I took Danilo’s sword and walked back to the dais. I gripped it between my heavily gauntleted hands and bent it across my knee. It was heavy and harder to bend than I’d realized, and I had time to wonder what I’d do if the damned thing didn’t break or if I lost my grip and it went flying across the room. There was a little nervous coughing deep in the room. I strained at the blade, thinking, Break, damn you, break, let’s get this filthy business over before we all start screaming!
It broke, shattered with a sound shockingly like breaking glass. If anything, I’d expected a noisy metallic resonance. One half slithered away to the floor; I let it lie.
Straightening my back I saw Regis’ eyes full of tears. I looked across at Dyan.
Dyan. …
For an Instant his barriers were down. He was not looking at me, or at the sword. He was staring at Danilo with a hateful, intense, mocking, satiated look. A look of horrid, satisfied lust. There was simply no other word for it.
And all at once I knew—I should have known all along— exactly how and why Danilo had been persecuted, until in a moment of helpless desperation he had been goaded into drawing a knife against his persecutor … or possibly against himself.
Either way, the moment the knife was loose from the sheath, Dyan had him exactly where he wanted him. Or the next best thing.
I don’t think I’ll ever know how I got through the rest of the ceremony. My mind retains only shaken vignettes: Danilo’s face as white as his shirt after the full-dress uniform tabard had been cut away. How shabby he looked. And how young! Dyan taking the sword from my hand, smirking. By the time my brain fully cleared again, I was out of the Guard hall and on the stairs to the Alton rooms.
My father was wearily taking off his dress-uniform. He looked drawn and exhausted. He was really ill, I thought, and no wonder. This would make anyone sick. He looked up, saying tiredly, “I have all your safe-conducts arranged. There is an escort ready for you, with pack animals. You can get away before midday, unless you think the snow’s likely to be too heavy before nightfall.”
He handed me a packet of folded papers. It looked very official, hung with seals and things. For a minute I could hardly remember what he was talking about The trip to Aldaran had receded very far. I put the papers into my pocket without looking at them.
“Father,” I said, “you cannot do this. You cannot ruin a boy’s life through Dyan’s spite, not again.”
“I tried to talk him out of it, Lew. He could have condoned it or handled it privately. But since he made it official, I couldn’t pass it over. Even if it had been you, or the Hastur boy.”
“And what of Dyan? Is it soldierly to provoke a child?”
“Leave Dyan out of it, son. A cadet must learn to control himself under any and all conditions. He will have the life and death of dozens, of hundreds, of men in his hands some day. If he cannot control his personal feelings …” My father reached out, laying his hand on my wrist in a rare caress. “My son, do you think I never knew how hard he tried to provoke you to the same thing? But I trusted you, and I was right I’m disappointed in Dani.”
But there was a difference. Though he was perhaps harsher than most people thought an officer should be, Dyan had done nothing to me that was not permitted by the regulations of the cadet corps. I said so, adding, “Do the regulations require that the cadets must endure that from an officer too? Cruelty, even sadistic discipline, is had enough. But persecution of this kind, the threat of sexual attack—”
“What proof have you of that?”
It was like a deluge of ice water. Proof. I had none. Only the satisfied, triumphant look on Dyan’s face, the sickness of shame in Danilo, a telepathic awareness I had had no right to read. Moral certainty, yes, but no proof. I just knew.