They paced slowly through the dead garden, along a walk so narrow that
shoulders sometimes touched. Lalette could hear the tiny tinkle of the
chain that bound Slair’s sword to his hip when that touch came; she knew
he was stirred, and the rousing of emotion was not unpleasant to her.
Beyond the slate roofs of the town the sun was sinking redly through
striations of cloud; all things lay in a peace that was the peace of the
end of the world. He turned his head.
“Demoiselle,” he said, “what will you give for news?”
“Oh, hush,” said she. “You spoil it. For a moment I was immortal.”
“I ask your grace. But truly I have news for you, and it should please
you.”
“Sit here and tell me.” She took her place on a marble bench beneath the
skeleton of an espaliered peach against the wall.
“You will not have to use your Art against the arch-priest Groadon. Does
that not please you?”
“More than you know. What is the reason?”
“He has fled; slipped through the watch set on his palace and
gone—whether to hell, the court or Tritulacca, no one knows.”
“I am glad.” She looked straight before her for a moment. “Ah, if things
were better ordered.”
“You are not as pleased as you might be.”
“Oh, I am. But Rodvard—”
“What has he done? I’ll—”
“Oh, it’s no fault of his. You will tell no one?” She laid a cold hand
on his warm one. “He has found who the heiress of Tuolén is, but does
not know whether to tell Mathurin or not.”
“Who is she?”
“A child, thirteen years old. She lives at Dyolana, up in Oltrug
seignory. But I do not know how long Rodvard will keep the secret. He
feels a sense of duty.”
“Why should he not? What withholds him from telling?”
“I would have to teach her the patterns and everything. I do not wish
it.” She shivered slightly. “And to be a witch—”
The rising shades had drowned the sun. A silence came on the garden, so
utter that Lalette felt she could hear her own heart beat, and Demadé
Slair’s beside her. The trees stood straight; the ruins of the flowers
did not stir. In that enchanted stillness she seemed to float without
power of motion. He leaned toward her, his arm close against her back,
his other hand crept over her two.
“Demoiselle—Lalette,” he said in a voice so low it did not break the
quiet. “I love you. Come away with me.”
Her down-bent head shook slowly; tears gathered behind the almost-closed
eyes.
The arm around her back slid slowly beneath her own arm, the hand groped
to close slowly around one soft breast; as though it were by no volition
of her own, her head came back to meet the kiss. The tears ran down her
cheek to touch his; he drew from her and began to speak rapidly in a
voice low and urgent:
“Come with me. I will take you away from every unhappiness. We can go
beyond finding. I am a fighting man, can find a need for my service
anywhere. It does not matter; we can forget all this entanglement and
make our own world. I have money enough. We can go to the Green Islands,
and you will never have to use the Art again. Oh, Lalette, I would even
take you to the court and join your mother. Do you wish it?”
Her lips barely moving, she said; “And Rodvard?”
He kissed her again. “Bergelin? You owe him nothing. What has he done
for you? And now he will tell Mathurin about the heiress of Tuolén, and
there will be no more place for you—except with me. I will always have a
place for you, Lalette, now or a thousand years from now. Or do you fear
him? I am the better man.”
Now her eyes opened wide on the first star, low in the darkening sky,
and with one hand she gently disengaged his clasp from her breast. “No,”
she said in a voice clearer than before. “No, Demadé, I cannot. Perhaps
for that reason, but I cannot. We had better go in now.”