Dyan, he kept thinking. In charge of cadets, misusing power like that, and no one knew, or cared, or interfered.
Oh, they knew, he realized. They must have known. He would never believe Dyan could have deceived Kennard!
He remembered that curious unsatisfactory talk in the tavern with Dyan and his head throbbed harder, as if the very violence of his emotions would burst it asunder. He felt all the worse because he had, in truth, liked Dyan, had admired him and been flattered by his attention. He had welcomed the chance to talk to a kinsman as an equal … like a stupid, silly child! Now he knew what Dyan was trying to find out, so subtle it was never even an invitation.
It was not the nature of Dyan’s desires that troubled him so greatly. It was not considered anything so shameful to be an ombredin, a lover of men. Among boys too young for marriage, rigidly kept apart by custom from any women except their own sisters or cousins, it was considered rather more suitable to seek companionship and even love from their friends than to consort with such women as were common to all. It was eccentric, perhaps, in a man of Dyan’s years, but certainly not shameful.
What sickened Regis was the kind and type of pressure used against Danilo, the deliberate, sadistic cruelty of it, the particularly subtle revenge Dyan had taken for the wound to his pride.
Petty harrassment would have been cruel but understandable. But to use laran against him! To force himself on Danilo’s mind, to torment him that way! Regis felt physically ill with disgust
Besides, he thought, still tossing restlessly, there were enough men or young lads who would have welcomed Dyan’s interest. Some, perhaps, only because Dyan was a Comyn lord, rich and able to give presents and privileges to his friends, but others, certainly, would find Dyan a charming, pleasing and sophisticated companion. He could have had a dozen minions or lovers and no one would have thought of criticizing him. But some perverse cruelty made him seek the one boy in the cadets who would have none of him. A cristoforo.
He turned on his side, thrust a pillow over his face to shut out the light of the single candle he was too weary to get up and extinguish, and tried to sleep. But his mind kept going back to the frightening, disturbingly sexual nightmares which had preceded the wakening of his own laran. He knew now how Dyan had pursued Danilo even in sleep, enjoying the boy’s fright and shame. And he knew now the ultimate corruption of power: to make another person a toy to do your will.
Was Dyan mad, then? Regis considered. No, he was very sane, to choose a poor boy, one without powerful friends or patrons. He played with Dani as a cat plays with a captive bird, torturing where he could not kill. Regis felt sick again. Pleasure in pain. Did it give Dyan that kind of pleasure to batter him black and blue at swordplay? With the vivid tactile memory of a telepath he relived that moment when Dyan had run his hands over his bruised body, the deliberate sensual quality of the touch. He felt physically used, contaminated, shamed. If Dyan had been physically present then, Regis would have struck him and dared the consequences himself.
And Dani was a catalyst telepath. That terrible force, that loathsome compulsion, against the rarest and most sensitive of telepaths!
Again and again, compulsively, he returned to that night in the barracks when he had tried—and failed—to reach out to Danilo and comfort him. He felt again and again the pain, the physical and mental shock of that wild rejection, the flood of guilt, terror, shame which had flooded him from that brief and innocent touch on Danilo’s bare shoulder. Cassilda, blessed Mother of the Comyn! Regis thought in scalding shame, I touched him! Is it any wonder he thought me no better than Dyan?
He turned over on his back and lay staring at the vaulted ceiling, feeling his body ice over with dread. Dyan was a member of Council. They could not be so corrupt that they would know what Dyan had done, and say nothing. But who could tell them?