"I'm going to give you something to drink," Jorani said. "Try to swallow it all."
"W-What?" Peto managed to say.
"It will help you fight off whatever's killing you."
"Whatever poison," Shaul added, his hand on the hilt of his sword. If the baron hadn't asked for Jorani's help, Shaul would have already dispensed the justice the man deserved.
"He's most likely right, but until I know for certain, I just want to keep you alive." Jorani poured a spoonful from a second vial. It smelled just as disgusting as the first. Nonetheless, the baron managed to swallow a bit, cough, take more.
Some color returned to Peto's face, but that was all. As Shaul watched hopefully, Jorani gave him another spoonful of the elixir. Again, Peto coughed and tried to speak. The exertion seemed to wear him out, and his eyes closed. Though Jorani called him, Peto did not respond.
The little bottle was still half full. "Give him more," Peto said.
"I can't. Too much will kill him."
"Then I will," Shaul declared. He reached for the bottle, but Jorani flung it across the room. It broke on the hearth, the liquid soaking quickly into the porous rocks.
"You'll regret this," Shau! said and called to the guard outside. "Take Lord Jorani to the dungeons. Make sure he's shackled and guarded."
"You can't to this," Jorani said.
"I can, and you'll stay there until the baron recovers, or Baroness Ilsabet orders your release."
"You're sending word to her?"
Shaul couldn't tell if Jorani was surprised or relieved. "Of course. She's the baron's wife, and ruler of this land. I'll send a message immediately."
"If she isn't at the Seer's cave, try Ruven's estate," Jorani suggested. He moved closer to Shaul and whispered, "And, Lieutenant, I suggest you keep what you've learned a secret. My room is protected. Anyone who enters there without my leave will die."
"I'll make sure no one goes there," Shaul replied.
"I hope so," Jorani said, then led the way down the stairs, the guards behind him.
Jorani sat in his cell, it and all the dank spaces around it so familiar to him. Though his feet were shackled to the wall, he could have easily picked the lock and fled through the passage, but not as long as one of the Sundell guards sat outside watching his every move.
There were no tricks he dared try, nothing he could do but hope Ilsabet came home soon.
Ilsabet was dining with Lord Ruven and his wife, Lady Alasyn, when the messenger arrived from Nimbus Castle. Ilsabet had expected to receive word of Peto's tragic attack, but hardly so soon, so her shock was more real than contrived. How could she have judged the potency of her poison so badly? Had Peto some habit of brushing the quill against his lips? She'd watched him work; he'd given no sign of it.
Her face grew pale. She seemed ready to faint as she handed the letter over to Ruven. To his credit, Ruven gave no hint of what he'd read. Instead, he ordered the servants to leave them, then shared the note to his wife.
Alasyn read it, then took Ilsabet's hand.
"Peto poisoned… and Lord Jorani imprisoned. No, I can't believe he's guilty. I have to go immediately and get to the bottom of this," Ilsabet said. She tried to stand but lost her footing and fell back into her chair.
"Not today, I think," Alasyn said. "Perhaps tomorrow. You can hardly travel in a state of shock. Now come. I'll help you to your room."
"I'll go this afternoon if I can use your coach and team. I'll travel through the night. The moon's going to be nearly full."
"Are you sure? You've had a shock," Alasyn said.
"Peto is ruler of two lands and there is no one to act in his place. I have to go."
As Ilsabet expected, the reminder was perfect. While she rested, Ruven arranged everything.
Night came. The moon rose. A single shaft of silver fell through a crack in the old tower wall of Nimbus Castle. The cold light touched the hanging globe that held the spider. The creature had Iain in its web for years, eating every day, thanks to its keeper's diligence. Now, after three days with no food, it was hungry. Old memories of hunts revived it. It unfolded its legs and traveled through the thick matted webbing, moving like an invalid at first, gaining strength by the time it reached the lip of the globe. It paused there as if sniffing the currents of air, let out a thin line of deadly thread, and began its descent to the damp floor.
A roach, big enough to crush the spider's delicate body, ran into the web. An instant later, it lay paralyzed while the spider crawled atop of it. Seeking the soft spot on the roach's stomach, it began to feast.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Though Peto lay in his bed, cared for by servants as if he were as helpless as his infant son, his mind was sharper than ever. He determined the means used to poison him, and that Ilsabet had undoubtedly laid the trap. He'd also decided Jorani was the only person who might know the antidote for the poison.
If he'd had a way of communicating this to Lieutenant Shaul, he would have done so, but though Shaul had tried to find some means of knowing if Peto could hear him, the baron could not respond.
Peto was thankful that, though Shaul thought him unconscious, he brought Lekai to the bedside every afternoon. Once Lekai fell asleep on his chest, lulled by Peto's breathing, the faint sound of his heartbeat. Peto slept as well, hardly surprised to dream of Marishka.
Five days passed between his attack and Ilsabet's return. She came directly to his room, kissing Lekai who lay beside him, taking his hand. He could not see her expression but was certain there were tears in her eyes as she asked Shaul to explain.
Shaul did. Ilsabet gripped Peto's hand harder as she listened to how he'd become ill, recovered, then fallen into this near-death. "If it hadn't been for Gid-den, I never would have suspected poison," Shaul said, and explained how the man had died.
"Why did you imprison Lord Jorani? From what you've told me, he probably saved my husband's life."
"But refused to do more."
"Stimulants in large quantities can kill as surely as any poison," Ilsabet countered. "You might have given him a chance to find an antidote."
"He said he didn't recognize the poison."
Ilsabet's hold on Peto's hand relaxed somewhat. He could feel her inwardly rejoicing. Of course Jorani had to know what poison she'd used, Jorani had taught her-or had the pupil moved past the teacher?
"You might have given Lord Jorani a chance," she replied sharply. "You may have made my husband's condition worse."
"I'm sorry, Baroness. With you gone, I wasn't sure what else to do. Forgive me for saying the obvious, but Lord Jorani is the only person in the castle with the knowledge of how to poison the baron."
"That isn't true. I have that knowledge," she said.
Peto gave her credit. Her candor undoubtedly allayed any suspicion Shaul might have of her.
"And the room you discovered is not as well kept a secret as you would think," she continued. "Lord Jorani's servants may know of it. Any who could read could learn what they had to know, particularly in the months Lord Jorani was in Sundell. You did what you thought was best, but please, have Lord Jorani released immediately. Then, as soon as he is able, have him meet me here so that we can confer on my husband's condition."
Peto heard the lieutenant leave. He was alone with his wife.
He felt his weight shift as she sat beside him on the bed, felt her fingers rest on the side of his neck as if checking for a heartbeat. "You can't see or move or speak, but you can hear me, can't you, Peto?"
He could feel her breath on his ear, smell her perfume. She'd worn the scent that had intoxicated him in the beginning. It had the same effect now. The horror of how she taunted him, and how easily she could continue to do so, made his pulse quicken.
"Of course you can," she said.
He could feel her laughing, feel her body shake, though no sound came from her lips. Instead, a teardrop wet his cheek. She'd been crying when she'd spoken to Shaul. What a marvelous touch.
"I'd intended
to kill you, you know," she went on. "But this is so much better. You can't be moved, lest the strain kill you. Let your mother have Sundell. I'll rule Kislova in your place, and my child will inherit both."
She placed her palm over his mouth, thumb and index finger pinching his nose shut. She held it there for just a moment, then pulled it away. "I could kill you just that easily. There'd be no sign of a struggle. I could kill Lekai just that easily…"
An empty threat, he knew. Without Lekai, the Obours would have no control over Sundell.
"… and I will if you ever make an attempt to communicate with anyone. If you're very good, I'll bring the boy to see you every day. Perhaps you could have the same nursemaid. I don't have to ask if you understand. Of course you do. And you'll remember, I'm certain of it."
She kissed him, deeply, passionately. Only then did he hear the footsteps in the hall, Shaul's embarrassed cough. Ilsabet moved away from him, talking to Shaul in quiet tones until Jorani joined them, coming immediately to Peto's side, bringing the musty dungeon smell in his clothes.
He lifted one of Peto's eyelids and examined his pupil. Peto managed to glimpse his smudged face, the stubble on his usually clean-shaven chin, before Jorani closed his eye again. "It's good you kept his eyes shut. Otherwise, he might recover and be blind. He's been this way since I left him?" Jorani asked.
"Exactly," the lieutenant replied. "Sometimes I think he can hear me, that he understands me, but it's probably just wishful thinking. He does seem calmer when Lekai is with him."
"Calmer?" Ilsabet asked.
"I don't know how to explain it, Baroness. It's as if the illness has formed a bond between us."
A bond of affection that was always there, Peto thought. A tear leaked from the corner of one eye. He hoped that no one noticed.
Shaul left soon after. As soon as they were alone, Jorani got up from the bed.
"Did you do this to him?" he asked Ilsabet.
"Is there an antidote?" she asked, instead.
"To the web? You know there isn't. He'll lie like this for the rest of his life. If he's fortunate, it won't be that long. Why did you do it?"
"I promised it to my father before he died, but I'd never expected vengeance as perfect as this." Peto heard her pacing, her footsteps stopping close by his bed. "Do you know that he can hear every word we speak, can feel heat and cold and pain. Look! He's crying. And I'd been foolish enough to think that death would be the perfect revenge."
"Do you think Janosk would have wanted all the deaths that led to this?" Jorani asked. His tone held no persuasiveness, as if he knew her answer already.
She sucked in her breath, the angry sound Peto knew all too well. "I could have done worse. I still can," she said, then left the room, her hard soles clicking on the polished wooden floors.
Jorani remained, moving beside Peto, taking his hand and squeezing it. "I lied to her. If I thought there were no hope for your body, Baron, I would end your life out of mercy. I may have to do that someday, but first let's try to wake you."
Jorani opened Peto's mouth. The same bittersweet taste as before filled it, carried on a scant spoonful of elixir. Peto swallowed. Minutes later he felt a tingling in his hands. He managed to move a finger before all feeling left him. His heart pounded as if it were about to explode. More, he wanted to scream, more.
As if hearing him, Jorani said, "More would kill you. We must go slowly." He sighed. "Ilsabet does not yet realize the price she's paid for this act. Though it's little comfort to you, I'm sure, I doubt she'll be pleased with the news I have for her. I'll return tonight with another dose if I'm still alive."
As he walked down the dark hall toward Ilsabet's chambers Jorani paused at the top of the stairs. Someone had left the carved doors open, and afternoon fog rolled into the lower halls. He'd never seen the river fog so thick in daytime before. He paused and started down the stairs toward the doors. But as the tendrils curled around his feet, he felt a sudden, terrible chill, and retreated, moving quickly down the hall to were Ilsabet waited for him.
She had bathed and changed in his absence, into a simple dress such as she had worn for their lessons not so long ago. When she saw him, she wrapped her arms around his neck. He gripped her wrists and pulled them loose, vowing to never let her so close to him again.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Ilsabet lay belly-down above Jorani's study and held the lamp at just the angles he requested. Jorani, his face and body wrapped in strips of cloth as if he were a mummy, had already determined the spider had left its globe. Now he tracked it through its kills, from the roach to a pair of dead rats, one near the center of the room, a second close to a crack in the wall. The tiny creature, always shy, had likely found a larger, more perfect home.
"If it's gone into the wall, we'll have to rip apart the tower stone by stone to find it," he called to her. "Build up the fire, and be ready to help me."
Ilsabet backed away from the trapdoor and slipped on a pair of long, leather gloves. Below her, Jorani began unwinding the strips of cloth that covered his clothes and body. He fully expected to feel the sudden tingling, to fall. The floor itself was covered with the fine spider web, so if he hit the floor, he'd die soon after. He climbed out of the room, careful not to touch the rungs of the ladder with his clothes.
He sat on the top stair and handed his boots to Ilsabet, who fed them to the fire in the hearth. He pulled off her gloves and did the same to them, then let his own fall from his hands into the flames. The two vials he had gathered from the room below were heavy in his pocket. Later, he would put on new gloves, pull the vials out, and clean them well, for they were needed now as never before.
"Are there any drawn plans of the castle?" Ilsabet asked. "If so we could trace the places the spider might exit."
"I don't know of any, but I think the wall goes all the way down to the dungeons. It's possible the spider is still in the room and I can't find it."
He closed the trapdoor, took a hammer and nails, and began nailing it shut.
"What are you doing?" Ilsabet asked.
"I don't want anyone finding the door and going down," he said.
"Anyone spying on you deserves what he gets."
"But someone might manage to get out of the room and die in here, and I could give up this space as I have the one below."
"Such a delightfully lethal pet, yet so fragile that someone could easily step on it and never know," Ilsabet said, her eyes sparkling. He hadn't known how much pleasure she'd gotten from his fear until now.
"Then track its venom through the castle."
Ilsabet hadn't considered this. "How long do the spiders live?"
"I've had it twelve years. I understand that if you feed one regularly it'll live a century or more."
"Well, there's plenty to eat in these walls. Maybe there'll be a dearth of rats for a time."
"Pray that we have an infestation. The spider is a lazy animal, and it needs fresh meat. You might also want to consider putting netting around Lekai's cradle."
Her look of horror twisted into a sardonic smile. "We're all gamblers now. I'll leave you to your bath."
Throughout the day, Peto had sought some understanding of what Jorani's parting words had meant, but nothing came to him. He did, however, listen to the footsteps of servants coming and going in the hall, and felt relief that everything sounded normal. Later, Lekai was brought to him. They slept together. Peto liked to think they shared their dreams. When he woke, the child was gone, and Jorani sat beside him once more.
"I survived," Jorani whispered. "Now let's see if the fates intend for me to cure you."
The liquid flowed down Peto's throat again. This time his heart raced less quickly, and the tingling in his hands extended to his arms.
"There's no one here but you and me, Baron. I won't tell anyone about your progress. Now try to wake."
Peto's eyelids fluttered, and with a sudden burst of will, he managed to brush his fingers against Jorani's hand. Peto had felt such eu
phoria only once before-on the day his son had been born.
"We seem to be on the right track," Jorani said. "By the end of the week, we'll know how far you can recover. We'll have to. I'm just about out of this potion, and the means to make more has, shall we say, moved out of my grasp for a while." He told Peto about the room, and the spider with its lethal web. "Fortunately," he added, "I think the effects of the antidote don't wear off. We'll go as far as we can with what I still possess, then you'll have to wait until I can collect the ingredients again. That may take some time."
After Jorani left him, servants came to bathe the baron. When they were done, they covered him with a blanket and left.
Peto lay in the darkness, wiggling the fingers of his right hand. He was hardly surprised that the strength in his sword arm was returning first.
The castle grew quiet until the footsteps of the guards patrolling the halls were the only sounds he heard. Peto had just begun to doze off when lisa bet came to him.
She walked past the guards and into his chamber, latching the door behind her. He saw the candlelight flickering through his closed eyelids, felt the heat of her body as she stretched out beside him.
"Peto," she whispered and kissed him as passionately as she had before.
A wave of revulsion coursed through him, a revulsion all the more terrible because he was helpless to push her away. His expression could not have changed, yet he was certain she guessed his emotion.
She laughed, and kissed him again.
"Someone's been plotting against you. Tomorrow Shaul is going to find evidence linking your poisoning to the escaped rebels. Someone will have to pay for this crime. Fortunately, we have a few rebel sympathizers in chains below. I'll have to think of a suitable end for them.
She lay a hand on his cheek, gentle as any lover's.
"No rebel escaped, of course. Shall I tell you how they died?" Softly, she whispered the tale of the book she had found at Shadow Castle, of Emory, and of Arman, and how they'd feasted together.
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