‘Master Gilbur, will you accompany me in this?’
Surprise echoed around the circle. Gilbur gaped. But he quickly nodded, murmuring, ‘I will.’
Master Barsonage permitted himself a sigh of relief. ‘Master Gilbur, I take that as a second. Masters, it has been proposed that we delay the translation of our champion for six days, until Master Eremis and Master Gilbur have spoken to the lords of the Cares. Shall it be accepted? What is your will?’
The vote was almost unanimous.
Terisa began breathing more easily, as if a threat had been averted. Six days. Anything could happen in six days.
But Master Eremis wasn’t done. Still standing, he said, ‘One matter more. The lords of the Cares will come to Orison openly, as befits their station. But they will meet in secret.’
The mediator nodded briskly. ‘I understand you.’ The postponement appeared to have restored his confidence, his command of the situation. ‘Masters,’ he said in an incisive voice, his jaw jutting, ‘my lady Terisa of Morgan, no one must speak of this. No one. Whatever your private opinion of us, and of what we mean to do, you must not speak.’ He addressed the circle generally, but his gaze was fixed on Terisa. ‘The lords will not trust us if any word of this meeting precedes them. If King Joyse interferes, all hope of any alliance will be lost. We do what we do, not to aggrandize ourselves, but to save Mordant. We must not be betrayed.’ Slowly, he moved until he was standing at the rail in front of her: his eyes held hers. ‘My lady,’ he said quietly, ‘you must not speak of anything you have heard today.’
He gave her a wry smile. ‘Geraden will question you, I do not doubt. If you become acquainted with her, you will find that the lady Elega is insatiably curious. Castellan Lebbick desires to know everything that takes place in Orison. Even King Joyse may bestir himself to take an interest in you.
‘My lady, you must say nothing.’
She tried to meet his eyes, but they were too demanding. He was asking her to make a choice and stand by it – asking her to accept at least a small share of the responsibility for Master Eremis’ success. A passive share, perhaps, but a choice nonetheless. Wasn’t that what people who believed in themselves did? – made choices and stood by them?
She hesitated because she wasn’t ready to promise that she wouldn’t talk to Geraden.
Fortunately, Master Eremis came to her rescue. ‘Master Barsonage,’ he said kindly, ‘I am certain that we can trust her.’
The mediator glanced at Eremis, frowning as if he disliked his thoughts – as if something in Eremis’ words or tone suddenly raised a host of questions. A moment later, however, he shook his head and turned away.
‘Masters,’ he said distantly, ‘are there other matters we must discuss here?’
No one said anything.
‘Then let us have done. I think that we have cast enough votes that will shape Mordant’s future for one day.’
Leaving the center of the circle, he passed between the pillars, unbolted a door, and walked out of the chamber.
Terisa looked for Master Quillon. He wasn’t present. Apparently, he had already left.
Master Eremis took her arm and raised her to her feet. ‘Come, my lady,’ he said privately. ‘This is only your third day among us, yet already I feel I have been waiting a long time to offer you my hospitality.’
She couldn’t resist the way he pulled her arm through his and hugged her to his side. She sensed triumph from him, and anticipation, a secret, whetted enthusiasm. He was moving events too quickly. His confident vitality as he paraded her out of the chamber ahead of most of the Masters made her thoughts swirl.
When she was that close to him, his physical impact on her dominated everything else. He gave off a slight scent of perspiration and cloves, and she could feel muscle working over bone under his jet cloak. Where did his confidence come from, his power? And what did he see in her? Why did he go to such lengths to lay claim to her? She didn’t understand him at all.
That made his hold on her stronger. His confidence was like a display of magic, enchanting because it was at once so attractive and so far beyond her experience.
As a result, she walked at his side as if his strength and her uncertainty were a kind of charm, entrancing her in ways she couldn’t define.
He made her want something she didn’t know how to name.
Still escorting her formally, he took her up out of the laborium and into the public passages of Orison. Once past the ballroom, however, he moved her in the opposite direction from the route to which she was growing accustomed – the route back to her rooms. As they walked, he explained that they were entering a section of the castle devoted to the personal quarters of the Masters – a section that King Joyse had had rebuilt when he first began to form the Congery, so that his Imagers would have fitting, perhaps even sumptuous, places to live, places that would show the respect in which their occupants were held. But she only paid attention to the sound of his voice, not to what he said. At once fascinated and alarmed, she concentrated on him physically as though his voice and his scent and the hard grasp of his arm were a spell that might solve the problem of her existence at last.
Leaving the ballroom behind, they began to pass more and more people. She saw a knowing leer in some of the greetings Master Eremis received from men of rank, a smile of congratulation or envy. Guards rolled their eyes at the ceiling; a few of them were bold enough to wink. Ladies and chambermaids studied her as if they were trying to grasp what made her desirable.
The sensation that she was enchanted and real caused her to feel unexpectedly bold. Undaunted by the way people looked at her, she said, ‘That was a nice thing you tried to do for Geraden.’
‘Do you think so, my lady?’ She heard the grin in his tone. ‘You are delightfully naive. A child’s spirit in a woman’s body.’ With his free hand, he stroked her forearm; his touch seemed to leave trails of intensity on her skin. ‘I doubt, however, that Quillon takes a similar view. Unless I am quite mistaken, he considers me cruel.’
His mention of Quillon sparked a quick protective reaction in her. There was little in herself or her circumstances of which she was sure; but she was sure that she didn’t want to betray either Master Quillon or Adept Havelock. She felt Eremis probing on that point, and she replied immediately – perhaps too immediately – ‘Quillon? Which one was he? I haven’t been introduced to very many of the Masters.’
He responded with an easy laugh. ‘No matter, my lady. I assure you that he is of no significance whatsoever.’
With a wave of his hand, he indicated that they had arrived at his quarters.
They had just entered a short hall like a cul-de-sac, with a door or two on either side and one at the end. The stone of the walls was the same almost-smooth gray granite that appeared everywhere in Orison, but the door bore no resemblance to the dungeon doors of the laborium. It was of rosewood, polished to a high sheen so that the bas-relief carved into it was unmistakable: a full-length rendering of Master Eremis himself, complete with a sardonic smile and a look of extraordinary knowledge in his eyes – a look, Terisa realized a moment later, that was achieved by embedding subtle pieces of ivory in the wood.
‘I hope you will always be able to find me, my lady,’ he remarked. ‘The doors of the Masters are marked with their characteristic signs and sigils. But Orison is large, and signs are easily confused. Anyone who knows me will always know which door is mine.’
Deftly, he unlatched the door and steered her into his chambers.
His use of the word sumptuous hadn’t prepared her for the room she entered. After the relative starkness of the halls and stone outside, the opulence of the furnishings seemed exotic and exquisite. Both light and warmth were provided by perfumed oil fires cunningly hidden in brass shells as large as urns, their sides cut into delicate open filigree. The main piece of furniture was a huge divan swathed in satin and piled with pillows; and before it stood a long, low table, its engraved brass top suspended by chains
from rosewood legs at each corner. But there were two or three armchairs in the room as well, each cloaked in satin to match the divan. An ornate washstand and basin, also of brass, filled one niche. Nearby was a wooden cabinet that held what appeared to be wine decanters. The floor was softened by several layers of rugs, the uppermost of which cast a solid sweep of crimson against the predominant blue of the furniture and the canary drapes that covered the windows. The fabric masking the ceiling was also canary; but the tapestries on the walls picked up all three colors, using crimson primarily to focus attention on what they depicted – scenes of women in various stages of seduction.
Grinning his welcome, Master Eremis released Terisa’s arm and bolted the door. ‘Joyse treats his Imagers well, as you see, my lady,’ he commented. ‘Mordant, however, is not natively wealthy. For centuries, the Cares produced nothing grander than wheat, grapes, and cattle – and farmers to tend them. Our King’s wealth – like his power – is the result of war.’ He glanced around him smugly. ‘Doubtless some Cadwal noble previously had the use of these riches. That pleases me.’
He moved to the washstand to rinse his hands and sprinkle a few drops of water on his face. When he returned to her side, Terisa smelled a renewed scent of cloves. ‘Be comfortable,’ he said, gesturing toward the divan. ‘Do you like wine?’ His smile was fading, and there was an avid smolder in his eyes.
The tang of incense, and the smell of cloves, and the expression on his face shifted the balance of her excitement and alarm, made a sensation like panic rise in her throat. Groping for something to say, some way to gain time so that she could try to think, she blurted out, ‘There was something I didn’t understand about the mirrors. When Geraden was showing them to me.’
He frowned, perhaps at her mention of Geraden, perhaps at her uncertainty. To cover whatever vexation he felt, he went to the cabinet, took out two goblets, and filled them with a wine as crimson as the rug. Then he came back to her, placed one of the goblets in her hands, and drank from his. He was smiling again, and the urgency in his eyes had receded a bit, become more wary.
‘Frankly, my lady,’ he said, ‘no one understands what you saw. No mirror, flat or otherwise, can change its Image. Since it is impossible, I would not have believed it if I had not seen it myself.
‘Doubtless you noticed that we did not discuss that change in our debate today. There is nothing to be said about the impossible, now that it is gone. Most of the Masters did not believe me when I described what had happened. Especially’ – he spoke in a musing tone – ‘since I did not recognize the new Image and could not identify it.’
‘Oh, Geraden recognizes it. It’s called the Closed Fist. He says it’s somewhere in the Care of Domne.’ As soon as she said the words, she felt that she shouldn’t have. She had a strange feeling that she had betrayed a secret – that she had betrayed Geraden. But Master Eremis’ virile presence compelled her to speak. He bowed slightly over her, listening as though he were waiting for her to finish so that he could take hold of her. She needed time. At once, she explained, ‘But that isn’t what I meant.’
As if involuntarily, she told Master Eremis what she hadn’t told Geraden. She told him what she had found in the glass that showed the champion: not violence, not her apartment, but the Closed Fist in springtime.
Her hasty admission interested him, although it didn’t appear to interest him quite as much as she had hoped. His frown now was one of thoughtful consideration. ‘That is strange,’ he admitted. Slowly, he took her to the divan and seated her so that her side was warm against his, with his arm on the cushions behind her and his torso leaning toward her. ‘Did Geraden have this experience also?’
She shook her head. ‘He tried.’ Her senses were full of incense, cloves, and baffled desire. ‘He wanted to see if he could take me back where he found me. So that I would at least have the choice of leaving. But when he went into the glass, he was with your champion.’
‘Indeed?’ He cocked an eyebrow. ‘Then it was for you that the translation went astray?’
She didn’t want to think like that. ‘Or Geraden does it for me. He probably doesn’t even know he’s doing it. He doesn’t know he has the power.’ She remembered the way he had left the meeting hall – the way he had spoken out for her; the authority of his first appeal to her. To herself, she murmured, ‘They should have accepted him as a Master.’
‘Then,’ Master Eremis said firmly, ‘it is well that this changing of Images was not publicly debated. Unable to believe such power of Geraden, the Masters would have concluded that you are the powerful Imager they both fear and want.
‘But you are no Imager, as we both know. I will speak quietly to Masters who may be trusted, and we will attempt to explain the things you do not understand.’
While he spoke, his arm tightened around her; now his lips brushed her hair. ‘Are you satisfied? I am ready to begin exploring the territory of your womanhood.’
She felt that she had no choice, that all choices were being swept away. Her body yearned against her clothes. She inhaled his warm breath as his mouth came down and covered hers firmly.
Then somebody knocked at the door.
The knocking was quiet at first, a few gentle taps. Master Eremis ignored it. His tongue stroked her lips, giving her a taste of kisses she had never experienced. But the knock became more insistent. Soon the person outside the door was hammering at the wood.
‘Whelp of a dog!’ Eremis jerked himself off the divan. Chewing curses under his breath, he strode to the door, unbolted it, and yanked it open.
Terisa saw Geraden standing in the doorway.
She was breathing harder than she should have been, and she could feel her face burning.
He didn’t look at her – or at Eremis: he kept his gaze studiously fixed on a vacant spot between them. ‘Master Eremis,’ he said in a controlled tone, ‘how may I serve you?’
‘Serve me?’ snapped the Master. ‘Why do you imagine that I have any need of you at all? Go away.’
‘I’m in your debt. For no apparent reason, you proposed me for the chasuble of a Master. I’m done with my other duties. I want to repay you somehow.’
‘Very good. I accept your indebtedness. Repay me’ – with a visible effort, Master Eremis refrained from shouting – ‘by leaving me alone.’
At that, Geraden raised his eyes. Steadily, he said, ‘The lady Terisa deserves better.’
Then he turned and walked away.
Master Eremis cursed again and started to slam the door. He caught it before it closed, however, shut it gently and restored the bolt. When he turned back to Terisa, there was a distant, peculiar smile on his face – a smile that might almost have been one of admiration. ‘That boy is a challenge,’ he murmured. He sounded like he was speaking to himself; but the glance he gave Terisa showed that he was aware of her. ‘I must think of something truly special for him.’
A moment later, he shrugged the question away and looked at her more directly. The intensity came back into his eyes. He returned to the divan, drained his goblet, then seated himself close beside her again.
Without quite meaning to, she shifted a little away from him. By turning more to face him, she was able to raise her goblet like a barrier between them. Her cheeks still burned: for no clear reason, the sight of Geraden made her feel that she was doing something she should have been ashamed of. The lady Terisa deserves better. What did that mean? He knew too little about her to say something like that.
And yet the way he said it – the lady Terisa deserves better – touched her. It made her withdraw a bit from the Master leaning expectantly over her.
‘That reminds me.’ Her voice was soft, even tentative; but inwardly she seemed to be growing bolder all the time – so bold that she could hardly recognize herself. She actually met his avid gaze as she said, ‘He told me you don’t believe I exist. Remember? And you said you believed I didn’t exist until I came out of the mirror. That’s something else I don’t understand.’
‘In what way?’ Eremis’ tone expressed deliberate patience.
She tried to explain. ‘I don’t know anything about Imagery. I don’t really understand anything about it. But I’m trying. It’s easier for me to believe that a mirror is like a window. It lets you see from one place to another. Or from one world to another.’ She hoped he couldn’t see the way her heart was beating, the way her breath came unsteadily from her chest. She didn’t want him to know how important this question was to her. ‘It’s much harder to believe that a piece of glass creates what you see in it.’
Please. Do you really think I didn’t exist until you saw me for the first time?
‘Ah.’ He nodded in recognition. ‘As you must know by now, my lady, that is the fundamental confusion which divides and weakens the Congery. And Joyse further muddies the issue by insisting upon “ethical” questions, such as, by what right do we translate Images out of their natural existence? But that is extraneous. The matter cannot be resolved until the essential point is known. Is a mirror a ‘‘window,’’ as you call it, or are the Images seen in the glass brought into being by Imagery itself, by the act of making and shaping the mirror?’
As he spoke, he moved incrementally closer to her, leaned closer to her. His arm was around her again so that she couldn’t retreat, and his spell renewed its power. She had never realized before that the delicate aroma of cloves was sensuous. She could no longer hold his gaze. Instead, she watched his mouth as if in spite of her uncertainty – not to mention her recent embarrassment – she wanted him to kiss her again.
‘The true difficulty, however, is not a failure of understanding, but of imagination.’ He took the goblet from her and put it aside. His voice became lower, huskier. ‘The evidence of the truth is plain, but we do not accept it because, as you have observed, it is harder to credit.’
His mouth dipped to hers, kissed her lightly: once; again. The second time, she responded as if she knew what she was doing.