The Mirror of Her Dreams (38 page)

'My father didn't change. He's always been like that.'

'Do you mean passive?' asked Myste. 'Lost and uncaring?'

'No. I mean impossible to talk to.'

Tentatively, like a small animal coming out of a burrow after a storm, she began to smile. She had just spoken critically of her father, as if she had the right to do so-and nothing terrible had happened. Maybe friendship was possible after all.

Myste sat down beside her again. The lady's expression was soft and reassuring. Tell me about him.'

By chance, Saddith found that moment to knock on the door and come into the room, carrying trays of food.

Unable to sustain the way she felt in front of the maid, Terisa stood up at once-more abruptly than she intended-to thank Saddith and help her set out the meal.

If Myste was taken aback by the shift in Terisa's manner, she didn't show it. Apparently, she recognized that something important had happened-something that required privacy. She didn't pursue the conversation. When Saddith had served the food and left again, Myste made a polite show of enjoying her meal, and while she ate she kept her curiosity still.

Grateful for Myste's consideration, Terisa spent a few minutes concentrating on her food-a stew baked in a thick pastry shell. Then, to keep the conversation safe for a while, she asked a practical question in which her mission work had taught her to be interested: How did Orison manage to feed so many people so well in the dead of winter?

Myste replied by describing the system which provided Orison with all its food and supplies. After generations, even centuries, of an economic system based on warfare, in which powerful lords fought for the privilege of taking what they needed by violence, Mordant had been reduced almost to destitution, despite its abundance of natural resources. One of King Joyse's most important acts had been to replace war with trade. Essentially, he had established Orison as the principal buyer-and seller-of everything Mordant weeded or produced. All the villages of the Demesne, and all the Cares of Mordant, traded with Orison; and Orison used its profits from these transactions to buy what its own people needed, so that its wealth acted as fertilizer to grow more wealth for the kingdom. A similar system applied to trade with Cadwal and Alend-which needed the resources of Mordant too badly to refuse to barter with King Joyse-and those profits were likewise ploughed back into the soil and society of Mordant. As a result, all the Cares had come a long way from the fierce poverty which had marked the beginning of King Joyse's reign.

Terisa didn't entirely absorb the details, but she appreciated Myste's explanation nonetheless. She had criticized her father without being punished. When the lady was done, Terisa commented, 'This sounds silly-but I've just realized that I haven't been outside since I got here.' She glanced towards the window, with its thick glass and its tracery of frost. 'I don't have any idea what's out there.'

Myste put down her fork and dabbed at her mouth with her napkin. 'It must be quite a shock for you. As strange as your world seems to me, ours must appear equally strange to you. And we have been so strictly instructed'-she betrayed a moment of embarrassment-'not to reveal our 'secrets' to you. Your ability to accept such things-Well, I have already said that you amaze me.

'How does it feel, Terisa? I have no experience with trans-

lation.' There was a rapt undertone in her voice. 'I have never stepped through glass into a different creation. It is another of my 'romantic notions',' she admitted, 'that such an event in anyone's life must be fundamental in some way, changing them as much as it changes where they are.'

'No,' Terisa said at once, remembering a sensation of impersonal vastness, of temporary eternity-of fading-'I don't think it changed me at all.' She almost added, I wish it had. 'It didn't last long enough.

'It was like,' she went on, suddenly sure of what she meant, 'dying without any pain. All at once, your whole life is gone, faded, everything you ever knew or understood or cared about, you don't exist any more, and there's nothing you can do about it except maybe grieve. But it doesn't hurt.

'I'm not talking about physical pain,' she explained, 'or even emotional pain. It just doesn't hurt. Maybe because there's a whole world around you to take the place of the one you've lost. Do you understand? I think that's the only reason I can bear it.'

In response, Myste smiled vaguely-not as if she weren't listening, but rather as if what she heard triggered a wide range of ideas and yearnings. 'I do not really understand. Elega would say that you are talking nonsense. Translation is a physical passage, nothing more. But there is something in what you say' -her hand closed unconsciously into a fist-'something that is not nonsense to me.

'Perhaps it is only death which gives life meaning.'

But I didn't die, Terisa protested instinctively. That isn't what I meant. I was never there.

The impossibility of explaining herself any better, however, kept her silent.

Terisa,' Myste went on quietly, distantly, without looking at her, 'you have given me a great deal to consider. You say that you are not wise'-slowly, she became less abstracted, more present in the room and Terisa's company-'but I have met very few fools who challenge me to examine my life so closely.'

'Don't blame
me.'
Terisa didn't know what Myste meant- and at the moment didn't care. She couldn't suppress a grin. 'I didn't do it on purpose.'

At that, Myste started laughing. Happily, Terisa joined her.

They were still chuckling together like old friends when Saddith knocked on the door and re-entered the room. She was red-cheeked and panting, as if she had run up several Mights of stairs. 'My lady Terisa,' she said breathlessly, 'my lady Myste, the King summons you.

'There is news. Important matters are afoot. Your presence is commanded in the hall of audiences. All the high lords and ladies of Orison must attend.'

That is news indeed, Saddith,' replied Myste. Her immediate excitement made itself clear in the way her eyes focused on the maid. 'My father has not summoned Orison to the audience hall in more than a year. What occasions this gathering?'

'An ambassador has come, my lady,' Saddith answered through her panting. 'An Alend ambassador-in the dead of winter! He must have paid an awful price in time and men and supplies. And they say it is Prince Kragen himself! What could possibly compel the son of the Alend Monarch here, through such hardship at this time of year, and across so much distance, when all Mordant knows that Alend desires war, not peace?'

Myste dismissed that question. 'And he asks an audience with King Joyse?'

'Asks, my lady? He
demands.
Or so it is said.'

'And the King consents to grant what the Prince demands,' Myste continued. That is well. Perhaps it is very well. Perhaps the affairs of the realm begin to interest him again.

Terisa, we must go.' She was already moving towards the door. This must not be missed.'

Because of the background Master Quillon had given her, Terisa caught some of the importance of Saddith's news. She followed without hesitation.

Perhaps this was what being free meant. She could criticize her father and follow her friend and even share in her friend's excitement without having to worry about the consequences.

When they had descended into the body of Orison, Myste turned in a direction new to Terisa. This part of the castle was more open than many of the other halls: the ceiling was higher; the walls, farther apart; the floor, worn smooth by generations of feet. Windows between the arched supports of the ceiling shed winter sunlight on large, colourful pennons fixed so that they jutted out from the stone; under the banners guards stood at attention, their pikes braced by their feet. As a result, the place seemed more formal, less inhabited, than the rest of Orison,

A number of men and women, however, were headed in the same direction as Myste and Terisa. Some were clearly officers of the guards: others wore the rich attire of high rank. Almost everyone saluted or greeted the lady Myste in some respectful or friendly way. She replied with faraway politeness: like her eyes, her attention was aimed ahead. Quite a few people, on the other hand, stared openly at Terisa. What she was wearing made her stand out in the crowd as badly as if she were naked.

Self-conscious now, she looked around and noticed that Saddith was no longer with her. Apparently, the servants of the castle hadn't been commanded to attend the Alend ambassador's audience. She regretted that: she could have used Saddith's worldly advice and support.

The stream of people approached a set of peaked doors, perhaps a dozen feet tall, opening out of the formal corridor. When she and Myste passed between them, Terisa found herself in what was unmistakably the hall of audience.

It had the look and size of a cathedral. The stone walls were hidden by carved wooden screens, panel after panel around the room, each of them depicting characters and scenes Terisa couldn't identify; and the screens rose into elaborate spikes and finials reaching twenty or thirty feet towards the vaulted ceiling. The deep brown of the wood had the effect of making the hall dark; but it also seemed to distance the ceiling and fill the very air of the chamber with an impression of authority. The light came from two narrow windows up near the ceiling at the end of the hall, from rows of candles set around the walls and in tall holders here and there, and from batteries of cresseted oil lamps in the corners. The spiced oil of the lamps gave the air a sandal-wood tang.

Down at the far end, opposite the doors, stood a structure which could only be King Joyse's seat: an ornate mahogany throne on a wooden pediment four or five steps high, dominating the space before it. A large part of the floor before the throne was clear, except for a wide, thick strip of rich carpet which led from the doors to the first step of the throne; but this open space was closed on three sides by benches like pews, in which the people entering the hall seated themselves.

They all stopped talking as soon as they passed through the high doors. The atmosphere of the hall seemed to silence them.

When she looked about her, however, Terisa saw that the hall of audiences hadn't been designed entirely to inspire respect. Above the screens on all four sides of the hall ran a balcony; the guards stationed there were archers rather than pikemen.

Those were the only guards in the hall, except for two at the doors and two more on either side of King Joyse's seat. But they were enough to make Terisa crane her neck as Myste guided her forward and wonder how many assassinations had taken place in Orison before King Joyse or his ancestors had conceived this protective arrangement. It was a convincing defence. As long as the guards remained loyal to their King, he probably had nothing to fear from anyone he met in the audience hall.

Following the lady Myste, Terisa bypassed the benches ranked on three sides of the open space and moved towards the King's seat. On each side of the pediment, a row of chairs reached towards the benches-special places for those who wielded the King's power or had the King's favour.

To the right of the throne, the nearest chair was already occupied by Castellan Lebbick. His perpetual glare and the purple band knotted around his short, grey-stained hair made him look like a fanatic.

Fortunately, Terisa wasn't expected to sit near him. The first seats were taken by officers under his command; most of the rest had been filled by Masters, among them Gilbur, Barsonage, and Ouillon. (Quillon? Why wasn't he working with Geraden?) Myste led Terisa to the left of the throne, where they joined the lady Elega and several men, most of them old, who resembled counsellors more than courtiers: Myste introduced them by such titles as, 'Lord of Commerce', and, 'Lord of the Privy Purse'. They gaped at Terisa as if she had just arrived from the moon.

Elega showed more enthusiasm. 'I am glad you are here,' she whispered, drawing Terisa into a seat beside her. 'I feared that you would be found too late-or that Myste might not consider a call to audience worth obeying,' She spoke as though she meant no insult; and Myste appeared to take none. 'Kragen himself, Terisa! The son of Margonal, the Alend Monarch, and Prince of the Alend Lieges. Imagine! He has come this entire distance from Scarab in deep winter. His purpose must be both mighty and terrible. Now my father will rise to the stature of his kingship'

-her vivid eyes flashed-'or he will forfeit what little respect he still holds in Mordant.'

'Elega, he is our father,' murmured Myste under her breath. 'Even if he loses his mind completely, he still deserves our respect.'