They explained to Ribuld that they were waiting to talk to either Artagel or Master Barsonage; and Ribuld promised to hound Artagel and the mediator with reminders. Then they closed the door and bolted it.
Suddenly giddy with relief and suppressed hysteria, they wedged a chair into the wardrobe – where her clothes still hung – to block the entrance from the passage inside the wall. “Anybody who tries to sneak in here,” he said, “is going to crack his shins.”
Laughing so that they wouldn’t weep, they welcomed each other back as if they had been apart for months.
“Ah, love,” he murmured some time later, when he had become calm, “I came so close to reaching you. That was worse than being helpless, I think. There I was, doing something so amazing that it turns everything we know about Imagery upside down, and Eremis made it all useless just by putting out the lights.” He paused, then admitted, “Havelock had to sit on me to keep me from going after you anyway.”
“But you weren’t really helpless, were you.” This was important to her.
As always, what she said was more interesting to him than his own pain. “What do you mean?”
“You couldn’t reach me,” she explained, “you couldn’t rescue me directly. But with that power there must have been dozens of things you could have done. You could have translated guards into Esmerel to look for me. Hundreds of them.”
He peered at her in a way that made her want to hug him again because he so obviously wasn’t hurt, didn’t interpret what she said as criticism. All he said was, “I didn’t have time.”
“I know that, you idiot.” Instead of hugging him, she tickled his ribs. “That’s not the point.”
He caught her hand by the wrist and punished her attack by nibbling gently on the tips of her fingers. Between nips, he asked, “What is the point?”
“The point is” – it was amazing, really, just how much difficulty she had concentrating while he sucked her fingers – “you weren’t helpless. If I hadn’t done that shift, you could have found a way to strike back. You would have found a way.” Determined to be serious, she repeated, “You weren’t helpless.”
“Of course I’m helpless,” he replied around her fingers. “I’m completely at your mercy.”
“Idiot,” she said again.
But she didn’t have any trouble thinking of something to do for him while he was at her mercy.
Still later, when her own sense of postponed fright had receded, she murmured softly into his shoulder, “What would we have done?”
He analyzed that for a while before he remarked, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“If the Tor hadn’t agreed with us,” she explained. “If Norge hadn’t agreed with him. If they hadn’t put themselves in charge of Orison. What would we have done?”
He stared up at one of the peacock-feather decorations on the wall. “Well, somebody had to take command. We would have persuaded him.”
“And what if he turned us down?”
Geraden considered the question. “I guess we would have left with Prince Kragen. We would have tried to persuade him – or Elega – or maybe even Margonal himself – to back us up.
“I know,” he added when she started to object, “Prince Kragen is the one who wants to stay here. But that’s only because the Tor wants to go. If he didn’t have any hope of an alliance with Orison – if he knew he couldn’t get in here without spending all the lives that would take, making himself that much weaker – he might have been persuaded to march. If Elega took our side. If he thought he didn’t have anything else to try.”
“And what,” she continued, “if we couldn’t persuade him.”
He shrugged under her head. “Then we probably would have to get back into Orison. We’d have to get anybody who agreed with us – Artagel, maybe some of the Masters, maybe some friends of Ribuld’s – and use one of Adept Havelock’s mirrors to translate ourselves to Esmerel. Try a surprise raid.”
She reached across his chest to hug him. “So we wouldn’t have given up.”
He held her hard. Through his teeth, he muttered, “You suit yourself. I wouldn’t give up if I had to walk there alone and take Esmerel apart with my fingernails.”
That was what she wanted to hear. Feeling at once more relaxed and readier for battle, she asked casually, “Has it occurred to you that we’re luckier than we look?”
“ ‘Luckier’?” he inquired.
“Or King Joyse is. If it weren’t for Elega, we probably wouldn’t have been able to talk our way in here. If it weren’t for the Castellan” – she felt a pang whenever she remembered Lebbick – “Gart would probably have killed you and Artagel and Prince Kragen and the Tor. If it weren’t for the Tor, Orison might be in chaos by now. Eremis hasn’t won yet. We’re still able to lie here and make love and talk about fighting.” Geraden kissed her, but she didn’t stop. “We’ve been lucky.”
In an unexpectedly somber tone, he returned, “Or King Joyse is better at this game than anybody realizes.”
She nodded. After a moment, she said, “I wonder why he can’t beat Havelock at hop-board.”
Geraden looked at her sharply. “That’s an interesting question. Do you suppose it’s just because Havelock is out of his mind most of the time?”
That sounded plausible. Terisa started to say, I guess so. But then, unaccountably, she remembered the time Adept Havelock had come to her rooms – had sneaked in through the secret passage and taken her to Master Quillon, so that Quillon could give her the raw materials with which to think about Mordant’s need. He hadn’t exactly been in one of his lucid phases. And yet he had said—
She groped for the memory momentarily; then it came to her, as clear as the note of a well-made chime.
No one understands hop-board. The King tries to protect his pieces.
King Joyse had protected her, protected Geraden. Had tried to protect the Tor. At some personal cost, he had done what he could to protect his wife and daughters. It was even conceivable that he had tried to protect Castellan Lebbick.
Individuals. What good are they? Worthless. It’s all strategy. Sacrifice the right men to trap your opponent.
Maybe that was the truth. Maybe King Joyse couldn’t outplay the Adept because he couldn’t match Havelock’s ruthlessness.
Maybe that was why he was gone now. Maybe he was out on a mad chase after Torrent and Queen Madin, driven by a need to protect individuals without regard to his overall strategy.
Did that fundamental flaw cripple everything? Was his policy fatally marred by his inability to sacrifice individuals for the sake of something larger?
Geraden must have felt her shivering: he tightened his arms around her suddenly. “Terisa,” he murmured, “love. What’s the matter?”
She couldn’t explain, not directly; the idea scaring her was too elusive, almost metaphysical. Instead, she said, “Do you remember the time King Joyse asked me to find a way out of a stalemate? It was the day after Master Gilbur translated his champion.” That memory did little to improve her morale. “You rescued me from the Castellan by persuading the Tor to send for me in King Joyse’s name.”
Geraden nodded. “I remember.”
“After you got me to the King’s rooms,” she continued for her own sake rather than for his, strengthening her grip on what she meant, “he showed me a hop-board problem. A stalemate. He said Havelock set it up for him. He said there was a way out, but he couldn’t find it.”
Her shivers mounted. “So I tipped all the men off the board. No more stalemate.”
“I remember,” Geraden repeated, trying to steady her.