Grateful for Myste’s consideration, Terisa spent a few minutes concentrating on her food – a stew baked in a thick pastry shell. Then, to keep the conversation safe for a while, she asked a practical question in which her mission work had taught her to be interested: How did Orison manage to feed so many people so well in the dead of winter?
Myste replied by describing the system that provided Orison with all its food and supplies. After generations, even centuries, of an economic system based on warfare, in which powerful lords fought for the privilege of taking what they needed by violence, Mordant had been reduced almost to destitution, despite its abundance of natural resources. One of King Joyse’s most important acts had been to replace war with trade. Essentially, he had established Orison as the principal buyer – and seller – of everything Mordant needed or produced. All the villages of the Demesne, and all the Cares of Mordant, traded with Orison; and Orison used its profits from these transactions to buy what its own people needed, so that its wealth acted as fertilizer to grow more wealth for the kingdom. A similar system applied to trade with Cadwal and Alend – which needed the resources of Mordant too badly to refuse to barter with King Joyse – and those profits were likewise plowed back into the soil and society of Mordant. As a result, all the Cares had come a long way from the fierce poverty that had marked the beginning of King Joyse’s reign.
Terisa didn’t entirely absorb the details, but she appreciated Myste’s explanation nonetheless. She had criticized her father without being punished. When the lady was done, Terisa commented, ‘This sounds silly – but I’ve just realized that I haven’t been outside since I got here.’ She glanced toward the window, with its thick glass and its tracery of frost. ‘I don’t have any idea what’s out there.’
Myste put down her fork and dabbed at her mouth with her napkin. ‘It must be quite a shock for you. As strange as your world seems to me, ours must appear equally strange to you. And we have been so strictly instructed’ – she betrayed a moment of embarrassment – ‘not to reveal our “secrets” to you. Your ability to accept such things – Well, I have already said that you amaze me.
‘How does it feel, Terisa? I have no experience with translation.’ There was a rapt undertone in her voice. ‘I have never stepped through glass into a different creation. It is another of my romantic notions,’ she admitted, ‘that such an event in anyone’s life must be fundamental in some way, changing them as much as it changes where they are.’
‘No,’ Terisa said at once, remembering a sensation of impersonal vastness, of temporary eternity, of fading, ‘I don’t think it changed me at all.’ She almost added, I wish it had. ‘It didn’t last long enough.
‘It was like,’ she went on, suddenly sure of what she meant, ‘dying without any pain. All at once, your whole life is gone, faded, everything you ever knew or understood or cared about, you don’t exist anymore, and there’s nothing you can do about it except maybe grieve. But it doesn’t hurt.
‘I’m not talking about physical pain,’ she explained, ‘or even emotional pain. It just doesn’t hurt. Maybe because there’s a whole world around you to take the place of the one you’ve lost. Do you understand? I think that’s the only reason I can bear it.’
In response, Myste smiled vaguely – not as if she weren’t listening, but rather as if what she heard triggered a wide range of ideas and yearnings. ‘I do not really understand. Elega would say that you are talking nonsense. Translation is a physical passage, nothing more. But there is something in what you say’ – her hand closed unconsciously into a fist – ‘something that is not nonsense to me.
‘Perhaps it is only death which gives life meaning.’
But I didn’t die, Terisa protested instinctively. That isn’t what I meant. I was never there.
The impossibility of explaining herself any better, however, kept her silent.
‘Terisa,’ Myste went on, quietly, distantly, without looking at her, ‘you have given me a great deal to consider. You say that you are not wise’ – slowly, she became less abstracted, more present in the room and in Terisa’s company – ‘but I have met very few fools who challenge me to examine my life so closely.’
‘Don’t blame me.’ Terisa didn’t know what Myste meant – and at the moment didn’t care. She couldn’t suppress a grin. ‘I didn’t do it on purpose.’
At that, Myste started laughing. Happily, Terisa joined her.
They were still chuckling together like old friends when Saddith knocked on the door and reentered the room. She was red-cheeked and panting, as if she had run up several flights of stairs. ‘My lady Terisa,’ she said breathlessly, ‘my lady Myste, the King summons you.
‘There is news. Important matters are afoot. Your presence is commanded in the hall of audiences. All the high lords and ladies of Orison must attend.’
‘That is news indeed, Saddith,’ replied Myste. Her immediate excitement made itself clear in the way her eyes focused on the maid. ‘My father has not summoned Orison to the audience hall in more than a year. What occasions this gathering?’
‘An ambassador has come, my lady,’ Saddith answered through her panting. ‘An Alend ambassador – in the dead of winter! He must have paid an awful price in time and men and supplies. And they say it is Prince Kragen himself! What could possibly compel the son of the Alend Monarch here, through such hardship at this time of year, and across so much distance, when all Mordant knows that Alend desires war, not peace?’
Myste dismissed that question. ‘And he asks an audience with King Joyse?’
‘Asks, my lady? He demands. Or so it is said.’
‘And the King consents to grant what the Prince demands,’ Myste continued. ‘That is well. Perhaps it is very well. Perhaps the affairs of the realm begin to interest him again.
‘Terisa, we must go.’ She was already moving toward the door. ‘This must not be missed.’
Because of the background Master Quillon had given her, Terisa caught some of the importance of Saddith’s news. She followed without hesitation.
Perhaps this was what being free meant. She could criticize her father and follow her friend and even share in her friend’s excitement without having to worry about the consequences.
When they had descended into the body of Orison, Myste turned in a direction new to Terisa. This part of the castle was more open than many of the other halls: the ceiling was higher; the walls, farther apart; the floor, worn smooth by generations of feet. Windows between the arched supports of the ceiling shed winter sunlight on large, colorful pennons fixed so that they jutted out from the stone; under the banners guards stood at attention, their pikes braced by their feet. As a result, the place seemed more formal, less inhabited, than the rest of Orison.
A number of men and women, however, were headed in the same direction as Myste and Terisa. Some were clearly officers of the guard; others wore the rich attire of high rank. Almost everyone saluted or greeted the lady Myste in some respectful or friendly way. She replied with faraway politeness: like her eyes, her attention was aimed ahead. Quite a few people, on the other hand, stared openly at Terisa. What she was wearing made her stand out in the crowd as badly as if she were naked.
Self-conscious now, she looked around and noticed that Saddith was no longer with her. Apparently, the servants of the castle hadn’t been commanded to attend the Alend ambassador’s audience. She regretted that: she could have used Saddith’s worldly advice and support.
The stream of people approached a set of peaked doors, perhaps a dozen feet tall, opening out of the formal corridor. When she and Myste passed between them, Terisa found herself in what was unmistakably the hall of audiences.
It had the look and size of a cathedral. The stone walls were hidden by carved wooden screens, panel after panel around the room, each of them depicting characters and scenes Terisa couldn’t identify; and the screens rose into elaborate spikes and finials reaching twenty or thirty feet toward the vaulted ceiling. The deep brown of
the wood had the effect of making the hall dark, but it also seemed to distance the ceiling and fill the very air of the chamber with an impression of authority. The light came from two narrow windows up near the ceiling at the end of the hall, from rows of candles set around the walls and in tall holders here and there, and from batteries of cresseted oil lamps in the corners. The spiced oil of the lamps gave the air a sandalwood tang.
Down at the far end, opposite the doors, stood a structure that could only be King Joyse’s seat: an ornate mahogany throne on a wooden pediment four or five steps high, dominating the space before it. A large part of the floor before the throne was clear, except for a wide, thick strip of rich carpet which led from the doors to the first step of the throne; but this open space was closed on three sides by benches like pews, in which the people entering the hall seated themselves.
They all stopped talking as soon as they passed through the high doors. The atmosphere of the hall seemed to silence them.
When she looked about her, however, Terisa saw that the hall of audiences hadn’t been designed entirely to inspire respect. Above the screens on all four sides of the hall ran a balcony; the guards stationed there were archers rather than pikemen.
Those were the only guards in the hall, except for two at the doors and two more on either side of King Joyse’s seat. But they were enough to make Terisa crane her neck as Myste guided her forward and wonder how many assassinations had taken place in Orison before King Joyse or his ancestors had conceived this protective arrangement. It was a convincing defense. As long as the guards remained loyal to their King, he probably had nothing to fear from anyone he met in the audience hall.
Following the lady Myste, Terisa bypassed the benches ranked on three sides of the open space and moved toward the King’s seat. On each side of the pediment, a row of chairs reached toward the benches – special places for those who wielded the King’s power or had the King’s favor.
To the right of the throne, the nearest chair was already occupied by Castellan Lebbick. His perpetual glare and the purple band knotted around his short gray-stained hair made him look like a fanatic.
Fortunately, Terisa wasn’t expected to sit near him. The first seats were taken by officers under his command; most of the rest had been filled by Masters, among them Gilbur, Barsonage, and Quillon. (Quillon? Why wasn’t he working with Geraden?) Myste led Terisa to the left of the throne, where they joined the lady Elega and several men, most of them old, who resembled counselors more than courtiers. Myste introduced them by such titles as ‘Lord of Commerce’ and ‘Lord of the Privy Purse.’ They gaped at Terisa as if she had just arrived from the moon.
Elega showed more enthusiasm. ‘I am glad you are here,’ she whispered, drawing Terisa into a seat beside her. ‘I feared that you would be found too late – or that Myste might not consider a call to audience worth obeying.’ She spoke as though she meant no insult, and Myste appeared to take none. ‘Kragen himself, Terisa! The son of Margonal, the Alend Monarch, and Prince of the Alend Lieges. Imagine! He has come this entire distance from Scarab in deep winter. His purpose must be both mighty and terrible. Now my father will rise to the stature of his kingship’ – her vivid eyes flashed – ‘or he will forfeit what little respect he still holds in Mordant.’
‘Elega, he is our father,’ murmured Myste under her breath. ‘Even if he loses his mind completely, he still deserves our respect.’
Elega gave a soft snort of derision. ‘Let him abdicate his rule when he loses his mind. Then we will respect him as our father without despising him as a failed King.’
Terisa noticed Lebbick glowering at them as if he heard and hated every word.
His glare struck such a chill into her that several moments passed before she realized that the doors to the hall had been closed.
Around the balcony, each of the guards unlimbered his bow and put an arrow to the string. Instinctively, Terisa clutched at Myste’s arm. But the lady shook her head and smiled in reassurance.
Now the Castellan was on his feet. Facing the seated people, he said formally, ‘My lords and ladies, attend.’ He didn’t raise his voice, but his tone cut to the farthest corners of the hall. ‘You are commanded to this audience by Joyse, Lord of the Demesne and King of Mordant.’
On cue, King Joyse appeared from behind the tall construct of his seat. He had on what appeared to be the same robe of purple velvet he had been wearing when Terisa last saw him. His white hair was held in place by a circlet of gold; but his beard looked like he had slept on it and forgotten to comb it. Now, however, a brocade strap across his chest over his right shoulder supported a tooled leather sheath which held a long sword with a double-handed hilt and a jeweled pommel. The weight of the sword made him seem even more frail than before, more withered inside his voluminous robe. He was walking very slowly.
He was followed immediately by Adept Havelock.
The people in the hall rose to their feet and bowed while King Joyse ascended the pediment and sat down on his throne; then, responding to some signal Terisa missed, they raised their heads and stood in silence before their King.
At the same time, Adept Havelock walked into the open space before the seat and began to dance.
From one foot to the other he hopped, shaking his head, gesturing with his arms, kicking up his heels behind him.
His dingy surcoat, tattered at the hem, and his stained chasuble, his bare feet and the ratty tufts of hair protruding from his pate made him look like a derelict, a piece of human flotsam that had recently been retrieved from some gutter. His beaklike nose confronted the gathering with a fierceness that his unsteady, sybaritic mouth and confused eyes rendered foolish.
His expression was so lunatic that Terisa nearly laughed aloud. Luckily, she didn’t. Everyone else stared at Havelock – or avoided staring at him – in misery, disgust, or horror. Someone she didn’t see muttered audibly, bitterly, ‘Hail the King’s Dastard.’ Castellan Lebbick fixed the Adept with a glare that threatened to make his surcoat catch fire. Even Myste’s tolerance wasn’t equal to the way Havelock capered: she frowned and bit her lower lip, and her eyes were bright with anger or tears.
Nevertheless he reveled in the reaction he caused – or he was proof against it. In one hand, he carried a smoking silver censer shaped like a large baby rattle, and he shook fumes of incense around him while he pranced. Soon his dancing took him close to the people standing in front of their pews. At that point, he began to single out individuals for special attention. He jumped up and down in front of them, flourished his censer until smoke made them cough and their eyes water. And he shouted in a liturgical tone, as if he were intoning specific prayers for each of the people he faced:
‘Rut in the halls!’
‘Hop-board is the game the stars play with doom!’
‘Twelve candles were lit upon the table, twelve for the twelve kinds of madness and mystery.’
‘All women are better clothed naked.’
‘Dandelions and butterflies. We are nothing more than dandelions and butterflies in the end.’
King Joyse slumped in his seat, propping his elbows on the arms of the throne and supporting his head with both hands.
‘Hail King Joyse!’ Adept Havelock went on piously, still dancing in front of people, still forcing them to breathe his incense. ‘Without him, half of you would be dead. The rest would be slaves in Cadwal.’ He had chosen a pretty young woman to receive this utterance. ‘If you are dead from the waist up, and the lower half remains alive’ – he grinned savagely – ‘you will still be of service.’
The woman looked pale enough to faint. Instead of collapsing, however, she tittered nervously behind her hand.
At once, the Adept stopped. He peered at her in astonishment and indignation; with his free hand, he scratched one of the bald patches on his skull. Then he snorted, ‘Ballocks!’ and tossed the censer away over his shoulder. It cracked open when it hit the floor, and a block of incense fell onto the thick carpet. In
a scalding tone, he snapped, ‘Do not trouble to say anything more, my lady. I can see that I am wasting my time.’
Abruptly, he turned from her and stalked toward the place where he had made his entrance. ‘Do you hear me, Joyse?’ he shouted up at the King. His arms flailed fury at his sides. ‘I am wasting my time! ’
A moment later, he disappeared behind the pediment.
The hall of audiences was shocked. Apparently, the people of Orison still weren’t accustomed to Havelock’s quirks. In one or two places among the pews, a different kind of titter began; it was stilled immediately. The mediator of the Congery had a lost expression on his face. Master Quillon covered his eyes with one hand. A scowl of vindication twisted Master Gilbur’s face. Elega’s eyes flashed anger. Myste looked like she wanted to weep.
Behind the incense of the censer and the perfumed oil of the lamps, Terisa smelled the stink of burning fabric. Spilled incense was making the carpet smolder.
King Joyse seemed to be shrinking inside his robe. The watery blue of his eyes was bleak.
Castellan Lebbick was the first to act. Bristling with anger, he stamped away from his chair, went to the burning patch in the carpet, and ground out the fire with his heel. Then he faced the King, his fists cocked on his hips.
‘Perhaps you know the meaning of the Adept’s display, my lord King.’ He sounded savage. ‘I don’t. He would be more understandable to me if you had him chained.’
At once, however, he regained his self-control. Without any pretense of transition, he said, ‘My lord King, Prince Kragen of Alend has requested this audience. He says that he comes as ambassador from his father, Margonal, the Alend Monarch. Shall he be admitted?’
For a while, King Joyse didn’t reply. Then he sighed. ‘My old friend is wiser than I. All this is a waste of time. But since it must be faced, let us do it and be done.’ He made a tired gesture. ‘Admit Prince Kragen.’ A moment later, he added, ‘And sit down, all of you. You exhaust me.’
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