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trade.”
    “Not too much love of it, though,” said   Dom   Esteban, who had listened with interest as they approached, “or he’ll harden them and make them brutes, not men. So you have come at last, Domenic, my lad?”
    The boy laughed. “Why, no, Father, I am still carousing in a Thendara tavern. What you see here is myghost.” Then the merriment slid off his face as he saw his father, thin, graying, his useless legs coveredwith a wolfskin robe. He dropped to his knees beside the wheelchair. He said brokenly, “Father, oh, Father, I would have come at any moment, if you had sent for me, truly—”
    The Alton lord laid his hands on Domenic’s shoulders. “I know that, dear lad, but your place was in Thendara, since I could not be there. Yet the sight of you makes my heart more glad than I can say.”
    “I too,” said Domenic, scrambling up and looking down at his father. “I am relieved to see you so well
    and hearty; reports in Thendara had you at the point of death, or even dead and buried!”
    “It is not as bad as that,”   Dom   Esteban said, laughing. “Come sit here beside me, tell me all that goes on in Guard-hall and Council.” It was easy to see, Andrew thought, that this merry boy was the very light of his father’s eyes.
    “I will, and gladly, Father, but this is a wedding day and we are here for merrymaking, and there is little mirth to that tale! Prince Aran Elhalyn thinks I am all too young to have command of the Guards, even while you lie here sick at Armida, and he whispers that tale night and day into the ears of Hastur. And Lorenz of Serrais—forgive me for speaking ill of your brother, Damon—”
    Damon shook his head. “My brother and I are not on the best of terms, Domenic, so say what you will.”
    “Lorenz, then, damn him for a warped scheming fox, and old Gabriel of Ardais, who wants the post for that bullying wretch of a son of his, are quick to sing the same chorus, that I am all too young to command the Guards. They are about Aran night and day with flattery and gifts that stop just that one step short of being bribes, to persuade him to name one of them Commander while you are here in Armida! Will you be back before Midsummer festival, Father?”
    A shadow passed over the crippled man’s face. “That must be as the Gods will have it, my son. Wouldthe Guards be commanded, think you, by a man chair-bound, with legs of no more use thanfish-flippers?”
    “Better a lame commander than a commander who is no Alton,” Domenic said with fierce pride. “I could command in your name, and do all for you, if you were only   there   , to command as the Altons have done so many generations!”
    His father gripped his hands, hard. “We shall see, my son. We shall see what comes.” But even thatthought, Damon could see, had fired the Alton lord with a sudden hope and purpose. Would he, indeed,be able to command the Guards again from his chair, with Domenic at his side?
    “Alas that we have now no Lady Bruna in our family,” Domenic said gaily. “Say, Callista, will you take
    up the sword as Lady Bruna did, and command the Guardsmen?”

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    She laughed, shaking her head. Damon said, “I do not know that tale,” and Domenic repeated it, smiling. “It was generations ago—how many I do not know—but her name is written in the rolls of Commanders,how Lady Bruna Leynier, when her brother, who was Lord Alton then, was slain, leaving a son but nineyears old, took the lad’s mother in freemate marriage to protect her, as women may do, and ruled the Guards till he came of age to command. In the annals of the Guards, it says she was a notablecommander too. Would you not have that fame, Callista? No? Ellemir?” He shook his head with mocksadness as they declined. “Alas, what has come to the women of our clan? They are not what they werein those days!”
    Standing around Dom   Esteban’s chair, the family resemblance was overwhelming. Domenic looked