Father evidently saw no discrepancy. He had been psi technician in Arilinn for over ten years, back in the old days of tower isolation, yet he had been able afterward to return and take command of the Guards without any terrible sense of dissonance. My own inner conflicts evidently were not important, or even comprehensible, to him.
Arms-master again was old Domenic di Asturien, who had been a captain when my father was a cadet of fourteen. He had been my own cadet-master, my first year and was almost the only officer in the Guard who had ever been fair to me.
Cadet-master—I rubbed my eyes and stared at the lists; I must have read it wrong. The words obstinately stayed the same. Cadet-master: Dyan-Gabriel, Lord Ardais.
I groaned aloud. Oh, hell, this had to be one of Father’s perverse jokes. He’s no fool, and only a fool would put a man like Dyan in charge of half-grown boys. Not after the scandal last year. We had managed to keep the scandal from reaching Lord Hastur, and I had believed that even Dyan knew he had gone too far.
Let me be clear about one thing: I don’t like Dyan and he doesn’t approve of me, but he is a brave man and a good soldier, probably the best and most competent officer in the Guards. As for his personal life, no one dares to comment on a Comyn lord’s private amusements.
I learned, long ago, not to listen to gossip. My own birth had been a major scandal for years. But this had been more than gossip. Personally, I think Father had been unwise to hustle the Vallonde boy away home without question or investigation. Part of what he said was true. Octavien was disturbed, unstable, he’d never belonged in the Guards and it was our mistake for ever accepting him as a cadet. But Father had said that the sooner it was hushed up, the quicker the unsavory story would the down. The rumors had never died of course, probably never would.
The room was beginning to fill up with uniformed men.
Dyan came to the dais where the officers were collecting, gave me an unfriendly scowl. No doubt he had expected to be named as Father’s deputy. Even that would have been better than making him cadet-master.
Damn it, I couldn’t go along with that. Father’s choice or not.
Dyan’s private life was no one’s affair but his own and I wouldn’t care if he chose to love men, women or goats. He could have as many concubines as a Dry-Towner, and most people would gossip no more and no less. But more scandal in the Guards? Damn it, no! This touched the honor of the Guards, and of the Altons who were in charge of it.
Father had put me in command. This was going to be my first command decision, then.
I signaled for Assembly. One or two late-comers dashed into their places. The seasoned men took their ranks. The cadets, as they had been briefed, stayed in a corner.
Regis wasnt among the cadets. I resented bitterly that I was tied here, but there was no help for it.
I looked them all over and felt them returning the favor. I shut down my telepathic sensitivity as much as I could—it wasn’t easy in this crowd—but I was aware of their surprise, curiosity, disgust, annoyance. It all added up, more or less, to Where the hell is the Commander? Or, worse, What’s old Kennard’s bastard doing up there with the staff?
Finally I got their attention and told them of Kennard’s misfortune. It caused a small flurry of whispers, mutters, comments, most of which I knew it would be unwise to hear. I let them get through most of it, then called them to order again and began the traditional first-day ceremony of call-over.
One by one I read out the name of every Guardsman. Each came forward, repeated a brief formula of loyalty to Comyn and informed me—a serious obligation three hundred years ago, a mere customary formality now—of how many men, trained, armed and outfitted according to custom, he was prepared to put into the field in the event of war. It was a long business. There was a disturbance halfway through it and, escorted by half a dozen servants in Hastur livery, Regis made an entrance. One of the servants gave me a message from Hastur himself, with some kind of excuse or explanation for his lateness.