Part 39 (1/2)

I've grown too lax and easy away from Narsindalvak. But I'll not risk everything I've gained out of carelessness. Not now. I've hacked my way through the ranks and now I hold the high ground. Your reminder's most timely. It could also be your death warrant in due course.

Chapter 53.

A strong, ill-tempered wind blew the rain in gusty squalls across the fields, bending and shaking the trees and bushes and confining most living things to the warmth of their nests and burrows. It rattled branches against windows like urgent messengers and whispered through cracks and crannies the draughty news that soon the weather would turn its face from light and warmth and start its journey into the cold Fyorlund winter.

Wrapped and huddled against its raucous jostling, four hors.e.m.e.n moved greyly through the countryside by quiet and little-used paths. For a moment they paused and then they faded into the gloom of a small copse. Within minutes they had rigged and camouflaged the small shelter that had housed them each night since they had left Eldric's stronghold.

Sitting on the torch-dried earth, they ate a frugal meal in companionable silence as the wind buffeted their shelter peevishly and showers of raindrops cascaded intermittently from the wind-shaken trees to drum over their heads like horses galloping suddenly by.

Gavor eyed a spider struggling to climb its slender swinging thread, but settled ungraciously for the bread that Hawklan gave him.

'We've been lucky so far,' said Tel-Odrel. 'The weather's been very helpful. But we'll not get much further by stealth; we're nearly at Vakloss.'

Hawklan looked at the Goraidin and nodded. 'We'll have to separate soon, then,' he said. 'Having us around might jeopardize your mission.'

The two Goraidin exchanged glances.

Tel-Odrel shrugged apologetically. 'Yes,' he said. 'I'm afraid so.' He looked a little embarra.s.sed.

'Establis.h.i.+ng contacts in and around Vakloss is vital. You realize that. Given that that must come first, we'll help you all we can, but you don't even know what you're going to do, do you?' There was a barely controlled exasperation in his voice.

'I know exactly what I'm going to do, Tel,' said Hawklan light-heartedly. 'I'm going to meet Dan-Torand ask him why he's done what he's done.' But his affected levity merely darkened the mood that Tel-Odrel's words had created.

Both the Goraidin frowned. They had stopped trying to dissuade the two Orthlundyn from what they saw as a suicidal mission, but its apparent futility still distressed them.

Hawklan continued, more seriously. 'You're a soldier, Tel, and you've a clear-cut task before you. I'm not and I haven't. But we both know that when logic and reason end, we have to follow our intuition. I'm a healer. I have to go to the heart of the sickness, whatever it costs me.'

'I know, I know,' said Tel-Odrel quickly. 'But . . .'

Hawklan waved him silent. He leaned forward and looked into the Goraidin's eyes. 'Tel,' he said. 'As we near the City, every living thing is beginning to cry out to me. It's as if there's something in the very air round here. What Isloman heard in those mountains, I feel all around. A terrible purposeful corruption. It wasn't there when we left the City . . . at least I didn't feel it.' He paused, momentarily shaken by the realization that he too was probably changing. 'But in any case I'm scarcely master of myself because of it. It's certainly beyond me to walk away from such pain. And I'm drawn inexorably to its centre. Only there will I know what to do.'

Tel-Odrel gave up his last attempt with a sigh. 'Well, at least make yourselves less . . . conspicuous.

Cover up your weapons, don't talk too much . . .' His voice tailed off.

Outside, the bl.u.s.tering wind rattled the little shelter as it continued its relentless buffeting journey across the countryside.

Over the months since the arrest of the Lords, Sylvriss had pursued her resolve to free her husband from Dan-Tor's influence and restore him to health. She had worked painstakingly and heartbreakingly, knowing that Dan-Tor could at any time, either on an inadvertent whim or as an act of malicious political necessity if he discovered the truth, undo her work with effortless ease.

She had long believed that Rgoric's recurring illness was due in no small part to the medication that Dan-Tor plied him with. However, more subtle causes became apparent to her as she built up the silken wall of dutiful and acquiescent behaviour that kept the King from Dan-Tor's sight.

She began to realize that the very presence of the man was important, with his treacherous words that undermined where they purported to support and increased the King's burdens when he was at his most weary so that he would more readily relinquish them. It was a task of joy to replace these sinister blandishments with her own love and tenderness, and she frequently wondered what self-deception in Dan-Tor was preventing him from realizing the effects of his absence from the King. The man puzzled her increasingly. For all his perceptive ruthlessness he had the strangest blind spots in his vision. However, as she watched the man she married fight through to some semblance of health and well-being, Sylvriss's hate for Dan-Tor grew apace.

The deceit she practiced on Dan-Tor was a matter of deep satisfaction to her but she had also to practice a deceit on her husband to keep from him learning of the true state of his country, and that was a matter of increasing distress to her.

At first her lies had been matters of minor expedience to quiet the restless monarch's temporarily feveredmind. Then had developed a strange, idyllic period of mutual self-deception in which both had lost themselves pa.s.sionately in their old affections new-found.

Sylvriss entered this world against her judgement, but it was as if the life they could have had, without the baleful influence of Dan-Tor, was allowed to them in those few months. Although in her darker moments Sylvriss saw its ultimate futility, she suffered no real regrets for what she was doing, but drew great strength and resolve from her husband's happiness, albeit that it must be ephemeral.

But just as their marriage would have changed over undisturbed years, so now it changed over the undisturbed months as Rgoric became stronger. More and more he began to inquire about matters of State, and more and more Sylvriss had to weave an elaborate web of deception to protect him from a direct confrontation with Dan-Tor. That this loathsome gossamer hung from an arbour of trust gave Sylvriss nothing but pain, and she longed for its pa.s.sing even as she strengthened it under the dictates of necessity. Now the tide of circ.u.mstances had swept the moment upon her and she stood alone and frightened in her chamber.

'Go to your room,' Rgoric had said quietly and distantly. 'Go there and wait for me. I'll be some time.'

Around her, beautiful Fyorlund pictures decorated the walls and elaborate carvings fringed the ceiling, while the furniture and carpeting were unmistakably the work of Riddin craftsmen. Sylvriss had blended the two cultures into an elegant and harmonious whole, but she saw little of it now. Her mind was blank with fear and dismay.

For long hours in the past she had rehea.r.s.ed how she might best tell her husband the truth, but no convincing accounting had come to her. That morning, however, Dilrap had advised her that their simple escape plans had been laid.

Ironically, her very restlessness during the previous night had prompted a worried inquiry from Rgoric which she had stilled only with a promise to explain her concerns to him the following day.

As they breakfasted, Rgoric seemed preoccupied. Eventually he raised an affectionate and inquiring eyebrow, and Sylvriss pushed her chair back and stood up. 'Just excuse me for a few minutes,' she said.

Rgoric took her hand and looked at her earnestly. 'Just a few minutes,' he said, part entreaty, part demand. She looked down at him. Older now than his years, by dint of his lined face and greying hair, he was still weak, and a shadow of his former self. But he was no longer the bent, haunted creation that Dan-Tor had made. He was the man she had married. Straight and upright, with a steady hand and clear eye.

She bent down and kissed him. 'Just a few,' she confirmed.

When she returned, he stood up and stared at her. 'Your Muster uniform,' he said, smiling delightedly.

'The one you insisted on wearing when we rode home from Riddin. I remember. Everyone in their fancy clothes and you in your simple tunic and cloak. And you outshone them all.'

'Not too difficult, the way you Fyordyn ride,' Sylvriss replied nervously.

Rgoric smiled again and looked at her proprietorially. 'I'd no idea you still had it. And it fits too.'

Sylvriss patted her stomach and blushed. 'Just about,' she said. Then Rgoric's expression changed, and he put a concerned arm around her shoulder. 'You need to feel the strength of the Muster and yourfamily behind you before you can tell me whatever it is that's been tormenting you?' he said.

Sylvriss returned his embrace and led him to a long couch. She had hoped that the inspiration of the moment would finally come to aid her, but it did not. Where could she start on this hideous saga that would not risk plummeting her husband down into the darkness from which he had been so agonizingly lifted.

Eventually she spoke the problem out loud. 'I don't know where to start,' she said.

'Then start anywhere,' said Rgoric, simply. He reached up and ran his hand through her hair. As she looked up, their eyes met and an overwhelming poignancy tightened her chest and throat.

What followed next she barely recalled. The whole tale flowed out of her; not hysterically, but with an almost unstoppable force as if that would support Rgoric as much as it might inundate him.

Alone now, she clenched her hands in regret and concern as she went over the subtleties and nuances, the complexities of events that she had brushed aside in her haste. And yet, she began to console herself, he had not fallen screaming into dementia, or raged, or reproached her for her perfidy. Just a simple 'Go to your room. Go there and wait for me. I'll be some time.'

But how long ago was that? She took a deep breath to quieten her heart. She must find him. 'Wait for me,' he had said, but what was a modic.u.m of defiance when added to the months of deception?

Total. The word brought an image to her one she had had at times in the early years of her marriage an image of a cornucopia rich with many-coloured gifts. Suddenly her guilt fell from her like an ill-fastened cloak. They were each the total of one another's making. They would be together now, whether the moment was one of joy or horror. They were irrevocably joined for this span of their lives.

Even though he might at this very moment be rejecting her, he would still be her support, he would still be half her life, and she his.