DeWar came to the harem’s outer room one morning, and requested that the lady Perrund attend him.
“Mr DeWar,” she said, sitting on a couch. He sat down on another couch across a small table from her.
He gestured at a wooden box and a game board, lying on the table. “I thought we might play a game of ‘Leader’s Dispute’. Would you humour me?”
“Gladly,” Perrund said. They unfolded the board and set out the pieces.
“What is the news?” she asked, as they commenced playing.
“Of the boy, no change,” DeWar said, sighing. “The nurse says he slept a little better last night, but he barely recognises his father and when he talks he makes no sense. From the war, there is news of change, but all of it’s ill. I fear the whole thing has gone wrong. The latest reports were confused, but it sounds as though Simalg and Ralboute are both retreating. If it is only a retreat there may still be some hope, but the nature of the reports themselves makes me think it may in reality be a rout, or well on the way to becoming one.”
Perrund stared at the man wide-eyed. “Providence, can it really be that bad?”
“I’m afraid it can.”
“Is Tassasen itself in danger?”
“I would hope not. The barons ought not to have the military wherewithal to invade us, and there should be sufficient troops intact to mount an adequate defence if they did, but…”
“Oh, DeWar, it sounds hopeless.” She looked into his eyes. “Does UrLeyn know?”
DeWar shook his head. “He will not be told. But YetAmidous and RuLeuin are talking about waiting outside Lattens’ room this afternoon and demanding that he listen to them.”
“Do you think he will?”
“I think he might. I also think he might run away from them, or order the guards to throw them out, or run them through, or strike at them himself.” DeWar picked up his Protector piece and turned it round in his fingers before replacing it on the board. “I don’t know what he’ll do. I hope he will listen to them. I hope he will begin to act normally again and start to rule, as he ought. He cannot go on like this much longer without those in the war cabinet starting to think that they’d be better off without him.” He looked into Perrund’s widened eyes. “I cannot talk to him,” he told her. She thought he sounded like a small, hurt boy. “I am literally forbidden to. If I thought I could say something to him, I would, but he has threatened that if I try to speak to him without his express permission he will have me removed from my position, and I think I believe him. So if I am to continue trying to protect him, I must remain silent. Yet he must be told what a pass things have come to. If YetAmidous and RuLeuin do not succeed this afternoon—”
“Will I, tonight?” Perrund said, her voice sharp.
DeWar looked down for a moment, then he met her gaze again. “I am sorry to have to ask you, Perrund. I can only ask. I would not even think of doing so if the situation were anything less than desperate. But desperate it is.”
“He may not choose to listen to a crippled concubine, DeWar.”
“At the moment, Perrund, there is nobody else. Will you make the attempt?”
“Of course. What ought I to say?”
“What I have told you. That the war is on the verge of being lost. Ralboute and Simalg are retreating, that we can only hope that they are doing so in good order but the hints we have indicate otherwise. Tell him that his war cabinet is at odds with itself, that its members cannot decide what to do, and the only thing they may eventually agree on is that a leader who will not lead is less than worthless. He must regain their trust and respect before it is too late. The city, the country itself is starting to turn against him. There is discontent and wild talk of harbingers of catastrophe, and the beginning of a dangerous nostalgia for what people call ‘the old days’. Tell him as much as he can bear of that, my lady, or as much as you dare, but be careful. He has raised his hand to his servants before now, and I will not be there to protect you, or him from himself.”
Perrund gazed levelly at him. “This is a heavy duty, DeWar.”
“It is. And I am sorry to have to offer it to you, but the moment has become critical. If there is anything at all I can do to help you in this, you have only to ask and it will be done if I can possibly do it.”
Perrund took a deep breath. She looked at the game board. With a faltering smile she waved her hand at the pieces between them and said, “Well, you could move.” His small, sad smile matched hers.
23. THE DOCTOR
The Doctor and I stood on the quayside. About us was all the usual tumult of the docks, and, in addition, the local confusion which normally attends upon a great ship preparing to depart on a long voyage. The galleon Plough of the Seas was due to sail with the next doubled tide in less than half a bell, and the last supplies were being hoisted and carried aboard, while everywhere about us, amongst the coils of rope, the barrels of tar, the piled rolls of wicker fenders and flatly emptied carts were played out tearful scenes of farewell. Ours, of course, was one.
“Mistress, can you not stay? Please?” I begged her. The tears rolled miserably down my cheeks for all to see.
The Doctor’s face was tired, resigned and calm. Her eyes had a fractured, far-away look about them, like ice or broken glass glimpsed in the dark recesses of a distant room. Her hat was pulled tight over her brindled scalp. I thought she had never looked so beautiful. The day was blustery, the wind was warm and the two suns shone down from either side of the sky, opposing and unequal points of view. I was Seigen to her Xamis, the desperate light of my desire to have her stay entirely washed out by the bounteous blaze of her will to leave.
She took my hands in hers. The broken-looking eyes gazed tenderly upon me for the last time. I tried to blink my tears out of the way, resolved that if I would never see her again, at least my last sight of her would be vivid and sharp. “I can’t, Oelph, I’m sorry.”
“Can’t I come with you then, mistress?” I said, even more miserably. This was my last and most dismal play. It had been the one thing I had been determined not to say, because it was so obvious and so pathetic and so doomed. I had known she would be leaving for a half-moon or so, and in those few handfuls of days I had tried everything I could think of to make her want to stay, even while knowing that her going was inevitable and that none of my arguments could carry any weight with her, not measured against what she saw as her failure. During all that time I wanted to say, Then if you must go, please take me!
But it was too sad a thing to say, too predictable. Of course that is what I would say, and of course she would turn me down. I was a youth, still, and she a woman of maturity and wisdom. What would I do, if I went with her, but remind her of what she had lost, of how she had failed? She would look at me and see the King and never forgive me for not being him, for reminding her that she had lost his love even if she had saved his life.
I knew she would reject me if I said it, so I had made an absolutely firm decision not to ask her. It would be the one piece of my self-respect I would retain. But some inflamed part of my mind said, She might say Yes! She might have been waiting for you to ask! Perhaps (this seductive, insane, deluded, sweet voice within me said) she really does love you, and would want nothing more than to take you with her, back to Drezen. Perhaps she feels that it is not for her to ask you, because it would be taking you away from everything and everyone you have ever known, perhaps for ever, perhaps never to return.