Prince Kragen’s mouth tightened under his moustache. His dark, eyes burned with old enmity, with decades of violence, generations of bloodshed. He looked willing to gut King Joyse on the spot.
Yet he contained his outrage. And he didn’t draw his sword. “And you persist,” he demanded, “in the mad belief that I am capable of such a vile act?”
“No!” Terisa protested. “Eremis did it. He told me so.” What was the matter with King Joyse? How could he suddenly be so wrongheaded? “It’s just a trick to keep you and the Prince from joining forces.”
Before she could go on, King Joyse pointed a forbidding finger at her. “That proves nothing.” The command in his stance forced her to be still. “Master Eremis has a pact with Cadwal. Why not with Alend?”
“Because,” the cloaked figure cried, “he is honorable!
“You do not trust him.” Elega swept the hood back from her head as she advanced, and her vivid eyes flashed in the lantern-light. “Is the Tor wrong? Are Terisa and Geraden?” She called every gaze to herself, a cynosure of indignation and passion. Bright as a flame, she challenged her father. “He held Orison in the palm of his siege for days and days. He could have taken you apart stone from stone. Yet he withheld. Does that mean nothing to you? He allowed you time to prove yourself. And you dare accuse him of dishonor? You dare that to my face?”
King Joyse looked at her as if he were stunned.
“No, Father!” she raged. “The only dishonor in this tent is yours! It was you who refused to support the Perdon, you who refused to hear the Fayle. It was you who humiliated Prince Kragen in the hall of audiences, you who allowed Terisa’s attacker to roam Orison freely, you who drove Myste away. You have no right to doubt the Prince. There is no alliance between Alend and Mordant because no one is able to trust you!”
Emotions throbbed under the King’s old skin: outrage; alarm; disbelief. And vindication? She carries my pride with her wherever she goes. For a moment, no one moved; he didn’t move. Elega met his stare as if she were prepared to outface the world.
All at once, King Joyse burst out laughing.
“Oh, very well, my lord Prince,” he chortled while the people around him stared. “You are honest, and your father is honest, and I must apologize. If I do not, she will take the skin from my bones.”
Geraden’s mouth hung open. Prince Kragen clenched his jaws as if he didn’t dare speak.
“It was not wise to bring her with you,” King Joyse went on, “a woman in battle, a useful hostage if Eremis should capture her. But it was honest. If you intended treachery, you would have left her with Margonal. And she would not love you if you had such treachery in you. I know that about her.
“My lord Prince, please accept my regrets – and also my thanks. If we can be saved, it will be because of your courage, as well as your honor.”
As King Joyse spoke, the excitement came back to Prince Kragen, the strange new eagerness which had led him into risks no Alend had ever hazarded before. His mouth twisted up the tips of his moustache. Slowly, he produced a smile to match Joyse’s humor.
“Why do you think the decision was mine? Have you ever been able to tell her what to do?”
In response, the King laughed again; kindly, happily. He grinned like a new day. “Tell her what to do? Me?” Elega glared at him in confusion, but he didn’t stop. “I am only her father. Tell her what to do? Most of the time, I am hardly allowed to make suggestions.”
Then he sobered. “One thing, however, I will tell you, my lord Prince. Heed me well. While this war lasts, you will obey my orders.” Now his tone admitted no argument: his command was as clear as a shout. “If we do not work together, we are doomed.”
Prince Kragen only hesitated for a moment; then, still grinning, he nodded once, briefly.
Still ignoring the surprise and consternation and hope around him, King Joyse turned to Elega.
“As for you, my daughter,” he said gladly, “you are pride and joy to me.” Taking her hands, he raised them to his mouth and kissed them. “No one could have done better. The Queen herself could not have done better. Alone and without power or position, you have made an alliance where none existed.
“Oh, you please me!” Abruptly, he swept his gaze around the tent, swung his arms expansively. “You all please me! If we cannot save our world now, it will be because I have failed you, not because any one of you has failed Mordant. You have all given me better than I deserve.”
In sheer joy, he kept on laughing; and after a moment Geraden joined him. Then, surprising even himself, Prince Kragen began to chuckle. Elega’s smile grew softer and easier as it spread.
Master Barsonage shook his head, laughing as well. Terisa squeezed her eyes hard to keep herself from weeping foolishly; but she didn’t start to laugh until she realized that the Tor was snoring as if nothing had happened.
They talked together for a long time, King Joyse and Prince Kragen, Terisa and Elega, Geraden and Master Barsonage, with Castellan Norge looking on as if he would have found a good night’s sleep far more interesting. Guards brought supper, cleared it away when it was done. Ribuld helped the physician put the snoring Tor to bed. For the most part, King Joyse and Prince Kragen and Elega listened, asking an occasional question, while Terisa and Geraden and the mediator recounted and explained. Little of what was said was news to the Prince or Elega, but King Joyse listened intently, emitting concern and curiosity and approval like benefactions.
His friends and supporters had done welclass="underline" he said that repeatedly. His unwilling allies had done well. His smile shone on everyone until the tent was full of warmth; he seemed to take every sad or hurtful thing onto himself, so that no one around him felt blamed or criticized for confusion or distrust or failure. The time passed in a glow, and Terisa understood at last why so many people had loved and served him for so long. She no longer wondered why the Perdon had sacrificed himself and all his men for a King who had abandoned him, or why the Tor had come to her in the dungeon to beg her to save herself for the King’s sake, or why the Domne was able to view the destruction of Houseldon without recrimination against his old friend, or why Queen Madin’s first reaction on hearing of her husband’s peril was to rejoin him. Terisa felt that way herself now, would have done those things herself.
She felt that she had come through hate and defeat to something else, to a kind of settled commitment, a mood in which all things were possible. She wasn’t exactly eager to face the coming day – but she wasn’t afraid of it, either.
For his part, Geraden was eager. His eyes shone at his King, and he took every occasion he could find to look toward Terisa and smile, as if he wanted to say, See, I told you he’s worth serving.
He didn’t come down from happiness until the talk turned to battle plans.
Master Barsonage described the Congery’s resources, and King Joyse gave him instructions for the Masters. The King and Prince Kragen devised chains of command, ways to convey messages; they made the best arrangements they could to treat the injured and feed the well; they deployed in their minds the forces of horse and foot. And gradually Geraden’s expression turned somber.
“What troubles you, Geraden?” asked Prince Kragen eventually.
Geraden shook his head, staring at nothing.
“Say it, Geraden,” King Joyse urged mildly. “Words will not hurt us.”