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.

'Establishing 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.

She straightened her uniform and looked in the mirror. The face gazing back at her was flushed, and radiated a mixture of defiance and triumph. Years of habit took her hands to those small flaws in her appearance that no one else would see and the face smiled as she saw their practiced concern.

Before she reached the door, it opened and Rgoric entered. He was dressed in a simple field uniform of the kind that he had worn to complement his bride when they had returned from Riddin. Around his head was the simple iron ring that was the ancient crown of the Kings of Fyorlund.

Chapter 54.

Dan-Tor shifted uneasily on his chair.

Dilrap, sitting at a nearby table and immersed in papers, echoed the movement with a twitch of his own.

For all his apparent obliviousness, he was in fact watching Dan-Tor closely. The Ffyrst's moods were beginning to alarm him profoundly.

There was an increasing restlessness in him that was wholly uncharacteristic, and some of his recent decisions seemed to have been whimsical and arbitrary as though made in irritated haste.

But why? Dilrap asked himself repeatedly as his unseeing eyes scanned the doc.u.ments in front of him.

Why? Dan-Tor, meticulous and endlessly patient in his cunning, usually became more so in the face ofopposition. So what was amiss?

What indeed? Dan-Tor was occupied with the same question. Nothing in his schemes seemed to be awry. True, the City was bubbling with anger at his treacherous re-arrest of Eldric, and rumours of the attack on the Queen, but that would pa.s.s. In general, opponents were becoming doubters; doubters, allies. The young flocked to the newly formed Youth Corps which, with its uniform and parades and raucous, pounding music, provided a mixture of carnival and memories of ancient martial glory.

The old, too, turned increasingly to him to be treated with the ingenious salves he had prepared for the myriad tiny ills that he had so a.s.siduously infected the country with. Indeed it would have been difficult for anyone to a.n.a.lyse or locate the source of the miasma of discontent that pervaded Fyorlund, so long and subtle had been its spreading. Dan-Tor, however, offered the way with a clear light. The fault lay with the Lords who had taken advantage of a sick and ailing King to gratify their own desires for power and self-aggrandizement. Only he had stood against them and thwarted their schemes. And now they were preparing armies in the east to seize by force what he, using Fyorlund's most ancient and precious inst.i.tution, the Law, had denied them.

The mindless, unthinking roar of the mob and their mounting intolerance were the opening notes of the great symphony he had been so long preparing. Those who thought and saw nearer the truth hid their heads increasingly for fear of losing them. And yet? He banged the arms of his chair with clenched fists.

Dilrap looked up. 'Ffyrst?' he ventured hesitantly. An angry flick of those long bony hands bade him be silent. Dilrap dropped his eyes hastily. A tiny insect crawled painstakingly across the unread page he was staring at. He moved his hand to crush it, then paused and cast a glance at Dan-Tor. Suddenly his intention and its arbitrariness flooded him with shame. Go on your way, he thought. Go on your way.

Who am I to take your life for a mere whim? Who am I to divine your purpose? The insect continued its laborious journey undisturbed and Dilrap watched it protectively until it disappeared into a sheaf of papers.

Dan-Tor stood up and turned his head from side to side as if looking for a sound that was annoying him.

A narrow band of streaming sunlight cut across him like a bright sash. Dilrap willed himself into absolute stillness and, for an interminable chain of minutes, he felt the very air around him was dancing to the beat of his pulse.

The chain was snapped with a deafening abruptness by the opening of a door and the seemingly thunderous footsteps of a servant running across the hall. Without speaking, the man bowed low to Dan-Tor and held out a small, decorated gold plate bearing a white card.

Scowling, Dan-Tor picked up the card and studied it. Then with a curt nod he dismissed the servant.

Dilrap turned to look at him directly. The man's eyes were like pinpoints of red fire, but the voice was like ice.

'The King requires that we attend him immediately,' he said.

The wind was still blowing quite strongly and the weather seemed uncertain whether it should continue to celebrate summer or warn of impending winter when Hawklan and Isloman mingled with the morning crowds filling the streets of Vakloss. Both were glad of the opportunity to wrap their cloaks about them, as there was a strange tension in the City. Faces among the crowds were, for the most part, grim and downcast, quite at odds with the streets of decorated and colourful buildings. Hawklan rememberedLorac's parting advice. 'Don't skulk and don't look anyone directly in the eye if you don't want to be seen.'

Hawklan still had no clear idea how to reach Dan-Tor other than by walking directly to the Palace and asking for him. He looked discreetly at Isloman. That he should voluntarily walk into the hands of the man who had tried twice to capture him was one matter; taking with him his faithful friend was another entirely. But even as he considered this he heard in his mind Isloman's voice. 'I've questions of my own for this man.' Then came the memory of Aynthinn laughing gently and telling him that no Orthlundyn would follow anyone blindly. The memory was rea.s.suring. At least this time he knew he was walking into danger. This time he would be lulled by no strange power, nor bound by fear for a hostaged innocent.

This time he would be armed in every way, and with someone to guard his back. He might yet be taken, but not easily.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of breaking gla.s.s and angry voices. Looking round, he saw a group of Mathidrin smashing down the door of a nearby house. Two of them pushed past the remains of the broken door and reappeared within seconds dragging an old man, blood streaming down his face.

Instinctively, Hawklan moved towards the group, shaking off Isloman's hesitant, restraining hand. He found, however, that he was just part of a larger movement, as people rushed out of neighbouring houses and pa.s.sers-by converged on the scene.

The old man was struggling violently and angry shouts began to rise from the crowd as the Mathidrin started to beat him. It looked for a moment as though the crowd would turn on the men but Hawklan sensed that their anger was counter-balanced by an equal fear. Eventually, to resolve the situation, one of the Mathidrin raised a baton to strike the old man.

Hawklan could not restrain himself. 'No!' he cried, his voice commanding and clear, even over the noise of the crowd. The trooper stopped, his baton still raised, and Hawklan found himself looking at the man down an aisle of watching faces, as the crowd opened before him spontaneously. The crowd's anger seemed to possess him.

'Leave him alone,' he said and, striding forward, he s.n.a.t.c.hed the hovering baton from the trooper, now open-mouthed at the sight of this approaching green-eyed apparition. Even as he strode towards the man, Hawklan felt the will of the waiting crowd changing, urging him on, and as he s.n.a.t.c.hed the baton, a great roar, angry and defiant, filled the small square.

The globes in the Throne Room had been extinguished, but the room was alive with sunlight bursting in through the single large window. The old torches had been re-struck and complemented the sunlight by illuminating the arched corridors and the upper balcony so that they seemed to be open and s.p.a.cious, instead of lowering and forbidding as though they harboured night predators in their shadows. Under the caress of this lighting, the stone throne shone and glittered as it had not been seen for decades.

Rgoric looked down at his hand resting on the arm of the throne. There was no movement in the torches, only the occasional dimming of the natural light as a cloud obscured the sun, but the polished stone seemed to dance patterns of light around his hand, like revellers in a Festival Round Dance.

The effect of Sylvriss's tale had been like someone shaking him brutally out of a long and fitful sleep tormented by frightening and elusive images. He had lurched away from it, but Sylvriss had held him with her unremitting telling as she would a headstrong mount. Inexorably, fragmented pieces of memory tumbled into place to form a grim mosaic of truth. A mosaic bound hard in the matrix of his wife's longand faithful love.

Perhaps, he realized, he had been felled by an opponent whose skill and cunning were beyond any man's ability to fathom. But that was of no concern. The weakness still pervading his body tore at him to return to his oblivion, but Sylvriss's love and courage had reached through to the long-dormant King she had married, and he saw only that, as his wife had done, he must pick up the battle flag he had dropped and hold it high again at whatever cost and against whatever foe.

His reverie was disturbed by the opening of the hall's great double doors, to reveal the lank frame of his Chief Physician and adviser.

Dan-Tor started as he entered the Throne Room and a tremor pa.s.sed through him such as he had not known since he was awakened from the darkness. The work of the craftsmen of the Great Alliance pervaded the hall like a cleansing flood, opening its dark crevices into airy openness, and decking the stern figure on the throne with a powerful radiance.

For an instant, the fear gripped him that this light might penetrate even into his own black soul and lay him open to the sight of the man he had worked so diligently to destroy.

That horse witch! he blazed inwardly, sensing instantly whose hand lay behind this sudden transformation. I'll roast her in the belly of her favourite horse when my Mandrocs have finished with her . . .

'Majesty.' An awe-stricken voice interrupted his proposed vengeance, as Dilrap dropped to his knees involuntarily.

Dan-Tor walked slowly forward to greet his King. Stopping at the foot of the steps, he bowed slowly and respectfully. 'Majesty,' he said, forcing his voice to fill with surprise and delight. 'To see you so recovered is as welcome as it is unexpected.'

The King nodded, but his face was unreadable. 'Lord Dan-Tor,' he said. 'The time we've both sought for has arrived. I must now shoulder again those burdens of office that you've faithfully borne for me these many years. And, as the Law requires, I must ask you formally to Account for your Stewardship.'

Dan-Tor dropped his head to hide the red anger in his eyes. 'You shame me, Majesty,' he said regretfully. 'Had I known you were so near recovery after the many years of failure I'd have devoted myself more diligently to your well-being. Perhaps then you'd have sat here many months ago. As for an Accounting . . . sadly, Majesty, I've been so occupied with matters of State that I'm ill-prepared to give one of even the most recent happenings, so grim have they been.'

'I'm sure you've done nothing that you could reproach yourself for, Lord,' said the King. 'And I require no stringent rendering immediately. That we can do at our leisure together with the Lords of the Geadrol.

Just tell me briefly what has pa.s.sed in my land since my illness deluded me into arresting four of my good and faithful Lords. Such a telling will satisfy the requirements of the Law, will it not, Honoured Secretary?'

Dilrap started at being dragged into this improvisation of the King's, but after a protracted stammer and a cadenza of flourishes and twitches, he managed to say, 'Yes, Majesty.'

How many years' work has that hag undone? Dan-Tor thought, but when he looked up at the King his face was concerned. 'Majesty, are you sure that you're fully recovered? We've had these flashes ofsunlight in the past, only to fall into darkness again.'

The King smiled slightly. 'I'm not the man I was, Lord Dan-Tor,' he said. 'But I'm recovered sufficiently, rest a.s.sured.'