//If they hadn't already.// This from Master Corus. //And you, Melissa—where are you?//
Two Master Readers were focused on her—she could never get away with a lie. Why did she feel she ought to lie? //I am… in the castle of one of the savage lords,// she replied—and instantly knew why she should not have said it.
//Traitor!// Master Amicus projected. //You felt it, Masters—she would have lied to us, but realized we would detect it. Jason corrupted her, as we feared!//
//No!// How could they distrust her? //No one corrupted me! Listen to me! Lord Wulfston is alone here—his allies will take hours, perhaps days, to come to his aid. They're sending the storm to slow you, so they will have time to gather their armies—//
//Listen to yourself!// Master Corus cut off her attempt to give them vital information. //First you say there is only one Adept to fight us, and then you say they are causing the rain. As to gathering an army—when has the savage army not been prepared and ready? You have been sent to deceive us, woman.//
//Foolish child,// said Master Amicus. //If there were Adepts close enough to cause the rain, do you not think Master Readers could detect them?//
//If there were Adepts close enough to cause the rain,// added Master Corus, //they would already have attacked.//
//Maybe… maybe they can only manipulate something like clouds at this distance,// Melissa said uncertainly. //I don't know—I'm only telling you what I saw here. I'm trying to help you! Masters, ask me under Oath of Truth.//
//While you are out of your body? What would that prove?// asked Master Corus.
//I did not believe it.// Great sadness from Master Florian, one of Melissa's teachers at Gaeta. //I thought Portia was grown overly suspicious in her old age—but now I see she was right. Melissa, how could you turn against your own people like this?//
//I haven't turned. Master Florian, make them believe me! There is one Lord Adept in the castle, and a boy who can control the weather. He's blind, but—//
//Oh, child, they have twisted your mind indeed if you think Torio can control the weather,// said Master Florian.
//Torio? No—he is working for Lord Wulfston as a Reader. This other boy, Rolf—//
//Could they confuse her that much in one day?// asked Master Corus.
//It must have been Jason,// Master Florian said miserably. //I trusted him completely—I never understood why Portia suspected him. Now I see what he did to this girl, a fellow Reader—his student. By the gods, I was wrong. Portia knew what she was about, making Jason chief navigator for the fleet. He had to lead us to the enemy—and with so many other Readers—better Readers—in the fleet, there was no way for him to warn them.//
//They killed him for betraying them,// said Master Corus.
//No—// Melissa began. Torio had been broadcasting to the Readers in the fleet to turn the ships, not telling Wulfston where a particular Reader was. Then she realized the implications of what Master Florian had just revealed. //Portia made Jason chief navigator—to test him?//
//Maybe he did warn them,// mused Master Amicus. //He was on deck—and so was this girl, on her ship. They may have meant to jump ship and join the savages. Jason may be guiding them against us at this very moment.//
//No!// Melissa protested. //No—Jason never did anything wrong. He died because Portia put him in that lead ship! She killed him!//
//We must make camp,// said Master Corus, and began to broadcast that to the other Readers.
//No!// Melissa told them. //Keep moving. They want you to stop! They'll have time to gather their army—//
//Ignore Melissa,// Master Amicus told the Readers. //She has betrayed us. Our enemies want us tired out when we meet. Make camp. The Readers will keep watch.//
Melissa could not believe what had happened, her consciousness drifted above the Aventine army making camp in the mud while warm, dry pallets were prepared for the Master Readers so they could leave their bodies.
If they discovered that Melissa had told the truth, what would that mean to them? To people who could callously send a fellow Reader to his death because they distrusted him…
The Council of Masters had killed Jason. They—Portia foremost, but all of them who had agreed to her plan—had placed him in the forefront of that fleet expecting him to betray himself or die. But he had remained loyal. And what had it gotten him? Death, while those who were supposed to be his friends and protectors gleefully assumed his guilt.
Oh, Jason!
If only the Readers were not turning on one another, she seemed to hear his mental voice. You will be suspect, he had told her. They will seek to render you harmless. He had meant that they would marry her off, to blunt her powers. How innocent he had been—he would never have dreamed that, without evidence, they would call her traitor. But he had known they would distrust her. How could Readers, of all people, distrust one another?
She had no place to turn now. Jason was dead. Home was closed to her. The Master Readers had no interest in rescuing her—if they thought her mind had been tampered with, why did they not want to take her back to Gaeta, where sick minds could be cured? Obviously, she wasn't worth the effort!
Shock and despair slowly melted away before a new emotion: anger. How could they be so… vengeful? She had always looked up to the Master Readers—and now she learned that the Council of Masters would rather have a suspected Reader killed than let him prove his innocence. The true intent of this expedition was to kill Lenardo and Torio—and now Melissa would be added to the list.
What did it matter?
//Have you Read enough?//
Melissa was startled to find Torio's presence nearby—and to feel, when he contacted her, a despair to match her own. //How long—?//
//Long enough to learn what the Masters did to your teacher. To see that they will not trust you—you, who until yesterday were dutiful and obedient. I ran away, you know, because Portia failed me without a test. There's little wonder they wouldn't trust me, Melissa—but they had no reason but their own ingrown fears to mistrust you.//
//Why did Portia fail you?//
//I was Lenardo's student and friend. I… knew too much. She would first have married me off, to blunt my powers, but I doubt she would have stopped there. She could have found dangerous assignments for me, as she did for Magister Jason.//
//Because you know she failed in her duty to keep the government informed of your plot.//
//How did you know that?// Torio asked.
//Jason found out in Tiberium. He knew too much, too, because his one failing was insatiable curiosity. His questions brought suspicion on him.//
//Suspicion,// said Torio. //Distrust. Readers turning against Readers, using pretense—// His bitterness cut off. //What are you going to do now, Melissa?//
//That depends on what you are going to do. You and your Adept friends. What are you going to do to the Aventine army?//
//Turn it back before it reaches any of Wulfston's villages. The watchers have spread the word through the whole land now—look.//
Torio directed Melissa's attention beyond the infertile sandy plain on which the army was making camp to the first village in their path. Some thirty men and boys—and a few women, she noted—were arming themselves with swords, spears, bows, and even knives and pikes. The rest of the women, with their children, were packing to flee.