Demon Cycle 04 - The Skull Throne

by Peter V. Brett

  “All of them?” Rojer asked. “At the same time?”

  Leesha huffed. It did seem unlikely. “But he’s their brother, and far removed from the throne. Why would they want him dead?”

  “Not so far as all that,” Rojer said. “The royal families of Angiers are still stung from Rhinebeck the First’s coup two generations ago. If the duke dies without an heir, neither Mickael nor Pether will hold the throne without bloodshed, especially with the Milnese buying up allies throughout the city.”

  “And you think it will be different for Thamos?” Leesha asked.

  “Thamos has his own army,” Rojer noted. “One already bigger and better trained than his elder brother’s. At the rate the Hollow’s growing, it may soon be a match for Angiers and Miln combined. And Thamos is a hero, with more than one song to his name. Rhinebeck was too petty to even let his brother claim his own rockbird kill. How do you think he felt when Thamos shamed him in front of the other men?”

  Leesha felt a stab of pain and looked down. She kept her nails short so they would not interfere in her work, but they were still enough to dig into her skin when she clenched her fists tightly enough. She forced herself to relax. “Have you spoken of this to anyone else?”

  Rojer shook his head. “Who would I tell? I don’t think Thamos would believe me even if I told him, and Gared …”

  “Would do something stupid,” Leesha agreed.

  “There’s already been stupid to spare,” Rojer said. “I haven’t told you all.”

  “Those idiots!” Araine clenched her fists, pacing with the strength and speed of a much younger woman.

  “What are you going to do?” Leesha asked, when the old woman final slowed.

  “What can I do?” Araine demanded. “I have no evidence but your Jongleur’s word, and Rhinebeck is duke. Once he sets his mind on something he can be stubborn as a rock demon, and I don’t have the power to overrule him.”

  “But you’re his mother,” Leesha said. “Can’t you …”

  Araine raised an eyebrow. “Use my magic mother powers? How often do you listen to yours?”

  “Not often,” Leesha admitted. “And I usually come to regret it when I do. But Thamos is your son, too. Can you not beseech—”

  “Believe me, girl,” Araine cut her off, “I’m not above playing every guilt and wile in my considerable repertoire to get my sons to alter course, but this … this is pride, and no man lets that go without a spear at his throat.”

  She began to pace again, but it was slow, stately. She reached up, stroking her wrinkled chin. “He probably thinks himself quite clever. If Thamos is killed, he has one less rival. If Thamos succeeds and makes contact with the Laktonians, he can take credit for the whole thing.” She snorted. “It’s the closest Rhinebeck’s ever come to an attempt at espionage.”

  She turned to look at Leesha, and smiled. “But just because we can’t stop it doesn’t mean we can’t turn it against him.”

  “Oh?” Leesha asked.

  “Rhiney and the others have never attempted espionage because they’ve never needed to. Janson gives them information, and they’ve never once asked where it comes from.”

  Leesha felt a smile tug at the corner of her mouth. “You have contacts in Lakton?”

  “I have contacts everywhere,” Araine said. “The dockmistress of Docktown was a friend of mine, did you know? Your Ahmann Jardir’s eldest son tried to force her to marry him when they took the city.”

  “Tried?” Leesha asked.

  Araine chuckled. “She put his eye out with the quill from the marriage contract, they say.” Her face went cold. “When he was finished with her, they say the lump of meat that was left barely looked human.”

  Leesha remembered Jayan. Remembered the savage gleam in his eyes. She wanted to disbelieve, but it was all too plausible.

  “We need the Krasians out of Docktown,” Araine said, “if we’re to take back the duchy and press them back to Rizon.”

  “Everam’s Bounty,” Leesha said. “I’ve seen those lands, Duchess. The Krasians are entrenched. It will never be Rizon again.”

  “Don’t be so sure of that,” Araine said. “I’ve been funding Rizonan rebels for months, and they’ve begun quite a bit of mischief. The Krasians in Lakton will be looking over their shoulders as their ‘safe’ lands burn. They won’t see us coming.”

  “So Thamos has a chance?” Leesha asked.

  “I won’t lie and say it’s a safe path, girl,” Araine said. “I know you love him, but he’s my son, and the only one worth a damn. He’ll be in danger the entire time, but I’ll see he has every advantage I can.”

  “So now what?” Leesha asked.

  “Now,” Araine said, “you get back to work curing my eldest.”

  “You can’t possibly expect me to—” Leesha began.

  “I can and you will!” Araine snapped. “Our circumstances with Miln have not changed. Even if Thamos comes back alive and well, he will always be in danger so long as the ivy throne has no heir.”

  She waved a hand. “Let my sons bicker and plot. If we can unite with Lakton and force Euchor into the pact, the ivy and metal thrones won’t be worth a klat. The Hollow will be the new capital of Thesa, and Thamos …

  “Why, Thamos could be king.”

  Leesha was distracted throughout dinner. It was her first in Jizell’s hospit for quite some time, but the place still felt like home. Jizell and her apprentices had been fixtures about the Hollow the last weeks, and the others, even Sikvah, seemed similarly at ease.

  “Delicious, as always,” Rojer thanked Mistress Jizell. “Every man in Angiers laments he could not take you to wife.”

  “A wise man never marries an Herb Gatherer,” Jizell replied, winking. “There’s no telling what she’ll put in his tea, eh?”

  Amanvah laughed at that, and Rojer smiled. “That’s what Mistress Jessa used to say.”

  Jizell’s face went sour. “Both got it from Bruna, if not much else.”

  “I’m getting tired of this,” Rojer said. “Mistress Jessa was never anything but good to me, and if you’re going to talk ill of her, I want to know why.”

  “So do I,” Leesha said.

  “She’s a Weed Gatherer,” Jizell said. “What more is there to say?”

  “Ay, what of it?” Rojer snapped. “I don’t see the ripping difference. You both threaten to drug my tea, and mean it.”

  “Ay, an Herb Gatherer will use her skill to bully someone that needs bullying,” Jizell said. “But their primary purpose is to heal and help. Weed Gatherers are the other way around.”

  “Not to mention they’re all whores,” Vika said.

  “Vika!” Leesha snapped.

  Vika stiffened, but she did not back down. “Apologies, Mistress Leesha, but it’s honest word. Almost every brothel in the city is run by a Weed Gatherer. Usually apothecary shops with rooms upstairs where they sell more than cures.”

  “Most of them were apprentices of Mistress Jessa at one time or another,” Jizell said, “and she takes a cut. Richest woman in the city short of the Duchess Mum, but it’s dirty money, earned off the marriages they destroy.”

  Kadie brought the tea, and Jizell paused to add honey, stirring thoughtfully. “Bruna had already taken me on as apprentice and did not want another, but Duchess Araine insisted she take Jessa as well. The girl was gifted, but less interested in healing than aphrodisiacs and poison. Little did we know Araine was grooming her to run a private brothel for her sons. A way for them to remain under her control even when they were out being men.”

  “It is why the dama’ting created the jiwah’Sharum,” Amanvah noted, “though my people honor such women, and accept the children they bear.”

  “Well not here,” Jizell said. “Men can’t be expected to keep to their wives when there’s a brothel in every part of town. You can blame the drunk for pissing on your doorstep, but it’s the bartender who put the drink in their hand.”

  “And that’s why Bruna cast he
r out?” Leesha asked.

  Jizell shook her head. “She wanted the recipe for liquid demonfire. When Bruna refused to teach it to her, she tried to steal it.”

  Leesha’s eyes widened. Any Gatherer worth the name knew something of the secrets of fire, but Bruna had claimed to be the last to know how to create that infernal brew. The old woman had kept it close for more than a hundred years, never teaching it to her apprentices. It was only when she felt the knowledge might be lost forever that she decided to teach it to Leesha.

  “Why did you never tell me any of this before?” Leesha asked.

  “Because it didn’t concern you,” Jizell said. “But now, if you have to deal with that lying witch …”

  “I think it’s time I met Mistress Jessa,” Leesha said.

  “We can go now, if you like,” Rojer said. “Set this whole thing to rest.”

  “Isn’t it a bit late?” Leesha asked. “The sun is long set.”

  Rojer laughed. “They’re only just stirring now, and expecting guests until the dawn.”

  Leesha turned to him. “You mean to take us to the brothel?”

  Rojer shrugged. “Of course.”

  “Can’t we just meet at her home?” Leesha asked.

  “That is her home,” Rojer said.

  “Now just a minute!” Gared said. “Can’t be taking women to a place like that!”

  “Why not?” Rojer asked. “It’s full of women anyway.”

  Gared blushed, balling one of his giant fists. “Ent taking Leesha to some … some …”

  “Gared Cutter!” Leesha snapped. “You may be a baron now, but I won’t have you telling me where I can and can’t go!”

  Gared looked at her in surprise. “I was just …”

  “I know what you were doing,” Leesha cut in. “Your heart’s in the right place, but your mouth isn’t. I’ll go where I please, and that goes for Wonda, too.”

  “This should be fun,” Kendall said. “I know a dozen songs about Angierian whorehouses, but I never thought I’d get to see one.”

  “And you shan’t. A heasah pillow house is no place for Jiwah Sen,” Amanvah glanced at Coliv, “or Sharum.”

  “Ay, Wonda gets to go!” Kendall started, but Sikvah hissed at her, and she fell back with a huff, crossing her arms.

  Amanvah turned to Rojer. “But you would think your Jiwah Ka a fool, husband, if you think I will let you enter such a place without me.”

  To Leesha’s surprise, Rojer bowed to his wife. “Of course. Please know that I was a child in my time there, and a child only. It was never a place of passion for me.”

  Amanvah nodded. “And it never shall be.”

  “Dama’ting, I must …” Coliv began.

  “You must do as you are told, Sharum.” Amanvah’s voice was cold. “I have cast the alagai hora. I am in no danger this night.” The Watcher did not protest further.

  “No carriages,” Rojer said, as they exited Jizell’s hospit from the rear entrance.

  Leesha looked at him curiously. “Why not? There’s no law that says we can’t ride at night.”

  “Ay, but none actually do,” Rojer said. “Our passage will be noticed, and we’re going someplace we’ve no business going.”

  “I thought you said the brothel was a secret,” Leesha said. “If no one knows it’s there …”

  “Then they’ll see Hollower carriages at the doors of Mistress Jessa’s Finishing School for Talented Young Ladies,” Rojer said. “Which will be curiouser still.”

  “What’s a finishing school?” Wonda asked.

  “A place where young women are taught how to hook rich husbands,” Rojer said.

  Indeed, the boardwalk was empty as Leesha, Wonda, Amanvah, and Gared followed Rojer along the twisting streets of Angiers, cutting through alleyways and keeping to the shadows.

  Not that there were many places they could be spotted. There were no wardlights, and the streetlamps were few and far between, save in the most affluent neighborhoods.

  They moved swiftly in spite of the darkness, seeing more clearly in wardsight than they did in day. All of them wore Cloaks of Unsight save Amanvah, who had stitched the wards in silver into her robes.

  “Eerie, how quiet it is,” Wonda noted. “Shops’d still be open in the Hollow this time of night.”

  “The Hollow doesn’t have holes in its wardnet big enough to let wind demons in,” Rojer said. “Only ones out on the street tonight are guards, us, and the homeless.”

  “Homeless?” Wonda asked. “You mean they put poor folk out at night?”

  “More like won’t let them in, but ay,” Rojer said. “I thought it just the way of things, growing up here. Wasn’t till I started playing the hamlets that I saw how evil it was.”

  As if on cue, there was a crack and part of the wardnet above flared to life. A wind demon had flown too low, bouncing off the wards. The lines of protection spiderwebbed like lightning through the sky for just an instant, but Leesha could see holes big enough for the demon to fit.

  The demon saw them, too. It hovered, great leathern wings flapping powerfully as it recovered from the shock. Then it dove, cutting cleanly through the net and sweeping down through the streets, searching for prey.

  Leesha itched to draw her hora wand and destroy it, but if they worried carriages might advertise their presence, a blast of magic would shout it.

  Yet neither could the demon be allowed to hunt. “Wonda.”

  “Ay, mistress,” Wonda said. She looked around a moment, then set off at a run for a rain barrel by the eave of a building. She leapt, foot barely seeming to touch the edge of the barrel as she used it to leap and catch the lip of the slanted roof, pulling herself up effortlessly and running up the roof as she slipped the bow from her shoulders.

  She gave a call, so much like a wind demon’s that the people huddling behind their warded shutters would take no notice. The demon heard and banked hard, coming for her.

  Wonda stood steady, arrow pulled back to her ear as the demon approached. It seemed almost upon her when she loosed, warded arrow flaring with magic as it punched through the demon’s chest. It crumpled, falling hard to the boardwalk in front of them.

  “Gared,” Leesha said as Wonda made her way back down. “Please make sure it’s dead, and find a trough to leave the body in so it doesn’t start a fire when the sun strikes it.”

  “On it,” Gared said.

  He went over to the demon, but it didn’t so much as twitch as he yanked out Wonda’s arrow. There was no trough or fountain to be had, so he was forced to hack the demon apart and stuff it in the rain barrel. Wonda went to the pool of ichor in the street, placing her hands in it and shivering as her blackstem wards absorbed the power. The demon’s blood would continue to reek, but it would not burn in the sun.

  Wonda looked up, her eyes bright as the night strength filled her. “Want me to keep huntin’, mistress, in case there’s more?”

  “I’d feel safer if you stayed with me,” Leesha said. It was true enough, but she also wanted to limit Wonda’s intake of magic until she better understood the effects.

  They quickly moved to the inner city, not far from Rhinebeck’s palace. The streets here were brightly lit with lamps and patrolled by city guard, but these were evaded with relative ease.

  “We’re practically back at the palace,” Leesha said.

  “Of course,” Rojer said. “The brothel is connected to the palace by a series of tunnels, so the Duke and his favored courtiers can have private access, day and night.”

  They turned a corner, and there it stood, Mistress Jessa’s Finishing School for Talented Young Ladies. It was a grand building, with two wings around a central tower, three floors aboveground. The wards on the tower and building were strong, Leesha saw, carved deep and lacquered hard, polished to shine. The lampposts along the street were warded as well. If the walls of the city fell, the school would be as safe from corelings as the palace itself.

  Rojer went boldly to the door, pulling the
silk bell rope. Leesha could only assume it worked—they heard nothing outside. A moment later, the door swung open, revealing a giant of a man. He was not as tall as Gared, but broader, with a bull’s neck that strained the collar of his fine lace shirt and thick arms threatening to tear the seams of his velvet jacket. His face was crooked, with a nose obviously broken more than once. There was a hint of gray in his hair, but it made him only seem more seasoned. A polished baton hung from his belt in easy reach.

  “I don’t know you.” It was a simple statement, but the man’s tone made it a threat.

  “Don’t you, Jax?” Rojer asked, throwing back his cloak. “I’ve grown some, but I’m still the boy you used to throw so high I could catch the rafters.”

  The man blinked. “Rojer?”

  Before Rojer could finish nodding, the man gave a whoop and thrust his hands into Rojer’s armpits, swinging him through the air. Gared tensed, but then Rojer laughed, and he relaxed.

  “Come in, come in!” Jax said, waving them quickly inside and glancing about before closing the door.

  “Caught one of your shows, summer before last,” Jax told Rojer. “Mistress and I hid in the crowd and watched. Had both of us in tears by the end.” There was a choke to the big man’s voice that seemed incompatible with his huge, menacing frame.

  “You should have said.” Rojer punched his arm, but if he felt it, the big man did not react.

  Jax pointed a finger at him. “And you shouldn’t have waited so long to visit. You really the Warded Man’s fiddle wizard now?”

  “Ay.” Rojer nodded to his companions. “I’m here to make introductions for the Hollowers to Mistress Jessa. Is she available?”

  “For you?” Jax asked. “Of course. Gotta move quick, though. Getting late. Royals will start arriving any time now.”

  He led them two stories down a grand spiral staircase covered in red velvet. There was a hallway at the landing, but Jax ignored it, turning instead to push aside a great double bookshelf. It slid smoothly on a wheeled track, revealing an archway covered in heavy laced curtains.

  The shelf slid back into place as they passed through the curtain, opening up into an opulent chamber filled with beautiful women. They lounged on soft couches or in semiprivate curtained chambers, ready for the night’s custom. All were dressed in beautiful gowns, their faces powdered and their hair artfully arranged. The scent of perfume permeated the air.