by Dora Machado
Chapter Seventy-nine
LUSIELLE HAD NO CLEAR IDEA WHERE she was. Things had not gotten any better after her sudden encounter with Aponte. Somehow, he seemed to be in charge of a small cohort of murderous-looking thugs who wore no particular colors. They reminded her of Orell’s men—no, they probably were Orell’s men.
She had been separated from Vestor and taken into yet another room where, without any semblance of reason, Aponte had drenched her with two whole bottles of cheap, overly sweet perfume. After that, Aponte’s minions had summarily packed her into a chest with her knees pressed against her chin, sprinkled her with cedar chips, and locked her in the trunk.
It brought back memories of her time in the coffin with Bren, only this trunk was much smaller and he wasn’t here to cushion her body from the bangs and bumps of the hurried transport. Bren. She prayed he was all right, but something visceral in her rejected the hope.
The indistinct bedchamber where she found herself at the moment was the end result of her journey in the chest. It was a utilitarian room, a servant’s chamber maybe, devoid of luxury but equipped with the basics: a bed, a washing basin, a table, a stool and a padded chair. She sat on the floor with her hands cuffed, leaning against the bed at the foot of Aponte’s chair.
Lusielle couldn’t even look up at Aponte without having to fight the urge to vomit. He looked very pleased with himself, draped in his best finery, wearing a host of mirrored and jeweled chains around his neck. He puffed on a long narrow pipe, adding the scents of scorched earth and rotting leaves to the excessively perfumed air in the room.
“You didn’t really think you’d get away with escaping the magistrate’s judgment, did you?” he said, as though he was speaking about the weather instead of referring to her death sentence. “King Riva likes his justice. He was really fixated on you. I suppose I should thank you for the favor. He’s been very generous accounting for my time.”
Lusielle’s wrists tested the iron cuffs, but these were not the hurriedly tied ropes of earlier. They were tight to the bone and firmly connected to each other. If she was going to get out of this place, she needed to find out where she was and why. She had to come up with a plan.
Aponte wasn’t dumb or stupid, but boasting was his preferred form of communication and his mouth suffered from a constant hemorrhaging of words. If she could take advantage of his habitual blabbering, she might learn what she needed to escape and find Bren.
Aponte’s furrowed eyes settled on her as he fired some more perfumed mist in her direction. Lusielle didn’t think she could stand one more whiff of it without gagging. “Is that really necessary?”
“Watch your tone,” Aponte said. “I can’t believe that after all my efforts, you’ve lost your wifely virtues in such a short time. Personally, I prefer your natural scent, especially when you sweat for my pleasure. But the king commanded I should keep you highly perfumed, and I always do what the king commands.”
“Is that why you turned me over to the magistrate so eagerly? ‘Cause you’re so obedient? If I remember well, when it came to tolls and tariffs, you never liked paying the king’s duties.”
“If I ever committed any errors in calculations, they’ve been forgiven.” He wielded a fork over a large platter, trying to decide which of the sweets piled on the tray he was going to eat first. “I won’t deny that giving you up was an inconvenience to me. You’re handy to have around and the stores don’t do well when you’re not minding them. But the king made up the difference. I’m sure you understand. I couldn’t pass on this most profitable opportunity.”
Profit. That’s what she had been to him. “Why, then, am I still alive?”
Aponte speared a sweet pickled fig and swallowed it whole. “The need for proper jurisdiction funds my trip and my coffers.”
Lusielle realized that the only reason Riva hadn’t killed her yet was because they were in Teos, where only the Chosen could pass judgment and carry out sentences, and where an inhaler could tell truth from lies without the need for a magistrate, torture, or false witnesses.
The king wasn’t going to risk killing Lusielle on the sacred island, but he needed to ensure he had lawful possession of her so he could secrete her out of Teos and kill her without trouble. By the Kingdom’s laws, a husband’s claim couldn’t be superseded, not even by Teos.
Aponte must have read her eyes, because he said, “You were always a little too smart for your own good. Remember what I used to tell you? There’s good in dumb and smart in tame. A meek wife is a treasure. A silent wife is a trove.”
If only her hands weren’t cuffed. To think of the damage she could do to that bloated face.
Lusielle had to rein in her anger. It wasn’t going to help her survive the day. Bren would never have a chance if she died and the truth with her. He would never see the last strip. She needed to find a way of escaping Aponte.
The round little mark on her arm was already puffing by the time Lusielle was able to connect the sudden pain with the smoldering end of Aponte’s pipe. She had been so deep in thought that she had failed to note when he leaned over and pressed the glowing end to her skin. She gasped and rubbed the spot against the bed, trying to dispel the sting.
Aponte laughed. “You’ve always been such a flincher.”
How would the filthy rat feel if he was the one getting burned?
“I’ve missed having you around,” he said gruffly. “Come over here, girl. Sit on my lap.”
“Things have changed,” she said. “I’m no longer your wife.”
“Says who?”
“Our marriage was over the day you turned me over to the magistrate. The moment you repudiated me, I ceased to be your wife.”
“You’re mistaken. You’re my property for as long as you live and you’ll do as I say.”
“No,” she said with surprising force.
“No?” Aponte was no less shocked. “Is it the burning you want? A beating? I can please you, girl, I can.” He lifted the smoking pipe in the air.
“You can burn me if it pleases you, but it won’t change anything. You’re not my husband anymore. And just in case, this time, I’m repudiating you.”
“I don’t think you understand. Do you know what the king told me the last time we talked?” Aponte straightened to offer his best imitation of Riva’s smooth ways. “He said, ‘Aponte, we’ll get her back, and you’ll have your husbandly justice. We might have to wait until we return to the kingdom to achieve justice, but I understand your sacrifice. If it pleases you, you can do with her whatever you will on the way back. For my purposes, the wench doesn’t need to be in great health.’”
The way he spoke, the greed in his eyes, Lusielle couldn’t help the shiver chilling her spine.
“So you see,” Aponte said, “I have sanction to do what I want and you have nothing.”
“I’m not afraid of you anymore.”
“What about that man who was with you in the cellar?”
“What about him?”
“Don’t you care for his health?”
“Vestor is not part of this.”
“He’s in a cellar, under my watch and should you refuse me, he’ll suffer the consequences of your actions. The same goes for that Laonian bodyguard of yours and for that disgusting little beast, Elfu.”
The knot in Lusielle’s belly tightened. “The king won’t dare breaking Teos’s peace.”
“The king doesn’t plan to linger here too much longer. And torture is different from murder. What’s your friend? A healer, somebody told me. Can he heal without fingers?”
A new kind of terror bloomed in Lusielle’s mind, fear for her friends.
“He’ll suffer for being your friend,” Aponte said. “He and the other two will probably turn up dead in some remote kingdom province.”
“You can’t—you wouldn’t.”
“All I have to do is tell one of the guards and it will begin. Shall I send word to get started?”
She felt as helpless as she ha
d been the day she had landed in Aponte’s bed, as powerless as she had been every day under his rule. Aponte knew how to defeat her. It was the old trap. He opened the door to the cage and she had no choice but to walk in.
He knew how subdue her. He had done it before, targeting helpful servants—including Carfu and Elfu—trading their safety for her compliance. She couldn’t allow Vestor to be harmed. She couldn’t abandon Severo and Elfu to Aponte’s whims. Lusielle couldn’t believe the gods would be cruel enough to build her up and then dump her back into same the old pit.
Aponte pulled out something from his pocket and dangled the small cuff and the familiar leash like a treat. “Do you remember it? Have you missed it? I think maybe not.” He laughed. “Come to my lap or your friend begins to shed parts. Now!”
Her body reacted on instinct. She hopped on command like a trained dog. How she hated herself for it, but there she was, on his lap, back to the wretched slave she had once been.
“Take one of those honeyed stewed apple slices,” he said, hooking the leash around her neck and jerking it. “No, not that one.” He rapped her knuckles with the fork. “That one. Yes. Now, feed it to me.”
With aching fingers, Lusielle picked up the slippery slice and lifted it to Aponte’s lips. He ran his thick lips along the edge of the slice then chomped down, gulping the slice in two bites. His eyes fixed on Lusielle’s as he licked the honey dripping from her fingers, suckling her fingertips as if they, too, were part of the feast.
“What’s this?” His sticky fingers tugged on Elfu’s amulet, but the cord held when he tried to rip it off. “Trinkets,” he muttered. “More.” His lips dripped with honey and saliva. “That one.”
Lusielle watched in horror as Aponte’s greedy tongue licked her fingers while his eyes digested her fear, enjoying it as much as he was enjoying the sweets, promising a swift return to an unfathomable reality.
And with each bite she had to feed Aponte, Lusielle regressed to the dreaded place of her destruction.
Chapter Eighty
KHALIA’S WORDS WERE HIS LORD’S FINAL death sentence. If Teos couldn’t defeat the curse, no one could. Hato felt ancient. The frantic quest that had dominated the last ten years of his life was coming to an end. All his machinations, all his work had been for naught. He had to confront the facts. He had chosen loyalty. And lost.
A commotion ensued outside the door. Hato didn’t care. The next time he stepped through the threshold, he would have the sword of Uras in his hand and he would become the curse’s final slayer. He abhorred the duty that required he put so many good men to the sword and yet the slaughter was the only way to end the curse once and for all.
It was Khalia who went to the door and faced the trouble. “Be quiet, all of you, and let her pass,” she commanded. “Why are you so upset?”
Eleanor, Lady of Tolone, staggered into the room panting like a blown mare. Her usually coiffed hair fell in obvious disarray around her shoulders. Her face was flushed and she clutched her high-heeled slippers in her hand. She looked as if she had run up Teos’s steep stairs barefooted like a common wench.
“Is he dead?” she wheezed, bending over her knees.
“Not yet.” Khalia stared at the gasping woman with open curiosity.
Hato resented Eleanor’s presence in his lord’s death chamber. She had not been loyal to her oaths. She had schemed Bren out of coin and resources throughout his ordeal. Why had she come to him on the eve of his death? Hadn’t she done enough damage as it was?
“We must hurry,” Eleanor rasped, out of breath. “She’s here.”
“Who?”
“The woman. The remedy mixer, Lusielle.”
“I’m afraid you haven’t heard the news,” Khalia said. “She’s dead. She jumped off my galley on the way to Teos.”
“She jumped, yes, but she didn’t die!”
“The yearlings—”
“She mixed a repellent,” Eleanor said. “The wench survived the yearlings and came to journey in my barge.”
“That’s impossible,” Hato said.
“I’m telling you,” Eleanor said. “She survived!”
Khalia frowned. “If anybody could succeed at mixing a yearling repellent—”
“By the seal of Tolone, I swear she was alive when she left my barge earlier today.”
An oath by the seal was a serious matter, even for someone as deceitful as the Lady of Tolone. A twinge of cautious hope flickered in Hato’s gut.
“If what you’re saying is true,” Khalia asked, “why have you rushed to tell us?”
“What if she can help him survive?” Eleanor said. “What if Laonia could prevail against Riva and the rest of the territories could remain free?”
“Drop the act,” Hato said. “We know you’re in alliance with Riva.”
“Only because I had to do so in order to preserve Tolone! But she showed me. Lusielle taught me we don’t have to succumb to Riva’s military might if we stick together. I sent messengers. I blocked Tolone’s roads to Riva’s troops. But now—I’m committed—we have to hurry because if Laonia falls, Tolone falls.”
Hato didn’t trust the Lady of Tolone, but he understood Eleanor’s latest predicament. If Bren died, Eleanor would have to face Riva’s wrath alone, a daunting prospect for a ruler who relied on Laonia for wealth and protection. The situation lent credibility to her claims. And if Lusielle had survived, then perhaps there was hope after all.
“If Lusielle is alive as you claim,” Hato said, “where is she?”
“That’s what I came to tell you. She’s here. In Teos. But I don’t know where.”
“You’re not making any sense,” Khalia said. “You say that you brought her to Teos and yet you don’t know where she is?”
“A misunderstanding,” Eleanor said. “That’s what it was. Tatyene didn’t get to know the woman as well as I did—”
“Who by the gods is Tatyene?” Khalia said.
“Her bodyguard,” Hato said.
“Please, listen to me!” a frantic Eleanor said. “It’s not Tatyene’s fault. She thought the woman meant me harm—”
“Why?” Khalia asked.
“It’s not important,” Eleanor said. “We’ve got to hurry!”
“It’s very important if we’re going to believe any of what you’re saying,” Khalia said. “Or would you prefer I call out a formal inquiry on this matter?”
“No.” Eleanor shuddered visibly. “I—I married my baseborn lover. There. I said it. She thought Lusielle was going to denounce us. But she wasn’t. Tatyene, she didn’t know—”
A very bad feeling coalesced in Hato’s gut. “What did Tatyene do?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!” Eleanor’s pale face rose to meet Hato’s eyes. “She escorted Lusielle off the ship and conspired to deliver her to Riva’s dog.”
The sudden swings between desolation, hope and disaster were taking a toll on Hato. His lord was dying. Dying! One moment the woman was dead. Then she was alive again, but in Riva’s murderous hands. Hato wanted to wrench Eleanor’s neck like a hen meant for the pot.
It was Khalia who lashed out. “I swear to you, Eleanor, if something happens to Lusielle, if Orell kills her or Riva harms her, you’re going to regret every day of your life from here on.”
“My lady, I—”
“Don’t ‘my lady’ me,” Khalia snapped. “Riva won’t admit to having Lusielle and even if we were able to find Orell, he won’t talk easily without an inquiry.”
“We should confront Riva right now,” Hato said.
“We can’t,” Khalia said. “We can’t just detain Orell or storm into one of Riva’s many halls without proof or reason. We’d be risking an incident which will break the peace and set Teos’s hierarchy against us.”
“But you said Teos would do anything to fight off Riva.”
“No, I said that Teos would do anything to keep the peace and that means a number of things to a number of people. We have to find out where
he’s keeping her. Eleanor, I need to speak to your bodyguard right away. Where’s she?”
“She’s protected by law in Tolone’s hall,” Eleanor said. “I won’t have Tatyene harmed.”
Khalia spat out the words like hammer on nails. “If you don’t produce that bodyguard of yours and soon, you’ll feel the full force of Teos’s wrath on your head.”
“You can denounce me all you want, but I can’t let you kill Tatyene.”
Hato couldn’t take it any longer. “Do you realize you’re toying with my lord’s life?”
“I want to help him, I swear,” Eleanor said. “But you must understand. The code, I can’t surrender Tatyene to the yearlings—”
“Forget the code,” Khalia said. “If Tatyene helps us to find the woman, there won’t be an inquiry. As long as we can get Lusielle back, I don’t care about the two of you.”
“Do you swear?” Eleanor said.
“You have my word.”
“I’ll be back before you blink.” Eleanor ran to the door. “It shouldn’t be a crime, you know. We’re going to have to change that too.”
Khalia put the calming bottle to her nose and drew in a deep breath. “Why is it that an entire generation has grabbed on to the notion that order can be preserved without sacrifice?”
“‘Cause people get tired of sacrifices,” Hato answered for himself.
“I’ll need something from Lusielle,” Khalia said. “A garment, something that has her smell on it.”
“She travels light,” Hato said. “Wait. I think she wore my lord’s robe once.” He groped through Bren’s saddlebags. “Here it is.” Hato handed Khalia the robe. “What do you want it for?”
“You’ll see.”
Hato admired Khalia’s shrewdness, her fast thinking, the way she had swiftly negotiated with the Lady of Tolone. Khalia had just finished adding another layer of soothing airs to the room when Eleanor returned with Tatyene in tow.
“Let’s go,” Khalia said. “Are you coming?”
Hato hesitated. He had sworn to Bren that he would be by his deathbed to take down whatever knowledge the madness would grant him. He was torn. What if the woman was indeed alive? What if he could find her, and bring her to his lord? Could she make a difference? Could he find her before Bren went into the madness?
