Far below the rare and ringing laughter of Sylvriss and Rgoric was a tiny suite of rooms that had once been servants' quarters. Now it served as prison for the Lords Eldric, Arinndier, Darek and Hreldar, having held them since their arrest.

The garish light of Dan-Tor's globes did not succeed in dispelling the dismal atmosphere that pervaded the crudely decorated rooms, and the confinement of the Lords away from the daylight and fresh air had gradually begun to take its toll.

For a time they demanded to speak before the Geadrol, but their stone-faced Mathidrin guards treatedthem with an indifference that was more dispiriting than any amount of abuse and rough handling. Over the weeks a sense of impotence began to seep into them like dampness into the walls of an ancient cellar.

Physically, Hreldar seemed to suffer most from their imprisonment. His round face thinned noticeably and his jovial disposition became sober to the point of moroseness. More alarmingly, to his friends, a look came into his eyes that none of them had ever seen before, not even when they had all ridden side by side against the Morlider. It was a grim, almost obsessive, determination.

However, it was Eldric's condition that gave them most cause for concern, for while his physical deterioration was not as severe as Hreldar's, he seemed to have aged visibly, as if he had been destroyed from within. No sooner had the cell door closed behind them than his behaviour began to change. Even his initial thundering and roaring had contained a note of desperate petulance. One morning he lay on his bunk without moving, his face turned to the wall, and from then on it took his friends' every effort to make him attend to even the simple necessities of life.

Arinndier too became worried and fretful, though it was more at the condition of his friends than as a result of his own privation.

Only Darek, thin-faced and wiry, and more given to the pleasures of study than those of the field, seemed to be unaffected by their captivity. His a.n.a.lysis of their conduct was cruel.

'I suppose having behaved like children, we must expect to be treated like children,' he said, sitting on a rough wooden bunk next to a slumped and indifferent Eldric and leaning back against the wall.

Hreldar turned to look at him silently, his face non-committal, but oddly watchful. Arinndier, however, sitting opposite to him, scowled. 'Children?' he queried sourly.

Darek looked straight at him, and then began to enumerate points on his thin, precise hands. 'Who but children would think the suspension of the Geadrol was anything other than madness or treachery? Who but children would think that four of us with a token guard could either reason with such madness or defeat such treachery? Who but children would see these . . . these Guards marching through the City and hear them called the King's High Guard and think it wasn't beyond all doubt treachery? And who but children would think they could walk into the middle of it and expect to walk out again?'

Arinndier reluctantly conceded the argument, but his reply was impatient. 'Every mourner sees the obvious, Darek. We acted properly. Cautiously and within the Law. We couldn't have foreseen what would happen.'

Darek's fingers snapped out accusingly, the sound falling flat in the small dead room. 'We're Lords of Fyorlund, Arin. Trustees of the Law and the people. It's our duty to foresee to look forward beyond the sight of ordinary people. How big a sign did we need? What could be bigger than the suspension of the Geadrol?'

Arinndier was in no mood for reproaches. 'What else could we have done, for Ethriss's sake?' he snapped.

Darek leaned forward. 'We could have mustered our High Guards, raised the reserves and marched on the City.'

Arinndier's irritation left him and he stared at Darek, stunned. Of all the people he might have expected to preach rebellion, Darek lawyer Darek would have been the last. The two men stared at oneanother for a long moment.

Eventually Arinndier lowered his head. 'You've been too long in these dismal rooms, Darek,' he said quietly. 'What conceivable justification did we have for such a step? You'd have been the first to cry that force attacked the very basis of the Law.'

A look of anger flashed briefly through Darek's eyes, then it faded and his voice became patient. 'Arin, old friend, listen to me. Force is both the reason for the Law and its very basis. People made the Law to control the use of force because force is a bad way of doing things. It's that simple. You don't need to be a lawyer to understand that. They made it over centuries of bitter learning, to protect themselves and their descendants from the darker sides of our own natures. And if you ignore its acc.u.mulated wisdom, you'll face that darker nature unarmed, and you'll walk on to the people's naked and pitiless sword.'

Arinndier shifted unhappily on his seat.

Darek spoke again. 'Think about it, Arin. If the Law itself is a.s.sailed by those who should sustain it, what else can be done? And, I repeat, what greater attack at the heart of the Law could there have been than the suspension of the Geadrol? And, seeing it, why didn't we act correctly? Why did we turn away our faces like Eldric's done here and pretend that nothing was happening?' He leaned forward and the movement made Arinndier look up. 'We're the people's sword-bearers,' he went on. 'And we've failed in our duty. Who knows what power blinded us? But now we're penned like cattle and Dan-Tor can do as he pleases. We have to escape. We have to act against him or we'll be condemned forever.'

'Indeed.' The voice was grim and powerful.

Both Darek and Arinndier started, and even Hreldar looked surprised.

The unexpected voice was Eldric's.

Arinndier looked at the old Lord intently. Eldric slowly straightened up and returned the gaze. There was life again in his eyes and it seemed to Arinndier that the aging that confinement had apparently wrought on the man was falling away as he watched. Darek's flint had struck a spark from the iron of the old man's soul. Arinndier felt a lump in his throat.

'Indeed,' Eldric repeated, before any of the others could speak. 'Having failed in our duty once, we mustn't do so again.'

'Eldric,' said Arinndier, his face broken in a confusion of emotions, and his hands reaching out to his friend.

Eldric raised his own hands in a gesture that forbade interrogation. 'I've been away,' he said coldly. 'It won't happen again.'

Arinndier looked at him and remembered the Eldric who never responded well to sympathy; the Eldric who had always preferred to tend his own wounds in private, like an injured animal. Gradually his composure returned and he took up Eldric's first remark as if the second had never been spoken, though he could not keep the relief and joy from his face.

'You may be right,' he said. 'But what can we do? We don't know what's happening outside. We don't even know why we've been arrested. Perhaps the other Lords are . . .' 'The other Lords are dithering, just as we did,' Hreldar interrupted, his voice contemptuous. 'Dan-Tor will be plying them with rumours and lies. Probably telling them that there'll be a trial or some such nonsense accusing us of treason of being the reason why the King suspended the Geadrol. He'll pick them off one at a time. They won't even see the blow that's felling them.'

Arinndier winced at Hreldar's harsh tone. 'That's conjecture,' he said feebly.

Hreldar's mouth puckered distastefully. 'Maybe,' he said. 'But do you think it's wrong? Can you see them doing anything other?'

Arinndier did not reply.

Darek gave a grim chuckle. 'What a considerable schemer the man is. If we remain here we can do nothing but serve his ends by our enforced silence. If we escape we must rouse such of the Lords as we can and turn into the very rebels he's probably telling everyone we are.' He nodded a grudging approval.

'It's not without a certain elegance.'

'It's not without a certain horror,' said Eldric angrily. 'Still, warned is armed. In future we'll see a little more clearly and make fewer mistakes for him to profit by.'

'If we have a future,' said Hreldar coldly. 'Besides, Dan-Tor's a man who profits from everything and anything. I don't think we've begun to get the measure of him yet.'

Eldric nodded in agreement. He stood up and stretched himself expansively. 'True,' he said, then, entwining his fingers, he cracked them methodically, as if freeing the joints of long-acc.u.mulated dust. 'But nor does he have the measure of us yet.'

Chapter 18.

Sylvriss closed the door quietly behind her and spoke softly to the servant standing outside. 'The King's sleeping. See that he's not disturbed.'

The servant bowed in acknowledgement. 'Majesty.' He watched the Queen walking away from him.

Was it his imagination or had he caught a glimpse under the Queen's silken hood of a face flushed and smiling, triumphant even? No. It must have been a trick of the light. Sadly, loved though she was by so many, the Queen rarely smiled. Ethriss knows, she'd little enough to smile about. The King demented for most of the time; Dan-Tor spreading his pernicious influence over everything, the Geadrol suspended; Lords arrested for treason; these d.a.m.ned Mathidrin terrifying everyone; and even rumours of troubles in Orthlund. So much dreadful change so quickly. None of us have got much to smile about. But the servant's face remained impa.s.sive. It was unwise to express thoughts such as these. Rumours abounded about people who had spoken against Dan-Tor or the King and had disappeared mysteriously. Of course, they were only rumours, but . . .? Who could one trust these days?

However, the servant had been correct. The Queen had indeed been smiling when she left her husband sleeping peacefully; smiling radiantly. Now, however, as she walked along to her own quarters, the smile became grim and determined. She pulled her hood closer over her face. Inside herself she could feel an excitement like the excitement of being First Hearer picking up the cry, distant and tiny, a faint sound on the very limit of hearing, the warning cry that had to be roared out along the road so that it could be cleared before the riders appeared.

'Muster,' she whispered involuntarily into the still air of the corridor, longing to cry it out loud in defianceof Dan-Tor and his scheming. She had truly seen her long-buried husband again and their morning together had evoked so many old memories that she had seized new hopes and hardened her new resolve. No longer would she accept the defeat that her life had so far offered, its hand so skilfully guided by Dan-Tor. She would not sink any further into helplessness. Nor would she ponder what deep wisdom in the King had made him do what he had done, or what strange folly in Dan-Tor had allowed it.

Suffice it that the turbulence it had caused had stirred many long-laid sediments, and now she felt her feet resting on a bedrock. Nothing, not even death itself would dash these hopes from her now, or deflect her resolution.

A bustling flurry came into view. Dilrap, like a wallowing galleon, emerged from a side pa.s.sage, his arms full of precariously balanced doc.u.ments and his round face full of cares. Trying to preserve his burden intact, and maintain some semblance of dignity, he was having a considerable struggle and did not notice the Queen.

'Honoured Secretary,' she said, somewhat regretfully, seeing no way to avoid the almost inevitable outcome. Dilrap started and looked round suddenly. The abrupt movement dislodged a large scroll from the middle of the pile he was carrying.

Slowly it started to unroll. Dilrap's eyes widened and a quiver ran through him preparatory to a reflexive lunge after the escaping doc.u.ment. The quiver ended in a violent twitching as his hand groped blindly underneath his load in a vain attempt to stop the accelerating scroll, while his chin clawed frantically at the top of the pile to steady an ominous sway that had begun to develop in the whole stack.

Sylvriss watched spellbound as the saga unfolded itself in front of her with the predestined order of a cla.s.sical tragedy.

The chin triumphantly trapped the topmost doc.u.ment and stopped the incipient sway, but the middle of the stack bellied forward, intent on explosive self-destruction. Chin clinging valiantly and hand flailing futilely for the lost scroll which was now laying a paper pathway along the corridor, Dilrap took a step forward as if to overtake the swelling bulge. Malevolently, his father's robe chose this time to embrace his feet and, with a woeful cry, Dilrap rolled to the floor amidst the fluttering shower that had been his charge.

Hitching her hood forward again and biting her lip to stop herself from laughing, Sylvriss bent forward and picked up some of the nearer scrolls and papers.

'Majesty, Majesty,' cried Dilrap, his alarm intensifying as he scrabbled on all fours to relieve his monarch's consort of this servant's work.

Sylvriss held out a hand to help him, but he affected not to see it and struggled to his feet unaided, only narrowly avoiding pulling down a velvet curtain and dislodging a carved head from a pedestal.

'Dilrap,' said Sylvriss sympathetically.

'Majesty,' Dilrap repeated, looking around at the debris and gesticulating vaguely. Sylvriss tossed back the hood of her robe and smiled gently at him. Dilrap was destroyed. He was so fond of his Queen. He grieved constantly for her suffering, and admired beyond words her steadfast courage. She was one of the few who called him by his name. Most used his t.i.tle and even made that sound like an insult. She made him feel calm and at ease. And she was so beautiful. So beautiful. She was fond of him too. He reminded her of a fat old pony she had had as a child, but she sensed other qualities in the man, and she too quietly grieved for his plight.

'I'm sorry I startled you, Dilrap,' she said. 'But I wanted to speak to you about something.' She gestured to a pa.s.sing servant and gave orders for the papers to be collected and taken to Dilrap's office then, taking his elbow, she said, 'Come with me.' There was a brief flurry of hitchings and adjustments before Dilrap fell in with the sauntering pace of his Queen. She walked for some time without speaking.

Dilrap cast surrept.i.tious sideways glances at her. It seemed to him that she was changed in some way.

Her face was different less strained younger, flushed, even. Then, as if on a whim, she turned off the corridor and, walking through an elaborate archway, came into the Crystal Hall.

Two Mathidrin standing guard at the archway clicked their heels as she pa.s.sed, and she acknowledged their salute with a nod and a gracious smile. At every opportunity, in every little way, she was determined to ease herself into the affections and respect of all Dan-Tor's minions, however loutish. It would have been easier for her by far to be cold and distant, but that would have been easier for them too. No, she thought, some affection for me amongst his men can do nothing but hinder him and might prove helpful one day. I'll show you how to train horses, you long streak of evil.

The Crystal Hall was so called because of its strange translucent walls and ceilings. They shifted and shimmered constantly with every imaginable colour. Their smooth surfaces were broken only by thin veins of a golden inlay, curling and sweeping into elaborate leaf-like patterns. Somewhere behind each surface could be seen figures and landscapes that seemed to flicker in and out of existence with the slightest movement of the head; sometimes near, sometimes distant.

It was a beautiful place and it exuded tranquillity, but no one knew how or when it had been built, or who had built it. In fact no one now knew even the name of this strange craft of inner carving.

Dan-Tor never visited it.

Sylvriss led Dilrap over to a broad seat underneath the pattern of a huge tree etched out in fine golden threads. These were flush with the surface of the wall, but the inner work made the trunk seem solid and whole, and the branches shimmered as though sunlight were falling on them through waving leaves. A close examination would reveal countless tiny, multi-coloured insects moving among the crevices of the bark. The leaves, too, flickered and shone as if a breeze were blowing through them, and as different seasons shone their different lights into the hall so the leaves seemed to change and fall.

Sylvriss sat down and gestured Dilrap to do likewise. Dilrap did as he was bidden, and folding his hands in his lap awaited his Queen's pleasure.

He had neither the stature not the dignity of his late father, but he had a substantial portion of his considerable intellect and a memory that was superior by far. It was his saving grace as the King's Secretary and prevented life becoming totally intolerable for him. However, this, his real worth, was unknown to most, not least himself, being constantly overshadowed by his circ.u.mstances and his excitable and nervous disposition.

In the Queen's company, however, given a little time, he tended to relax and be more at ease, and his truer self would emerge. Perceptively, Sylvriss judged that despite being utterly fearful of Dan-Tor, his loyalty to the King was unquestionable and his devotion to her total.

He was worth more than her humorous affection, she knew. The very contempt in which many of the Court held him meant that secrets which were jealously guarded from other ears were discussed almostopenly in his presence. Often, no more heed was taken of him than of one of the Palace hounds. But, Sylvriss noted,he never gossiped. Never sought to protect himself by winning the spurious esteem of others with some display of his knowledge of the intimate details of Palace life. He absorbed all his embarra.s.sment and discomfiture and, presumably, resentment in some inner place. His sole defence was his defencelessness.

The tree shimmered as the sun emerged from behind a cloud and its light burst into the Hall.

'Dilrap,' she began. 'I need a friend. An ally.'

'Majesty, I'm your most devo . . .'

She waved him to silence. 'No, Dilrap. I need no Court pleasantries from you. I know what you are.'

She stared at him for a moment, then plunged. 'You're a man trapped by circ.u.mstances in a public office for which he considers himself totally unsuitable. Circ.u.mstances made all the more bitter by the fact that his father ranked as one of the finest Secretaries any King has ever known.'

Dilrap bowed his head. Sylvriss pressed forward. 'But your father didn't have a sick and wayward King to deal with, nor . . .' She paused significantly, watching him carefully. 'Nor, Dilrap, did he have to deal with the likes of Lord Dan-Tor.' She offered no embellishment of her description of Dan-Tor. It was not necessary.

Dilrap looked up and caught her gaze. Strange, came a slow, almost reluctant, thought from deep inside him. Strange that I'd never seen that that simple, obvious fact. Sylvriss held his gaze and nodded in confirmation of what she had said.

'Your father towers in your life as once he towered in this Palace,' she said. Then with great deliberation, 'But no man could have contended with the Lord Dan-Tor. No man.'

Dilrap lowered his eyes again. 'Majesty, I don't understand what you're saying. What is it you want of me?'

'I want a friend, Dilrap. An ally.'

Dilrap made no reply.

Sylvriss took a deep breath. She must continue now. 'Dilrap, you underestimate yourself totally. You always have. For anyone who cares to look, there are qualities in you which make you at least as fine a Secretary as your father. The reason your office is burdensome to you, and why you're the b.u.t.t of so many in the Court, is that Dan-Tor wishes it so. He wants no one around him or the King who might be intelligent enough to interfere with his plans.'

Dilrap looked alarmed and fluttered his hands nervously, like b.u.t.terflies trying to fly to safety in the glittering tree above them. 'Majesty . . . I don't know . . .'

'Dilrap.I know. I know you're loyal to your office and the King. And to the people of Fyorlund. I know it grieves you constantly that you seem to be eternally impotent to alter the terrible course we're set on.'

She seized the dithering hands. Dilrap started. 'Look at me,' she said urgently. 'I tell you again. You must understand. Even your father couldn't have stood against the wiles of Dan-Tor. As sure as fate he'd have been destroyed in the attempt. You must believe that. Somewhere inside you, you know it's true.' She released the hands and they floated down into his lap again.

'Majesty,' he whispered, 'maybe what you say is true. I know that you above all would play no cruel tricks on me. But what do you want of me?'

Sylvriss placed all on one cast and told him briefly and bluntly. 'The King has no mysterious illness. It was Dan-Tor's treatment that precipitated his condition and it's been Dan-Tor's treatment that has maintained it.' Dilrap's eyes widened in terror, but Sylvriss continued. 'See how well he's been recently, now that it's in Dan-Tor's interests not to have him wandering about demented, further complicating the actions he's accidentally set in motion.'

'Majesty,' ventured Dilrap, 'the King's illness has always been subject to these brief flashes of normality. He may lapse again at any moment.'

'I know,' said Sylvriss. Then, with some bitterness, 'There's a quality in Dan-Tor's potions that makes the body cry out for them desperately, even though they injure it. I've learned that in the past and suffered for it.'

Dilrap raised his hand as if to comfort the pain that pa.s.sed over the beautiful face.

'But knowledge is a shield, Dilrap,' Sylvriss continued. 'Dan-Tor quieted the King and then left his tending to me while he occupied himself with political affairs.' Her voice fell. 'Very slowly I've been reducing the strength of the potions I'm supposed to give him.' She raised a finger in emphasis. 'Very slowly he's returning to health.'

Dilrap looked round fearfully. 'Majesty, why do you tell me this? I think the Lord Dan-Tor is capable of anything anything I've seen so many . . .' He stopped. 'I shudder to think what his real aims are. But what canI do?'

Sylvriss sat back and nodded slowly. 'You've just done it, Honoured Secretary. You've spoken the truth. You've seen so many things, you said. So many things that shouldn't be. And even the seemingly unimportant things take their toll lapses in procedure, appointments for personal favours rather than ability, petty deceits and illegalities to avoid the scrutiny of the Geadrol, trivial things. Trivial things that have acc.u.mulated over the years to shift power gradually from where it lay, into Dan-Tor's hands.

Reluctant but efficient hands, labouring only in the interests of their monarch.'

Then, surprised at her own realization,'You've spoken out about it. You've spoken out and been crushed. Long ago. Crushed with the same meticulous attention to detail that he applies to everything. All the ways a man can be crushed without actually breaking his bones. You fought your battle alone, and you thought it lost.'

The last vestiges of her image of her old pony faded in a tearful mist and this timeshe felthis pain. Dilrap sat motionless, a dark expression on his face as countless scores of humiliations and rebuffs marched in mocking triumph before him.

'What can I do?' he said again, simply.

'You must do as I must,' said Sylvriss. 'You must fight again. But with a new resolve, no matter what the odds, if the things you honour Kingship, the Law, the people, your father's memory are to survive. You and I have nowhere left to hide. No one will act against Dan-Tor if we don't. He'll twist the rest of the Lords around his finger, and destroy them one at a time. Then he'll destroy the King andeverything else of the old way. Including us.'

'Majesty, I'm not a warrior,' Dilrap said faintly.

Sylvriss smiled. 'You're no swordsman, Dilrap, but you're more of a warrior than you know.'

Dilrap tried for the last time to refuse the mantle that was being pressed on him. 'Majesty, if the King is improving in health, he'll surely be able to take control again. He was a powerful and able man.'