have it You attended that Council meeting among the Terrans. Are you interested in power of that sort? If so, they’ll be lining up two and three deep to offer it to you. Is that what you want?”
“I don’t know,” he said, “I never thought about it. I expected, after I finished in the cadets, to stay quietly at home and look after my father while he lived.”
“And then?”
“I hadn’t thought about that either. I suppose I thought when that time came, I’d be grown up, and then I’d know what I wanted.”