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belongings; I took them and went downto the Guard hall.

    The main Guard hall in Comyn Castle is on one of the lowest levels; behind it lie barracks, stables,armory and parade ground, and before it a barricaded gateway leads down into Thendara. The rest of Comyn Castle leaves me unmoved, but I never looked up at the great fan-lighted windows without acurious swelling in my throat.
    I had been fourteen years old, and already aware that because of what I was my life was fragmentedand insecure, when my father had first brought me here. Before sending me to my peers, or what he

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    hoped would be my peers- they'd had other ideas-he'd told me of a few of the Altons who had come before us here. For the first and almost the last time, I'd felt a sense of belonging to those old Altons whose names were a roll call of Darkovan history: My grandfather Valdir, who had organized the first fire-beacon system in the Kalghard Hills. Dom Esteban Lanart, who a hundred years ago had driven the catmen from the caves of Corresanti. Rafael Lanart-Alton, who had ruled as Regent when Stefan Hastur the Ninth was crowned in his cradle, in the days before the Elhalyn were kings in Thendara.
    The Guard hall was an enormous stone-floored, stone-arched room, cobblestones half worn away bythe feet of centuries of Guardsmen. The light came curiously, multicolored and splintered, throughwindows set in before the art of rolling glass was known.
    I drew the lists Andres had given me from a pocket and studied them. On the topmost sheet were thenames of the first-year cadets. The name of Regis Hastur was at the bottom, evidently added somewhatlater than the rest. Damn it where was Regis? I checked the list of second-year cadets. The name of Octavien Vallonde had been dropped from the rolls. I hadn't expected to see his name, but it would haverelieved my mind.
    On the staff list Father had crossed out his own name as commander and written in mine, evidently withhis right hand, and with great difficulty. I wished he had saved himself the trouble. Gabriel Lanart-Hastur, Javanne's husband and my cousin, had replaced me as second-in-command. He should have had thecommand post. I was no soldier, only a matrix technician, and I fully intended to return to Arilinn at
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    Marion Zimmer Bradley
    the end of the three-year interval required now by law. Gabriel, though, was a career Guardsman, liked it and was competent. He was an Alton too, and seated on Council. Most Comyn felt he should have been designated Kennard's heir. Yet we were friends, after a fashion, and I wished he were here today, instead of at Edelweiss waiting for the birth of Javanne's child.
    Father evidently saw no discrepancy. He had been psi technician in Arilinn for over ten years, back inthe old days of tower isolation, yet he had been able afterward to return and take command of the Guards without any terrible sense of dissonance. My own inner conflicts evidently were not important, oreven comprehensible, to him.
    Arms-master again was old Domenic di Asturien, who had been a captain when my father was a cadetof fourteen. He had been my own cadet-master, my first year and was almost the only officer in the Guard who had ever been fair to

    me.

    Cadet-master-I rubbed my eyes and stared at the lists; I must have read it wrong. The words obstinatelystayed the same. Cadet-master: Dyan-Gabriel, Lord Ardais.
    I groaned aloud. Oh, hell, this had to be one of Father's perverse jokes. He's no fool, and only a foolwould put a man like Dyan in charge of half-grown boys. Not after the scandal last year. We hadmanaged to keep the scandal from reaching Lord Hastur, and I had believed that even Dyan knew hehad gone too far.
    Let me be clear about one thing: I don't like Dyan and he doesn't approve of me, but he is a brave man

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    and a good soldier, probably the best and most competent officer in the Guards. As for his personal life,
    no one dares to comment on a Comyn lord's private