Baroness of Blood

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, implying 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.

When Marishka had been a toddler, a river rat managed to sneak into her room. It waited until her wet nurse went to sleep, then slipped into her cradle, pressing its furry body close to her bare chest, licking the milk from her tiny pursed lips.

Sometime in the middle of the night, the nurse awakened and came to check on her. Seeing the rat, she let out a terrible scream. It startled Marishka and the rat, which bit her on the lip.

She was now left with a tiny scar near the corner of her mouth. Each time she looked at it, she recalled exactly how the woman had shrieked, how the animal's teeth had felt as they sank into her flesh, how the servant had beat at her bedcoverings then killed the beast with a fire iron.

When she had heard about the rats swarming through the dungeons, Marishka had summoned two of her maids. Hours had passed, and there had been no sign of the animals aboveground, so she dismissed them, took a fireplace poker, and sat in the center of her bed, determined to remain on guard all night if need be.

Someone knocked. She ran and threw the door open, relieved to see her sister. "I've come to sit with you," Ilsabet said. "I know how terrified you are of rats."

Marishka made Ilsabet sit beside her on the bed. "Stay with me tonight," she whispered. "There's plenty of room in the bed, and you've always been so brave about such things."

Ilsabet kissed her sister's cheek and laughed. "Marishka, it's all right. Even the dungeons are quiet now. Whatever infuriated the beasts seems to have vanished as mysteriously as it appeared."

"Really?"

"The infected rats are all dead. They say there's over a hundred bodies in the tunnels."

Marishka took a deep breath, let it out, and smiled. "Stay the night with me anyway, like you used to," she said. "I've hardly seen you or Mihael since…"

"Since father died?" Ilsabet asked, then went on. "I haven't seen Mihael either, but I assumed you did. After all, I'm the enemy here."

"No one sees you that way. All our servants say that what you did was very brave. I wish I'd had the courage to stand up to Peto. Then maybe things would be different now."

"Different?"

Marishka frowned, trying to think of some way to explain without making Ilsabet angry. "Maybe if I'd shown some defiance, Mihael and Baron Peto wouldn't be bartering over me as if I were a spoil of war."

"Bartering? Are you for sale, sister?"

"Mihael seems to think so. As for Peto, well at least he's polite enough to try getting to know me before he makes a bid for me. What do you think of him?"

"I think he murdered our father," Ilsabet retorted. "You talk about him like a girl falling in love."

"I'm not!" Marishka insisted. "I meant, what sort of ruler do you think he'll be?"

"I'm not sure I should answer, just in case you do fall in love with him and repeat it."

Marishka stared at her sister, then seeing the hint of a smile on Ilsabet's thin mouth, she flung a pillow at her. "Tell me!" she demanded.

"All right. Peto thinks father was a ruthless barbarian, and the rebels, too. Kislovans-peasants and nobles alike-share the same blood, and the same passion for hate and love. In the end blood will win. Peto's rule will be short and tragic. He deserves what comes."

Marishka considered this but could reach no conclusion. Perhaps Ilsabet was right, but she was certainly at odds with Mihael's opinion. "What should I do?" she asked.

"Just what I said before, Marishka. Do what you're told, since you have no choice, but see that he doesn't fall in love with you."

Ilsabet looked at her so strangely that Marishka changed the subject. They slept together in the big bed, as they had so often when they were younger. She woke in the morning as her door was closing. Ilsabet had gone.

When Ilsabet reached her own chambers, she bolted the door behind her and went to the cupboard beside her bed. She rummaged behind some old scarves and ribbons and pulled out a wooden box. She opened it, inhaling a musty stench, then carefully lifted a bundle of soft wool fabric, unfolding a blue-and-gold cape and the white wool tunic hidden inside it. The stains of her father's blood had grown darker, and there was a thin coating of mold on the ones that had not yet dried.

She knew that if she wanted to keep the garment intact, she ought to wash it, but she wanted to see the stains there and through them to remember her father's head rolling away from his falling body, to see Peto above him, victorious, and gloating in his victory.

Someday, she thought, I will look at him that way. Someday I will have my revenge.

"At what cost?" These words of doubt were spoken an almost-familiar voice-feminine, gentle, and firm.

Had Ilsabet not been certain that she was alone in this room, she would have whirled and faced the intruder. Instead, Ilsabet pretended not to have heard the spectre. She began to fold the bloodstained tunic into the center of her father's cape. As she did, the stains brightened and began to spread, dripping from the woolen folds onto the polished wooden floor. Ilsabet stifled a scream and dropped the tunic, then looked down at her hands.

They were coated with new blood, which dripped from some hidden source off the tips of her fingers, leaving black stains on the brilliant green satin of her robe. The hallucination stole the breath from her lungs, and her heart pounded.

"At what cost?" the voice repeated.

Then she did whirl, but there was no one there at all.