Chapter Forty-One
Rhiana dreamed of the walking dead, and woke in darkness to the fact that the one love she had known in her life would face death on her word. He'd killed the warrag, he'd nearly killed the dagreth, and he'd intended the deaths of the Watchmistress, the council, and her. Her guards had informed her of Callion's one-sided rants against Val as they lay in their cells, and she saw in their stories the anger of a man who had been caught and who regretted only that he had been caught. She had no doubt that Val Peloral, Lord Faldan, had intended evil against her and against her world.
Which was not to say that she found his behavior entirely clear. The evil he'd done—the evil he'd intended—those were clear enough. But his gentleness to her, his kindness, his whispered confession of love: those things she did not understand. He'd given her reason to love him, and she had loved him. And as deeply as she looked into the possible outcomes of his actions, and as hard as she tried to find some material benefit he might hope to gain by winning her love, she kept coming up against the fact that if his plan had been to destroy her, he gained nothing by having her love him first.
She slipped out of the bed and put on her bed shoes and a heavy robe—it had snowed between the time she went to bed and the time she woke, and from the sounds of the wind through the cracks between the windows and the frames, and the muffled closeness of the night sounds outside and a faint, gentle hissing that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, she thought it snowed still. The fire in her hearth had burned down to nothing; the air in the room beyond her closed bed drapes was ice, and the floor through the thin soles of her bed shoes was just as cold. She saw nothing but blackness and could hear no sounds of life above the blanketing quiet of the storm; she could as easily have been the only person in the universe as the just-returned lady of a busy, crowded castle. However, during her brief, restless sleep, her magic-sight had returned. With her eyes closed she could once again see the bright lines of magic that crisscrossed her world and the swirling, eddying currents through Ruddy Smeachwykke and the castle.
She opened her eyes to the darkness of the night, darkness that mirrored and amplified her bleakness of spirit. The soul suffered more in darkness and cold than in bright light and warmth, she thought. In bright daylight she would have felt no doubts about Val. She would have been able to see him as a traitor without also seeing him as the man she had briefly loved. In daylight she could have taken satisfaction in knowing she had brought him to justice. But she had no daylight to help her see reason, and no warm spring day to ease the hurt in her heart.
She tucked her robe more tightly about her and took her doubts and her rationalizations out her door and down the long corridor and through the passageways that led to the tower, and up the staircase that circled around the tower's wall, past the bursts of snow that blasted through the arrow slits and through the slick drifts on the stairs—worrying about the leather soles of her shoes and the dragging hem of her robe and how careful she would have to be not to fall—and stormed into the guards' chamber, where in the shocked expressions of the guards she got her first taste of what a sight she must be, with her hair disheveled and her eyes wild and her anger burning in her cheeks.
"Bring the Peloral to the audience chamber immediately," she said. Her voice came out harsh and angry and colder than the night. She saw the questions in the guards' eyes, but she gave no welcome to them. The guards nodded and called down to the marching guard below to send up a contingent to escort a prisoner to audience. Rhiana crept back down the stairs, wondering what possessed her, but neither her doubts nor her rationalizations were sufficient to prevent her from sending another servant to roust Harch out of his warm bed below his wizard's bell to attend her.
The impromptu inquest assembled—Val pale and crumpled, kneeling on the floor between six guards, his arms and legs unmoving, his clothing stained and soiled; Rhiana in bed gown and dressing gown and bed shoes and with her hair unbound, and in all of Glenraven no one but her husband had ever seen her so; Harch bleary-eyed and foul-tempered at being dragged through the yard and the snowstorm at the hour of the dead on some damn-fool errand; and the half-dozen guards themselves, straight-backed and blank-faced in their mail coats and red-and-gray surcoats, whose emotionless faces told Rhiana they thought they saw proof that their lady, recently returned from the exiles' hell of the Machine World, had brought madness with her. Rhiana glared at all of them. Her anger at herself, for acting on emotion in a moment when she knew she needed to be logical, spread to become anger toward the witnesses of her stupidity.
Rhiana told Harch, "Watch the Peloral with magic-sight, and if he makes any move to escape or to attack, kill him." Harch nodded. Rhiana told the guards, "Watch him with eyes and ears, and look for any sort of trick from him, and if he tries to escape or attack, kill him."
She stared down at Val. "You're doubly damned, and with even a single wrong move your heart will have a hole in it bigger than the one in mine." She saw him wince. "I just want to be sure you understand."
He nodded.
Then she knelt by Val's feet and rested her hands on the bindings around his ankles and murmured "K-Mart" so softly no one could hear her. The bindings fell away from his legs and he groaned. She released his hands and arms next, and picked up the loops of rope and dropped them in her audience chair.
She waited while he struggled to rub life back into his arms and legs, crawling and stumbling around. When he was finally able to stand, she said, "Face me, Val Peloral, Lord Faldan, son of Kinlord Faldan of the Faldan Wood."
He stood and looked down at her, and she saw anger in his eyes. "You've already accused me of a crime I couldn't commit, and have left me without food or water and forced me to lie in my own filth, unable even to move myself to the chamberpot. Have you thought of some further humiliation to heap upon me, that makes you decide to drag me out of my snow-soaked, flea-infested, piss-drenched straw pile in the middle of stinking, bitter night?"
She ached with his ache. She hated herself for doing what she'd done to him, and she hated herself for being weak and doubting actions she knew were right, and she hated him for being someone other than the man she'd thought he was. She said, "The hour is for my convenience, not yours. This is an inquest. I want to know the facts, Val. I want to know why you did what you did. You conspired with Callion, you intended to kill the Watchmistress, the council…me…" For just an instant tears burned in her eyes and a lump in her throat kept her from speaking. But she blinked the tears away, swallowed, and forced herself to go on. "Maybe I can understand why you did those things—I know there are people who don't support Jayjay Bennington, who don't like the idea of a human as Watchmistress. I know politics; I'm a political creature, too." She frowned, stared into his eyes, nibbled at the corner of her lip. "We're on different sides of a political fence, and while you're going to end up dying for your cause, I can understand that you have a cause." She took a deep breath and moved a step closer to him before she realized that she'd done it. She stiffened, betrayed by the body that still longed for his touch, and said, "But why the rest, Val? Why the pretense of…" She realized the guards stood almost on tiptoe, leaning forward to hear what she was saying. She realized how much she could lose if they knew, if anyone found out, that she had once loved a Kin. "Of other things," she said. "Of friendship. Why did you pretend to be a friend?"
His expression softened for just an instant, and he murmured, "Pretend?" But that moment of tenderness passed, and his eyes narrowed and his lips thinned. "Are you finished?"
"Finished?"
"Finished with this charade. You've planned this very well, I confess. I've had time to think while I lay in my pile of straw, while I listened to your cohort spin his tale of blame to the listening guards. It was very clever. Callion blames me for his capture, you blame me for the death of Errga and the injury of Tik, and he confesses his intent to kill the Watchmistress and implicates me in the process, and there you are. You can get the Watchmistress
here to try me on false charges and when she arrives you release Callion and the two of you set the Watchers on all of us. Everyone is dead who could blame you, Callion names you Watchmistress and as his puppet you remake this world to fit his vision of it."
Rhiana stepped back, staring in disbelief at the madman in front of her. "What? You accuse me?"
"You deny it?"
"Of course I deny it. You blew up the gun that Tik held. I felt the burst of magic as it exploded."
"If you felt it, it was because you created it, Lady Smeachwykke." His voice was hard and coarse as broken stones. "I have no magic!"
"Then how did you make the gun explode?"
"I didn't make the gun explode."
"But you did. I saw it happen."
"I saw it happen, too, but I didn't make it happen. You must have."
"I didn't!"
"Lady Smeachwykke," Harch said, tapping her shoulder, "may I have a word with you in private?"
She turned and screeched at him, "Right now?!"
He backed up and blinked at her, eyes owlishly round with surprise. "Now would be best."
Rhiana turned back to the guards. "Watch him!" She stalked away from them to the far corner of the chamber, where the heavy drapes and tapestries would muffle the sound of their voices. "What?"
The wizard said, "I thought it best to tell you before this went any further. I have been watching him as you asked me to, with magical sight. Also, very carefully and on my own initiative I was doing more than just watching him, you know…sort of testing, I suppose you could say…though not taking any chances of course, because one doesn't want to get caught at that sort of thing…besides which I'm afraid it's highly unethical and under other circumstances I would never have even considered it, especially when you didn't expressly ask me to but I was considering Lord Faldan's importance to Ruddy Smeachw—"
"GET TO THE POINT!"
"Yes. Ah. He, ah, has no magic, Lady. None at all. The stones in your walls have more magic than he does."
"He's tricked you, you ass! Can't you see that? He's a wizard so powerful he can hide his magic!"
"Not from me, he can't." Harch crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. "I'm sorry, dear, but the wizard doesn't exist who can hide his magic from someone of my skill."
"Then maybe you aren't as skillful as you think."
Harch raised his eyebrows and tipped his head to one side. "Maybe you're wrong. Have you, ah, considered that?"
"Endlessly. And wished I were, too. But there isn't any other explanation for what happened." She pointed in the direction of the tower. "And don't forget Callion, who without torture, without bribery, without any provocation at all, freely names the lying bastard as his conspirator."
Harch said, "There are other explanations, Rhiana. Quite a lot of them, actually. And explanations that fit the facts better than this one."
"Are there? Many, you say? So give them to me."
"Well, ah…Lord Faldan's explanation would work. I couldn't believe it, of course—you in collaboration with Callion—though certainly you've shown enough ambition in the past that it wouldn't be entirely impossible—" He looked at her face, realized what he was saying and to whom he was saying it, cleared his throat, and moved on. "Or the human, Kate, could have been hiding from you the fact that she wasn't magic-blind. She could have been collaborating with the Aregen. Or, as another possibility, the Aregen could have acted alone. This would make more sense to me than any of the other explanations, though of course there are points in any of the three that don't sit well."
"All the facts fit the Peloral." She glared at Val.
"Except, lady, that he could not have done what you accuse him of doing. He has no magic at all. None." Harch's expression became thoughtful. "I could prove this to you."
"How?"
"I could kill him for you…slowly, with just a baby spell…in such a way that if he had the least magical ability, he could save himself."
"He'd rather die than prove me right."
"I beg to differ. At some point in the process, if he can, he will do whatever he is able to save himself. If he is what you say he is, he gains nothing by being a martyr."
"So show me."
"You seem unconcerned by the possibility that when we're finished you'll have an innocent dead man lying on your floor."
"Errga was innocent, and now he's dead. Tik was innocent, and was maimed, and it's only through luck that he isn't dead. I know I won't have an innocent dead man on my floor."
"Very well. We'll go find out right now."
Rhiana went back to face Val; this time she settled herself in her audience chair. "Harch has proposed a little test to prove your innocence. It seems that he believes you…rather, that he believes you when you say you didn't cause the gun to explode. I'm willing to concede that if you didn't make the gun explode, the rest of your claim of innocence is true, too."
He watched her, waiting.
"The test may be…unpleasant…but I see no other way to determine the truth. I wouldn't want to do anything to you without your permission, so you can refuse, and I'll tell the Watchmistress what I know now, and she can determine your guilt. Or if you would rather confess, we can save a great deal of time. For confession right now, I would be willing to offer you exile to the Machine World rather than death."
"I can see in your eyes that you have your heart set on torture. So torture me. I'm innocent."
"Not torture at all," Harch said. "Simply a little test."
"Then test me." Val glared from Harch to Rhiana. "You're so sure you're right, just do it."
"I've already begun."
Rhiana felt a flow of magic so tiny that it took her an instant to realize it was the test Harch proposed. She closed her eyes. With her magic-sight she could see a barrier of nothingness thinner than the thinnest spider's silk beginning to cover Val's nose and mouth, blocking them from the air beyond. The barrier was a soap bubble, so ludicrously fragile a stray magical impulse would destroy it. The merest nothing, a magical blink, would clear it away.
She waited, eyes closed. The barrier remained. She opened her eyes. Val clutched at his throat, clawing, trying to pull in air by the simple mechanical processes of his lungs. He made a good show of it. She waited. Her facts all fit, she knew what she had seen and what she had felt, and she now realized that her wizard was right. No man, capable of clearing away that fragile nothing that stood between him and death, would fail to save his own life. A clever man, though, would hold out as long as he dared, hoping for sympathy and a reprieve that would make him seem innocent.
She continued to wait, forcing herself to look calm while anxiety gnawed at her from inside. His acting seemed so real. Val's skin began to turn dusky, and his eyes bulged. She thought, Breathe, damn you. Breathe. I don't want to watch you suffer. I just want the truth. "Breathe. Just do it. Don't be so stubborn." She realized when her guards looked at her, startled, that she had spoken aloud.
His lips formed words, but airless, made no sounds.
She frowned. "What?"
Val repeated himself: You…mock…me.
I seek the truth, she thought. He dropped to one knee. His blue lips stretched back in an anguished, silent scream; his eyes pleaded, terrified; his hands clawed at his throat and tore at his clothes.
Stop it, she told him in her thoughts. Gods' damn you, stop it. Save yourself.
She turned to Harch, wanting to see in his face determination, purpose, a sense that he knew he worked to expose the truth, a sense that he'd felt Val's guilt. Instead she saw in Harch's eyes pain, and on his cheeks tears, and on his face anguish and terrible remorse.
She heard a thud, and turned to see Val lying at her feet, unconscious or dead.
She didn't think. She dropped to his side and broke Harch's bubble herself. She heard the ragged, strangling gasp of his first breath, and stared at him, wondering, bewildered. He didn't move, didn't wake up and smirk at her—he hadn't saved himself.
Val would have died, and she would have killed him. The truth was as simple and plain as that. Magically, he wasn't capable of even a blink. He was innocent. He hadn't caused the gun to explode, he hadn't killed anyone, he hadn't schemed against the Watchmistress. No matter what the facts seemed to have been, Rhiana had been wrong.
She stroked his hair and whispered, "I'm so sorry. I was wrong. I'm so sorry," over and over. She was still saying it when he opened his eyes.
He looked up at her and shook his head slightly. "You didn't kill me," he murmured. "Why am I still alive?"
"I'm sorry," she told him again. "I was wrong."
"I know, but that isn't the point."
"The point? What do you mean, it isn't the point?"
"I know you were wrong. But you didn't kill me, and you seem to be truly sorry, and if I'm alive and you're sorry, then I must have been wrong as well." He sat up and rubbed his head. "And if we're both wrong, who killed Errga and wounded Tik? Kate? Callion?"
"One of the two must have. And Kate has the bottle with the Watchers in it."
"Kate. I can't see that. Callion must have acted on his own."
Rhiana said, "But he didn't. He couldn't have; and so Kate must have helped him. She isn't going anywhere, though. We could wait until morning, and take the Watchers from her before the trial starts." She shook her head. "But I don't want to leave this matter unresolved. I don't understand how Kate fits into this now, and I have to understand. Let's find her now."
"Lady Smeachwykke…" Val's expression was pained. "My apologies, but as long as the real culprit thinks you still hold me to blame, the plan, whatever it is, will remain unchanged. I could take the time needed to bathe and dress in other clothes than these."
She nodded. "The matter isn't life or death…yet. It will be come morning when the Watchmistress arrives. Very well, Lord Faldan. One of the guards will show you to the baths, and I'll have a girl bring you some clean clothing. Please hurry." She stared into his eyes, trying to see if the stiff, formal "Lady Smeachwykke" had been because people were listening or because he hated her. Probably because he hated her. She hated herself.
Marion Zimmer Bradley & Holly Lisle - [Glenraven 02] Page 26
