The Tor seemed to slump farther down in his seat.
With a strangled chortle, Adept Havelock tossed his wine into the fire. While the wine hissed and burned, he threw his goblet behind him, narrowly missing Terisa.
“Fornication,” he pronounced, “is hard to do well alone.”
“My lady,” the King breathed as if he were going to sleep, “I didn’t know Myste went to see you. I reasoned it. If you were more honest, I would have less trouble trusting you. You ought to try using a little reason yourself.”
Terisa had expected him to be appalled and angry. Obviously he wasn’t. Preconceptions were being jerked out from under her. This new surprise seemed to knock the last bit of sense out of the situation. Myste was doing something that had been foreseen in Havelock’s augury of King Joyse. Was that why a lie made the King furious and the truth had nearly made him smile?
“I don’t understand,” she murmured weakly. “Don’t you care?”
King Joyse reached out a swollen, unsteady hand and nudged Adept Havelock, who in turn nudged the Tor. “My lord, I said, ‘More wine would be nice.” ’
Sighing, the Tor pried his bulk out of his chair and moved to fetch the decanter.
“You want me to use a little reason.” Terisa had difficulty holding her voice down. “How about giving me some information to reason with? Myste is probably dead. If the cold didn’t kill her – and the champion didn’t kill her – then that firecat probably did. You act like the only thing you care about is that she didn’t go see her mother!”
“No.” The King sounded sad, but he answered without rancor. “What I care about is that she did something I can be proud of.”
Like an echo, Terisa seemed to hear Castellan Lebbick quoting King Joyse to Prince Kragen: She carries my pride with her wherever she goes. For her sake, as well as for my own, I hope that the best reasons will also produce the best results.
She wanted to yell, But that doesn’t make any sense! Elega betrayed you! Myste is probably dead! The words died in her throat, however: they were hopeless. The thought that she would have to go support Geraden with nothing except more confusion made her feel sick.
The Tor refilled the King’s goblet and his own, then eased himself into his chair. “The lady Terisa is distressed,” he remarked distantly. “It would be a kindness, my lord King, if you gave her what she desires.”
King Joyse lifted his head once more, scowling sourly as if he meant to say something acid to the Tor.
But he didn’t. Instead, he growled, “Oh, very well.”
Over his shoulder, he addressed Terisa. “The reason I told Geraden not to talk to you when you were first brought here is the same reason I didn’t intervene when the Masters decided to translate their champion. It’s the same reason I’m not going to intervene now. I’m trying to protect you. Both of you.”
“Protect us!” She was too upset to restrain herself. “How does it protect me to keep me ignorant? How does it protect us to let that champion be translated? We were buried alive.” I almost lost my mind. “How does it protect him to let Master Eremis destroy him? All you’re doing is making us look foolish.”
The King turned his head away and sketched a frail gesture with both hands. “You see?” he observed to the Tor. “She doesn’t reason.” Then his tone grew bitter.
“You’re still alive, aren’t you? Do you have any conception how unlikely that was when you first arrived? Better minds than yours were sure neither of you would last for three days. A little foolishness is a small price to pay for your lives.”
Terisa stared at the back of his head with her mouth open as if he had taken all the air out of the room.
“ ‘Better minds’!” crowed Adept Havelock like a man addressing a crowd of admirers. “He means me. He means me.”
“If I had welcomed you with open arms,” King Joyse went on, “my enemies would have formed a higher estimate of how dangerous you are. They would have put more effort into killing you.” He sounded querulous and old, peevishly incapable of the things he ascribed to himself. “As long as they thought I had no interest in you – that I was too stupid or senile to have an interest in you – they could afford patience. Wait and see. Gart attacked you that first night because my enemies hadn’t had time to find out I hadn’t welcomed you. But as soon as people heard that I wasn’t treating you like an ally, Gart held back for a while.
“Are you satisfied?”
His demand took her by surprise. She scrambled to ask, “Do you mean the reason you can’t help Geraden now is that if you do your enemies will know you’re his friend and they’ll start trying even harder to have him killed?”
“I mean much more than that,” he snapped. “I mean that if I had given him permission to tell you whatever you wanted to know I would have doomed you both. My enemies would have taken anything like that as a sign that you were on my side.
“Now are you satisfied?”
“But what—?” It was too much: his explanation increased her confusion. It had all been an elaborate charade. “Who are your enemies? Why can’t you protect anybody you want in your own castle?” Images of Geraden and Myste and Elega and Queen Madin and Master Barsonage and even Castellan Lebbick rose in her, all of them lost and aggrieved. “Why do you have to make everybody who’s loyal to you think you don’t care what happens?”
“My lady.” His tone was no longer petulant. Now it was as keen and cutting as ice. “If I had any desire to answer such questions, I would have done so earlier. As a courtesy to your distress, I have already told you more than I consider wise.” Like Geraden’s, his speech became more formal as it gathered authority. Despite his years, his voice still had the potential to lash at her. “I advise reason and silence, my lady. You will not prolong your life by speaking of what you have heard.”
He dismissed her without a glance. “You may go.”
But—? But—? She knew she should have been stronger. She should have demanded a better explanation. But what she wanted to ask couldn’t get past her mental stutter into words. She had no sure ideas left to stand on. King Joyse knew what he was doing – he knew with a vengeance. He was being passive and obtuse on purpose – hurting the people who loved him on purpose. But what purpose was that? It was inconceivable. He—
“My lady,” he said again, “you may go.”
In a tone of faraway sadness, the Tor murmured, “My lady, it is generally unwise to disregard the will of a king.” He spoke as if from personal experience.
With a fierce effort, Terisa quelled her insistent incomprehension. The exertion left her angry and panting, but in control of herself.
“Thank you, my lord Tor,” she said stiffly. “My lord King, I’m sorry. I lied to you about Myste because she trusted me. She was afraid somebody would try to stop her. She asked me to protect her. I lied to you because I didn’t know you would have let her go.”
None of the three men looked at her. They stared vacantly into the fire, as if they had used up their allotment of words for the day and had nothing left to think with. King Joyse let her get as far as the door before he breathed softly, “Thank you, my lady.”
She left as if she were escaping.
***
Geraden joined her in her rooms for supper.
His expression was a strange mixture of relief and dread. His conversation with Artagel made his spirits soar; the upcoming meeting of the Congery hung on him like lead. The good news, he reported, was that Artagel was healing well after his earlier setbacks. And Artagel was still his friend. The bad news was that the swordsman was still in no condition to stand up in front of the Masters and defend his brother.