Mordant's Need

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  ‘Are you satisfied?’

  His demand took her by surprise. She scrambled to ask, ‘Do you mean the reason you can’t help Geraden now is that if you do your enemies will know you’re his friend and they’ll start trying even harder to have him killed?’

  ‘I mean much more than that,’ he snapped. ‘I mean that if I had given him permission to tell you whatever you wanted to know I would have doomed you both. My enemies would have taken anything like that as a sign that you were on my side.

  ‘Now are you satisfied?’

  ‘But what—?’ It was too much: his explanation increased her confusion. It had all been an elaborate charade. ‘Who are your enemies? Why can’t you protect anybody you want in your own castle?’ Images of Geraden and Myste and Elega and Queen Madin and Master Barsonage and even Castellan Lebbick rose in her, all of them lost and aggrieved. ‘Why do you have to make everybody who’s loyal to you think you don’t care what happens?’

  ‘My lady.’ His tone was no longer petulant. Now it was as keen and cutting as ice. ‘If I had any desire to answer such questions, I would have done so earlier. As a courtesy to your distress, I have already told you more than I consider wise.’ Like Geraden’s, his speech became more formal as it gathered authority. Despite his years, his voice still had the potential to lash at her. ‘I advise reason and silence, my lady. You will not prolong your life by speaking of what you have heard.’

  He dismissed her without a glance. ‘You may go.’

  But—? But—? She knew she should have been stronger. She should have demanded a better explanation. But what she wanted to ask couldn’t get past her mental stutter into words. She had no sure ideas left to stand on. King Joyse knew what he was doing – he knew with a vengeance. He was being passive and obtuse on purpose – hurting the people who loved him on purpose. But what purpose was that? It was inconceivable. He—

  ‘My lady,’ he said again, ‘you may go.’

  In a tone of faraway sadness, the Tor murmured, ‘My lady, it is generally unwise to disregard the will of a king.’ He spoke as if from personal experience.

  With a fierce effort, Terisa quelled her insistent incomprehension. The exertion left her angry and panting, but in control of herself.

  ‘Thank you, my lord Tor,’ she said stiffly. ‘My lord King, I’m sorry. I lied to you about Myste because she trusted me. She was afraid somebody would try to stop her. She asked me to protect her. I lied to you because I didn’t know you would have let her go.’

  None of the three men looked at her. They stared vacantly into the fire, as if they had used up their allotment of words for the day and had nothing left to think with. King Joyse let her get as far as the door before he breathed softly, ‘Thank you, my lady.’

  She left as if she were escaping.

  Geraden joined her in her rooms for supper.

  His expression was a strange mixture of relief and dread. His conversation with Artagel made his spirits soar; the upcoming meeting of the Congery hung on him like lead. The good news, he reported, was that Artagel was healing well after his earlier setbacks. And Artagel was still his friend. The bad news was that the swordsman was still in no condition to stand up in front of the Masters and defend his brother.

  ‘When will the meeting be?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know what kind of mediator Master Quillon is. I used to think he wasn’t assertive enough to pull a meeting together. But now—’ He shrugged.

  Fervently, he listened while she described her session with King Joyse, the Tor, and Adept Havelock. Unfortunately, it changed nothing. ‘You know,’ he commented after a while, ‘all this would do us a lot more good if we had any idea why we’re so important.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ She felt sour and imperfectly resigned. ‘It doesn’t cheer me up to believe King Joyse is really our friend only he can’t risk doing anything about it. What good are friends who treat you just like your enemies do?’

  He nodded slowly without agreeing with her. ‘The important thing is, it’s hope. He certainly sounds like he has reasons for what he’s doing.’ Geraden’s mood seemed to improve as hers deteriorated. ‘And if he has reasons, we can at least hope they’re good ones.’

  ‘On the other hand,’ she countered, ‘look at the way he’s treating the Tor.’

  That made Geraden scowl. ‘You heard King Joyse say he “defies prediction.” There’s probably a danger he’ll do something to mess up one of the King’s plans. So King Joyse is trying to keep him under control.’

  A moment later, he added in a black tone, ‘I don’t like plans that hurt the Tor.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ said Terisa.

  After a while, he remarked with more humor, ‘It’s too bad nobody much cares what we think of their plans.’

  Damn you, Geraden, she thought, you’re starting to cheer up again. I don’t understand it.

  In spite of his improved humor, however, he didn’t smile when one of the younger Apts knocked on the door and announced that the Congery wanted him. When the Apt used the words ‘at once,’ Geraden’s eyes widened slightly.

  ‘That was fast,’ he muttered to Terisa. ‘Master Eremis knows how to get action.’

  The young Apt avoided looking at Geraden.

  ‘The lady Terisa isn’t invited.’ ‘The lady Terisa,’ she snapped, ‘is coming anyway.’

  The Apt didn’t look at her, either.

  Geraden tried to give her one of Artagel’s combative grins; but its failure only made him appear sick. ‘Let’s go get it over with.’

  Together, they followed the young Apt through Orison down to the laborium.

  Until her knuckles began to ache, she didn’t realize that she was clenching her fists.

  Although she was warmly dressed, she felt the chill as soon as she crossed the disused ballroom and descended into the domain of the Masters. Castellan Lebbick’s new curtain wall defended the breach the champion had made, but didn’t seal it. Because of the strong wind outside, there was a noticeable breeze in the passages. As a result, the atmosphere was cold enough to make her wish she had brought a coat.

  If Geraden noticed the cold, he didn’t show it. His manner was distracted. As he entered the laborium, he grew tense. He had spent all his adult life – and a good part of his adolescence – trying to earn a place for himself in these halls and passages, and now his failure threatened to become so dramatic that it would be considered treason.

  For his sake as well as her own, Terisa was getting angrier.

  The young Apt led her and Geraden to a part of the laborium where she had never been before – to the room the Masters had used for their gatherings ever since the champion had destroyed their meeting chamber.

  This room was small by comparison, but still more than large enough. It was a long rectangle; and something in the color or cut of its cold, gray stone, in the worn but uneven floor, in the number of black iron brackets set into the walls created the impression that it had originally served as a storeroom for the instruments of torture. It was the kind of place where ways of inflicting pain might wait while they weren’t needed: racks and iron maidens being taken to and from the interrogation chamber might have rubbed those hollows in the floor; thumbscrews and flails might have hung in the brackets. A few of the brackets had been adapted to hold lamps, but the rest were empty. The empty ones seemed especially grim.

  The Masters were already gathered.

  They sat in heavy iron-pegged chairs which lined the two long walls, roughly half of them on either side facing each other as if they had deliberately set out to form a gauntlet. Because of the length of the room, however, a sizable space at each end was unused. The doors were there, several strides from the nearest seats.

  Two guards on strict duty held the door through which Terisa and Geraden entered the chamber. Neither man acknowledged the Apt’s glum nod.

  As the door closed behind her, she scanned the room. At first, the only face she recognized was that of Master Barsonage
. Since she had last seen him, the former mediator seemed to have developed a nervous tick: one of his thick, stiff eyebrows twitched involuntarily. Under the pressure of the Congery’s mistakes and indecision, his face had taken on a jaundiced hue. She saw no hope there.

  Looking for Master Quillon, her eye was caught by Castellan Lebbick.

  When she saw him, her throat suddenly went dry.

  He had Nyle with him.

  Geraden’s brother sat beside the Castellan at the far end of one row of chairs. He wore a brown worsted cloak over his clothes. Inside it, his arms bunched across his chest, holding the cloak shut. His head hung at a dejected angle. He didn’t look up at Terisa and Geraden.

  Geraden was frozen with shock. All expression had been wiped from his face. The spark that animated his features most of the time was gone – hidden or extinguished – and he seemed smaller, as if he were shrinking in on himself. He stared blankly at Nyle while two bright spots of color slowly spread in his cheeks. She had never seen him look so lost. The glazing of his eyes made her irrationally afraid that he was having a heart attack.

  ‘The lady Terisa was not invited,’ said one of the Masters loudly.

  ‘But she is welcome,’ rasped Castellan Lebbick. ‘Isn’t she, Master Quillon.’

  The rabbity mediator rose to his feet, gazing brightly at everything and nobody. Wrinkling his nose, he answered, ‘As welcome as you are, Castellan.’

  Castellan Lebbick grinned like a snarl.

  Master Eremis was sitting on the other side of the Castellan.

  ‘Oh, I insist,’ he said at once. ‘If Castellan Lebbick and Nyle are permitted, it is only fair to permit the lady Terisa also.’ His expression was difficult to read. For no clear reason, he looked pleased.

  ‘Why is he here?’ Geraden asked. He sounded like a sleepwalker.

  Everyone understood to whom Geraden was referring. Master Quillon started to reply, but Castellan Lebbick spoke first. Still grinning, he said, ‘Master Eremis claims he’s going to support the accusations against you.’

  ‘Nyle!’ Terisa cried softly.

  All the Masters were staring at her, but none of them seemed to have faces. She didn’t know who they were.

  Geraden moved to the nearest chair and sat down as if he were crumbling.

  Nyle tightened his grip on his cloak. He didn’t raise his head.

  ‘Castellan Lebbick,’ Master Quillon said as if he were thinking about something else, ‘this is the meeting of the Congery, not a congregation of your guards. You have no authority here. You are permitted only because you refuse to let Nyle among us without you. Please be quiet.’

  The Castellan accepted this admonition without retort, but also without acquiescence.

  ‘My lady,’ the mediator continued in the same tone, ‘will you sit down so that we may begin?’

  Terisa wrestled with an impulse to start shouting. Abruptly, she turned and took a seat beside Geraden.

  He looked so stunned that she whispered, ‘What is Nyle going to say about you?’

  He didn’t answer.

  Master Eremis watched Geraden curiously, as though he were genuinely interested in what the Apt was thinking.

  ‘Very well,’ said Master Quillon. He took one or two quick steps out into the middle of the floor between the rows of chairs. ‘Let us begin.’

  The chairs were old; perhaps they were left over from the days when the lords and ladies of Orison liked to watch the way prisoners were questioned. The wood was dry and porous enough to hold bloodstains.

  ‘We hold this meeting to consider a question which I will not attempt to soften.’ His manner suggested that he might be looking for a place to hide, yet his voice was firm. ‘As you all know, Master Eremis claims that Apt Geraden is a traitor – a traitor to the Congery and to Orison, to King Joyse and to Mordant. He also says that Apt Geraden will make the same claim of him. We will hear both speak. They will give their reasons. They will provide what corroboration they can. And we will try to determine the truth.’

  ‘And when the truth has been determined,’ Castellan Lebbick put in casually, ‘I’ll act on it.’

  Master Quillon ignored the interruption. ‘This matter must be dealt with speedily. There is a blot on the honor of the Congery, and it must be removed at once. Orison is under siege because of us – because we are desirable to the King’s enemies. And we are not much trusted at the best of times. Therefore it is urgent that we determine the truth – and that any traitor is delivered to the Castellan.

  ‘Apt Geraden’ – the mediator’s eyes sparkled – ‘will you speak first?’

  Everybody turned to look at Geraden – everybody except Nyle, who slumped in his chair as if he were contemplating suicide.

  Terisa wanted to say, demand, No. Make Master Eremis go first. But the words didn’t come. She watched like one of the Imagers as Geraden got slowly to his feet.

  The spots of color in his cheeks had darkened until they resembled a flush of exertion. His movements were tight, constrained. His chest rose and fell as if he were trying to take a deep breath and couldn’t. He didn’t look at Nyle: in fact, he didn’t look at anybody. He had been given a shock he didn’t know how to face.

  Terisa found herself thinking, Nyle is doing this because Geraden stopped him.

  ‘Masters—’ The Apt had to swallow hard to clear his throat. His voice seemed to be choking him. His life’s ambition had been to belong to the Congery. He had spent years obeying and honoring these men. ‘We’ve all been betrayed. I can’t prove any of it.’

  Oh, Geraden.

  Master Eremis appeared to be suppressing a desire to laugh.

  ‘You must make the effort, Geraden.’ The mediator’s words were sterner than his tone. ‘Master Eremis will prove everything he can. Are you speaking of Master Gilbur, or of someone else?’

  Geraden nodded aimlessly. His gaze stumbled to the floor. Yet he said nothing.

  At the sight of his pain, something turned over in Terisa. He had suffered too much, borne too much. And now his brother hurt him like this – personally, deliberately. He was finally breaking under the strain.

  ‘It’s simple, really,’ she said in a voice she hardly recognized. ‘There has to be a traitor. Someone else – not just Master Gilbur.’

  Master Quillon swung toward her. His nose seemed to twitch with eagerness, but the rest of his face was still.

  ‘It’s simple, really,’ Geraden echoed like a ghost. ‘There has to be a traitor. Someone else.’

  Then he raised his head.

  ‘It has to be somebody here.’

  Terisa held her breath, praying that he would go on.

  ‘She’s been attacked by Gart four times.’ His tone was a little slurred, but the glaze in his eyes seemed to be fading. ‘The third time was out in the bazaar. That doesn’t prove anything. But the fourth time Gart came through a secret passage in her room. Somebody must have told him about that passage.’

  He stopped.

  ‘That is true,’ Master Eremis observed as if he were agreeing with Geraden. ‘Someone must have told him. I was there to feel his attack. It is possible, I suppose, that I was his intended victim.’

  ‘Master Eremis,’ said the mediator with unexpected force, ‘you will be given all the time you need to speak. Defend yourself then. The Apt must be left to say what he will.’

  A Master with a heavy paunch and no eyebrows interposed, ‘You were there, Master Eremis? How did you survive? How did any of you survive?’

  Smiling, Eremis made a deferential gesture for silence.

  Without hesitation, Master Quillon prompted Geraden, ‘Continue, Apt. Who knew of the secret passage?’

  At once, Geraden said, ‘The Castellan, of course. King Joyse. His daughters. Terisa. Her maid. And Master Eremis.’

  Terisa released an inward sigh of relief because he hadn’t mentioned Master Quillon or Adept Havelock. He still had enough sense to keep that secret.

  The mediator, however, gave
no sign that he had noticed Geraden’s restraint. ‘And what does this prove?’

  ‘Everybody knew about the passage all along. Except Master Eremis. He only found out about it recently. Soon after he found out about it, Gart used it.’

  ‘That means nothing!’ protested Master Eremis at once. ‘What opportunity have I had to confer with the High King’s Monomach? I have been away, as you all know. I have been visiting Esmerel.’

  Geraden straightened his back. ‘But that’s not the crucial one.’ At last he began to sound stronger. He was breathing more easily, and his gaze had come into focus. ‘It’s the second attack that’s crucial. It was right after Master Eremis and Master Gilbur met with Prince Kragen and the lords of the Cares.’

  A look of outrage jerked across Castellan Lebbick’s face as old suspicions were confirmed. ‘They met—?’

  Geraden overrode the Castellan. ‘That lets out everybody else. Everybody who didn’t know about the meeting. But Master Eremis took her to it. When it broke up, he left her with Prince Kragen. Gart came out of a mirror with four of his men to attack them. The Perdon and Artagel saved them. Only Master Eremis could have arranged that. He’s the only one who knew she would be there. He’s the only one who had any control over where she would be after the meeting.’

  An expression of mock horror widened Master Eremis’ eyes and stretched his mouth.

  ‘And,’ Geraden insisted, ‘he may be the only Master who knew where she was that first night, when Gart broke into her rooms to kill her. He’s Saddith’s lover. She volunteered to be her maid because he asked her to.

  ‘Master Eremis is the only man in Orison who could have told Gart where and when to attack Terisa.’

  As if he were having trouble keeping his balance, Geraden sat down and braced his hands on his knees.

  Castellan Lebbick was on his feet, dangerously calm. ‘I suspected something like this. Tell me about that meeting.’