Part 13 (1/2)

Sylvriss shook her head. 'Oh, how I wish that were true,' she said sadly. 'But he's still far from being fully well again. He's quiet and at some semblance of peace with himself, but his condition isn't stable. He teeters constantly on the edge of one extreme or the other. To mention the Geadrol or the Lords would be to push him over the edge.' She sighed. 'Only by keeping his mind on happier times can I keep him calm and give him the time to become stronger.' Her hands twisted in her lap. 'Fortunately we've a fine store of such memories . . .'

Her voice faded.

Dilrap looked at the Queen's hands. They were abruptly anxious and fidgety. The hands of a woman who had been too long waiting for ill news, not the powerful hands of the skilled rider that had just seized his own.

'I'm afraid there's no help to be found from the King. Probably there'll be hindrance. I can't always tell how his moods are going to turn.' Her mouth made a little ironic twist. 'You and I will have to stand around him like the High Guards around Ethriss at the Last Battle.'

Despite himself, Dilrap smiled at the a.n.a.logy. The imagery appealed to the heroic little boy within him that all life's depredations had not yet totally destroyed.

They did not talk for much longer under the glittering tree. This was no time for detailed plotting and scheming. The essence of their compact had been sealed. Now they were allies against a common foe.

Both saw clearly as never before that ahead of them lay degradation and possibly worse if they did nothing.

It might be that this would still be the case even if they acted against Dan-Tor, but it was their only hope for an alternative future and, if they failed utterly, then at least they would have that strange consolation of dying facing an enemy rather than fleeing from him.

Chapter 19.

For all their new-found resolve and awareness, the four Lords found their material position unchanged.

They did not even know where they were being held except that it was somewhere in the main Palace building and almost certainly underground.

Their journey from the Throne Room following their fateful confrontation with the King had been confined and violent, all four of them shouting and struggling but being relentlessly shepherded by the grim Mathidrin. So unexpected had been the King's action that none of them had had the presence of mind to note where they were going through the maze of corridors and hallways, but their subsequent consensus was that it had been generally downwards. A long way down.

Their food was brought by a series of different guards, and whenever the door was opened, at least twoothers could be seen standing outside.

'We've set ourselves a fair task, Lords,' said Eldric with a grim smile. 'I for one don't feel inclined to match my muscle against what I've seen of our guards. Wherever they're from, they look fit and tough, and we've no idea how many of them are out there.' Then he catalogued their problems. 'Even if we do get out of this room we don't know where we are, thanks to our dignified journey here, and if we managed to get out of the Palace there's no saying how many friends we'll find in the City to help us back to our estates.' His voice had risen with each statement and finally he smacked his hands on his knees and stood up. 'Good grief, we don't even know whether our estates and High Guards still exist,'

he shouted.

'We abandon the idea?' asked Arinndier placidly.

Eldric shot his friend a stern glance. 'Certainly not,' he said fiercely, before catching the humour in Arinndier's eye.

'We just have to move one step at a time that's all,' he concluded, more quietly.

Arinndier smiled. Like all of them, Eldric was paler and thinner as a result of his confinement, but his inner fire seemed to be burning brighter than ever. Occasionally Arinndier felt sparks fly that he had not seen since they fought shoulder to shoulder in the Morlider War. A much younger man had replaced the old one that had so recently been tenanting Eldric's body.

Only once did Eldric refer to his strange decline and recovery. Hreldar and Darek were sleeping and Eldric and Arinndier had fallen into a companionable silence. Arinndier looked at his old friend, pensively tapping a curled finger against his mouth.

'Are you all right?' he inquired tentatively.

Eldric nodded and smiled after a moment. 'Yes. I'm fine now, Arin,' he said. Then he volunteered, 'I'm afraid age has stiffened me up in more ways than one.'

Arinndier looked at him inquiringly.

Eldric spoke very quietly. 'When the King turned on us like that, I panicked. Not for an instant had I thought that such a thing could happen. And all those guards closing in on us. So many . . . so overwhelming. It's a long time since I've been so frightened.'

'We were all frightened,' said Arinndier.

Eldric frowned a little and shook his head. 'No, this wasn't the same. This felt like something breaking inside. Something important that kept me together. Something that would have bent and taken the strain once. It was terrible.' Briefly, his age showed on his face again, but Arinndier did not interrupt.

'Suddenly it was an end, Arin. All the life seemed to go out of me. I felt lost like a child all I wanted to do was bolt for cover, hide in my mother's skirts. Then I was in some kind of darkness. I scarcely remember anything until I heard Darek laying down the law about the Law. You know, I seemed to hear my father shouting at me, ”Get up, boy!” And I did. Whatever had broken came together again.

Something dropped back into place.'

He stood up and looked at the slumbering Darek. Sleep had softened the Lord's lean face and helooked slightly incongruous.

Eldric smiled. 'You remember my father, don't you?'

Arinndier nodded. 'Indeed I do,' he said. 'I always did my best to avoid him.'

Eldric laughed. 'He was all right really. But that's what he used to roar at me if I took a tumble. ”Get up, boy! You'll get killed lying there. Get up, or I'll leave you!” And he would have done too, if I hadn't made the effort.' He shook his head and chuckled warmly. 'He loved me too much to offer me a hand when it wasn't needed, Arin. I didn't realize how hard that was until I'd a son of my own.'

The mood darkened a little at the mention of his son. None of them had heard anything of their families and estates and, though not much dwelled on, it was a greater strain to bear than the captivity itself.

Eldric moved back to his bunk and his topic. 'I think it was probably the suddenness of the change as much as the violence, Arin. Winded me, as it were. We've been too still too long. Maybe the whole country has. Grown stiff and unresponsive. Perhaps we couldn't have antic.i.p.ated what might happen, but we should've been able to accept the reality more quickly when it did, instead of . . .' He left the sentence unfinished and shrugged. 'Anyway, we got knocked down for our pains so we must learn our lessons all over again and that's an old lesson in itself.'

The advantage of moving through life one step at a time is that the worries and doubts of detailed long-term planning are avoided. All that is necessary is a careful probing of the ground immediately ahead, and considerable trust in one's own ability and that of one's companions to move quickly as need arises.

The disadvantage, of course, is that while such probing may prevent a fall into a precipice or a collision with a cliff face, it cannot prevent the return journey that meeting such obstacles entails.

The Lords, however, accepted that they had no alternative, and that their first step was to find out where they were. After some lengthy and fruitless debate about how this was to be achieved, Eldric abruptly gave a frustrated and angry snarl and opted for action. With some truthfulness, but perhaps a little too much bluntness, he gave the first order of his campaign.

'Hreldar, you look the sickest. Lie down and start moaning quickly.' Before Hreldar could speak, Eldric took his elbow and escorted him briskly to the bunk.

'Just moan,' Eldric said, sitting the open-mouthed Lord down unceremoniously. Then, striding across the room, he banged his fist on the door.

'What are you doing?' cried Arinndier and Darek simultaneously in alarmed chorus.

Eldric turned impatiently to Hreldar. 'Moan!' he said, authoritatively. Then to the others, equally firmly, 'Follow my lead.' He renewed his a.s.sault on the door powerfully. Fists and feet.

'Open this d.a.m.ned door,' he roared.

Arinndier and Darek looked at one another briefly and shrugged. This was Eldric, their old commander, and they had not seen him for many years. Eventually they heard the bolts being drawn and the rattle of keys in the lock. Hreldar leaned forward to see what was happening, but Eldric waved him down again. 'Moan,' he mouthed silently.

The door opened slowly and Arinndier quailed inwardly at the sight of the black-clad Mathidrin trooper standing there. He gave the impression of having been carved out of one solid piece of black stone. Tall and heavily built, he exuded a bull-like solidity. Not a man to be tackled lightly, thought Arinndier, or at all, preferably. He also exuded a certain oafish brutality and his fists were clenched at the ends of ma.s.sive arms that hung in a curve away from his body, indicating that his normal gait was a swagger.

'The Lord Hreldar's ill, guard,' began Eldric. 'We must . . .'

'Less noise, prisoners,' said the guard in a harsh, unfamiliar accent, cutting across Eldric's outburst.

Eldric, however, was riding high. He stood up, straight and relaxed in front of the guard, his very posture making him seem at least as tall as the man.