A Man Rides Through (85 page)

With a rustle of rich fabric, the Alend Monarch slumped back in his chair.

Thinly, he murmured, "You are blessed with several sons, my lord Tor. I have but one. And by no act of mine can I assure his accession to my Seat. I must be careful of my risks."

Then his tone sharpened. "My lord, we would be safe in Orison. At worst, we would be safer than we are now. It is your fixed intention to march against Esmerel. What is to prevent us from taking possession of Orison as soon as you are gone?"

Apparently, the Tor had come prepared for that question. "Adept Havelock," he replied without hesitation—a bolder bluff than Terisa had expected from him. "Artagel and two thousand guards. And several thousand men and women who would rather lose their lives than be taken by Alend."

"I see," breathed the Alend Monarch as if he were sinking to the floor.

Through the dimness, Terisa barely saw him reach out and touch Prince Kragen's arm.

The Prince made a commanding gesture. At once, servants hurried forward to hold the chairs so that the Tor, Terisa, and Geraden could stand.

The audience was over.

The Tor braced a heavy hand on Geraden's shoulder and started toward the tentflaps.

Terisa turned the other way so that she could take a closer look at the person sitting behind her.

The flare of light as the tentflaps were opened confused her vision momentarily, made her squint, filled the corners of the tent with darkness. Before the soldier at the exit ushered her outward, however, she saw the mute figure in the chair clearly enough to recognize her.

The lady Elega.

At the last moment, Elega met Terisa's gaze deliberately and smiled.

Then Terisa found herself blinking in the cold sunshine outside the tent. The Tor and Geraden were already moving toward the horses.

Prince Kragen didn't emerge from his father's presence to accompany them.

Ribuld brought her nag and offered to help her mount. Apparently, no one had troubled him while he waited with the horses. For no clear reason, the fact that he also was smiling disturbed her. When had the scarred veteran learned to enjoy being alone and unprotected in an enemy camp?

She wanted to tell Geraden and the Tor about Elega—especially Geraden, who might be able to imagine what the lady's silent presence in the Alend Monarch's tent meant. Obviously, however, she had to contain herself until she and her companions had rejoined Orison's army.

The forces under Castellan Norge's command readied themselves to move again. Horsemen corrected their formations; guards on foot strode doggedly out of the castle by the dozens, the hundreds. Terisa's news perplexed and fascinated Geraden; but the Tor and Norge and even Master Barsonage didn't seem particularly interested in it. It changed nothing: they had still lost their last hope of an alliance with Alend. At the Tor's side, Castellan Norge gave the order which set the army in motion, then led it toward the intersection—toward the road which branched south in the direction of the Tor's Care.

Before the Tor and Norge, with Terisa and Geraden, Master Barsonage and the Congery behind them, reached the intersection, they began to receive reports which made them hesitate.

On the far side of Orison, the Alends had started to roll back the perimeter of their siege. Mounted soldiers took to their horses; foot soldiers formed squads.

Like King Joyse's guard, the Alend troops were moving.

Men spat obscenities and curses into the cold wind. Trying to match his Castellan's calm, the Tor asked, "What do you suppose this means, Norge?"

Impenetrably phlegmatic, Norge shrugged. "The Prince doesn't want to keep Orison cut off. Not anymore. What's left?

"As soon as we're gone, he's going to hit the gates headlong and drive his whole strength inside as fast as he can."

The Tor nodded once, stiffly. His lips had a blue color in the chill; Terisa saw them trembling. To himself, he murmured, "So the Alend Monarch masters Orison at last. And we must let it happen. My King, forgive me."

Geraden looked like he was chewing a mouthful of glass, but he didn't say anything. Master Barsonage's expression was bleak and grim. Only Ribuld kept grinning, like a man with secret sources of gratification. Terisa didn't have any attention to spare for him, however. She was too busy trying to evaluate the new clarity she had seen in Prince Kragen's face.

Would it make him happy to take Orison?

Would Elega let him be happy about it?

In a mood that resembled defeat, despite Terisa's recent victory, the vanguard of Orison's army passed through the intersection and headed south, toward the Broadwine Ford and the Care of Tor.

Unencumbered by supplies or unnecessary equipment and weapons, they set a brisk pace. Soon the last of the riders were in the intersection; the last of the unmounted guards were emerging from Orison. Southward, the ground rose slightly—not enough to block the sight of the Broadwine from the high towers of the castle, but enough to give the vanguard a view down the length of the army. Now Terisa and everyone with her could see what Prince Kragen's men were doing.

Peeling away from Orison on both sides, they formed themselves into two masses: one larger, which took shape on the road northwest of the intersection; one considerably smaller apparently positioning itself to approach the gates.

The vast number of Alend servants and camp followers had already begun to strike the tents, break down the encampment.

The Prince must have been very sure that he would be settled inside Orison before dark.

Scanning the nausea on the faces of his companions, Ribuld chuckled maliciously.

At the crest of the slow, southward rise, the Tor left Castellan Norge to lead the army. With Terisa, Geraden, Master Barsonage, and a handful of guards, he moved to a vantage off the road from which he could watch the progress of his forces—and the fall of the castle.

"How long can Artagel hold out?" Terisa asked Geraden quietly.

"A lot longer than Prince Kragen thinks," he replied, biting down hard on each word before he released it. "He knows how important this is. If he fails, the Prince can cut off our supplies."

Oh, good, Terisa groaned. Wonderful.

She could feel that her face was red, chafed by the cold. She wished the Tor looked the same, but he didn't. His cheeks were too pale; his mouth and eyes, too blue. He didn't seem to have enough blood left in him to bear what he was about to see.

Or perhaps he did. "Now, Prince Kragen," he muttered as the last of the guard reached the intersection and turned south, "do your worst. Preserve yourself and your father if you can, and remember you were warned that this would never save you."

While the lord and his companions watched, the smaller mass of the Alend army placed itself across the road in front of Orison's gates, just beyond effective bowshot from the walls.

At the head of the larger body, Prince Kragen rode into the intersection.

With his standard-bearer carrying the Alend Monarch's pennon before him, Prince Kragen led at least six and perhaps seven thousand of his soldiers south along the road Orison's army took.

"You knew about this," Geraden said severely to Ribuld.

Ribuld grinned. "They shouted a lot of orders while I was waiting for you. I didn't have much trouble figuring out what they meant."

"And you didn't think it was worth mentioning to us?" demanded Terisa. She wanted to hit the scarred veteran. She also wanted to shout for joy.

Enjoying his own joke, Ribuld replied piously, "I could have been wrong, my lady. I didn't want to mislead you."

"They were getting this ready while we talked to the Alend Monarch," Geraden muttered with fire rising in his eyes. "The decision was already made." Which explained the excitement Terisa had seen in Prince Kragen. "They were just waiting for a final word from Margonal."

"Then why didn't they tell us?" asked Terisa.

"They don't want an alliance." Geraden sounded wonderfully sure. "They want to be ready to help if they think we're right. Prince Kragen
does
think we're right. But they also want to be free to abandon us—or even turn against us—if we're wrong.

"I told you the Prince is an honorable enemy."

The Tor didn't say anything. While Prince Kragen led his forces up the rise after Orison's army, the old lord sat on his mount with tears in his eyes and a look like a promise on his broad face.

FORTY-SIX: A PLACE OF DEATH

The wind continued to blow out of the south—not hard now, but steadily, and full of cold, rattling through the trees and along the ground like a rumor of icicles—and Orison's army marched into the teeth of it. The men went almost boisterously at first, when the word was passed down the lines that Prince Kragen and his troops were coming toward Esmerel instead of attacking the castle; then slowly the guards' mood turned grimmer, more painful, as the wind wore down hope, drove both men and horses to duck their heads and brunt a way forward with the tops of their skulls. The unseasonable chill stung the eyes, rubbed at the spots where tack or mail galled the skin; it searched out the gaps in winter cloaks and made the air hurtful for sore lungs and caused earaches. By the time the Tor and his forces had crossed Broadwine Ford and halted to make their first camp, they had lost whatever optimism they had carried with them from the Demesne. Disspirited and worried, the army turned its back on the wind, huddled into itself, and cursed the cold.

The men already looked beaten.

By Castellan Norge's reckoning, however, they had pulled nearly four miles ahead of the Alends.

"That disturbs me," muttered the Tor while Master Barsonage and the other Imagers chose an open patch of ground and began to. unpack their mirrors. "I do not wish to be separated from the Prince—and I do not wish to wait for him."

Norge shrugged as if the movement were a twitch in his sleep. "They're carrying all their food and equipment and bedding and tents—everything they need. They're lucky they can come this close to our pace. If Prince Kragen tries to drive them this fast tomorrow, some of them will start to break."

"And that will benefit no one," fretted the Tor. Abruptly, he called, "Master Barsonage!"

"My lord Tor?" the mediator answered.

"Do I understand correctly? This evening you will translate our necessities from Orison—and tomorrow before we march you will return everything to the castle for the day?"

Master Barsonage nodded. He was impatient to get to work. One of the Congery's three supply-mirrors was his.

The Tor kept him standing for a moment, then said, "I will wager the Alends carry enough food and water to sustain them for eight or ten days. If their supplies were added to ours, could you manage so much translation?"

That got the mediator's attention. "My lord, you propose a vast amount of material to be translated. All Imagery is taxing. And we have only three mirrors."

"I understand," the Tor replied rather sharply. "Can you do it?"

Master Barsonage glared at the ground. "We can make the attempt."

"Good." The old lord turned away. "Castellan Norge."

"My lord Tor?"

"Send a messenger to my lord Prince. Say that I wish to consult with him—that I wish to consult with him
urgently
—on the subject of his supplies."

"Yes, my lord." If Norge had any qualms about the Tor's idea, he didn't show them. Instead, he gave the necessary orders to one of his captains.

Muttering under his breath, Barsonage went back to work.

"He's right, you know," Geraden commented to Terisa as they hugged their coats and watched the Masters prepare. "That's a lot of translation for only three mirrors—three Imagers. It's going to be hard."

Terisa didn't want to think about it. In fact, she didn't want to think. Men had died to keep her alive. That was what war meant: some men died to keep others alive. The bloodshed had hardly begun. Numbly, she asked, "What do you suggest?"