Текст книги "Magic's Pawn"

Автор книги: Mercedes Lackey

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Andrel arrived at sunset in response to her invitation to fetch his cloak and share food and thoughts. They’d had more than one intimate little supper in their lives, many of them in this very room, but none so gloom-ridden. Mardic and Donni had gone off to cautiously interview some of Vanyel’s circle of admirers, to see if there was someone else they could contact that might help to bring him out of this mental abyss.

Savil’s Hawkbrother masks on the wall behind Andrel’s left shoulder gazed at her from dispassionate and empty eyeholes. Candles flickered on the table between them.

Neither of them had much interest in food at the moment; both their minds were on the boy sleeping behind the closed door behind Savil’s chair. “What we need,” she told Andrel glumly, eating a dinner she did not taste, “is Lancir. We need his MindHealing; the boy’s pulling farther away from touchingwith every moment he’s awake, and I cannot get him to let me inside. He’s barricading himself again; a different kind of barricade than that old arrogance, but it’s there all the same. And Lance bloody wouldbe out of touch right now.’’

He sighed, his breath making the candleflame flutter, and pushed his own food around on his plate with his fork. “I have to agree with you. Is there no chance you can get Lance back via Gate?’’

She shook her head, shoving her frustration back down out of her way. She’d already been over this with Jaysen. “Not without knowing where he is, and he’s not a strong enough Thought-senser to read a Broadcast-sending. And we don’t know what route he’s taking home; could be one of half a dozen. If something were wrong with Elspeth we could afford to send out half-a-dozen Heralds to look for him, but – Vanyel just is not that important.” Her tone turned acid. “Or so I’ve been told.”

Andrel frowned, and his eyebrows met. “He may become that important; I’m shielding him as much as I can, but his trauma is still leaking through. Half the trainees are depressed to the point of tears right now, Gifted Bardic, Healer, andHerald, and it’s all due to Vanyel’s leakage.”

“Well what do you expect?” she countered, letting him see her very real anger.

“Yousaw the strength and depth of his Gifts. Even with raw channels he’s Broad-sending without knowing it, and he has no more notion of how to shield than how to fly! And it’s not every day you’ve got one half of a lifebonded pair left after the other half suicides. If he were trained, he’d be leaking. But nobody else believes how strong he is; they all think I’m letting my affection for Tylendel magnify everything that was connected with him out of all proportion to reality.”

“Gods!” he looked up from his plate with the expression of a stunned sheep. “Vanyel and Tylendel – lifebonded?”

She nodded unhappily. “I’m pretty damned sure of it; what’s more, so are Mardic and Donni, and if anyone would recognize a bonding, it would be another bonded pair. I expected grief, mourning; the natural responses for a youngster who’s lost his first love under rotten bad circumstances – I did notexpect to find the kind of gaping emotional wounds I saw before he started shutting me out today. I’ve never seen that depth of feeling before in anyone, Herald, or no, exceptMardic and Donni. So tell me; what the hell do I do about a broken lifebond?”

He shook his head, obviously at a loss. “I can’t tell you; I don’t know. I don’t Heal minds, I Heal bodies. And I don’t know of anyone who Heals hearts.”

She sighed, and looked down at her congealing dinner. “That’s what I was afraid you’d tell me. I have more bad news; the relationship between them was one where ‘Lendel was the leader and Van the follower. Van had gotten totally dependent on ‘Lendel for all his emotional needs. I tried to warn ‘Lendel, but – “ She shrugged. “And to put the snow on the mountain, Van’s got some guilt he’s hiding from me, and all I can think is that he’s convinced he cursed ‘Lendel because he seduced Tylendel. Mind you, he didn’t; from all I know I’m positive the seduction, if seduction it was, was mutual, but – there it is.”

“Jaysen,” Andrel said positively.

She nodded. “Good bet, my friend. Jays has got all those Kleimar prejudices about same-sex pairings. He accepted ‘Lendel, but mostly after I rammed his prejudices right up in his face. But Vanyel? Vanyel wasn’t even a Herald-candidate when he and ‘Lendel paired. Jays hasn’t saida word, but you can bet on what he was thinking when he was keeping watch on him. Resentment that Van is alive and ‘Lendel dead would be the least of it.”

“And Vanyel picked it up,” Andrel said sadly.

“Probably.” She took a bite, found it catch in her throat, and gave up trying to eat, shoving the plate away. “From what I can tell, he’s sensitive enough to pick up things you’veforgotten for years and do it right through your shielding. Ah, gods.”

She rested both elbows on the table, and covered her sore eyes with her hands. A moment later she felt one of Andrel’s hands stroking her hair, and dropped her own back on the table, giving him a good long look across the candleflames. His deeply green eyes were fixed on her face, reflecting a profound concern.

“And what about you?” he asked, barely above a whisper.

“I am tryingto reach out to him,” she said, feeling old and tired and about ready to give up. “I think I’ve convinced myself that none of this was any more his fault than it was anyone else’s. I bloody well hope so, or he’s going to be getting knives in the gut from me, too. And he doesn’t deserve that. The rest – gods, I don’t know what to do.”

“That isn’t what I meant,” he replied, taking his hand away from her hair, and reaching for her wrist. “I want to know how you’reweathering this. Need a shoulder?”

“Want the truth?” She tensed all over, trying to keep from bawling like a little child. “Yes, I need a shoulder, and no, I am nottaking this well. I want ‘Lendel back, Andy – he was my soul-son, and I loved him, and I want him back with me.”

Her voice cracked; she lost her veneer of calm, and just dissolved into tears. Andrel got up, gracefully, and without letting go of her wrist; he moved around the table, and pulled her to her feet, then led her over to the couch and gave her that shoulder she needed so badly.

The peaceful night rocked; Vanyel convulsed, wailing -

His cry sounded like something in its death agonies, and made Savil’s hair stand on end.

The room trembled; literally. The walls shook as Vanyel’s muscles spasmed.

His eyes were wide open, but saw nothing, and his pupils dilated with fear. He convulsed again, and the very foundation of the Palace rocked. The bed shook as if it were alive. His lute fell from the wall, landing with a sickening crack that surely meant it was broken past all repair; his armor-stand crashed over and scattered his equipment across the floor, and Savil was tossed from his bedside to the floor before she realized it.

She picked herself up off the floor beside his bed without thinking about safety or bruises, and flung herself at him again.

He thrashed beneath her, fighting her with a paranormal strength; he couldn’t know where he was or who she was. All she could read from him was terrible agony – and beneath the pain, confusion, panic, entrapment. She caught his wrists and tried to pinion them against the pillows; then tried to pin him down with the blankets. His chest arched against hers, he screamed, and the walls shook again.

Mardic lay in the corner behind her, quite unconscious; Donni had his head in her lap and she was trying to protect him from falling objects with her own body. Vanyel had thrown him against the wall when this nightmare – or whatever it was – had started, and Mardic had made the mistake of trying to touch his mind to wake him.

:Donni– : Savil used a moment of lull to Mindtouch her pupil, taking a tiny fragment of her attention from the attempt – attempt, for it wasn’t succeeding – to shield Vanyel, to get him under some kind of control. : – Donni, how’s Mardic?:

:He’s all right, just stunned,: came the reassuring reply. : – Ican spare you something. Catch this, quick-:

The girl “threw” her a mental line, and began sending additional, sorely-needed energy down it as soon as Savil “caught” it.

It helped to keep Savil from blacking out as Vanyel lashed out with hismind, but that was about all.

Jaysen was coming on the run; Savil could Feel him reaching out to find out what the hell was going on, and Felt the panic in hismind when he realized they had a powerful Gifted trapped in a pain-loop and hallucination. He all but broke down the door, trying to get in, and flung himself into the affray without a second thought.

“Shieldhim, dammit,” he shouted, throwing himself across Vanyel’s legs, as the walls (but, thank the gods, not the foundations again) shook.

“I’m trying, “she snapped back, giving up on the uneven struggle to pin Vanyel down, and settling for securing his arms. “He breaks them as fast as I get them up!”

Jaysen succeeded in getting Vanyel physically restrained where she, being lighter, had failed. He added his strength to Savil’s and Donni’s on the crumbling shields they were trying to get on the boy. But it wasn’t even stalemate; they were losing him to his own nightmares.

Andrel appeared. Savil didn’t even see or Sense him run in; he was just thereall in an instant. But instead of flinging himself into the melee, he grabbed their arms and pulled both of them offthe boy.

Then he reached down for something at his feet, and came up with a bucket of icy water. He doused the boy, bed and all, without a heartbeat of hesitation.

The convulsions stopped as Vanyel came abruptly awake.

He sat up – stared – then he suddenly went limp.

The room stopped shaking.

“Savil, get me a blanket,” Andrel ordered quietly. “Jays, help me get him out of that wet bed before he goes into shock, then get the bedding stripped before the mattress gets soaked.”

By the time Savil returned with the goosedown comforter from her bed, the two men had pulled the half-stunned boy from the tangled mess of water-soaked bedcoverings, and the bedding was piled on the floor. Andrel was carefully shaking the boy’s shoulders while Jaysen supported him.

Behind them, Mardic was groggily climbing to his knees, Donni steadying him, but the two of them waved Savil off when she made a half-step in their direction.

:.We’re all right,: Donni Mindspoke. ; I’ II get Mardic into bed myself, and then I’ll come make up the bed in here again.:

Savil turned her attention back to the boy, knowing she could trust Donni to deal with the situation if she had said she could.

“Come on, Vanyel,” Andrel was saying, coaxingly. “Come on, lad, come back to us. Wake up, come out of it.”

Vanyel blinked, blinked again, and sense came back into his eyes. He looked about him, momentarily confused, then the destruction about him seemed to register on him. He closed his eyes, a soft, hardly audible moan coming from the back of his throat.

And for one instant, Savil was nearly flattened beneath an overwhelming load of blackest despair, terrible guilt, and a grief so heavy she felt her knees start to give way beneath the weight of it.

Then it was gone; absolutely cut off, and so completely that for a moment even she doubted that she had felt it.

But one look at Andrel and Jaysen convinced her otherwise; the former was deeply shaken, and the latter white-lipped.

She expected tenderness and concern from Andrel – but strangely enough, it was Jaysen who carefully got the boy into a chair, wrapped in the comforter; and from the chair back into the bed when Donni had stripped it of the wet coverings and remade it. It was Jaysen who stayed beside him, leaving Savil free to see to it that Mardic was truly all right. Savil wasn’t in a mood to ask questions about his apparent change of heart.

Mardic was fine, and relatively cheerful. “I’ll have a godsawful headache,” he told her; “Poor Van thought I was going to kill him, took me for an enemy in his dream. When he realized it wasa dream, he pulled most of it – “

“Mostof it?” Savil choked. “He flattened you, and he pulled mostof it?”

“Near as I can tell.” Mardic put both hands to his temples and massaged a little. “Well when he pulled the blow, the energy overflowed into those raw channels and hurt him, and he went over the edge; couldn’t control anything. Then – I think– he lost his center and got lost in his own pain. Andrel had the right notion; physical shock is what gave him something to home in on.”

“But you aregoing to be all right?”

He gave her half a grin. “If you’ll let me get some sleep.”

Savil took the statement as an unsubtle request and made a hasty exit.

She got back just in time to see Andrel give Vanyel some kind of sedative to drink. But it was Jaysen who sat with the boy until Andrel’s sedative took effect. And it was Jaysen who righted the armor-stand, and picked up the broken-backed lute from the floor with a wince at seeing the fine instrument so ruined.

“I’ll see to getting this fixed, if it can be,” he said, when he saw Savil watching him before she knelt to put out the fire. They daren’t have a fire here while Vanyel was asleep, nor candles burning, either – not unless Andrel could do something to keep him from going into another fit.

“Jays, what am I going to do with him?” she asked, quietly, standing up with a wince as a pulled muscle in her back told her what a fool she’d been. He motioned that she should precede him out the door, and she half turned to see his face as she walked past him. “He’s sick with backlash, and he’s getting sicker, not better. His channels are all raw; you can’t Mindtouch him without doing thatto him, throwing him into convulsions. That was what set all this off, Mardic trying to soothe him out of a bad dream. What am I going to do the nexttime he has a nightmare?”

Jaysen shrugged helplessly, and shut the door behind her. She made a circuit of the common room, setting candles erect and lighting them. “If you don’t know, be damned if I do. Andy, can we keep him sedated long enough to heal?’’

Andrel grimaced, looking as if he’d swallowed something sour. “With any other patient I’d tell you where to put that question – what I just gave the boy was argonel.”

Jaysen and Savil both started with surprise, and in Savil’s case the surprise was not unmixed with shock. “Great good gods, Andy!”

“Ease up; he’s safe enough,” Andrel interrupted her, throwing himself down on the couch with his usual lack of concern for the furniture. He groaned, stretched, and then raised an eyebrow at the Seneschal’s Herald. “Jaysen, may I mention that you have lovely legs?”

Jaysen, who was attired only in shirt and hose and only just now really realized this, blushed a furious scarlet, but refused to be distracted. “Argonel, Andy – “ he began, taking a chair and crossing his legs primly.

“He’s burning it off at a respectable rate, or I wouldn’t have given it to him,” Andrel replied. “The benefit of it is that it’s a muscle relaxant anda sedative; he won’t be able to go into convulsions again even if you Mindtouch him. I won’tspeak for him tossing the Palace around, but he won’t go into physicalconvulsions. As for him healing, well that depends entirely on what you mean.”

Savil took another chair, flopping down into it with a tired thudas loud as the one Andrel had made connecting with the couch cushions.

“Physically,” she said, flatly. “Pure physical healing. Backlash symptoms, exhaustion, blood loss. I’ll worry about raw channels later.”

“Yes, I can keep him sedated long enough for the effects of backlash to wear off, for his physical energy to recover and for him to replace the blood he lost. I can combine the argonel with jervain, and dull out all the Gift-senses enough so that they aren’t so sensitive. That mightlet the channels heal. I don’t know for sure; I’ve never seen nor read of anything like this, Gifts being blasted open like his were.”

“Mentally?” Jaysen prodded, frowning. “Emotionally?”

“At this point I don’t think even Lance can help him,” Andrel replied sadly. “You both felt – “

Jaysen nodded, ruefully. “That’s – I think perhaps I picked up something more than either of you,” he said, a shadow of guilt crossing his face. “He – he thinks that everything he touches is doomed, cursed. Because of – what he and ‘Lendel were. And I know exactlywhere he got that particularly poisonous little thought. Only it isn’t a ‘little thought’ anymore. It’s as much an obsession as Tylendel’s was.”

He hung his head, and wouldn’t look at her. “I never thought – “ he faltered. “I never guessed – I thought he was just a user – “

Savil was not feeling charitable just now. “Damn right, you never thought,” she snapped. “You never thought at all! You and your damned provincial – “

“Savil,” Andrel said, warningly, his head turned slightly to the side, nodding at the door to Vanyel’s room.

She subsided. If she got angry, Van might pick it up; it might set him off again. “Sorry, Jays,” she finally said grudgingly, not feeling sorry at all.

“At least you didn’t send somebody out to cut their wrists,” he answered unhappily.

She winced. “No – I just – hell, this isn’t getting us anywhere. Andy, you think you can get him physicallyrecovered, right?”

Candlelight reflected in his eyes, which had gone inward-looking. “I would say yes, cautiously.”

“Let’s worry about that, then, for a couple of days. I have a germ of an idea, but whether or not I can pull it off is going to depend very strongly on whether or not youcan get Vanyel fit to ride.’’

“If I can’t get him to that point in the next couple of weeks or so, it’s never going to happen,” Andrel replied.

“What’s the chance we can do something about the way he’s barricading himself – or even help him get some of his power under his own control?’’

He pondered her question while the fire crackled beside him. “Why don’t you ask your Companions? He may be able to barricade against you, but I doubt he can do much against Yfandes.”

She pressed her hand to her eyes and shook her head. “Gods, why in hell didn’t I think of that?” And at the same time, Mindsent :Kellan?: knowing that Jaysen was doing the same with Felar.

-.Here,: came the reply, immediately.

She sent their dilemma in a complicated thought-burst, and waited while Kellan digested the information, and possibly conferred with Felar and Yfandes.

:Yfandes says that the bonding is weak,: came the reply, flavored with the acid tang of concern. : It fades in and out– and it hurts the boy, sometimes, to speak with her.:

:Can we do anything about that?: Jaysen fell into the rapport, and if there was anything other than genuine distress there on Vanyel’s behalf, Savil couldn’t feel it. Through him, she could Hear Felar.

:Physical contact,: Felar said shortly.

Kellan agreed. :As much as possible. That is what strengthens the bonding; now she cannot help him to get control of what he does.:

:And if the bond is strengthened?: Jaysen asked.

: Perhaps,: said Felar.

:A hope,: added Kellan.

Jaysen looked into Savil’s eyes from across the room, and nodded, a little grimly. At this point they would accept even a hope, however tenuous.

Nothing hurt much, now, not since he’d drunk that fiery stuff the red-haired Healer had given him. Those places inside him, the mind-things, that had burned so – they still burned, but remotely, as if the hurting belonged to somebody else. He couldn’t concentrate on much of anything for very long, and none of it really seemed to matter.

Only the empty place in him was pretty much the same; only that continued to ache in a way the Healer’s potions couldn’t seem to touch. The place where Tylendel had been – and now -

But the potions let him sleep, a sleep without dreams. And he’d had the snow-dreams again – that was what had thrown him into that fit.

Oh, gods – he’d thought – he’d thought they’d never come again. He’d thought ‘Lendel had driven them away.

But they weren’t the dreams about being walled in by ice, so maybe ‘Lendel had -

Maybe not. He couldn’t tell. It was the other dream, anyway. Clear, vivid as no other dream he’d dreamed had ever been, and much more detailed than the last time he’d had it.

He’d been in a canyon, a narrow mountain pass with walls that were peculiarly smooth. He’d known, in the dream, that this was no real pass – that this passage had been created, cut armlength by armlength, by magic.

He’d known, too, that the magic had been wrong, skewed. It had an aura of pain and death about it, as if every thumblength of that canyon had been paid for in spilled blood.

It had been night; cloudy, with a smell of snow on the wind. Where he stood the canyon had narrowed momentarily, choked by avalanches on either side. He’d been very cold, despite the heavy weight of a fur cloak on his shoulders; his feet had been like blocks of the ice that edged the canyon walls.

He had felt a feeling of grim satisfaction, when he’d seen that at this one point the passage was wide enough for two men, but no more. And he knew that hehad somehow caused those blockages, to create a place where one man could, conceivably, hold off an army.

Because an army was what was coming down that canyon.

He’d sent for help, sent Yfandes and Tylendel -

Tylendel? But Tylendel was dead -

– but he’d also known that help was unlikely to arrive in time.

He had waited until they were almost on him, suspecting nothing, and knowing that they could not see him yet because he willed it so. Then he had raised his right hand high over his head, and a mage-light had flared on it; so bright that the front ranks of that terrible army winced back, and their shadows fell black as the heart of night on the snow behind them. He had said nothing; nothing needed to be said. He barred the way; that was all the challenge required.

They were heavily armored, those fighters; armor of some dull, black stuff, and helms of the same. They carried the weight of that armor as easily as Vanyel wore his own white fur cloak. They bore unornamented round shields, again of the same dull, black material, and carried long broadswords. For the rest, what could be seen of their clothing under the armor and their cloaks over it, they were a motley lot. But they movedwith a kind of sensitivity to the presence of the next-in-line that had told Vanyel in the dream that they had been drilled together by a hand more merciless than ever Jervis had been.

They stared at him, and none of them moved for a very long time -

Until the front ranks parted, and the wizard stepped through.

Wizard he was, and no doubt; Vanyel could feel the Power heavy within him. But it was Power of the same kind as that which had cut this canyon; paid for in agony. And when it was gone, there would be no more until the wizard could torture and kill again. Vanyel had all the power of life itself behind him; the power of the sleeping earth, of the living forest -

He spread his arms, and the life-energy flowed from him, creating a barricade across the valley -

– like the barricade across his heart-

– and a shield behind which he could shelter. He faced the wizard, head held high, defiance in the slightest movement, daring him to try and pass.

But the ranks of the fighters parted again, and the first wizard was joined by a second, and a third. And Vanyel felt his heart sinking, seeing his own death sentence written in those three-to-one odds.

Still, he had stood his ground -

Until Mardic touched his mind.

It had hurt, that touch; salt on raw flesh. He’d interpreted it as an attack of the wizards, and had struck back, struck to kill, and only as he’d made his strike had realized that -

– a dream, oh, gods– it’s a dream, it isn’t real, and that’s Mardic -

And had tried to pull the blow; hadpulled the blow, but that sent the aborted power coursing back down places that burned in agony when it touched them. And he’d tried to stop the flow, but that had only twisted things up inside him, until he was a thrashing knot of anguish and he didn’t know where he was or what he was doing. It all hurt, everything hurt, everything burned, and he was trapped in the pain, in the torment, crying out and knowing no one could hear him, and lost – he couldn’t feel his body anymore, couldn’t hear or see; he was foundering in a sea of agony -

Then a shock – like being struck -

He found himself gasping for breath, frozen to his teeth, but back in a normal body that hurt in a normal way.

Then he had blacked out for a moment; came to with the Healer shaking him, talking to him.

He was soaking wet, and shivering.

Mardic? What about Mardic?

The Herald Jaysen was holding him upright, more than half supporting him -

Tylendel, dead, crumpled at Jaysen’s feet. My fault, oh, gods, my fault-

The grieving came down on him, full force; but somewhere at the back of his mind he knewthat theywere feeling what hewas feeling and he clamped down on it – closed that line off -

In the stunned, mental silence he heard Jaysen’s anguished thoughts, as clearly and intimately as if he was speaking them into Vanyel’s ear.

:Gods-oh, gods, I didn’t know, I didn’t guess– Ithought he was playing with the boy, I thought he was– oh, gods, what have I done?:

He shuddered away from the unwanted sympathy, from the mind-words that were like acid in his wounds, and blocked thatline just as ruthlessly.

Then had come the potions – and the numbness. The blessed unfeeling. He drifted, nothing to hold him, not even his worry for Mardic. It was pitchy dark, they hadn’t left a single flame in the room, which under the circumstances was probably wise. Scraps of what he now knew were thoughts drifted over to him; now Savil’s mind-voice, now Jaysen’s (dark with guilt, and Vanyel wondered why), now Mardic’s.

If he had been on his feet, he would have staggered with relief at hearing that last. I didn’t kill him– thank the gods, I didn’t kill him.

He drifted farther, until he couldn’t hear anything anymore. Until he lost even his own thoughts. Until there was nothing left but sleep, and the sorrow that never, ever left him.

Savil stood beside the garden door with one hand on the frame, and prayed. She didn’t pray often; most Heralds didn’t. Praying usually meant asking for something – and the kind of person that became a Herald tended to be the kind that didn’t look outside of himself for help until the last hope had been exhausted.

For Savil, at least, it had gotten to that point.

Just beyond the window, bundled in quilts and blankets and half-lying against Yfandes’ side, Vanyel dozed in the sun, still kept in a sleepy half-daze by Andrel’s potions. Jaysen had carried him out there, with his own mind so tightly shielded against leaking his thoughts that Savil fair Saw him quivering under the strain. Jaysen would be back for the boy in another two candlemarks, which was all Andrel would allow in this cold. This was the third day of the routine; there had been no real repetition of the crisis that had precipitated it, but Savil more than half expected one every night.

Vanyel sighed in sleep, and one arm stole out of the blankets to circle around Yfandes’ neck. The Companion nuzzled his ear, and instead of pulling away, he cuddled closerto her.

But before Savil had a chance to really take in this first, positive sign that the Herald-Companion bond was taking root in the boy, someone poundedon her outer door. She half-turned, and heard Donni pattering across the common room to answer it. There was a murmur too indistinct to make but.

The voice from outside the door strengthened. “Please, I’m Van’s sister – let me at least talk to my aunt – “

Savil started, and strode quickly across Vanyel’s room, pulling open the door. There could only be one of Vanyel’s sisters likely to show up on her doorstep at this point, the one that had fostered out in hopes of a career in the Guard.

“Let her in, Donni,” Savil said – and blinked in surprise. The girl in the doorway could have been herself at seventeen or eighteen.

God help her– no wonder she went for the Guard, Savil thought irrelevantly. She’s got that damned Ashkevron nose.

Evidently the same thought was running through the girl’s mind. “You must be my Aunt Savil,” she said forthrightly, standing at what was almost “attention” in the doorway. “You have the nose. I’m Lissa. Can I help?”

Savil decided that she liked this blunt girl. “Perhaps, I don’t know yet,” she replied. “First, Lissa, come in and tell me what you’ve heard.”

Lissa turned away from the garden door with a shudder. “He looks like he’s been dragged through the nine hells facedown,” she said.

“And at that he looks better than he did three days ago,” Savil replied. She would have said more, but there was another pounding on the suite door and a voice she knew only too well rumbled angrily when Donni answered it.

“Like bloody hell she’s too busy,” Lord Withen Ashkevron snarled. “I didn’t bloody ride my best horse to foundering to be put off with a’too damned busy!’ Now where in hell is she?”

Savil, with Lissa at her side, strode across to the door, flung it open, and stood facing Withen with her back poker-straight, feet slightly apart, arms crossed over her chest.

“What do you want, Withen?” she asked flatly, narrowing her eyes in mingled annoyance and apprehension.

“What the hell do you think I want?” he growled, ignoring Lissa and Donni as if they weren’t there, placing his fists on his hips, and taking an aggressive, wide-legged stance. “I want to know what the hell you’ve been doing with the boy I sent you! I sent him down here for you to make a manout of him, not turn him into a perverted little catamite!” His face darkened and his voice rose with every word. “I – “

“ Ithink that’s more than enough, Withen,” she snapped, cutting him off before he could build up to whatever climax he had in mind. “I, I, I – dammit, you blustering peabrain, is thatall you ever think of? Yourself? Vanyel almost diedfour days ago, he almost died againthree days ago, and he could die orgo mad in the next candlemark, and all youcan think of is that he did something your back-country prejudices don’t approve of! Gods above and below, you can’i even call him by his bloody name, just ‘the boy’!”