Fant shrugged. "That's not for me to say, nor you either," he answered. "Could I ask for a mug of hot wine? I'm chilled clean to the marrow."
"You're as bad as your master." The maid sniffed, but she put some over the fire to heat. While Fant waited with ill-concealed eagerness, she took up the basket and carried it upstairs to the lady Dianora.
The lady had been weaving, and was not sorry to be interrupted. "What have you there for me?" she asked, seeing the basket but not yet understanding what it contained. Her maid repeated Fant's message, punctuated with condemnations of Rand's arrogance and his servant's insolence, and departed, leaving Dianora alone to struggle with her conscience.
She was flattered and complimented beyond all measure by Rand's devotion to the cause of winning her, and she knew full well what his adherence to that cause had cost him, for his sudden and inexplicable slide into poverty had for weeks been one of the paramount topics of conversation in the town of Sennar. But despite his evident adoration, her heart was in her husband's keeping only, and she no more desired to lie with the knight in love than she had when she made her rash promise so long ago. Yet that promise had been freely given, extorted or coerced from her in no way, and how with honor could she now refuse to keep it? To do so would work far more grievous hurt on Rand than even the coldest and most summary rejection a year and a half ago. Bitterly she repented of her imprudent words, but that repentance no more effaced them than a sparrow's shadow made to disappear the Rincian granite whereon it fell.
When her servant returned to take her reply to Fant, she found she had none to give.
It was not much later that the merchant Ansovald, according to his custom, returned from the marketplace to lunch with his wife. Though she did what she could to conceal her distress, Ansovald soon noticed it and asked what troubled her. With a great show of indignation, she denied that anything was wrong. This deceived the merchant not at all but alarmed him no little, for if in their years of marriage he had come to rely upon anything, it was his wife's candor.
Therefore he persisted, and ere long had the entire story from her, though toward its end she was in tears. When he had heard everything, he was silent for a long time. His fingers curled his beard into ringlets, as was his unconscious custom while deep in thought. He had long known Dianora had admirers other than himself, and the notion did not much upset him; indeed, in his secret heart he was rather proud of it, as reflecting favorably upon his own manhood. Whether or not she occasionally succumbed to temptation mattered less to him than it might to other men, for he was fully assured of both her love and her discretion, and was sure she would do no injury to himself or to their union. Furthermore, he knew her pledge to Rand had been made not in expectation of its eventual fulfillment, but in the hope that it would, without wounding the knight, make him realize that his attentions were superfluous.
All of which considerations were now wide of the mark, as Rand had, by whatever means, met the conditions imposed upon him. Ansovald felt nothing but admiration for his perseverance and ingenuity, however unfortunate he found their target. Moreover, as a reputable merchant, he was a man to whom agreements of any sort were sacred trusts, to be carried out by all parties to the best of their ability.
Accordingly, once he had relieved his wife's fears and kissed her tears away, he told her, "I see but one thing which can in honor be done. You must indeed go to Rand, explain to him the motive behind your promise, and pray him not to hold you to it."
The lady Dianora nodded; this was the same conclusion she herself had reached. However… "And if he insist?"
Ansovald sighed; he did not much care for the position toward which his logic inexorably led him. "If he must have that which he has sought so long and so hard, I see no easy way to say him nay this once. You need have no fear of me because of it; I will think none the worse of you, happen what may. A woman's faithfulness lies in her heart, not between her thighs." Barely believing her ears, Dianora marveled at her husband's forbearance. Ansovald's words were nothing less than heresy in that time and place, where most men would forthwith have sent away their wives at the faintest hint of scandal.
The merchant rose from the table, belting his long marten-fur coat round his ample middle. He stooped to kiss his wife once more, saying gruffly, "Go on with you, now. Soonest begun, soonest done." And then he was gone, hurrying back to his stall in the marketplace without the slightest trace of concern in face or step.
Far longer than he had expected or hoped did Rand wait in the summer garden for his beloved. He spoke no more to the mage Portolis, having less and less liking for him as hour succeeded hour and the wan sun began to wester. Had the sorcerer known even before the outset of his project its inherent futility, and carried on for his enrichment alone, or perhaps to make the knight a laughingstock? If so, thought Rand, he might well rue it, sorcerer or no: cold steel was proof against most magics.
Such were the shapes of his gloomy reflections, when suddenly his heart gave a great leap: that was surely Fant coming out through the gate of Sennar, and with him Dianora! The knight's features, so long dour, lit with delight, and when he shot a quick glance toward Portolis he spied a flush of interest livening the wizard's sallow and exhausted features. Ha! Rand thought: I have won, even against the old fool's prognostications.
Without giving Rand a word, a nod, any acknowledgment of his presence, Dianora walked through the summer garden, now bending to test a flower's fragrance, now rising to touch a leaf, to test the ripeness of a dangling fruit. When her inspection was complete, she squared her shoulders beneath their mantling furs and stood at last before him.
"My love!" he cried, taking both her hands in his. It was all he could do to keep from clasping her to him then and there, so often had this moment been prefigured in his thoughts and dreams. "You are mine at last!"
Her emerald gaze was sorrow-filled, but she answered him firmly. "I am yours this day, if that be your will; such was my pledge to you. But you must know I am not your love, nor have I ever been. My heart lies only with my husband, the merchant Ansovald, as it has always. Do you not see, my lord Rand, that your love for me is as out of season as is this garden in the midst of a world of snow?"
Her words pierced Rand's exultation to the marrow, and he stood for a moment bereft of speech, like a man sore wounded and only just aware of it. "But you are here?" he began, and then faltered into silence once more.
"Yes, I am here," she said, and Rand knew the bitterness in her voice was directed as much against herself as at him. "Sir knight, why could you not understand I meant but to discourage you without doing you harm, not to spur you on? If you must have your way with me, be it so, but I yield myself solely from faith to my foolish promise, not from love of you."
And now, too late, the knight understood Portolis's warnings and the trap he had laid for himself. In his passion he had failed to distinguish between satisfying his body's lust and the love of the heart within it. He had indeed won Dianora's submission, but he had no hope?had never had a hope?of winning the love that would make that submission something more than a few moments of meaningless sensual pleasure. He freed her hands; his own, like dead things, fell to his sides. "Go," he said, his voice betraying little of the anguish he felt. "I release you from your pledge. I have yet to bed a woman unwilling, and would scarcely start with so fine a one as you, who would suffer me for your word's sake alone. Go," he repeated, but now his grief made of the word a ghastly whisper.