The Fall of Neskaya (38 page)

Taniquel wished she had no
laran
at all, because she already knew what had passed in the Council. She followed him with her eyes as he went to the side table and poured a goblet of wine, not pausing to add water. He downed it in gulps, the only sound in the still room.

The air trembled about her, laden with a sense of deadly purpose. She had, without knowing, taken a step from which she could never draw back. That it might mean her death, and that of her son, and uncounted men she would never know, meant nothing. She wanted to run weeping from the room, to lose herself in the winter-gray hills and that lonely travel shelter. Those memories, like dreams of other impossible things, must remain secret, locked away. As Queen, as
comynara
, as a woman of integrity, she must speak the truth, no matter what the cost.

If only she did not know what she knew . . . but she did, and so had no choice but to speak.

“Uncle,” she said with as much dignity as she could summon, “there is something I must tell you before you speak of the Council’s decision.”

His look shifted, as if he braced himself against some last, desperate argument.

“Damian Deslucido has found a way to lie under truthspell.”

There it was. Simple, unadorned. Deadly.

She saw shock sweep across Rafael’s face. Behind him, Gerolamo gasped.

“Don’t talk nonsense, child,” Caitlin cried. Her usually pale cheeks flushed.

Scowling, Rafael took a step toward Taniquel. For an instant, she feared he might strike her, he looked so angry. Through clenched teeth, he said, “Such things are not to be joked about.”

He thought she was hurling ridiculous accusations in order to avoid being sent back to Acosta.

“Surely she does not realize what she is saying,” Caitlin said. Quickly regaining her composure, she turned back to Taniquel and began explaining, as if to a small child. “Men may say misleading things under truthspell, depending upon how the question is phrased. But it is impossible to tell a deliberate falsehood.”

Certainty, colder than ice and harder than steel, settled over Taniquel. “I know what I heard. He said a thing which was not true. He knew it was not true. And the light shone on his face.”

“You must have been mistaken—” Caitlin protested, her voice faltering.

“I know what I know. I heard what I heard.”

“What thing?” Rafael’s voice rumbled, gravelly with emotion.

“He said—he said I was given leave to sit vigil for Padrik. Uncle, I will swear by Aldones and Evanda and any god you name, that I was locked in my chambers and forbidden to do so.”

“Perhaps this was done by Deslucido’s subordinates,” Rafael said. “He might well have believed you free to do so. Then he would not have been lying, if he himself was deceived.”

Taniquel shook her head. “I went to him, to demand an explanation when he had previously assured me that I might perform all the proper rites for Padrik. He brushed me off with a flimsy excuse, and then flatly refused to honor his word. It was by his own orders that I was confined.”

“Clearly, he did not want you in plain sight, grieving over your slain husband, at a time when he sought to establish control over the castle,” Caitlin said.

Taniquel did not give a rotten fig for Deslucido’s motivations. “He explicitly forbade me. And then, today, he swore I had been free.” She shuddered. “No wonder something felt wrong.”

Caitlin glanced wild-eyed at Rafael, her former confidence in shreds. No wonder, Taniquel thought with a sudden flash of compassion. Caitlin’s work, her entire world, was based on surety and knowledge of
laran
. If truthspell, the cornerstone of that certainty, were breakable—and by such a blackguard as Deslucido!—what could be trusted?

Rafael must have been thinking the same thing. His face congested with blood. His breath hissed between his teeth. With a visible effort, he walked to the farthest chair and sat down.

Caitlin calmed herself with visible difficulty. “Yet it is your word against his. For such a grievous charge, there must be incontrovertible proof.”

“I believe her,” Rafael said.

But Caitlin would not be moved. “This is no private matter. It . . . were this to be known, or even suspected . . .”

“I need no instruction in what would happen then,” Rafael said. “Everything we have worked for in bringing the Ages of Chaos to an end will be for naught. No man will trust another’s word—”

“Or the truth of
laran
, the very fabric which binds our world together—” Caitlin said.

“I will swear by anything you wish,” said Taniquel, lifting her head. “Under truthspell.” Though the idea sent shivers of terror through her, she looked to Caitlin. “Or a direct examination of my mind.”

“Child, you do not know what you are offering.”

“I do. We must be sure.” Taniquel met her uncle’s eyes. “
You
must be sure.”

Rafael nodded to Caitlin.

“There is a risk—” the
leronis
said.

“There is
always
a risk,” Taniquel cried. “But there is far greater danger if we do not act.”

“Very well.” Caitlin gave a little sigh as she reached for the starstone which she wore in a silk-lined locket around her neck. “Come into the sleeping chamber with me.”

Afterward, Taniquel remembered very little of what had passed. She was never sure if her mind suppressed the memories or if Caitlin had gently softened them so as to spare her lingering pain.

She had lain on the bed, focusing on her breathing at Caitlin’s direction. Pressure built in her head, reminding her of the morning of the Acosta invasion, only deeper and unrelenting, shaped and aimed at the very center of her thoughts. She found herself once more in Padrik’s quarters, only she now saw the once-familiar contours of the sitting room through a gauzy veil that muted some colors and intensified others. As before, Deslucido sat at the table, hands moving over the food laid out there. Blue-and-crimson lights played over his face and his eyes, when they flickered in her direction, burned like yellow fire.

“You promised . . .” Taniquel heard her own voice, muffled and distant. “. . . went to see . . . in the chapel . . . confined to my rooms.”

“. . . minor miscommunication.” Damian’s voice, too, shivered with that ghostly resonance. With each phrase, his words gained in strength and clarity, as if coming nearer. “. . . regret any inconvenience . . .”

“Why was I not allowed to leave my rooms?”

“It would not be seemly—or safe . . . For your own safety . . . it is to no one’s benefit to turn his burial into a rallying point for malcontents.”

“Am I not to be permitted to see him, then?” Taniquel’s voice wailed, a mourner’s cry.

“A lady . . . must be protected against such sights. Be guided by us in this, rest content . . .

“Rest content . . . Content . . .”
The final word echoed through her as the images shredded. The sense of pressure intensified into outright pain.

Truth? Truth?
pounded relentlessly through her temples. A spear point of fire probed deeper. At one point, she might have screamed, she could not be sure. Later, she slept.

In her best gown and with her hair dressed by Caitlin as befitted a Queen, Taniquel appeared once again before the
Comyn
Council. There was no need for her to speak, only to stand by her uncle’s side.

Never before had he looked so grim, as if he were granite made flesh. His expression had shifted from the tightness of facing an unpleasant task to a stony determination. Below that, she sensed anger and something more.

Fear.

Not of the Council, although his disappointment in all that he had hoped for ran through him like a vein of poison. Fear—of Deslucido and his ability to defy truthspell, fear of shattering the fragile bonds of trust which stood between the many lands of Darkover and true chaos.

Fear that he had already delayed until too late.

He held himself with a dignity and power she had only glimpsed in him before. He was
Comyn,
subordinate to no man, and he was Hastur, Son of Hastur who was Lord of Light.

His solemnity reflected in the assembled company, for as he spoke, calmly stating his position, there were no outbursts, no visible reactions. Taniquel sensed rather than heard the isolated points of disapproval, of agreement, of incredulity. She dared to glance in Deslucido’s direction, to see his face darken, jaw rigid, the hard light of fury in his eyes when he looked at her.

With the
Comyn
Council as his witnesses, Rafael Hastur publically declared Acosta a Hastur protectorate, with Julian Regis Hastur-Acosta its lawful ruler, and Taniquel Hastur-Acosta as his Regent until he attained his majority.

When Rafael finished, the old man who was head of the Council rose to speak. “Think carefully on what you are doing, Hastur. If you mean to carry through these actions, you will place yourself in direct defiance of our orders.”

“You know as well as any man how strongly I support the Council,” Rafael replied. “I believe in our united purpose and always I have worked for negotiation and compromise. My past actions speak for themselves. But in this matter, my duty and my conscience are to a greater good. I cannot and will not bow to an unjust decision.”

“Unjust! What do you mean by that, Hastur?” rumbled Old Alton. “If you have charges to make, out with them! Don’t diddle around with bullying games!”

Calmly, Rafael turned to face the older man. “I will not see this Council used for
any
man’s private purposes.” With the slight emphasis, he indicated,
Including mine.
“I believe this is now a private affair between Damian Deslucido, myself, and Taniquel, Queen Regent of Acosta.”

“So you have named her,” Damian Deslucido said in a voice taut with suppressed anger. “But words cannot make her anything other than an obstinate girl-child who would leave a whole countryside in smoking ruins rather than submit to proper authority. When you lend your name to her cause, Hastur, you do her grave injury.”

“It is not
I
who have done her injury,” Rafael replied temperately. “And as you all can see, she is no child but
comynara
in her own right.”

“She is a woman!” one of the lords grumbled. “Who has no voice here.”

“Husband or kinsman must speak for her, although I don’t much care which,” another said.

The Aillard lady, who had until now remained silent, stirred. “My lords, if you are saying that
no woman
may speak in this Council, you had best reconsider your words.”

The second speaker, whose lands bordered the powerful Aillard Domain, closed his mouth.

“What say you,
vai domna?
” the old chief asked Taniquel. “Will you join in this Hastur rebellion against the Council?”

“Deslucido invaded my country,” she replied, “seized the castle by trickery, slaughtered its rightful king, and attempted to force me into an unwelcome marriage with his son. But the rightful King of Acosta, the
di catenas
son of Padrik, son and true heir of Ian-Valdir, lives. For his sake, I will not give up my claim, not for a hundred Council verdicts. The gods have seen fit to bless me with the support of my kinsman.”

“So be it!” Damian slapped his palm flat on the table and sprang to his feet. “You will regret those proud words, lady. On the battlefield, in chains. Acosta is mine by the will of the gods. Never will I permit you or your
kinsman,
” he spat out the word, “to diminish the glorious kingdom I have built with my own two hands.” He bowed to the assembly. “
Vai domyn,
I thank you for your support. But I have no choice but to enforce it myself.” With a jangle of spurs, he strode from the room.