Arinndier was in no mood for reproaches. ‘What else could we have done, for Ethriss’s sake?’ he snapped.
Darek leaned forward. ‘We could have mustered our High Guards, raised the reserves and marched on the City.’
Arinndier’s irritation left him and he stared at Darek, stunned. Of all the people he might have expected to preach rebellion, Darek-lawyer Darek-would have been the last. The two men stared at one another for a long moment.
Eventually Arinndier lowered his head. ‘You’ve been too long in these dismal rooms, Darek,’ he said quietly. ‘What conceivable justification did we have for such a step? You’d have been the first to cry that force attacked the very basis of the Law.’
A look of anger flashed briefly through Darek’s eyes, then it faded and his voice became patient. ‘Arin, old friend, listen to me. Force is both the reason for the Law and its very basis. People made the Law to control the use of force because force is a bad way of doing things. It’s that simple. You don’t need to be a lawyer to understand that. They made it over centuries of bitter learning, to protect themselves-and their descendants-from the darker sides of our own natures. And if you ignore its accumulated wisdom, you’ll face that darker nature unarmed, and you’ll walk on to the people’s naked and pitiless sword.’
Arinndier shifted unhappily on his seat.
Darek spoke again. ‘Think about it, Arin. If the Law itself is assailed by those who should sustain it, what else can be done? And, I repeat, what greater attack at the heart of the Law could there have been than the suspension of the Geadrol? And, seeing it, why didn’t we act correctly? Why did we turn away our faces like Eldric’s done here and pretend that nothing was happening?’ He leaned forward and the movement made Arinndier look up. ‘We’re the people’s sword-bearers,’ he went on. ‘And we’ve failed in our duty. Who knows what power blinded us? But now we’re penned like cattle and Dan-Tor can do as he pleases. We have to escape. We have to act against him or we’ll be condemned forever.’
‘Indeed.’ The voice was grim and powerful.
Both Darek and Arinndier started, and even Hreldar looked surprised.
The unexpected voice was Eldric’s.
Arinndier looked at the old Lord intently. Eldric slowly straightened up and returned the gaze. There was life again in his eyes and it seemed to Arinndier that the aging that confinement had apparently wrought on the man was falling away as he watched. Darek’s flint had struck a spark from the iron of the old man’s soul. Arinndier felt a lump in his throat.
‘Indeed,’ Eldric repeated, before any of the others could speak. ‘Having failed in our duty once, we mustn’t do so again.’
‘Eldric,’ said Arinndier, his face broken in a confu-sion of emotions, and his hands reaching out to his friend.
Eldric raised his own hands in a gesture that forbade interrogation. ‘I’ve been away,’ he said coldly. ‘It won’t happen again.’
Arinndier looked at him and remembered the Eldric who never responded well to sympathy; the Eldric who had always preferred to tend his own wounds in private, like an injured animal. Gradually his composure returned and he took up Eldric’s first remark as if the second had never been spoken, though he could not keep the relief and joy from his face.
‘You may be right,’ he said. ‘But what can we do? We don’t know what’s happening outside. We don’t even know why we’ve been arrested. Perhaps the other Lords are… ’
‘The other Lords are dithering, just as we did,’ Hreldar interrupted, his voice contemptuous. ‘Dan-Tor will be plying them with rumours and lies. Probably telling them that there’ll be a trial or some such nonsense-accusing us of treason-of being the reason why the King suspended the Geadrol. He’ll pick them off one at a time. They won’t even see the blow that’s felling them.’
Arinndier winced at Hreldar’s harsh tone. ‘That’s conjecture,’ he said feebly.
Hreldar’s mouth puckered distastefully. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But do you think it’s wrong? Can you see them doing anything other?’
Arinndier did not reply.
Darek gave a grim chuckle. ‘What a considerable schemer the man is. If we remain here we can do nothing but serve his ends by our enforced silence. If we escape we must rouse such of the Lords as we can and turn into the very rebels he’s probably telling everyone we are.’ He nodded a grudging approval. ‘It’s not without a certain elegance.’
‘It’s not without a certain horror,’ said Eldric an-grily. ‘Still, warned is armed. In future we’ll see a little more clearly and make fewer mistakes for him to profit by.’
‘If we have a future,’ said Hreldar coldly. ‘Besides, Dan-Tor’s a man who profits from everything and anything. I don’t think we’ve begun to get the measure of him yet.’
Eldric nodded in agreement. He stood up and stretched himself expansively. ‘True,’ he said, then, entwining his fingers, he cracked them methodically, as if freeing the joints of long-accumulated dust. ‘But nor does he have the measure of us yet.’
Chapter 18
Sylvriss closed the door quietly behind her and spoke softly to the servant standing outside. ‘The King’s sleeping. See that he’s not disturbed.’
The servant bowed in acknowledgement. ‘Majesty.’ He watched the Queen walking away from him. Was it his imagination or had he caught a glimpse under the Queen’s silken hood of a face flushed and smiling, triumphant even? No. It must have been a trick of the light. Sadly, loved though she was by so many, the Queen rarely smiled. Ethriss knows, she’d little enough to smile about. The King demented for most of the time; Dan-Tor spreading his pernicious influence over everything, the Geadrol suspended; Lords arrested for treason; these damned Mathidrin terrifying everyone; and even rumours of troubles in Orthlund. So much dreadful change so quickly. None of us have got much to smile about. But the servant’s face remained impassive. It was unwise to express thoughts such as these. Rumours abounded about people who had spoken against Dan-Tor or the King and had disappeared mysteriously. Of course, they were only rumours, but…? Who could one trust these days?
However, the servant had been correct. The Queen had indeed been smiling when she left her husband sleeping peacefully; smiling radiantly. Now, however, as she walked along to her own quarters, the smile became grim and determined. She pulled her hood closer over her face. Inside herself she could feel an excitement-like the excitement of being First Hearer-picking up the cry, distant and tiny, a faint sound on the very limit of hearing, the warning cry that had to be roared out along the road so that it could be cleared before the riders appeared.
‘Muster,’ she whispered involuntarily into the still air of the corridor, longing to cry it out loud in defiance of Dan-Tor and his scheming. She had truly seen her long-buried husband again and their morning together had evoked so many old memories that she had seized new hopes and hardened her new resolve. No longer would she accept the defeat that her life had so far offered, its hand so skilfully guided by Dan-Tor. She would not sink any further into helplessness. Nor would she ponder what deep wisdom in the King had made him do what he had done, or what strange folly in Dan-Tor had allowed it.
Suffice it that the turbulence it had caused had stirred many long-laid sediments, and now she felt her feet resting on a bedrock. Nothing, not even death itself would dash these hopes from her now, or deflect her resolution.
A bustling flurry came into view. Dilrap, like a wal-lowing galleon, emerged from a side passage, his arms full of precariously balanced documents and his round face full of cares. Trying to preserve his burden intact, and maintain some semblance of dignity, he was having a considerable struggle and did not notice the Queen.
‘Honoured Secretary,’ she said, somewhat regret-fully, seeing no way to avoid the almost inevitable outcome. Dilrap started and looked round suddenly. The abrupt movement dislodged a large scroll from the middle of the pile he was carrying.