But mostly he talked about Castellan Lebbick. From his perspective, Orison’s story had become the tale of Lebbick’s wild and doomed struggle against disintegration. The Castellan had been driven to such desperation, and at last to such lorn heroism – the heroism, not of fighting Gart, but of keeping at least some grasp on sanity – by the fact that he stood almost alone for the castle and its people against Master Eremis’ betrayals. And against King Joyse’s abdication of responsibility.
And Artagel, who valued heroism, had watched Lebbick’s story unfold, and had tried to affect its outcome. Now he didn’t know whether he had helped or failed.
Listening to him, Terisa found her anger at King Joyse returning. To cut a man like Lebbick adrift, merely for the sake of a stratagem – merely because the Castellan had no duplicity in him and couldn’t be trusted to tell lies—
Maybe the King wasn’t particularly interested in preserving his pieces after all. Maybe Master Quillon’s account of his actions was false. Maybe his disappearance – and everything else he did – had a completely different meaning.
Terisa wondered how Artagel had been able to retain his faith in King Joyse.
Geraden’s thoughts, however, had taken a different turn. When Artagel was finished, Geraden muttered into the inaccurate light of the flames, “It’s hard to feel sorry for him. After what he did to Saddith. What he meant to do to Terisa.”
“No,” Terisa said at once, “it’s easy. His wife died. She and Orison and King Joyse were his reasons for living.” Curse that old man anyway, curse him. “King Joyse would have been kinder to cut him off at the knees.”
“I know what you mean,” murmured Artagel, while Geraden studied Terisa bleakly. “It was hard to watch. I just couldn’t get him to look at things the way I did.”
“How did you look at them?” Geraden asked.
Artagel shifted in his chair, a bit embarrassed. “Well, take you two, for example.” Terisa supposed he was thinking of the bad days during which he had believed the worst of his brother. “All the evidence was against you. Eremis did a good job of making you look terrible. We only had two things to go on. Lebbick saw you” – he faced Terisa – “disappear into a mirror without Master Gilbur. Whatever you did together, you escaped separately. And it was easy to guess Saddith got the idea of going to Lebbick’s bed from Eremis. But that was enough. Because we knew you. We knew you weren’t the kind of people Eremis made you look like. We didn’t need much to make us question the whole situation.
“So I tried to tell him” – Artagel swallowed at the emotion in his throat – “to look at King Joyse the same way. We knew the King. We knew he wasn’t what he looked like. All we needed was some reason to believe in him.”
“What reason?” Geraden demanded. He sounded hungry.
“You two,” repeated Artagel. “Why was Eremis afraid of your talent, my lady? Why was he afraid of yours, Geraden? Well, why else? He knew you were his enemies. He knew you were loyal to King Joyse.
“Why were you loyal? We didn’t know. But you must have had a reason. I was sure of that. And it was enough. You know me. You know I don’t exactly have a towering mind. There are probably lots of things I’ll never understand. But you had a reason.” He made a sweeping gesture, at once vague and vehement in the dim light. “That was enough for me.
“But Lebbick couldn’t do it. I think he took it all too personally. The hurt” – Artagel stumbled over the word – “went too deep. I know he tried. He held himself together because he didn’t have anything else to hope for. But in the end—” Abruptly, Artagel shrugged; he picked up his goblet and drank it dry. “In the end I guess he was glad to find a way to get killed.”
After a while, Terisa breathed to Geraden, “You see? It’s easy.”
Geraden nodded once, roughly. His gaze burned back at the embers of the fire.
The unexpected cold in the air made her pull her chair closer to the hearth.
Artagel stayed and talked for some time after supper. He wanted detailed news from Domne: he wanted to know about the Domne’s health, and how tall Ruesha was now, and if Tholden and Quiss were likely to have more children; he wanted to know whether any irate husbands had succeeded at beating sense into Stead, or whether Minick’s wife had lost any of her shyness. And talking about things like that did Geraden good. It eased Terisa, bringing back to her memories she treasured, memories which reminded her what the battles ahead would be fought for, as well as what they would be fought against. Nevertheless the day had been long – not to mention difficult. At last, she grew too tired to stifle her yawns.
Artagel took the hint, such as it was. Promising to see them early the next morning, he left her and Geraden alone.
They didn’t have any trouble persuading each other that they needed to go to bed.
She felt safe in the peacock rooms. If Eremis had the means to attack here, he might hesitate, concerned by the impossibility of estimating what she or Geraden could do in retaliation. And she seemed to have left panic a long way behind her.
As soon as she was sure that Geraden was drowsy enough to sleep – that he wouldn’t get out of bed to sit up and brood all night – she let herself slide away into dreams.
At first they were easy dreams, full of rest: in them, she watched herself sleep soundly. But gradually they took on rhythm – the slow labor of blow and rebound, repeated again and again. The rhythm grew faster. Out of the dark, she kicked at Eremis as hard as she could, felt her foot strike; then she recoiled, plunged backward to get away from his fury, backward against the wall, through the mirror. This time, however, there was no mirror, no translation. Her heart was too full of rage for fading, and the wall admitted nothing, allowed nothing; it only held her where he could reach her. So she kicked again, recoiled again; and he sprang at her again and again, violent, ultimately irresistible, a man who knew how to have his way with anyone; and horror rose in her throat like sobs because there was nothing she could do to fight him, no way she could beat him—
—until Geraden shook her shoulder, hissed, “Terisa! You’re having a nightmare!” and she heard the flat, wooden sound she made when she kicked against the blankets, the knock which seemed to pitch her back into the mattress.
The knock—
Abruptly, she locked herself still, sweating in runnels; and the sound went on, a wooden sound, not her feet belaboring the bed.
Someone was pounding on the door hidden inside one of the wardrobes. She could feel her pulse hammer against the bones of her skull.
She jerked upright.
At once, the sweat seemed to freeze on her skin.
The dim glow from the embers in the hearth lit Geraden as he leaped past her. He grabbed his underclothes and breeches, pulled them on; tossed a couple of logs into the fire. Then he went into the sitting room, unbolted the door, warned the guard outside.
The knocking was steadier than the rhythm of her heart.
A small crackle of flame caught at the new wood. As if that small sound, that little jump of light, released her, she swung her legs out of bed.
Luckily, her robe was in the other wardrobe, the safe one. Shivering as if her limbs were crusted with ice, she snatched out the garment, got her arms into the sleeves, sashed the velvet around her.
The knocking went on. Whoever was in the secret passage was apparently determined to pound there all night if necessary.