Gazing through his eyepiece, Kasreyn reached out with careful unmenace and touched his index finger to the centre of Hergrom's forehead.
Hergrom's only reaction was a slight widening of his eyes.
The Kemper dropped both hands, sagged as if in weariness or sorrow. Without a word, he turned away. The Guards parted for him as he went to the chair where Covenant had been bound. There he seated himself, though he could not lean back because of the child he carried. With his fingers, he hid his face as if he were mourning.
But to Linden the emotion he concealed felt like glee.
She was unsure of her perception. The Kemper was adept at disguising the truth about himself. But Rant Absolain's reaction was unmistakable. He was grinning in fierce triumph.
His mouth moved as if he wanted to say something that would crush the company, demonstrate his own superiority; but no words came to him. Yet his passion for the Guards sustained him. He might indeed have been a monarch as he moved away. Commanding the hustin to follow him, he took the Lady Alif by the hand and left the lucubrium.
As she started downward, the Lady cast one swift look like a pang of regret toward Linden. Then she was gone, and the Guards were thumping down the iron stairs behind her. Two of them bore their dead fellow away.
None of the questers shifted while the hustin filed from the chamber. Vain's bland ambiguous smile was a reverse image of Findail's alert pain. The First stood with her arms folded over her chest, glaring like a hawk. Honninscrave and Seadreamer remained poised nearby. Brinn had placed Covenant at Linden's side, where the four Haruchai formed a cordon around the people they had sworn to protect.
Linden held herself rigid, pretending severity. But her sense of peril did not abate.
The Guards were leaving. Hergrom had suffered no discernible harm. In a moment, Kasreyn would be alone with the questers. He would be in their hands. Surely he could not defend himself against so many of them. Then why did she feel that the survival of the company had become so precarious?
Brinn gazed at her intently. His hard eyes strove to convey a message without words. Intuitively, she understood him.
The last husta was on the stairs. The time had almost come. Her knees were trembling. She flexed them slightly, sought to balance herself on the balls of her feet.
The Kemper had not moved. From within the covert of his hands, he said in a tone of rue, or cleverly mimicked rue, “You may return to your rooms. Doubtless the gaddhi will later summon you. I must caution you to obey him. Yet I would you could credit that I regret all which has transpired here.”
The moment had come. Linden framed the words in her mind. Time and again, she had dreamed of slaying Gibbon-Raver. She had even berated Covenant for his restraint in Revelstone. She had said, Some infections have to be cut out. She had believed that. What was power for, if not to extirpate evil? Why else had she become who she was?
But now the decision was upon her-and she could not speak. Her heart leaped with fury at everything Kasreyn had done, and still she could not speak. She was a doctor, not a killer. She could not give Brinn the permission he wanted.
His mien wore an inflectionless contempt as he turned his back on her. Mutely, he referred his desires to the leadership of the First.
The Swordmain did not respond. If she were aware of her opportunity, she elected to ignore it. Without a word to the Kemper or her companions, she strode to the stairs.
Linden gave a dumb groan of relief or regret, she did not know which.
A faint frown creased Brinn's forehead. But he did not hesitate. When Honninscrave had followed the First, Brinn and Hergrom took Covenant downward. At once, Cail and Ceer steered Linden toward the stairs. Seadreamer placed himself like a bulwark behind the Haruchai. Leaving Vain and Findail to follow at their own pace, the company descended from Kemper's Pitch. Clenched in a silence like a fist, they returned to their quarters in the Second Circinate.
Along the way, they encountered no Guards. Even The Majesty was empty of hustin.
The First entered the larger chamber across the hall from the bedrooms. While Linden and the others joined the Swordmain, Ceer remained in the passage to ward the door.
Brinn carefully placed Covenant on one of the settees. Then he confronted the First and Linden together. His impassive voice conveyed a timbre of accusation to Linden's hearing.
“Why did we not slay the Kemper? There lay our path to safety.”
The First regarded him as if she were chewing her tongue for self-command. A hard moment passed between them before she replied, “The hustin number fourscore hundred. The Horse, fifteenscore. We cannot win our way with bloodshed.”
Linden felt like a cripple. Once again, she had been too paralyzed to act; contradictions rendered her useless. She could not even spare herself the burden of supporting Brinn.
“They don't mean anything. I don't know about the Horse. But the Guards haven't got any minds of their own. They're helpless without Kasreyn to tell them what to do.”
Honninscrave looked at her in surprise. “But the gaddhi said-”
“He's mistaken.” The cries she had been stifling tore at the edges of her voice. “Kasreyn keeps him like a pet.”
“Then is it also your word,” asked the First darkly, “that we should have slain this Kemper?”
Linden failed to meet the First's stare. She wanted to shout, Yes! And, No. Did she not have enough blood on her hands?
“We are Giants,” the Swordmain said to Linden's muteness. “We do not murder.” Then she turned her back on the matter.
But she was a trained fighter. The rictus of her shoulders said as clearly as an expostulation that the effort of restraint in the face of so much peril and mendacity was tearing her apart.
A blur filled Linden's sight. Every judgment found her wanting. Even Covenant's emptiness was an accusation for which she had no answer.
What had Kasreyn done to Hergrom?
The light and dark of the world were invisible within the Sandhold. But eventually servants came to the chamber, announcing sunrise with trays of food. Linden's thoughts were dulled by fatigue and strain; yet she roused herself to inspect the viands. She expected treachery in everything. However, a moment's examination showed her that the food was clean. Deliberately, she and her companions ate their fill, trying to prepare themselves for the unknown.
With worn and red-rimmed eyes, she studied Hergrom. From the brown skin of his face to the vital marrow of his bones, he showed no evidence of harm, no sign that he had ever been touched. But the unforgiving austerity of his visage prevented her from asking him any questions. The Haruchai did not trust her. In refusing to call for Kasreyn's death, she had rejected what might prove the only chance to save Hergrom.
Some time later, Rire Grist arrived. He was accompanied by another man, a soldier with an atrabilious mien whom the Caitiffin introduced as his aide. He greeted the questers as if he had heard nothing concerning the night's activities. Then he said easily, "My friends, the gaddhi chooses to pleasure himself this morning with a walk upon the Sandwall. He asks for your attendance. The sun shines with wondrous clarity, granting a view of the Great Desert which may interest you. Will you come?"
He appeared calm and confident. But Linden read in the tightness around his eyes that the peril had not been averted.