Without meaning to do it, she had stripped herself of her only protection – the appearance of incomprehension that let him think she wasn’t a threat to him, led him to believe he could do anything he wanted with her.
In quick panic, she tried to fake a defense. “Prove it,” she replied, groaning inwardly at the way her voice shook. “Leave me here. Go back to the reservoir and save Orison from Alend. If you aren’t afraid of him, you don’t need me.”
Her own alarm was too obvious: it seemed to restore his humor, his equanimity. He began to smile again, voraciously.
“Tush, my lady,” he said in deprecation, “you do not truly wish that. I have touched you in places you will never forget. No man will ever treasure the ardor of your loins or the supplication of your breasts as I do – most assuredly not that lout Geraden, whose clumsiness will make his every caress a misery to you. If you consult your heart, you will accompany me willingly.
“If you should prove useful to me, how does that harm you? You will still be my lady. And you will be rewarded. I am going to win this contest. King Joyse considers it a mere game, an exercise in hop-board, and that is one of many reasons why Mordant will be defeated. Alend will be defeated, and Cadwal will be consumed. When I am done, there will be no power left in all this world which is not mine. Then the woman who stands with me will have riches and indulgence beyond her wildest imaginings.
“You would look well in that place, my lady. If you accompany me willingly, it will be yours.”
Terisa studied him hard. She didn’t listen to what he was saying; his offer meant nothing to her. But the fact that he made it meant something. It meant something. When he stopped, she muttered, “Take Saddith. She wants the job,” speaking aloud for her own benefit, so that the sound of the words would help her think. “I’m still trying to figure out why you bother pretending to seduce me. You’ve got a key. You’re bigger than I am. Why don’t you just come in here, rape me, club me over the head, and let Gilbur or Vagel translate me to some other dungeon where you can use me without having to be nice about it?”
“Because” – he had recovered from the unpleasant surprise she had given him; now he was very sure of himself – “that is not what you truly wish, my lady. Your deepest desire is not to defy me, but to open yourself so that I may teach you the joy of your body – and mine.”
She shook her head, hardly hearing him. Any explanation he gave was automatically false. Still for her own benefit, she went on, “You’re not just afraid of Geraden. You’re afraid of me.” She felt a growing sense of wonder and dismay. “You’re trying to trick me for the same reason you’ve been trying to have me killed. You’re afraid of me.”
This time when Master Eremis laughed his amusement was unforced and unmistakable. “Oh, my lady,” he chortled, “you are a wonderment. You flatter yourself beyond recognition. If you were not so earnest, I would believe you drunk with pride.
“Nevertheless I will respect what you say. Perhaps you desire a little force. Perhaps that will add spice to your eventual surrender. Since you suggest it—”
With a final chuckle, he pushed the key into the lock and turned it.
Without a second’s hesitation, Terisa reared back and yelled at the top of her lungs, “Guards!”
Master Eremis froze. His gaze flicked away down the passage, then sprang back to her in instant fury.
She put her whole heart into it:
“Guards!”
A door clanged in the distance. A rumor of boots ran along the corridor.
The Imager snarled a curse. “Very well, my lady,” he hissed savagely. “That was your last chance, and you have lost it.” In a swirl of darkness, he turned to leave. “Now you will face the consequences of your foolishness. When Lebbick is done with you” – he spoke sharply enough to raise echoes after him, so that she could hear him as he left – “expect worse from me.”
Then he was gone.
His departure was so abrupt – and the approach of the guards sounded so ominous – that just for an instant she thought she had made a mistake.
That concern evaporated almost immediately, however: it was burned away by the swift, hot awareness that she preferred being left to the Castellan’s mercy. He was unpredictable and violent, capable of almost any atrocity when his loyalties were outraged. Yet he was faithful – far more trustworthy than the people in whom he had placed his faith. In fact, that discrepancy was what drove him wild. She would rather fight a man like him, who was at least true to his king, than be seduced by a man like Master Eremis, who was false to everybody.
The guards arrived at her cell, demanded an explanation threateningly because Castellan Lebbick might take them to task for anything they did in regard to her. For a moment, she was right on the edge of telling them what had happened. Master Eremis was here. He’s got a secret entrance to the dungeons. He’s a traitor. But her instinct for subterfuge made her swallow the words. No. She might need them. The Castellan would be back: she might need everything she could possibly tell him.
Facing the guards as if she had become bold, she replied, “I want to see him.”
The two men gaped at her. One of them asked stupidly, “Who? The Castellan?”
She nodded.
The other leered. “Waste of effort. Last time a woman wanted to see him, he had her stripped and flogged and thrown out of Orison.” He grinned at the memory. “Had nice tits, too. Would have done better to come to me.”
Terisa closed her eyes to control an upswelling of disgust. “Tell him,” she demanded. “Just tell him.”
The guards looked at each other. The first one said, “He isn’t going to like it.” But the other shrugged.
Walking loudly, they went away.
She sat down on her cot and tried to believe that she knew what she was doing.
She didn’t have much time to prepare herself. Scant moments after the guards left, she heard Castellan Lebbick’s rage echoing along the corridor.
“I don’t give a trough of horseshit who she wants to see! You irresponsible sons-of-sheep are going to be cleaning latrines before morning! You’re going to clean latrines until everything you eat tastes like piss and your wives and even your children stink as bad as you do! Who gave you the fornicating permission to let her have visitors?”
Then the door between the guardroom and the dungeons rang viciously against its frame; and boots came, as hard as hate, along the damp stone corridor.
Shocked, she found herself murmuring helplessly, Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no, on the verge of panic.
The Castellan stamped to the front of her cell like a man with murder on his mind. The glare in his eyes was fierce enough to wither what little courage she had left; his jaws were knotted with violence. Like a blow, he rammed the key into the lock, turned it, and slammed the door open. The door hit the bars so hard that they belled like a carillon.
“You heartless slut!” He came into the cell, came straight at her. “I’ve been tearing my guts out over you all day, and you’ve been having visitors!”
Involuntarily, she flinched back onto the cot, cowered against the wall. “The Tor!” she cried out, trying to keep him from hitting her. “Artagel! They came here. I didn’t ask to see them.”
“You didn’t have to!” His fists caught her shirt, wrenched her off the cot so fiercely that the seam at one shoulder parted and the fabric ripped like a wail. “Artagel is still too sick to get out of bed, and King Joyse personally told the Tor to let me do my job with you. So instead they both came to see you.
“What are you plotting? Did they tell you what to say to me? They must have. I half believed that dogpiss story about Eremis and Gart. You couldn’t make that up yourself – you don’t know enough. No, you’re all doing this together. Those riders with the red fur came from the Care of Tor. Artagel is Geraden’s brother.” Convulsive with anger, he twisted her shirt so that it tore down one seam to the hem. “What are you plotting?”