Free Heritage and Exile by Marion Zimmer Bradley Page B

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 wasn’t 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 a half dozen 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.
    I realized that I was blisteringly angry. I’d seen Regis desperate, suicidal, ill, prostrated, suffering some unforeseen aftereffect of kirian, even dead—and he walked in casually, upsetting call-over ceremony and discipline. I told him brusquely, “Take your place, cadet,” and dismissed the servants.
    He could not have resembled less the boy who had sat by my fire last night, eating stew and pouring out his bitterness. He was wearing full Comyn regalia, badges, high boots, a sky-blue tunic of an elaborate cut. He walked to his place among the cadets, his head held stiffly high. I could sense the fear and shyness in him, but I knew the other cadets would regard it as Comyn arrogance, and he would suffer for it. He looked tired, almost ill, behind the façade of arrogant control. What had happened to him last night? Damn him, I recalled myself with a start, why was I worrying about the heir to Hastur? He hadn’t worried about me, or the fact that if he’d come to harm, I’d have been in trouble!
    I finished the parade of loyalty oaths. Dyan leaned toward me and said, “I was in the city with Council last night. Hastur asked me to explain the situation to the Guards; have I your permission to speak, Captain Montray-Lanart?”
    Dyan had never given me my proper title, in or out of the Guard hall. I grimly told myself that the last thing I wanted was his approval. I nodded and he walked to the center of the dais. He looks no more like a typical Comyn lord than I do; his hair is dark, not the traditional red of Comyn, and he is tall, lean, with the six-fingered hands which sometimes turn up in the Ardais and Aillard clans. There is said to be nonhuman blood in the Ardais line. Dyan looks it.
    â€œCity Guardsmen of Thendara,” he rapped out, “your commander, Lord Alton, has asked me to review the situation.” His contemptuous look said more plainly than words that I might play at being in command, but he was the one who could explain what was going on.
    There seemed, as nearly as I could tell from Dyan’s words, to be a high level of tension in the city, mostly between the Terran Spaceforce and the City Guard. He asked every Guardsman to avoid incidents and to honor the curfew, to remember that the Trade City area had