"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 halfmoon 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.
And so, like a fool, I did ask her, and she only squeezed my hands and shook her head. "I would let you if it was possible, Oelph," she said quietly. "It is so sweet of you to want to accompany me. I shall cherish always the memory of that kindness. But I cannot ask you to come with me."
"I would go anywhere with you, mistress!" I cried, my eyes now full of tears. I would have thrown myself at her feet and hugged her legs if I had been able to see properly. Instead I hung my head and blubbered like a child. "Please, mistress, please, mistress," I wept, no longer even able to say what it was I wanted, her to stay or me to go.
"Oh, Oelph, I was trying so hard not to cry," she said, then gathered me in her arms and folded me to her.
At last to be held in her arms, pressed against her, and be allowed to put my arms round her, feeling her warmth and her strength, encompassing her firm softness, drawing in that fresh perfume from her skin. She put her chin on my shoulder, just as mine rested on hers. Between my sobs, I could feel her shake, crying too, now. I had last been this close to her, side by side, my head on her shoulder, her head on mine, in the torture chamber of the palace, half a moon earlier, when the guards had tumbled in with the news that we were needed because the King was dying.
The King was indeed dying. A terrible sickness had fallen upon him from nowhere, causing him to collapse during a dinner being held for the suddenly, and secretly, arrived Duke Quettil. King Quience had been in the middle of a sentence, when he stopped speaking, stared straight ahead and started to shake. His eyes had revolved back into his head and he had slumped down in his seat, unconscious, the wine goblet dropping froze his hand.
Skelim, Quettil's doctor, was there. He had had to remove the King's tongue from his throat, or he would have choked to death immediately. Instead he lay there on the floor, senseless and shaking spasmodically while everybody rushed around. Duke Quettil attempted to take charge, apparently ordering that guards be posted everywhere. Duke Ulresile contented himself with staring, while the new Duke Walen sat in his seat, whimpering. Guard Commander Adlain posted a guard at the King's table to make sure nobody touched the King's plate or the decanter he'd been drinking from, in case somebody had poisoned him.
During all this commotion, a servant arrived with the news that Duke Ormin had been murdered.
My thoughts, oddly, have turned to that footman whenever I have tried to envisage the scene. A servant rarely gets to deliver genuinely shocking news to those of exalted rank, and to be entrusted with something as momentous as the intelligence that one of the King's favourites has taken the life of a Duke must seem like something of a privilege. To discover that it is of relatively little consequence compared to the events unfolding before you must be galling.