"Bravely, quietly," she said aloud. Then she looked at Robert again. "There's something left for me to do here."
"Lady?" whispered Robert, still awaiting her answer.
She looked up again, and tears of triumph coursed down her cheeks. She was smiling.
"I will go with you, Robert," Judyth replied. "But not yet. There is something I must attend to here."
Daeghrefn heard the outcry from his tower balcony. He saw the torches milling below in the bailey, the fractured glint of firelight on armor.
It is the mutiny, he thought. The uprising has begun.
He stumbled into his chambers and lurched toward the bed. The window open behind him, the red moonlight skimming across his shoulders, he sat on the bedside and extinguished the candles. Dressing slowly in the half-dark, his eyes fixed upon the door to the chamber, he paused when he was fully dressed in tunic and tabard.
He turned to his battle gear-first the old Solamnic greaves and gauntlets, and then the newer pieces, the black body armor adopted when he set aside the Solamnic plate and its embossed roses and kingfishers.
They will not see me until they pass through that door, he declared to himself, fumbling with his breastplate and helm. And then they will see me as a knight, as the warrior lord of the castle. I shall be waiting for them. At the very last, when all are marshaled against me, I shall end as I began, under my own standard, in the face of the damned and damning Order.
Ceremoniously he donned the long, black cape adorned with the crest of Nidus.
The armor was too large for him.
Robert noticed at once as he quietly entered the chamber, leaving the two unconscious guards lying in the corridor behind him.
The gaunt, wild-eyed man who faced him was only a shadow of the strong young fellow who had come to the castle lordship twenty-five years before-the man Robert the seneschal had sworn to uphold, to follow. It was as though he was waning, like a sliver of the declining moon.
When Daeghrefn saw who it was, he sprang to his feet and backed into the corner, his dark eyes blazing with anger and fear.
"You!" he shouted, his voice husky and harsh. "I knew when I left you on the plains it would be only a matter of time until you came to this room, weapon in hand! So take your revenge and go. If you're man enough."
Daeghrefn drew his sword. The blade weaved and wavered in his hand.
He's exhausted, Robert thought. He's wearied past sense.
"No," he replied, closing the door behind him. "I come for no vengeance, but for your rescue. I am here to take you from the castle, Lord Daeghrefn. It has become unsafe here. There's a mutiny afoot."
"I know that." Daeghrefn's eyes were haunted, wretched.
Robert cleared his throat. "-Perhaps, then, you are also aware that your old… acquaintance, Lord Laca of East Borders, is on his way from Estwilde at the head of a thousand mounted soldiers."
Daeghrefn gripped his sword more tightly. In his mind's eye, he saw a burning plain, the South Moraine smoldering and charred… saw Robert riding away into the smoke…
"Come with me, sir/' Robert urged. "I'll care for you."
"Very clever, Robert," Daeghrefn said with a sneer. "You could dupe a guardsman or a falconer with your soothing double-talk, but it's hardly clever enough for the lord of the castle. I shall stay here, thank you. And you shall depart my presence."
Robert studied his old master from across the shadowy chamber. I believe where you are going, I cannot help you, he thought. But I shall try, Lord Daeghrefn.
I shall try.
"You must come, sir," he entreated, his voice hushed and somber. "Verminaard has killed Aglaca, and who can tell what that will-"
Daeghrefn stood bolt upright, his gaze vacuous and distant. "The gebo-naud," he whispered, his voice cracking. " 'Truce for truth… and son for son.' "
"We must leave now, sir," Robert persisted.
Daeghrefn backed toward the balcony, shaking his head, his hands extended as though he tried to fend something off.
"The gebo-naud," he said, his voice cracking hysterically. "My son
… 'And his hand will strike your name,' the druidess said."
Wheeling about with a shriek, he rushed onto the balcony, Robert trailing desperately behind him. "Laca! Abe-laard!" Daeghrefn screamed.
"AbelaardV
And he toppled headfirst from the railing, into a strange and dreadful silence, the dark cape flapping behind him like a broken wing.
Chapter 21
Judyth clutched the bundle tightly as she descended tbe steps of tbe western tower.
All of Aglaca's cherished belongings, wrapped in his good green cape, were scarcely enough to burden her as she made the sad descent from his quarters. She had found the naming ring Laca had given him, a book of. verse, and a locket that had been his mother's. All three he had brought to Nidus with him nine years ago, keeping them in a little pouch by his bedside.
She placed the dagger among them-the little blade he had given her on the night of the Minding. Once she had asked Aglaca where it had come from, for its gaudy handle-ebony embossed with golden claws, studded with pearls and garnets in a replica of the summer night sky- seemed out of place with the tasteful simplicity of his other valuables.
Aglaca had answered her cryptically, repeating that it was a ward against evil, then changing the subject to insects-or flowers, she no longer remembered-and so the dagger remained a mystery. Judyth took the weapon anyway, on the off chance that someone would know of it and of the story that no doubt explained it. Or at least know it had been his.
As she collected Aglaca's belongings, she collected her memories. Perhaps someday she would go back to East Borders, and there present these things to Aglaca's father. Perhaps the gift would make amends for her miserable failure as Laca's spy. But as for now, Aglaca's belongings were hers-the book, the locket, the ring, and even the mysterious dagger.
Now, as she reached the bottom of the steps, she tucked the package under her arm, feeling the sharp prickle of the blade's edge through the cloak. She stepped toward the door of the keep, toward the moonlit bailey and the spot where Robert would be waiting with a fast horse to take them south.
And a sudden crash stopped her in her tracks.
"Lady Judyth!" the voice called. "Do not leave without a fond good-bye."
She turned and stared through the open archway into the great hall of the keep, where Verminaard sat alone at the banquet table, a plate of roast goose steaming in front of him, a bottle of wine in his left hand. The glass he had been drinking from lay in splinters beneath the arch where he had hurled it, and the slivers caught the torchlight and glittered like broken ice.
He motioned to her with^the bottle. "Come in! Oh, do come in, Judyth of Solanthus!"
His right hand remained beneath the table. Judyth knew it clutched the mace.
Verminaard beckoned again, this time more insistently. Her hands shaking, Judyth stepped into the hall, the broken glass crackling beneath her riding boots.
"Where are you going?" Verminaard asked sternly. "I've not given you permission to leave, you know."
"I had no idea your permission was necessary, Lord Verminaard," Judyth replied evenly, pausing halfway to the edge of the table.
"Come closer," the new Lord of Nidus muttered hoarsely and set down the wine bottle. "Join me in a toast to my precipitate predecessor, Daeghrefn of Nidus. They're shoveling him under the bailey as we speak." He licked his fingers, one by one.
"I truly must be leaving, sir," Judyth said, backing toward the door. "I shall leave you to dinner with… your friends."