The Poison Throne (The Moorehawke Trilogy)

by Celine Kiernan

  "Father," she murmured. "Calm yourself..."

  "No!" cried the King impatiently, "they do not have the machine. There is only one left, and it is..." he glanced at Wynter, "in my care." He looked again at Lorcan and there was something new in his eyes now. A sulky kind of vindictiveness that put Wynter on alert.

  "I used your machine to suppress the insurrection, Lorcan... Oliver was there... he was on the crew."

  Lorcan groaned and covered his face with his hands, and Wynter saw a bright moment of satisfaction flare in Jonathon's face.

  "Oh, don't bloody worry," he sneered. "It wasn't in battle, there were no loose tongued survivors. It was just like before... an ambush. Every living man, dead in minutes." Lorcan groaned again and rocked gently to and fro. Jonathon watched him, his face cold.

  "The crew," hissed Lorcan. "What became of the crew?"

  "Besides Oliver and myself? All of them, my men..."

  Lorcan raised his head to stare beseechingly at Jonathon, "Jon... Jon... did you?"

  Jonathon tutted and flung his hand up, sitting back and turning his head away. "They still live. All nine of them, my personal guard. They would die rather than talk." He knotted his jaw and glared into the fire. "But Oliver," he snarled, "Oliver..."

  Suddenly Lorcan leapt as if burned and turned his face to Wynter. He stared at her, appalled and pushed her away from him. "Out!" he hissed, "Out! You can't be here!"

  Jonathon snorted from the other side of the fire. "Oh yes," he drawled, and Wynter and her father turned big eyes to him, both on alert at the cold disdain in his voice. "We cannot let the little Moorehawke child be tainted by any of this, can we? The Kingssons can hurl themselves on the flames for all you care. But your precious baby must stay free and blemishless."

  "Jonathon," implored Lorcan, as he snaked his powerful arm around in front of Wynter and pushed her slowly behind his chair. "Oh, Jonathon... please. Don't..."

  "Don't what?" Jonathon leant forward in his chair, glaring at his old friend. "Don't what, Lorcan? Oliver wants to use your machine to expand the kingdom. He wants to produce them in their dozens!" He scanned Lorcan's face for a reaction, and seemed gratified at the horror he saw there. "He has stolen your plans," he continued. "He has taken hundreds and hundreds of your ingenious little paper-charges and he is promising any of the factions who join him that they can have a machine of their own!"

  Jonathon thumped his chest with a fist suddenly, his voice wavering. "I'm sacrificing my boys, Lorcan. Sometimes I think I'm sacrificing my bloody soul in trying to prevent this from happening." Tears began to roll down Jonathon's cheeks, but there was no softness in his face, only rage and bitter, bitter resentment against the man who sat before him. He jabbed a finger at Lorcan, his face scarlet, his teeth bared. "You made this bloody thing! You bloody made it! Don't sit there and tell me this isn't your fault! Don't you dare tell me that you're not to blame!"

  "But Jon..." Lorcan held his hands out, his voice imploring "You said they were destroyed! You promised! We threw the paper-charges in the river! You let me burn the plans - the only plans, or so you told me. My God, Jon! Was it all one big lie? All the things we did... the men we... just to bury this! And it was a lie? But we swore, Jon... we swore. This is all meant to be over."

  The King blinked at that. He looked confused. He sank back in his chair. "Well..." he mumbled, "... it's not."

  There was a long, heavy silence. Wynter was afraid to move in case either man remembered her presence and decided to throw her from the room. Her father's protective arm had dropped to his side, and his hands lay corpse-pale in his lap. He seemed to have lost all his energy, and slumped motionless in his chair.

  Jonathon might as well have been brooding by his own fireside for all the attention he was paying either of them. He watched the fire, his hands loosely resting on the arms of the chair, his eyes distant. When he finally spoke, he was very calm and thoughtful. There was no trace of his former bitterness or contempt in his voice.

  "You did an excellent job up North, Lorcan. I would have been lost without you. You kept those hounds off my back all that long while." The King glanced at him, but his old friend did not raise his head. Jonathon turned to regard Lorcan closely, propping his cheek on his fist. "Without your machine, this bloody insurrection would have claimed more lives and resources than we could have afforded. You have saved my kingdom... again. You have been a true and loyal subject. And an invaluable friend." Lorcan still did not raise his head. Wynter felt him breathing slow and deep under her hand, as though he were asleep. She glanced down at him. His eyes were brightly reflecting the firelight as he looked down at the toes of Jonathon's boots. "I am sorry I doubted you," continued the King. "I wish I had never pushed you so hard on your return. I wish..."

  "Take your wishes and burn them," growled Lorcan softly. "I have no desire to hear what you wish, or what you are grateful to me for, or how you feel about anything at all. I have no desire to even look upon your face. I wish only that you would leave me in peace."

  Jonathon smiled and huffed a little breath out of his nose. "Well, you have always had the luxury of the noble sentiment, old friend." He pushed himself from the chair, steadying himself before straightening. "Whereas I?" He chuckled bitterly. "I must kill my friends and murder my principles and throw my sons on the funeral pyre of state." He swayed a moment, then turned unsteadily for the door. "Because I..." He spread his arms in an expansive gesture as he exited. "I am the goddamned King!"

  They heard him stumble into the receiving room, then the bolt drew back and he left without closing the hall door.

  Lorcan stayed as he was, staring at the floor. Wynter moved to kneel at his side and he spoke without looking at her. "Go shut the door, darling."

  "Dad, I..."

  "The door please, Wynter."

  His hair had fallen forward, and from this angle she couldn't see his face. As she hesitated, Lorcan's hands slowly tightened into fists, and Wynter sighed and went to shut the hall door.

  It had grown dark, and the receiving room was lit only by the sharp rectangle of light thrown in from the hall. As Wynter crossed the room, a flash of white caught the corner of her eye and she stuttered to a halt, her heart hammering in her chest. The orange cat was sitting in the shadows, its white chest and the tips of its paws glimmering like spectre-light in the gloom. Its paws were tucked neatly together, the tip of its tail switching incessantly to and fro. It said nothing, but it dipped its neat head to one side and widened its eyes expectantly.

  Well? that look said, I don't have all bloody night.

  Wynter took a steadying breath and held up a hand, hush, she indicated, stay there. She closed and bolted the hall door, then crossed to return to her father's room, glancing all the while at the cat. She paused at the retiring room door and gave the cat one more warning look. Wait there!

  The cat tutted and rolled its eyes, and grizzled softly in complaint. Wynter took that as an agreement to wait.

  Lorcan had not moved. He still stared grimly at nothing, his jaw tight, his hands fisted in his lap. Wynter longed to take the tangled curtain of his hair and brush it back into its usual, neatly contained plait. Instead she went and knelt at his feet. She was horribly aware of the cat in the next room, listening, impatiently waiting.

  "Dad," she said softly. "Are you all right?"

  Lorcan continued to stare at the floor, and she took his hand. He was very cold and she chafed his fingers as she gazed into his face. He didn't seem to notice.

  Wynter couldn't really understand any of this. In her opinion this machine, whatever it was, sounded to be a godsend to a kingdom. Surely anything that could hasten the end of a conflict was a good thing? As it was, battles were fought at the expense of hundreds, sometimes thousands of men's lives. Men were battered with cannon, pierced with arrows, and hacked by swords and halberds. They were punctured by pike and lance, beaten, broken and mutilated, and left to scream and die under the trampling hooves of their horses. If her fath
er had created something, some weapon, that brought all that to a rapid close... well, all to the good! Let Jonathon fashion them in the hundreds, and ring the kingdom with them! If it were up to Wynter, that is most certainly what she would do.

  But peering up into Lorcan's face, she saw that her father was broken at the idea, hollowed out by it. This puzzled her. Lorcan, though no lover of war, had never shied away from the brutal necessity of physical conflict. He had gone to war himself, and when younger, he had been famous for his ferocious battle rage. In the early stages of this insurrection, before he was sent North, Lorcan had stood at the war table with Jonathon and devised strategies and battle plans that would surely have sent hundreds to their deaths. So why was he distraught by the possibility of his machine being used in defence of the kingdom he loved?

  Now, Jonathon? Jonathon, Wynter understood better. He feared the machine being used against him... He had perhaps wanted to keep it for himself, and therefore wished to suppress the knowledge of it. But why had he agreed to destroy it in the first place? Such a powerful tool! None of it made any sense to her at all... It made her all the more determined to seek out Alberon, and get some answers.

  Lorcan hissed and Wynter snapped back to herself with a start. He looked pained and gently extracted his hand from her grip. She realised that she had been grinding his fingers between hers, kneading them like dough in her anxiety.

  "Oh Dad! I'm sorry."

  He was distracted and upset. "He will regret this in the morning," he muttered. "When the wine wears off him."

  "Well, he can't take it back now, Dad! It's in your possession!"

  Lorcan looked at her blankly, then realised that she was referring to the licence. "No, darling. He will regret having spoken like that in front of you. It will eat at him... he will not feel safe. Knowing that he has revealed himself like that to you." He stared through her. "More than ever you must go. As soon as Razi has left, you must follow him. Do not hesitate, in case you lose him..." He looked into her eyes, shook her lightly, to emphasise the importance of his words. "Do... not... hesitate!"

  "What of you, Dad?"

  "What of me? I'm done, that's the end of it. But I will not have you burn in the fires of my making. Go! Follow Razi to Padua! Throw yourself under his protection, for he will never send you back here, I promise you that. Have a good life, baby-girl..." He raised his eyebrows and gave her a twisted smile. "Sure, has the King himself not just handed you the best licence of work ever granted man or woman in the history of his kingdom?" He stroked her hair again and tilted his head fondly. "With your talent, girl, you can't fail to thrive."

  "Oh, Dad, please." She wouldn't look at him then, couldn't see the determined hope in his eyes and know that she would deceive him right up to the end. Her eyes slid past him in distress, and her face froze at the sight of the cat sitting on the windowsill. It bared its teeth in an impatient snarl and glared at her. She tore her eyes from it. Oh Christ.

  "Wynter?" Lorcan touched her hand. "Darling?"

  She met his gaze and her eyes welled up and overflowed He cupped her cheek in his hand, running his thumb under her eye to wipe away the tears. "Darling," he whispered. "Can... can we pretend?"

  This brought more tears to her eyes and she dipped her head quickly to scrub them away. They weren't pretending type of people, the Moorehawkes, not pretending type of people at all. She lifted her face to him again, and took his hand.

  "Yes, Dad. What would you like to pretend?"

  He squeezed her hand. "Let's pretend that tomorrow is not our goodbye." Her breath caught in her chest with an audible hitch. Lorcan caught her eyes and held them hopefully with his. "Let's pretend that you're going to Helmsford to check a stand of timber. That you'll be back in a week. That we'll see each other in a week. Wynter, can we do that?"

  It didn't matter how hard she clenched her jaw, her chin wouldn't stop trembling, and the tears were back, spilling down her face and dripping off her chin. Lorcan made a desperate little sound and put his hands on either side of her face and swiped her cheeks dry. He pushed her hair back off her forehead, with a determined tightening of his mouth and then wiped the tears off her face again. "Let's pretend, darling," he growled. "Please. Let's..."

  "Yes, Dad!" She grabbed his hands and took them from her face, holding them tightly in her own, stilling his ever more frantic attempts to dry her tears. "Yes. Helmsford. Timber. A week. Yes."

  His eyes got huge for a moment, and for a moment, she thought he wouldn't be able to do the very thing he asked of her. But in the end, he compressed his generous mouth to a thin white line, clenched his jaw to nearly snapping point and nodded tightly.

  "I need to go to bed now, darling," he said. "I will send word to Marcello to come very early tomorrow, that I may get ready to have breakfast with you... before..."

  She nodded. "You'll need your rest," she said. "And I need to go speak to Marni." Lorcan tensed, concern sharpening his face. Wynter patted his hand reassuringly. "I shall be careful, Dad. I will stick to the halls." She glanced significantly at the cat and it stalked haughtily out of sight, along the ledge back to the receiving room window, no doubt. "I promise, there will be no sneaking about, Dad. Nothing shall happen to me."

  Lorcan nodded, and his implicit trust in her almost broke Wynter's heart.

  With a fierce sniff, she shook herself and carefully pushed every feeling down to that roiling place in the pit of her belly. She set her jaw, shoved her shoulder in under Lorcan's arm, and helped him heave himself to his feet. With her support, Lorcan made his slow way to bed, stiff and agonised. He eased down onto his pillows, as heavy as a stone. He held her hand briefly, not looking at her, then pushed her gently away.

  Wynter glanced back at him as she shut his door. He was staring into the fire, his hands clenched on his chest, his face haunted. Sleep was miles from him.

  She delayed just a touch longer, going to her room to belt on her dagger and slip a candle and travel tinder-box into her belt-purse. On the point of leaving she added Christopher's map to the crackling reassurance of Razi's note against her heart. At the last minute, she shrugged Christopher's jacket on over her tunic and then she finally went to face the cat.

  It was practically spitting with rage by the time she stepped into the receiving room.

  "You certainly took your own sweet time, did you not?" it hissed. "I suspect that I have aged considerably in the course of your interminable congress with that man."

  Wynter breathed deep and knotted her hands by her sides. "Let us make haste, then," she ground out. "Before you slip into your dotage."

  The cat growled and Wynter showed it the door. "You will have to find me another entrance to the passages. I cannot risk my father hearing me enter from here."

  The cat led her through the halls, and it wasn't long before it paused and slipped smoothly behind a tapestry. Wynter followed. A quick search of the dim panelling revealed the ubiquitous cherub sconce, and she twisted it on its head. A small secret door slid open for them and they made their way into the dusty blackness of the passageways, carefully shutting the door behind them.

  Almost immediately, Wynter felt the cat swarm up her legs and body, and curl itself onto her shoulders. The hissing instructions began at once and Wynter's heart hammered painfully against her throat as she began the winding journey through the dark.

  Whispers in The Dark

  "Stretch out your hand and push gently at the panel to your right."

  Wynter did as the cat bade her and the panel slid forward and to the side. It remained impenetrably dark, but the air freshened slightly and chilled. Wynter slipped out of the passageway, still clinging to the doorframe. She was completely blind. Keeping her back pressed against the reassurance of the wall, she ran her hands over the stones on either side of her and lifted her arms to feel the low corbelled roof of an underground passage.

  She knew instantly where they were. This was the low-ceilinged corridor where she had first heard the inquisitors t
orturing the assassin. She froze and strained her ears, expecting ghostly screams. But there was nothing, just the ragged sound of her own breathing and the wild hammering of her heart.

  The darkness was a good sign; it meant that there were no torches lit, and no torches meant no activity. No human activity, at least. Wynter strained her ears again. She wished that she could manage to hold her breath, all the better to listen, but she was too frightened and could not pause her fearful panting. It had occurred to her on the journey through the passages, that the spirits of the inquisitors themselves might still be here. Their ghosts intent on causing pain. The thought made Wynter's knees unhinge, and she gripped the stones of the wall in panic

  Ghosts don't tend to harm, she thought feverishly, ghosts don't tend to harm. Christopher's wry lilt came back to her, clear and bright in the blackness. Tell that to the raw meat we left in the dungeon a few nights ago. She squeezed her eyes tight: Oh shut up, Christopher. Ghosts don't tend to harm. They don't...

  The cat hissed and squirmed impatiently on her shoulders. "Are you planning a nap, girl?" it asked sharply. "Shall I go grab a bite to eat, and return when you are ready?"

  Its grizzled sarcasm forced Wynter to put some iron in her spine, and she pushed herself from the wall with a long, controlling breath. Sinking cautiously to her knees, she felt for her tinderbox and fumbled the candle from her purse. The cat tutted and leapt from her shoulders with a growl. The abrupt loss of its reassuring weight froze Wynter in mid action, and she suppressed a whimper of fear at the thought that it might have deserted her again. She listened for a moment, staring uselessly into the dark, her hands poised in the act of opening the tinderbox. There was no sound to indicate that the cat remained in her vicinity. It had left her.

  Wynter felt her mouth tighten into a bitter little line. To hell with the damned creature, she certainly wouldn't give it the pleasure of hearing her cry out. She angrily turned her blind eyes to the task at hand, and struck the flint over the tinderbox. The ensuing spark lit the hall like a flash of lightning, but didn't catch the tinder. She bit her lip and struck again, and again. The bright flashes left light-scars on the backs of Wynter's eyes and she blinked rapidly, forcing the red trails away from her vision. Come on, she thought, poising to strike again, please.