The Other Wind

Onyx looked at the king. He was openly distressed. "My lord, I ca

"Roke keeps its secrets," Irian said with calm scorn.

"But on Roke—" Tehanu said, not standing; her weak voice died away. Prince Sege and the king both looked at her and motioned her to speak.

She stood up. At first she kept the left side of her face to the councilors, all sitting motionless on their benches, like stones with eyes.

"On Roke is the Immanent Grove," she said. "Isn't that what Kalessin meant, sister, speaking of the forest that is at the center?" Turning to Irian, she showed the people watching her the whole ruin of her face; but she had forgotten them. "Maybe we need to go there," she said. "To the center of things."

Irian smiled. "I'll go there," she said.

They both looked at the king.

"Before I send you to Roke, or go with you," he said slowly, "I must know what is at stake. Master Onyx, I'm sorry that matters so grave and chancy force us to debate our course so openly. But I trust my councilors to support me as I find and hold the course. What the council needs to know is that our islands need not fear attack from the People of the West—that the truce, at least, holds."

"It holds," Irian said.

"Can you say how long?"

"A half year?" she offered, carelessly, as if she had said, "A day or two."

"We will hold the truce a half year, in hope of peace to follow. Am I right to say, Lady Irian, that to have peace with us, your people want to know that our wizards' meddling with the… laws of life and death will not endanger them?"

"Endanger all of us," Irian said. "Yes."

Leba

The stones with eyes sat there for a long minute, all staring, none speaking. Then Prince Sege said, "Go, my lord king, go with our hope and trust, and the magewind in your sails." There was a little murmur of assent from the councilors: Yes, yes, hear him.

Sege asked for further questions or debate; nobody spoke. He closed the session.

Leaving the throne room with him, Leba

CHAPTER 4: DOLPHIN

Many matters had to be settled and arrangements made before the king could leave his capital; there was also the question of who should go with him to Roke. Irian and Tehanu, of course, and Tehanu wanted her mother with her. Onyx said that Alder should by all means go with them, and also the Pelnish wizard Seppel, for the Lore of Paln had much to do with these matters of crossing between life and death. The king chose Tosla to captain the Dolphin, as he had done before. Prince Sege would look after affairs of state in the king's absence, with a selected group of councilors, as he also had done before.

So it was all settled, or so Leba

"You will be their representative."

"Not I. I am not a subject of the High King. The only person here who can represent his people is his daughter."

Leba

"I know nothing of the kind."

"She has no education."

"She's intelligent, practical, and courageous. She's aware of what her station requires of her. She hasn't been trained to rule, but then what can she learn boxed up there in the River House with her servants and some court ladies?"

"To speak the language, in the first place!"

"She's doing that. I'll interpret for her when she needs it."

After a brief pause Leba

"Tehanu and Irian both say she should come with us. Master Onyx says that, like Alder of Taon, her being sent here at this time ca

Leba

"In her ignorance, as you call it, she showed us how to answer Ged's questions. You are as disrespectful of her as her father is. You speak of her as of a mindless thing." Tenar's face was pale with anger. "If you're afraid to put her at risk, ask her to take it herself."

Again there was a silence. Leba

"It is you who should tell her that."

He stood silent. Then he walked out of the room without a word.

He passed close by Tenar, and though he did not look at her he saw her clearly. She looked old and strained, and her hands trembled. He was sorry for her, ashamed of his rudeness to her, relieved that no one else had witnessed the scene; but these feelings were mere sparks in the huge darkness of his anger at her, at the princess, at everyone and everything that laid this false obligation, this grotesque duty on him. As he went out of the room he tugged open the collar of his shirt as if it were choking him.

His majordomo, a slow and steady man called Thoroughgood, was not expecting him to return so soon or through that door and jumped up, staring and startled. Leba

"The High Princess?"

"Is there more than one of them? Are you unaware that the High King's daughter is our guest?"

Amazed, Thoroughgood stammered an apology, which Leba

When his horse was brought across the stable yard to him, he swung up into the saddle so abruptly that the horse caught his mood and backed and reared, driving back the hostlers and attendants. To see the circle widen out around him gave Leba