Valrandin's white grin only widened. "The Domina does not invite you, General, but commands you rather. You know the place, and the hour."
Roskerrek drew a long breath, discernibly fighting a qualm. "Captain Alleron, we're late at the Ministry. Physician, farewell until our appointment." Addressing no further word to Valrandin, he departed, and Alleron followed after dealing the lieutenant a final stabbing glare.
Valrandin watched their departure with evil eyes, then spun around in rage to the onlooking soldiers. "And just what are you gawking at, you whoreson swine?"
The redcloaks had already begun to disperse, and at the lieutenant's question they slunk away entirely.
"A burning devil take Redbane, and his dog-robber, and these lousy scum," Valrandin spat. Then he furiously rounded on Ryel. "Who are you?"
Not in the least daunted, Ryel fought back a smile. "I'm a physician, newly engaged in the service of the Count Palatine."
"In other words, yet another scurvy quack." He assessed Jinn next, his dark eyes avid and envious. "Did you steal that horse?"
"I did not." As he quietly replied, Ryel lightly drummed his fingers on his sword-hilt.
"Ha." But the lieutenant noted the wysard's look and his gesture, and became somewhat less belligerent. "So you think you can actually cure Roskerrek of his megrims and gripings? Have you any idea how many others have tried? More than came to heal the Sovrena Diara of your native land."
"Yet she was healed at last," Ryel said.
"Yes—by a sorcerer, so it's rumored. And it'll take a better magician still to deliver Redbane of the sweats and spewings that have plagued him all his life, poor devil."
Ryel was surprised at Valrandin's change of tone. "You sound almost sorry for him, Lieutenant. I'd not have expected such pity, after what I witnessed."
"I take no great pleasure in his suffering—most of the time. But tell me, what is your name, and what land are you from? I've never before seen looks like yours. I'm called Gabriel Valrandin, and am Lieutenant of the Domina's Guard."
"And I am Ryel Mirai, of the Rismaian Steppes of Destimar."
The lieutenant's hazel eyes lit up. "The Steppes! Why, you are the first such I have ever met. And you must be a noble one, with a horse like that."
"The Rismai have no lords," the wysard said; but he smiled, for Valrandin despite all his arrogance possessed undeniable charm.
The lieutenant shrugged. "Be that as it may, you've a look about you that's not ordinary or common, sir, and I like it well. Perhaps you would bear me company awhile, if you're at leisure; I must return to the palace, and there's much I wish to ask you concerning your people."
"I'll join you gladly—as long as you promise to keep the peace," Ryel said.
Valrandin laughed, his diamond-sparks flashing among his rich glossy curls. "You caught me at a bad moment. Alleron and I loathe each other to the blood, and as for Redbane … " he trailed off, shrugging as his smile faded. "Let's be on our way."
As they rode through the streets Valrandin asked Ryel a thousand questions, some of them bizarre, concerning the Steppes and its people. The young lieutenant's thirst for information was of a remarkably sensational kind, and his grasp of geography almost nonexistent. The wysard did what he could to inform Valrandin of the approximate whereabouts of Destimar, and to assure him that the Rismai did not live on raw horseflesh, or have their wives in common, or routinely sacrifice girl babies to the sun-god. During his instruction, he noticed that he and Valrandin were being much stared at as they rode, but no one seemed daring enough to say anything out loud.
"I hope I'm not disgracing you in this rough outland garb of mine," he said.
Valrandin shook his head and laughed. "They're all looking at me, not you. Although I doubt not you'd show to advantage in Northern garb."
Ryel smiled thanks. "I'd never be able to carry off such finery as yours, though. Lace and diamonds seem best suited to a gentleman of the court, as you are."
"Gentleman?" Valrandin's strong dark brows contracted fiercely at that, but relaxed as soon in an oblique little chuckle. "You are a stranger here."
Suddenly feeling as if he'd committed a serious error, Ryel sought to remedy it as best he might. "If I've offended…" But from Valrandin's manner, he very likely had.
"Surely you've noticed how folk stare at me, and how cowed they seem?" The lieutenant demanded. "You honestly have no idea who I am? Why, you must have dropped from the skies to be so ignorant."
Ryel thought back to his abrupt arrival in the North. "Actually, that isn't too far from the truth."
"Never mind. Here's the palace bridge, and we needs must part. I hope we meet again, and that you'll be enlightened by that time."
"So do I," Ryel answered; and he meant it. "But a brief question, if I may. Now that we've spoken of renown, does the name Starklander mean anything to you?"
It certainly seemed to. Valrandin reined in closely, his face paling around his suddenly piercing stare. "Damnation," he whispered. "What are you--his friend or his enemy? Keep your voice down when you answer."
"Neither," the wysard quietly replied. "He and I have never met. I don't even know his real name."
"Guy Desrenaud. Guyon de Grisainte Desrenaud, in full. He was of Ralnahr by birth, Earl of Anbren there; and he was high in the Domina's favor once, but that ended badly. He left this city in deep disgrace years ago, and if he returns he risks death. I was and am his friend, and would give anything to see him again, and do anything in my power to restore him to favor." Valrandin's elegantly gauntleted hand dropped to his sword-hilt and wrapped it hard. "Do you mean him harm?"
"None whatsoever. I only wish to know where he traveled after leaving the Barrier."
"As dearly would I, and many another--most especially the Domina, I can assure you. If you should ever learn, I wish to know of it."
"Perhaps the Count Palatine will be of help to me."
Valrandin's eyes glinted, equivocally amused. "If you hope to pry any truth from Redbane, you're braver than you know, doctor."
Ryel smiled back. "As brave a man as yourself, I hope, Lieutenant."
To the wysard's startled astonishment, the young officer exploded. "I'm not a man, damn it! I'm the Countess of Fayal, and you can tell Redbane when you see him that he's heartily invited to kiss my arse." With a piqued slap of the reins she departed, spurring her horse impatiently through the bridge-traffic, scattering servants, citizens and vendors right and left.
Chapter Twelve
The wysard continued on his way to the headquarters, dazedly attempting to envision Valrandin as a woman, and to imagine how he would have treated her had he known. No physical hints had betrayed the Countess' sex—no swell of breast or hip, no softness whatever either in her semblance or her manners. The clear timbre of her voice, pitched neither high nor low, had been very pleasing, but without any hint of femininity. But there were the diamonds in both her ears, contrary to the custom of Northern males who wore only one ear-ornament, if any; and that rich pervasive scent, and that superlative abundance of lace at her wrists and throat.
"A woman," he murmured to himself. "And Roskerrek knows it well." Again he witnessed the savage eyeplay that had passed between the Count Palatine and Valrandin, now realizing that beneath the seeming disdain ran a current of unwilling esteem, and that under the apparent loathing twisted something far to the contrary.
As he considered those events and all the others that had befallen him since his arrival in the North, a deafening peal of bells made him start, and fight to keep in the saddle as Jinn reared in startlement. Glancing around, he saw that the clanging din came from a great temple; and he further noticed that he was on Crown Street. Recalling the poet Dulard's mention of Derain Meschante, Ryel paused to consider the sacred building's stark and unwelcoming exterior, and then tied Jinn to a railing near the church door where other horses were fastened.
Climbing the steps, he entered into a long bare hall grudgingly illumined by the wan Nort
hern afternoon, where his appearance was uncordially remarked by the congregation, most of it sober middle class, who from long rows of hard benches eyed his Steppes gear askance and murmured among themselves. Their faint noise was the only sound in the great echoing room where meager shafts of pallid light glinted on the dust-motes with chilly disapproval. At length a rustling at the end of the room alerted the congregation to stand; and a skeletal gray-robed priest ascended the steps of the pulpit in the midst of the room's end with slow steps, setting down with a reverberant thud the great book he held, turning its pages with dry cracklings and much coughing. At last he spoke, intoning a prayer through his nose; and the congregation seconded it with the same pious nasality. Fervorless was that orison, which chiefly asked for the downfall of unbelievers; and the rest of the service was fully as joyless and perfunctory. At some point a pair of gray-swathed hangdog acolytes circulated about the auditory with wide brass salvers, into which those assembled were all but constrained, it appeared, to throw considerable amounts of money; the heaped vessels were then placed upon the bare stone altar under the grim and unsatisfied eye of the priest.
Next followed a brief, bitter harangue eloquent only in its denunciation of sin and assurance of eternal damnation were not certain precepts of an exceptionally self-denying nature followed to the letter. Distrust and loathing of the flesh seemed to be the key, indeed the only, tenets of belief. Ryel listened amazed, wondering how anyone could find spiritual comfort in dogma so basely bare of any uplifting philosophy, any tenderness, forgiveness, love; and he could not help but remember the Temple of Atlan and its passionate celebration of pleasure, the jewel-sparked nudity of the dancers, the candlelight and wine and color and music. The worship of Atlan might not be any more profound in its intentions than that of the Unseen; but at least Destimar had other deities—Demetropa, Divares, Aphrenalta—whereby a believer's higher faculties might find nourishment. Hryeland had only this one unforgiving invisible god, to whom its worshippers were no more than vermin, and the world a barren rock.
Bored to disgust, Ryel had no wish to stay further. He was on the point of leaving when at that moment a shiver went through the congregation, an eager current of expectation. Turning his gaze back to the pulpit, Ryel saw that a preacher was mounting the creaking steps with a heavily resonant tread: a priest much younger than the first, his years less than forty. He was almost as powerfully built as Michael Essern, and nearly as tall despite his slack round-shouldered stance. Unlike Michael he was meticulously washed, and immaculately clad in severe gray robes, and all unlike Michael most disconcertingly repulsive of visage. In a man of right mind and clean spirit, the priest's looks would have been unremarkable, and in a man of great intellect and compassionate wisdom, they might well have been deemed attractive. But Ryel only saw the pebble-hard mud-colored eyes, and the bitter-lipped mouth. Even the hair was joyless, hanging in thin lusterless strands of dull brown. Nevertheless, at the sight of the priest the congregation seemed as close to ecstasy as it was capable, and pressed forward to hearken unto his teachings.
After a long moment of haughtily surveying the congregation and further establishing his empire over it, the priest of the Unseen launched into a bitter harangue eloquent only in its assurance of eternal damnation, and its insistence on precepts of an exceptionally self-denying nature being followed to the letter. Although sour and shrill compared to the deep music of Michael's voice, this priest's manner of preaching was, however, incredibly similar to Michael's in its strident coarseness, and apparently had its charms for the congregation, who murmured fierce agreement with every vilification of the flesh, and delighted in each abstruse twist of murky dogma. But Michael Essern had impressed Ryel at once as possessing an intellect both subtle and deep, for all his savagery and squalor. This Hryeland priest was manifestly second-rate in every respect.
"Who is he?" the wysard whisperingly demanded of the plump burgher's wife at his left elbow. When she did not reply, he asked again, more insistently.
She glared him up and down, her overfed cheeks wobbling with indignation. "He is none other than the Reverend Prelate Derain Meschante, the most eminent divine in the land," she hissed. "And an outland reprobate you must be, to intrude here with your idle askings!"
"So that's Meschante. By every god—"
He must have said the last words too loudly, because appalled silence sheer as ice caught their echo. Meschante stood upright at last, darting a furious glare directly at the wysard.
"By every god? None but a benighted heathen would swear so grossly—and such you must be, from your outland looks. A slave to the dirty gods of Destimar—most probably of that deceiving idol of whores and wastrels, Atlan!"
Ryel faced Meschante unperturbed, and only when the congregation's spiteful murmuring had died down did he speak, clearly and quietly. "You once frequented Atlan's temple, I believe. Not only the temple, but the Diamond Heaven."
"You mean the brothel quarter. And I did indeed," Meschante replied, quelling his flock's bleating amazement with a lowering scowl. "And there I preached the truth of the Unseen to the shameless denizens of that filthy wallow. I saved souls there, outlander."
Approving murmurs met this declaration, but Ryel only lifted his chin in scorn. "You basely insulted a woman of purer spirit than you could ever begin to comprehend, and drove into exile a man you could never hope to match."
"I worked the will of the Unseen," Meschante said, sneeringly self-righteous. "Mine is the triumph, and I glory in it."
"The Diamond Heaven still stands, for all your puritan ravings," the wysard replied. "And Belphira Deva is no less fair, despite your bigoted insolence."
Meschante's flaccid pallor colored dark with rage and something more, and his voice rose over the congregation's hissing hubbub. "Never speak that slut's name in this sacred place! Her damnation will come at last—but not before time claws to pieces her painted beauty and leaves her a broken crone! As for that harlot's rakehell bully, he went from her reeking bed to this realm, only to be driven forth in shame at last."
"Driven where?" Ryel demanded, fighting to contain his impatience.
Observing that his listeners were dividing their attention between him and the wysard, Meschante made a gesture of contemptuous dismissal. "To his doom, I devoutly pray. But if I have any means to bring about judgment on that braggart Desrenaud and his proud trollop, believe that I will use them to their limit. Now get you gone, but know that the Unseen will punish with eternal fire your impious invasion of Its sanctuary."
Disgusted and disappointed, Ryel quitted the church under indignant glares, glad to be back in the jostling muddy street. As he was considering a quiet glass of ale in some snug tavern, he was surprised by the voice of Jorn Alleron, its tone harsh and sharp.
"Damnation, I've been looking for you everywhere, doctor. You're to come with me this instant."
Ryel turned and looked up at the mounted soldier, noting the drawn tension around his steely eyes. "But I wasn't to meet the Count Palatine until—"
"He requires you now. I've never seen him worse. He was nearly falling off his horse when he got back from the Ministry, and we had to carry him indoors. Come along, and be quick!”
*****
Impatiently led by Alleron, the wysard made his way to the headquarters and Roskerrek's apartments. The rooms of the lower floor were designated for military business, and officers and soldiers came and went, filling the air with the tread of boots, the rattle of swords, and harsh peremptory commands. Upstairs in one wing of the great building were Roskerrek's private chambers, all deserted and silent, chill as vaults, hung with faded tapestries and darkened by ancient walnut paneling and heavy graceless furniture black with age. It seemed as if the vast rooms lay under some heartless curse that had banished all hope of pleasure, and that laughter had never stirred the dank stony air.
Alleron quietly pushed open a great door. "In through here," he whispered. "Be quiet as you go."
The chamber Rye
l entered, ushered by a wordless orderly, was exceedingly warm. A great fire burned in the hearth, throwing erratic shadows on the walls, where beasts and birds and monsters carved in the wood took sinister life from the wavering light. Heavy curtains muffled the windows and partly surrounded the great tester-bed that stood close to the mantelpiece.
"Over here, physician." Alleron's voice, hushed and cautionary, led Ryel to the bedside. By a branch of candles on a nearby table the wysard saw that Roskerrek lay at length and seemingly asleep, but muttering and tossing as if trapped in a nightmare. Alleron looked on with disquiet clearly heart-wrung.
"I've never known him worse," the captain whispered hoarsely. "When he came back from the Ministry he had a vomiting fit in the courtyard, and then fainted; came to when we got him inside, and went mad almost from the pain in his entrails and his head."
Ryel looked closer not at Roskerrek, but Alleron, whose lower lip and right eye were bruised and blackened. "Was he the cause of your wounds, Captain?"
Alleron nodded, but shrugged too. "Often my lord's pain is so great that he loses his wits almost, and lashes out not knowing what he does. I'm used to it—and glad of it, because it always seems to soothe him."
"You never give him calmants?"
"No drugs avail him, doctor, nor ever have. Reach me that basin there—he's about to have another fit."
Starting up on an elbow, Roskerrek began to retch, racked with spasms; and Alleron held his head, pulling back the heavy red skeins of hair until the paroxysm was over.
The silent servant brought fresh water and carried away the basin, closing the door soundlessly behind him. "Ah, Yvain," the captain murmured brokenly, taking a moistened cloth and gently wiping Roskerrek's lips.
Roskerrek gasped and thrashed, hissing a foul torrent of curses as he fought the equerry's care with the seeming last of his strength, backhanding a vicious blow that made Alleron's wounded mouth bleed afresh. Then he gave an anguished moan, and lost consciousness. Lifting Roskerrek up, Alleron gathered him into his arms, and for a moment hid his face in the thick scarlet hair that absorbed his torn lip's blood like clear water. Then he regarded Ryel, his steely eyes rusted.
The Ryel Saga: A Tale of Love and Magic Page 32
