Read The Runes of the Earth: The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - Book One for Free Online

had left a delayed compulsion like a posthypnotic suggestion in Joan’s shattered mind, commanding her to bring about her own death.
    Not for the first time, Linden wondered what Sheriff Lytton had said or done to Joan during the brief time when she had been in his care. When Julius Berenford had driven to Haven Farm after Covenant’s murder, he had found Joan there: confused and frightened, with no memory of what had transpired; but able to speak and respond. Wishing to search for Covenant and Linden without interference, Julius had sent Joan to County Hospital with Barton Lytton; and by the time they had reached the hospital Joan’s mind was gone. Linden had asked Lytton what he had done, of course, pushed him for an answer; but he had told her nothing.
    â€œAnd she was getting worse,” Linden went on. “More frantic. Hysterical. She hit herself more often. Sometimes she refused to eat, went days without food. She fought us so hard that it took three orderlies and a nurse to fix an IV. She began to lose alarming amounts of blood.”
    â€œWhat changed?” Roger repeated intently. “What did you do?”
    Linden hesitated on the edge of risks which she had not meant to take. Without warning, the air of Joan’s room seemed crowded with dangerous possibilities. How much of the truth could she afford to expose to this unformed and foolish young man?
    But then she tightened her resolve and met his question squarely. “Three months ago, I gave her back her wedding ring.”
    Without glancing away from him, Linden reached to the collar of Joan’s nightgown and lifted it aside to reveal the delicate silver chain hanging around her neck. From the end of the chain, still hidden by the nightgown, dangled a white gold wedding band. Joan had lost so much weight that she could not have kept a ring on any of her fingers.
    Roger’s smile hinted at sudden hungers. “I’m impressed, Dr. Avery. That was obviously the right thing to do. But I would not have expected—” He stopped short of saying that he would not have expected such insight from her. “How did you figure it out? What made you think of it?”
    Committed now, Linden shrugged. “It just came to me one night.
    â€œI don’t know how much you know about the end of your father’s life. For the last two weeks before he was killed, he took care of Joan.” On Haven Farm. “She had already lost her mind, but she wasn’t like this. In some ways, she was much worse. Practically rabid. The only thing that calmed her was the taste of your father’s blood. When he needed to feed her, or clean her, he would let her scratch him until she drew blood. Sucking it off his skin would bring her back to herself—for a little while.”
    Behind Linden’s professional detachment, a secret anger made her hope that she might yet shock or frighten Roger Covenant.
    â€œNow she hits herself, Mr. Covenant. She wants the pain for some reason. She needs to hurt herself. I don’t know why. As punishment?” For her role in her ex-husband’s murder? “It certainly looks like she’s punishing herself.
    â€œAnd she won’t tolerate a bandage. Her own bleeding seems to comfort her. Like a kind of restitution—It helps her regain a little balance. I tried to think of some way to sustain that. If restitution calmed her, I wanted her to have more of it.
    â€œHer ring,” the symbol of her marriage, “was the only thing I had that I could restore.”
    At the time, Linden had placed the chain around Joan’s neck with acute trepidation. The language of that gesture could so easily have been misinterpreted; taken as a reminder of guilt rather than as a symbol of love and attachment. However, Joan had lapsed into her comparatively pliant trance as soon as the ring had touched her skin.
    Since then Linden had often feared that she had made a terrible mistake: that it