Sharra's Exile by Marion Zimmer Bradley Read Free Book Online Page A

flooded through Regis. He had intended to tell Danilo this in his own time. He said stiffly, “I have no intention of marrying at this time, kinsman. No more than you.”
    Dyan’s eyes glinted with amused malice. He said, “Why, have I said the wrong thing? I’ll leave you to make your peace with my foster-son, then, Regis.” He rose and bowed to them with great courtesy.
    “Pray command anything here you wish, wine or food or—entertainment; you are my guests this
    evening.” He bowed again and left them, taking up his great fur-lined cloak, which flowed behind him over his arm like a living thing.
    After a minute Danilo said, and his voice sounded numb, “Don’t mind, Regis. He envies our friendship, no more than that, and he is striking out. And, I suppose, he feels foolish; to father a bastard son at his age.”
    “I swear I meant to tell you,” Regis said miserably, “I was waiting for the right time. I wanted to tell you before you heard it somewhere as gossip.”
    “Why, Regis, what is it to do with me, if you have love affairs with women?”
    “You know the answer to that,” said Regis, low and savage, “I have no love affairs with women. You know that things like this must happen, while I am Heir to Hastur. Comyn Heirs at stud in the Domains
    —that’s what it amounts to! Dyan doesn’t like it any better than you do, but even so, he spoke of getting you married off. And I am damned if I’ll marry someone they choose for me, as if I were a stud horse! That’s what it was, and that is all it was. Crystal di Asturien is a very nice young woman; I danced with her at half a dozen of the public dances, I found her friendly and pleasant to talk to, and—”
    He shrugged. “What can I say to you? She wanted to bear a Hastur son. She’s not the only one. Do I have to apologize for what I must do, or would you rather I did not enjoy it?”
    “You certainly owe me no apologies.” Danilo’s voice was cold and dead.
    “Dani—” Regis pleaded, “are we going to let Dyan’s malice drive a wedge between us, after all this time?”
    Danilo’s face softened. “Never, bredhyu . But I don’t understand. You already have an Heir—you have adopted your sister’s son.”
    “And Mikhail is still my Heir,” Regis retorted, “but the Hastur heritage has hung too long on the life of a single child. My grandfather will not force me to marry—as long as I have children for the Hastur lineage. And I don’t want to marry,” he added. The unspoken awareness hung in the air between them.
    A waiter came, bowing, and asked if the vai domyn had any other pleasure: wine, sweets, young entertainers— He weighted this last heavily, and Danilo could not conceal a grimace of distaste.
    “No, no, nothing more.” He hesitated, glancing at Regis. “Unless you—”
    Regis said wryly, “I am a libertine only with women, Dani, but no doubt I have given you cause to think otherwise.”
    “If we have to quarrel,” Dani said, with a gulp, “Let us at least do it in clean air and not in a place like this!”
    Regis felt a great surge of enormous bitterness. Dyan had done this, damn it! He said, “Oh, no doubt, this is the place for lovers’ quarrels of this kind—and I suppose if the Heir to Hastur and his favorite must quarrel, better here than in Comyn Castle, where all the Domains, sooner or later, will hear!”
    And again he felt, it is more of a burden than I can bear!
    CHAPTER TWO
    Vainwal: Terran Empire
    Fifth year of exile
    Dio Ridenow saw them first in the lobby of the luxury hotel serving humans, and humanoids, on the pleasure-world of Vainwal. They were tall, sturdy men, but it was the blaze of red hair on the elder of them that drew her eyes; Comyn red. He was past fifty and walked with a limp: his back was bent, but it was easy to see that once he had been a large and formidable man. Behind him walked a younger man in nondescript clothing, dark-haired and black-browed, sullen, with steel-gray eyes.