by Marilyn Todd
Iliona was spared any further awkwardness by Calypso, who tossed her towel on the floor of the massage chamber, swung her long legs on to the spare bench, then fussed to settle her little lapdog next to her.
‘Isn’t it simply awful about Yvorna?’ She combed Pookie’s fur with her fingers. ‘You just wouldn’t have imagined her as the type to go hanging herself.’ Big blue eyes turned to Iliona. ‘All sorts of rumours have been flying around. Like, she’d been robbing guests blind and was about to be unmasked, that’s why she committed suicide.’
‘Yvorna was no thief,’ Dierdra rasped.
‘I must say, she didn’t strike me as the type, either.’ Calypso pushed her hair away from her face with both hands. ‘But over breakfast I heard someone say she’d been promised marriage by some wealthy visitor who rode off and left her… Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ she squealed. ‘What now?’
‘What now is that you should have been taking Daphne out on the lake an hour ago.’ Six tons of flab wobbled inside an overstretched linen towel. ‘And I’m going to have a word with the management, too. Quite unsanitary, allowing animals into a bath house.’ Hermione sniffed. ‘Not to mention vulgar.’
‘Vulgar?’ Calypso’s outrage came out in the form of a squeak. ‘When you wear red with orange, and pick your teeth at the dinner table! But as I was saying, Iliona, whatever drove her to it, it’s a real shame about Yvorna.’
Hermione plumped down on a stool. ‘From what my maid was telling me, she was a wanton strumpet with a wasp of a tongue and a malicious idea of what’s funny. By all accounts it’s good riddance to bad rubbish and with all due respect, Dierdra, no one else here’s going to miss her apart from her sisters.’
‘That’s a beastly thing to say.’ Calypso snorted in indignation. ‘According to the girl who does my hair—who has this amazing technique, by the way. She twists it round this way, like so, and then back on itself like this, and see? Now it looks twice as thick—’
‘If only you’d been this vague with your wedding vows,’ Hermione muttered, ‘my Billi would have died of old age before the service was finished and then we’d all have been spared.’
Calypso poked her tongue out. ‘What I’m driving at is that apparently Yvorna was mending her ways. Now who was it told me she was in love…? Doesn’t matter. The point is, people will miss Yvorna, won’t they, Dierdra?’
‘I think your her mother-in-law’s probably closer to the truth of it, ma’am. She wasn’t the most popular girl on the station.’
‘Sounds more like a cry for attention that went wrong,’ Hermione said.
‘Well, Cadur will notice the draught, that’s for sure,’ Calypso declared.
‘Perhaps,’ Dierdra said, as she continued to pummel Iliona’s flesh. ‘But I don’t like to talk about my friends, dear. It wouldn’t be right. Now I think you’ll find this blend’s just the job, milady. Jasmine, with cypress, honeysuckle, basil and rose. It’ll pep you up all day long, as well as keeping your skin soft and supple right through to the morning.’
Not so much a mix of essential healing oils, more a case of blending chalk and cheese, Iliona mused. Nobilor and Calypso. Hector and Anthea. Yvorna and Cadur.
‘So are you going or not?’ Hermione chided.
‘Suppose so.’ Calypso shrugged herself off the table. ‘Come on, Pookie. Mummy’s turn to babysit, though lord knows what the rush is. Daphne wasn’t waiting in the garden like she was supposed to, and if she can’t be bothered, I don’t see why I should.’
Hermione shot Iliona a tight smile. ‘It’s a habit of hers lately. Wandering off.’
‘What do you expect?’ Calypso trilled. ‘Poor girl’s lost her daddy, she’s on the cusp of womanhood and a million miles from home. Now, Pookie, say bye-bye.’
She waggled his tiny paw up and down, then trip-trip-tripped across the tiles, warbling a paean to Apollo.
‘Hector’s arranged for them to go out on a boat,’ Hermione said. ‘Asked me if I wanted to go. I said not bloody likely. Told him, I don’t care how long I’d live happy-ever-after in the Blue Goddess’s palace. I’ll settle for my three score and ten up here, thanks all the same.’
‘You’re not worried about Daphne out on the water?’
‘Heavens, no. She’s fifteen, and they have no fear at that age, do they? Anyway, it’ll do her good to get out for a bit, even if it does mean being stuck with you-know-who.’ She leaned forward on the stool. ‘Besides.’ She winked. ‘The banker’s due any day. Won’t do any harm if I’m the only one around to greet him, would it?’ She stood up. ‘I’ll skip my rub today, Dierdra. Better go and chivvy up Daphne, otherwise that poor fisherman will have wasted a whole morning waiting for Her Ladyship to put in an appearance, and it’ll be me who has to apologize for the lazy little cow.’
‘Do you believe Yvorna committed suicide because a rich lover deserted her?’ Iliona asked once they were alone. Because despite what Dierdra said, everyone who’s grieving needs to talk.
‘Yvorna wasn’t in love.’ Dierdra rolled Iliona on to her front and massaged her lower back with the flat of her hand. ‘If there was someone special, she’d have told me. We didn’t keep secrets from one another, us two, but what folk round here don’t understand is that if men sow wild oats, why can’t women?’
‘I know. When it’s a man it’s called freedom, when it’s a woman, it’s brazen.’
‘And you tell me that’s fair, milady.’
As it happened, Iliona could not recall a single moment from the time she was born when life had been fair. ‘Why do you think she hanged herself?’
The pause was long. ‘I don’t believe she did,’ Dierdra said at last. ‘I know she was my friend, and I loved Yvorna deeply, but between you and me, there was a mean streak in that girl.’ She moved on to using her fingertips, going up and down, sideways, then crosswise. ‘If you want my honest opinion, I think she went up there to frighten Lisyl and the prank misfired.’ She sighed. ‘Not suicide, milady. Just misjudgement, but then that’s the trouble with these things. One just never knows.’
Strangling slowly on a noose, suffocating slowly and painfully, could certainly be termed lack of judgement, Iliona thought, as Dierdra kneaded between her shoulder blades. But was it really coincidence that Nobilor misjudged a bend and Yvorna miscalculated on a practical joke? Within a few days of one another?
‘Oh, that’s it, I’ve had enough.’ Calypso dropped both dog and tunic on the bench. ‘If Daphne can’t be bothered to make the effort, I’m damned well going to have my massage.’ She released her long strawberry blonde hair from its clips. ‘I tell you, I’ve deserved it—’
‘Calypso!’ Hermione was red in the face and wheezing, as though she’d been running. ‘Look at this.’
She stuffed a scrap of parchment under her daughter-in-law’s nose.
‘Shit.’ Calypso sprang off the couch like a gazelle, grabbing Pookie and her clothes in one fluid movement to dash off after Hermione.
‘Well, now.’ Dierdra wiped the excess oils off her hands. ‘Wonder what that was about.’
Iliona had no idea, either.
But for the very first time, Nobilor’s mother and widow looked worried.
*
Outside the bath house, a chisel-cheeked groom leaned against one of its pillars, his profile silhouetted against the morning sun. His feet were crossed loosely at the ankles and in one hand he held a piece of wood, in the other a whittling knife. The piece he was carving was a cat, its head turned as though waiting for a stroke, and Iliona noticed that he held the knife in his left hand. His lowered head turned slowly in her direction, and for a second eyes as dark as Hades locked with hers. This man’s best friend has just died, she told herself. But saw no sign of grief in his expression.
Blowing the shavings into the wind, Cadur turned away and sauntered back into the stables. A full minute passed before it occurred to Iliona that he’d been standing directly outside the massage-chamber window. Listening to every word that had bee
n said.
Twenty-Two
‘Lady Iliona.’
As he changed tack and strode across to meet her, she decided Hector also looked like he’d been through hell and back. A result, no doubt, of longing to comfort Melisanne in this, her darkest hour, but not being able to.
Maybe tonight…maybe tomorrow…
Prophetic words indeed
‘My favourite station master,’ Iliona replied with a smile. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Rather the other way round, I believe.’ He pointed towards the jetty. ‘I had arranged for a boat ride for Calypso and the girl, but it seems they are unable to make it. Since the boatman has already been paid, my wife wondered if you’d care to take the trip instead.’
Why? So the oarsman could take the priestess out beyond the islands, then throw her in without anyone seeing?
‘I’d love to.’
‘And tonight, of course, in place of the customary equinox bonfire, we shall be lighting Yvorna’s funeral pyre. You are welcome to attend, if you wish.’ He didn’t wait for an answer. Probably took it as read. ‘So vibrant and full of passion,’ he said sadly. ‘What a waste of a young life, and how sad that she didn’t feel that she could talk to either Anthea or me. If she had, maybe she’d still be alive.’
Not Anthea, Iliona thought.
‘It’s a long way to trek to commit suicide,’ she said. ‘What on earth took Lisyl up there?’
‘She was due to meet Morin.’ He shrugged. ‘They thought no one knew, but—’
‘You know everything that goes on in your station.’
‘I try to, which is not the same thing.’ He shot her a deprecating grin. ‘Information is a contributory factor to the station’s smooth operation, knowing what issues to act on, which to leave alone. I can only make these assessments by understanding the people who work for me.’
The same principle Iliona worked to herself at Eurotas.
She turned her eyes to the little round temple perched on top of the cliff. ‘In your opinion, was Yvorna too hasty in committing suicide?’
‘In my opinion, everyone who commits suicide is too hasty, but Yvorna?’ He blew out his cheeks. ‘I hate to admit failure, but that was one member of staff whose behaviour I found impossible to predict. She could be extremely wilful, when she put her mind to it.’
Either you have a word with Yvorna or I will, Anthea said.
‘Yet you didn’t sack her?’
There was a longer pause this time. ‘No,’ and when he replied, his voice was stiff. ‘Yvorna was very popular with the customers.’
She plays practical jokes on them, and all sorts.
‘But not the staff?’
His glance turned to Anthea, her arms loaded with linens which were presumably Lisyl’s responsibility, though it didn’t look like the first time the master’s wife had rolled up her sleeves and got stuck in herself.
‘Not all of them, no,’ he said slowly.
Let’s not bicker over a servant girl, Anthea.
Iliona pictured Melisanne, her silver hair contrasting sharply with Lisyl’s black mane and Yvorna’s springy red curls, her boyish frame completely at odds with Lisyl’s curves and Yvorna’s buxom wiggle. There would be more than bickering if that affair came to light—
‘Yvorna’s death will have hit the girls hard. First their parents, now their sister.’ She smoothed her pleats and asked casually, ‘Remind me again how the parents died?’
‘Winter fever.’ Hector shook his head from side to side. ‘Takes a heavy toll every year, and this was no exception. But the poor always bear the heaviest burden, don’t they?’
Vulnerability. That was what drew Hector to Melisanne, she decided, watching him greet the latest merchant with unforced bonhomie. The girl was trustworthy, competent, honest and reliable, witness her rapid rise to the post of Anthea’s personal maid. But she remained a simple soul at heart, gentle and artless. Almost childlike in her inexperience of the world beyond the Lake of Light, she was just the antidote Hector needed in a job where the pressure was relentless and breaks non-existent.
Demands that equally applied to his marriage.
And with handsome, eloquent, irreproachable Anthea grinding away on the domestic front, a model of style and elegance in which appearances mattered, the refreshingly ingenuous Melisanne offered the perfect refuge.
His wife didn’t know him well, Iliona thought, if she imagined Hector would tumble a capricious creature like Yvorna. True, Yvorna would never kiss and tell, but Hector wouldn’t risk his career, his marriage, his whole reputation on a casual roll in the hay. Though clandestine, his relationship with Melisanne was no cheap, sordid affair. With her, he had found spiritual love, something he’d probably never experienced—and probably never expected to.
The question is, now that Iliona had unwittingly forced the issue, what was he going to do?
*
‘Well, well, well, a banker of many talents,’ Iliona said, as a bronzed hand guided her into the boat. ‘Now tell me. I need guidance on this. Do I ravish you here, or am I allowed to control myself until we get out on the water?’
A muscle twitched in the fisherman’s cheek. ‘Both, if you like. I won’t stop you. Though I’m hurt you treat my Cretan affections so lightly, lusting after a humble boatman so soon after leaving my bed.’
‘So I’m not promiscuous, then. What a treat.’
Part of her said, don’t do it. Don’t antagonize the head of the secret police, there will only be repercussions. The other part said, why the hell not?
Trust no one.
Unsure what motivation lay behind this magnanimous offer, she’d cobbled together a selection of items that might come in handy on this trip. A potion. A powder. A couple of conjuring props. The usual paraphernalia one might be required to call upon, when the oarsman was under fish-feeding instructions. Plan A, of course, would be to bluff her way out of it, by calling upon the gods and getting an immediate response. Plan B was the long, narrow blade up her sleeve.
Betrayal is everywhere, Iliona.
Who knows, she’d thought, strapping another to her calf. Maybe the boat trip really was Anthea’s idea, in which case her travelling kit was redundant. On the other hand, if this was someone else’s suggestion—someone who’d become suspicious of her questioning—the precautions would be more than worthwhile.
When you live and breathe treachery, you soon learn the only person you can trust is yourself.
Sound advice from a master betrayer, but the tactics she’d had to work out for herself. Then again, the Oracle didn’t interpret riddles for nothing. Straight out of the smoke-and-mirrors department came the high priestess’s stock-in-trade. Diversion. Humour, irritation, anger, contempt, they all served the same purpose. While the subject was distracted, the magician turned tricks. The quickness of the hand deceives the eye.
Betrayal is everywhere.
Wasn’t it, though?
The apprentice, she thought sadly, was learning.
‘I thought you’d ruled out searching the lake for the groom’s body.’
‘I have.’ He unhooked the painter as though he’d been doing it all his life. ‘But there have been developments,’ he said. ‘I need to take precautions.’
Developments, as in a hanging, which well and truly sealed the curse on the station? Precautions, as in eliminating the person responsible for shredding Sparta’s reputation?
The only person you can trust is yourself.
‘What kind of developments?’
The powder would blind him, and while he thrashed at the burn, the knife would be deep in his heart. Because what Lysander didn’t know was that Iliona, too, knew how to kill. A skill she had learned from her father, the arch kingmaker and executioner, who disguised death with charisma and friendship.
And this was not her first time.
‘One of the guards in Lynx Squad is dead,’ he rumbled through a mouth full of gravel. ‘Shot through the neck with an arrow, which i
s a pity, because I really, really wanted a chat with that soldier. Man to man, and all that.’ He clucked his tongue. ‘Once again, though, it boils down to mathematics. Because if ten thousand divided by two is a nice round number, divided by none, it becomes even nicer.’
Iliona stared across the shimmering blue lake, all one hundred and seventy square miles of it. The realm of Zabrina of the Translucent Wave, where those who plunged into her depths didn’t drown, but were carried to her palace on the backs of sea eagles, where they lived happily for one thousand years. A kingdom of tranquillity and beauty, and justifiably named.
Then she lifted her gaze to the mountains. Mysterious, unforgiving and dark.
And yet were they? Perspective can be an illusion, just as perspective can change in an instant.
When a storm whips up, the lake is the danger zone, and the mountains become the refuge. Everything goes in reverse. Just as blackberries can be brambles, depending on viewpoint. And the soldier in Lynx Squad, who she’d thought was the mastermind, turned out to be merely a puppet on the end of a string.
A string which was also cut when he was longer needed…
‘The gold will be arriving tomorrow,’ Lysander said, ‘where I will personally be counting it in.’
‘Be careful.’
‘Haven’t you realized yet?’ The smile from the side of his mouth was wolf-like as he loosed the little white sail. ‘I am invincible.’
‘That’s what Gregos thought, too,’ she reminded him sweetly. ‘And look where it got him.’
Something hardened in those fathomless eyes. ‘I am not Gregos,’ he said. ‘Gregos made a mistake. A very, very big mistake.’
Yes. He was foolish enough to let his guard down, whereas, with Lysander, no one would ever discover the location of his personal refuge.
‘We all make them,’ she said.
‘Not on my watch,’ he growled back.
Out in the marshes, hunters with throwing sticks and nets were snaring widgeon and duck. Was that all life meant to the Krypteia? One long round of stalking and death?
