“It is from my son,” she said, though she spoke without a voice. Trian nodded. “Let me assure you all, Your Majesties, Lady Iridal, that I would not have put you through this ordeal if I weren’t absolutely certain that what Peter says is the truth. The child he saw was Bane.” Stephen flushed at the implied rebuke, muttered something beneath his breath that might have been an apology. With a heavy sigh, he slumped into his seat. The king and queen moved nearer each other, leaving Lady Iridal sitting alone, slightly apart.
Trian came to stand before the three. The wizard stated firmly and calmly what they all knew, but perhaps had not, even now, accepted.
“Bane is alive, and he is in elven hands.”
“How is this possible?” Anne demanded in a choked voice, her hand at her throat, as though she were suffocating. She turned to Lady Iridal. “You said they took him away! To another land! You said Alfred took him away!”
“Not Alfred,” Iridal corrected. The initial shock was receding; the mysteriarch was beginning to realize that her dearest wish was coming true.
“The other man. Haplo.”
“The man you described to me, the one with the blue skin,” said Trian.
“Yes.” Iridal’s eyes shone with the brilliance of her hope. “Yes, he was the one. He took my son away...”
“Then he has apparently brought him back,” said Trian dryly. “For he is also in the elven castle. The footman saw a man with blue skin in company with the prince. It was this detail, perhaps more than any other, that convinced me the man’s story was true. Aside from the Lady Iridal, myself, and Your Majesties, none here knows about the man with blue skin or his connection with Bane. Add to this the fact that Peter not only saw Bane, but spoke to him. Bane recognized the footman and called him by name. No, sire. I repeat. There can be no doubt.”
“So the child is held hostage,” said Stephen grimly. “The elves plan, no doubt, to use this threat to force us to stop our attacks on their shipping, perhaps even try to disrupt the negotiations with Rees’ahn. Well, it won’t work. They can do what they like with him. I wouldn’t trade one drop of water—”
“My dear, please!” said Anne quietly, laying her hand on her husband’s arm. She glanced beneath her eyelids at the Lady Iridal, who was sitting, pale and cold, hands clenched in her lap, staring at nothing, pretending not to hear.
“She is his mother!”
“I am well aware that this lady is the child’s mother. May I remind you, my dear, that Bane had a father—a father whose evil very nearly destroyed us all. Forgive me for speaking plainly, Lady Iridal,” said Stephen, undeterred by his wife’s pleading gaze, “but we must face the truth. You have said yourself that your husband wielded a powerful, dark influence over the child.” A faint flush came to Iridal’s ivory cheeks, a shudder shook her slender frame. She did not reply, however, and Stephen looked over at Trian.
“I wonder, even, how much of this is Bane’s doing,” stated the king. “But, be that as it may, I am adamant. The elves will find they have made a bad bargain—”
Iridal’s faint flush of shame had deepened to anger. She seemed about to speak. Trian raised his hand to forestall her.
“Lady Iridal, if I may,” he said quietly. “Matters are not this simple, sire. The elves are clever. The wretched Peter did not escape. He was permitted to escape, intentionally. The elves knew he would bring you this information, probably subtly encouraged him to do so. The elves made his ‘escape’ look very real and convincing. Just as they did all the others.”
“Others?” Stephen looked up vaguely, frowning.
Trian sighed. He had been putting off bad news. “I am afraid, sire, that Peter was not the only one to return bearing news that His Highness, Prince Bane, is alive. More than twenty other slaves ‘escaped’ that night. All have returned to their various homelands, all carrying the same tale. I’ve erased Peter’s memory, but I might just as well have left him alone. Within a very few cycles, the news mat Bane is alive and in elven hands will be the talk of every tavern from Pitrin’s Exile to Winsher.”
“Blessed ancestors protect us,” murmured Anne.
“I am certain you are aware of the vicious rumors that have been spread concerning Bane’s illegitimacy, sire,” continued Trian gently. “If you cast the boy to the wolves, so to speak, people will believe these rumors to be the truth. They will say that you rid yourself of a bastard. Our queen’s reputation will be irreparably damaged. The barons of Volkaran will demand that you divorce her, marry one of their own. The barons of Ulyndia will take Queen Anne’s part and rise against you. The alliance we’ve worked hard and long to build will crumble into dust. It could lead to civil war.” Stephen huddled in his chair, his face gray and haggard. Ordinarily he did not look his fifty years. His body was firm and muscular. He could hold his own with any of the younger knights in tourney competition, frequently beat the best. Yet now his shoulders sagged, his frame had collapsed. His head bowed, he was suddenly an old man.
“We could tell the people the truth,” said Lady Iridal. Trian turned to her, smiled. “A magnanimous offer, my lady. I know how painful that would be for you. But it would only make matters worse. Your people have wisely kept out of public view, since their return from the High Realms. The mysteriarchs have lived quietly, aiding us in secret. Would you want Sinistrad’s evil designs upon us made known? People would suspect and turn against you all. Who knows what terrible persecution might follow?”
“We are doomed,” said Stephen heavily. “We must give in.”
“No,” responded Iridal, voice and demeanor cool. “There is another alternative. Bane is my responsibility. He is my son. I want him back. I will rescue my child from the elves.”
“Go into the elven kingdom alone and snatch away your son?” Stephen lifted his hand from his brow, looked up at his wizard.
The king needed the mysteriarchs’ powerful magic. No use offending the magus. He made a slight motion with his head, asking Trian to urge Iridal to depart. They had serious business to discuss, alone. “The woman’s gone mad,” he mouthed, though, of course, he did not say this aloud.
Trian shook his own head slightly. “Listen to what she has to offer,” he advised the king silently. Aloud, he said, “Yes, my lady? Please continue.”
“Once I’ve recovered him, I will take my son to the High Realms. Our dwelling is livable, for a short time, at least.[48] Alone with me, without anyone else to influence him, Bane will draw back from the dark path he walks, the path his father taught him to walk.” She turned to Stephen. “You must let me try, Your Majesty. You must!”
“Faith, Lady, you don’t need my sanction,” said Stephen bluntly. “You may fly off the top parapet of this castle, if you’re so minded. What could I do to stop you? But you’re talking about traveling into elven lands, a human woman, alone! Walking into an elven dungeon and back out again. Perhaps you mysteriarchs have discovered some means of turning yourselves invisible—” Both Anne and Trian endeavored to stem the king’s tirade, but it was Iridal who brought Stephen up short.
“You are right, Your Majesty,” she said, with a faint, apologetic smile, “I will go, whether you grant me permission or not. I ask only out of courtesy, for the sake of maintaining good relations between all parties. I am well aware of the danger and the difficulty. I have never been in elven lands. I have no means of journeying there—yet. But I will. I do not intend to go alone, Your Majesty.”
48
The Sartan constructed a magical shell around the High Realm to make its rarefied atmosphere suitable for mensch habitation. This shell is beginning to break down and no one now knows the secret of its reconstruction.