Sharra's Exile Read Online Free

“What—and deprive every girl in the city of the joys of hopeless love?”
    Regis made a nervous gesture—the gesture of a fencer who concedes a hit. Danilo knew he had struck too close to the nerve, but did not make it worse with an apology. Regis picked up the thought anyway; The Regent is pressuring him to marry again, damned old tyrant! At least my foster-father understands why I do not . Then Danilo managed to shield his thoughts; they went into the tavern near the gates of the Guard Hall.
    The front room was crowded with young cadets. A few of the boys saluted Regis and he had to speak a word or two to them, but they finally got through to the quieter back room, where the older officers were drinking. The room was semi-dark even at this hour, and some of the men nodded in a friendly fashion to Regis and his companion, but immediately turned back to their own affairs; not
    unfriendliness but a way of giving the Hastur Heir the only privacy and anonymity he ever could have these days. Unlike the boys in the outer room, who enjoyed the knowledge that even the powerful Hastur-lord was required by law and custom to return their salutes and acknowledge their existence, these officers knew a little of Regis’s burden and were willing to let him alone if he wished.
    The tavernkeeper, who knew him too, brought his usual wine without asking. “What would you like, Dani?”
    Danilo shrugged. “Whatever he’s brought.”
    Regis began to protest, then laughed and poured the wine; the drinking was only an excuse, anyway. He raised his rough mug, sipped and said, “Now tell me everything that’s been happening while you were away. I’m sorry about your father, Dani; I liked him and hoped to bring him to court someday. Did you spend all that time in the Hellers?”
    Hours slipped away while they talked, the wine half forgotten between them. At last they heard the drum-roll of “Early Quarters” beat out from the Guard Hall, and Regis started, half rising, then laughed, remembering that he was no longer obliged to answer to it. He sat down again.
    “What a soldier you’ve become!” Danilo teased.
    “I liked it,” Regis said, after a moment. “I always knew exactly what was expected of me, and who expected it, and what to do about it. If there were war, it would have been a different thing. But the worst trouble I ever had was in breaking up street riots, or escorting drunks to the lockup if they were making a nuisance of themselves, or investigating when a house was robbed, or making somebody tie up a troublesome dog. Last year there was a riot in the marketplace—no, this one is funny, Dani; a cattle-drover’s wife had left him because, she said, she had caught him in her own bed with her own cousin! So she slipped into his stall, and stampeded the animals he’d brought to sell! There were upset stalls and broken crockery all over the place… I happened to be officer of the day, so I caught it! One of the cadets complained that he’d left home so he wouldn’t have to chase dairy animals all day long!
    Well, we finally got them all rounded up again, and I had to go and testify before the city magistrate. So the cortes fined the woman twelve reis for all the damage the beasts had caused, and it was the husband who had to pay the fine! He protested that he had been the victim, and it was his wife who let the animals loose, and the magistrate—she was a Renunciate—said that it would teach him to conduct his love affairs in decent privacy, in a way that didn’t insult or humiliate his wife!”
    Danilo laughed, more at the reminiscent amusement in Regis’s face, than at the story. Out in the other room, he heard the cadets jostling each other and bickering as they paid their accounts and went back to barracks. “Did I see one of your sister’s sons among the cadets out there? They must be great boys now.”
    “Not yet this year,” said Regis. “Rafael is only twelve, and young Gabriel only eleven… I