And Regis had shared it all with him, there were no barriers between them. None. Regis had known what Lew wanted and would not ask, was too proud and too shy to ask. Something Regis had never felt before, that Lew thought he was too young to feel or to understand. But Regis had known and had shared it.
And afterward, perhaps because Lew had never spoken of it, Regis was too ashamed to remember. And he had never dared open his mind again. Why? Why? Out of fear, out of shame? Out of … longing?
Until Danilo, without even trying, broke that barricade.
And now Regis knew why it was Dani who could break it …
He doesn’t know, Regis thought, and then with a bleak and spartan pride, He must never know.
He stood up, felt the splitting pain at his forehead again. He knew a frightened moment of disquiet. How could he keep this from him? Dani was a telepath too!
Lew had said it was like living with your skin off. Well, his skin was off and he was doubly naked. Taking a grip on himself, he walked out into the other room, decided his boots weren’t dry. Inside he felt cold and trembly, but physically he was quite warm and calm.
How could be face Lew again, knowing this? Coldly, Regis told himself not to be a fool. Lew had always known. He wasn’t a coward, he didn’t lie to himself! Lew remembered, so no wonder he was astonished when Regis had said he did not have laran!
Lew had asked him why he could not bear to remember….
“You should have gone straight to bed and let me bring you supper there,” Danilo said behind him, and Regis, firmly taking mastery of his face, looked around. Danilo was looking at him with friendly concern, and Regis remembered, with a shock, that Danilo knew nothing, nothing of the memory and awareness that had flooded him in the scant few minutes they had been parted. He said aloud, trying for a casual neutral tone, “I collapsed before I saw anything of the suite but this room. I have no idea where I’m going to be sleeping.”
“And I’ve had days with nothing to do but explore. Come, I’ll show you the way. I told the servant to bring your supper in here. How does it feel to be quartered in a royal suite, after the student dormitory at Nevarsin?”
There was room enough for a regent and all his entourage in this guest suite: enormous bedrooms, servants quarters in plenty, a great hall, even a small octagonal presence chamber with a throne and footstools for petitioners. It was more elaborate than his grandfather’s suite in Thendara. Danilo had chosen the smallest and least elaborate bedroom, but it looked like a royal favorite’s chamber. There was a huge bed on a dais which would, Regis thought irreverently, have held a Dry-Towner, three of his wives and six of his concubines. The servant he had seen before was warming the sheets with a long-handled warming pan, and there was a fire in the fireplace. He let Danilo help him into the big bed, put a tray of hot food beside him. Danilo sent the man away, saying gravely, “It is my privilege to wait on my lord with my own hands.” Regis would have laughed at the solemn, formal words, but knew even a smile would hurt Danilo unspeakably. He kept his composure, until the man was out of earshot, then said, “I hope you’re not going to take that formal my-lord tone all the time now, bredu.”
There was relief in Danilo’s eyes too. “Only in front of strangers, Regis.” He came and lifted covers off steaming bowls of food, clambered up on the bed and poured hot soup from a jug. He said, ‘The food’s good. I had to ask for cider instead of wine the first day, that’s all. I see they brought both tonight, and the cider’s hot.”
Regis drank the soup and the hot cider thirstily; but although it was his first hot meal in days, he found it almost too hard to chew and swallow.