Mordant's Need

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  ‘No, it’s not.’

  Regardless of what Geraden felt, he faced Lebbick without flinching. The Castellan liked that. Not so long ago, the Apt would have flinched.

  ‘You’re also going to have to flush out the reservoir and all the pipes. If you don’t do it – and do it soon – people who get thirstier than they can stand are going to start sneaking drinks. If they’re weak enough, they’ll die.

  ‘Flushing everything will use water, too. You won’t have much left to ration.’

  The Castellan nodded. No matter how stupidly he behaved, the Apt wasn’t stupid. In fact, considering his obvious intelligence, it was amazing how consistently he managed to go wrong.

  ‘Are you sure she poisoned the water?’

  Geraden frowned. ‘Do you mean, am I sure she knew what she was doing? No. And I haven’t tested it. But whatever was in those sacks was a powder, and it was green. I only know one kind of green powder. It’s a tinct the Masters use. They call it “ortical” – it was first mixed by an Imager named Ortic. There must be a hundredweight of it stored in the laborium.’ He didn’t look away. ‘That stuff will make you sick if you just get too much of it on your hands.’

  ‘Is there a counteragent?’

  ‘Who knows? Imagers don’t eat tinct. And they don’t spend their time trying to cure people who do.’

  ‘If I ask your Master Barsonage, will he be able to tell me if any ortical is missing?’

  ‘No. Nobody supervises the Masters when they’re working. Quite a few of them still like to keep the ingredients they use secret. But one of the younger Apts might have noticed a sudden drop in the amount of ortical on the shelves.’

  Again, the Castellan nodded. Without warning, he addressed Terisa for the first time. ‘How did you know what the lady Elega was going to do?’

  In a small voice, she replied, ‘I guessed.’

  ‘You guessed?’

  ‘I put together some things she said.’ She became stronger as she spoke. ‘They weren’t even enough to be called hints. I put them together and just guessed.’

  ‘My lady,’ Castellan Lebbick announced in a contented tone, ‘I don’t believe that.’ Then he dismissed her and Geraden.

  He didn’t need to plan what had to be done. It was already clear to him, step by step. He was the Castellan of Orison; he knew how to serve his King. In the end, it made no difference what the odds were against him. How badly Orison was damaged. How much he was outmanned. How far King Joyse failed. Castellan Lebbick had made himself more like a sword than a man – and a sword knew nothing about surrender.

  In the meantime, he had something to look forward to. That woman’s turn was coming.

  Geraden took her back to the peacock suite, then went to his own rooms to try to get some sleep. But neither of them slept much.

  No one in Orison slept much.

  Of course, many of the castle’s inhabitants were awake because they were too tense to sleep. A large number of people didn’t have that problem, however. They were guards who were either too experienced or too tired to stay awake; parents whose overexcited children had worn them out; merchants who knew that their own survival – and even their profits – would probably be more rather than less valuable after the siege, regardless of who won. They were servants who were so badly overworked that they couldn’t afford sleeplessness; Masters who lacked imagination; lords who didn’t understand and ladies who were philosophical.

  These people didn’t get much sleep because Castellan Lebbick and his men woke them up.

  Despite his quickness, the Castellan was too late to save two old men who were accustomed to make several trips to the lavatory during the night, a handful of guards who came off watch and refreshed themselves before they were warned, and several children who roused their parents crying for water. But these unfortunate incidents at least served to confirm that Elega had poisoned the reservoir – that the harsh measures which Lebbick imposed on the castle were necessary. The children were desperately sick, but no one died except one of the old men.

  And in the morning nearly everybody tried to crowd out onto the battlements or around a window to watch for the Alend army.

  In that respect, Terisa and Geraden were fortunate. They had no trouble gaining access to the top of the tower that held her rooms.

  During the night, the weather had turned cold again. A featureless gray cloud wrack had closed down over Mordant, turning the castle and the landscape the color of gloom; a chill wind blew like a scythe, reaping away every sign of an early spring. The nearby hills lost depth; the ones farther away looked higher, more dangerous. The black trees tossed their limbs as if they were writhing. Corrupt snow still clung to most of the slopes, making the bare ground appear unwell. At first, she could hardly see: the cold felt like a slap, and the wind in her face made her eyes tear. Gradually, however, her vision improved until she was able to scrutinize the horizons in the direction of Armigite and Alend just as the crowds on the lower battlements and the people on the other towers did.

  There was nothing to see.

  For a long time, there was nothing to see. By degrees, the crowds thinned. Twice, Terisa and Geraden broke their vigil and returned to her rooms to get warm.

  ‘When are they coming?’ she asked.

  ‘How should I know?’ he replied with uncharacteristic asperity. He was taking his failure to stop Elega hard.

  She knew how he felt and didn’t blame him.

  ‘Which direction are they going to come from?’

  He repented his testiness. ‘Along the road. That’s longer, but it should be quicker. And it’s the only way they can bring their supplies. Or the “engines of war” we keep hearing about.’

  When they went back outside, she learned that he was right. Warned by an indefinable stiffening of attention around her, she peered harder into the harsh wind and saw the vanguard of the Alend army coming.

  It was on the northwest road from the Care of Armigite.

  The Alend Monarch’s flags flew in the hands of his standard-bearers. The gray light and the distance made them look black.

  Slowly, the army marched toward Orison – a body of men that seemed huge beyond counting. Soldiers on horses. Soldiers on foot. Dozens of drivers goading the mules that dragged the supply wains. Swarms of transformed servants and impressed peasants who steered and tended the lumbering siege engines. And a second army of porters and camp followers.

  All come to take Orison away from Mordant’s King.

  Held by a kind of awe, she stared out from the tower and tried to imagine the amount of bloodshed King Joyse’s actions threatened to bring down on his people.

  Perhaps he was imagining the same thing. Geraden nudged her and pointed toward the north tower. Squinting in that direction, she saw King Joyse standing before the parapets with Castellan Lebbick.

  He looked small across the length of Orison, despite his heavy fur cloak. Both he and his Castellan studied the Alend advance without moving. Perhaps there was nothing they could do. The flags of Mordant had been raised over the battlements, but the King’s personal banner snapped painfully from the end of a pole on the tower where he stood. It was a plain purple swath that might have appeared jaunty and brave under bright sunlight. Now it looked as if it was about to be torn away by the wind.

  After a while, he and Castellan Lebbick left the tower.

  For no reason that Terisa could see, Orison’s trumpeter winded his horn. He may have been blowing a call to arms; it sounded more like a wail.

  With ponderous precision, like a display of inevitability, Alend’s army invested the castle.

  Ten thousand soldiers surrounded the walls and presented their weapons. The siege engines were rolled into position. Then the Alends bugled a signal of their own, and a party of riders formed around the Alend Monarch’s standard-bearer. The standard-bearer added a flag of truce to Margonal’s assertive green-and-red pennon. Together, the flags and the riders approached the gates of Orison.

>   Orison’s trumpeter responded. The gates rose.

  With six men behind him, Castellan Lebbick rode out to meet the Alend party.

  He wasn’t surprised to see that the Alends were led by Prince Kragen. Nor, after his conversation with King Joyse, was he surprised by the fact that one of the riders was the lady Elega.

  The two groups stopped and eyed each other across a short distance. The Prince was steady, but Elega didn’t meet Castellan Lebbick’s glare.

  After a long silence, Prince Kragen said, ‘Greetings, Castellan. Your King’s folly has brought us to this.’

  The Castellan was holding his horse with too tight a rein: the beast couldn’t stand still. As it shied from side to side, he rasped, ‘Say what you came to say and be done with it, my lord Prince. I have better things to do with my time.’

  Prince Kragen’s gaze darkened. ‘Very well,’ he snapped. ‘Listen carefully, Castellan.’

  In a formal tone, he announced, ‘Margonal, the Alend Monarch and Lord of the Alend Lieges, sends greetings to Joyse, Lord of the Demesne and King of Mordant. The Alend Monarch asks King Joyse to meet with him under a flag of truce, so that together they may find some way to avert this conflict. King Joyse has refused to hear requests for peace from the Alend Monarch’s ambassador. Nevertheless it is peace the Alend Monarch desires, and he will pursue that desire openly and fairly with King Joyse, if the King will consent to meet him.’

  ‘A pretty speech,’ Castellan Lebbick retorted without hesitation. ‘Why should we believe you?’

  ‘Because,’ the Prince shot back, ‘I do not need to make pretty speeches. Your wall is broken – and not well repaired, I observe. You have no stores of clean water. Your men are too few. You cannot endure a siege, Castellan. The Alend Monarch has no reason to offer you peace – no reason except the sincerity of his desire.’

  ‘“The sincerity of his desire.”’ Lebbick jerked at his mount. ‘I like that – from an Alend.

  ‘All right. Here’s your answer.

  ‘King Joyse asks me to point out to you – and to your illustrious father – that neither of you understands hop-board. You wouldn’t have gotten as far as a stalemate without help. Instead of waving your swords at us, you ought to remember what happened the last time you went to war with Mordant.’

  The wind cut between the horses. ‘By the stars, Lebbick,’ cried out the lady Elega, ‘is he still playing hop-board? Tell him to surrender!’

  The Castellan didn’t shift his gaze from Prince Kragen’s face. ‘The King’s daughter,’ he remarked. ‘That attack last night was a diversion, so she could get out of Orison.’ As soon as King Joyse had said this, Lebbick had cursed himself for not realizing the truth immediately. ‘What do you plan to do with her now? Is she a hostage?’

  Prince Kragen spat an oath. With an effort, he resumed his formal tone. ‘The Alend Monarch welcomes the lady Elega as a friend. He has no intention of offering any harm, either to her, or to her father in her person. This courtesy, also, he provides as a demonstration of his desire for peace.’

  ‘I have an answer for that, too.’ For the first time, Castellan Lebbick used the exact words he had been given. ‘King Joyse replies, “I am sure that my daughter Elega has acted for the best reasons. She carries my pride with her wherever she goes. For her sake, as well as for my own, I hope that the best reasons will also produce the best results.”’

  The lady Elega stared at Castellan Lebbick as if he had said something horrible.

  ‘That is an answer?’ demanded the Prince.

  ‘Take it and be satisfied,’ the Castellan replied. ‘You ought to like it better than the denunciation she deserves. Ask her’ – King Joyse had specifically forbidden him to say this – ‘if she wants to know how many people died this morning.’

  Prince Kragen ignored that jibe. ‘You misunderstand me deliberately, Castellan. Have you given me your King’s answer to the Alend Monarch’s desire for truce? Is he that far out of his senses?’

  Riding the strength of the fact that King Joyse had actually talked to him – however strangely – Castellan Lebbick had no trouble finding a retort. ‘I don’t advise you to put it to the test.’

  ‘Then hear me. Hear me well, Castellan.’ Prince Kragen’s anger was fierce. ‘This is my last word.

  ‘Your King leaves us no choice. We cannot “be satisfied.” Cadwal is marching. You know that Cadwal is marching. Where we stand, we are more vulnerable than you to the High King’s great force. We cannot defend you, or your people, or the Congery—’

  ‘Or yourselves.’

  ‘—or ourselves if we do not take Orison. King Joyse compels us all to a war he cannot win, regardless of the cost to us. He must offer peace. By peace or by blood, we must have Orison.’

  The Castellan fought his horse still. ‘That is your last word?’ He was grinning.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Then here’s mine.’ Lebbick knew what to say, although he didn’t understand it. ‘King Joyse assures the Alend Monarch that he has more choices than he realizes. King Joyse suggests you withdraw to the west of the Demesne and await developments. If you do that, he’ll be glad to meet the Alend Monarch under a flag of truce and offer more suggestions.

  ‘If you don’t’ – the Castellan could barely conceal his own surprise at the threat he had been instructed to deliver – ‘King Joyse intends to unleash the full force of the Congery against you and rout you from the earth!’

  At the moment, he didn’t care whether or not the King’s gambit would succeed. He was simply glad that he had been allowed to say those words.

  Silence seemed to shock the gathering. For a time, no one could respond. In spite of himself, Prince Kragen gaped in anger and dismay.

  Then the lady Elega whispered intensely, ‘Castellan Lebbick, you lie.’ Her face was pale in the harsh wind. ‘My father would never do such a thing.’

  As if she had commanded it, the Prince snatched the flag of truce from the standard-bearer, broke its shaft across his knee, and threw the pieces into the road. Wheeling his mount, he led his party back to the Alend lines.

  Castellan Lebbick and his men returned to Orison. The gates thudded shut behind them.

  The Alend bugler sounded another call. All around the castle, camp followers and servants began to unpack wagons and pitch tents. The siege of Orison had commenced.

  ‘I’ve got to go see Artagel,’ Geraden said as if he were proposing to have his legs broken. ‘He’ll want to hear what’s happened.’ The cold made his nose run; he sounded congested and miserable. ‘If he can’t forgive me for letting Prince Kragen get away, at least there isn’t anything worse he can do to me for letting Elega poison the water.’

  Terisa offered to go with him, but he declined her company. He wanted to face his distress alone.

  When he left, she went back to her rooms.

  She had a great deal to think about. She needed to decide where she stood in relation to what was happening around her. She needed to define her own loyalties. She needed to decide how far she was willing – or able – to pursue the commitment she had apparently given Geraden by telling him about the connection between her dream and the augury.

  Instead, she found herself thinking about Reverend Thatcher.

  She had worked for him for almost a year – long enough to forget why she had originally accepted the job as his mission secretary. Since then, what she tended to remember about him was his dogged ineffectuality. But she hadn’t seen him that way at first. No, at first she had gone looking for a mission job to make up for the emptiness and wealth of her background, the uselessness which eroded her sense of herself. And she had taken the job Reverend Thatcher offered because of his dedication against impossible poverty and callous disregard.

  At the time, of course, she hadn’t realized that he was ineffectual. Now, however, she began to wonder whether that perception was accurate. In his place, wouldn’t Geraden have done just what he did? Wouldn’t Geraden have held true in the fac
e of any failure? Wasn’t the real failure of her mission work in her? A failure of heart?

  Wasn’t it possible to live as if she could hear horns?

  What she was thinking didn’t solve anything. But it was necessary, and she stayed with it. At least it taught her to understand that she owed Reverend Thatcher an apology.

  Later, she became aware that she was tired enough to sleep.

  The idea of a nap was unexpectedly appealing. She hadn’t slept well the night before. And no amount of fatigue or wakefulness was going to do Orison any good. Humming to herself, she added wood to both fires to keep her rooms warm. Then she took off all her clothes, tossed them onto a chair, and slipped herself into bed.

  For a while, she listened to the hungry wind scraping its claws on her window, on the corners of the tower. But as soon as the cool sheets gained heat from her skin, she fell asleep.

  Deep in dreams, she received the delicious impression that she was being kissed.

  A strong mouth covered hers. A tongue stroked her lips, probing delicately between them. She tasted cloves.

  Under the blankets, a hand caressed her belly, then moved up to her breasts. Its touch was just cool enough to make her nipples harden.

  When she realized that she wasn’t dreaming, she opened her eyes.

  Master Eremis was bending over her; his pale gaze met hers. Her father had eyes like that. But the crinkles around them suggested that he was grinning.

  He startled her so much that she clutched at the blankets and jerked her head away from him.

  Pulling back a little, he withdrew his hand from her body. The ends of his chasuble swung carelessly against the front of his accustomed jet cloak. He was definitely grinning. In fact, he seemed to be in excellent spirits.

  ‘My lady,’ he said, ‘I fear I have frightened you. Do forgive me.’

  Staring up at him through the gray light from the windows, she thought that he was uglier than she remembered: his face was too much like a wedge; his hair sprouted too far back on his skull. Yet that only made the lively intelligence of his expression more magnetic.