by Ian Irvine
‘And I’m not sure how long the city gates can hold.’
‘This doesn’t seem like a simple war any more. It’s starting to look like a conspiracy.’
‘But who’s manipulating whom?’
Rix took a deep breath. ‘Tobe, I need your help.’
‘You want me to guard Tali and Rannilt. I was planning to do that anyway.’
‘Er, that too,’ said Rix, who had been focusing on a different crisis. ‘I’ve got to get the palace defences ready and the men trained to fight this new enemy.’
‘How do you propose to do that?’
‘I’ve been training with Commander Horkoran since I was thirteen. He’s a worrier, but he listens to me.’ Rix smiled mirthlessly. ‘He’s got to, since Lord Ricinus takes no interest in anything beyond range of his drinking arm.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘First we need to make a list of all the enemy’s new weapons and tactics, then start thinking about how we can counter them.’
‘Our generals should be doing that,’ said Tobry.
‘They aren’t going to tell us though, are they? Maybe I can’t fight in the army until I’ve got an heir, but no one’s stopping me from defending my own people. If you can take Horkoran my written instructions …’ Rix trailed off. ‘Pathetic, isn’t it, but it’s the best I can do.’
‘Your fanatical attachment to this house confounds me,’ said Tobry, ‘but no one can argue with your knowledge of military matters.’
‘Then you’ll do it?’
‘With all my heart.’
Rix embraced him. ‘Thank you. We’ll beat the devils yet.’
‘Of course we will,’ Tobry said unconvincingly.
‘What did you do with Rannilt? Is she all right? Being trapped by a shifter, used as bait … I think I’d lose my mind.’
‘I know I would,’ said Tobry. ‘But she’s a tough little creature. She seems in better shape than I am. I took her to Luzia.’
Rix smiled. ‘That was kindly done. Rannilt will be good for her. It’s a struggle for Luzia now, living all alone.’
‘I know. I often visit her …’
Rix took the hint, subtle though it was. ‘I’ve neglected her. I’ll go and see her … as soon as the portrait is done.’
‘How’s it going?’
Rix sighed. ‘Not well.’
‘Why not?’
‘I hate it. What’s wrong with me, Tobe? My father was a good man once, and he deserves my respect. Why can’t I honour him with my art?’
They went up to his studio. Tobry stared at the huge portrait, walked back and forth, and studied it up close. Rix noticed that his coat hung lower on the left, as if he had something heavy in his pocket.
‘No one could fault the artistry,’ said Tobry. ‘In fact, it’s magnificent — ’
‘But?’ said Rix. ‘Don’t tell me you like it?’
‘I don’t. Not at all. Though …’
‘For the Gods’ sakes, say it.’
‘If you’re painting to please yourself, you can do what you like. But when you’re working to commission, doing a portrait for your father’s Honouring …’
‘What?’ snapped Rix.
‘Do you have to be so damned honest about him?’
‘Mother says I’ve captured his essence.’
‘She would.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Sorry, but I have to be blunt.’ Tobry adjusted his coat, though it still hung lower on the left.
‘I want you to be blunt.’
‘Do you? You can be a trifle blind where — never mind. Look, Lady Ricinus despises your father and you’ve captured it in his face — her contempt and his knowledge of it, the guilt at his drunkenness and bad behaviour, the wastage of the family fortunes. His face has it all.’
‘But?’ said Rix, squirming as he realised Tobry was right.
‘It’s a magnificent portrait. It’s going to be a masterpiece, but if it was my father I wouldn’t hang it in my house. Assuming I had a father, or a house, you understand.’
‘Perhaps I have gone a bit far.’ Rix had loved his father once, and would never want to hurt him, though that was hardly possible. Lord Ricinus had the skin of a shifter pig. ‘It’s too late to change it now. There’s only six days until the Honouring.’
‘I’m not telling you to change it; just what I see in it.’
‘Anyway, I’ve begun another painting,’ said Rix.
‘Really? Where do you find the time?’
‘I haven’t been sleeping well, and I’ve turned away Mother’s bed mate. I’m not letting her have the pleasure.’
‘By depriving yourself of it. That’ll really sting her.’
Rix shrugged. It was rare to win a battle with Lady Ricinus but he was determined to beat her on this one.
Tobry pulled him close. ‘There’s something else the matter, isn’t there? Are you having the nightmares again?’
Rix cast an uncomfortable glance down the stairs. Though the great heatstone in the salon could not be seen from here, he could feel its brooding presence.
‘I was dreading them all the way home, yet, oddly, I haven’t had a one. I guess all that action drove them out of my mind. Or maybe the war did — something real to worry about. But — ’
‘What?’
‘Come and look at this. I keep it in here so Mother won’t find it.’
‘You can paint what you like.’
‘Until the portrait is done I can’t even scratch my arse without permission.’
Rix led Tobry into a storeroom full of blank canvases. From the back, facing the wall, he lifted out a smaller painting, only a yard across.
‘I was planning to do a cruel satire on Mother,’ said Rix. ‘To balance my depiction of Father, I suppose. Anyway, I ended up with this instead. I don’t know where it came from, but it scares me.’
‘As you said, sometimes your paintings can be divinations.’
Rix turned the painting to face them. It was little more than a sketch rendered in quick, violent brushstrokes. A large, windowless chamber, crowded with junk and filled with a greenish mist. Dim lanterns to left and right, haloed rings around them, illuminating a black bench in the middle and, lying on it, the figure of a woman, just a few strokes of the brush.
‘What’s it supposed to mean?’ said Tobry.
‘No idea. The scene feels familiar, yet oddly remote.’
‘Perhaps it’s a picture you saw as a kid. Remember those grim old paintings that used to be everywhere around the palace, full of bloody war and violent hunting scenes? What happened to them, anyway?’
‘Mother got rid of them. She wanted art more in keeping with what the higher families had on their walls.’
‘Of course she would,’ said Tobry.
‘I couldn’t sleep after I painted this. I was afraid that if I dropped off I’d have another of those nightmares about blood, and an ice leviathan rolling over the palace, and the fall of our house.’
‘Hardly surprising, with the war going so badly.’ Tobry adjusted his coat again and took another look at the sketch. ‘I can practically smell the mould, the filth, the damp.’
‘When I close my eyes I can smell it.’
‘Paint the rest of it. That might get it out of your mind.’
‘I doubt it. I whited over it last night, but ten minutes later I was sketching the place again, exactly the same only more detailed. Where does it come from? What does it mean?’
‘I haven’t a clue, but …’
‘What?’
‘The viewpoint is quite low. No higher than the bench.’
‘Why didn’t I notice that?’ said Rix. A shiver began, low down, then spread up his back to the top of his head. ‘It’s as though it’s being seen by a child …’
CHAPTER 61
‘Tobe,’ said Rix. ‘You’ve known me a long time.’
They were in his studio again and he was trying not to look at the portrait, wh
ich was getting worse with each brushstroke. After Lady Ricinus’s last inspection the water had frozen in the taps.
‘All your wicked life,’ said Tobry. ‘I remember seeing you just after you’d been born. You weren’t a big baby, oddly enough. And extremely ugly — a veritable horror.’ He chuckled. ‘We spent a lot of time at the palace when you were little … before the scandalous fall of the House of Lagger.’
Rix could not manage a smile. ‘Do you remember being here when I was ten? Something happened back then and I was sick for ages.’
‘I’ve never known you to be sick,’ said Tobry. ‘You’re disgustingly healthy. Everyone in the palace is.’
‘I haven’t been sick since, but I nearly died that time. A fever or something, and afterwards I’d lost a whole month of my life. You must remember it.’
Tobry shook his head. ‘I wasn’t allowed to visit then. We were disgraced; the House of Lagger was sliding towards the precipice and all doors were closed to us.’ He walked away and stared out the window.
‘The nightmares started after I got well,’ said Rix.
‘Fever can do that to you.’
‘But they’ve never stopped. They’ve got worse.’
‘Sorry. What with the bankruptcy, mother’s disgrace, father’s suicide, the manor being burnt to the ground with everyone but me inside, and our creditors taking the rest of the estate, I don’t remember much about those years. Don’t want to remember, if truth be told.’ He looked at Rix. ‘You’re pale enough to be a Pale. You should have an early night.’
‘I can’t. The damned portrait. I’ll be up till three again.’
‘I’ll get out of your way. I’m going to check on Tali.’
‘At the abbey?’
‘Hildy wouldn’t take her, and then I was followed. I shook them off, dropped her at Torgrist Manor and made a false trail — ’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ said Rix. ‘Who followed her?’
‘I assume Hildy betrayed us to the chancellor.’
‘But Tali’s wounded. You did go back? You made sure she’s all right?’ Suddenly Rix understood why Tobry was so flat.
He looked sick. ‘I tried to, but all the mansions in that street were watched, front and back. If I’d gone into Torgrist Manor the chancellor would have known within minutes that she was there. I’m really worried about her.’
‘Has she got food? Warm clothes? Fresh bandages?’
‘No, nothing,’ Tobry said hoarsely.
Rix paced back and forth. ‘Damn it, Tobe, we’ve got to do something. At least, you have — they won’t let me out.’ He handed Tobry a jingling bag. ‘Bribe the guards. Get her away where she can be looked after, then come back. I’m not sure I want to be alone with this, tonight.’
He put the sketch back in the cupboard and closed the door.
When Rix could not bear to touch brush to the portrait again, it was four in the morning. Too exhausted to undress, he lay on the huge bed and blew out the lantern. Outside, big snowflakes were fluttering down in the moonlight.
The moment he closed his eyes, his father’s face reappeared in his inner eye, as it always did after a long close-up session. Rix did not try to blank it out; that never worked. He concentrated on the brushstrokes until they blurred into a miasma — a green mist wreathing across a dirty, windowless chamber.
Though he never wanted to see that image again, he had been waiting for it, even longing for it in a strange kind of way. It was horrible, yet cathartic — or would be once he had seen it all.
He went back to the studio, took the sketch from the cupboard and focused on the figure lying on the black bench. He thought it was a woman but could discover no more about her. At the head of the bench, two blurred shapes might have been people, though no amount of analysis could extract more from them.
But why would it? Last night he had done the sketch in a creative frenzy, not thinking at all. Rix made some tentative dabs at the shadows, though as soon as the paint went on he knew it was wrong.
Loading his largest brush with white, he painted the scene out and fixed the blank canvas in mind. Now he could sleep. He rubbed his eyes, yawned, picked up the small brush again and, without thinking, swept it across the canvas. A dozen strokes recreated the windowless chamber, another two dozen the miasmic background and the bench with the indistinct figure on it, the shadows at the end, the lot.
But now there was a diminutive figure off to the right. Was she the one who had been viewing the scene before? He did not think so. She looked too little, though the viewpoint would depend on where she had been standing. Yet why would he see through the eyes of a child? It did not make sense.
‘Still no faces?’ said Tobry from behind him.
Rix jumped and his brush spattered grey paint across the right-hand lower corner. ‘There’s nothing to identify any of them.’
‘That’s definitely a child, though. A small girl. And I can tell you one thing about her, from the way she’s standing.’
‘What’s that?’
Tobry wore a different coat but it still hung low on the left. ‘She’s scared. No, terrified — no, horrified.’
‘How can you tell?’
‘I have a gift for it.’ Tobry adjusted his coat. ‘How’s the portrait going?’
‘Progress, though I still hate it.’
Rix took a last look at the sketch then whited it out, wishing he could wipe his own imagination as easily. ‘What have you got in your pocket?’
‘A packet of powdered lead.’
‘What on earth for?’
‘I’ve a mortal fear of shifters, and especially caitsthes.’
‘A mortal fear?’ Rix said curiously, then remembered the look in his friend’s eyes when the caitsthe had been on his back — a terror that had nothing to do with dying, or being torn apart by the beast, but of something that to Tobry was far worse.
‘If we meet another one, I’ll be ready to burn its livers with powdered lead. Have I told you how the war is going?’
‘Disastrously, you said, and I don’t want to hear it again right now. How did you get on with Tali?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘What!’
‘She wasn’t anywhere in Torgrist Manor. I don’t know where she’s gone.’
‘How hard did you look?’ cried Rix, chafing because Lady Ricinus’s guards prevented him from going after Tali. ‘What if she’s lying in a fever somewhere? Dying?’
Tobry was unnaturally pale. ‘I looked everywhere, believe me.’
‘Maybe the chancellor has her.’
‘I hope not. He’s not a nice fellow.’
‘He’s been good to me.’
‘Don’t ever get on his bad side.’
That night he slept badly, troubled by feverish dreams, though there were neither shapeshifters nor leviathans in them, nor that voice urging him to do something terrible. He had not heard it since they had left for the mountains. The dreams were about his sketch.
After waking at first light he went to the window, looking out on the snowy palace gardens but not seeing them. Who was the little girl, and why did she look horrified? Why was the sketch seen from the viewpoint of a child anyway? And why did it have such an air of menace?
The inspiration might have come from one of those violent, old-fashioned paintings that had come with the Palace when House Ricinus bought it, generations ago. Rix remembered being frightened of them as a child. They had also been masterpieces, the study of which, later on, had done much to develop his own genius.
Yet he did not think Tobry was right this time. More strongly than ever, Rix felt that he was sketching something he had seen before; though why did it seem so remote? Had it been something innocuous he’d seen before that terrible illness, leaving his memories distorted by the fever that had nearly killed him? He did not think so. Rix felt sick every time he worked on the sketch, as though he was glorifying a crime. Or wondering whether he’d been complicit in it.
Who c
ould tell him? Certainly not Lady Ricinus, who had passed Rix into the care of Nurse Luzia and a succession of tutors when he had been a toddler — ah!
He opened the door and said to one of the guards, a sallow, crook-nosed fellow he had never seen before, ‘Would you inform Lady Ricinus that I wish to visit my old nurse, Luzia, down in Tumbrel shanty town?’
‘Of course, Lord Rixium. Er, Lady Ricinus will want to know why.’
‘Surely I don’t need a reason to visit Nurse Luzia?’
‘I’m afraid so, Lord Rixium. Lady Ricinus was most adamant.’
‘Then tell her I wish to talk to Luzia about the good old days — when I was happy.’
The guard bowed and withdrew, shortly to return. ‘I’m sorry, Lord Rixium,’ he said, deeply embarrassed. ‘Lady Ricinus requires the portrait to be completed first.’
‘Bitch!’ cried Rix.
The word escaped him before he realised that he was talking to a servant but, good servant that he was, the guard pretended he had not heard. No doubt he would tell Lady Ricinus, though. Keeping anything from her ladyship would earn the guards a place in the monthly flogging tithe. He went into Tobry’s room.
‘Tobry.’ Rix shook him awake.
‘Yes?’
Rix lowered his voice. ‘Come up. I need you to do something for me.’
Tobry pulled on a kilt and followed. ‘Why can’t we talk down here?’
Rix did not answer until they were upstairs in the tower. He opened the window so the wind howled past and, even if someone had been standing two yards away, they would not have heard a quiet conversation.
‘I’m not entirely sure that mother doesn’t have some kind of spying device set up down there.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Find me a way out so I can talk to Luzia. I need to ask her about when I was ill.’
‘I’ll see what I can come up with,’ said Tobry. ‘I’ll need a bit for expenses.’
Rix tossed him a coin bag.
‘What are you doing today?’ said Tobry, pocketing it.
‘What the hell do you think? The cursed portrait — there are only five days left.’
Tobry returned that night, after dark, whistling.