Vengeance

CHAPTER 63

The morning after Luzia’s murder was endless. Rix had gone back to bed and had lain there all morning, wide awake with the covers swaddled around him, shivering. All he could see was the ragged slash across Luzia’s throat and blood like the blood he kept seeing in his nightmares. Blood squeezed out of his people like juice from grapes. Blood on his hands and arms. Most horrible and inexplicable of all, blood being rubbed into a wound in his side.

At noon he hurled the covers away, stalked into the scalderium and, for the first time in his life, ran a bath for himself. After turning on all twelve taps he sat on the travertine floor, watching cold water flow down over a heatstone so thick and heavy that it must have cost the lives of dozens of Pale slaves to mine it. Until a few years ago heatstones had been unnecessary here, since endless hot water had flowed from the tubule network, but the underground source had gone cold.

It was another omen.

By the time the water poured from the grooves on the lower end of the heatstone it was steaming and in twenty minutes the tub was full. Rix sank beneath the water and scrubbed himself with a scouring cloth until the top layer of skin was gone and he throbbed all over. He still felt dirty, tainted, bloody.

He lay back, staring at the scintillating heatstone, which was already dry. By edict which, according to Tobry, Lady Ricinus had bribed to have passed, everyone wealthy enough to afford heatstones was required to use them for heating and hot water, a measure to cut down on Caulderon’s deadly smogs. Those few houses permitted to share in the heatstone monopoly, including Rix’s own, had made fortunes from it, and the trade disgusted him.

But since they were at war, all commerce with the enemy was banned. What would happen when the heatstones ran out? They only lasted a few years and the winters were getting ever colder. Rix shivered, though the water was still hot, then yanked the plug and went to his studio without taking breakfast. Food would have choked him.

The portrait accused him of neglect. He had redone the mountains in the background, turning them into a tortured landscape inspired by the volcanic ruin of the Seethings. He had also touched up the mighty wyverin. Now, instead of a savage predator rightfully slain, it was a noble beast, perhaps the last of its kind, cut down for the glory of killing.

But his father still eluded him. There was something about the man that wasn’t right -

Tobry burst up the stairs, panting.

‘Can’t you knock?’ Rix snarled.

‘Sorry,’ said Tobry, unrepentantly. ‘I know how you hate being interrupted when you’re working.’

‘I hadn’t started.’ Rix tossed the brush down. ‘What’s up?

‘Lady Ricinus is in an almighty flap. She’s ordered a search of the entire palace.’

‘What for?’

‘Good question.’

‘Could she know we sneaked out last night?’ said Rix. ‘Maybe she thinks I smuggled something in.’

‘No, I think she’s looking for — ’

There came a thunderous rapping on the entrance door and Rix heard a snick. ‘I’ve had the locks changed a dozen times. I don’t understand how she gets a key — ’

‘Who pays the locksmith?’

‘Ah. I see.’

‘Where’s your sketch?’

‘In the storeroom. I always paint over it when I’m finished. Sit down and read a book. I’d better look busy.’ Rix picked up his brush. ‘I’m a grown man. I’ve fought a wrythen and cut down a caitsthe. I’ve killed more of the enemy than our First Army has, so why does she make me feel like a naughty schoolboy?’

Tobry settled himself on a couch with a ribald tome called War and Wantonness. Rix reached towards the portrait as if touching up his father’s uniform.

Lady Ricinus’s heels tapped up the steps. She inspected the painting and snapped, ‘You haven’t done a thing since I checked last night.’

‘I’ve been working on it all morning,’ Rix said.

‘Never lie to me, Rixium. All your brushes are clean.’

‘Can I help you?’ he said, matching her coldness with his own. ‘It’s impossible to work with constant interruptions.’

‘Artists!’ She went to the top of the steps and called down. ‘Up here. Search the upper tower first. Lagger, don’t move from the couch until we’ve finished.’

‘Your wish is my command, Lady Ricinus,’ said Tobry with an ironic bow.

She curled her razor-edged lip. ‘If it was, you’d be hunting walrus on the polar ice in a scorpion loincloth.’

Four servants came up, two men and two women. ‘Begin up there and work down,’ said Lady Ricinus.

They went up the next flight and began opening doors and checking cupboards and storerooms.

She turned away. ‘Rixium, come with me. We have matters to discuss.’

‘Can’t we do it here?’ said Rix.

‘In public? Certainly not.’

‘I’ll need a note in your hand to get past your gorms on the door,’ he said sarcastically. Annoying her was never a good idea but Rix was beyond being sensible.

‘Don’t act a bigger fool than you already are.’

He followed her out. Should he ask about Luzia’s murder? No, she would spend the rest of the morning interrogating him as to how he knew about it.

Lady Ricinus was walking faster than usual and breathing noisily. To have rattled her, it had to be something serious, but Rix did not think it was the murder. To her, servants were cut-out humans, pressed into place to do a job. If one failed, ran away or was murdered, another would take the place. Not that Luzia had left any place to be filled. Once Rix married, gulp! his wife would pick her own nurse. Assuming she could stand up to his mother.

He contemplated the grim prospect. Did Lady Ricinus have the candidates lined up for his inspection? Unless, he thought hopefully, all the girls she’s picked have refused me.

As if that would happen. Their families would decide and the money would clinch it. Nothing short of a reputation for disembowelling young women and brushing his teeth with their blood would get the selected girls out of a liaison with House Ricinus.

They passed a cringing orderly. In the distance, a slender, red-haired maidservant girl was sobbing. Lady Ricinus froze for a second, then strode on.

‘What’s the matter with Glynnie?’ said Rix.

‘I put her little brother in the month’s flogging tithe.’

‘Why? Benn’s a hard worker, always eager to please.’

‘The boy brought me cold tea. It won’t happen again.’

‘You can’t do that, Mother. It’s not right.’

She did not bother to reply. Rix stopped next to Glynnie, turned up her tear-stained face and said quietly, ‘It’ll be all right. I’ll fix it.’

She gave him a tremulous smile and he continued.

‘What’s the matter, anyway?’ said Rix. ‘What’s going on?’

Without answering Lady Ricinus stalked into her chambers, waited until Rix had passed through and slammed the door, which started another frisson of disquiet. He had never known her to slam a door before — quiet, viperish deadliness was her style.

‘If you ever undermine my authority with the servants again,’ she hissed, ‘they will suffer.’

‘Take Benn off the flogging tithe,’ he said coldly, and forced himself to meet her eyes, to break her dominance, even if only for a minute.

After a pause, she said, ‘Very well. That’s one favour wasted. Sit down.’

His heart hammered as he went by. What was Lord Ricinus doing here? Mother only wheeled him in for emergencies, and this must be worst than most, for he was sober. Rix had not seen his father in that state since he was ten.

He gulped. His father was bad enough when drunk, but when stone sober he was an angry, bitter terror. Rix looked around for a flask but all were locked away. Lady Ricinus had planned for this meeting.

‘Sit!’ she said.

They sat. Rix stared at his father’s grossly misshapen, purple-veined monstrosity of a nose. He could see the veins throbbing. Was this what he would look like when he was old? Was he halfway to becoming his father already?

‘Where is she?’ said Lady Ricinus.

Rix stared. ‘Where is who, Mother?’

‘The Pale traitor you found near the Rat Hole.’

So that’s what this was about. He should have known that she would find out about Tali. Her network of informers was the best in the land.

‘I didn’t find a traitor near the Rat Hole,’ he said, matching her coldness and raising it a blizzard.

‘Don’t lie to your mother, boy,’ growled Lord Ricinus from the settee. ‘We know you met the scrag there.’

Rix leapt up, shaking with fury, and for the first time in his life failed to show Lord Ricinus the respect due to him. He loomed over his father, dominating him with his own size and strength and knotted fists.

‘The woman’s name is vi Torgrist, Father, and hers is one of the oldest houses of all. Far older than yours.’

His father tried to lurch to his feet. Rix was about to push him down again when his mother’s voice cut through the room like a flaying knife.

‘Sit down! Rixium, lay one finger on your father and I will have you flogged in the city square.’

Since she made a fetish out of keeping the family’s secrets, the threat indicated her dire state of mind. Rix went back to his seat, acid searing a track up his gullet.

‘There is no House vi Torgrist,’ said Lady Ricinus. ‘It died out centuries ago.’

Rix could have crowed. Her spies had failed her. It was the tiniest of victories, but any victory over his mother was rare and all the sweeter for that.

‘ Lady Tali can trace her name back to the Second Fleet. And she has her house seal. Tobry checked it, and as you know, there’s nothing he doesn’t know about the noble houses.’

‘It will do her no good,’ said Lady Ricinus. ‘Even if her claim could be proven after all these centuries, no Pale traitor can inherit.’

Rix did not reply. The more he said, the more his mother would use against Tali.

Waves the colour of purple grape juice washed across Lord Ricinus’s face. His slack mouth opened and closed; he clutched at his chest. ‘Drink! Need a drink.’

Rix’s mother tossed him a little key. ‘Get your lord father a drink. If I do it, I’m liable to jam it down his throat.’

The expression stirred a troubling memory, but it submerged before Rix could ease it up into the daylight. He opened the locked case on the far side of the room, took down a bottle of brandy and gave it to his father. Lord Ricinus sank a third of it in one gasping swallow, wiped slobber across his cheek with his forearm, then lay back, ‘Aah, aah, aaaahhh!’ His twisted mouth gaped.

Lady Ricinus looked as though she wanted to smash the bottle over his head, but swallowed her bile. She turned to Rix and said, through lips so pursed that a needle could not have been inserted between them, ‘Your impassioned defence of this woman disturbs me. Do you have feelings for her, Rixium?’

‘Certainly not,’ he lied, meeting her eyes. Few people could deceive her but he’d had twenty years of practice. ‘She’s not to my taste, insipid little thing that she is.’ He paused, wondering if he could make the planned half-truths convincing. ‘But I did help her escape the Cythonians.’

‘Why would you risk your life to help a Pale?’

‘Tobry and I had just seen the ruins of Gullihoe. When Hightspall needs to counterattack, a Pale who knows the enemy’s realm from the inside will be priceless.’

‘Indeed,’ she said, licking her lips, ‘and whoever can provide her will earn great favour with the chancellor. Favour we sorely need. In that, at least, you did well, Rixium. Tell me everything about her. Omit not the smallest detail.’

Rix sketched out their rescue of Tali and the subsequent hunt, glossing over all the risks he had taken and the number of times he had narrowly escaped death. It would do no good to tell his mother that. He also omitted every detail she could use against Tali.

‘Then why,’ she said when he had finished, ‘since you went to such trouble and took such stupid risks to rescue the chit, did you hide her from my seneschal?’

Rix was prepared for the question, though he did not imagine his answer would satisfy her. ‘After the enemy’s cowardly attacks on Gullihoe and half a dozen other places, I feared for Tali’s safety if I revealed her presence.’

‘Nonsense. Parby is a prudent man and would have recognised her value. Where is she now?’

‘I don’t know,’ Rix said truthfully. Tobry had found no sign of her, nor Rannilt, and he was terrified that the chancellor had captured them. He was a hard man who would do anything to protect his country — even torture secrets out of a girl and a child.

‘Lagger does. Where did he take her?’

‘To Abbess Hildy.’

Lady Ricinus smiled. ‘But Hildy turned her away.’

‘Well, I haven’t seen her.’

So that’s why she was so agitated. His mother thought he was having a scandalous affair with a Pale traitor. One that, if it got out, would ruin the Honouring and all she had been scheming for these past years.

‘Liar! You sneaked out of your tower last night.’

He nodded stiffly, afraid to speak. How did she know so much?

‘Where have you hidden her?’

‘I don’t know where she is.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘I went to see Luzia, if you must know, and I found her dead. Murdered!’ It came out as a wail.

She rearranged her face into the appropriate expression. ‘I’m sorry. I know she meant a lot to you.’

And she meant nothing to you.

‘Rixium,’ she continued, softly now, almost wheedling, ‘if you have a liaison with this treacherous Pale, it could ruin your father’s Honouring.’

‘The Pale have been slaves ever since Hightspall abandoned its hostage children a thousand years ago,’ said Rix. ‘Tali is the first to escape. She’s strong and brave — and she saved my life. You should be thankful to her.’

‘I’ll show her how thankful I am when I meet her.’

Rix did not like the sound of that.

‘What matters is not what she is,’ said Lady Ricinus, making a meaningless concession, ‘but what the Pale are universally believed to be — traitors. Nothing you or I can say will change that belief, and any relationship with her could ruin us.’

She put on a smile worthy of a jackal queen. ‘But if we can make her over to the chancellor for use in the war, it will double our power and confound our enemies. We have powerful enemies, Rixium, and they will do anything to bring us down.’

‘I worry about them all the time,’ said Rix.

‘Leave the worrying to Lord Ricinus and me. All I want from you is her hiding place. And the finished portrait.’

‘I have no idea where she is.’ Rix rose. ‘The portrait will be finished on time, if you’ll allow me to go back to it.’

‘I am most disappointed in you, Rixium.’ Lady Ricinus waved him away.

‘Mother will never give up,’ Rix said that evening. He was in his studio, dabbing at the portrait, which he hated more every time he looked at it. He wanted to hack out his father’s image and burn it in the fireplace.

‘I’ve never seen her so upset,’ said Tobry, who had come in without finding any signs of Rannilt or Tali. ‘This morning she seemed almost hysterical.’

‘You must have imagined it,’ said Rix. ‘Lady Ricinus is the epitome of control.’ But he had noticed it too. He laid the brush down. ‘I can’t do any more. Let’s have dinner, a bottle of wine, and then I’m having another go at the sketch. I’ve got to see the faces.’

Tobry took a measured breath. ‘After what happened to Luzia, are you sure you want to know?’

‘I have to know. It’s killing me, Tobe.’ He changed the subject. ‘Is there any news about the war?’

‘Nothing good.’

Every enemy assault led to their victory, every counterattack by Hightspall’s forces resulted in another crushing defeat. Rix had begged Lady Ricinus and pleaded with Lord Ricinus to be allowed to fight, but neither would relent.

One bottle turned into two, for Tobry had sneaked another in with him, and it was after midnight by the time they returned to the studio and Rix brought out the whited-out sketch. This time he did not have to look at the canvas — the scene was so familiar that he could have sketched it with his eyes closed.

‘It’s just the same,’ he said, slumping onto the settee once the creative fury had run out.

‘There’s a bit more,’ said Tobry. ‘Look at the little girl.’

Rix stood up. ‘Her face is blank. I can’t read anything into her.’

‘I can. Look at the way she’s jamming her fist against her mouth, as though strangling a scream.’

Worms squirmed in Rix’s belly. ‘Where’s all this coming from?’

Tobry shrugged. ‘No idea. I’ve never seen this chamber before.’

‘I don’t recognise it either — ’ Rix broke off, head cocked. ‘What was that?’

‘I didn’t hear anything.’

‘Sounded like someone yelling in the west hall.’

Remembering Luzia’s fate, Rix grabbed his sword, ran down and opened the door. The passage was empty. ‘Where the hell are the door guards?’