Maelga watched him silently over her flickering jewels until he finished. Then she dropped her hands. “I could never talk to lions—I cannot growl. Where is she?”
“She may be with her animals. I will send for her.”
“No.” She rose. “Tell me how to find them. I will go there alone.”
“I will take you and then leave you with her.” He pushed his chair back, led her past the tables. “But if Coren is with her, talk of the weather, of star patterns, of how you ate nothing at the table of the Lord of Sirle. He is innocent of this; she values that.”
They found her with Coren in the gardens, laughing together beside the lake while the Black Swan took bread pieces from Coren’s fingers. The Cats lay lazily beneath the warm sun; Cyrin Boar nosed at something idly through the grass as he stood in the shade. Sybel turned as the gate closed behind Maelga. The smile on her face melted to astonishment.
“Maelga!”
Coren turned, tossed the rest of the bread into the water and followed Sybel, smiling as she flung her arms around Maelga.
“I am glad to see you.”
“My white child, you have grown so—so bright! Let me look at you.” She held Sybel at arm’s length. “You did not stop to see me when you came to the Mountain last.”
“How did you know—”
“Cyrin Boar told me. He told me many things“
Sybel’s eyes grew still. She glanced at Coren, and he touched her cheek.
“I will go and let you talk.”
She smiled. “Please, Coren. It is only women’s talk.”
“When one is a witch and the other a wizard, I doubt that.” He left them. They looked at one another a moment, quietly. Then Maelga’s fingers folded against one another and she brought them to her mouth.
“My child, what are you doing?”
Sybel sighed. “Sit down. How did you get here?”
“On my own feet.”
“Oh, Maelga, you should have taken a horse.”
“I was afraid whom I might steal from…” She got down beside Sybel, under a strong-limbed apple tree. “Cyrin told me a tale Ter had told him of a King and a white bird in a tower…”
Sybel glanced at the silver Boar. “Wisdom never learned silence, and it is most annoying when least wanted.”
“Why did you not tell me what Drede did to you?”
Her mouth tightened. “Because it hurt too much. Because I was angry to my heart’s core and there were no words for it. That little King would have—” She brushed her hand across the grass impatiently. “There are no words in either you or Cyrin to stop me.”
“Sybel, I do not know what you are doing—I only know that Tam came to me two days ago—”
“Tam?”
“Afraid. He said war was murmuring all over Eldwold against his father, and the King blamed you. He said lords who had pledged to help his father suddenly turned to Sirle without reason. He said the King walks like a man of stone. Sybel, he sat at my hearth with his eyes wide, unblinking, while he told me this, and his hands gripping his arms as if he were cold. There were no tears left in him.”
Sybel picked a single grass-blade, stared down at it
without seeing it. She shivered a little. “My poor Tam… It will only be a little while longer.”
“And then what?”
“`Then Drede will lose his throne. Perhaps his mind. Perhaps his life.”
“And Tam?”
“Rok will make a king of him. In a suitable time he will marry Herne’s daughter Vivet, and her sons will begin the Sirle line of Kings in Eldwold.”
“And Coren? I have heard he knows nothing of this.”
“Maelga, as I will do what I must to destroy Drede, I will do what I must to keep Coren from knowing what I am doing—”
“How? Will you destroy a thought or two in his mind?”
Her face twisted. She dropped her head on her bent knees, hidden from the searching gray eyes. “No,” she whispered. “I will not do that. I did that once. Once. I will not do it again. I will lose him first. Maelga, I have taken a step in the dark, and I will not turn back for any word in Eldwold. I am glad to see you, but I think now you are not so glad to see me. I have been hurt, and now I will hurt in my own turn. It is that simple. I am sorry for Tam. But that is the only thing I am sorry for.”
“You do not see,” Maelga whispered. “Child, Tam loves that King. Drede is the one in the world who can look into Tam’s eyes and give Tam his pride. And he is being driven mad before Tam’s eyes.”
“What is that to me?” She rose abruptly, facing the afternoon wind so that it blew her hair tangled, restless behind her. “He must find his own pride. Maelga—” She lifted her hands suddenly to her face and found tears slipping between her cold fingers. She covered her eyes with her fingers. “I cannot forgive him,” she whispered. “My heart aches for Tam, but I can not. I will not. And I will not cry for myself… only a little for Tam. Did he blame me himself?”
“He suspects that Drede did something to make you angry. But he does not believe—he does not want to believe that you could terrify Drede so, because you know he loves Drede. Oh, he sees things in his heart and he closes his heart’s eye to them, a child closing his eyes to the dark. When he is forced to open his eyes, Sybel, what will you tell him? What comfort will you give him? His heart will shrink like a wounded thing from any touch.”
“It is Drede’s fault.” She shook her head abruptly. “No. It is my doing, too. But Drede should never have tried to ruin me.”
“He is doing it now.”
Sybel turned, looked down at her, dark eyed. “That may be, but now it is my choice. Drede was a fool and so was Mithran, for underestimating that white-haired woman they caught. And neither of them will ever make that mistake again.” She paused a moment, then said more gently. “I am hard and stubborn these days. There is no moving me. Maelga, let us talk of other things now, little things. I am sorry we did not stop to see you that night, but Drede’s men found us there with Tam and it seemed wiser to leave without speaking to you, in case we were watched.”
Maelga’s hands moved in the long grass. Lines puckered her brow above her sharp eyes but she said only, “Are you happy, then, with the wise one of Sirle?”
“Yes. I want no one else, ever. I want to bear him children, if—if he wants them of me when this is done.”
“You expect none yet?”
“No.” She sat down again in the grass. “But perhaps it is better for the moment. I am happy here, Maelga. The people are good to me, and the children and women seem so bright, so contented among the gray stones. I miss the deep, roaring winds, the clear streams and the quiet places of Eld Mountain; the animals miss them, too, sometimes, but we are all content enough here among men. Rok made a room for me, high in the house with windows facing north, east and south, and he put my books there. I read there, and call. I miss you, too. I cannot run to you for comfort, though there is no one, these days, to give me comfort.”
Maelga touched a strand of the white hair that brushed across her hand. “I miss you, too. But now I see the Lion was right: you are no longer a child. You have grown a queen among men. You no longer would be happy among the stones and trees of the Mountain. But I see the ghost of you sometimes, slipping barefoot through the great red pillars with a round-eyed child running at your side. And the shadows of you make me stop and smile. And then I remember they are only shadows, that my children have grown away from me, gone their ways…” She sighed, her lean hands fluttering. “But I was so fortunate to have you.”
Sybel’s fingers closed gently around Maelga’s parchment-colored, ringed hand. “And I was that fortunate to have you,” she said softly. “I was as wild and proud as any of my animals that day I walked through your door. Whatever gentleness I have, you and Tam taught me, and later, Coren. But I am still wild, proud as my father and my grandfather were, deep in me where the white bird lives free that no man can capture. It is that pride in me crying out for revenge—the pride in my knowledge and power. That same pride drove Myk away from men to the isolation of Eld Mountain to build his white hall and capture perfection. But because of you and Tam, I learned to love something beyond pure knowledge. And Coren taught me greatly of joy… I may not be so good at loving, Maelga, but it is my own fault—I have been rich in teachers.”