“The Regent’s compliments, Lord Regis. He has been urgently called into the city. He asks you to make yourself comfortable and to see him in the morning.”
Regis made some formal answer and turned to me with a humorless smile. “So much for the eager welcome of my loving grandsire.”
One hell of a welcome, indeed, I thought. No one could expect the Regent of Comyn to stand out in the rain and wait, hut he could have sent more than a servant’s message! I said quickly, “You’ll come to us, of course. Send a message with your grandfather’s man and come along for some dry clothing and some supper!”
Regis nodded without speaking. His lips were blue with cold, his hair lying soaked on his forehead. He gave appropriate orders, and I went back to my own task: making sure that all of Father’s entourage, servants, bodyguards, Guardsmen, banner-bearers and poor relations, found their way to their appointed places.
Things gradually got themselves sorted out. The Guardsmen went off to their own quarters. The servants mostly knew what to do. Someone had sent word ahead to have fires lighted and the rooms ready for occupancy. The rest of us found our way through the labyrinth of halls and corridors to the quarters reserved, for the last dozen generations, to the Alton lords. Before long no one was left in the main hall of our quarters except Father, Marius and myself, Regis, Lord Dyan, our personal servants and half a dozen others. Regis was standing before the fire warming his hands. I remembered the night when Father had broken the news that he was to leave us and spend the next three years at Nevarsin. He and I had been sitting before the fire in the great hall at Armida, cracking nuts and throwing the shells into the fire; after Father finished speaking he had gone to the fire and stood there just like that, quenched and shivering, his face turned away from us all.
Damn the old man! Was there no friend, no kinswoman, he could send to welcome Regis home?
Father came to the fire. He was limping badly. He looked at Marius’ riding companion and said, “Danilo, I had your things sent directly to the cadet barracks. Shall I send a man to show you the way, or do you think you can find it?”
“There’s no need to send anyone, Lord Alton.” Danilo Syrtis came away from the fire and bowed courteously. He was a slender, bright-eyed boy of fourteen or so, wearing shabby garments which I vaguely recognized as once having been my brother’s or mine, long outgrown. That was like Father; he’d make sure that any protégé of his started with the proper outfit for a cadet. Father laid a hand on his shoulder. “You’re sure? Well, then, run along, my lad, and good luck go with you.”
Danilo, with a polite formula murmured vaguely at all of us, withdrew. Dyan Ardais, warming his hands at the fire, looked after him, eyebrows lifted. “Nice looking youngster. Another of your nedestro sons, Kennard?”
“Dani? Zandru’s hells, no! I’d be proud enough to claim him, but truly he’s none of mine. The family has Comyn blood, a few generations back, but they’re poor as miser’s mice; old Dom Felix couldn’t give him a good start in life, so I got him a cadet commission.”
Regis turned away from the fire and said, “Danilo! I knew I should have recognized him; he was at the monastery one year. I truly couldn’t remember his name, Uncle. I should have greeted him!”
The word he used for uncle was the casta term slightly more intimate than kinsman. I knew he had been speaking to my father, but Dyan chose to take it as addressed to himself. “You’ll see him in the cadets, surely. And I haven’t greeted you properly, either.” He came and took Regis in a kinsman’s embrace, pressing his cheek, to which Regis submitted, a little flustered; then, holding him at arm’s length, Dyan looked closely at him. “Does your sister hate you for being the beauty of the family, Regis?”
Regis looked startled and a little embarrassed. He said, laughing nervously, “Not that she ever told me. I suspect Javanne thinks I should be running around in a pinafore.”