Baroness of Blood r-10

by Elaine Bergstrom

  The sun had left the room hours ago, its warmth replaced by the chill of night. He'd just been getting ready for his evening walk when he heard the grating of metal on metal, felt a rush of cool air. Had he means to speak, he would have asked who was there. Instead he waited.

  A woman whispered his name. He smelled a beautiful scent like the blue meadow flowers in the hills above his home, yet it brought only fear and the terrible memory of a perfumed wind that had rolled across the battlefield. It had driven horses wild, driven men mad.

  "Dark." The voice was louder now, little-girl sweet, sweet like the flowers. He knew the voice all too well.

  Ilsabet, he thought, and with the thought came a return of everything he'd suffered at the hands of that family. The memory of the pain became somehow the pain itself. He tore at the bandages covering his eyes. Bending his scarred fingers made him cry out, a long terrible sound, barely human.

  "Dark," she said and laughed. "Darkdarkdarkdark-dark…"

  He lunged for her, but she stepped out of his way. "Darkdarkdarkdarkdark…" she called, laughing.

  The rage was wrong, was deadly, but he had no choice except to give in to it and follow her. Blind, unable to call for help, he ran after her voice, heedless of the wind blowing his hair, the damp, slippery stones beneath his feet.

  "Darkdarkdarkdark…"

  He thought of nothing until she stopped calling his name and he realized he was outside and lost. He groped about. His scarred hand touched a rail for just a moment. Then someone pushed him from behind, and he went over, falling, falling, screaming finally just before he hit the ground.

  Ilsabet would have loved to remain, to watch the servants discover him, to claim victory for his death, but it would be impossible. Instead, she retreated through a nearby chamber and into the passage that led to her own room. Once there, she changed quickly into one of her more colorful gowns. If any servant suspected her part in Dark's "accident" she would be here writing a letter to a distant cousin in Tygelt.

  She wondered if the deed had caused some change in her. She studied her face in her mirror. There was nothing save the triumphant smile she would have to hide when questioned and the added color to her cheeks-caused no doubt by her quick return to her chambers. She brushed back her hair, then held her hands close to the fire. When they came to question her, there would be no sign that she had ever left the warmth of her room.

  She heard a knock and was ready. "Come in," she called and looked up from her writing desk, frowning when she saw Peto, looking even more confused when Mihael followed him. "Is something wrong?" she asked.

  "There's been a death," Baron Peto said. He looked at her carefully as Mihael added the details.

  Ilsabet tried to register just the right amount of surprise, but she could not hide the pleasure she felt at hearing the account of her deed spoken aloud. She looked up at Peto and shook her head. "I am well aware of why he resided in my home, Baron. I can hardly be expected to mourn him."

  "So you might be expected to harm him?" Peto asked.

  "If I had the opportunity, which I did not. I've been here all afternoon. My servant's been in an out a number of times."

  "So Greta says," Mihael commented.

  Aware for the first time of how her brother's loyalties had shifted, Ilsabet glared at him. He seemed about to add something, then apparently thought better of it.

  "I've been here all afternoon," Ilsabet went on. "Put a truth spell on me and I will still say the same thing. But I will not pretend to mourn the man's death."

  "I understand," Peto said. "But remain in these rooms until we've spoken to the servants about this."

  "Remain here? It's ail I do anyway, Baron. I have no desire to walk these halls and see your servants and your guards pretending to serve me."

  After Peto left, Mihael asked, "How long will you hate him, Ilsabet?"

  "Someone has not forgotten the promise she made," she replied, then turned her back on him, laughing aloud as soon as the door closed behind him. Alone now, she began to finish her letter. On the edge of her vision she saw a shadow move through her room, but when she turned to find the source, nothing was there.

  She opened her mouth to call for Greta, then cut off the sound. Children were afraid of the dark and the things that took their strength from darkness.

  No! I will not be a silly child any longer, she wrote in her journal that night. I will make my heart and mind hard and fearless, cold as stone, cold as an avenger's heart and mind should be.

  Nonetheless, she slept the night with a candle burning at her bedside.

  SEVEN

  The following evening Marishka sat brushing her long hair in front of a mirror. The color of new copper coins, it fell in soft waves that covered her shoulders. She looked beyond her reflection at the gowns hanging from hooks on the dressing room wall. Though the ones less frequently used grew dusty on the open hooks, they were safe from the mildew that invaded every piece of fabric or wood left in the closets of Nimbus Castle. These had once been her mother's dresses, given to her by her father on her sixteenth birthday. With the gift came a request that she wear one from time to time to remind him of his love.

  Perhaps her mother and father were together now in the afterlife, but if so, what of Lady Lorena, who had also loved him? The gods must have ways of sorting these complications out, she thought, and put the matter from her mind, certain she was not clever enough to solve the matter herself.

  She turned away from the mirror and went to finger the beautiful silks and taffetas, the gorgeous thin-spun woolen capes and shrugs and shawls, some trimmed with gold and precious gems, worth more than a Pirie merchant made in a year. She wondered if she could ever bear to wear the clothes again.

  A knock on her door was such a rare occurrence that she flinched, then ran to it, pulling it open before asking who was there.

  "May I speak with you?" Baron Peto asked.

  She stepped back, eyes downcast, hiding all the clashing emotions his presence aroused. "Of course," she said. "Will you come in?"

  He sat in a chair beside her dressing table while she took the one she'd been using. From where she sat she could see her own reflection, and noted how obvious the flush on her cheeks had become.

  "I haven't had a chance to meet privately with you since I came here. I want to ask you if you have any requests to make of me."

  "Requests?" No one had ever asked her such a question.

  "Your brother tells me that you have some affection for a young guardsman who served your father. If you wish, I could arrange for him to stay here. If he deserves it later, perhaps even a promotion."

  Marishka began to understand. If she'd been less embarrassed, she might have laughed. "Before he came here, he'd never been away from home. He was lonely, and so was I. Now that the fighting has ended, he's going back to his village. I hope they welcome him."

  Peto thought of Mihael's dire warning about the fate of his father's troops. "He could stay if you wish," Peto said.

  "He wouldn't want to," she replied.

  "I won't be in Kislova long, but I would like to take the baron's place as best I can," Peto said. "I need to know the customs of your land, the stories told by its people. Could you help me learn?"

  "I really haven't been to any place beyond Pirie, and that is only a few miles north of here. You could ride over to see it for yourself," she said.

  "Would you go with me?"

  "It wouldn't be wise, not yet, at least. Tempers toward my family are still so raw. And now that the rebel is dead, things will be worse."

  "All the more reason to show you have nothing to feel guilty about. We'll ride tomorrow at noontime. If anyone questions you, I'll tell them I ordered it."

  He took her hand. She thought at first that he was going to kiss it, but he only sat holding it, looking at her face as if trying to discover some important fact about her. The attention made her feel flustered and terribly self-conscious. She tried to meet his gaze, and did not quite
succeed.

  He left soon after, and as she closed the door behind him, she thought she heard something moving in her room. She turned from the door and picked up a poker from the hearth, then stood very still, her eyes searching the dark corners under her bed and dressing table, hoping it wasn't a rat. Gradually she relaxed. The sound must have been caused by a draft from the open door rustling the skirts of the gowns hanging on the wall.

  With tears in her eyes, Marishka sat at her dressing table. Mihael was clearly making plans for her, and she didn't have strength to resist. She wished for the first time that she weren't the beautiful one, the pliant one. She longed for her sister's stubbornness-and her spirit.

  Imre lay in the corner of the dark cell, staying awake and on guard while his companions slept. The heavy length of board he held had already killed three river rats bold enough to invade the cell. He'd wedged their bodies into the crack in the stone wall where they served as both a meal for and a barrier to their aggressive comrades. He could hear the tiny jaws gnawing, and thought of the sharp teeth ripping shreds of flesh and fur from their own dead. Not a pleasant thought, but the noises-the only noises in the darkness-were hard to ignore.

  Their squeals and gibbering grew louder as they began fighting over the remains of their dead. One of the tiny bodies was pulled into the crack and a rat broke through the barrier and scurried across the floor.

  The crusts of dried bread Imre had been using as bait rustled, and he struck with the board but did not hear a satisfying thud. Instead, the rat leapt for his face, biting deep into his cheek.

  He cried out, and the rat disappeared in the darkness.

  "What is it?" Dorje called.

  "A rat bit me. Watch yourself. I've never known them to be this nasty before."

  "I have." It might have been the panic in Imre's voice that made Dorje continue, detailing the night that a dozen of the vermin had invaded his family's cottage. From there the story grew outlandish, climaxing with his mother chasing the pack with a knife as they tried to carry off the baby. "I swear it's true, every word," Dorje said, starting to laugh.

  Imre tried to join him, but couldn't. The bite burned, burned so terribly he thought his face was on fire. He pressed his palm against the cold stones, then brought it to his cheek to try to soothe the fiery pain. The burning only grew worse and began to spread toward his eyes.

  "Dorje!" he called. "I think the rat was infected."

  "You hardly had time to catch a disease from it," Dorje countered, and moved to his side.

  "Poisoned, then. I'm sure that if we had some light I couldn't see out my left eye."

  "Then be thankful it's dark," Dorje replied. He ran his hand over Imre's face. "It does seem a bit swollen. Should I call a guard?"

  "Do it," Imre said. His tongue felt numb, his eye seemed on fire, and it took enormous control for him to keep from clawing at it. "We have to kill the beast."

  As Dorje called out, the other prisoners began to stir. One shouted and a moment later began to scream. The guard came running, his single torch unable to expose all the corners of the cell.

  "Bring more light," Dorje said. He raised Imre's head and pointed across the cell to the third prisoner.

  The bite on the man's hand was bleeding, the flesh around it swelling so quickly that blood seeped through his skin. "A rat bit them both," Dorje said.

  "Rat?" The guard looked from one man to the other, then handed the torch to Dorje and called for more light.

  Dorje held the torch close to the crack but it made little difference to the vermin behind it. Though their fur and whiskers were singed, they swarmed into the cell and rushed toward the men.

  The remaining prisoners in Imre's cell were awake, warning comrades in the adjoining cells. They all moved close to the cell doors, stomping their boots on the vermin while screaming for the guards to let them out. Imre managed to get to his feet and join the others before the rats reached him, but the other wounded man was not so lucky. The rats covered his body, biting fiercely, oblivious to his struggles or his screams. He was dead before the guards managed to get the cells open. The rats charged them as well, biting two before prisoners and jailers alike retreated down the dark slippery passageway to the safety of the underground guardhouse.

  They crowded together behind the heavy wooden doors. Dorje pulled open the tiny security door and, secure behind its heavy mesh screen, watched as the rats turned on one another.

  The attack was over as quickly as it had begun. Dead rats covered the passageway and the cell floors. A few still picked at the carcasses and the body but they moved weakly, as if the poison that had infected Imre also infected them.

  One of the guards retrieved a torch dropped during their flight to the guardhouse, lit it, and made his way upstairs to warn the household.

  Dorje relaxed for the first time in an hour and went to tend the guards. "Cut open the bite and suck out the poison," he suggested.

  The guard looked at Dorje as if he were insane. "Look how it's already swelling," he said, pointing at his leg.

  "AH the more reason to act quickly," Dorje replied, then crouched beside the man. He thought he recognized the victim; someone from his own village who had joined Baron Janosk's troops years before. Dorje doubted the soldier would remember him, for Dorje had been hardly more than a child then, but village ties were strong-nearly as strong as the hatred between rebel and soldier-and made him work more diligently.

  Ilsabet sat in Jorani's chambers, an illuminated manuscript open on the table before her. It was an old tract, advice given to a son and heir by his father just before he died. The printing was so beautiful and the paper so brittle that she took longer to turn the pages than to read the words on them. She had opened the book to this page before leaving the room and returned to it as quickly as she could after laying out the poisoned bait in the dungeons below.

  The hawks screeched a warning, and a moment later Greta, her back pressed against the wall, slipped past them. The woman was out of breath from running up the long flight of stairs. Wisps of dull brown hair had escaped their pins and brushed her round red face.

  "Ilsabet! I thought I'd find you here," Greta exclaimed. "There are rats swarming the dungeons. They attacked the prisoners and the guards. We are supposed to take care here as well." She held out a pair of heavy leather boots that laced to the knee. They were the thickest and tallest ones Ilsabet owned. "Put these on and take care. Don't let them bite you. They're infected."

  Ilsabet looked evenly at her. "How do you know?"

  "They bit two of the prisoners and one of the guards. A prisoner died."

  "Died?" Ilsabet's eyes grew bright and hands shook.

  Greta interpreted the emotion as fear and laid a hand on her arm. "It's all right," she said soothingly. "There's been no sign of rats aboveground."

  "Where are the wounded now?"

  "In the kitchen, I believe. The healer is drawing out the poison with boiling water."

  Ilsabet frowned. "The kitchen! Aren't those Peto's prisoners?"

  "Only for the moment. They say Baron Peto intends to release them as soon as the wounded man can travel. I'm going to go down now to see what help I can be."

  "I'll come with you." For the first time, Ilsabet tried to display some fear. "I don't want to be alone. Just let me put the book away and change my boots. No, go on ahead. I'll be all right."

  When she reached the kitchen, Jorani was kneeling beside the wounded rebel, experimenting with salves on the man's swollen face while the healer looked on and offered what advice he could. When Jorani found a salve that seemed to work, he moved to the wounded guards and used it on them as well.

  As she stood in the corner watching Jorani tend the wounded, Ilsabet savored her triumph. None of the men were supposed to get out of their cells alive, but at least the combination she'd used on the rats had worked as she'd intended.

  When he noticed her watching him, Jorani frowned. Understanding his concern, she shook her head slowly, im
plying that she'd had nothing to do with the attack.

  She lied, not because she thought he wouldn't understand the reason for what she had done, but because she feared he would stop her education before it had begun if he suspected her of experimenting so soon.

  And in spite of her success, she knew he'd have a right to punish her. She was young and inexperienced. The molds and poisons of Jorani's chamber were lethal. A wrong move and she would learn no more.

  A wrong move and she would never have her revenge.

  Greta joined her. "Would you like to come help me pack provisions for their journey?"

  "Provisions!" Ilsabet whispered. "They attack us, and we send them home with supplies?"

  "Enough for their trip. They're taking a conciliatory message from Baron Peto and your brother to their villages."

  "I doubt I'd be much help," she said, but followed Greta anyway to a corner where the cook was loading cheese and dried meat into a sack. A second sack of the morning's bread was already full, waiting to be tied shut.

  Ilsabet reached into her pocket and pulled out a white linen kerchief she'd carried to the dungeons to poison the rats' food. She'd just begun to unfold it above the bread sack when one of the servants came for it.

  She moved quickly out of his way, thinking she'd be pressing her luck if she tried to kill them again. She threw the kerchief into the lit stove, pausing to watch it flare. "I'm going to sit with my sister a while. You know what she thinks of rats," she said to Greta, then left the servants to their work.