Artagel couldn’t help himself: he had to ask, “Are you really in that much trouble? Just because of Eremis and Saddith?”
The muscles along Lebbick’s jaw knotted. His eyes were full of gloom. “Wait and see.”
On the way back to his rooms, Artagel found himself positively aching with the intensity of his desire to see Geraden again. He wanted somebody to tell him what was going on.
THIRTY-FIVE: AN OLD ALLY OF THE KING
That same day, Terisa and Geraden rode out of the southwestern hills of the Care of Termigan and began to approach Sternwall, the Termigan’s Seat and his Care’s principal city.
The relatively direct road from Houseldon – and the lack of rain, atypical at this time of year – had made the journey an easy one, at least for Geraden. He was accustomed to horses, acquainted with roadside comfort, experienced at camping. And he seemed to have become sure of himself. For the first time in his life, he knew exactly what he was doing. The only thing that reduced his eagerness to get where he was going was the pleasure he had with Terisa along the way.
Terisa’s eagerness to reach Sternwall was completely different. In a visceral sense, she had lost interest in Orison – in Master Eremis and King Joyse. Her concerns were more immediate. She was aching in every joint, bone-weary, sick of horses. She wanted a hot bath and clean sheets. Thanks to the otherwise-much-desired way Geraden used his weight at night, the hard ground had given her bruises from her shoulder blades to her tailbone. At times, she felt she would have killed for a pillow under her hips. After a day or two in the saddle, every jolt of the bay’s gait seemed to grind her bones together. After another day or two, she could hardly keep from groaning whenever Geraden embraced her.
Nevertheless she hugged him back as hard and as often as possible; she locked her legs over his and held him on top of her despite the pain. She was so full of love that she could hardly take her eyes off him, hardly bear to let her skin be out of contact with his. If necessary, she could endure a few bruises.
She had to admit, however, that she had learned to hate horses. Any culture which couldn’t devise a better way to travel than this really ought to let itself die out. When Geraden announced that they were within reach of Sternwall, she said, “Thank God!” with such sincerity that he burst out laughing.
“You think it’s funny,” she groused. “I’ve never been so miserable in my entire life, and you think it’s hilarious. I swear I don’t know what I see in you.
“Of course,” she added considerately, “if I did know I’d probably want to put my eyes out.”
“Be careful, my lady,” he replied in an aggrieved tone. “I have a sensitive nature. If you give me any excuse – any excuse at all – I’ll have to start apologizing.”
“Oh, great,” she growled, trying to sound bitter even though she was grinning with her whole body. “The last time you did that, we didn’t get to sleep until after midnight.”
She made him laugh again. Then he leaned out of his saddle and kissed her dramatically. “Ah, Terisa,” he sighed when he had subsided, “you do me good. I wouldn’t have believed it was possible. After all those years serving the Congery and failing – after making the wrong choice and stopping Nyle instead of concentrating on Prince Kragen – after botching our chance to stop Elega – after being made to look like my own brother’s murderer, and then having to just hurl myself into a mirror without any idea what would happen—” His list of disasters was really quite impressive when he toted it up like that. “I wouldn’t have believed it was actually possible to feel this good.”
“How much farther do we have to go?” she asked because she didn’t have anything better to say. “I want a bed.”
Geraden grinned and gave her the best answer he had.
This was their fourth day on the road, and since they had left behind the smoking ruins of Houseldon they hadn’t seen the slightest indication that Mordant was at war. Heading almost directly northeast, they had crossed the Broadwine on its way east-northeast toward the Demesne, and had followed the road in the direction of the Care of Termigan. “The Termigan will help us,” Geraden had said confidently. “He’s an old ally of the King’s. There’s a story that he saved King Joyse’s life in the last of the big battles against Alend – roughly thirty years ago.”
Terisa had nodded without taking her eyes off the surrounding landscape. She had met the Termigan: she had the impression that he was a man who could be trusted absolutely – but only on his own terms.
North and east of Houseldon, the Care of Domne seemed to be composed almost entirely of the kind of fertile hills which made cultivation difficult, but which provided abundant rich grass for sheep. Toward the south and the west, mountains remained visible, but they became steadily harder to descry as the road wound out of the Care. Geraden explained that the border of Domne stretched from the eastmost point of the spur of mountains on the north – a point called Pestil’s Mouth because there the Pestil River came out of the spur – along a relatively straight line toward a distinctive peak in the southern range, a mighty and unmistakable head of rock named, for no known reason, Kelendumble. That line divided Domne from both the Care of Termigan to the north of the Broadwine and the Care of Tor to the south.
Although the border was purely theoretical, the countryside did appear to change after Terisa and Geraden entered Termigan. The edges of the landscape became flintier; the grasses and shrubs, the wildflowers and stands of trees all had an air of toughness, as if they endured in ungiving dirt against unkind weather. “The soil is good for grapes,” Geraden explained, “and not bad for hops. But it isn’t much use for corn, or wheat, or worren.” Worren was one of the few grains – in fact, one of the few foods – that she found strange in this world. “In Domne, they joke that everybody who lives here develops a permanent case of dyspepsia from eating the food – and then from trying to feel better by drinking too much.
“On the other hand, I’ve heard it said that High King Festten won’t drink anything except Termigan wine.”
As the soil changed, so did the hills: they began to look less rumpled, more ragged, as if they had been cut by erosion rather than raised by the ground’s underlying bones. The road twisted through ravines and gullies rather than along shallow vales and hollows. In contrast, however, the weather turned increasingly spring-like – warm in the sun despite the cool nights and shadows; full of green and flowering scents; hinting at moisture.
Terisa wanted a bath so badly that the mere idea made her scalp itch.
Forcing herself to think about other things, she occasionally reflected that ravines and gullies were ideal places for ambushes. Such things seemed entirely unreal, however. After all, Alend had sent its strength to the siege of Orison. And the forces of Cadwal were on the far side of Mordant to the east. So the only real danger came from Imagery. And any attack that struck by Imagery wouldn’t need to rely on ravines and gullies for success.
She reasoned that Master Eremis probably didn’t know where they were. He couldn’t know, unless they happened to pass through a place that showed in one of his mirrors – and he happened to look during the brief time they were visible.
She couldn’t bring herself to worry about the possibility.
In fact, she didn’t even remember what the Termigan had said about trouble in his Care until Geraden brought her in sight of Sternwall itself, late in the afternoon of their fourth day on the road.
The sight made her wonder how she could have forgotten.
Pits of fire in the ground, the Termigan had said.
Sternwall was a fortified stone city. It had a buttressed wall built of quarried granite; and within the wall all the houses and other edifices were of stone. From this distance, the basic style of construction seemed to be mud-plaster pointed with cement. The Termigan’s people could have laughed at the attack which had destroyed Houseldon.