Mordant's Need

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  ‘You’ll beg me to stop. You’ll tell me everything I desire, and you’ll beg me to stop. But it will be too late. Your chance will be lost. Once I begin to hurt you, I will never stop. I will never stop.’

  She was so vividly appalled – the fright on her face was so stark – that the sight of it cost him his grip on himself. His arms burst out of his control; his hands caught her shoulders. Snatching her to him, he covered her mouth with his and kissed her as hard as a blow, aching to consume her with his passion before it tore him to pieces. Then he hugged her, hugged her so urgently that the muscles in his shoulders stood out like iron.

  ‘Tell me the truth.’ His voice shook, feverish with distress. ‘Don’t make me hurt you.’

  She had her arms between them, her hands against his chest. But she didn’t struggle: she surrendered to his embrace as if the resistance had been squeezed out of her. If he had released her without warning, she would have fallen.

  Nevertheless when she spoke all she said was, ‘Please don’t do this. Please.’ The way he held her muffled her words in his shoulder, but he could still hear them. ‘I’ll beg now, if that’s what you want. Please don’t do this to me.’

  For a moment, the gloom in the cell grew unexpectedly darker. It rose up around the Castellan, swept over his head; it made a roaring noise like a black torrent in his ears. Then it cleared, and the back of his hand hurt. The woman was slumped on the floor; the wall barely braced her up in a sitting position. Blood oozed like midnight from the corner of her mouth. Her eyes seemed glazed, as if she were scarcely conscious.

  ‘The lady Terisa is too polite,’ someone else said. ‘I will not speak so courteously. The next blow will be your last. If you strike her again, I will not rest until you are sent to the gallows.’

  Staggering, Castellan Lebbick turned and saw the Tor at the entrance of the cell.

  ‘My lord Tor—’ The Castellan croaked as if he were choking. ‘This isn’t your concern. Crimes committed in Orison are my responsibility.’

  The old lord was as fat as a holiday goose and as pasty-faced as poorly kneaded dough. Yet his small eyes glinted in the lamplight as if he were capable of murder. Under his fat, there was strength which enabled him to support his immense weight. ‘Then,’ he shot back, ‘you will be especially responsible for crimes you commit yourself. What if she is innocent?’

  ‘“Innocent”?’

  Lebbick was ashamed to hear himself cry out the word like a man who was about to start weeping. With a savage effort, he regained control of himself.

  ‘“Innocent”?’ he repeated more steadily. ‘You weren’t there, my lord. You didn’t see Geraden kill his brother. I caught her helping him escape – helping a murderer escape, my lord Tor. You have strange ideas of innocence.’

  ‘And your ideas of guilt have cost you your reason, Castellan.’ The Tor’s outrage sounded as acute as Lebbick’s own. ‘You accuse her of helping a murderer escape, not of shedding blood herself. When I heard that you had brought her here, I could hardly believe my ears. You have no right and no reason to punish her until King Joyse has judged her guilt for himself and given you his consent.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll refuse me?’ countered Castellan Lebbick, fighting to shore up his self-command. ‘Now, when Orison is besieged, and all his enemies are conspiring against him? My lord, you misjudge him. This’ – he made a slapping gesture in that woman’s direction – ‘is one problem he’ll leave to me.’

  Without hesitation, the Tor snapped, ‘Shall we ask him?’

  The Castellan had no choice; he couldn’t refuse. In spite of the way his bones ached and his guts shook, so that he seemed to be dying on his feet, he turned his back on that woman and went with the Tor to talk to King Joyse.

  When Lebbick demanded an audience, the King answered in his nightshirt.

  Instead of admitting the Castellan and the Tor to his presence, he opened the door of his formal rooms and stood there between the guards, blinking his watery old eyes at the lamplight as if he had become timid – as if he feared he might not be safe in his own castle in the middle of the night. He hadn’t been asleep: he had come to the door too promptly for that. And he neglected or forgot to close it behind him. The Castellan saw that King Joyse already had company.

  Two men sat in front of his hearth, looking over their shoulders toward the door.

  Adept Havelock. Of course. And Master Quillon, the recently designated mediator of the Congery.

  Master Quillon, who had accidentally contrived to help Geraden escape by tripping Lebbick. Master Quillon, who had mistakenly given that woman time to help Geraden by sending the guards away from the rooms where the mirrors were kept.

  The Castellan ground curses between his teeth.

  King Joyse gaped at Castellan Lebbick and then the Tor with a foolish expression on his face. His beard was tangled in all directions; his white hair jutted wildly around the rim of his tattered and lumpy nightcap – a cap, Lebbick happened to know, which Queen Madin had given him nearly twenty years ago. His hands were swollen with arthritis, and his back stooped for the same reason. The result was that he looked small and a little silly, too much reduced in physical and mental stature to be a credible ruler for his people.

  And yet the Castellan loved him. Looking at him now, Lebbick found that what he missed most wasn’t Joyse’s former leadership – or his former trust. It was the Queen: blunt, beautiful, pragmatic Madin. She had done everything in her power to keep King Joyse from becoming so much less than he was. She wouldn’t have let anybody see him in this condition.

  That recognition surprised Castellan Lebbick out of the fierce speech he was primed to make. Instead of spitting his bitter demands in Joyse’s face, he muttered almost gently, ‘Forgive the intrusion, my lord King. Couldn’t you sleep?’

  ‘No,’ King Joyse assented in a vague tone. ‘I meant what I told you to tell Kragen. I want to use the Congery. But I didn’t know how. It was keeping me awake. So I sent for Quillon.’ As if he believed this to be the reason Castellan Lebbick had come to him, he asked distractedly, ‘If you were them, what would you do tomorrow?’

  Involuntarily, Lebbick exchanged a glance of incomprehension with the Tor. ‘“Them,” my lord King? The Masters?’

  ‘The Alends,’ King Joyse explained without impatience. ‘Prince Kragen. What’s he going to do tomorrow?’

  That question didn’t require thought. ‘Catapults. He’ll try to break down the curtain-wall.’

  King Joyse nodded. ‘That’s what I thought.’ He seemed too sleepy to concentrate well. ‘Quillon and Havelock are going to do something about it.’ As an afterthought, he added, ‘They’ll need advice. And you need to know what they’re doing. Meet Quillon at dawn.

  ‘Good night.’ He turned back toward his rooms.

  ‘My lord King.’ It was the Tor who spoke.

  The King raised his eyebrows tiredly. ‘Was there something else?’

  ‘Yes,’ the Tor said sharply before Castellan Lebbick could break in. ‘Yes, my lord King. Lebbick has put the lady Terisa of Morgan in the dungeon. He struck her. He means to question her with pain. And he may’ – the Tor looked at Lebbick and fought to contain his anger – ‘may have other intentions as well.

  ‘He must be stopped.’

  The Castellan started to protest, then caught himself. To his astonishment, King Joyse was glaring at the Tor as if the old lord had begun to stink in some way.

  ‘What difference does it make to you, my lord Tor?’ retorted the King. ‘Nyle was killed. Maybe you didn’t realize that. The son of the Domne, my lord Tor – the son of a friend.’ He spoke as if he had forgotten why the old lord had come to Orison in the first place. ‘Lebbick is just doing his job.’

  In response, the Tor’s expression turned to nausea; his mouth opened and closed stupidly. He was so appalled that a moment passed before he was able to breathe; then he said as if he were suppressing an attack of apoplexy, ‘Do I understand you, my lord King?’ H
is lips stretched tight, baring his wine-stained teeth. ‘Does Castellan Lebbick have your permission to torture and rape the lady Terisa of Morgan?’

  A muscle in King Joyse’s cheek twitched. Suddenly, his eyes were no longer watery: they flashed blue fire. ‘That’s enough!’ Echoes of the man he used to be rang off the walls as he articulated distinctly, ‘You fat, old, useless sot, you’ve interfered with me enough. I’m sick of your self-righteousness. I’m sick of being judged. Castellan Lebbick has my permission to do his job.’

  Behind his constant scowl, inside his clenched heart, Lebbick felt like cheering.

  The Tor’s face swelled purple; his eyes bulged. His fists came up trembling, as if he were in the throes of a seizure – as if he had finally been provoked to strike his King. When he lowered them again, the act cost him a supreme effort. As the blood left his face, his skin became waxen.

  ‘I do not believe you. You are my King. My friend.’ His voice rattled in his throat; his gaze was no longer focused on anything. ‘I, too, have lost a son. I will not believe you.

  ‘Be warned, Castellan. You will suffer for it if you believe him.’

  His flesh seemed to slump on his bones as he moved away and went slowly down the stairs, carrying himself as if his years had caught up with him without warning and made him frail.

  Softly, so that he wouldn’t betray his jubilation, Castellan Lebbick murmured, ‘My lord King.’

  At once, King Joyse turned on him. The King’s blue eyes continued to burn, but now they were unexpectedly rimmed with red. ‘That woman must be pushed,’ he rasped under his breath. ‘She must be made to declare herself – or to discover herself.’ Then he thrust a crooked finger into Lebbick’s face and snarled, ‘Be ready to answer for everything you do.’

  Without allowing Lebbick time to reply, he reentered his rooms and slammed the door.

  Since the guards were studiously not looking at him, Castellan Lebbick glowered at them to conceal his satisfaction. He hadn’t forgotten the rest of his job: Master Quillon, Master Eremis, Nyle; the organization and defense of Orison. But those things carried no emotional weight with him now; he would deal with them simply to get them out of his way. King Joyse had given him permission. His King trusted him to discover that woman’s secrets.

  His King’s trust was the only answer he needed. The answer for everything.

  Deliberately postponing the pleasure he desired most, he didn’t return to the dungeon. Instead, he went looking for Master Eremis – and Nyle’s body. Nyle is still alive. He had time before dawn to give himself the luxury of confirming that that woman had lied.

  He found the Imager in the corridor leading away from the section of Orison where all the Masters had their quarters. Eremis was striding purposefully in Lebbick’s direction, and he greeted the Castellan by saying without preamble, ‘Nyle is still alive.’

  Castellan Lebbick halted, braced his fists on his hips, faced the Imager fiercely. Now that Eremis had his attention, he remembered why he hated the tall, lean Master so much. He hated the lively and sardonic superiority in Eremis’ gaze, the combination of intelligence and ridicule in Eremis’ manner. Most of all, however, he hated Eremis’ success with women. Women whose faces wore an implicit sneer for the Castellan spread their legs for Eremis whenever the Master simply lifted an eyebrow at them. It probably wasn’t surprising that the sluttish maid Saddith was eager for the prestige she could get from a Master. But it knotted the Castellan’s guts to recollect the mute yearning he had occasionally seen in his prisoner’s expression at the mere mention of Master Eremis.

  Lebbick himself would have been tempted to kill any woman who acquiesced to him without being his wife.

  Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to hate Eremis at the moment. Too much was happening; the Master’s words seemed to open an abyss under his feet. ‘Alive?’ he snapped. ‘What’re you talking about?’

  ‘I hoped this was possible,’ replied Master Eremis as if the Castellan had asked his question politely. ‘That is why I rushed him to my rooms. I have never seen Geraden do anything well, so I hoped that he might find it impossible to murder his brother successfully. Apparently, his knife missed Nyle’s heart.’

  At once, relief reeled through Lebbick’s head. That woman was lying. She still belonged to him. For a moment, he was so giddy that he couldn’t pull his thoughts together enough to speak.

  ‘Underwell is with him,’ continued Eremis. Underwell was one of the best physicians in Orison. In fact, he was the physician Castellan Lebbick himself would have chosen to take care of Nyle. ‘If he can be saved, Underwell will do it.

  ‘In addition, I took the liberty of making a few demands on your guards.’ The Master’s eyes glittered with mirth or malice, as if he could read Lebbick’s confusion plainly. ‘If Geraden wants his brother dead badly enough, he may try again. It seems clear that he is in league with Gilbur as well as Gart – and almost certainly with the arch-Imager also. You may recall that they are apparently able to come and go in Orison as they wish. So I insisted on being obeyed by four of your men. Two of them are with Underwell and Nyle. The other two guard my door.

  ‘Do you approve of my arrangements’ – Master Eremis smiled amiably – ‘good Castellan?’

  With some difficulty, the Castellan imposed a bit of order on his inner riot. He did approve of Eremis’ arrangements. They were right. No, more than that: they were so right that they made that woman’s accusations against Master Eremis look ludicrous. Just for a second, he found himself wondering whether Eremis had jilted her, whether her behavior could be explained by jealousy. But speculations like that only led him back into turmoil. What he needed at the moment was to forget about her for a while.

  ‘They’ll do for now,’ he replied, speaking roughly because he resented the necessity of giving Eremis even that much satisfaction. ‘In the meantime, I want you to come with me. I want some answers, but I haven’t got time to stand here talking.’

  Master Eremis frowned, although his eyes continued smiling. With a hint of acid, he said, ‘My time is valuable also, Castellan. Our brave King threatened the Alend army with the strength of the Congery, did he not? And yet we have made no plans to back up his threat. It seems likely that our new mediator will call a second meeting of the Congery before this night ends.’ The Imager’s tone gave nothing away. ‘If he does, I must attend.’

  Lebbick consulted his mental hourglass and retorted, ‘I don’t think so. There isn’t time.’ His anger matched Eremis’. ‘I’ve been commanded to meet Quillon at dawn. You can talk to him then.

  ‘Come on.’

  He almost hoped that Eremis would refuse. The Castellan would have enjoyed having the insolent Imager tied up and dragged along behind him. On the other hand, he had too much else on his mind and wouldn’t be able to give an experience like that the attention it deserved. So he waited until Master Eremis acceded; then he strode away.

  His questions were the same ones which had come up during that illfated meeting of the Congery earlier in the evening. How did Eremis account for the fact that he was the only man in Orison who had been consistently able to know where that woman was when the High King’s Monomach attacked her? And why was Gart trying to kill her anyway, if he and Geraden were plotting together and Geraden loved her? And what had the lords of the Cares and Prince Kragen said to each other when they had treacherously met at Eremis’ instigation? And what was that story about an attack of Imagery on Geraden – translated insects trying to kill him? With or without Eremis’ knowledge?

  Of course, Master Eremis had replied to all those questions during the meeting. But Castellan Lebbick hadn’t liked the answers. Taken together, they all contained one fatal flaw: they all presupposed that Geraden was a smooth and expert traitor; that he not only possessed but concealed unprecedented talents; that he had allied himself with Gart and Cadwal long before that woman’s translation into Orison; that all his clumsiness, his appearance of being a confused puppy, was a sham.
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  Lebbick found the whole idea incredible.

  He believed that Geraden had tried to kill Nyle: he had seen it with his own eyes. But Geraden secretly plotting Mordant’s downfall? Artagel’s brother in league with Gart? The son of the Domne seducing that woman to crimes she wouldn’t otherwise have committed? Those things Castellan Lebbick didn’t believe. No, the crimes and the plotting and the seduction were hers, not Geraden’s.

  And Eremis was a fool for blaming him. Or else the Master hadn’t started to tell the truth yet.

  So while he went about readying Orison to meet the dawn, Castellan Lebbick made Master Eremis go through all his explanations again, with more care, in greater detail. After a day without water, the castle was already experiencing considerable distress. Strict rationing created hundreds of hardships; dozens of people cheated – or tried to cheat – and had to be dealt with. On the other hand, the difficulties were much less now than they would be soon. Severity was Orison’s only hope. Therefore Lebbick dispensed severity everywhere he went. And Eremis watched him. Answered his questions. Betrayed nothing.

  Perhaps that was why Castellan Lebbick couldn’t think of a good retort when Eremis goaded him about his loyalty to the King, on the ramparts of Orison after Adept Havelock had demonstrated the effectiveness of his defense against catapults. The Master had betrayed nothing. We might have decided to defend Mordant ourselves, rather than waiting politely for our beloved King to fall off the precarious perch of his reason. Some reply was essential: Lebbick knew that. But he couldn’t seem to pull his yearning spirit this far away from the dungeon. Without paying much attention to what he said, he muttered, ‘Prove it. Get me water.’