by Glenda Larke
He had been, but he wasn’t going to admit that. Instead, he said smoothly in the same language, “I wish to see Lord Bice.”
“Well, maybe my father doesn’t want to see you.”
“Oh, stuff it, Hue,” the youngest of the three said, the lilt of his voice more that of a boy than a man. “Leave him be.”
Without waiting for Hue’s reaction, Feroze stepped around him. He half expected a hand to fall on his shoulder to wrench him back, but Lord Bice was now standing at the foot of the stairs anyway, dressed in a similar fashion to the others. Feroze stopped one step higher, so their faces were level.
Bice ignored him to say to his sons, “You have your orders. Get ready now.” The three turned without a word and continued up the stairs. When they were out of earshot, Bice turned his cold-eyed gaze to Feroze. “How dare you interrupt my evening with my family! Is it not enough that I am forced to offer hospitality to you as one of my great-uncle’s party, without having you presume on the relationship?”
“I see little of your hospitality,” he said, fighting the instinct that told him to lower his gaze in the submission due from a morally inferior race. “Confiscating material that belongs to the guests is not good manners to me.”
Bice drew himself up as if he wished to appear both larger and still more menacing. A servant, bustling out of the room behind with a tray of rattling dishes piled high, ruined the moment as she bobbed and passed noisily by. Even this appeared to further infuriate Bice. “Come with me,” he said as he strode to a nearby door, wrenched it open and gestured Feroze to enter.
When he stepped inside, the odour of burning wood assaulted his nostrils, coming from logs in a fireplace lit to warm the room. He’d forgotten how much that smell was part of Khromatian everyday life. He glanced around. Light from the flames was augmented by a lamp burning on a table, a carafe and glasses next to it. Taking in the soft-stuffed chairs grouped in front of the fire, he guessed that although the room was empty, it might be where the men of the household congregated before or after dinner. Shelving along the walls was stuffed with board-books, tied shut with ribbon to keep the pages safe between the decorative ends.
He should have been safe, protected by the Kermes name, even by his association with the Bastion. In another place, in such a pleasant room filled with books, he might have felt at home. Instead, his skin crawled with dread.
Exuding aggravation, Bice marched to the table and poured himself a drink. He did not offer anything to Feroze, nor did he indicate they should sit. “Did you think I’d tolerate renegade waterpainters under my roof, possessing the power to command my future? If so, you’re a lack-wit! Russet Kermes was daft before he left Khromatis twenty or so years ago; Sienna Verdigris was wild and uncontrollable without a shred of gentility. We thought she and Russet were both dead! You Alabasters told us they’d disappeared without a trace in your barren lands. And now he reappears with this girl. A mongrel of God knows what ancestry, brought up among the barbarian heretics of the Quartern! I wouldn’t trust her with a dagger, let alone the power of waterpainting. I have no intention of falling under the evil magic of a half-breed recreant. Of course I made damned sure she wouldn’t be able to use her powers in this house.”
“She is your cousin, not some wild animal. She is also a deeply moral woman, here at the behest of the Cloudmaster, to ask aid of the Pinnacle and his waterlords. Treat her with the respect she deserves.”
“She deserves nothing!” He spat out the words, his hatred as deep as it was irrational.
Feroze refused to show the despair that was seeping into him with every word the man uttered. He said quietly, “If you are concerned that she’s here to seek her position in Khromatian hierarchy, let me assure you that she has no interest in any such thing. She wishes to return to the Quartern to be married as soon as she can. She does not feel herself to be Khromatian.”
“And what of her brats?”
Feroze was mystified. “Pardon?”
“Her children, you dimwit!”
“I’m sorry, I don’t—”
“Are you such a total fool? Don’t you know the laws of inheritance?”
“How can I? You keep these things a secret. I didn’t even know who the present Pinnacle was until I set foot in this house.”
Bice listened, his face changing from anger to disbelief to amusement. “That addlepated old fool, Russet keeps Khromatian secrets yet, does he? He may not have known his son-in-law was dead, but he certainly knew who was in the line of succession.”
“The rules of succession can be changed, surely.”
“You blaspheme! The Pinnacle is such by divine right. Only God can change the succession—by choosing who is to die, and when. The line of the Pinnacle passes from eldest child to eldest child, as long as they are Watergivers. The only way it can be broken is by death.”
Bice was making an effort to control his temper, but the look in his eyes was deadly.
Feroze stood motionless, taking care to show nothing on his face, but his mind was racing. He knew now that he—no, all of them—had miscalculated the extent of their danger. That’s what happens when you make assumptions about people you’ve never met. He began to assess the room from a new point of view—that of an Alabaster warrior.
“That grubby bogworm of a woman upstairs is the Pinnacle,” Bice continued bitterly, “whether she knows it or not. Every single man who was with me the day we met knows it. And so, of course, does my dear great-uncle Russet. Even if she says she doesn’t want it, her children would have the option, then her grandchildren, and their children—as long as they have water-power. And of course they would. The Verdigris and the Kermes lines usually breed true. And you tell me she’s marrying the Cloudmaster? Of course her children will be water talented.” He paused to drink and to take a deep breath, as if he wanted to control his anger.
Why is he telling me this? Because Russet knows it anyway? Or—
His heart skipped a beat, then speeded up. Oh, God, because he’s already decided to kill us? What was it he’d said to his sons? “You have your orders.”
What orders?
Keep calm. You have to get out of here. You have to warn the others.
“Then I suppose there is nothing more to talk about. I will take Lord Terelle back to the Quartern in the morning. What you do with Lord Russet is up to you.” Even as he spoke, his gazed roved around the room and his fear built. The casement windows were closed. So was the door. The wood in the fireplace was well alight, the sap occasionally exploding in showers of sparks that died on the stone floor. He edged closer to the grate, his back to the flames, and almost knocked over the brass poker set. The sofa, facing him, was now between the two of them. Bice, he noted, was not wearing a sword.
Bice dropped his voice until it was almost a whisper. “The only thing that could have saved her is if she had no water-powers. That is why I had the baggage searched. And there they were—waterpaints. In her baggage, and in her guards’ bags. So I can’t just throw her back over the border as I’d like to do with the whole damned lot of you.”
Feroze stared at the man, his heart plummeting still further with sickening suddenness. He’d just heard his death sentence, and he knew it. Worse, he had just heard Terelle’s. No, everyone’s. Everyone who had crossed the border was doomed by this man’s ambition, and Lord Bice had even given himself a religious justification: if God wanted Terelle’s line to sit on the Pinnacle’s seat, then God would not allow her death.
“You can’t kill Lord Terelle,” he said, proud to hear that his voice was steady. “She is protected by waterpainting magic. Possibly Lord Russet is too.”
“And you?” Bice asked softly. “What about you, Feroze Khorash, advisor to the Bastion? Did they paint you and your men, to save you? Or did they not care about the life of a sickly-white salt-man?”
Feroze didn’t answer. He felt the tug of Bice’s power against his skin and willed his water to stay with him. Was Bice just testing his abilit
ies or wanting to kill him? He had no way of knowing, but his fear increased tenfold. God, I have always followed Your way; care for me now, hold me in Your palm or lead me to the waters of the afterlife…
And then the door opened and Bice’s three sons came in. The room shrank and left Feroze claustrophobic. Gone were the soft evening clothes. They wore utilitarian brown garb, their identical plaids now draped over the shoulder tucked neatly under the belt to leave their swords easily accessible. Their expressions were sober and only the youngest glanced his way; the other two ignored him. All three were on the far side of the sofa, with their father.
“Rubric,” Bice said, addressing the youngest, “go tell Greven the time is now and to go ahead. And lend him what help you can.”
The young man looked baffled by the message, but nodded and departed.
“Hue, you and Jet take this ’Baster out and dispose of him. Strip the body and dump it in the river. Then come back and we will deal with the others upstairs.”
Before Bice had completed his orders, Feroze was already moving. His fear melted away into fury and desperation. In one fluid move he had his dagger out of concealment and he’d grabbed the poker in his other hand. He took one step forward as the two remaining sons drew their swords and separated to approach him from either side of the sofa. Feroze placed a foot in the centre of the front of the seat and pushed as hard as he could. The sofa slid, then toppled, catching Hue as it fell, but missing the middle brother, Jet.
Hue tumbled sideways, the sofa on top of him.
Jet took no notice. He lunged forward, eyes gleaming with anticipation. Feroze guessed he expected a parry with the poker in return. A poker against a sword? Foolhardy. He ignored the lunge and leaped onto the toppled sofa. From that vantage point, he jumped straight onto Hue who was wriggling out from under it. Boot heels driving in, he had the satisfaction of feeling ribs cave. Just to make sure the man would be out of the fight, he trod on the middle of his face and broke his nose.
And turned his attention to Jet and Bice.
Jet, momentarily stymied by an opponent who had jumped out of his way and then ignored him, was now approaching more cautiously, his sword weaving. And Bice, unarmed, was groping under the sofa for Hue’s sword. Feroze thought furiously, weighing his chances, blessing the fact the heavy wooden door was closed. There was unlikely to be interference from the servants. But Bice would be a hard man to defeat.
Alternating knife and poker, he lashed out at Jet in a furious flurry of feints, slashes and jabs, to drive him back, confused, against the bookshelves built along the wall next to the fireplace.
I’ll bet all you’ve ever done with a sword has been in a practice yard, he thought.
Bice shoved the sofa out of the way, grabbed up Hue’s sword and came at him, but Jet was closer. Feroze hurled the poker at him. Without waiting to see what happened, he ducked to grab the shovel from the poker set and thrust it deep into the burning embers. As he straightened up, he hurled the heap of red-hot coals in a sweeping arc of cinders and flame.
Jet flinched and his sword point went wide. Both he and Bice were showered with hot ash and coals. Jet jerked backwards, brushing at his smouldering clothes, and jostled his father who was still thrusting forward. For a precious moment they tangled.
Feroze leaped for the nearest window, knife still unused in his hand. A brief moment of triumph, of knowing he had succeeded. He’d bought the few moments he needed to reach the window. He undid the latch, threw open the casement, leaped onto the sill—
And a thrust of pain speared him from spine to chest. He tottered, wondering why he was unable to move, and fell back into the room.
Landed on his back. Pain dragging through his innards. Jagged pain so intense it stopped his breath. So severe he couldn’t scream. God, the pain. God the pain God the pain God, God, God. Take it away. Just take it away.
Something snapped. The pain disappeared. Vanished. Took everything with it. Lying there. No feeling. Nothing.
Gasping, he dragged air into his lungs.
He moved his head. Watched as Bice and Jet exchanged victory smiles. He tried to lift his hand. Nothing moved. He couldn’t feel anything. He couldn’t move. He tried to speak, but all his effort was going into taking a breath. Then another. And another.
Leisurely, Bice walked across the room to his side and snorted as he looked down on him. “Alabasters! They don’t even have a real man’s red blood.” He bent over to pick something up. “Blast, he landed on my dagger and snapped the blade off in his back.” He held up the handle.
And Feroze Khorash knew he was dead. As hard as he tried, no breath would come.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Khromatis
The Borderlands
Marchford, Verdigris Manor
“I’m going to take a look around.” Elmar stood up. “They wouldn’t let us in with our swords, but I still have my dagger.”
“They disarmed me,” Terelle said mournfully, thinking of her paints. “Or very nearly. Somehow I think that emergency I mentioned might be closer than we imagined. You be careful, Elmar. You don’t want to create a problem where we have none, by creeping around someone else’s house.”
“I’ll tell them I can’t find the privy.” He grinned at her.
The worse their situation, the more Elmar seemed to find to joke about. She didn’t smile back. “If they separate us,” she said, “don’t worry. The magic will get me where I have to go. Follow me if you can, but if you can’t, go back to Samphire.”
Elmar snorted. “We’re here to protect you. I don’t fancy telling the Cloudmaster that we just didn’t feel like it.”
“El, you may not have a choice.”
“We’ll see, won’t we?”
Once he’d gone, she stood by Russet’s bed. He was still awake. She said, “You made a big mistake. Bice Verdigris is not going to help us get to where we’ve got to go. Quite the opposite. I suspect he’s going to force us back over the Borderlands. Is it possible for us to go on, by ourselves, on the pedes?”
“Pedes be sick in the cold up in the mountains. Even here, they soon die if not kept inside.”
“So we need these—what were they called? Alpiners? Where do we get them?”
“Can be buying. Have gold.” He patted his money pouch, which he had worn to bed.
“And who’s going to be selling them to us?”
“Have faith in my waterpainting! It be getting us there. Not worry, silly frip of a girl. Now go. Leave me in peace.”
She sighed with deliberate exaggeration and turned to Dibble. “Let’s get my baggage to my room.”
“Your things and Russet’s are all mixed up with ours,” he said. “That’s why we brought our things up as well. After they searched everything, they just piled it all back in any old how.”
“Then we’ll take it all to my room and sort it out.”
Outside in the passage, all was quiet. “I don’t think anyone else has rooms along here,” she remarked as they carried the baggage from Russet’s room. Once in her room they barred the door and began to sort out all their belongings.
“Where did you hide the paints you kept?” he asked when they had everything in its correct pile.
“I have two water skins. I hid the paint-powder in one of them. Anyone picking it up casually would think it has water in it.”
Dibble gave her a baffled look. “You mixed all the colours together?”
“No, of course not. They’re in waxed cloth sachets, in case our baggage got wet. Russet suggested that, actually, back in Samphire. They were each small enough to fit down the spout of the water skin. Look.” She showed him the skin and shook the sachets out onto her bed. She looked around. “I wonder if—”
Before she could finish the thought, Dibble hushed her with a finger to his lips and a tight grip to her arm. She listened. Somewhere distant, someone was screaming.
No, not one person. Several people.
Dibble went to unbar the door and
eased it open. The cries were still faint.
“Try the window,” she said.
He nodded, closed and barred the door, then crossed to open the casement. Screams, shouts, running footsteps, the clash of metal on metal, all much louder now. There was nothing to be seen, but somewhere people were fighting.
“Sunlord save us,” Dibble muttered. “What the withering spit is going on? Elmar and Feroze…”
Waterless hells. “Could it be the Alabaster guards in trouble?” She hesitated. “I think we have to go and find out.”
“Elmar would feed my liver to a horned cat if I left you unguarded.”
“You don’t have to. I’ll come with you.”
“Then it’d be my heart he’d feed to the cat!” In his agitation, he strode to the open window to look out and then to the door to listen.
“If the rooms across the passage are empty, maybe we can see from there what’s happening at the back of the house.”
She threw one of Russet’s plaids over her paints and they returned to the passage, leaving the lamp behind. The door of the room opposite opened easily onto another bedroom. It showed no signs of occupancy, present or past. Once Dibble opened the window, the sounds from outside trebled in volume: shouts and banging and screaming.
“I’ll be shrivelled,” she whispered. The screaming was horrible, the appalling agony of someone who no longer had existence beyond their pain.
They were looking down on a cobbled yard separating the house from a line of one-storey buildings. Torches placed at intervals in wall brackets lit the scene with flickering light and tainted the air with the acrid smell of burning pitch. Armsmen—Bice’s men—were milling around the end of the building opposite, trying to batter down the huge doors. They weren’t having much success.
“That’s the stables,” Dibble said.
Terelle searched for the source of the screaming, and located a man lying on the cobbles. A woman was kneeling beside him, wringing her hands. He’d been speared, and the spear was still in him.