There was a lot of blood. The front of my nightgown was one spreading blood stain, and further stains sprayed the wool blankets and soaked the sheets.
The tapeti isn’t huge, as rabbits go. This one was maybe fourteen inches from nose to tail, not counting its ears. Not huge—but it’d have been difficult, restraining its struggling body with one hand and bringing down a knife with the other. Difficult, but clearly not impossible. There was way too much fresh blood for the animal to have died anywhere else, and the body had been warm.
But I locked my door!
And Silvertip had locked his.
A glimmer of an idea came to me about that, only to be brushed away by anger. I wasn’t afraid. Wouldn’t be afraid. I’d been more than half expecting something like this anyway, though I admit I’d thought locking the door and wedging books under the window latches would be enough.
Did Torben think I was a complete idiot?
You haven’t done much to convince him otherwise.
Oh, please, like he’d looked for evidence before making assumptions. I’d spent my whole life dealing with this drivel: small meant victim. Pretty meant dumb. Female meant hapless. What else did a man like Torben need to judge me?
My fists clenched. Breath heaved through my chest. I clicked my teeth together, considering my next course of action. Then I got cleaned up and dressed.
I put on all white, like the proprietress. It seemed appropriate.
I’d gotten up early but not earlier than the Gulbransens. They were already in the kitchen, chopping boards out, preparing meals fit for prefects. Cai had dough rising in the warm oven, and only grudgingly moved it atop the refrigerator so I could use the broiler. I heard Batata enter the dining room while I worked, but I didn’t go out to see him. Bad enough that the Gulbransens saw what I was up to without my giving the prefects any ideas.
When I reached my office, the calm of performance descended. It’s always this way with me: I’m only nervous or upset or distressed up until the point. When it comes to it, I settle right down, intent on nothing except the task before me. Calmly, therefore, I cleared off the desk and arranged the platter upon it. Calmly, I picked up the landline and pressed the button for the knighthouse.
I wasn’t surprised that Torben was the one to pick up—or that he did so upon the first ring.
“Captain Nass,” I said, with the tone of a woman trying desperately to keep herself under control, “would you please come to my office immediately?”
“Are you in danger, prefect?”
How strange it was, hearing that dry-leaf voice divorced from its face.
I swallowed, the sound barely audible over the line, and made sure he could hear the faint smacking of lips. “I require your presence without delay. There is a . . . matter . . . I’d like to discuss with you.”
“I’ll be there directly,” Torben promised, and the line clicked.
I returned the phone to its cradle and settled myself behind the desk to wait. My hair and makeup were flawless, my expression polite expectation, my posture proper but relaxed. I stood, a welcoming smile spreading, when Torben slammed through the door at a run.
My smile faded into gentle confusion at the way the door banged against the wall and Torben skidded to a halt. “Prefect?” he snapped, primed for trouble.
“You are prompt,” I congratulated him, “though I didn’t mean you had to run. Still, I appreciate your keenness.”
Torben’s head tilted, and he remained on high alert as he swayed and stalked to the desk. “What is this?”
The covered platter had been designed for a turkey or goose, and really was excessively large for my purposes, but it had been the only one available. “Breakfast,” I said. “Please, sit with me.”
I sat, and he leaned at me.
“We don’t have a lot of free time this week,” I chided him, “which makes it all the more important that we take good care of ourselves and eat well. Join me, Torben. You’re my head knight and I’m your prefect; we ought to be on good terms.”
“I’ve already eaten,” he said.
I shook my head and tsked. “Nonsense; it’s barely six-thirty. The sun won’t rise for another hour, and you’ll be running around until long after it has set. You need the energy of a proper meal. I won’t take no for an answer; prefect’s prerogative. Sit down, Torben. Time’s a-wasting.”
Torben sat: rigid, frowning, making no attempt to pretend he believed me.
“I was hoping you’d tell me more about my predecessor, and what he intended for this conference,” I said sweetly, handing him plate, fork, and butter knife, and giving myself the same. “For your lap,” I told him maternally, passing over a cloth napkin. “Bo hardly had time to give me instructions before he left. I found his phone number, naturally, but he isn’t answering it. As head knight, you must have some idea—ah.”
I lifted the platter lid and inhaled blissfully. “I hope you don’t mind spices. Those of us brought up in Batata can’t bear our meat plain. I guess I’ll have to learn new habits, here in Edenfield.”
Torben made a strangled noise, which I took for assent, and I began carving.
This was the first rabbit I’d skinned, gutted, and butterflied in years, but it’s not something you forget how to do: just like peeling off a sock and scooping out gourd seeds. It hadn’t come out badly, I thought, and the ultra-spicy sauce I’d drizzled over it would hide any rough spots. I’d spooned some leftover boiled potatoes around the rabbit to fill in the platter and hide my cutting job, and sprinkled fresh cilantro over the top. It smelled magnificent and looked like something Luc might have put together—probably because Gina had taken pity on me and helped out.
“Do you have a preference?” I asked politely, carving knife poised. “No? I’ll halve it.”
His expression flickered like an aspen leaf in the breeze.
I wielded the knife lazily, digging the tip into the rabbit and then smacking the top of it to split the spine. Using fork and knife to balance the meat, I transferred one half of the rabbit to Torben’s plate and the other to mine. Then I laid the greasy knife across the remaining potatoes, pointed his way, and set the entire platter to one side—easily in my reach but out of his.
“Try a bite,” I encouraged him, and made a show of cutting a piece of meat and rolling it around in my mouth. I don’t particularly like rabbit, and I’d gone too heavy on the vinegar, but you’d have thought it the finest food on the planet, the way I savored it. “Go on,” I told him. “It’s delicious.”
Torben didn’t touch his plate. He sat, wrists propped on the edge of the desk, observing me. Not speaking, not reacting, just observing with those too-pale green eyes and a shuttered mien.
“There’s no need to stand on ceremony,” I said, wishing he’d give me something to work with—some momentum I could turn to my advantage.
He didn’t. Well, if that’s the way he wanted to play it, fine. I could adapt.
With harsh movements, I dropped fork and knife and grabbed the rabbit with bare hands. “Like this,” I growled, and tore viciously into the meat, tearing off chunks with my teeth, gorging myself on it. Grease and spicy sauce oozed down my chin and wrists, staining my white cuffs. I grinned ferociously through shreds of meat and chewed with my mouth open.
Torben’s expression closed down entirely. He might’ve been made of olivewood or walnut. He stayed like that as I ripped through the last of my meat: distantly observing.
My throat burned, and my stomach pressed against my waistband, tight and aching. I threw the empty carcass onto his plate to drip my saliva onto his untouched food. “Did you think,” I snarled, rising, snatching for the carving knife, “that you could scare me away with recycled tricks?”
I barely saw him move. In a blur, he was on his feet, reaching for me. I ducked back, but he was faster. Cold fingers seized my hair and dragged me over the desk. I clawed at his wrist, swearing at him, tears of pain streaming down my face as flesh ripped apart around stitches
and scabs.
But I was ready for it, when I hit the floor on the far side of the desk. The moment my feet touched carpet, I launched off, aiming for his eyes. He twisted his wrist sharply. My knees folded, and I fell stomach-first into his chair.
I howled, and immediately Torben’s free arm wrapped around my neck, choking the noise to silence. My body went into panic mode, thrashing, tugging, but he left no gaps between his body and mine that would let me get movement, and his arm was like ironwood around my neck, cutting off not just airflow but also blood. A single second stretched, and my legs went limp beneath me.
If he’d wanted to kill me, he could have done it then: eight, nine more seconds of that hold was all it would take. But instead, he released my neck, twisted his hand in my hair to tighten his hold, and dragged me to the far corner of the room. I thrashed weakly at him, but he held me away from his body, out of fingernail range. I was too busy gasping for air anyway, to start thinking about traction.
Torben shoved my face in the corner of wall and carpet, and the rest of my body followed. I bent my legs to try to get them under me, but he simply rested a knee on my backbone and twisted my hair harder.
That was all right. Between gorging myself on the rabbit and being chaired in the stomach, I really had only one recourse: I began vomiting, emptying my stomach of grease and vinegar and masticated rabbit.
Torben didn’t spring back in disgust. He held my head up high enough that I didn’t suffocate, but no higher; and when I was done, he pushed my head back down again. Vomit squelched beneath my cheek, its sharp, rancid stench setting me off again. I puked and puked until stomach acid burned up my throat and I sobbed for air.
He didn’t have to push me back down after that; I was weak as a newborn kitten mewing helplessly for its mother. But he held me down anyway, waiting until my cries had quieted, until the spasms had shivered themselves into micro quivers.
I don’t think I’ve ever hated anyone the way I hated him, in those moments, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.
“Let me be clear,” Torben said, voice soft as the crinkle of fall leaves on their clinging twigs. “Artifice may work on the prideful, the lascivious, the greedy, and the weak-minded, but it will not work on me. You’ve had your turn playing dress-up and treason, but this is my prefecture and my country, and I will not allow you to continue.”
I made a noise of protest, and he ground my face into carpet and vomit until I stopped.
“Your ego,” he went on, “is remarkably swollen for a woman of moderate talent who has achieved nothing more in life than a minor secretarial position for a man as far her superior in intellect and status as the redwood is to the weed.”
I croaked, “When the other prefects—”
“You want to see the other prefects?” He sprang off my back, his fistful of hair dragging me toward the door.
I mewed and snatched for his wrist with both hands, desperate to relieve the burning in my scalp. “Stop!”
“Stop?” Torben exclaimed. “What for? We’re going to see the other prefects. Right now.” He threw the office door open and tried to pull me through, but I was determined not to go no matter how much hair it cost me. My clutching hands found the doorframe and held on for dear life, nails scratching lines in the smooth beech.
“What’s the matter?” Torben asked me. “You said you wanted to go. Canopus would be impressed, I’m sure. Or Silvertip. Or Avior.” He leaned his weight back, and one of my hands slipped from the frame. The other followed soon after, leaving a sliver of fingernail behind.
I thought Torben was going to drag me into the dining room there and then, to parade me in front of Batata and the mud coffee, but he didn’t. He released me instead.
I scrabbled upright and back into the office, before anyone could see me. Torben followed deliberately, unhurried. As I sprinted for the knife and grabbed it with both greasy hands, he closed and locked the door behind him. “You won’t hurt me,” he said.
People always believe that; he was no better than Theodora. I grinned savagely and sprang at him, thrusting the blade at his stomach.
Torben stepped casually to the side and caught my wrist. Without tensing, he turned underneath my arm, and suddenly I was blinking up at him from the floor, the knife tip an inch from my eye. The hilt remained in one of my hands, but he’d twisted the arm in such a way that I had no strength in it. His hand rested on top of mine, supporting the knife, both guiding it and preventing me from releasing it.
He gave me a solid minute for the situation to sink in, and then he peeled my fingers loose and plucked the knife away.
Never turning his back to me and yet unafraid, he put the knife in a desk drawer and stood back, waiting for me to follow him, to attack again. A clump of hair fell from his hand, soaked with blood.
I didn’t bother standing. There didn’t seem to be any point, and the hot poker bisecting my scalp made a really good argument for rest. I made just enough effort to sit up and scoot my back against the desk, knees propped so I could stare between them. Blood welled through the white tights I’d worn to disguise the scabs. No doubt blood and vomit had smeared my makeup off, revealing the full extent of my injuries.
I really needed to quit ruining my suits like this. Maybe I should invest in armor.
Torben squatted next to me, face barely eighteen inches from my own. I didn’t focus on it; it’d only be uglier than ever. The far wall was much pleasanter, once I’d cleaned off and adjusted my glasses.
“Here’s what is going to happen,” Torben informed me. He was careful not to touch me, I noticed, now that I wasn’t fighting him. Interesting. “You are going to gather your belongings,” he said, “and your brother, and you are going to leave. You will not speak to anyone. You will not say any goodbyes. I will deliver your apologies.”
“Or?” I prompted tiredly. “There’s supposed to be an ‘or.’”
“Or I’ll arrest you for treason.”
I nodded. That was a good “or.” The one I’d expected. And I believed that he meant it, both parts of it. I believed that he’d let me go if I did what he wanted. Why not? I was nothing to him. What does it matter whether the wasp is dead, as long as it’s no longer at your picnic?
I cast my eyes down on the Edenfield signet ring, the crest of midnight purple and ice blue, the edenbear. Carina doesn’t have many native mammals; we’re a bird sort of place. Our rats and squirrels and rabbits all came from elsewhere, initially. As I remembered it, the edenbear wasn’t technically even a bear, just a supremely enormous rodent of some sort. It was found nowhere north of Edenfield, though some managed to survive south of here, in the wind-swept wasteland that was Plisp.
“I’ll need that,” Torben said, holding out his hand for the ring. The hand was rough and calloused, and I realized out of nowhere that this was the first time I’d seen him without his dog. The realization struck me as ridiculous, and I laughed. Then I realized that Torben could easily have taken the ring from me and thrown me in prison or out of the manor, but he hadn’t. Stealing a prefect’s ring is treason, and he couldn’t risk anyone discovering what he’d done. Not for my sake. That made me laugh even harder, high and hysterical, a trickle of red running down my forehead and into my eye.
If Torben hadn’t already thought I belonged in a madhouse, that laugh would’ve convinced him.
He let the crazy lady calm down again before he said, “Hand over the ring, and you can go.”
He hadn’t beaten me as I’d feared, or not in the only way that mattered to him. I laughed again and said, “No.”
“Stop it!” He grabbed my arms and shook me. I flopped obligingly. “Shut up! This is serious. Give me that ring, or I’ll arrest you and drag you to the knighthouse in front of everyone. The other prefects will see you like this and shame Edenfield. Is that what you want?”
I laughed harder, laughed until a fresh torrent of tears cascaded down my face and my gut sloshed and cramped.
“Stop it!”
Torben slapped my cheek. Hard. Pain rang up through the graze and gasped my laughter away.
That was fine by me; laughter made it hard to speak. I said, “Does a head knight assault his prefect?”
The voice was hardly mine. I ached. But I knew he could not win, and that was all that mattered.
He snarled. “A treasonous prefect is no—”
“What treason?”
He broke the sentence, eyes narrowing.
“What treason have you witnessed me commit?” I pressed. “Was it when I refused to let the prefect pass on his duties to the head knight who’d threatened his life? Who kills and mutilates animals for pleasure? Was it when I didn’t let myself be harassed and bullied into handing over my prefecture to that same man? Or was it when I refused to give up Edenfield’s signet ring to the head knight who attacked his own prefect because she wouldn’t scare as easily as her predecessor?”
Torben squeezed my wrist, turning his nails in and digging. Wild light lit his mossy-green eyes. He might do anything, like that. He might kill me. The safe thing would be to back down, but I wasn’t thinking safe. I was thinking winning.
There was pain, but I made no sound of it, and the tears dried from my eyes. “Ugly, cowardly little man,” I grated, “there’s the knife. Cut the ring off my finger if you want it. If you dare.”
The hand squeezed harder and then abruptly released. Torben stood and backed away—paced to the door, stiff and brittle as dead grass, and then spun and paced back, unhooking handcuffs from his belt. The ordinary kind, with a chain linking the cuffs. The rogue danger in his eyes had vanished, replaced with something subtler.
“Mercedes Cartier,” he said, kneeling and snapping the cuffs on my wrists, “I’m placing you under arrest for impersonating a king’s agent, willfully manipulating a prefect, and attempting to sabotage the prefects’ conference.”
Chapter 27:
Disorderly Conduct
One of the most essential skills of the truly accomplished liar is the ability to successfully respond to accusations. The downfall of this skill is that it is utterly useless when the person you’re talking to will not under any circumstances believe anything you say—not just because he knows you’re a liar; that can be overcome. But because he is personally set against you, and will dismiss your words without ever really hearing them.
Bargaining Power Page 29