“Then what is your point?”
He smiled down at her. That smile might have been on his lips, but it was not in his eyes.
“My point,” Lothain finally said, “is that he selected men who failed.”
Hard as she could, Magda slapped the man across his face. The six council members gasped as they drew back. Her hand probably stung more than Lothain’s solid face, but she didn’t care. The sound of the slap seemed to hang in the air for a moment before fading.
Lothain dismissed the slap with a polite bow of his head. “Please accept my apology if it sounded like I was making an accusation.”
“If it was not an accusation, then what was it?”
“I am simply trying to get to the truth.”
“The truth? The truth is,” she growled, “that while you were in the underworld, attempting to gain entrance into the Temple, the moon each night and each night since turned red in a warning, the most serious warning possible from the Temple, that there is some sort of grave trouble—”
He cut her off, dismissing the issue with a flick of his hand. “The appearance of repeated red moons was probably because of the damage done by the Temple team.”
“And when you returned, after failing in your attempt to undo that damage, the First Wizard had the terrible duty to select a volunteer to answer the Temple’s nightly call of a red moon. And when the first man failed to return, the First Wizard had to send another, more experienced wizard, and when that one failed to return, he had the grim duty to select yet another, even more skilled man, all of them friends and close associates.
“I stood beside him at the rampart each night as he stared off at the red moon, inconsolable, as one friend after another failed to return from the underworld. Inconsolable that he had sent valuable men, his friends, men who were husbands and fathers, to their death.
“Finally, when no one else had succeeded, my husband undertook the journey himself, and in the end paid for it with his life.”
Lothain let the ringing silence go on for a moment before speaking softly. “Actually, he did not pay for it with his life. He took his own life after returning.”
Magda glared at him. “What is your point?”
Lothain tapped his fingertips together for a moment as he studied her wet eyes. “My point, Lady Searus, is that he took his own life before we learned what had happened on his journey to the Temple of the Winds. Perhaps you can tell us?” He cocked his head. “Did he make it in?”
“I don’t know,” Magda said. But she did know. Baraccus had told her that he had, and told her a lot more. “I was his wife, not a member of the council or—”
“Ah,” Lothain said as he tipped his head back. “His young, exquisitely beautiful, but so very ungifted wife. Of course. So obviously a wizard of such great ability would not discuss matters of profound power with someone who had none.”
Magda swallowed. “That’s right.”
“You know, I’ve always been curious. Why would . . .” His frown returned as his black eyes again fixed on her. “Well, why would a man of such extraordinary ability, a gifted war wizard, a man whose talents included everything from combat to prophecy, why would a man like that marry a woman who had no ability at all? I mean, other than . . .” He let his gaze wander down her body.
He was fishing, accusing her of being nothing but a pretty bauble, the shallow possession of a powerful man. Prosecutor Lothain was making the bold charge that she was simply sexual entertainment and nothing more—repeating what contemptible gossip took for granted—in at attempt to get her to admit that she was indeed more, and that she knew more, than would the mere attractive status symbol of an older man.
Magda didn’t take the bait. She didn’t want to trust this man with anything she knew. Her instincts told her not to tell him what she knew about Baraccus’s journey to the Temple of the Winds.
She felt tears begin to run down her cheek and drip off her chin.
“Because he loved me,” she whispered.
“Ah, yes, of course. Love.”
Magda was not about to explain her relationship with Baraccus to this man. Prosecutor Lothain was too cynical to begin to understand what she and Baraccus had meant to each other. Lothain saw her the way so many men saw her, as an object of desire, not as a person, the way Baraccus had seen her.
One of the council members, a man named Sadler, stepped forward, a scowl growing across his sagging, aged features.
“If you have an important question, then please ask it. Otherwise I think you ought to leave the widow Searus to her grief.”
“Very well.” Lothain clasped his hands behind his back. “What I would like to know, is if you are aware of any clandestine meetings that First Wizard Baraccus might have had?”
Magda frowned at the prosecutor. “Clandestine meetings? What do you mean? What clandestine meetings? With whom?”
“That’s what I’m asking you. Are you aware of any secret meetings he had with the enemy?”
Magda could feel her face go red with rage. “Get out.”
Her own voice surprised her with its calm power. He studied her eyes a moment, then turned to leave.
“I do hope that First Wizard Baraccus was the hero so many think he was,” he said back over his shoulder, “and not involved in a conspiracy.”
Taking long strides, Magda closed the distance to the man. “Are you accusing my husband of conspiring with the enemy?”
He turned back at the door and smiled. “Of course not. I merely think it strange that the men Baraccus sent to the Temple of the Winds failed, and that he would then go himself on such a mission when the war burns hot and he is desperately needed here. After all, approaching enemy troops threaten our very existence. It seems a strange priority for him to take, don’t you think?
“And even more curious, when he returned, he rushed to kill himself before anyone could so much as ask him if he made it into the Temple to repair the damage.”
He held up a finger. “Oh, but wait. It just occurs to me that with the moon still red, he must not have gotten in or it would have returned to normal while he was still there.” His frown returned. “Or at least, if he did get in, he must not have repaired the damage. After all, had he done so, the red moons would have ceased. Now, as the red moon slowly wanes, apparently even the Temple has given up hope.”
He was still fishing. Magda said nothing.
His antagonistic smile returned. “You do see my point, I trust. Treason is an offense that can taint even the dead. And, of course, knowingly aiding a person committing treason is treason as well, and would cost such a person their lovely head.”
He started away again, but then again turned back.
“One last thing, Widow Searus. You will make yourself available to answer questions should I deem a formal investigation to be necessary.”
Magda trembled with rage as she glared at the man’s smile. She didn’t give him the satisfaction of an answer before he finally turned and left.
Chapter 4
After watching the door close, Councilman Sadler turned back to Magda. “I must apologize, Lady Searus.”
“No need for you to apologize.” Magda arched an eyebrow. “Unless you support Lothain’s accusations against my husband?”
Sadness softened his expression. “Baraccus was a good man. We all miss him. I fear that bitter sorrow over recent events may have clouded Lothain’s better judgment.”
She glanced at the other five. Hambrook and Clay nodded their agreement. Elder Cadell made no show of his feelings. The gazes of the last two men, Weston and Guymer, dropped away.
“He did not seem to me to be a man possessed by sorrow,” she said.
The hunched elder, Cadell, gently touched the back of her shoulder. “There is grave concern in the air, Magda.” His hand left her shoulder to gesture past her and the other councilmen toward the shuttered window overlooking the city of Aydindril. “All of us stand at the brink of annihilation. People are understandably afraid.”