A Man Rides Through (23 page)

A bland expression on her face, Quiss pulled out the chair and held it for Terisa.

On the platter, Terisa saw fried yams, panbread, greens, some kind of meat covered with gravy, and what looked like apple fritters. If she ate all that, she wouldn't be able to move for two days.

"I'm sorry," said Tholden. With a hand like a shovel, he gestured toward the chair. "Please sit down. Eat."

When Terisa still didn't move, he added, "I don't mean to question your integrity. I'm just scared. I don't like the way Geraden has changed. I don't like the news from Orison. I don't like what he says it means. Houseldon has never been very good at defending itself."

"Good enough," put in the Domne gently.

"So far," countered Tholden. "But I don't want to watch people I've known and worked with all my life get killed because something horrendous has happened to Geraden."

The Domne pointed at the chair Quiss held. "Terisa,
sit down.
I haven't heard him apologize that much in twenty years. In another minute, you're going to hurt his feelings."

Terisa sat down and let Quiss adjust the chair.

Now it was her turn. "I'm sorry," she said again. "I'm scared, too. And I'm groping. Quiss says Geraden didn't tell you much about me. He didn't tell you I'm new at all this. I've never been in a place like this. I've never met people like you." I've never been
important
before. "And I'm not used to having enemies.

"I want to help. I'll do anything I can. I just don't want to talk about things that Geraden ought to tell you himself."

Tholden studied her hard for a moment. Then he grinned—a new smile that brightened his whole face. Abruptly, he swept a chair out of his way and sat down opposite her. "When you're done eating, push that plate over here. I could use a snack."

From the stove, Quiss gave Terisa a look of grave, sky blue gladness. Then, wiping her hands on her apron, she turned to the Domne. "Da, I've heard a rumor that some of the women are panicking. They don't know where to hide their daughters—or themselves. With your permission, I'll go try to talk some sense into them."

The Domne nodded. "Of course."

"Tell them to come here if we're attacked," said Tholden. "This house will be our last bastion, if everything else goes down. We'll put the women and children down in the beer cellar, and the rest of us will protect them as long as we can."

With one hand, Quiss placed a brief touch of affection on her husband's shoulder. Nodding to Terisa, she left the room and the house.

Calmly, as if everything were normal, the Domne picked up his knife and fork, and began to eat.

Terisa was moderately hungry, but she couldn't force herself to tackle all that food. These people were seriously considering the necessity of hiding their women and children in a beer cellar while Houseldon was destroyed. Facing Tholden, she said, "Ask me something. Let me help."

Tholden met her gaze squarely. "When Geraden got here yesterday, he thought we were going to be attacked almost immediately.

Now he says we've got time to plan our defense. As long as you're here, he thinks Master Eremis doesn't have any reason to attack us right away. What do you think?"

Without hesitation, she said, "I think he's wrong."

The Domne cocked an eyebrow. His mouth full of yams, he asked, "Why?"

"I don't think he realizes how dangerous he is. Or how dangerous Eremis thinks he is. Eremis has been working hard for a long time now to keep him from understanding his own talent. And he's tried to have him killed. I don't think Eremis will believe he's safe until Geraden is dead."

"That's speculation," murmured Tholden.

"This isn't." Terisa spoke with the confidence of a woman who had been able to outthink Castellan Lebbick. "Eremis can't possibly know how Geraden's feeling. And he can't possibly know there aren't any mirrors here. Now that Geraden knows what his talent is, Eremis has to be afraid of being attacked himself.

"And that's not all. Geraden thinks Eremis will postpone attacking Houseldon until after he's done with Orison. But the last thing he was doing in Orison was refilling the reservoir. That doesn't sound like a man with a trap ready to spring. It sounds like a man who wants to help Orison fight off Prince Kragen until Cadwal is in position.

"If I'm right, Eremis has time to strike at you right now.

"And he knows I'm here." This had to be said, although it was difficult for her. The Domne and his son needed to know the extent of their danger. "Master Gilbur saw the mirror change. He knows I've discovered my talent, too. He knows I can go anywhere in Mordant—or Cadwal or Alend, for that matter—if I just know what it looks like. If I just know how to visualize it. I could show up in his rooms some night when he's asleep and nail him to the bed.

"He's not just afraid of Geraden. He's afraid of me."

He needs to be afraid of me. I'm going to make him afraid of me. Somehow.

The Domne continued to eat without any obvious concern; but Tholden watched Terisa with growing chagrin on his face. When she was done, he muttered as if no one were listening to him, "Sheep-dung. I'm not used to this myself. I'm not Artagel—I never wanted to be a soldier. What am I supposed to do?"

The Domne put down his knife and fork. "What
are
you doing?"

Tholden made a dismissive gesture. "You know what. Wester is sending farmers and their families here as fast as he can talk them into it. Every empty hogshead and barrel we've got is being filled with water and positioned around the stockade, in case of fire. Every pitchfork and scythe and axe in Houseldon is being sharpened." Slowly, a frantic look came into his eyes, and his hands knotted on the table in front of him; but he kept his voice steady. "Banquettes are being knocked together inside the wall, so that anyone with a bow will have a place to stand. Minick—and Geraden, I hope—are laying out lines of retreat. They're trying to explain to the men with bows how to retreat—how to use the houses for cover, how to set ambushes.

"What good is that going to do against Imagery?"

Listening to him, Terisa understood how he felt.

The Domne was undismayed, however. "Who knows?" he said calmly. "I don't. I can't see the future.

"But I can see you're the right man for the job. You've already thought of things that wouldn't have occurred to me. You'll think of more. If Artagel were here, he wouldn't be able to defend Houseldon any better."

Tholden wasn't convinced. With a sour snort, he asked, "Is this what you call selling your soul at the word of one of your sons?"

At that, the Domne sat up straighter in his chair; his eyes flashed. "Tholden, I know you think you're a grown man, but you still aren't too old to be punished for disrespect. Maybe I'm only your father, and half crippled as well, but I'm still man enough to prune your apricots within an inch of their lives. Consider
that
before you risk being pert with me."

Involuntarily, Tholden smiled. His beard rustled on his chest. Nevertheless his eyes remained full of trouble, and his smile didn't last long. Too worried to sit where he was, he pushed himself up from the table. "Excuse me, Terisa," he murmured. "I'm afraid you'll have to eat lunch without my help. I've lost my appetite."

With the hunched gait of a man who was accustomed to ducking under doorways and low ceilings, he left the house.

The Domne watched him go and sighed. "You don't know it, Terisa," he commented after Tholden was gone, "but those are the saddest words anyone has said in my house for a long time. 'I've lost my
appetite.' I hope you aren't planning to tell me the same thing."

Terisa meant to say Yes. The pile of food on the platter daunted her.
The size and consequences of the danger she and Geraden had brought to Houseldon daunted her. Yet the way the Domne looked at
her seemed so warm and companionable, so willing to accept whatever she represented, that when she opened her mouth the word which came out was, "No."

He smiled approvingly as she lifted her fork to sample Quiss' panbread and gravy.

For several minutes while she ate a little of everything on the platter, he sat in silence, gazing out into the sunshine through the nearest window. She had the impression that he was waiting for her to finish; but he didn't seem impatient. In fact, he appeared quite content to look out on the street and nod amiably at anyone who caught his eye. If war was coming to Houseldon, it didn't show on the face of the Domne. Geraden had said of him,
The things he values most don't need to be fought for because they can't be hurt.
Yet Terisa wasn't sure that was accurate. Despite his look of contentment, she thought he cared deeply about a number of things which could be hurt very easily.

When she put down her utensils to indicate that she was done, he glanced over at her, then returned his gaze to the window. In a relaxed way, as if he were continuing an earlier conversation, he asked, "What was your impression of Nyle?"

Her stomach knotted around the food she had just eaten. Cautiously, she countered, "What did Geraden tell you?"

The Domne's manner disarmed anxiety. 'That you think Nyle is still alive. That this Master Eremis still wants to use him against us. That's not what I want to know. What did you think of him? How is he?"

Because the answer was painful, she said shortly, "He's miserable."

"Ah," sighed the Domne as if he had both expected and feared her reply.

This time, she let herself say, "I don't blame him. Everything he believed that got him into trouble—everything about King Joyse and Orison and Elega and Prince Kragen—it was all plausible. King Joyse
has been working for years, setting himself up to be betrayed. Nyle
was just unlucky enough to fall into the trap—the same trap Elega
fell into herself. He believed what his King wanted him to believe."

Ignoring the Domne's reputation as one of the King's dearest friends, she went on, "He's really just a victim. Eremis probably would never have been able to get his hands on Nyle if Nyle hadn't been stuck in the dungeon with nowhere to turn for hope."

If anything she said offended the Domne, however, he didn't show it. "Families," he murmured mildly. "They are endlessly interesting. Elega and her father. Geraden and Nyle. Sometimes I think the fate of the world depends on how people feel about their families.

"What sort of family do you come from, Terisa? Did you have sisters? Not
six
sisters, by any chance?"

The idea was so absurd that she almost laughed aloud. "No, Da. I was an only child."

He looked at her again, more sharply this time. "Do you mean to say that after you your parents were able to restrain their enthusiasm for children? Were you that bad? Or were you so good that any other child would be a disappointment?"

"No," she answered as candidly as she could. "I was an accident. My father sure didn't have time for children. And he didn't want my mother to have time either."

"'Didn't have time'?" Abruptly, the Domne pushed his sore leg off the stool. Grimacing, he shifted the position of the stool so that he could face her more directly, then heaved his leg back onto it. Propped straight with his elbows on the table, he asked, "What vital and consuming work did your father do, that he 'didn't have time for children'?"

Unsure of where the discussion was headed—and uncomfortable because she was always uncomfortable when she talked about her parents—Terisa replied briefly, "He made money."

Odd how both she and the Domne were speaking of her father in the past tense. But she thought about him in the past, as part of something which wasn't true anymore.

"For what purpose?" inquired the Domne.

She shrugged. "To make more money. I don't think he had any other reason for doing it. He did it because that was what he was good at." She thought about conversations she had overheard from the dining room while she sat out of sight on the stairs, listening when her parents thought she had gone to bed. "Money was the best way to get things that weren't his. Social standing. Political influence." Then she remembered some of the valets her father had hired. Muscle.