Elega started to protest, but Myste cut her off.
“I must warn you, Elega. I am more certain now than ever that I must fight for Father and Mordant. If you require Darsint’s guns to be used, they will be used against you.”
“Myste,” Elega gasped in dismay, “are you mad?”
“Only if it is madness to trust our father.”
“Yes, that is madness! You said so yourself – you spoke of his ‘strange decline, his impulse to destruction.’ Were you not listening to yourself? You would not have left Orison and gone to help this Darsint if you trusted our father.”
“Yes.” Without warning, Myste’s intensity broke into a grin. She seemed at once sheepish and secure. “And no. I have spent days laboring through high snow. I have tended the wounds of an alien warrior and held him in my arms. And I have heard Father’s message to you. Fear and exhaustion teach many things. So does love. I have learned to think differently.
“It is hard to say that I trust his decline. But I have come to trust the fact that he allowed the Congery to work this translation. I have even come to think that he did it for me – in the same way that he insulted Prince Kragen for you. Do you not see how he has made us powerful? I can guide Darsint’s choices. I can ask his help. And you are in a place to affect the actions of Alend’s entire army.”
I am sure that my daughter Elega has acted for the best reasons. For her sake, as well as for my own, I hope that the best reasons will also produce the best results.
“Elega, we are doing what he intended us to do. He has plans for us. Perhaps his decline itself is only a goad to make us do what we can.”
Elega floundered in her sister’s smile. This optimistic interpretation of the King’s behavior was insane. “Myste, you are a fool,” she muttered as if she were speaking to herself. “A fool.” King Joyse had driven his own wife away rather than make the effort to defend his kingdom. Or to explain himself. Piece by piece, he had chipped the hope and trust out of Elega’s heart. “Are you not hurt? Do the things he has done not cause you any pain?”
“Of course they do.” Myste’s smile became fond and sad at the same time. “I only say that there is another way to look at what he has done. We ask ourselves whether he deserves our faith. But we do not have his burdens. He is the King. We should ask, I think, whether we deserve his faith.
“It appears to me that he has tried to let us know that he trusts us.
“Elega, do you never ask yourself what kind of man he must be, to place his trust in the people he has most hurt? Between us, we have the might to destroy him. Darsint’s weapons and the Prince’s army could accomplish that. And our father has pushed us into this position.
“Either his lunacy is complete, or his need for us is so desperate that he cannot explain what he wants without making what he wants impossible.”
Groping, Elega asked, “What do you mean? What can you possibly mean?”
Myste shrugged. “Oh, I mean nothing. I only speculate. But suppose” – her gaze came into focus on her sister – “it is in some way vital to Father’s defense of Mordant that you are trusted by the Prince. How can a trust like that be achieved between two such old and mortal enemies? Any attempt to trick or mislead the Prince would almost surely fail. You are – pardon me for saying this – not much of a liar. You could not persuade the Prince to believe anything you did not believe yourself.”
“No.” Elega shook her head, not in denial, but in exasperation. “You suppose too much too quickly. How can it possibly be ‘vital’ to Father that Prince Kragen trusts me?”
“Elega, think. You have already come so close to your own answer. What did Father accomplish by refusing to reinforce the Perdon, when the Perdon came to Orison and demanded help?”
“What did he accomplish?”
“Or put it another way. What would have happened when Cadwal marched if the Perdon had been supported by several thousand guards? As you have observed, the Perdon would have retreated here, to preserve his forces and defend his King. And High King Festten could not have permitted an enemy that strong to disengage, to maneuver freely. He would have been forced to follow.
“By refusing to reinforce the Perdon, Father made it possible that the Cadwals would not come here directly.
“Do you still not understand, Elega?”
“Time,” Elega breathed. At last, she seemed to be catching up. “Since Cadwal is not here, Alend can afford to wait. By refusing to support the Perdon, he gained time.”
“Yes!” Myste whispered.
“And by pushing us where we are, he also gained time. He made it possible that I might use my influence with the Prince to encourage inaction. But primarily” – Elega was amazed by how convincing she found this – “he pushed us to be where we are so that if the Prince attacked fiercely you would defend Orison – and so the Alend attack would be frustrated – and because you and I are sisters we might find a way to keep the violence between our forces to a minimum.”
“Yes,” repeated Myste. Her manner began to relax.
“But why?” Elega didn’t know whether to laugh or shriek. “Why does he need time? What is he doing? What is his plan? How can he believe that Mordant will be saved by the things he has done to destroy it?”
Apparently, Myste felt no need to shriek. Chuckling softly, she said, “If I knew that – if I could so much as make an intelligent guess – I would tell it to Prince Kragen myself.”
Unexpectedly, Elega also began chuckling. “So this is all talk? You can think of no reason why Father might need time – therefore no reason to believe he actually does need time – therefore no reason to trust any of your speculations?”
Myste shook her head cheerfully. “None.”
“Except,” Elega murmured after a moment, “for the fact that it all seems too tidy to be accidental.”
Myste’s smile was so complete that it made even the burn on her cheek look like a mark of beauty.
Elega sighed. Slowly, her inexplicable humor faded. “I must say, Myste,” she commented, “that I have a powerful wish to make you tell all this to Prince Kragen anyway. Unfortunately, he would take you prisoner. He would want to use you as a lever against Father – or against your champion.”
“In that case,” Myste replied, “Darsint would come for me. I doubt that he would be inclined to let me be used as a lever.”
“And Alends would be killed,” added Elega. “And the force in his weapons might be exhausted. And nothing would be gained.”
“That” – Myste grinned sharply, like a woman who had learned to enjoy risks – “is the reasoning I used to persuade him to let me come to you.”
As a final surprise in an evening full of surprises, Elega found that she had never liked her sister as much as she did at this moment. “In that case,” she drawled, “it behooves me, I think, to help you leave the camp before any word of your visit reaches Prince Kragen. Come, get your cloak. We will take a few skins of this wine with us and go out the back.”
Before they left, she and Myste shared a hug as if they had recognized each other for the first time.
The next morning, after he had received the night’s reports from his captains, Prince Kragen called Elega out of her tent.
She had never seen him so angry. Even his moustache seemed to have been waxed with outrage.