Part 30 (2/2)

The lean-faced Lord seemed to be deeply moved. Quietly, he said, 'Under the Law, any accused person has the right to demand a public Accounting of his accuser. It's the very heart of our Law, Hawklan.' Hawklan nodded. 'But surely if he appears in public he'll simply be taken by the Mathidrin?'

'Not now,' said Darek. 'The word will fly around the City. His very openness will protect him until the Accounting. More than any other act, if Dan-Tor were to breach his right of Accounting it would unite the City against him to a man. It's not merely deep in the Law, it's deep in the people.'

Hawklan frowned. 'And after this Accounting?' he asked.

Darek looked at him, his face unusually pale. 'Who can say?' he replied. 'Eldric's fulfilled his duty to the country by publicly ordering us to unite and arm, presumably he sees the Accounting as his duty to his family.'

'The Accounting's his duty to everyone.' It was Hreldar. 'It'll expose Dan-Tor to the real scrutiny of the people for the first time. They'll start realizing they must choose. He's providing himself as a focus for the people. He's trying to lance the boil that's been festering in our society ever since that . . . man . . .

arrived.' He looked at Eldric, now in earnest conversation with Astrom. 'He's also bought us time,' he said slowly.

Later, the party rested some way outside the City so that Hawklan could tend to Arinndier and Dacu.

Everyone sat motionless and silent in the starry darkness. Eldric's decision dominated all their thoughts, but no one spoke of it. Time enough later.

Hawklan stood leaning against a tree looking back at the City. Streaked with the bright lights of the globes lining its streets, it looked like some great phosph.o.r.escent animal that at any time might waken and come seeking them in the night.

Free now of the immediate dangers of the last few days he felt again the strange unease he had noticed when he first approached Vakloss. It was like a low rumbling note deep within him. What was this place when I was last here? he asked himself. 'You'll ruin your shadow vision staring at those lights.' Isloman's voice interrupted his reverie.

Hawklan nodded. 'I'd not have thought it possible that anyone could use light so destructively,' he said.

'Consider yourself fortunate to be as shadow blind as you are rock-blind, Hawklan,' Isloman replied, his voice strangely solemn. 'Those lights of Dan-Tor's are the stuff of nightmares. More corrupt by far than anything he brought to Pedhavin. He has some terrible, fascinating knowledge.'

Hawklan looked at his friend. 'Fascinating? Take care, Carver,' he said.

Isloman nodded. 'I understand,' he said. 'Dan-Tor's a man of deep and subtle traps. I wonder how many good men have unwrapped his evil, layer by layer, only to be trapped at its heart by those very wrappings?'

'Does it frighten you?' Hawklan asked.

'A little,' said Isloman after a moment's pause. Then, 'No. It frightens me a lot. He's powerful beyond my understanding, old friend. I think he could destroy us with the blink of an eye if he so wished. Still, perhaps I've known that ever since we left the village. It doesn't alter the fact that we have to face him and all he offers. If we don't, we'll die with him at our backs.' Hawklan laid his hand on Isloman's shoulder and turned away from the City to rest his eyes in the deep purple distance.

'Mount up, gentlemen.' Yatsu's soft order came out of the darkness. 'We've some hard riding ahead.'

Chapter 42.

On the day appointed for Jaldaric's execution, the very elements themselves seemed to reflect the new turmoil within the City. An unseasonable wind whipped and buffeted the streets, flapping through the market stalls, blowing petals from the innumerable floral displays that still decorated the colourful houses, and shaking the milling crowds.

Only in the darkest corners of the City did there linger any of the stench that had emanated from the funeral pyre of Dan-Tor's workshops.

Overhead, tattered streams of clouds blew relentlessly from the north as if pursued by some demon, though higher still, the sky was blue and calm and the sun shone warm.

The crowds, too, were unusual: restless and noisy, roaming the streets, then becoming quiet and patient, hovering expectantly near the Palace. They lacked the busy purposefulness of the normal City traffic.

Dan-Tor looked out over the City and scowled as he watched the shadows of the clouds scrambling over the rooftops below. Their innocent movement and the strange, quixotic behaviour of the crowds disturbed him.

Standing behind him in the comparative shade of the centre of the room were Urssain and Dilrap.

Urssain watched Dan-Tor carefully. Emotion on the man's face was a rarity. I must learn to read him, he thought, not for the first time. Urssain's ambition and his fear of Dan-Tor were like badly matched horses in a chariot. First one would pull ahead and then the other. His ride was always uneasy.

'Tell me again,' said Dan-Tor without turning round.

'The rumour came in from all over the City,' Urssain said. 'Eldric has ordered the three Lords and their rescuers to return to their estates and begin organizing the High Guards against you.'

'Against me?' Dan-Tor said. 'Not the King?'

'Against you, Lord . . . Ffyrst,' Urssain confirmed. 'And he announced that he'd come to the Palace today to demand a public Accounting of you as his accuser.'

'And nothing else?'

'No, Ffyrst. It was always the same story.'

'Did you succeed in following this rumour back to its source, Commander?'

Urssain s.h.i.+fted uneasily. 'No, Ffyrst. It proved to be rather . . .'

Dan-Tor turned slightly and fixed him with a sidelong gaze. 'It was impossible, Ffyrst,' Urssain said defensively. 'We interrogated a few people, but the trail invariably led back to some public gathering place of one kind or another. It was obviously started in several places at once.'

'And what do you deduce from this, Commander?' Dan-Tor turned round, his face bright with an open smile. Urssain's stomach went leaden. He had learned enough of Dan-Tor to know that this smile meant his Master was at his most devious. The inviting smile was like soft gra.s.s covering an iron-toothed trap.

He had learned also that this was no time to try intellectual games with him. Let the fear dominate. Simple honesty was the best protection.

'Very little, Ffyrst,' he said. 'Except that he still has many loyal friends in the City. This rumour could be to cover his escape from the City, or it could be to mislead us into thinking he's left the City when he's planning another a.s.sault on the Palace to rescue his son, or . . .'

Dan-Tor raised his hand. 'Commander,' he said. 'Palace life is making you too devious. I'll tell you what all this is.' He waved his hand towards the window. 'It's not a rumour. It's a simple announcement. Lord Eldric's torn between his country and his family, so he's left the country to his friends and is hoping to save his son by this futile gesture. It's a solution to his dilemma that I had thought probable, though I hadn't antic.i.p.ated his flair for theatre. I presume he's hoping to avoid clandestine arrest by making himself so visible to so many people.'

The smile again.

'His hopes may be fulfilled, Ffyrst,' Urssain said, cowering inwardly. Dan-Tor's head tilted like a curious schoolgirl's.

Urssain's mouth dried. 'The crowd's in a strange mood,' he continued. 'Expectant, uncertain. In my opinion it would be dangerous to provoke them needlessly.'

Silence.

'They're talking about the Law, and the Accounting. Everyone's become a juror. All the fear we've instilled into them over the months seems to have evaporated. At least for now.' He hesitated. 'The threat to Jaldaric pushed many of the waverers their way. If we do something imprudent such as seizing Eldric before he speaks we could bring the whole City down on us.'

The white smile vanished and Dan-Tor turned again to the window. Urssain released the muscles he had been holding tense and breathed out carefully. He kept his eyes fixed on the lank, motionless silhouette, vertical against the horizontal clouds streaming past in the sky beyond.

'Are you saying, Commander, that you'd be unable to control this civilian rabble?' said the silhouette eventually.

'If those crowds turn against us, united? Yes. Quite unable. Besides there may be disaffected High Guards amongst them waiting to take advantage of any violence that breaks out.'

'Dilrap?'

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