and drive him from the Stone Chapel. We will deny all of the charges of selfbaring that may be brought against us. You, however, must leave Manneran.”
“Why?” I looked at the duke in perplexity. “I’m not without influence. If you can withstand the charges, why not I?”
“Your guilt is on record,” the Duke of Mannerangu Smor said. “If you flee, it can be claimed that you alone, and this girl you corrupted, were the only ones involved, and the rest is merely the fabrication of self-serving underlings trying to overthrow their masters. If you stay and try to fight a hopeless case, you’ll eventually bring us all down, as your interrogation proceeds.”
It was wholly plain to me now.
I was dangerous to them. My strength might be broken in court and their guilt thus exposed. Thus far I was the only one indicted, and I was the only one vulnerable to the processes of Mannerangi justice. They were vulnerable solely through me, and if I went, there was no way of getting at them. The safety of the majority required my departure. Moreover: my naïve faith in the godhouse, which had led me rashly to confess to Jidd, had led to this tempest, which otherwise might have been avoided. I had caused all this; I was the one who must go.
The Duke of Sumar said, “You will remain with us until the dark hours of night, and then my private groundcar, escorted by bodyguards as though it were I who was traveling, will take you to the estate of the Marquis of Woyn. A riverboat will be waiting there. By dawn you will be across the Woyn and into your homeland of Salla, and may the gods journey at your side.”
FIFTY-NINE
ONCE MORE A REFUGEE. In a single day all the power I had accumulated in fifteen years in Manneran was lost. Neither high birth nor high connections could save me: I might have ties of marriage or love or politics to half the masters of Manneran, yet they were helpless in helping me. I have made it seem as if they had forced me into exile to save their own skins, but it was not like that. My going was necessary, and it brought as much sorrow to them as to me.
I had nothing with me but the clothes I wore. My wardrobe, my weapons, my ornaments, my wealth itself, must remain behind in Manneran. As a boy-prince fleeing from Salla to Glin, I had had the prudence to transfer funds ahead of myself, but now I was cut off. My assets would be sequestered; my sons would be paupered. There had been no time for preparations.
Here at least my friends were of service. The Procurator-General, who was nearly of a size with me, had brought several changes of handsome clothing. The Commissioner of the Treasury had obtained for me a fair fortune in Sallan currency. The Duke of Mannerangu Smor pulled two rings and a pendant from his own body, so that I should not go unadorned into my native province. The Marquis of Woyn pressed on me a ceremonial dagger and his heat-rod, with a hilt worked with precious gems. Mihan promised to speak with Segvord Helalam, and tell him the details of my downfall; Segvord would be sympathetic, Mihan believed, and would protect my sons with all his influence, and keep them untainted by their father’s indictment.
Lastly, the Duke of Sumar came to me at the deepest time of the night, when I sat alone sourly eating the dinner I had had no time for earlier, and handed me a small jeweled case of bright gold, of the sort one might carry medicine in. “Open it carefully,” he said. I did, and found it brimming with white powder. In amazement I asked him where he had obtained this; he had lately sent agents secretly to Sumara Borthan, he replied, who had returned with a small supply of the drug. He claimed to have more, but I believe he gave me all he had.
“In an hour’s time you will leave,” said the duke, to smother my gush of gratitude.
I asked to be allowed to make a call first.
“Segvord will explain matters to your wife,” the duke said.
“One did not mean one’s wife. One meant one’s bondsister.” In speaking of Halum I could not drop easily into the rough grammar we selfbarers affected. “One has had no chance to make one’s farewell to her.”
The duke understood my anguish, for he