The Seven Towers (16 page)

“I’ve never been to Shula Mari either,” Eltiron said, fascinated.

“I believe there are a great many people who haven’t. Been to Shula Mari, I mean; it’s always best to be specific about these things, because there are so very many places for people to not have been to, which makes them very easy to mix up, though some of them are really quite different.”

Eltiron blinked. He started to ask a question, then realized that he still did not know the woman’s name. He bowed again and asked.

“Amberglas,” said the woman. “And you, of course, are Prince Eltiron Kenerach. I believe I have a message for you from Jermain Trevannon.”

T
he army moved slowly southward for several days. Jermain quickly became accustomed to his position as Commander-General, and began to learn more about the personalities of the men under him. He was a little surprised by what he found. Though all of Carachel’s commanders were competent, most were uninterested in what they were doing and why. They reminded Jermain of mercenaries following orders for pay, without concerning themselves with personal loyalty to the man who paid them. Jermain thought he was beginning to understand why Carachel had seemed lonely.

He continued to dine with Carachel each evening, along with the King’s other commanders and advisers. Elsane was no longer present; three days after the army broke camp, she ceased attending the evening meals. Jermain knew she was still with the army, for he had seen her once or twice from a distance, but he did not speak to her. Carachel’s wife had little to do with the military, and Jermain had neither desire nor reason to seek her out. He was, therefore, taken completely by surprise when he returned to his tent one evening and found her there, alone. When he entered, she was sitting at the table, twisting a long, narrow ribbon over and over in her hands. She looked up as he let the tent flap fall behind him.

Jermain bowed, effectively concealing his reaction. “Your Majesty.”

Elsane flinched, and when she spoke her voice trembled slightly. “Please be seated, Lord Jermain.”

“I thank you for your kindness, Your Majesty.” Jermain saw her flinch again as he added the formal address. He bowed again, and seated himself at the end of the table, where he could observe her easily while still keeping the table between them.

“I . . .” Elsane hesitated, not looking at Jermain. “How go the preparations for the war?”

“Quite well. Would you wish me to give you a complete summary, or is there something in particular you would like to hear of, Your Majesty?

Elsane flinched again and shook her head. Jermain pretended to interpret the gesture as permission to begin, and launched immediately into a long and deliberately dull recitation of the status of the various companies of the army. He studied her as he talked, trying to guess the purpose behind her visit. His first thought had been that she was there to seduce him, but she seemed far too frightened for that. An attempt to ruin his credit with Carachel, perhaps? No, not likely; he’d had little time to make enemies, and such an attempt would be better planned. But why else was she here?

He droned on, watching Elsane. She grew more and more nervous, until finally her hands clenched around the ribbon. “Stop! Stop it!”

“Certainly, Your Majesty.”

“I—I didn’t come here for that.”

“Indeed. Then to what
do
I owe the honor of this . . . most unusual visit?”

Elsane took a deep, uncertain breath. “I came to talk to you about the war.”

“Then perhaps I should continue my summary of our preparations. The supplies for the—”

“Be still, and let me speak!” Anger made Elsane’s tone sharp and imperious, and for a moment Jermain saw a flash of the regal spirit she must have had fifteen or twenty years before. He inclined his head.

“As you wish, Your Majesty.”

“I came to you because you have my—my husband’s ear, and you may be able to persuade him where I have failed. This war must be stopped!”

“And you believe I can persuade King Carachel?”

“Carachel respects your opinions; I have heard him speak of you, and I know. There is nothing else he cares for except his sorcery.” She looked down at her hands. “Nothing. Do you see why I come to you?”

“I think you wrong your husband, Your Majesty,” Jermain said gently.

“Do you think that after thirteen years I do not know him? I have . . . grown accustomed to his ways. I can live with it because I must, but I cannot let him destroy Tar-Alem and perhaps Mournwal and Gramwood as well just to preserve his cursed sorcery!”

“I do not believe I understand.”

“Has he not told you of the Matholych and what it does?”

“He has told me.”

“And you do not see? He is a wizard, but if he is to remain so, there must be power for him to draw on. He wishes to stop that creature because it drains the magic from the land, and for no other reason.”

Jermain did not reply immediately. Elsane could be right; the lessening of magic would certainly be a powerful motive for a wizard to oppose the Matholych. But even if she were, did it matter? The Hoven-Thalar and the Matholych must be stopped, or between them they would ruin the Seven Kingdoms. Carachel was trying to stop them, whatever his reasons, and Jermain could not justify trying to make him give up his efforts because of Elsane’s fears for her country. Besides, he knew Carachel, and he could not believe that the Wizard-King was acting solely from selfishness. He tried to explain, but Elsane would not let him finish.

“I am not a fool,” she said quietly. “I can see that something must be done. But there must be another way! If he truly realized what he does . . . But I cannot make him see! He is too certain that only he can do this, and only in this way.”

Jermain thought of a haunted face staring at a fire, and a voice whispering, “Whatever the cost, it must be stopped.” He remembered the bitterness in Carachel’s voice when he spoke of the wizards who refused to listen to him, and the frustrated pain in his eyes when he watched Elsane. “I think he knows the price, my lady, and I think he may already have paid a greater one than you believe.”

Elsane stared at him for a moment. “Do you know what he intends?”

“We have discussed the plans for the battle.”

“And you can still defend him?”

“He works for the good of all the people of the Seven Kingdoms, not merely for Tar-Alem. Even when we face the Hoven-Thalar, we will not fight to kill them; he would not give such an order if—”

“You do know, then!” Elsane looked at him as if he were a snake. “You know how many deaths it means; how could you consent to it?”

“I do not deny that it will be difficult,” Jermain said, somewhat puzzled by her reaction, “but with careful planning we should lose no more men than we would with a more conventional strategy, and perhaps less.”

Elsane did not seem to hear him. Her shoulders sagged and she seemed to fade and shrink as Jermain watched. “I have lost, then,” she said with quiet despair. “You were my last hope, and I have lost. So I must watch him—watch him—”

Her voice broke and died, and her head bowed. Jermain did not speak. After a moment her head lifted, and she rose. “I bid you a good eve, my lord,” she said in a colorless tone. “I shall not come again.” She did not look at Jermain as she left the tent.

 

Even though Jermain did not believe in Elsane’s view, her visit disturbed him. She knew Carachel, certainly much better than Jermain, and yet she seemed to think that Carachel meant to deliberately sacrifice his own troops in order to avoid killing Hoven-Thalar. Jermain found himself going over the plans for the battle, looking for some clue that might explain Elsane’s strange conviction.

He did not find one. The plans were clear and straightforward, and the strategy was sound, if a bit unusual. Jermain spent much of the night poring over maps and diagrams, but when morning came he still could see no reason why Carachel’s army should suffer unusual losses. Even so, he remained uneasy. The problem continued to worry him for the next two days, until it was submerged in the rush of activity as Carachel’s army met King Urhelds’s men.

Jermain was at first relieved when the scouts brought word of the army camped near the meeting place in the upper part of the North Plains. Despite Carachel’s assurances, he had not been entirely certain that the men would be there, for even if Salentor was willing to keep his part of the bargain, Jermain knew from experience that no one could be certain of persuading a king. He was glad that Carachel had not been mistaken in his estimate of Salentor’s influence.

When he came within sight of the army, Jermain’s relief changed to worry. The Barinash troops were a sprawling, disorganized mass of men, and Jermain found himself wondering how he was ever going to combine them with the men from Tar-Alem. As he drew nearer, Jermain recognized some of the banners that flew above the central tents, and he frowned angrily. Salentor had sent the rawest and worst-trained troops in the Barinash army! No wonder they seemed so disorderly. Jermain went in search of Carachel to explain the situation.

To Jermain’s surprise, Carachel was not disturbed by the poor quality of the troops Salentor had provided. “No man is a soldier until he has been in battle, no matter how well he has been trained,” he said. “These men have a little more to learn, that is all.”

“True,” Jermain replied. “But may I remind you that your plans for this battle are a bit unusual, to say the least? It will be difficult to hold the Hoven-Thalar without killing many of them, even for experienced men. With these troops, it will be nearly impossible. Unless, of course, you have changed your plans?”

Carachel looked startled. “Not at all. Is it so bad, then?”

“I won’t know for certain until I have a chance to talk to the Barinash commanders, but from what I’ve seen it may well be worse. I’d like to keep them separate from the rest of the men until I find out.”

“Of course. Put them at the rear of the column. It will take some time for it to reach them, and they’ll need the extra time to break camp.”

It was Jermain’s turn to be startled. “Wouldn’t it be wiser to see the Barinash commanders first, my lord? After all, we don’t know yet what their orders are.”

“If they have not been ordered to place themselves entirely under my command, they are of no use to me,” Carachel said firmly. “Tell them to break camp and join the column or to go back to King Urhelds.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Carachel smiled. “Do you now that you only call me ‘my lord’ or ‘Your Majesty’ in public or when you disapprove of what I am doing?”

“I meant no criticism,” Jermain said stiffly.

“I’m not so sure of that. But this is no whim, though you may think it so. I do not want men I must persuade to the proper course of action; we may have no time for explanation and persuasion when the Matholych arrives. And we cannot afford the time we would lose if we stopped now to talk with them.”

“Then I had best go and tell them what you expect.”

As Jermain had anticipated, the commanders of the Barinash army were not happy to be told to break camp immediately and fall in behind the column of men from Tar-Alem. They had little choice, however, for their orders were much as Carachel had described. Reluctantly, they gave the necessary orders, and the Barinash troops hastily began preparing to leave. The disorganized way the men went about their preparations did nothing to improve Jermain’s opinion of them, but somehow they were ready when the end of the Tar-Alem column finally moved past the camp.

The combined armies made good time for the rest of the day, but by the time they pitched camp the Barinash troops were in an unhappy frame of mind. Many resented being forced to “eat dust” at the back of the army, and a number of fights broke out between the men from Tar-Alem and those from Barinash. Jermain spent several hours trying to pacify irate Barinash officers, then remained awake late into the night designing an order of march he hoped would be satisfactory to everyone.

The next day’s march was easier, and in three more they had crossed the North Plains. The two armies began to show signs of merging; there was less grumbling and the fights practically ceased. They continued to move faster than Jermain had expected, but Carachel grew more and more worried about their speed. Finally, Jermain grew puzzled by Carachel’s continued anxiety. When the army camped for the night, Jermain went to Carachel’s tent and demanded to know the reason for his concern.

“If I push the men too hard, they’ll be in no condition to fight when we reach Gramwood,” he told Carachel. “I don’t want to do it without an explanation.”

“You’ll follow my orders,” Carachel snapped.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Jermain said with icy formality. He stood and waited, stiff with anger.

Carachel lowered his head until his forehead rested on the edge of his hand, covering his eyes. “I am sorry,” he said after a moment. “Of all the men who serve me, you deserve that the least. I fear my temper is not the best these days.”

Jermain did not reply, but he relaxed a little. Carachel shook his head tiredly.

“You want an explanation; well, I cannot give you one. Only that I feel uneasy. . . . I do not know what is wrong, but I fear that someone has stirred the Matholych, that it moves sooner than I had thought.”

“But you are not sure?”

“My spells do not work well in the southern kingdoms, and messengers are too slow. I can sense the wrongness, but that is all. The only way for me to learn what is actually happening is for us to move south more quickly.”

Jermain frowned. “Are you certain it would do no good to send scouts farther ahead? They may not be as fast as sorcery, but they’ll give us at least a day’s notice of anything unusual.”

“Send them by all means, but do not expect too much. Your scouts have neither the ability nor the training to detect the first stirrings of the Matholych.”