“Geraden,” she asked awkwardly, “is there really a reason for all this? You’re not just doing an experiment on me, are you? Practicing your translations?”
Somehow, he looked straight into her face and saw what she was feeling. At once, his expression sobered; empathy softened his gaze. “My lady, I swear to you on my heart that the need is urgent. King Joyse would have the head of any Imager who did frivolously what we’ve done to you – though there are some,” he digressed momentarily, “who might attempt it, if they weren’t restrained by the Congery.
“In addition, I swear to you,” he went on, “if your translation is an accident – a mistake of any kind – I’ll do everything anybody can do to restore you to your own world.
“And one thing more, my lady.” His tone and his gaze grew sharper. “I’ll find a way to get you back to your own world anyway, if King Joyse or Master Barsonage or somebody doesn’t decide to start treating you better soon.”
Meeting his eyes, Terisa found that she believed him, in spite of herself. The whole idea was secretly amazing – that any man, however accident-prone, would look at her and make promises so seriously. To cover her astonishment, she turned a little away from him. Then, as distantly as she could, she said, “You’d better call me Terisa. I’m not anybody’s ‘lady.’ I don’t want the King to get the wrong idea.”
She felt rather than saw his approval. “Thank you. I think you’re doing the right thing. I have a good feeling about this.” He put one hand tentatively on her arm. “Shall we go?”
His attention was focused on her as though he wanted to make more promises. In reply, she gave him the polite, noncommittal smile she had perfected by the time she was a teenager – and groaned to herself because her response to him was so much emptier than his to her. But she went on smiling that way while she nodded her assent.
He gestured past one of the pillars. “This way, then.”
She was thankful that he let go of her arm as he guided her toward a door.
The door was a massive wooden construction supported with iron struts and bolts: it looked like it had originally been intended to seal people out of this chamber – or seal them in. In, she decided when Geraden opened the door, swinging it outward. But its bolts were arranged so that it could only be locked from the inside.
As he led her through the doorway, they met two guards in the corridor.
The men were both large, rough, poorly shaved veterans with the look of hard service about them. They wore mail shirts and leggings over their leather clothes and close-fitting iron caps on their heads. Each had a longsword at his belt and gripped a pike in his right hand. One of them was marked by an old scar that ran from his hairline down his forehead, between his eyes, and beside his nose almost to his mouth. The other had lost several teeth.
The one whose teeth were missing stared at Terisa in a way she didn’t find reassuring; but the other addressed Geraden like a familiar comrade, asking him if there were any Masters remaining in the chamber.
When Geraden shook his head, the guard relaxed his stance. “Then we’re off duty for a while. Listen, Geraden. Argus and I have a small keg of ale waiting. What do you think? Would you and” – he flicked a suggestive glance at Terisa – “your companion like to join us for a drink?”
“I think, Ribuld,” Geraden replied good-humoredly, “that you and Argus forgot how to think the day you decided to be soldiers. For your information, my ‘companion’ is the lady Terisa of Morgan, and she isn’t likely to spend her time swilling ale with the likes of you. The King is waiting to meet her right now.”
“Too good for us, is she?” muttered Argus. But Ribuld gave him a solid elbow-jab in the ribs, and he stepped back, a look of apoplexy on his face.
Grinning, Geraden drew Terisa on down the passageway.
“Don’t let them worry you,” he said softly as they walked. “Those two look terrible, but they’re good men. They trained with my brother Artagel. I’m going to try to get them assigned to keep an eye on you.”
“Why do I need guards?”
“Because –” he began. This time, however, he realized what he was doing right away. “For the same reason I’m not supposed to answer your questions. Mordant has too many enemies. The Congery has too many enemies. And King Joyse –” Again he stopped, a look of unconscious pain on his face. “Whether you’re here by accident or not, you already have enemies yourself. As long as I’m responsible for you, I want to be sure you also have guards – guards who’re going to take you seriously. Ribuld and Argus will do that for me because I’m Artagel’s brother.”
After a moment, he muttered, “Master Barsonage made a big mistake telling me not to answer questions.”
In silence, she walked with him down the corridor.
The corridor was built of the same gray blocks of granite that had formed the walls and ceiling of the Congery’s chamber; and it led to several turns, a few doors, a stair, and then into an enormous square hall large enough to be a ballroom.
This place had a smooth floor, the stones closely fitted so that there were no gaps; balconies around the walls, where musicians might sit to play, or from which high lords and ladies might watch the dancing; several huge hearths for warmth. In each corner, broad stairways curved gracefully upward out of sight. But the place was lifeless. It had an atmosphere of disuse, even of neglect: the people and musicians, the excitement and color that might have given it gaiety had gone away. The hearths were cold; and the only light came from narrow windows high above the balcony on one wall, with the result that the hall was full of gloom. The windows permitted a glimpse of sullen clouds.
Terisa shivered as Geraden headed her toward one of the stairways. “This isn’t the direct route,” he commented. “But we wouldn’t be able to get across the courtyard without ruining your clothes.” She was fortunate to be as warmly dressed as she was. What she could see of the sky through the windows looked like winter.
The stairway took them up one level. From there, he led her through a sequence of passages, short stairways, and halls that created a haphazard impression, as if the massive stone pile through which they moved had been constructed randomly, by lumps. But his instinct for mishap didn’t include any uncertainty about where he was going: he knew this place intimately.
As they walked, they began to encounter more and more people. Many of them were guards, on duty or on errands; but many more seemed to be the inhabitants of the building. Old men leaned on their brooms in the corridors, stirring small piles of dust with diligent inattention. Girls scurried here and there, carrying linens or buckets or mops. Boys sprinted past, probably pretending that they were involved in something urgent so that no one would stop them and put them to work. As for the men and women—
Terisa found that she could easily estimate their rank by their clothes. Everyone was warmly dressed; but the sweeps and chambermaids wore woolen skirts, wool shawls over their blouses, and heavy clogs, where the ladies had on floor-length gowns of taffeta or satin and supple leather boots, with jewels in their hair or about their necks. The charmen and grooms dressed themselves as Geraden did, in jerkins, pants, and boots, perhaps with a long dagger sheathed at their belts, but the lords wore elaborately woven surcoats over flowing shirts and tight hose, with sabers in ornamented scabbards on their hips. And the intermediate degrees of station could be defined at once by the presence or absence of a sword or a décolletage, by the length of a gown or the embroidery on a surcoat.
In spite of their elegance, however, even the finest lords and ladies didn’t look like they had ever been to a ball. Almost without exception, they comported themselves like people who lived under a shadow.