‘Remind them that the penalty for that kind of stu-pidity is death,’ he told his Commanders. ‘In executing the sentence, the Queen merely saved me the trouble. Channel their resentment and loud talk into harder training.’
The need for those words, however, highlighted the doubts that occasionally rippled the surface of his contentment. The people crumbled, torn by doubt and ignorance, just as he had planned over the years. His assumption of the title of Ffyrst had freed him from many of the petty restraints that had so long irritated him, and since the seizure of Vakloss after Eldric’s Accounting, he had begun to feel his progress in measurable strides.
But every now and then, when least expected, there would be a jolt of opposition, like a plough striking a hidden rock: the damage wrought to the Mandrocs by Jaldaric and his patrol; the rescue of the Lords; Eldric returning to demand an Accounting. This latter had worked for the best in the end in that it precipitated the seizure of Vakloss, but it had been perilously dangerous, and Hawklan’s hand could be felt there, surely? Hawklan? Where are you, you demon? Was Eldric’s return but a feint within a feint?
But these were thoughts for darker moments. Al-ready many of the Lords had fallen victim to his wide-strewn lies and some had even joined him in condemn-ing Eldric and the others as traitors. Now he could concentrate on swaying the less gullible to his side. Then, as necessary, he could crush all other opposition by force of arms. But always he must remember that Hawklan too would be laying his traps.
You lose each time we meet, Hawklan. And you’ll not tempt me to my Old Power now. Not now. No slip on my part will awaken you. I’ll bind you yet, for when the Lords are crushed, the game will have slipped from you forever. When they’re exhausted with slaying their own turncoat kin, and their hearts are dead at what they’ve had to do, then I’ll launch my real armies against them.
The thought was comforting. It would be pleasant to see these creatures slaughtering one another again. A fitting atonement for the years their ancestors had made him spend in dark bondage.
‘Patience, patience, patience,’ he said to Dilrap. ‘While we control the knowledge given to the people, events must surely move our way. Ignorance is a vital flux. Melting down the resistance of the people and making them more amenable to our suggestions.’
He stared at Dilrap thoughtfully. Why should I speak thus to this lackey? Why do I even keep him about me now? He’s very useful, but no longer indispensable. Surely not gratitude? It had been Dilrap who engineered the details that gave a gloss of legality to his becoming Ffyrst. Dilrap had diligently rendered himself unneces-sary and totally vulnerable. Dan-Tor narrowed his eyes, and Dilrap, catching the look, cringed visibly.
It came to him suddenly that Dilrap understood him, insofar as any of these creatures could understand him. Dilrap appreciated the subtleties of what he, Dan-Tor, was doing, independent of whether he approved of them or not, independent of whether he realized the ultimate outcome. He understood and marvelled. And envied. Worshipped, even?
That the pleasure he gained from this thought was simply the despised human trait of vanity, did not occur to Dan-Tor. It was an awe to which he was entitled. A faint, distant whisper asked ‘Is he a danger?’ but it could hardly be heard above the clamour of self-praise. No, no. Danger lies only in Hawklan and impatience. There’s no danger in this scurrying bladder. He’s just another human clutching gratefully at the knees of his execu-tioner, in mortal fear for his mayfly life.
And, in part, he was right. Dilrap was in fear of his life, and he did understand the Ffyrst’s machinations. But he neither envied nor worshipped. Just as the years of Dan-Tor’s influence and ‘improvement’ to the Fyordyn way of life had accumulated to lead them disastrously from their ancient roots and leave them bewildered and lost, so years of scorn and derision had accumulated and festered in Dilrap to make him a man very different from the plump youth who had trailed after his stern and haughty father, and subsequently gone on to be the butt of every Palace wag. His trem-bling nature was shored by two great props: his love of the Queen and his deep and growing hatred of Dan-Tor.
But in understanding Dan-Tor, so he knew his own vulnerability, and, like Dan-Tor, he too wondered why he was still privy to the Ffyrst’s musings. The uncer-tainty, and his sense of Dan-Tor’s own uncertainty, did little to calm him. His nights became fretful and nightmare-haunted, where once they had been a solace and a retreat from the torments of his waking hours.
‘Majesty, I’m afraid,’ he blurted out inadvertently to the Queen one day.
Sylvriss felt the weight of his burden added to her own; strangely heavier to bear since her confrontation with the Sirshiant. Having gained a deeper insight into the ancient ties between the Riddinvolk and their horses, part of her almost snarled, ‘We’re all afraid, Dilrap. Do what you have to do. Don’t come bleating to me’. But that same insight helped her set this savage shade aside and she laid her hand on his shoulder.
‘I understand, Dilrap,’ she said. ‘Has anything hap-pened to make you especially alarmed?’
Dilrap shook his head and then poured out his complex mixture of doubts and fears. Sylvriss let the words flow unhindered into the scented air of her chamber, until he fell silent. She stared at herself in a small mirror on her table, watching as a hand reached up and fingered a worried line etching itself perma-nently into her face.
‘I’ve no answers, Dilrap,’ she said eventually. ‘Who can say what motivates the man?’
Of late she had been trying to pursue Dan-Tor’s actions to their logical end, but had given up in despair. They seemed to lead to some form of Kingship. Not the cautious, thoughtful Kingship of Rgoric and his predecessors, but some appalling, unfettered authority over everyone and everything. But why?
Why should anyone want such authority? And it could only be over a cowed and damaged people, for damaged they would be. The people of Vakloss were already too afraid to speak publicly in opposition to Dan-Tor, and sooner or later he would have to face the Lords in battle. Lords who would probably fight to a bitter end. The man’s mind was beyond her.
She turned away from the mirror, with its wretched intimations of her own mortality. She too was afraid. The fear and mistrust that soaked the City had seeped into the Palace. Her many contacts were dwindling and she had no way of knowing whether this was through increased caution or whether they had been arrested and had revealed their secrets to their interrogators.
She clung to what she knew and what she could reasonably infer; conjecture was infinite. Certainly, none of the Lords still in the City could be safely trusted. Those with whom she had made discreet contact had quietly slipped away, and those who were left kept an uncertain neutrality or sided openly with Dan-Tor, for a variety of reasons.
It came to her gradually that whether or not Dan-Tor discovered her covert opposition to him was irrelevant. She was effectively imprisoned in the Palace, guarded as she was on the increasingly rare occasions she was allowed into the City. Her ability to influence affairs or even to know of them was diminishing rapidly. He doesn’t need to expose any of my deeds, she thought. Save one. His every action stifles opposition and isolates me.
But her one massive act of defiance was gathering a momentum of its own, and slipping beyond her control. It was a blessing turned fearful bane. As Dan-Tor had moved forwards more openly to greater power, his need for the King had declined, and consequently so had the attention lavished on him. However, as an iron ring of warriors had once guarded Ethriss, so Sylvriss had encompassed her husband with a silken ring of trusted attendants, herself its jewelled clasp, affecting the role of demure nursewife. Slowly she had continued weaning him from Dan-Tor’s potions and slowly, uncertainly, the King had gained strength and well-being.