“My lord Tor,” Prince Kragen put in fiercely, “he wants the lady Terisa and Geraden because he fears them. Their power is our assurance that he cannot destroy us.”
Again, the Tor gestured for silence, asking Kragen to bear with him.
“Master Eremis, you are overconfident,” he said softly, “so sure of your strength and your superiority that you insult us. You insult our honor – but that does not surprise us.” His voice sank as he spoke – and yet gathered force at the same time, so that his quietness carried like a shout. “No one expects a man of your moral poverty to respect honor.
“You do wrong, however, to insult our intelligence.
“You have no interest in our surrender. You have no intention of turning against High King Festten. I doubt that the arch-Imager would permit such betrayal.” For some reason, Vagel shook his head. “Gart certainly would not. Your only interest here, your only purpose in coming, is to take the lady Terisa and Master Geraden from us.”
Eremis had heard enough. “My lord Tor,” he snapped, “I have not yet begun to insult your intelligence – but now you demonstrate that you are mad. I fear no one. I covet Terisa’s female flesh. And I have a score to settle with Geraden. My reasons for coming are exactly as I have explained them.”
No! Terisa protested, insisted, no.
And the Tor said, “No.
“You are a fool, Master Eremis. In the end, you will die a fool’s death. If you had the slightest wish for our service – if you had the slightest intention of turning against the High King” – his passion was too fundamental to be shouted – “you would have treated the Perdon with more respect.”
Dismissing Eremis, he moved with Ribuld’s support toward his tent.
“My lord Tor.” Geraden’s face shone; he looked ready now to tackle both Master Eremis and High King Festten single-handedly. He spoke to the old lord’s back formally, and his voice seemed to defy the snow and the wind, as if he had the power to command them. “King Joyse has been fortunate in his friends – but never as fortunate as when he won your loyalty.”
The Tor stumbled, but Ribuld caught him.
Prince Kragen also turned his back. Glowering bloodshed, he barked at Castellan Norge, “Give these traitors a count of five. Then instruct your bowmen to kill them.”
He didn’t stay to watch the riders as they lashed their mounts away from Norge’s eager call, surged back in the direction of the manor and the defile, strained for speed as if they had been routed. Bowing first to Geraden, then to Terisa, the Prince strode off toward his own camp.
Terisa heard a few bowstrings thrum, a few arrows hiss in the air. Unluckily, none of the riders fell.
As if on signal, more snow came down the valley. Snow closed off the light, swarmed over the tents, drifted onto Terisa’s head and shoulders. The riders of her dream – and the Congery’s augury. Geraden was right: she belonged here. And King Joyse was fortunate in his friends.
She put her arms around Geraden, hugged him tightly. Holding each other close, they followed the Tor toward the shelter of his tent.
Before the snowfall became thick enough to blind the sky completely, two or three of the guards on sentry duty down at the foot of the valley thought they saw an imprecise puff of smoke overhead, riding against the wind. Then the sight was gone, and snow came down so thickly that it made everything dark.
FORTY-SEVEN: ON THE VERGE
The Tor’s tent was large enough for eight or ten people to stand and shout at each other, but it was ascetically furnished – one bedroll for the lord, one for the guard at the tentflaps, a brazier for warmth, three lanterns hanging around the pole, the Tor’s camp chair, a few other stools. Maybe he wanted it that way: maybe he feared that if he ever became comfortable he wouldn’t be able to move again. Or maybe he wasn’t willing to put any more strain than necessary on the Masters and their translations.
When Terisa and Geraden entered the tent, they found the Tor in his chair, leaning as far back as it would allow. His eyes were dull, and he was panting thinly, as if he needed somehow to get more air past an obstacle which hurt him whenever he inhaled. Ribuld and one of the guards’ physicians had removed his cloak, his mail, his shirt. Ribuld was dumb with misery.
For the first time, Terisa saw the place under the lord’s ribs where Gart had kicked him.
Involuntarily, she tightened her grip on Geraden.
The Tor’s injury was swollen like a tumor, black-purple and angry; it bloated out from his belly as if his skin might burst.
“Oh, my lord,” Geraden breathed, nearly groaned. “What are you doing to yourself?”
The Tor had been bleeding inside for days, killing himself with the effort to fill his King’s place.
He made a dismissive gesture; he may have wanted Terisa and Geraden to go away. Nevertheless they stayed where they were. After a moment, Geraden asked the physician, “How is he?”
“As you see,” the man muttered. “I told him this would happen. We all told him.” He mixed some herbs in a goblet and handed it to the Tor. “He’s too old. He drinks too much wine. He shouldn’t be alive.”
For some reason, Ribuld shot out his arm, knotted his fist in the physician’s cloak, jerked the man silent. Almost at once, however, he seemed to realize the uselessness of his anger. Releasing the physician, he muttered an apology, then moved away to get a stool for the Tor’s legs.
With his legs supported, the lord was able to sink down until he could rest his head on the back of the chair. His eyes were closed now, and a bit of the strain went out of his breathing; apparently, the physician’s herbs did him some good. He looked like he might sleep.
He didn’t, however. Without opening his eyes, he murmured, “Where?”
The physician stopped to listen.
“ ‘Where,’ my lord?” asked Ribuld.
The Tor’s fat lips tightened around a spasm of pain. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. Then, tightly, he asked, “Where is Nyle?”
Where is Nyle. Where are Eremis and Gilbur and Vagel. Where is their laborium. Where is the High King. Terisa resisted an impulse to curse herself.
Geraden squeezed her, then left her to approach the old lord. Controlling himself grimly, he said, “We’ve been wrong, my lord. Terisa and I. He was never here. We just assumed he would use Esmerel.” Geraden glanced at Terisa. “I guess Nyle made the same assumption. He told Terisa Eremis was here. But he wasn’t.”
Clenching his courage, Geraden concluded, “We’ve brought you into a trap we can’t get out of.”
The Tor inhaled weakly around his hemorrhage. “Where?” he repeated.
“Somewhere close.” Geraden seemed to be speaking to Terisa as well as to the lord. “Close enough for High King Festten to attack us. Close enough for Eremis and Vagel and Gilbur to find their way here through the snow. If I had to guess, I’d say the first thing Eremis did after he decided he wanted to rule the world – maybe even before he found Vagel – was build a secret stronghold for himself. Somewhere in these hills.” Somewhere in this maze. “But it could be anywhere. Even if it’s just on the other side of the valley rim, we can’t get to it.”
The Tor exhaled thinly, a constricted sigh. “What will you do?”
“About what?”
“What will you do” – the Tor made an effort to be clear – “when Master Eremis decides to use Nyle against you?”
Terisa was glad that the old lord couldn’t see the flush of distress in Geraden’s face, the flinch around his eyes.
“I don’t know,” Geraden murmured.
“Maybe,” she said without thinking, “maybe we can find them. The snow will cover us. It’s almost night. Maybe we can sneak out through that ravine and find them.”
Geraden shook his head. “Snow and night will cover him, too. They’ll cover his guards. If we don’t get lost and freeze to death, we’ll probably be captured.”