The Fall of Neskaya

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Deslucido and Belisar were brought to the tent, the father hobbling as best he could with ankles as well as wrists in irons, the son carried on a stretcher. One leg had been bandaged and lashed to a makeshift splint. His eyes, dull with endurance, flashed briefly as he recognized her.

  Deslucido, too, seemed subdued, his fire quenched. He lifted his head and glared directly at Rafael.

  “Vai dom,” he said, without the slightest incline of his head. “You have won the day. Our people will be eager for our safe return. What are your terms for our ransom?”

  “That depends,” Rafael answered, “upon how you explain certain irregularities of conduct.”

  One eyebrow twitched upward. “Irregularities? This is war, my most worthy opponent, not a game of battledores with a code of regulations.”

  “I am not referring to our present conflict, but to the events which preceded it. The meeting of the Comyn Council.”

  “Oh.” Deslucido’s eyes widened minutely, and Taniquel could almost hear his thoughts scattering, scrambling. “Are you holding me responsible for the Council’s failure to achieve an amicable resolution and avoid all this? May I remind you that the Council sided with my arguments and that you were the one to defy them. I thought you supported the Council.”

  “I do.” Rafael’s quiet tone sent shivers up Taniquel’s spine. “So much so,” he continued, “that I take special offense at any action which undermines its most basic principles.” He paused, as if waiting for a reaction.

  Deslucido’s expression did not change, that mixture of battle weariness, noble acceptance of defeat, and implacable arrogance. After a long moment, he said, “Are you accusing me of undermining the Council?” He lifted his manacled hands in a gesture of disbelief. “However could I have done that? I, a newcomer presenting my first petition? Why, I barely know the other lords. Are you suggesting I found a way to suborn the Council? Vai dom, surely you realize how foolish and unnecessary these charges are. We were at war, and you won. You have no need to prove your righteousness or my own culpability.”

  Deslucido made as if to kneel before Rafael, but the shackles on his legs prevented a graceful movement. “You have triumphed on the field of battle,” he said, his voice eloquent in surrender. “I am your prisoner, at least until we settle upon honorable terms. What more do you want of me?”

  “Something I fear you are incapable of offering.” Rafael’s own voice turned steely. “The truth.”

  “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about. At the meeting, we all testified under truthspell. You were there. You heard me. You saw the light on my face.”

  “I heard what I heard,” Rafael said. “And I saw what I saw. What I want from you now, to answer your question, is an explanation of how you were able to do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “Tell a deliberate falsehood under truthspell.”

  Deslucido blinked, the picture of innocent consternation. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words came.

  Deslucido glanced about the tent, as if searching for escape. His eyes lit on Taniquel, and it was all she could do to hold steady, so hate-filled was his glare. His mouth twisted, his cheeks flushing an angry red. “This—this monstrous charge is all your doing!”

  He turned back to Rafael. “I don’t know what she’s told you, but she’s nothing but a spoiled, manipulative little hellcat! She cares for nothing but her own whims! She’ll say or do anything to cause trouble—even cast ridiculous accusations upon her betters.”

  His voice sank to a velvety purr. “You are a man of discernment and experience, Rafael. You must have seen through her spite by now. Surely you would not put her insinuations before the word of a fellow King! I will swear by anything you hold sacred that whatever she’s told you about me is a lie!”

  Taniquel trembled with the effort of remaining silent. Her uncle was letting him go on and on, spinning a web of the most reasonable-sounding deceit. She remembered how he had swayed the Comyn Council with his honeyed words. In another five minutes, she thought, he’d have all of them, even her uncle, believing he was an honorable man with only the best intentions.

  “Tell me, Deslucido,” Rafael said with that slow, infuriatingly patient tone, “why I should trust any of your vows, made under truthspell or not? How can I believe that you will keep any conditions of parole?”

  “Because we are both men of the world,” Deslucido went on, his voice like soft golden thunder. “We understand how things have always gone, how they always will. These women have no notion of anything beyond their own apron strings. But we—we share a vision of what Darkover can become. A world of unity and peace.”

  “Your peace,” Rafael returned. “But for anyone who opposes you, the peace of the yoke. The peace of the grave.”

  “You mistake me entirely. I have never desired anything other than the highest good for all our people. I promise you—”

  Taniquel’s nerves had been frayed to the breaking point by the laran attack, her journey through the Overworld, the exhaustion of battle and then that single heart-rending mental cry from Coryn. If Deslucido uttered one more soothing reassurance, she would break his neck with her own hands.

  “That’s enough!” It was the same tone she’d used to snap Rafael and Gerolamo out of their confusion under the Tramontana madness. “We can debate this all night and be no closer to the truth.” She strode over to Deslucido, but still beyond the reach of a sudden lunge. She came close enough to see his eyes in the torchlight.

  “You,” she pointed at him, “kept me from a proper vigil for Padrik. You pawned me off with a bunch of excuses—”

  “If I’ve offended you—” Deslucido began, clearly thinking her outburst due to frustrated womanly feeling.

  “What offends me,” she cut him off, “is that you told the Comyn Council you had given me leave.” She paused to let that sink in. “Under truthspell.”

  For a long moment, no one moved. Outside the tent came the usual camp noises, a whinny from the picket lines, a snatch of a ballad, men talking.

  Deslucido closed his mouth, visibly gathering himself. Rafael glanced from his captives to Taniquel and back again. His expression remained impassive.

  “A thousand regrets, my lady,” Deslucido said, “for the distress you’ve suffered from this simple misunderstanding. Let me explain what really happened—”

  “Don’t even try!” Now she whirled on Belisar, who blanched as she approached his stretcher. “Tell them what you told me—the ability to lie under truthspell is a family trait. What did you call it? The Deslucido Gift? You have it, just like your father—”

  “No! No!” Deslucido yelled. “It’s all a mistake!”

  “Oh, give it up, Father,” came a voice from the stretcher. Belisar strained to lift his head, his features distorted with loathing. “It’s no use, don’t you see? They know!”

  “You fool! Shut up!” Deslucido turned as quickly as the shackles would permit. Had he not been bound, Taniquel thought, he would have struck the boy, wounded or not. She caught the flicker of an image, a weasel twisting and turning in a trap. She remembered that some animals would rend their own flesh, even chew off a paw, to escape.

  Belisar shouted again, “It’s all over! They know!”

  Deslucido threw himself at the stretcher, manacled hands outstretched. Rafael leaped from his chair to pull Deslucido back. A heartbeat later, his men came in and wrestled Deslucido under control. The very air of the tent swirled restlessly after he and his son were removed.

  “I cannot let them live.” Rafael stood, his chest rising and falling. “You were right, niece.”

  “You had no choice.” Tears of relief stung Taniquel’s eyes. She sniffed, tasting dust and the rank sweat of fear. Deslucido’s, Belisar’s. Her own.

  We alone will know the truth, she thought with a strange hot sadness, that Deslucido and his son died not for their aggression in war but for their deceit in peace.

  She sent a silent prayer
to whatever god would listen that this horrible secret would end with them.

  41

  Taniquel watched, numb and dry-eyed, as the bodies of Damian Deslucido, once King of Ambervale and Linn, then Acosta and Verdanta and a handful of other conquests, along with his firstborn son and heir, were cut down from the trees. Hanged at dawn sounded like something from an old ballad, and doubtless one would be made about this one, but the reality had been quite different and she was glad she had not had the stomach for breakfast.

  Word of the execution had spread through the camp. She felt the whispers rather than heard them, saw the whitened cheeks and tight jaws of the Ambervale prisoners. Yet there was no hint of censure and more than a little of relief. Rafael Hastur might be seen as a harsh victor, but also a just one. And from her own Acosta men came the exhilaration of liberation, even in their exhaustion.

  “Bury them on the battlefield,” Rafael ordered, “but in unmarked graves, so that no man can say who was the loyal soldier and who the King who led him into defeat.”

  He gave other orders, too. An elite cavalry force under his most experienced general would press on to Ambervale Castle while he himself returned to Thendara. Taniquel would go with her own men to Acosta. Rafael had offered a squadron of his own men in addition, in case any remaining Deslucido forces put up a fight. She accepted.

  Later that morning, as she sat with her uncle in his tent, one of the Tower workers approached, looking uncomfortable. No, she decided with a glance at his impassive face, feeling uncomfortable. The skin over her spine prickled.

  “Vai dom.” The man bobbed his head to Rafael as if he were unused to speaking in the presence of a king. What was wrong with him? He was a trained laranzu.

  “Word has come from Hali. Damisela Graciela reached them through her starstone. They have lost all—all contact with Neskaya.” The slight stumble betrayed him. Taniquel heard the shudder of fear behind his throat, felt the effort it took to keep his voice and eyes steady. “We fear something dreadful has happened.”

  Oh, sweet Evanda, Coryn!

  “What? What has happened?” She stepped forward, halfway afraid to see the answer in his eyes.

  “Perhaps you could tell us.” His eyes flashed and his mouth went tight. “You were the one who bade us bring them into this fight. You were the one who said they had found a way to block the laran spells from Tramontana.”

  “Thank you for your message,” Rafael said in a voice that brooked no protest. “Your concern for your fellows is most laudable. Let me know if you receive any further word.”

  The laranzu bowed again and retreated. When he was out of earshot, Taniquel said, “Will you send to Neskaya?”

  Rafael looked thoughtful, but he shook his head. “I have only so many men, and we are already split with one group to Ambervale, another with me back to Thendara, and yet another to hold Acosta for you. We do not know what we will find at Ambervale, so I must divide my laranzu’in. I cannot weaken my forces any further on a fool’s mission.”

  “Why a fool’s mission?” she demanded hotly. “Do you not owe Neskaya protection?”

  He turned to her, eyes hooded like a falcon’s. “It is a fool’s mission because the thing which is mostly likely to have befallen them is confrontation with Tramontana, so there is nothing we can do with ordinary means to help them. Thus, we would diminish ourselves for no good purpose.”

  It would be no use arguing further. She had seen the look on his face before, gauging whether a horse was strong enough to run the distance, whether a sword might break in the heat of battle, whether a messenger might be trusted. Whether she were truly worthy of being comynara and Queen.

  She inclined her head. “Uncle, I am deeply grateful for everything you have done in my behalf and Acosta’s. As always, you speak with wisdom and act with generosity. You know far more of military strategy than I, so I will be guided by you.”

  “You have been an apt student,” he said, a bit stiffly, then softened. “And I am pleased to be able to help you. I have done what was needful for the future of all Darkover. If any of us is to survive this terrible time, we must curtail the worst abuses of laran warfare, find our way to a less destructive way of settling differences and . . . preserve the basis of integrity in our dealings with one another. In this, our purposes are one. Adelandeyo,” he added, giving her a short bow. Go with the gods.

  As Taniquel took her leave of him, she realized how true this was. Rafael Hastur could well have stayed safe and secure in Thendara. He could have compelled her to remain with him, dependent and powerless. Deslucido’s territorial expansion might eventually have provoked Rafael to forcibly defend his own boundaries.

  It was the misuse of laran which had spurred Rafael into immediate action. Releasing bonewater dust at the borderlands was bad enough, though others before had done so and would probably do so again. But to lie under truthspell . . . that had shaken him to the point where he would hazard everything, even his own Domain, to eliminate it.

  As he had said to her one night at Arilinn’s Hidden City, “If a man’s oath cannot be trusted, then there is nothing left but force, and men will use any weapon available. Then there will be no consideration or holding back, for words and reason will become as dust. The only defense will be even more powerful weapons. Zandru alone knows when that will stop, perhaps when there is no one left to fight and nothing left to fight over.”

  For that cause alone, Rafael would set aside everything—his own life, his kingdom, his honor. He would expect Taniquel to do the same.

  Taniquel’s blood ran cold, and she remembered the way her voice had rung all through her when she questioned Belisar. Her duty called her to leave Coryn to his fate, as if he were no more to her than any other useful tool. She wondered what she had become, that she could even think this way. The answer came, a blending of a dozen voices—her uncle’s, Lady Caitlin’s, Padrik’s father’s.

  You are what you have always been, a true daughter to your family and caste.

  And am I never to have a life and will of my own?

  If the gods had set that as your fate, you would not have been born comynara.

  At the back of her mind came a faint, wild keening, a cry of pain beyond words, beyond bearing.

  So it had come this, she thought, that as Queen she must tend only to her duties, thinking only of bringing her son safely to his majority and the throne. Eventually, of course, she would learn what happened at Neskaya. News would come to Hali and then to her uncle and finally to Acosta. It was doubtless some consequence of their intervention, for they had succeeded in blocking Tramontana’s spells. Perhaps some temporary drain of psychic energy kept them silent for a time.

  Within the coiled chambers of her heart, she knew this was not true. Coryn would not have called out to her like that—would not have reached her with her paltry insignificant laran—if there had not been the direst need. What was perhaps the worst uncertainty was that she did not know if he had reached out to her for help or in farewell.

  A Queen such as she had been raised to be would not even think of riding to Neskaya with Ambervale and Acosta uncertain. But she had already paid that price over and again.

  Taniquel paused, her feet tangling in her now-ragged skirts. Esteban, shadowing her half a pace behind, looked around, startled. He slipped his sword from its scabbard and glanced around as if he had missed some oncoming threat. Absently, she laid her hand on his arm and then walked on, relying on him to guide her. His back straightened.

  She felt like a blind woman, as if she had already left some essential part of herself behind in Rafael’s tent. The body which walked slowly, proudly, fingertips resting lightly on the muscled arm of her paxman, was that of a stranger. On some cell-deep level she realized that if she rode to Acosta now, if she abandoned Neskaya, she would indeed become only a blinded shell of herself.

  Was she fooling herself, telling lies at the urging of her heart? Coryn had stirred her with dreams and longings she had never
imagined. They were for characters out of song and legend, for Hastur and his beloved, Cassilda, for whose love he put off his godhood and took on mortal flesh. She was not meant for any such love. She had been born for something else, for the duty of her blood.

  The cristoforos might pray to the Holy Bearer of Burdens to ease their own sorrows, but they took up their tasks of their own free will. None were promised from before their births to follow that path. Nor were there, as far as she had ever heard, any women monks among them. She had heard of women pledged to serve the Dark Lady, Avarra, but knew little of them save that they had no dealings with men.

  Coryn might die, and with him such passion and tenderness that came but once in a lifetime. If she held back now, she closed her heart forever.

  He might already be dead, she told herself. She might sacrifice everything she had struggled for in vain.

  I will not know. I cannot know until I go and see for myself. Going to Neskaya meant looking within herself.

  It seemed that for this moment, her life parted like a crossroads. She knew the path she had followed all her life.

  I will not be that kind of Queen, who breaks faith with those who have given everything in her cause. I will not be a Queen who has no heart.

  She came to a halt outside her own camping place, the sleeping pallet which was little more than a pile of blankets, many of them none too clean. Esteban looked at her, a question in his eyes.

  “If you would be so kind,” she said, “pack food and my clothing into saddlebags and ready the sorrel mare.”

  He faced her full on. “May I know where we are going, vai domna?”

  “Not we, my loyal Esteban. I do not—cannot—ask anyone to come with me.”

  Esteban’s expression turned stubborn. “The camp is safe enough, but not the roads. There are stragglers from the Oathbreaker’s army, not to mention the less savory sort of person you’d come across in troubled times where a lord’s reach is short and coin scarce.”