Restoree

by Anne McCaffrey

  Perhaps, I thought, Harlan was wrong about not seeking out the Mil now. Certainly that would absorb the restless elements. Once Lothar had laid the scourge to rest, she could progress more normally. Normally? Was my Earth any more normal with its constant, useless international bickerings? At least Lothar had a mighty purpose and pursued it relentlessly, valorously.

  As we finished the sweet fruit of our final course, I made a particularly noticeable blunder.

  “Sometimes you act as if you didn’t know what I was talking about,” Maxil commented, frowning. “And you’ve got the oddest way of talking. Where do you come from?”

  “Jurasse. My mother was from South Cant. I guess that’s why I have an odd way of speaking. Mother always said Jurassans murder . . . [I was about to say the King’s English] . . . human speech.”

  “They certainly do,” Maxil agreed, pushing back the table. He belched without apologizing and I wondered if this were customary or adolescent. I cleared my throat instead.

  We had grown accustomed to the noisy crowds outside the gardens. Now suddenly a roar of angry voices drew our attention to the windows. Maxil strode over, beckoning me.

  “Another protest on the Tane wars,” he remarked, pointing out banners being dipped and glided above the heads of the crowd.

  “Damn the Tane wars,” Maxil growled. “That’s all anyone talks of.”

  “It masks some other purpose,” I said remembering Harlan’s fears.

  “I’ll just bet it does. And you know why that war’s a farce?” Maxil demanded. “Because Gorlot’s men command the patrol now. Men,” he sneered, “like Samoth. All, even the emergency session of Council Gorlot calls, they’re all his men. He hasn’t missed a trick. Not one.”

  “Yes,” I contradicted him, “one. Harlan’s escape.”

  “That doesn’t do any good unless Harlan can appear sane before the Council and prove it. And I’ll bet Gorlot can think of a way to prove Harlan is as mad as ever.”

  “I doubt it. Because Harlan never was mad.”

  “I know it. You know it,” he said gloomily.

  “Sitting here won’t do any good. Seeing Ferrill will. Let’s go. It must be near time now,” I said, standing up. Maxil’s depression was contagious.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE STARHALL WAS THE FINAL beauty in the flawlessness of the palace wheel. The vast dome-ceilinged room accommodated the throngs of people without seeming in the least crowded, without being noisy. The constellations that shone from the darkened ceiling changed perceptibly as the planet itself turned round its primary. The mocking lights glittered on hundreds of maskers who danced, drank and sported in the gigantic room. I had never seen such a magnificent crowd, nor felt so dwarfed by a walled structure. Maxil and I paused, by mutual consent, in one of the five soaring archways that gave on to the Hall proper, watching the fantastic revelry.

  “Where’s Ferrill?” I asked.

  Maxil shrugged. “It’s not yet tenth hour. He may not come in until the Eclipse.” He pointed to the ceiling where facsimiles of the two satellites closed the gap that separated them and their rendezvous with their sun. “It’s a frightfully noisy night for him. Not like other times. Oh, we had lots of guests but . . .” His inference was directed at quality not quantity. “See that blond girl over there by the second archway. The one in the purple overdress? That’s my sister, Kalina.” He grimaced with distaste. “She’s drunk and she’s got enough face paint on for a Clan Mother. And the other blonde, the one on the couch under Ifeaus (a constellation, I later learned), that’s Cherez. She’s only thirteen. It’s bad enough for Kalina to be here acting that way. She’s already claimed. But for Cherez!”

  A servant approached with a tray and paused in front of us. Maxil peered into the ornate metal goblets, snorted and waved the man away.

  “Gorlot’s serving delinade,” he gritted out.

  “What’s that?” I asked without thinking.

  “An aphrodisiac. Don’t you know anything?”

  I was spared the necessity of replying by the change of expression that came over Maxil. It was a combination of fear, hatred, disgust and expectation.

  “Where’s Samoth?” a cold voice said behind my back and I didn’t need to wait until I was roughly turned toward the speaker to know it was Gorlot.

  “You aren’t the Lady Fara,” Gorlot said, staring at me.

  “Samoth got drunk,” Maxil said quickly, taking my arm and trying to move away.

  “You are not to leave your tutor. Especially not to pick up prostitutes. As if they would do you any good,” Gorlot snapped. “Go find him.”

  “He’s supposed to nursemaid me, not me him,” Maxil replied with a show of more spirit than Gorlot evidently expected from him.

  “I see,” he drawled enigmatically and flicked a hand at the guard behind us. “Take this trollop out.”

  “Immediately,” a feminine voice seconded beyond Gorlot. A woman, elegantly dressed in a yellow Searcher’s costume joined the temporary Regent. “I gave explicit orders that I was to be the only Searcher here,” she said vindictively. Her eyes narrowed suddenly as she noticed the flash of my jewels in the starlight. She peered more closely at the fabric and cut of my gown. Its rich green made her costume too glaring a yellow by contrast. “Who is she?”

  “Lady Sara, the Lady Maritha and, of course, the Lord Regent Gorlot,” Maxil said with cold politeness.

  “Lady Sara, indeed,” Maritha sneered and snapping her fingers at a passing traybearer, took an unladylike gulp of a fresh goblet.

  “Lady Sara, indeed,” I replied calmly, bowing as graciously as I could, to make her rudeness more apparent. My palms were sweating.

  A gleam flickered in Gorlot’s eyes as he noticed the exchange. He looked from Maritha’s studied blond beauty to me.

  “The blond Searcher and the brunet. An interesting contrast. The Searcher has always been my favorite mask, particularly so when I complement it,” Gorlot drawled, indicating his white priest’s robes.

  “You make a truly authentic priest,” I murmured, not meaning flattery but smiling up at him from under demurely downcast eyes.

  “Get her out of here,” Maritha snapped to the guard, her eyes flashing angrily. “Impertinent wretch,” and she tossed off the rest of her drink.

  Gorlot, to my surprise, canceled that order with a flick of his hand.

  “We cannot be so ungracious to Maxil’s Searcher,” he said as Maritha glared first at me, then at him. She had sense enough to be quiet. “However, every Searcher knows the priest who will claim her, doesn’t she?” and his cold eyes flicked once more up and down my body.

  Gartly’s apparently prophetic words rang in my ears: “It isn’t in Gorlot’s room we want her.”

  I took Maxil’s arm, more for support against my nervousness, and pulled him forward, away from Gorlot. The backward glance I shot him he could interpret any way he chose. I merely wanted to be sure he wasn’t following me.

  I was not the only one shaken by the encounter. Maxil’s arm trembled beneath my hand. He kept his back straight and his step measured as we walked into the dancers. And there was more pride and confidence in his bearing than there had been since I met him.

  The dancers and revelers parted around us to catch us up in their whirling numbers. A fear, deeper, more intense than the momentary shock of the episode with Gorlot, engulfed me in choking terror. The pressing bodies suddenly seemed to compress me in on myself. The various limbs that brushed against mine felt wet or cold and I grabbed at Maxil with both hands. He took one look at my face and brushed rudely past the maskers to get me on the safe, uncrowded sidelines.

  I stammered my thanks, unable to explain my ghastly claustrophobia, clutching at Maxil as the only reality in the whole huge room.

  He urged me to a brightly decorated buffet table where tall crystal columns sparkled with liquids. Culinary masterpieces were desecrated to slide down palates dulled by drink. Maxil indicated an almost full dispenser of cornade. We
were served by a haughty man who gave the impression of losing dignity by presenting so mild a brew. I gulped down the tart beverage and its cold sweetness reassured me out of my sudden nightmare. I was recovering enough of my senses to see the surprise on the servant’s face as he was required to serve another goblet of cornade.

  “Greetings, Maxil,” said a voice whose cheeriness was another touch with reality.

  Maxil’s face lit up first, then flushed. I turned, hopeful of seeing Ferrill but barely able to cover my dismay when Maxil grabbed the arm of a well-groomed, wise-faced older man.

  “Stannall,” he cried eagerly.

  “The Lady Sara, is it not? I noticed you passing inspection at the door,” and the First Councilman bowed deeply, his shrewd eyes not leaving my face. “Do I congratulate, Maxil?” he asked.

  “No, no,” Maxil said hastily. “Isn’t my Lady Fara here?”

  “Your Lady Fara?” Stannall repeated, lightly questioning the possessive pronoun. “No, Fara is not here,” Stannall continued before Maxil had a chance to say anything. Stannall turned a disapproving face toward the shrieking revelry beyond us.

  “I mean, is she in Lothara at all?” Maxil persisted hopefully.

  “Yes,” Stannall said, unbending enough to reassure the boy.

  “I’m just filling in for the evening,” I felt constrained to say when I caught Stannall’s austere expression.

  “Rather to the discomfiture of the Lady Maritha,” Stannall observed.

  “Gorlot called Sara a trollop,” Maxil exploded.

  Stannall held up a quieting hand. “Evidently the . . . ah . . . Lady Maritha did, too. She chooses to forget she no longer wheedles Harlan but placates Gorlot.”

  Maxil and I exchanged glances. I couldn’t decide whether to say any more to Stannall or not.

  “Have you seen my brother . . . Ferrill, Sir Stannall?” Maxil asked anxiously.

  Stannall dropped his pose of urbanity and became deeply troubled.

  “I have, indeed, and . . .”

  “Where is he?” Maxil interrupted breathlessly.

  Stannall ignored the discourtesy and nodded toward a far doorway where two figures stood watching the revelry. I could not see distinctly, but I thought I recognized the taller figure as Ferrill by his stance. Maxil was about to make a straight-line plunge through the dancers for his brother, but I twitched his robe and held him back. Actually, my thought was not caution but a return of the tongue-drying fear that had struck me when we had first gone into that weaving mob. We watched as Ferrill, slowly, almost as if movement were effort, stepped down into the crowd and was swallowed up.

  “I can wait for my token,” I said with forced gaiety, turning to Stannall. “I need one from the Warlord against a priest I don’t like.”

  “There is no known token for one priest I can name,” Stannall remarked calmly, adding in a lower voice that Maxil didn’t hear, “unless, of course, that is your purpose in being here.”

  I smiled at him. “Sir, it was at this priest’s instigation I came and believe me, I have no intention of leaving his side this evening.”

  Stannall bowed and excused himself. I watched him disappear among the dancers and wondered, fleetingly, if I should have mentioned Harlan to him. Still, wasn’t he powerless until Council was convened? Surely, any attempt of Harlan’s to communicate with the First Councilman would be intercepted. Yet—I had been in the position to speak.

  And how was Harlan even to get into the palace at all? Where was he now? Did he know I wasn’t at Jokan’s?

  Maxil touched my arm and led me with a secure grip around the fringe of the revelers, making toward the archway where Ferrill had been. We had circled halfway round the room without a sight of him when he stepped out of the crowd right in front of me.

  I was appalled at the change the last few weeks had made in him. The effort I had noticed across the enormous room was tragically obvious close up. His face was very pale, the skin almost transparent. His breath came unevenly, his eyes had sunk into his head, the sockets darkened with pain and sleeplessness. His voice, no longer vibrant, as it had been at the asylum, shook nearly as much as his hands. Maxil put out a quick arm to support Ferrill as the aging young Warlord mounted two steps and joined us.

  “I have been wracking my poor brains, dear Searcher,” Ferrill remarked in a wheezy, rasping voice that somehow managed to retain a certain forcefulness, “to remember where I have seen you before. Not here, certainly.”

  “Your memory is better than Gorlot’s,” I replied as casually as I could, for tension again clutched at me. “But I have bettered my condition in the past few weeks.”

  Ferrill held up his hand as he searched his memory, Maxil anxiously watching us and the crowd simultaneously.

  “It was in the company of Harlan,” and I saw the frail shoulders straighten as if the very name of his uncle was a tonic. He said nothing. “I left his company this noontime at the auxiliary airfield,” I continued, beginning to share Maxil’s anxiety over Ferrill. “He wants you to convene the Council. He is sane. He never was mad. He was drugged just as I imagine they have been drugging you. Give me a token, anything, to explain my speaking to you. And have courage.”

  Ferrill’s breathing became more shallow. He swallowed several times, all the while maintaining a politely attentive smile on his face. With a controlled gesture, he took a dangling medallion from his belt. I accepted it with a little curtsey.

  “He may be too late,” Ferrill wheezed, “even for Lothar.” He descended three steps, touched Maxil’s hand affectionately and moved off into the crowd.

  “Gorlot saw us,” Maxil said, swiftly, the hangdog expression returning to his face.

  To cover my own fear, I smiled inanely and laughed as if Maxil had amused me. I searched the crowd frantically for sight of Stannall, for a doorway with the fewest guards, for some reprieve from the man implacably bearing down on us. Maxil whirled me away among a sudden knot of drunken prancers, back toward the beverage table where we had last seen Stannall. The fear of Gorlot met my claustrophobia in a brief struggle for supremacy and the fear of Gorlot won.

  But Gorlot never reached us because a shriek of horror pierced the noise and music. Shouts of “The Warlord. . . . He fell” followed. The entire vast hall was silent for a horrified minute. Then Gorlot’s voice called cold orders for Trenor, for a stretcher.

  We watched, clutching at each other for comfort at this catastrophe as the limp body of Ferrill was carried away.

  “I’ve got to get out of here now, Maxil,” I cried. But as we turned to look, all the doorways were blocked by guards with weapons held at the ready.

  “Stannall then,” I hissed. Maxil craned over the heads around us and then pulled me roughly after him.

  The First Councilman had been about to leave the hall when Maxil urgently tugged at his arm, insisting on a private word. Stannall frowned as Maxil indicated me.

  “I’ve no time to undo your coquetry, miss,” he said severely, drawing away.

  “Would you class news of Harlan as coquetry?” I stated.

  Stannall turned slowly back. “What’s this? Explain!”

  “Harlan was never mad. He’s back in Lothara tonight to prove it. At Central Barracks in the section of Sinnall, son of Nallis, who is loyal to his Regent,” and I stressed the title, not daring to continue for the press of people around us and the sudden approach of two guards.

  “The Regent requests the presence of the First Councilman immediately,” one guard said, saluting.

  “He’s my brother. I must come, too,” Maxil pleaded.

  “Only the First Councilman is required,” the guard said dispassionately.

  Maxil’s eyes clouded and his lip trembled a moment. “But he may . . .”

  “Lad,” Stannall reassured him kindly, “I’ll send for you,” and he followed the guard.

  Maxil’s face wore the old, bitter mask. I tried to comfort him, but it was the appearance of his younger brother, Fernan, drunken,
strutting in premature triumph, that stiffened Maxil’s resolve. Looking at the youngster, his face greasy and swollen with overindulgence, I could scarcely see why anyone would choose him over Maxil.

  Deliberately Maxil turned his back on Fernan and ignored the whispers we both heard very plainly. Gorlot had spread his fiction about Maxil with an efficient hand.

  We didn’t have long to wait to know why Stannall had been summoned. He, Gorlot and another man Maxil said was Trenor appeared in the archway and the maskers quieted expectantly.

  “The Warlord Ferrill has been seriously taken with a heart attack. He is resting comfortably at the moment. It is the opinion of his physician that with care and rest he will recover,” Gorlot’s harsh news rang out into the Hall. “We have been concerned with his health for some time. It is our deep regret that his frailty will prevent him from fulfilling his promise as one of Lothar’s great Warlords.”

  “He regrets,” Maxil growled.

  Someone was moving through the crowd which parted to make way. As he stepped up to Gorlot, we saw it was Fernan. Maxil winced. I saw Stannall beckoning to Maxil and gave him a prod in the ribs. Because the boy refused to let my hand go, we both made our way through the reluctantly parting throng. I gave Maxil one final push and jerked my hand free as we reached the steps. Gorlot, however, saw me and his eyes narrowed. I returned his stare with a defiance I hoped was convincing.

  People began to whisper together and then someone tittered and Maxil, standing by Stannall, turned to face the Hall.

  “What makes the eunuch think he can be Warlord?” some self-acknowledged wit quipped from the safety of the mass. Laughter rippled from all parts of the Hall.

  “Eunuch?” I echoed angrily, rising to the first step and turning to face the direction of the voice. “Eunuch?” I repeated as the laughter died and attention was centered on me. I snorted with disgust and disbelief. “Can you know,” for the wit had been a man, “better than I?”