Dilrap looked alarmed and fluttered his hands nerv-ously, like butterflies trying to fly to safety in the glittering tree above them. ‘Majesty… I don’t know… ’
‘Dilrap. I know. I know you’re loyal to your office and the King. And to the people of Fyorlund. I know it grieves you constantly that you seem to be eternally impotent to alter the terrible course we’re set on.’ She seized the dithering hands. Dilrap started. ‘Look at me,’ she said urgently. ‘I tell you again. You must under-stand. Even your father couldn’t have stood against the wiles of Dan-Tor. As sure as fate he’d have been destroyed in the attempt. You must believe that. Somewhere inside you, you know it’s true.’
She released the hands and they floated down into his lap again.
‘Majesty,’ he whispered, ‘maybe what you say is true. I know that you above all would play no cruel tricks on me. But what do you want of me?’
Sylvriss placed all on one cast and told him briefly and bluntly. ‘The King has no mysterious illness. It was Dan-Tor’s treatment that precipitated his condition and it’s been Dan-Tor’s treatment that has maintained it.’ Dilrap’s eyes widened in terror, but Sylvriss continued. ‘See how well he’s been recently, now that it’s in Dan-Tor’s interests not to have him wandering about demented, further complicating the actions he’s accidentally set in motion.’
‘Majesty,’ ventured Dilrap, ‘the King’s illness has always been subject to these brief flashes of normality. He may lapse again at any moment.’
‘I know,’ said Sylvriss. Then, with some bitterness, ‘There’s a quality in Dan-Tor’s potions that makes the body cry out for them desperately, even though they injure it. I’ve learned that in the past and suffered for it.’
Dilrap raised his hand as if to comfort the pain that passed over the beautiful face.
‘But knowledge is a shield, Dilrap,’ Sylvriss contin-ued. ‘Dan-Tor quieted the King and then left his tending to me while he occupied himself with political affairs.’ Her voice fell. ‘Very slowly I’ve been reducing the strength of the potions I’m supposed to give him.’ She raised a finger in emphasis. ‘Very slowly he’s returning to health.’
Dilrap looked round fearfully. ‘Majesty, why do you tell me this? I think the Lord Dan-Tor is capable of anything-anything-I’ve seen so many… ’ He stopped. ‘I shudder to think what his real aims are. But what can I do?’
Sylvriss sat back and nodded slowly. ‘You’ve just done it, Honoured Secretary. You’ve spoken the truth. You’ve seen so many things, you said. So many things that shouldn’t be. And even the seemingly unimportant things take their toll-lapses in procedure, appoint-ments for personal favours rather than ability, petty deceits and illegalities to avoid the scrutiny of the Geadrol, trivial things. Trivial things that have accumu-lated over the years to shift power gradually from where it lay, into Dan-Tor’s hands. Reluctant but efficient hands, labouring only in the interests of their monarch.’
Then, surprised at her own realization, ‘You’ve spo-ken out about it. You’ve spoken out and been crushed. Long ago. Crushed with the same meticulous attention to detail that he applies to everything. All the ways a man can be crushed without actually breaking his bones. You fought your battle alone, and you thought it lost.’
The last vestiges of her image of her old pony faded in a tearful mist and this time she felt his pain. Dilrap sat motionless, a dark expression on his face as countless scores of humiliations and rebuffs marched in mocking triumph before him.
‘What can I do?’ he said again, simply.
‘You must do as I must,’ said Sylvriss. ‘You must fight again. But with a new resolve, no matter what the odds, if the things you honour-Kingship, the Law, the people, your father’s memory-are to survive. You and I have nowhere left to hide. No one will act against Dan-Tor if we don’t. He’ll twist the rest of the Lords around his finger, and destroy them one at a time. Then he’ll destroy the King and everything else of the old way. Including us.’
‘Majesty, I’m not a warrior,’ Dilrap said faintly.
Sylvriss smiled. ‘You’re no swordsman, Dilrap, but you’re more of a warrior than you know.’
Dilrap tried for the last time to refuse the mantle that was being pressed on him. ‘Majesty, if the King is improving in health, he’ll surely be able to take control again. He was a powerful and able man.’
Sylvriss shook her head. ‘Oh, how I wish that were true,’ she said sadly. ‘But he’s still far from being fully well again. He’s quiet and at some semblance of peace with himself, but his condition isn’t stable. He teeters constantly on the edge of one extreme or the other. To mention the Geadrol or the Lords would be to push him over the edge.’ She sighed. ‘Only by keeping his mind on happier times can I keep him calm and give him the time to become stronger.’ Her hands twisted in her lap. ‘Fortunately we’ve a fine store of such memories… ’
Her voice faded.
Dilrap looked at the Queen’s hands. They were abruptly anxious and fidgety. The hands of a woman who had been too long waiting for ill news, not the powerful hands of the skilled rider that had just seized his own.
‘I’m afraid there’s no help to be found from the King. Probably there’ll be hindrance. I can’t always tell how his moods are going to turn.’ Her mouth made a little ironic twist. ‘You and I will have to stand around him like the High Guards around Ethriss at the Last Battle.’
Despite himself, Dilrap smiled at the analogy. The imagery appealed to the heroic little boy within him that all life’s depredations had not yet totally destroyed.
They did not talk for much longer under the glitter-ing tree. This was no time for detailed plotting and scheming. The essence of their compact had been sealed. Now they were allies against a common foe. Both saw clearly as never before that ahead of them lay degradation and possibly worse if they did nothing.
It might be that this would still be the case even if they acted against Dan-Tor, but it was their only hope for an alternative future and, if they failed utterly, then at least they would have that strange consolation of dying facing an enemy rather than fleeing from him.
Chapter 19
For all their new-found resolve and awareness, the four Lords found their material position unchanged. They did not even know where they were being held except that it was somewhere in the main Palace building and almost certainly underground.
Their journey from the Throne Room following their fateful confrontation with the King had been confined and violent, all four of them shouting and struggling but being relentlessly shepherded by the grim Mathidrin. So unexpected had been the King’s action that none of them had had the presence of mind to note where they were going through the maze of corridors and hallways, but their subsequent consensus was that it had been generally downwards. A long way down.
Their food was brought by a series of different guards, and whenever the door was opened, at least two others could be seen standing outside.
‘We’ve set ourselves a fair task, Lords,’ said Eldric with a grim smile. ‘I for one don’t feel inclined to match my muscle against what I’ve seen of our guards. Wherever they’re from, they look fit and tough, and we’ve no idea how many of them are out there.’ Then he catalogued their problems. ‘Even if we do get out of this room we don’t know where we are, thanks to our dignified journey here, and if we managed to get out of the Palace there’s no saying how many friends we’ll find in the City to help us back to our estates.’ His voice had risen with each statement and finally he smacked his hands on his knees and stood up. ‘Good grief, we don’t even know whether our estates and High Guards still exist,’ he shouted.