by Ian Irvine
‘If Lagger is innocent, only one person can be guilty.’
Rix kept silent, clinging to the pathetic illusion that not naming his mother lessened the betrayal.
‘That poison is both a trademark and a challenge,’ said the chancellor.
‘I–I don’t understand.’
‘Ricin comes from the castor oil plant, also called Ricinus, which is on your house crest. Poison is a woman’s weapon, isn’t it? And she’ll try again.’
Rix stared at the dead dog, afraid to speak.
‘Name the name,’ said the chancellor inexorably.
‘I — can’t betray my own!’
‘If you don’t, you’re betraying your country at a time of war. That won’t just bring you down, it will topple your house.’
‘My house?’ Rix whispered.
‘Your country comes before your house — always.’
‘If you know who made the threat, why do I have to say it.’
‘Traitors must be named. Name her!’
‘I’m sure she didn’t mean it,’ said Rix. ‘She retracted it at once.’
‘Then where’s the difficulty?’
‘Naming her is her death sentence.’
‘Such a cunning, ruthless and well-connected woman is far more use to me alive than dead — especially if her life, and her house, relies on my favour.’
Waves of relief coursed over Rix. The chancellor was right. Lady Ricinus could help him in all kinds of ways. He met the chancellor’s eyes.
‘Name the plotter,’ said the chancellor.
The hook twisted in Rix’s guts. He tried to speak, but could not; tried again.
‘It was Mother,’ he gasped, staring at the black tiles. ‘Lady Ricinus made the threat.’
CHAPTER 87
Sickness churned in Rix’s belly. He had broken the greatest taboo of the noble houses. He had betrayed his mother and was utterly dishonoured.
The chancellor bared his teeth. He had all he needed to bring Lady Ricinus down. ‘So House Ricinus falls, brought down from within.’
It was like a blow to the groin, as agonising as it was unexpected.
‘But … but …’ Rix felt like a stupid schoolboy, crushed by a master and a rule he could not understand. ‘You gave me no choice — you said, “My country first, always.”’
‘That was a test, and you failed it.’
‘A test?’
‘You’re brave, strong and a born leader. Had your other qualities matched those, you would have been a great asset to me in the fight-back. But you’re a bitter disappointment, Rixium. You failed in the most vital quality of all — loyalty.’
‘Loyalty,’ Rix said numbly.
‘I lied to test you. A chancellor must put his country first. However the first duty of the heir to a noble house is always to protect his house.’
‘I was protecting it!’ Rix cried.
‘By condemning your own mother? If you could not even show her loyalty, how could I expect it? How could I ever trust you?’
The chancellor pulled the bell and said to the two guards who came at once, ‘Escort him from my palace.’
Rix stumbled across the snow-covered grounds towards a side gate to Palace Ricinus, his head reeling. He was lower than the street scum down at the docks, where life was bought and sold for a length of copper wire or a worn pair of shoes. And what if the chancellor tried Lady Ricinus for high treason, and called Rix as the chief witness against her? Shame burned him like mage-fire.
Beyond the wall, a rocket soared high, exploding in multi-coloured pyrotechnics, but the cheering only made things worse. Morale had to be maintained and, despite his mother’s treason and her sickening hypocrisy, there was no hope of the Honouring being cancelled. For the nobility, the well connected and the disgustingly rich, it would be the high point in their celebrations.
He sneaked into Palace Ricinus via a side door and headed for his mother’s rooms. First, he must abase himself for disappearing for a day and a half, leaving the portrait uncompleted. Then, warn her that the chancellor knew about her plot, though how was he to do that without revealing that he had betrayed her?
Rix was tempted to say that the chancellor had told him about the treason, but lying to his mother would only compound his shame. And the worst of it was, Lady Ricinus did not make idle threats. Rix knew she had meant the poison for the chancellor.
He stopped halfway, unable to face her. Knowing himself to be a craven coward, he slunk away to his tower and sank into a scalding tub, shivering uncontrollably. For a man so dishonoured there were only two ways out — to take his own life in atonement, or renounce all worldly things and ride into the wilderness, never to return.
But he could not do either. He had a duty to defend his city, look after his people and protect his house. If it could be protected from the chancellor who, he felt sure, was determined to destroy it. And Rix had given him the means to do so.
He took no food. His stomach would have thrown it up. He drove himself up to his studio and spent the afternoon and evening working at a furious pace. Completing the portrait could never make up for what he had done, but he would not compound the betrayal by breaking his word and ruining the Honouring.
‘That’s it,’ said Tobry, who had come in silently. ‘Don’t do another stroke.’
‘It’s the most hateful thing I’ve ever done.’
‘It’s repellent, yet perfect. You’ve captured every aspect of Lord Ricinus, the bad and the good. Even Lady Ricinus will be pleased.’
The thought gave Rix no pleasure, even if such a miracle did happen. ‘In my entire life, Mother has never been pleased with me.’
He stepped back, studied the overall effect, then examined the portrait from one side, then the other. ‘It’s not bad,’ he said grudgingly. ‘Better than I could have hoped ten days ago.’ He began to clean the brushes he could never use again. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Getting Tali and Rannilt into the city, unseen.’
‘Where are they?’
‘Down in the tunnels.’
‘Is Rannilt — ?’
‘She hasn’t woken. I’ll bring them up late tonight, once it’s safe, and put them to bed under my bed.’ Tobry rubbed his bruised eyes. ‘I’m going to have a lie down.’
‘Now? I thought we’d have a drink.’
‘To celebrate completing the portrait?’
‘If you like.’
‘I’m too exhausted.’
‘Then sit with me for a minute; I need to talk about something.’
Tobry lay on the settee and closed his eyes. Rix fetched a bottle and took a swig of a red wine so strong that he could feel the enamel being etched off his front teeth. ‘I’m in trouble, Tobe.’
‘Thought you might be. What have you done now?’
‘I’ve betrayed my mother,’ Rix blurted.
Tobry stared at him.
Between gulps, Rix told him the bitter tale.
Tobry got up, poured himself a goblet and topped up Rix’s.
‘I make no excuses,’ said Rix. ‘There are none. I’m dishonoured and I can’t go on.’
Tobry did not speak.
‘Say it!’ Rix cried.
‘Considering the ruin of House Lagger, and my part in it, I’m in no position to judge anyone.’ Tobry sipped, grimaced, then took both goblets and the bottle and threw them out the window. ‘Wait here. Don’t do anything stupid.’
He went down the steps. The fishhooks were back in Rix’s belly; he felt as though he was torn open inside. Seeking any distraction, he took a huge, primed canvas from the storeroom, set it up and redrew the murder cellar in a series of quick strokes. Painting normally soothed him, but this sickening divination only made things worse. Tobry reappeared with an ancient, dusty bottle and two goblets.
‘What’s that?’ said Rix.
‘The only bottle that survived the fall of our house. I’ve been keeping it for a suitable occasion.’
‘Like the end of the world
,’ Rix said grimly.
‘How better to celebrate it than with the finest port in existence, one hundred and twenty-seven years old.’ Tobry cleaned the bottle, eased out the blackened wooden stopper and sniffed it. A spark lit in his eyes. He poured Rix a generous measure.
They clinked goblets and sipped. ‘To friendship, and the world’s end,’ said Tobry.
Rix echoed him. The magnificent port glided down his throat like buttered gold leaf, but he could take no pleasure from it.
‘Betraying your mother, even for her high treason, is dire,’ said Tobry. ‘I can’t deny that, even done in defence of your country and your house. But you have to go on.’
‘I don’t think I can, old friend. I’ve poisoned my soul and there’s no antidote.’
‘No man is irredeemable. You can still make up for it. Indeed, you must.’
‘How?’ Rix said dully.
‘Finish the cellar painting. Then, when the war resumes, defend your city and your people with your life.’ Tobry leaned forwards and clasped Rix’s forearm. ‘The enemy are bound to come back, and when they do, they’ll be planning to finish the job.’
‘I’m sure they will.’
‘Maybe, maybe not. Tali is the one, remember? She’s bloodied Lyf’s nose several times, without magery. And twice you’ve driven him off through sheer strength — ’
‘And the enchanted blade.’
‘He has his weapons, we have ours. This is the moment you were made for, Rix. Don’t fail us now, or it really will be the end of our world.’
‘Even if I’m killed defending my house and my people, it can’t wipe away the taint.’
‘Death wipes all,’ said Tobry, leaning back with his nose in his goblet and sighing in pure pleasure.
Once that had irritated Rix, but he was beyond such trivial vexations now. ‘In a hundred years, they’ll still be talking about how I betrayed — ’
Tobry sprang up. ‘Will you stop talking crap? In a hundred years, if Hightspall still exists, history will portray you as a troubled man who gave his life defending his people. What more can anyone ask?’
Rix stared at the cellar sketch. ‘Changing the subject, if Tali recognised me when we first met, why didn’t she say so?’
‘She thought you were covering up for the killers.’
‘No wonder she was so afraid of me.’ Rix whited out the sketch and put the canvas back.
‘Are you still required to hand her over to the chancellor, to save your house?’
‘He didn’t mention it, but once Tali’s here, he’ll know. He’s got spies everywhere.’
‘Well,’ said Tobry, ‘I’m going down to get her and Rannilt. I expect I’ll be a while.’
Rix barely noticed his going. Lady Ricinus had committed high treason in defence of her house. Rix had betrayed her to the chancellor for the same reason. Which was worse? He knew the answer. A son owed a duty to his mother and, while her crime was monstrous, his was unforgiveable.
CHAPTER 88
Shortly after Tobry left, Lady Ricinus appeared. ‘They told me you’d come slinking back. Is it done?’
‘It’s done,’ Rix muttered. Shame burned him. He could not look her in the face.
‘It had better be perfect.’
He led her upstairs and she inspected the completed portrait, her small eyes darting.
‘It will do. Box it up. I’ll send for it in the morning.’ She went out without a word of thanks.
Good riddance! He never wanted to see it again. After he had crated up the portrait, Rix slumped on the couch, feeling oddly empty and not knowing what to do with himself.
The month-clock on the wall said ten-thirty p.m. Twenty-four hours until Lord Ricinus’s Honouring, which was to take place immediately after the Honouring Ball. Would Lord and Lady Ricinus lead the dancers onto the floor of the Great Hall? That would be a sight to see — his father and mother holding each other close, pretending that they had not despised each other for twenty years.
Distractedly, Rix re-sketched the cellar scene on the big canvas, then sat back with a goblet of wine, deliberately not looking at his work. Even the urgency to see the faces of the killers paled before the looming catastrophe if Lady Ricinus succeeded in her plot against the chancellor. Or if the chancellor had lied, and he planned to bring her down …
His head was spinning. He had drunk a bottle and a half on an empty stomach. Too damn bad. Rix filled another goblet, blinked at the canvas, then went to his palette to mix colours. As he was doing so, something began to nag at him about the sketch, something he had promised Tobry he would do, but it would not come to mind.
When he began to paint, Rix did not have to think about it, for he had all the colours in his inner eye: the dingy grey-greens of the streaked and oozing cellar walls; the slimy, brown-stained flagstones; the pearly lustre of the black bench; the stacks of crumbling crates, their grey timbers dotted with yellow mould and threaded with white dry rot; the piled barrels on the other side. The blonde of the young woman’s hair contrasting with the reflective gold of the tongs. The eerily beautiful ebony pearl highlighting the shiny beads of blood clinging to it.
Blood. A gloved hand was rubbing it into his wounds again, murmuring softly all the while. Rix shook off the nightmare, took another goblet and began to work. His eyesight was blurring now but that did not matter — his subconscious was guiding his hand.
Later, when he had to squint to stop seeing double, Rix was astonished to discover the canvas covered in paint. It was long after midnight; he had been working furiously for hours. He reached for the bottle but it was empty. He kicked it across the floor and it rang against the other two.
Had he really drunk three bottles? He could not remember finishing the second, much less opening a third. Rix looked around for another but there were no more up here.
At the top of the steep steps he had just enough wit to realise that his only way down was by falling. He staggered back to the painting, pressing on his eyes to fuse the two wavering images into one. There was something he had to see, though he could not remember what. A vital, urgent revelation -
Something dragged him out of unconsciousness. As Rix tried to sit up, his head spun sickeningly. It was still dark outside, and he was so drunk he could barely stand up.
His sword was propped against the wall. Using it as a walking stick, going with exaggerated care so he did not stab himself in the foot, he wavered to the painting and blinked at it. His head was slowly revolving though the blurred vision had gone.
The painting was complete, yet utterly different to the meticulous realism of his father’s portrait. The murder scene was an anguished work, done with furious strokes that made little sense up close. He backed away and the scene glided into focus, imagined as perfectly as memory.
There was the little girl, fist up to her mouth as she stifled a scream. Her blue eyes were huge, her hair not quite as golden as now, but there was no doubt who she was. He remembered her furious cry as he had scrambled up the stairs, ‘I’m going to get you.’
There was the young woman on the slab, freshly killed. It could almost have been Tali as an adult, save that the blonde hair was too pale.
And there were the killers.
‘No!’ Rix gasped. ‘No, no, no!’
The wine came up in a paroxysmic heave that splattered the floor for yards around. His brain was shrieking, his head splitting, and the one thing he could do, that he had to do, was get out of there.
He lurched up the stairs to the next level of his tower, unlocking the door with shaking hands. He had to be alone; he could not bear the thought of meeting anyone. Up he went, and up, past the little observatory he had not used in years, eight flights in all to the topmost, open floor. Around him, nine slim columns supported the zinc roof that rose in a barley-twist spiral for another fifty feet. The shoulder-high outside wall was covered in yellow tiles, now glazed with ice.
Rix lay down on a snow-covered bench and bawled like a baby for the family
now lost forever. When his tear ducts were as dry as the saline flats of the Southern Seethings, he crawled across to the nearest wall. He had to end this tainted house that, clearly, had been bloodstained for generations.
But would his death end it? The chancellor cared only for the survival of Hightspall and might even reward Lady Ricinus if that ensured her cooperation. Rix staggered down again. He had to make sure; had to put House Ricinus beyond recovery.
Shortly, he returned to the roof. The cellar picture swam in his mind, but the two faces, though much changed now from ten years ago, remained perfectly clear. They did not have a sorcerous bone between them, so why had they killed Tali’s mother for the ebony pearl? Surely not just for the money?
The faces of Lord and Lady Ricinus.
His own mother and father.
And why had he, Rix, been there?
He would never know. There was only one way to make up for the evil of such a family, and the dishonour of betraying them. He was going to end it now.
He climbed onto the tower wall, swung a leg over it, slipped on the ice-glazed tiles, and fell.
CHAPTER 89
The iron book burned red-hot in Tali’s dreams, as if its maker had cast it back into the chymical furnace to forge its pages anew. She jerked awake in the makeshift bed concealed under Tobry’s big bed. It had been after three in the morning when Tobry had brought them to Rix’s chambers, which were unguarded now the portrait had been completed.
Rannilt whimpered in her sleep. ‘Leave me alone. Didn’t do it, didn’t do it.’
Tali put an arm across her shoulder. The girl clung to her briefly, then sighed and rolled over. Her steady breathing resumed. She seemed a little better now.
After Rix left them on the road, it had taken ages for Tobry to sneak them into the city unseen, and he’d had to hide Tali and Rannilt in a damp tunnel on the other side of the city all day. The hidden entrance into Rix’s scalderium had been blocked and Tobry had to wait until the early hours to bring Tali and Rannilt into the palace. Tali had collapsed into sleep the moment she lay down.
