All the more wrong of the Comyn, I thought, since it was by their doing that my father had first gone to Terra. Well, it was all of a piece with their doings since. And another score I bore against them.
Yet my father stood with them!
Kenniac concluded, “When it was clear they would not accept you, I offered to Kennard that you should be fostered here, honored at least as Elaine’s son if not as his. He was certain he could force them, at last, to accept you. He must have succeeded, then?”
“After a fashion,” I said slowly. “I am his heir.” I did not want to discuss the costs of that with him. Not yet.
The steward had been trying to attract Lord Kermiac’s attention; he saw it and gave a signal for the tables to be cleared. As the great crowd who dined at his table began to disperse, he led me into a small sitting room, dimly lighted, a pleasant room with an open fireplace. He said, “I am old, and old men tire quickly, nephew. But before I go to rest, I want you to know your kinsmen. Nephew, your cousin, my son Beltran.”
To this day, even after all that came later, I still remember how I felt when I first looked on my cousin. I knew at last what blood had shaped me such a changeling among the Comyn. In face and feature we might have been brothers; I have known twins who were less like. Beltran held out his hand, drew it back and said, “Sorry, I have heard that telepaths don’t like touching strangers.”
“I won’t refuse a kinsman my hand,” I said, and returned the clasp lightly. In the strange mood I was in the touch gave me a swift pattern of impressions: curiosity, enthusiasm, a disarming friendliness. Kermiac smiled at us as we stood close together and said, “I leave your cousin to you, Beltran. Lew, believe me, you are at home.” He said good night and left us, and Beltran drew me toward the others. He said, “My father’s foster-children and wards, cousin, and my friends. Come and meet them. So you’re tower-trained? Are you a natural telepath as well?”
I nodded and he said, “Marjorie is our telepath.” He drew forward the pretty, red-haired girl in blue whom I had noticed at the table. She smiled, looking directly into my eyes in the way mountain girls have. She said, “I am a telepath, yes, but untrained; so many of the old things have been forgotten here in the mountains. Perhaps you can tell us what you were taught at Arilinn, kinsman.”
Her eyes were a strange color, a tint I had never seen before: gold-flecked amber, like some unknown animal. Her hair was almost red enough for the valley Comyn. I gave her my hand, as I had done with Beltran. It reminded me a little of the way the women at Arilinn had accepted me, simply as a human being, without fuss or flirtatiousness. I felt strangely reluctant to let her fingers go. I asked, “Are you a kinswoman?”
Beltran said, “Marjorie Scott, and her sister and brother, too, are my father’s wards. It’s a long story, he may tell you some day if he will. Their mother was my own mother’s foster-sister, so I call them, all three, sister and brother.” He drew the others forward and presented them. Rafe Scott was a boy of eleven or twelve, not unlike my own brother Marius, with the same gold-flecked eyes. He looked at me shyly and did not speak. Thyra was a few years older than Marjorie, a slight, restless, sharp-featured woman, with the family eyes but a look of old Kermiac, too. She met my eyes but did not offer her hand. ‘This is a long and weary journey for a lowlander, kinsman.”
“I had good weather and skilled escort for the mountains,” I said, bowing to her as I would have done to a lady of the Domains. Her dark features looked amused, but she was friendly enough, and for a little we talked of weather and the mountain roads. After a time Beltran drew the conversation back.