"What are you doing?" asked Garranon from the shadows. He didn't sound happy, but he was quiet. I released his wife but kept the chamber pot.
"Rescuing you," I replied. "You don't think Kariarn's going to let you live, do you?"
Oreg started working on the chains that held Garranon, and I set the chamber pot on the floor.
"I know him," said Garranon's wife, nodding at me though speaking to her husband. "But who are the other two?
Garranon, shaking free of his chains, peered first at Oreg then Tosten. "They're all Hurogs…but none that I've met."
It wasn't rudeness that kept me from making formal introductions; I just couldn't remember Garranon's wife's name, and I couldn't take the shortcut of calling her Lady Buril or Lady Garranon, because Oranstonian custom didn't work that way.
After an awkward moment, I said. "You'll have to introduce me again to your wife, sir. Then I'll make known my kinsmen."
A brief smile crossed Garranon's face. "May I present my wife, the Lady Allysaian." There was more affection in his voice than I expected, given the nature of his relationship with the king.
I bowed and waved an arm at my brother. "Lady Allysaian, Lord Garranon, may I present my brother Tosten, your rescuer."
In the cell amid chamber pots and straw, Allysaian curtseyed, and Tosten bowed. Garranon said incredulously, "He's dead."
I grinned. "Hurog has a reputation for ghosts, sir. Lady Allysaian, Lord Garranon, may I present my kinsman, Oreg, who is also a wizard."
"Indeed?" Garranon murmured. "How useful."
"Now," I said. "Is there a way out of here, or does Oreg have to see if he can spirit you out?"
"And leave Buril in the hands of the Vorsag?" asked Garranon.
"Not much you can do about it at the moment," observed Oreg.
The Oranstonian stared at Oreg, a muscle twitching in his jaw. Then he turned his attention back to me. "So you are going with Kariarn. And you rescue us because…?"
"Because it is the right thing to do."
He laughed, a quiet, disbelieving sound. "I might have believed that of the simpleton you played, but you lie too well, Lord Wardwick. Kariarn has offered you the same deal he offered my brother. You have seen the results. But you're willing to risk it for Hurog, aren't you?"
Tosten drew in a sharp breath, as if he'd just realized how great a temptation Kariarn had offered me.
I nodded my head, unwilling to take time to argue. "Figure it out for yourself. My brother will take you to where Haverness's daughter's troops are gathered. She'll see to it her father knows about Buril."
Garranon's eyebrows rose. "Then you go to Hurog. Kariarn breaks in, takes whatever it is that he wants from your keep—"
"Dragon bones," whispered Oreg. Garranon continued without pause. " — and your uncle is killed in the battle. You get Hurog."
Tosten stiffened, looking at me wild-eyed. I guess he'd forgotten about Uncle Duraugh.
It hurt that he could believe I would kill our uncle to get Hurog. But there was a part of me that anticipated my uncle's death. Oh, not that I would kill my uncle, but that he would be killed in some way I could not prevent. The hero (me) returns and triumphs over evil, and Hurog is mine. Mine. And that's why I didn't bother to defend myself. Garranon gave me a shadowed look and turned to Tosten. "There's a passage from the next room over."
"It's very strange," said Oreg once he'd locked the two of us back in my cell and picked up the chamber pot.
"What is?" I asked.
"The way you've convinced everyone, including yourself, that the two of us can stop Kariarn and his whole army."
"I don't have to stop his army," I explained. "All I have to do is get Duraugh to evacuate Hurog rather than fight for it. All Kariarn wants is the dragon bones. He'll take them and leave Hurog."
"So you're going to let Kariarn take the bones?" Oreg tapped the chamber pot unhappily on his thigh.
"It's the only way I see for Hurog to survive."
Oreg stared at me, but in the poor light of the sputtering torches, I couldn't see the expression on his face. In the quiet, I could hear the murmur of voices as several men came up the stairs.
"The chamber pot—hit me," I said, bending my knees so Oreg could get a good angle. "I can fake unconsciousness, but it's got to be hard enough to raise a bump."
Oreg stared at the chamber pot. "I could still get you out of here. We could get Beckram and bring an army to defeat Kariarn."
I straightened. "Buril is only three or four leagues from the sea. With the wizards for communication, Kariarn'll have a fleet at the nearest port waiting for him. Beckram is at Callis. He'll have to travel overland."
Oreg worked it out for himself. "It'll take him at least a week longer to get to Hurog than it'll take Kariarn."
I nodded. "Hurog isn't ready for a siege. It won't last a week."
The guards had gone to Garranon's cell. I could hear them shouting, and I bent down again. "Do it."
"So the Hurogmeten sacrifices the dragon again," said Oreg.
I caught a better look at his face as he raised the chamber pot over his head. What I saw there told me that Oreg wasn't unhappy about the opportunity to hit me. As it turned out, I didn't have to fake anything at all.
14—WARDWICK
It always takes me a few days of sailing before I quit trying to jettison last week's dinner.
My stomach told me I was aboard a ship before I opened my eyes to see Bastilla sitting cross-legged on the floor beside my bunk, wearing boy's clothes and looking very much like the woman who had traveled halfway across the Five Kingdoms with me.
She smiled. "Good morning, Ward. How's your head?"
I returned her smile before I remembered what she was. I touched my head gingerly but could find no bump.
"I healed you," she said. "I'm sorry Tosten was so angry that you chose to follow my master. He gave you quite a concussion. My master thought you should sleep until we reached the sea, so I let you rest."
"How do you know Tosten was angry?" I'd planned upon that interpretation, but she sounded so certain.
"When I healed you," she said, patting my knee, "I picked up on your emotions. I felt how much he hurt you."
Tosten had said she invaded his mind when she healed him. Just how much did she know?
"He doesn't understand what Hurog means to me," I said tentatively. Her normalcy so contrasted with the picture of her kissing Kariarn's boots, it was hard to believe it was both the same person.
She nodded her head sympathetically. "He'll come around; he idolizes you. After Duraugh is dead, he can put it behind him." So she hadn't read me enough to know that Duraugh's death was one of the things I hoped to stop by traveling with Kariarn.
Everyone seemed to think that I could just throw away my uncle's life in order to satisfy my own ambitions. I don't know why I cared what Bastilla thought; maybe it was just confirmation of Tosten's opinion that hurt.
"Does King Kariarn know you tried to kill me?" I asked.
She dropped her head so I couldn't see her expression. "That was very bad of me," she said. Then she met my gaze and laughed. "Did you think you would get away with flirting with Haverness's cow after refusing me? And you suffered. I saw it on your face when Penrod died." She sounded like my mother talking about her garden. "Poor Penrod. I had thought to use him to kill your wizard, but the opportunity, with us so close to my master, was difficult to resist. He fought me, though. I don't think I could have gotten him to do more than wound you before he broke the hold, but Tosten made that a moot point, don't you think?" She smiled again at the expression on my face and ran her fingertip around the outside of my ear. "I told you that you'd regret how you treated me. But—" There was a repellent eagerness in her eyes. " — if you tell my master, I'm sure he'll punish me. Speaking of whom, I'd better tell him you have awakened."