Shay Tal broke off her talk in mid-sentence. She perceived that there was a way of testing her own holiness.
The phagors charging at Fish Lake had turned to ice. Because of something in her—or something in them? She recalled tales about phagors dreading water; perhaps the reason was that they turned to ice in it. That could be tested: there were one or two old phagor slaves in Oldorando. She would try one out in the Voral and see what happened. One way or the other, she would know.
The thirteen were staring at her, waiting for her to go on. Laintal Ay looked puzzled. She had no idea what she had been saying. She perceived that she had to conduct an experiment for her own peace of mind.
“We have to do what we’re told …” one of the women said from the floor, in a slow puzzled voice, as if repeating a lesson.
Shay Tal stood listening to someone tramping up the steps from the floor below. There was no way in which she could answer politely a statement she had been contradicting since the Hour-Whistler last blew; any interruption was welcome at this point. Some of the women were irredeemably stupid.
The hatch was flung open. Aoz Roon appeared, looking rather like a great black bear, followed by his dog. Behind him came Dathka, to stand poker-faced in the rear, not even casting a glance at Laintal Ay. The latter stood rather awkwardly, and waited with his back to the cold wall. The women gaped at the intruders, some giggling nervously.
Aoz Roon’s stature seemed to fill the low room. Though the women craned their necks at him uneasily, he ignored them and addressed Shay Tal. She had moved back to the window, but stood facing him, framed against a background of muddy village, fumaroles, and the parti-coloured landscape stretching to the horizon.
“What do you want here?” she asked. Her heart beat as she beheld him. For this above all she cursed her new reputation, that he no longer bullied her, or held her arms, or even pursued her. His whole manner suggested this was a formal and unfriendly visit.
“I wish you to come back into the protection of the barricades, ma’am,” he said. “You are not safe, living in this ruin. I cannot protect you here in the event of a raid.”
“Vry and I prefer living here.”
“You’re under my control, for all your reputation, you and Vry, and I must do my best to protect you. All you other women—you should not be here. It is too dangerous outside the barricades. If there was a sudden attack—well, you can guess what would happen to you. Shay Tal, as our powerful sorceress, must please herself. The rest of you must please me. I forbid you to come here. It’s too dangerous. You understand?”
All evaded his gaze except the old midwife, Rol Sakil. “That’s all nonsense, Aoz Roon. This tower is safe enough. Shay Tal’s scared off the fuggies, we all know that. Besides, even you have been here on occasions, haven’t you now?”
This last was said with a leer. Aoz Roon dismissed it.
“I’m talking about the present. Nothing’s safe now the weather’s changing. None of you enter here again or there will be trouble.”
He turned, raising a beckoning finger to Laintal Ay.
“You come with me.” He marched down the steps without a farewell, and Laintal Ay and Dathka followed.
Outside, he paused, pulling at his beard. He looked up at her window.
“I’m still Lord of Embruddock, and you had better not forget it.”
She heard his shout from within, but would not go to the window. Instead, she stood where she was—alone despite the company—and said in a voice loud enough for him to hear, “Lord of a rotten little farmyard.”
Only when she heard the squelch of three pairs of boots retreating did she deign to glance out the window. She watched his broad back as he trudged with his young lieutenants towards the north gate, Curd trotting at his heel. She understood his loneliness. None better.
As his woman, she would surely not have lost stature, or whatever it was she valued so highly. Too late to think of that now. The rift was between them, and an empty-headed doll kept his bed warm.