by Ian Irvine
Going up on tiptoes, she peered into a large chamber decorated with arrays of spears, swords and shields, and other weapons. A coloured map of Hightspall covered one wall. Another held the stuffed heads of a great boar, several kinds of deer, one with curly horns, and other animals not covered in her Cythonian education. Clearly, a man’s room.
The centre contained a canopied bed so huge it would have taken four housemaids to change the linen. Lord Ricinus lay in the middle, head bandaged. He was paler than before, save for his nose, which glowed as if he had a lighted candle up each nostril.
Did he not share a bed with his wife? On Genry’s visits home, he and Tali’s mother had clung together so desperately that a piece of paper could not have been slipped between them. But who would want to spend the night with such a disgusting creature as Lord Ricinus?
She continued and discovered other peepholes, and through the third saw Lady Ricinus. It had to be her; the thin-lipped, sharp-chinned, heavily powdered face matched the voice perfectly, and so did the talon-like red nails.
She was sitting at a small, curvy-legged desk, writing a series of notes. Each was inserted in an envelope along with some small coins that had the appearance of gold, and the envelope sealed with hot black wax.
Was she settling wages? More likely, judging by the conversation Tali had overheard earlier, Lady Ricinus was paying bribes. She stacked the letters and handed them to a uniformed orderly, who gave them to a messenger with instructions Tali did not hear.
Lady Ricinus locked a strongbox beside her desk and an orderly took it away. Now she stood up, grimaced as though she had to do something distasteful and left the room.
Was she going to see Lord Ricinus? Tali went back to his peephole. Shortly Lady Ricinus came across to the bed and drew up a chair.
‘Ricinus?’
He did not move.
She shook him by the shoulder, her mouth tight. ‘Ricinus, I know you’re awake.’
He sat up. Apart from the bandage around his head, she saw no evidence that either last night’s drunkenness, or the blow to the head, troubled him.
‘Then get me a drink,’ said Lord Ricinus.
She took a small bottle from her bag and handed it to him. He sank the lot in one gulp and tossed the bottle over the end of the bed. ‘What do you want?’
‘Lord … Ricinus … we’re in trouble.’
‘We, or you?’
‘The chancellor has demanded the Pale girl and we can’t find her.’
‘So?’
‘Ricinus, I … I need your help.’ She stretched out a bony hand, drew back, reached out again and took his. He did not look at her, but he did not pull away either.
‘First time for everything,’ said Ricinus. ‘What have you done this time?’
‘I–I — ’ She bit her lip, rubbed her free hand over her face. ‘I may have overreached myself.’
Ricinus’s mouth twisted into a gleeful grin. ‘Can my all-commanding lady be admitting a mistake?’
‘I’ve only ever had the interests of this House at heart.’
‘The only interests you advance are your own.’
‘But to rise to the First Circle — ’
‘I never wanted to rise.’
‘And seldom did!’ she snapped.
‘If you want a favour, Lady Ricinus, you’ve an odd way of asking for it.’
She pasted on a vulture’s smile. ‘Ricinus, my lord, I went too far. I tried to bribe the chancellor, but it appears he’s incorruptible and now — ’
He snorted. ‘You went about it the wrong way, my lady. Your lack of breeding shows. You insulted him and he wants revenge.’
‘How — how do you know?’
‘I talk to people while I’m drinking.’
‘My Lord, he says that, despite your magnificent gift of the Third Army, he’s going to bring us down unless we hand over the Pale girl. And we can’t find her.’
‘Who is she, anyway?’
Lady Ricinus did not speak at once. Tali gained the impression that she was concealing something from him. ‘Just a slave who got out of Cython.’
‘No ordinary Pale, then. What does she want?’
‘To get her claws into Rixium, of course. The fool smiled at her, and now she’s seen what he’s worth she won’t let go.’
You bitch, thought Tali. Is there no lie you won’t tell, no truth you won’t twist to your vicious ends?
‘Her knowledge of Cython will be worth a fortune,’ Lord Ricinus said thoughtfully.
‘The chancellor won’t pay. He wants to get her for nothing and take all the profit for himself.’
‘He always was a greedy swine.’
Lady Ricinus swallowed, then laid a hand on his arm. ‘Ricinus … I’ve been a fool.’
‘What else have you done?’
‘I–I made threats against his life.’
‘You what?’
‘I was driven beyond forbearance. I snapped.’
‘Threats to his face?’ growled Lord Ricinus. ‘I can’t do anything about that, Lady. It’s high treason just to know about it.’ He inspected her pallid face. Upwelling sweat was cracking her caked make-up from beneath. ‘No, if you had, you’d be swinging from the front gates by now with your belly opened and your entrails dangling out your mean little mouth.’
‘I made the threat to Rixium after the chancellor left, but he’ll find out. Rixium can be indiscreet.’ She clutched at Lord Ricinus with both hands. ‘You must speak to him, Lord. Make sure he tells no one, especially not Lagger.’
‘You do realise that if Rix doesn’t speak up, he’s guilty of high treason as well?’
She reeled backwards. ‘No!’
‘You haven’t just put our house at risk, but its whole future. If this comes out, Rix dies a traitor’s death as well.’
‘He won’t speak. He won’t betray his family.’
‘Won’t he? What if he puts country above house? Or his survival above ours?’ Lord Ricinus snapped his fingers. ‘Drink!’
She handed him another bottle. She already had it in her hand.
He drained half of it. ‘You stupid sow, this changes everything. No leader can tolerate being threatened in wartime. He’ll hang us all and burn the palace to the ground. Even if we could give him the Pale, he’d erase House Ricinus to make sure.’
‘What if he were no longer chancellor?’
He stared up at the ceiling for a minute or two, then turned to her. ‘What are you on about?’
The backs of Tali’s hands prickled. What was Lady Ricinus saying?
‘I’m saying that we make good on my threat and take all the profit for ourselves.’
He inspected her through the empty half of the bottle. ‘You’ve dealt us into a deadly game, Lady Ricinus.’ He considered. ‘On the one hand, ruin. On the other, should the chancellor be replaced by someone manageable, we make a majestic profit from selling the Pale girl to our generals.’
‘If we rented her knowledge of Cython to the generals for the duration of the war,’ said Lady Ricinus slyly, ‘we might treble our profit and retain the asset.’
‘Then redouble that profit in the coming peace — if we win the war.’ He scratched his chin. ‘But how to topple the chancellor in wartime? He’s respected as much as he’s feared. No one would support us.’
‘Toppling him is beyond us,’ Lady Ricinus said flatly. ‘But there’s another way …’
He sat upright, staring at her. ‘You’re not suggesting we have him assassinated? No, I won’t have it.’
It was cold in the passage but Tali was drenched in sweat and her knees were giving out. Monstrous woman, surely she could not be serious. But she was.
‘Once he hears about my foolish threat,’ said Lady Ricinus, ‘he’ll surround himself with guards and destroy us. It’s us or him, Lord. There’s no choice.’
‘You’re a fool, Lady Ricinus,’ he said savagely. ‘Gods, how I regret the day I made you my wife.’
To Tali’s surprise
, Lady Ricinus bent her head, deferring to him.
‘You’re right, I suppose,’ he went on. ‘Your folly has left us with no choice.’
‘Are we in agreement, Lord Ricinus?’
‘I believe we are, Lady Ricinus. The chancellor has to die.’ He stared at her. ‘Are you in contact with our mutual friend?’
‘I–I can be,’ said Lady Ricinus. ‘I’ll make the arrangements.’
‘Do so, and we may yet survive.’
‘It will be costly,’ she said, biting her lip.
‘Then you’d better find the Pale before the chancellor does. And before you make any deals, make sure of the price you’re getting for her.’
‘I will, the instant I find her.’
Once she had gone, Tali reinserted the plug and sat down in the darkness. Lady Ricinus must know that the palace had secret passages, and she had hundreds of servants at her disposal. They would soon find her, for wherever Tali went she left clear tracks in the thick dust. She shuddered at the thought of falling into Lady Ricinus’s hands; she would be merciless.
What to do? She should tell Rix about his parents’ high treason, immediately. It was his right to know, but that would both endanger him and put him in an impossible position. If he said nothing and the chancellor found out, Rix would be condemned just as much as Lord and Lady Ricinus. But if he betrayed them … Tali did not see how a loyal son like Rix could survive it.
She could not tell him, though that meant that she had to act directly, and soon. Was saving the chancellor’s life more urgent than her own quest? He was a calculating man who appeared to have ill intentions towards her, but could she stand by and allow him to be assassinated in the middle of a war? To lose Hightspall’s leader at such a time would be devastating. She could not allow it.
Besides, the chancellor’s spectible was her one hope of locating the buried magery she needed before she could go after the wrythen. Tali discounted that the spectible no longer worked. That could be a lie put out to deter thieves. She had to get it.
So: she must warn the chancellor about the threat on his life, urgently. She also needed to stay close to Rix, praying that his cellar sketch was not a divination of her own death but a record of her mother’s that would reveal his lost memories of the murder. She had to protect herself from the wrythen’s minions, who could locate her if her guard relaxed and she allowed the call out, and from the killers who were also hunting her.
And not least she had to rescue Rannilt. The poor child must be in agony.
The most urgent roads led to the chancellor, but how was she to get into the most closely guarded building in Hightspall? Remembering that whiff of cinnamon and musk she had caught earlier, Tali smiled. She would go via paths that any normal Hightspaller would find impossible. To a Pale brought up in the maze that was Cython, navigating the labyrinth of tunnels, caves, shafts and passages beneath this part of old Caulderon would be no harder than finding the way through the city streets.
She would go down to the tunnels and sniff her way in.
But first she had to talk to Rix and Tobry.
CHAPTER 71
‘What about this nose?’ Rix said exhaustedly when Tobry came up. He had redone the purple-veined bulb a dozen times but could not get it right.
‘I don’t care,’ snapped Tobry, who was ghostly pale. ‘Make it a bunch of grapes, a turnip, a crystal ball — anything as long as it doesn’t look like a drunkard’s todger.’
Rix laid his brush down. ‘What’s the matter with you today?’
‘I’m so worried about Tali I can’t think.’
‘I’m worried too, but I’ve got to get this done.’
Tobry did not reply.
‘You have to help me, Tobe. I can’t do this by myself.’
Tobry checked the nose, cursorily, and sat down. ‘It’s beautiful. Perfect.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ Rix fretted.
‘Just finish the damn portrait. At this stage, it doesn’t matter what his nose looks like as long as he’s got one.’
‘There is such a thing as artistic integrity.’
Tobry jumped up and took him by the shirt front. ‘Have you been out today?’
‘I’m not allowed out.’
‘Would you like a report from the front?’
‘No, but I’m sure you’re going to give me one.’
‘You’d better sit down.’
‘I don’t want to sit down.’
Tobry picked him up by the shirt front and the belt of his kilt and threw him two yards onto the couch, which skidded backwards under his weight until it hit the wall.
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ said Rix. ‘I’ll sit. Spit it out, then.’
‘I’ll start at the furthest distance and work in. Firstly, our forces have been attacked and beaten in Grume, Flekkitt, Ribrose and Tydderley. Oh, and the garrison at Plegm has been wiped out to the last man and the regimental donkey.’
‘That’s bad,’ said Rix.
‘Secondly, a thousand Cythonians have swarmed up from a rat hole at Tumulus Town — ’
‘Never heard of it.’
‘Yes, you have. The chancellor told you about the attack there.’
‘Oh,’ said Rix, rubbing his temples. ‘Right. Where is Tumulus Town?’
‘It’s a scabrous suburb on the south-east side of Caulderon. Thousands of tiny shanties, hundreds of alleys — ’
‘Why would they attack there?’
‘It’s a strategic hillside — the perfect base for an attack on the rest of the city. They already hold thirty streets, they’ve driven out everyone who could run and probably slaughtered those who could not, and it’ll take us five times their number to gouge them out. And the enemy are gathering. At least thirty thousand of them.’
Far more than all the armies in Caulderon. Rix was silent, shaken.
‘Then,’ Tobry went on, ‘there’s the outbreak of dead-lung in the villages near Plegm, and all around the Rat Hole.’ Rix sat upright, staring at him. ‘What, you hadn’t heard about that?’
‘I told you …’ said Rix.
‘You can imagine who’s being blamed for it,’ said Tobry. ‘The treacherous Pale. If Tali is seen outside, she’s likely to be killed on sight.’
Rix put his head in his own hands. ‘Is that all?’
‘I’ve hardly started. Packs of jackal shifters have attacked dozens of villages that we know of, and doubtless many more where no one survived to tell about it. They go for the children first. It’s horrible, Rix. Unbearable to see what they do to them — ’ Tobry’s voice cracked.
Rix shivered. Nimry, Tobry’s little brother, had been killed by a jackal shifter and Tobry had never got over it.
‘A few have even been seen in Caulderon,’ Tobry went on, blank-faced, ‘though the Gods know how they got here.’
‘I suppose the mushroom eaters sent them up through their secret tunnels.’
‘And there was an attack on the gates of Palace Ricinus, just hours after the chancellor left.’
Rix leapt up. ‘The enemy, here? Why wasn’t I told?’
Tobry lowered his voice. ‘It wasn’t the enemy. The people from Tumbrel Town next door were rioting. They’re calling for a revolution and an end to the rotten system run by the greedy noble houses.’
‘Revolution?’ whispered Rix. ‘When we’re at war? What’s Hightspall coming to?’
‘A question that might have been better asked before things came to this state,’ said Tobry. ‘Their leaders were taken and are being tortured; a hundred of the rabble were executed and the rest driven off. The disgraceful business is being hushed up, though that’s hardly the end of it. They seem to think that the nobility are using them as a wall between themselves and the enemy. Which they are. And …’
‘What?’
‘It seems as though most of the trouble is focused on Palace Ricinus.’
Rix’s gaze fell on the portrait and his father’s eyes were on him. He kicked the easel, sending it skidding aro
und until the accusing eyes faced away.
‘I should be out there, fighting. Why am I stuck here with this monstrosity?’
‘Because it’s necessary to the survival of the family,’ said Tobry. ‘And you don’t have an heir.’
‘Tell Mother to pick a wife for me,’ Rix said recklessly. ‘I’ll marry her now and be out defending the walls in the morning.’
‘Even for a scion of one of the noble houses, that seems an unsound basis for matrimony.’
‘What the hell would you know about it?’
‘You’re right,’ said Tobry. ‘What would I know about anything?’ He walked to the top of the stairs then came back. ‘If you’re done with the portrait for now, why don’t you have another go at the sketch?’
‘I’m afraid to. I can’t face any more bad news.’
‘If you are divining Tali’s future, we need to know now.’
‘What if I make it worse?’
‘Get on with it, damn you.’
Rix sketched the windowless chamber on the whited-out canvas, clenching his jaw as he tried to reproduce what had always previously been blind inspiration; clenching so hard that his teeth began to ache. It took but thirty brushstrokes to recreate the last one, exactly as before. It was always easy to get back to the previous sketch, but every stroke after that was agony.
He stared at the two standing figures at the end of the bench as if he could force their faces and identities onto the canvas, but nothing came.
‘They’re mocking me, Tobe. They know I know, but they won’t let me remember. Do you think if I got drunk — ?’
‘With the enemy on all sides and rebellion at the palace gates, that would be a mortally bad idea.’
Rix slumped down, the brush smearing paint across his kilt.
Tobry walked back and forth in front of the sketch. ‘I’d swear that’s Tali on the bench, and she looks dead. But what have those faceless figures to do with it? Did they kill her, or are they trying to save her?’