by Carol Berg
Help me. He was on the verge of screaming. I could feel him struggling to hold it back.
“Tell me what to do.”
Talk to me. A tale, a song, an image, anything I can hold on to. Please, love, quickly.
I fumbled about for a moment, trying to think what might serve, trying not to think why he might need a distraction so desperately. After a few abortive attempts—too short a tale, too abstract a concept, too shallow a subject— I began to speak of Comigor, the ancient keep that had been my childhood home, the windy heath that attracted storms, but had repelled all would-be conquerors for six hundred years. I explored every passage, every cellar, every attic, every map in its library. As he had taught me, I used audible words to force my thoughts into a single pattern, not allowing worry or distraction to muddy what I left for him to find in my head. Every once in a while I would pause, listening. I heard nothing, only felt his desperate presence in my mind, as surely as if I could hear his harsh breathing or feel his sweat. So I continued.
I considered my warrior father, so distant, so strong, bewildered by his children, yet so gentle with my fragile, lovely mother. Her image was hazy, but I remembered her stories and her garden, and I explored those things, too. I described my bedchamber at Comigor, where I had imagined myself an astronomer, unraveling the mysteries of the heavens, or a minstrel, traveling the land singing songs of heroes that would ignite a warrior’s soul. As the high window spilled dead gray light into my room, I told how I had stood on Comigor’s highest tower, pretending I was a captive princess, waiting to be rescued by a handsome knight.
This time the princess has done the rescuing.
“No, no. You rescued me long ago,” I said, crossing my arms on my breast as if to hold him to me. “When you stepped from the shadows in my library with a rose in your hand.”
Seri, you must tell them I misled you, that I ensnared and deceived you with magic.
“I’ll do no such thing.”
You must. They’ve proven to me that they’re quite serious about all this.
“Don’t worry about me. Tomas has sworn to protect me, just as I’ve always said he would.”
Karon’s relief surged through the night. Good… oh, gods of night … He sounded so hurt. His voice in my head, usually so intense, so vibrant and colorful, was almost unhearable.
“What have they done to you?” I said.
It’s no matter, he told me. When I’m with you this way, it’s easier. But I don’t think you’ll ever call me fine-looking again.
I told him stories until I could no longer speak, and then continued by closing my eyes and thinking of the things I wished to say and see. Yet, deeper still, in a small place yet available for rational thought, I made my plan of battle.
My strategy was simple—political power. Those who wanted Karon convicted would manufacture what evidence was necessary, and, truly, eight people—Tomas, Evard, Sheriff Maceron, Darzid, and four soldiers—had seen Karon heal the stab wound in my back. The only thing that could overrule such testimony was a counterthreat to Evard’s war… and ultimately his throne.
I could not use Martin. He was in enough danger. But I could contact ten high-ranking nobles that had been close friends of my father and ten more that owed him life-debts, plus I had friends of my own, men with wealth and status, women with influence over husbands or brothers or fathers. All paid levies to support Evard and his war. All knew of Evard’s frustrated plans for me. They would believe me when I said that jealousy was behind the king’s accusations, and that if Evard could manufacture evidence against me and my husband, then no one in the realm was safe from him. All were honorable Leiran nobles and would come to my defense. I just needed a chance to speak with them.
I could not even begin. They confined me to my room with no paper, no pen, no book, no possible way to send a message. The serving sister who brought my meals and washing water was mute, and the guard who accompanied her forbade me to utter a sound in her presence, his drawn sword indicating that the woman’s life would be the price of my disobedience. The guards might have been deaf for all the notice they took of my pleas for justice or my promises of gold. I was allowed no implement that could conceivably be turned into a weapon. The serving woman was required to comb my hair, and the lamp was taken away whenever I was left alone, so that I spent every hour of the long winter nights in darkness. I was permitted no visitor save priests and royal inquisitors, and they always came in pairs lest I somehow corrupt them.
The priests treated me as an innocent, possessed of evil spirits raised by sorcerers. They deafened me with prayers and exhortation, lectures and sermons, encouraging me to repudiate the sorcerer. Arot, the First God, had laid down the law of the world: His sons Annadis and Jerrat were to hold dominion, and they reserved the powers of earth and sea, sky and storm to themselves. Sorcerers tried to steal that power for their own… the ultimate blasphemy.
The inquisitors treated me as if I were myself a sorceress. They threatened me with imprisonment and torture, demanding that I confess my depravity and that of the Earl of Gault and his friends.
Tomas never came to me. Not once. Nor did any other friend or acquaintance. I kept thinking that surely someone would question where Karon and I had been taken. But then I would remember the faces in Sir Geoffrey’s hall when Darzid exposed Karon’s arm… and a cold weight would settle heavier in my belly where I should have been feeling only the warmth of our growing child. Who would have courage enough to defend us?
Through all the days and nights of that winter, I felt Karon with me. Some days he could converse with me in our strange way. Some days he could only listen, and I suspected that his captors were interrogating him… torturing him. I would force such dreadful speculation out of my mind and talk to him about whatever I could think of: art or music, or philosophical speculation, or the Writer and his coded map that we had never managed to unravel, or my plans to study at the University someday when Connor did not need so much of my time.
That will be the worst, Karon said, in a rare moment of sadness. Never to see him.
I did not take the foolish course of saying that, of course, he would see our son. Neither of us was stupid. We had been imprisoned for over a month, and I had accomplished not one step to help him. I kept a barrier in my mind as Karon had taught me to do, a private place where I would not allow him to go, and there I kept my fear and grief and my guilty hopes that Karon would abandon his convictions and save himself. “There’s still the trial,” I said. “When they transport you to the King’s Bench, there might be some opportunity… a distraction… and you could change yourself and walk away.”
Ah, Seri, if willing could make it so …
He could not break chains with his magic. He could not unlock the doors of his prison. I knew that. The only way for him to be free was to invade a mind… to force his will upon another with torment and fear… to take a weapon and slay those who would harm him. Exactly the things he could never do.
“And the trial itself. Several of the lords on the Council are intelligent, thoughtful men…”
Yes. Well. Don’t get up any wild hopes about the Council.
“Wild hopes are no more unreasonable than wild hopelessness,” I argued. “I can cite many historical references to prove that wild hopes are the only way anything useful ever gets accomplished.”
I should have learned long ago never to make any absolute statement to a woman with flame in her hair.
How strange it was to carry on these dialogues without seeing each other. Though I spoke aloud to help me focus my thoughts—whispering, so that the guards outside my door could not hear—we could have continued without a single audible word. Eventually we found it possible to share jests, as well as our deepest thoughts about life and death. I came to hate sleep. Such a waste of time. Karon rarely slept. He said his captors hadn’t made it easy for him, and that he rested better when he was with me. He told me he could listen to my dreams.
“I wonder
ed why mine have seemed benign, considering our circumstances,” I said.
I can’t change dreams, only drown them with other visions if I worked hard enough at it. I would never do that, though. There are those who say that dreams are how our minds work out their difficulties. There’s so much I’d like to learn about the mind. Our knowledge is so limited. Perhaps the J’Ettanne could have done better had we understood more about such things.
We talked for a long time that night about the nature of dreams.
The trial would not begin for weeks yet, but as the tally of the new year began to run, I could feel Karon getting weaker. When anyone came to question me, I would ask how my husband was being treated. “He is a son-in-law of one of the oldest families in Leire. The law forbids starvation or maltreatment of any person who has not been convicted of a crime. I can cite the reference in the Westover Codex.”
No one listened to me. Once Karon mentioned that it appeared my good offices had gotten him an extra ration of water. Have you gained a sympathizer as I deeply hope, or have you just bullied someone so long they’ll do anything to quiet you?
“Hold on,” I said. “I’ll find a way.”
But nothing changed. I might as well have been spitting on the palace towers, hoping to wear away the stone.
Year 4 in the reign of King Evard —winter
A week before the trial was to begin, Karon came to me in the middle of the night. I’m sorry to wake you, but I needed to talk.
“I’d much rather be with you,” I said, sitting up on my bed and quieting my jangled thoughts so I could communicate clearly as I spoke.
I think they’ve decided I’ve told them all that I will, so I’ve had little to do but think.
“And what have you been thinking while I so lazily slumbered?”
Why I’m here.
“I don’t understand.”
If I’m really the last, then it’s a matter of some import when I die —beyond the small matter of a J’Ettanni healer of two and thirty years that no one but you will miss. No, I’m not teasing for you to tell me who’ll miss me, though it is a comfort. But it would seem that if I’m the last, and nature has consented to it, then, in some way, something will have been completed. I’d give much to know what it is.
“And has some insight come to you through all this thinking?”
Perhaps I’m losing my reason. I can’t tell anymore. That’s why I had to talk to you now. I’ve spent these days and weeks doing my best to deny that my body exists, and as I close off the outside world, I’ve found out how large and mysterious is the inner one. Alone in this darkness and feeling this way, I found something. It must have been buried in me long ago… or maybe it’s not in me, but in that part of me that is my father or my mother or my grandfather…
“Go on.”
It’s a word of power, like the words I use to heal.
“A word… what does it do?”
I don’t know. Maybe nothing. But I can’t get it out of my head, and there are images entwined in it, much in the way engravings of birds and beasts and flowers are worked into an illuminated manuscript. A white city stands surrounded by green mountains, and beyond it lies a great chasm, so deep and dark, I can’t see into it. Something… broken… I don’t know. Likely it’s all madness…
“You’re not mad. You are not. You are the one I know in every way. Do not doubt it.” I was up and pacing my room like a caged beast. It was so little I could give him. Only my conviction.
That’s what I needed to hear. Perhaps I’ll find out more about it as things go on.
“We’ll find out together.”
With only a few days left before the trial, I was still trying to find someone to help in Karon’s defense, but neither the priests nor the inquisitors were of any help. No one would ever defend a sorcerer, they said. Why ever would they?
“Because it’s just,” I said.
“I cannot comprehend why King Evard even permits a trial,” said a slight, balding priest of Annadis who had visited me several times. “To let a sorcerer live even one day is an intolerable affront to the Twins. The people demand to see him burn. They say he’s a spy for Kerotea, most likely working deviltry on their behalf, even imprisoned.” That, of course, was why the whole business was being drawn out so long. Karon was to be fed to the people to whet their appetite for Evard’s war, to supply fighters for his spring campaign.
“Pere Glasste, I must go to the trial. I must be allowed to speak for him.”
“Oh, I’ve no doubt you’ll be there, my lady. The king swears he’s never known you to lie.”
Though I thought it curious that Evard was touting my virtues, I took that bit of news and nestled it to me as if it were the most precious thing in the world. Hope. One splinter of hope. I would be able to speak for Karon. Martin had always said I could persuade the sea god Jerrat himself to drain the ocean. I wished the wizened little priest would take his quivering young acolyte and leave so I could savor hope, so I could think and plan what to do with it.
“We only hope you’ll be free enough of the sorcerer that the truth will not burn your lips.”
Bold with promise, drunk with infinitesimal possibility, I responded as if the priest might actually listen to me. “I’ve spoken only truth to you and your fellows all these weeks. And my husband speaks only truth. Listen to him, hear his story, and you’ll recognize it.”
The pale, scrawny man squirmed distastefully. “I would never listen to a sorcerer. That was your downfall, my lady: to hear the evil that got you into this dreadful obsession. Thank the Twins and the great father Arot that no one can ever again be taken in by this sorcerer’s devilish speech.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, because they cut out his tongue. Just yesterday. They couldn’t let him bewitch the king or the Council of Lords at his trial.”
The goggle-eyed acolyte joined in. “It’s the same reason they burnt out his eyes and crushed his hands on the night of his arrest. So he couldn’t use them to ensnare his inquisitors with evil signs and spells. We’ve had no instance of bewitching from this sorcerer at all!”
I felt as if the earth had given way beneath my feet. Backing away from the preening little beasts, I turned to the locked door and hammered my fists on it until blood streaked the pale wood. “Guards! Curse you forever. Guards! The gods curse you all. Remove this vermin from my room. I must see the chancellor or someone in authority. I demand to speak to my brother. Crimes are being committed in the name of the king. King Evard must be told!”
In moments the door was opened and the gaping priests scurried out, trembling like frightened rabbits. The acolyte dropped his lamp, and when a guard threw his heavy cloak over the burning pool of oil, I tried to push past him. But his comrade shoved me back inside the room and slammed the door. I screamed my outrage until I had no voice left, but no one was sent, either then or later, to listen to my grievances.
Shaking, hoarse, scarcely able to think through my sickness, I dropped to the floor and buried my head on my bed, fighting for control. I had not spoken with Karon since the previous evening—since they had done this new horror—and as the silent hours passed, I began to fear he was dead. His eyes. His tongue. His sweet hands. Oh, gods have mercy…
The wheeling of the light outside my high window witnessed that time had not stopped. Morning came. Someone left a tray inside my door. I did not move to touch it. The angle of the beams shifted to afternoon. The tray disappeared. Only when the last sallow rays of the sun were swallowed once again by the gray of evening did I hear his call. Seri…
“I’m here,” I said, and filled my mind with the images I had readied for him, hoping and praying he could find some small comfort in me—thoughts of gardens, of riding his great horse, of mountains and dawn light and my arms around him. But all my preparation went for nothing. I thought I knew the worst they had done to him, but I was wrong.
They’ve taken Martin and the others. They say they’ll do whatev
er is necessary to make them confess to treason. I can hear them screaming… The voice in my head was as gray as the sea under storm clouds, as dead as a battlefield when even the gleaners have moved on, as joyless as the charred ruins of Xerema. Even on the worst nights of that terrible winter, Karon had not come so near despair. They say they’ll do the same to you. They say they’ve evidence you’ve done murder, and that you’ll hang for it. Oh, gods, Seri —
“They’ll not touch me, Karon. Tomas has Evard’s word.” I gripped the raw wood frame of my bed until I thought the plank must bend. “Connor and I will be safe at Comigor. No one can harm us there.”
The others won’t understand what these people will do to them. They’ll try to resist, thinking it will make some difference.
“They knew, Karon. They knew the risks as I did. You allowed us to choose our way. We were grown adults, and we made the choice to have you in our lives. It was not just words that night at Martin’s.”
I should have left Leire .
“Martin has known for years that the moment Evard’s popularity waned, his life was not worth a copper penny. But even if that weren’t so, we made the choice and no one of us would change it. It is life, Karon, the life we wanted, and you must let us embrace it as you do yours.”
Which was, of course, exactly why I did not scream at him to use his sorcery to save us all, though in every corner of my soul I knew the horrors yet to come. How do you persuade the one you love to violate the very essence of his being? He had chosen, and I was his wife who had promised to sustain him in his life’s path. But I could not think how I was to bear it.
CHAPTER 20
