After two tries, he at least got out an answer. "Because—we had to, Radiance," he said weakly. "Because there was no choice."
With that, she unleashed all of her formidable intellect and equally formidable anger on him in an interrogation that was as thorough as it was merciless. Karal answered her as best he could, but the next two marks left him weak, sweating, and shaking before it was all over. Solaris could be absolutely brutal when she wanted to be, and all without ever raising a hand or her voice. Her cross-examination was relentless and thorough, and during it she dissected his personality and left every personal weakness he knew of and some he had never suspected lying exposed. She prowled around him like a hunting cat, she moved to within a hair of his face to hiss directly into his eyes, and stood off at a distance as if she didn't want to get near him. She left his spirit flayed, and convinced him a dozen times over that she was about to demote him to least-senior cleaner of the Temple latrines—if he was lucky and she was feeling generous.
Nevertheless he managed to remain adamant and unshakable in his conviction that, repugnant as it was, they could not afford to allow Tremane to remain an enemy.
Finally, she sat down again, although she did not permit him to do so. Ten heartbeats later, she spoke.
"Let me see if I understand all your reasoning, such as it is," she said coldly. "First, you believe that the folk of Hardorn and even the men under this Tremane's command have been suffering for far too long. Second, the best indications are that the new boundaries of whatever solution we come up with when the breakwater fails must include the eastern border of Hardorn. Third, there is some thought that if we had access to the mages trained in the Empire we might be able to find that solution sooner. And fourth—" she leveled a stare at him that was as opaque as steel. "Fourth. You have come to the conclusion that Tremane can be trusted."
"He was under Altra's Tell-Me-True all the while he answered my questions. He has protected the people of Shonar, even though he didn't have to," Karal reminded her as he shivered and did not bother to try to hide the fact. "More than that, he has done things for their benefit personally, things that could not possibly be of profit to him. He has kept every pledge he made them, and every pledge he made his own men."
"Hmm." Her expression did not change.
"I would add a fifth, but it is quite subjective," he said, feeling sweat run down the back of his neck. "I believe he—regrets his actions."
"Regrets." Her mouth tightened, and she stood up again. "There are some things I must do, but as of this moment, your authority is in abeyance. You will remain here in these rooms until I give you leave to go elsewhere, and where that will be is going to depend on what I learn in the next few marks."
She swept past him; he held open the door for her, and she swept out, leaving him shaking with anxiety and reaction in her wake.
After he closed the door behind her, he went straight to his bed and lay down on it, his body as exhausted as if he had just run around the city walls, and his bones gone all to water. No need to tell him to stay here, for he couldn't have left his room if it had been on fire.
He didn't know what she was going to do next, but every possibility left him shaking with fear. Not for himself, but for her, and for everything the Alliance had done here.
Tremane watched his windows shake as another blast of icy wind hit them a wind laden with so much blowing snow that there was no view outside. The cat had appeared as soon as he put down the message-tube; it had materialized on his desk, placed a paw on the tube, and vanished again, taking the tube with it.
They were in the middle of another blizzard. He had waited until another blizzard struck and had been active for some time before actually putting his carefully-worded overture into the tube; he wanted to be sure that he would have a time when he would be able to stay in his office for several hours, waiting for a reply. There had been no emergencies, and now the folk of the Town and Barracks were safely buttoned up in their lodgings, passing the time until the storm blew itself out. No one would need him until that happened. He could wait for as much as two days for an answer to his overture, if nothing went wrong.
Which was precisely what he was doing now; waiting. He fully expected the cat to show up alone, but with a written reply, a tentative suggestion that his overture was being considered. It was also possible that the cat would show up with the boy, though that was less likely. Negotiations took time, and many exchanges of paper, before anything concrete came of them.
He did not expect the answer he got—a cat all right, but with the cat was a woman, garbed in elaborate robes of gold and white, robes that he recognized from the descriptions passed to him by his spies. And now he cursed his stupidity for not recognizing a less-elaborate, masculine version of the same robes on the boy.
This was High Priest (not Priestess) Solaris, the Son of the Sun, the secular and sacred leader of all the people of Karse. And from her expression, she was perfectly prepared to whip that ritual dagger she was carrying out of her belt and slit his throat on the spot.
He, of course, could not move. Once again, the cat held him paralyzed.
Her eyes glared at him with a fire of rage that gave even him, a battle-hardened veteran, pause. Her face was as white as the snow outside, but her hands were steady. "You give me one good reason may, why killing you I should not be, as murdering my friend you did," she snarled, in heavily-accented Hardornen.
Not bad, considering that she probably hasn't studied it much.
His mind raced. What should he tell her? What could he tell her? What would she believe?
Nothing, probably.
No, there was no reason to defend himself or his actions. Coming up with excuses would not save him.
He would have drawn himself up in his chair if he had been free to. Instead, he gazed directly into her eyes. Once again, he would probably be forced to speak the truth, so why not simply do so to begin with?
"I cannot," he told her with bald honesty. "By the laws of your land and of my own, my life is certainly forfeit to you. I committed murder, if only by secondhand. I cannot justify a decision that has proved to be so very wrong, and so ill-conceived."
Her eyes narrowed a trifle, as if she had expected duplicity, or at least an attempt at it. Had she not put that magic on his lips that forced him to speak truthfully?
"By the same token, my best information at the time was that the mage-storms were a weapon of terror sent by your Alliance," he continued. "I sent my own weapon of terror to disrupt your Alliance. I proved by that assumption, I suppose, that my moral standards are lower than yours, since I could even think that you might send terror-weapons that strike at armies and civilians alike. I further proved the same thing since I retaliated with a weapon of terror. The Empire is a bad enemy to have, lady, and we have made worse enemies over the centuries. We are prepared to see just about any atrocity, and to meet it with the same."