Perhaps she should have feared that the food of this world would make her sick. In view of Geraden’s belief that she had enemies, perhaps she should have feared that the food was poisoned. But such considerations seemed entirely unreal. The people she had met looked like normal human beings. They spoke her language. And, as far as she was concerned, she certainly wasn’t substantial enough to be an object of malice. With no more hesitation than she had showed walking across the room to look at the food, she sampled the beans and found that they tasted like asparagus. Then she started on the bread and wine.
“Does it please you, my lady?” Saddith had finished lighting the candles and lamps in both the sitting room and the bedroom, and now stood watching Terisa.
“It’s very good,” Terisa replied like an obedient girl.
The maid smiled her approval. “Then I will leave you now, my lady. If you do not wish to rest, and the evening seems long, summon me.” She indicated a bellpull which Terisa hadn’t noticed because it was hidden behind one of the peacock feather displays. “We will find some entertainment for you. Perhaps you will want me to help you try some of your gowns. Several of them will become you nicely, I think. Or perhaps you will want other company. Both the lady Elega and the lady Myste wish to meet you, although they thought to wait until tomorrow so that you could spend tonight recovering from your translation. Both would be fascinated to make the acquaintance of a woman of Imagery.”
Terisa ignored this reference to her purported mastery of mirrors. “Who are Elega and Myste?”
“They are my lord King’s daughters. He has three, of whom Elega and Myste are the eldest and youngest. The second, the lady Torrent, lives with her mother, Queen Madin, in Romish of Fayle. The Queen is the daughter of the Fayle.”
That answered Terisa’s question. She didn’t know what Romish or Fayle were, any more than she understood Domne or even Orison. But she knew now that she didn’t want to meet Elega or Myste tonight. She didn’t want to see anybody who would bring her more questions and no answers. She only wanted Geraden – or possibly (a piquant thought) Master Eremis, who may have considered her lovely. Since she couldn’t ask Geraden to take any more risks for her, she declined Saddith’s offer. “I think I’ll rest tonight.”
“Very good, my lady.” Saddith gave a polite bow and started to leave the room.
But at the door she paused, one hand on the latch. With a roll of her eyes, she indicated Ribuld and Argus. Then she showed Terisa the bolt which locked the door, and pantomimed pushing it home.
Terisa smiled her relief and gratitude. “Thanks. I’ll remember that.”
Saddith replied with her own arch smile and made her exit, closing the door quietly after her.
At once, Terisa went to it and bolted it. Through the heavy wood, she could faintly hear Saddith, Ribuld, and Argus bantering with each other. She was tempted to listen, simply because she didn’t understand how any woman could have that kind of relationship with men. Nevertheless she withdrew toward the table where her food waited for her; and in a step or two the laughing voices became inaudible.
She was alone.
In an odd way, she was grateful for the presence of Argus and Ribuld outside her door. They weren’t exactly reassuring in themselves, but they – she realized this slowly – were the first people in this impossible situation to reappear after an absence. Geraden had lured her out of her own life into a room full of Masters, but in a short time they had all gone away. He had then taken her to the King, and he had been sent away. Next she had been put in Saddith’s charge, and King Joyse and Adept Havelock had fallen into the past. Each new person she met might have been created solely for that meeting; might have ceased to exist as soon as she moved on to someone else.
It was conceivable that none of this was real at all.
Ribuld and Argus, however, spoke of Geraden as though he had a continuous existence of his own, apart from her. They were substantial enough to have a relationship with Saddith which didn’t include her, Terisa. Therefore they implied that what was happening to her had continuity, solidity, a dependable fidelity to its own premises and exigencies. They implied that if she were able to retrace her steps she would find the King’s suite and the Masters’ chamber where she had left them; that Geraden was alive and active somewhere not too far away, trying to do something about his concern for her; that however crazy her circumstances seemed they could be trusted as much as she had ever trusted her own world.
This was rather a large conclusion to draw from a small fact. Nevertheless she accepted it provisionally. It made her a little less afraid.
An entirely unmetaphysical concern impelled her to walk through her rooms again to verify that there were no other entrances. Then she sat down and ate her meal with at least an approximation of pleasure.
By the time she was done eating, the wine had made her slightly drowsy. But she was still too restless to consider going back to bed; so she decided to sample some of the clothes Saddith had brought for her.
Many of them frustrated her: they hooked or laced or buttoned so inconveniently that she couldn’t put them on without assistance. Despite that, however, they struck her as finely made and elegant. And the robes and gowns she was able to don for herself made her long for a mirror so that she could see what she looked like. Was it possible that this exposure of breast or slimness of waist, these billowing sleeves or that intricate lace would make her beautiful? Immersed in what she was doing, she didn’t notice the passage of time.
She was wearing a floor-length burgundy robe, made of deep velvet, with a wide, black sash and a hood she could have pulled over her head to hide her face, and had just decided to take it off and return to bed for some more sleep, when the wooden backing of the wardrobe in front of which she stood shifted and began to move aside.
Scraping against each other, the back panels opened on a well of darkness.
From the darkness a figure emerged.
If his advance was intended to be silent, it failed significantly: he made bumping and shuffling noises all along the way. Hanging gowns and robes that blocked his path he thrust unceremoniously aside.
She could hear him muttering to himself, “Softly, softly.” His voice was old and thin, unsteady when he whispered. “Sneaking into the bedchambers of beautiful women. Hee hee. Oh, you’re still a devil, you are. Mirrors are only glass, but lust and lechery last forever.”
Only then did he notice that the front of the wardrobe was open – that Terisa stood staring at him with her hands over her mouth and a look in her eyes which might have been either terror or hilarity.
“What’re you doing here?” she breathed. “What do you want?”
His thick lips shaking, Adept Havelock flinched as if she had threatened to strike him.
In spite of the alarm pounding in her throat, she felt forcibly the conflict between his ascetic nose and sybaritic mouth, the disfocus of his hot eyes. His self-contradictory visage made him look wild – an appearance aggravated by his few remaining tufts of hair. And yet he seemed to be doing his best to calm her. His hands made reassuring gestures; his whole stance was unthreatening, even deferential.
“Luscious,” he said, as though he meant, Forgive me. “All women are flesh, but you are its perfection.” I didn’t mean to frighten you. “Ha ha, sneaking into bedchambers.” I’m not going to hurt you. “Lust and lechery.” You can trust me.