“I’m sorry, my lord King, my lord Prince.” Geraden tried to force a happier look onto his face, without much success. “Nothing’s wrong. I just can’t get rid of the feeling that Terisa and I don’t belong here.”
Oh, good, Terisa thought dimly. This again.
“Why?” inquired the King. “Where else should you be?”
Geraden grimaced in exasperation. “I have no idea.” Almost at once, however, he added, “But it’s obvious we’re useless where we are. The Congery doesn’t really have mirrors to spare for us. And if we had mirrors, what could we do? We don’t know where Eremis’ stronghold is. We don’t know” – a more crucial point – “what it looks like. We have all this talent – and Eremis presumably thinks we can hurt him, or why would he try so hard to hurt us? – but there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do.”
Prince Kragen frowned studiously; Elega nodded as if she understood the problem. But for some reason King Joyse seemed unable to take Geraden’s concern seriously. “Well, Geraden,” he said in a tone of confidence, “you can hardly expect advice from us. Those talents are yours, not ours. You are the only judge of what you can and cannot do.”
“True,” put in Master Barsonage. He seemed glad that he wasn’t responsible for whatever Geraden and Terisa did.
“You will think of something in good time,” concluded the King comfortably.
Before anyone could object, he began to dismiss his companions so that they all could get a few hours of sleep.
Terisa made sure that Geraden came with her when she left the Tor’s tent. He wasn’t actually reluctant to accompany her: he was simply so caught up in King Joyse that he had trouble tearing himself away. The King insisted, however; and she and Geraden went out into the snow to find their bedroll.
She had no intention of sleeping. In fact, she couldn’t imagine sleeping, under the circumstances. She just wanted to have Geraden to herself for a while.
They found their bedroll at the edge of the light cast by the guards’ lanterns outside the Tor’s tent. The snow was still falling, although less heavily; but the bedroll was wrapped in a waterproof canvas sheet, with one large end propped up by sticks to form a kind of miniature tent, letting air into the bedroll while keeping snow off its occupants. The only trick, Terisa soon discovered, was to get into the bedroll without tracking too much snow—
Shivering, she and Geraden swaddled themselves in their blankets and hugged each other for warmth.
“Have you got any ideas?” he asked; his mind was still on King Joyse and battle.
“Yes,” she said, “but they don’t have anything to do with Imagery.”
With her hands and her lips, she persuaded him to think about her instead. She wanted her whole body and her heart to be full of him, as if he were an antidote to Master Eremis and violence.
After that, they found it easier to relax.
Nevertheless they got up a few hours later – a long time before dawn – when King Joyse emerged to begin readying his forces.
The snowfall had stopped. It covered the ground deeply, shrouded the tents and bedrolls of twelve thousand men; it melted off the backs of the horses; it muffled every sound, absorbed even voices, and kept the campfires all across the valley small. King Joyse himself looked small in the face of so much snow and darkness. The way he rubbed his hands together suggested that the cold had brought back his arthritis. Nevertheless his eyes gleamed with blue. Gusting steam into the lantern-light, he demanded of Castellan Norge in feigned vexation, “Where’s that slugabed Prince?”
Norge shrugged with so little show of enthusiasm that the King chuckled. “Make an effort to stay awake today, Castellan,” he joked. “Our lives may become quite stimulating.”
The Castellan allowed himself a wan smile.
Through the light, Prince Kragen appeared with several of his captains and the lady Elega.
Together, he and King Joyse moved away to visit as much of their combined army as possible, ostensibly to explain their plans and reassure their men, but primarily to make King Joyse’s presence – and his alliance with Alend – as widely felt as possible; to give every soldier and guard as many reasons for hope as possible.
At the same time, Master Barsonage and the Congery began to unpack mirrors. The Imagers needed time to get into position – and to conceal themselves. Several hundred men went with them to defend them and their mirrors.
At the tentflaps, Terisa and Geraden learned from Ribuld that the Tor was still sleeping. They left the old lord.
With Elega, they watched the army prepare.
The mediator and his comrades translated more food from Orison. Horsemen delivered supplies throughout the camp and brought bedrolls and tents by the thousands back to the Masters. Huge stacks of hay appeared and were carried away for the mounts. The entire valley seethed with motion – dimly seen by firelight from the higher ground where the Tor’s tent had been pitched – as thousands of men visited the brook and the latrines and the cooking fires.
“What do you think our chances are?” Terisa asked to ease the cold anxiety gnawing inside her.
“We’re well bottled in this valley,” Geraden muttered. “That’s bad. On the other hand, it looks like we can only be attacked from one direction. The defile is too narrow. They can’t send enough men through it fast enough to hurt us seriously. That’s good. So what they’ll try to do is drive us toward the walls. If we get too close, they can drop all kinds of things on us.”
“If Eremis has a mirror with Esmerel in the Image,” Terisa said, “or any part of this valley—”
“Then,” Geraden finished, for her, “he can attack us any way he wants.” Abruptly, he turned and looked at her hard. “But he won’t. He won’t risk it. He’ll be afraid of you. If you shattered his glass, he wouldn’t be able to see what’s going on. What you did back at the crossroads is going to save us. If you hadn’t done that, we’d probably all be dead by now.”
She didn’t know how true that was. Nevertheless the fact that he said it loosened a knot inside her. “Thanks,” she murmured to him privately.
“And there are other hopes,” the lady Elega commented. While darkness still filled the valley, her indoor beauty clung to her, and in the lantern-light her eyes seemed luminous with knowledge. “The world is full of strange things, which our enemies do not understand. Master Eremis comprehends only fear and power. He is blinded by his contempt. He does not grasp how far valor may go against him.”
Terisa hardly heard the King’s daughter. She was thinking, Choose your risks more carefully. And she was thinking, We’re useless where we are. Geraden had the strongest feeling—
Unfortunately, no flash of inspiration came to her.
The sky began to grow pale. Laboring urgently, Master Barsonage and his companions translated unnecessary food and bedding and encumbrances back to Orison. Scouts were sent to watch the foot of the valley. Shifting through the gloom, the army moved into its battle formation: wedged-shaped, like the valley, but reversed, so that an attack from the foot of the valley would meet the point of the wedge and split, be forced against the walls; a wedge with mounted troops at the edges for mobility and a core of foot soldiers for strength.
When the sky grew pale enough to cast the valley rim into stark relief, everyone saw that during the night siege engines had been pulled into place.
Catapults: black against the pearl heavens: six, seven – no, nine of them around the valley, ready to pitch rocks or boulders onto the heads of Mordant’s defenders.
Terisa groaned uselessly.
A murmur rose from the army. At first, she thought it was a reaction to the catapults. But then she saw King Joyse striding toward her from among the troops, holding his standard high in his fists. On the hillside leading up to the Tor’s tent, he fixed his plain purple pennon, drove the butt of the standard into the snow and the ground.