“My lady” – Master Quillon’s voice was soft, and his eyes studied her as if he wondered how much of the truth she would be able to bear – “it is too soon.”
Too soon? Too soon? She gaped at him, unable to speak.
“We do not know where his strength is located. We do not know how this trick of translation is done. We do not know how far his alliances extend, or how many powers he is prepared to bring out of his mirrors against us. We do not know what his plans are – how he means to destroy us. Until his trap is sprung, we have no effective way to strike back at him.”
Still she gaped at him. Her head was spinning. With an effort, she asked thinly, “ ‘We’?”
The Master smiled slightly, sourly. “Yes, my lady. King Joyse, for the most part. And Adept Havelock, when he is able. I follow their instructions.” He paused while she went pale with shock; then he admitted, “Not a very impressive cabal, I fear. There is no one else.”
A moment later – perhaps because she couldn’t stop staring at him – he seemed to take pity on her. “We cannot afford allies,” he explained. “It is the essence of the King’s policy to appear weak. Confused in his priorities. Unable to achieve decisions. Careless of his kingdom. And it would be impossible to create that appearance if his intentions were not kept secret. If Queen Madin knew the truth, would she turn her back on her husband in his time of gravest peril? If the Tor knew the truth, how well would he play the part of the forlorn and hectoring friend? If Castellan Lebbick knew the truth—No, it would be disastrous. He has no subterfuge in him. And no one would believe that King Joyse had lost his will or his wits, while Lebbick remained confident.”
We, she murmured to herself, King Joyse, as if the words made no sense, We cannot afford allies. It was all deliberate.
“The fact is,” said Quillon, “that everyone who loves the King would behave differently if they understood him. And so it would all come to nothing. I am trusted only because throughout Orison I am so easily taken for granted – and because King Joyse must have one friend and Imager who is more reliable than the Adept.”
“But why?” The words burst from Terisa. “Why? Mordant is falling! Orison is under siege! Everybody who loves him or is loyal to him has been hurt!” All deliberate. Of course. She knew that. But the reason—! “He’s destroying his whole world, the world he created. Why would he do such a terrible thing?”
Abruptly, the Imager jerked to his feet. He was suddenly angry: he bristled with indignation. Quietly, but with such intensity that he shocked her to silence, he replied, “So that he would attack here.”
What—?
“We did not know who he was, my lady. Remember that. We did not know who he was until last night, when he erred by trying to make us believe that Geraden had killed Nyle. Before that, we had few suspicions – and less proof. We did not know who he was.” Red spots flamed on the Master’s cheeks. “We knew only that he was powerful – that he had the ability, unprecedented in the history of Imagery, to inflict his translations wherever he chose. We had no way to find him, no way to combat him. No way to protect Mordant from him.
“But worse than the danger to Mordant was the threat to Alend and Cadwal, that had no Imagers to defend them. That King Joyse had accomplished with his ideal of the Congery and peace, that Cadwal and Alend were more helpless than Mordant against the enemy. That he was responsible for. His past victories have left Alend and Cadwal at the mercy of his new foes.
“Therefore” – Master Quillon gritted his teeth to keep from shouting – “King Joyse set himself to save the world.
“His weakness is an ambush. He lures the enemy to strike here rather than elsewhere – to inflict their peril and harm here rather than on the people he has made vulnerable – to attack Mordant and Orison rather than first swallowing Cadwal and Alend and thereby growing too strong to be defeated. We did not know who he was.”
Roughly, Quillon shrugged, trying to restrain his anger. “That is the reason for everything King Joyse has done. That – and the Congery’s augury – and Geraden’s strange translation, which brought you here. When you came among us, your importance was obvious at once. Clearly, it was vital to make you aware of the world you had entered, so that you could choose your own role in Mordant’s need. Even a good person may do ill out of ignorance, but only a destructive one would do ill out of knowledge. The augury made it clear that we had to trust you or die.
“But Geraden was also at risk – and his importance was also plain in the augury. His only protection lay in King Joyse’s weakness. If Geraden were granted the ability to elicit intelligent, decisive action from his King, the enemy would surely kill him. In addition, the belief that you were ignorant was a form of protection for you. So it was vital also to spurn Geraden’s loyalty – and then to make you aware of Mordant’s history in secret.
“My lady, I argued against that decision. From the beginning, I found it difficult to trust you – a woman of such passivity. What hope did you represent to us? But King Joyse insisted. That is why Adept Havelock and I approached you and spoke to you, giving you in secret the knowledge which both the Congery and the King had denied to you publicly.”
Oh, of course, now I understand. Terisa felt herself smiling into the quagmire of her own stupidity. Had she really spent her entire life like this – helpless, passive, unable to think?
“The translation of the Congery’s champion,” rasped Quillon, “presented a similar problem in a different guise. Again, the champion’s importance in the augury is plain. Therefore King Joyse must oppose that translation, in order to appear determined on his own defeat. And yet he must be too weak to oppose the translation successfully. And I was at risk there, in addition to Geraden and yourself. My loyalties had to be concealed. So King Joyse had no choice but to refuse to hear the Fayle’s warnings – and to ensure that Castellan Lebbick did not learn what transpired until the translation could no longer be stopped.
“My lady” – now Master Quillon faced her squarely, and Terisa saw that some of his anger was directed at her – “it will be easy for you to be outraged at what we have done. You have already said that everybody who loves King Joyse or is loyal to him has been hurt – and you are right. His policy is dangerous. Therefore the only way he can save those who love him is to drive them away – to make them distance themselves from the seat of peril he has chosen for himself. He succeeded with Queen Madin. But his failure with such men as the Tor and Geraden haunts him. If harm comes to them, he will carry the fault on his own head, even though they have chosen to do what they do.
“Nevertheless you should understand what he does before you protest against it. He hazards himself so that thousands of men and women from the mountains of Alend to the coast of Cadwal will be spared. He tears his own heart so that the people he loves may be spared. He places the kingdom that he built with his own hands in danger so that his traditional enemies can be spared.
“If you cannot trust him or serve him, my lady, you must at least respect him. He created his own dilemma, and he accepts its consequences. He does what he is able to do, so that the harm his enemies do will be suffered by a few instead of by many.”
Because the Imager was angry at her – and because she was angry herself and didn’t know how to conceal it – she turned away. The light seemed to be failing; maybe the lamp was running out of oil. Darkness gathered in all the corners: fatal implications spilled past the bars from the corridor into the cell. You must at least respect him. A man whose idea of wise policy was to twist a knife in his friends’ hearts and leave his enemies unscathed. Of course she had to respect that. Sure.