Curse of the Mistwraith. Janny Wurts

of character could lessen the toll on his health. Bereft of strength and depleted to the point where bone, muscle and vein stood in relief beneath bloodless skin, Arithon seemed a man more dead than alive.

      When he woke following his first period of natural sleep, the healer consulted him. ‘The king shall not be told of your recovery until absolutely necessary. You need as much time as possible for convalescence.’

      The prisoner reacted unexpectedly. Weary distaste touched the face of a man too spent to curb emotion. ‘That’s a costly risk. The king would execute you for daring such sentiment. And I will suffer precisely as long as mind and body remain whole enough to react.’ Arithon turned his head toward the wall, too fraught to frame his deepest fear: that grief and despair had unbalanced him.

      That his fragile grip on self-restraint might snap under further provocation and tempt him to an unprincipled attack through magecraft. ‘If I’m to be scapegoat before the court of Amroth, let me not last an hour. Free of the drug, I believe I can achieve that.’ He ended on a wounding note of irony. ‘If you wish to be merciful, tell the king at once.’

      The healer rose sharply. Unable to speak, he touched Arithon’s thin shoulder in sympathy. Then he left to seek audience with the king. All along he had expected to regret his dealings with the Master of Shadow; but never until the end had he guessed he might suffer out of pity.

      Resplendent in silks, fine furs and jewels, officials and courtiers alike packed the marble-pillared council hall on the day appointed for Arithon s’Ffalenn to stand trial before the king of Amroth. The crown prince was present despite the incident at the victory feast that had set him out of favour with his father. Although the ignominy stung, that his chair as the kingdom’s heir apparent would stand empty on the dais, his ingrained sense of duty prevailed. Seated in the gallery normally reserved for royal guests, Lysaer leaned anxiously forward as the bossed doors swung open. Halberdiers in royal livery entered. The prisoner walked in their midst, bracketed by the steely flash of weapons. A sigh of movement swept across the chamber as high-born heads turned to stare.

      Lysaer studied the Master of Shadow with rapt attention and a turmoil of mixed emotions. The drug had left Arithon with a deceptive air of fragility. The peasant’s tunic which replaced his torn cotton draped loosely over gaunt shoulders. Whittled down to its framework of bone, his face bore a withdrawn expression, as if the chains which dragged at wrists and ankles were no inconvenience. His graceless stride betrayed otherwise; but the hissed insults from the galleries failed to raise any response. As prisoner and escort reached the foot of the dais, Lysaer was struck by an infuriating oddity. After all this s’Ffalenn sorcerer had done to avoid his present predicament, he showed no flicker of apprehension.

      Dazzled by the tiered banks of candles after long weeks of confinement, Arithon stood blinking before the jewelled presence of the court. Stillness claimed the crowded galleries as his sea-cold gaze steadied, passed over banners and richly-dyed tapestries, swept the array of dignitaries on the dais, then fixed at last on the king.

      ‘You will kneel,’ said the sovereign lord of Amroth. He had yearned thirty years for this moment.

      At the centre of the cut-marble flooring, Arithon stood motionless. His eyes remained distant as a dreamer’s, as if no spoken word could reach him. A rustle of uneasiness swept the packed rows of courtiers. Only Lysaer frowned, troubled again by incongruity. The cold-handed manipulation he had escaped in Briane’s sail-hold had certainly been no coincidence. If a clever, controlled man who possessed a sorcerer’s talents chose a senseless act of bravado, the reason could not be trite. But the king’s gesture to the halberdiers arrested the prince’s thought.

      The ceremonial grandeur of the chamber left abundant space for free movement; banners and trappings rippled in the disturbed air as nine feet of studded beech lifted and turned in a guardsman’s fists. Steel flashed and descended, the weapon’s metal-shod butt aimed squarely at the s’Ffalenn back. Yet with uncanny timing and a grace that maddened the eye, Arithon dropped to his knees. The blow intended to take him between the shoulder blades ripped harmlessly over his head.

      The halberdier overbalanced. The step he took to save himself caught, sliding, on links of chain. He went down with a jangle of mail in full public view of the court. Somebody laughed. The guardsman twisted, his face beefy with outrage, but the lunge he began in retaliation was forestalled by Arithon’s rejoinder.

      ‘The wisest of sages have said that a man will choose violence out of fear.’ The Master’s words were expressive, but cold, and directed toward the king. ‘Is your stature so mean that you dare not face me without fetters?’

      A flurry of affront disturbed the council. The king responded without anger, a slow smile on his lips. The courtiers stilled to hear his reply. ‘Guardsman, you have been personally shamed. Leave is given to avenge yourself. ’

      The halberdier recovered his feet and his weapon with the haste of a bad-tempered bear. The stroke he landed to restore his dignity threw Arithon forward on his face. Hampered by the chain, the prisoner could not use his hands to save himself. His cheek struck the marble edge of the stair and blood ran bright over pale skin. With the breath stopped in their throats, Amroth’s finest noted the royal gesture of dismissal. The halberdier stepped back, his eyes still fixed on his victim.

      Lysaer searched the sharp planes of the s’Ffalenn face, but found no change in expression. Arithon stirred upon the floor. Subject to a thousand inimical stares, he rose to his feet, movements underscored by the dissonant drag of steel.

      The king’s hand dropped to the sceptre in his lap. Candlelight splintered over gem stones and gold as his fingers tightened round the grip. ‘You exist this moment because I wish to see you suffer.’

      Arithon’s reply came fast as a whipcrack. ‘That’s a lie! I exist because your wife refused you leave to use mastery of shadow as a weapon against s’Ffalenn.’

      ‘Her scruple was well betrayed then, when you left Rauven.’ The king leaned forward. ‘You sold your talents well for the massacre of s’Ilessid seamen. Your reason will interest us all, since Lysaer never sailed with a warfleet. He never wielded his gift of light against Karthan.’

      Lysaer clamped his fists against the balustrade, stung to private anger by the remark. No scruple of the king’s had kept him ashore, but Rauven’s steadfast refusal to grant the training that would allow him to focus and augment his inborn talent.

      If Arithon knew that truth, he did not speak. Blood ran down the steep line of his cheek and splashed the stone red at his feet. Calm, assured and steady, he did not chafe at his helplessness; neither did he act like a man distressed for lack of options. Bothered by that cold poise, and by the courtiers’ avid eagerness, Lysaer wrestled apprehension. Had he sat at his father’s side, he could at least have counselled caution.

      ‘Well?’ Gems flashed as the king raised his sceptre. ‘Have you nothing to say?’

      Silence; the court stirred, softly as rainfall on snow. Lysaer swallowed and found his throat cramped. Arithon might have engaged sorcery or shadow; the fact he did neither made no sense, and the unbroken tranquillity reflected in his stance failed to match the earlier profile of his character. Annoyed by the incongruity, Lysaer pursued the reason with the tenacity of a ferret burrowing after rats.

      The king shifted impatiently. ‘Would you speak for your freedom?’

      Poised between guardsmen, unmercifully lit by the massive bronze candelabra, Arithon remained unresponsive. Not an eyelash moved, even as the royal fingers clenched and slowly whitened.

      ‘Jog his memory,’ said the king. Sapphires sparked blue in the candleflame as he let the sceptre fall.

      This time the captive tried no last-minute trick of evasion. The halberdiers bashed him headlong onto his side. Arithon struck the floor rolling and managed to avoid the step. But after that he might have been a puppet mauled by dogs, so little effort did he make to spare himself. The guardsmen’s blows tumbled his unresisting flesh over and over before the dais, raising a counter-strophe of protest from the chain. Not yet ready