Vengeance ttr-1

by Ian Irvine

  ‘And this is what Lady Ricinus is doing in the portrait? Extracting such a pearl and killing the young woman who was the host?’

  ‘There can be no doubt,’ said the chief magian.

  ‘Justiciar, High Constable,’ called the chancellor, ‘would you come forward and inspect the evidence? You too, Abbess, if you please.’

  They approached.

  ‘It’s just a stupid painting,’ cried Lady Ricinus. ‘The fantasy of a sick boy. He’s addled, everyone knows that. He has been ever since — ’

  ‘Ever since he was ten!’ cried a high voice from the crowd. ‘When he witnessed this murder — the murder of my mother — and it nearly drove him insane.’

  ‘Mouse Lady?’ said the chancellor, smiling grimly. ‘State your name.’

  Sweat was pouring down Rix’s face. If the chancellor didn’t know about her pearl yet, he soon would. Tali, run for your life.

  But Tali wasn’t going anywhere. She wrenched off her mask and climbed onto the stage. She was the smallest person there, and her left knee was trembling beneath her gown, but she was not going to be robbed of this moment.

  ‘My name is Tali vi Torgrist,’ she said with quiet dignity. ‘I am the last survivor of the ancient, noble House vi Torgrist, and that woman is my mother, Iusia. I was there. I witnessed the murder. That’s me when I was eight.’ She pointed to the little girl.

  Her bosom heaved. ‘I name Lord and Lady Ricinus the killers, and I demand justice in my mother’s name, and in — ’

  Rix put on a frenzied fit of coughing that almost made him throw up, and she broke off. He was terrified that she was going to list her other murdered ancestors. If she did, the chancellor, and many others, would jump to the obvious conclusion — that she also hosted a pearl.

  Tali stood alone, surrounded by enemies, and Rix’s heart went out to her.

  ‘You are the escaped Pale,’ said the chancellor.

  ‘You know I am. We talked in your palace just days ago — about honour and betrayal, among other matters.’

  Lady Ricinus’s head shot around. She stared at her husband, her lips moving.

  ‘Shut your face, woman,’ growled Lord Ricinus.

  ‘Can you prove your identity, girl?’ said the justiciar.

  ‘The mark of my noble house is on me.’ Tali drew up her sleeve.

  Those people close enough to see the slave mark gasped and drew away, scowling and muttering.

  ‘The symbol was burnt into my shoulder as a child with this, the family seal of House vi Torgrist.’ Tali held it up on its chain.

  The justiciar, a tall, cadaverous woman with eyebrows like mouse skins, inspected the seal and nodded. ‘I recognise it.’

  ‘I can also recite the names of every one of my ancestors — ’

  ‘Not now,’ the justiciar said hastily. ‘Please continue, Lady vi Torgrist.’

  At the acknowledgement, Tali’s back straightened and her feet almost left the floor. She wiped her eyes and went on.

  ‘We Pale are accused of betraying our country,’ Tali said in a ringing voice. ‘And willingly serving the enemy. That is a vicious lie!’

  ‘How dare you?’ cried a jowly, bejewelled woman from the crowd. ‘Chancellor, this cannot be tolerated.’

  He waved her to silence, savagely.

  ‘My people were given up to the enemy as children,’ Tali said, her blue eyes burning into the jowled woman until she had to hang her head. ‘One hundred and forty-four of the noblest children in the land, given as hostages, and meant to be ransomed, but Hightspall never came. Why did Hightspall abandon its own children to the enemy?’

  ‘Important questions,’ said the justiciar, ‘but this is not the forum for them. Lord Ricinus, Lady Ricinus, you have been accused of a terrible crime. How do you plead?’

  ‘Not guilty,’ said Lady Ricinus. ‘And my lord pleads the same way.’

  Rix looked around. Where was his father? At the back of the stage, where evidently he had secreted several flasks earlier. His head was tilted back and he was draining the dregs of a flask of brandy.

  ‘Lord Ricinus?’ said the justiciar. ‘How do you plead?’

  Lord Ricinus turned to face him, drawing the bung from a second flask. ‘Pissed!’ he roared. ‘I plead pissed as a lord,’ and laughed like a hyena.

  ‘My son is insane,’ said Lady Ricinus with quiet venom. ‘He gets it from his father. And the evidence of a child witness is worthless. Children can be made to say anything, made to — ’

  ‘Made to do anything?’ said the justiciar.

  ‘The girl is a lying slut,’ cried Lady Ricinus.

  ‘Curb your viper’s tongue,’ said the justiciar, then turned to the gathering. ‘Can we rely on the evidence of a child who was only eight at the time, or on a picture painted by a man who admits he was blind drunk when he painted it?’

  She turned to Tali. ‘Did you see the faces of the killers?’

  ‘Not clearly,’ said Tali. ‘They were masked.’

  ‘Masked?’ said the justiciar. ‘Then you have no evidence — ’

  ‘The woman stood on my mother as though she was rubbish! I heard her ribs break,’ Tali cried. ‘And Rix was there. I saw him.’

  ‘You saw Lord Rixium there? At the murder scene?’

  ‘He came out from behind the barrels after the killers went up the stairs. Rix was shaking and his clothes were covered in vomit. He went over to Mama — to my mother. He stared at the blood on his hands, then vomited all over his shoes. They had shiny buckles. He made a horrible moaning sound, like an animal in pain, and raced up the stairs.’

  ‘Lord Rixium?’ said the justiciar. ‘What do you remember of this?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Rix.

  ‘And yet you painted it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This is a conspiracy,’ said Lady Ricinus. ‘She told him what to paint. They’re trying to cast me down and take my place.’

  ‘You confined Rix to his tower with guards on the door,’ said Tobry from the edge of the stage. ‘You searched his rooms three times, yet found no trace of her.’

  ‘Where is the cellar where the alleged murder took place?’ said the high constable.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Rix. ‘I’ve no memory of ever having seen it.’

  ‘This story is a vicious fabrication,’ cried Lady Ricinus.

  ‘I know where the cellar should be,’ said Tali.

  ‘Where, Lady Tali?’ said the high constable, a pink-faced globe of a man no taller than her.

  ‘Below this palace. I smelled it the day I first entered Palace Ricinus, underground.’

  ‘You smelled it?’

  ‘I didn’t realise it at the time, though it made my hair stand up. Until I die, I’ll never forget the smell of the murder cellar.’

  ‘You say your mother was killed in this cellar, but how did she get there when no Pale can leave Cython?’

  ‘We were led there, underground, by a Cythonian traitor I called Tinyhead. Mama thought he was helping her to escape.’

  ‘An enemy traitor who, presumably, was paid by traitors to Hightspall,’ said the chancellor, eyeing Lord and Lady Ricinus malevolently.

  There was a great stir at this. The palace’s master mapmaker was called and he listened to Tali’s description, marked the area on his maps, then shook his head. ‘I have mapped all the palace passages and know of no such cellar.’

  ‘That’s good enough for me,’ said the justiciar. ‘And therefore, without any corroborative evidence, I must dismiss — ’

  ‘It’s said that Axil Grandys frequented a deep chamber below his manor,’ said Hildy thoughtfully. ‘And carried out arcane experiments there. Indeed, that he was working in that chamber when he disappeared.’

  The justiciar called for the palace historian.

  ‘There was such a chamber,’ she said, ‘though it is believed to have been a Cythonian temple, originally.’

  ‘What?’ cried the chancellor. ‘Why wasn’t it destroyed?’


  ‘Axil Grandys was the First Hero and the founder of Caulderon, and he ordered it kept. Previously, the Palace of the Kings of Cythe lay on this very spot, but Axil Grandys demolished it after their city was taken and built his own manor in the same place. No one knows why he kept the king’s temple.’

  ‘High Constable,’ said the justiciar, ‘take these maps and a dozen men with sledgehammers, and find this cellar. Chief Magian, go with them.’

  They went out. Tobry came up to Rix, who slumped into a chair with his head in his hands. ‘Please tell me you didn’t switch the painting for the portrait.’

  Even Rix’s best friend doubted him. For the first time in his life he was utterly alone.

  ‘Who else could have done it?’ he said, wanting to throw up. ‘But if I did, I have no memory of it.’

  CHAPTER 93

  After forty agonising minutes, the floor shook and a series of crashes rumbled up. Not long afterwards the high constable’s party returned and he conferred with the chancellor and the justiciar.

  ‘Speak,’ said the chancellor, who was warming his hands over the brazier.

  ‘We found a cellar six levels down,’ said the high constable. ‘It is exactly as Rixium has painted it.’

  ‘Are you saying — ?’ said the chancellor.

  ‘The black bench and the floor have old bloodstains. One stone box holds the bones of four women, each with a hole in the top of her skull. Several rib bones of the skeleton on top are broken.’

  Everyone turned to stare at Lady Ricinus.

  ‘It proves nothing,’ she said, her face a mask but her eyes darting. ‘The bones could have been there a thousand years.’

  ‘The chief magian’s dating spell says otherwise,’ said the high constable. ‘There’s little doubt these are the bones of Lady Tali’s mother and several other women killed the same way. But there’s more. Worse.’

  ‘Worse?’ said the chancellor, frowning.

  ‘We also located a tunnel whose entrance was hidden by a prodigious charm of concealment,’ said the chief magian, rubbing his tiny hands together. ‘I nearly had an apoplexy breaking it.’

  ‘There are tunnels everywhere around here,’ said the chancellor.

  ‘I divined where this tunnel goes.’

  ‘Oh?’ the chancellor said sharply.

  ‘It runs south-east for two miles, then south-west for another six. All the way to Cython.’

  ‘To Cython?’ bellowed the chancellor. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Quite sure.’

  ‘A fresh tunnel?’

  ‘No. Quite old. Perhaps a hundred years.’

  ‘A secret tunnel to Cython, built a hundred years ago,’ said the chancellor relentlessly. ‘An illegal tunnel for trafficking in ebony pearls with the enemy. An unguarded tunnel through which the enemy could attack at any time.’

  ‘We know nothing about it,’ said Lady Ricinus, and now she had a look of trapped ferret about her. ‘It was hidden, he said.’

  ‘It’s your palace, bought a hundred years ago. Who did you sell the pearls to, Lady Ricinus? Who could afford their staggering price?’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Lady Ricinus,’ said the chancellor, lowering his voice, ‘these pearls could change the course of the war. Tell me who has them and you’ll be surprised how forgiving I can be.’

  Her face worked through a range of emotions. Rix could see she was tempted, but it was not in her to admit her guilt. She would fight and deny all the way to the end.

  ‘What pearls?’ said Lady Ricinus.

  ‘Have it your own way,’ said the chancellor, with a malicious smile. ‘House Ricinus became wealthy very suddenly, did it not, a hundred years ago? Wealthy enough to buy Palace Ricinus for cash. It will be interesting to see your ledgers for that time.’

  ‘Unfortunately they were lost in a fire.’

  ‘How convenient.’

  ‘You can’t prove anything against us.’

  ‘Perhaps not on the current evidence.’

  ‘Then I’ll have a public apology,’ said Lady Ricinus, giving him that viper’s smile again. ‘And reparation for the ruin of the good name of House Ricinus.’

  ‘You’ll get nothing, you upstart bitch,’ hissed the chancellor. ‘There’s still the tunnel.’

  ‘You can’t prove we know anything about it,’ sneered Lady Ricinus.

  He cocked an eyebrow at the justiciar. ‘Would you be so kind as to describe the legal situation to Lady Ricinus?’

  ‘Having an illegal tunnel to Cython is a capital crime at any time,’ said the justiciar. ‘But having an unguarded tunnel in wartime is treason.’

  ‘You are not unfamiliar with treason, are you, Lady Ricinus?’ the chancellor said softly. ‘Even high treason. Would you like me to enlarge on that?’

  Rix realised that the Honouring was always going to end this way. The chancellor was a vengeful man. He had allowed Ricinus to be raised to the First Circle solely for the joy of crushing it.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Lady Ricinus blustered.

  The chancellor snapped his fingers. From behind the curtains at the rear of the stage, his pretty, black-haired servant girl came forward with slow and stately steps, bearing the covered tray. She sat it at the front of the stage where everyone could see and removed the cloth to reveal the chancellor’s sad, poisoned dog.

  ‘My faithful hound was killed by ricin,’ said the chancellor.

  ‘It must have taken a rat bait,’ said Lady Ricinus.

  ‘Ricin comes from the castor oil plant that is the symbol of your house, and the poison was meant for me.’

  ‘Poison — the worst,’ Tali said to herself. ‘That’s what Mimoy was trying to tell me. And Tinyhead hinted at it as well, Lay-lay-lay. Lady.’

  ‘The weed grows wild all over the city,’ said Lady Ricinus. ‘Anyone could have done it.’

  ‘Two witnesses say you threatened me.’

  ‘They’re liars!’

  ‘Reliable witnesses.’

  ‘Name them!’

  The chancellor smiled but said nothing.

  Lady Ricinus seemed to take heart from his silence. ‘You can’t prove I had anything to do with this, either.’

  ‘I don’t have to,’ said the chancellor. ‘Justiciar?’

  The justiciar continued. ‘Lady Ricinus, Lord Ricinus and yourself are in charge of these premises. In law you are deemed to own the illegal tunnel to Cython, whether it can be proven you knew about it or not.’

  ‘Not me.’ Lady Ricinus would never concede, not even when her world was collapsing around her. ‘My husband is the lord.’

  ‘I need another drink,’ said Lord Ricinus.

  ‘I’ll pour it down your throat until you choke,’ she snarled.

  Rix jumped, then the layered sweat froze down his back. He had heard her say that before, but where? Tali was staring; she remembered it too.

  ‘You’ve pulled Lord Ricinus’s strings for fifteen years and more,’ said the chancellor inexorably.

  ‘Rixium is Lord Ricinus now,’ said Lady Ricinus. ‘Let sanction fall on him.’

  The pain was as bad as if she had cut open his own head. What kind of a woman would try to save herself by shifting blame onto her son? Rix felt something building up inside him, like a mudslide of memories banking behind a wall. The wall quivered as more and more memories built up behind it, then it cracked and crumbled and burst into pieces and he was back in the cellar as a small boy.

  ‘You did it to me!’ he howled. ‘Deliberately.’

  ‘What are you talking about, mad boy?’ sneered Lady Ricinus, shaken but unyielding.

  ‘I was dressed in my best clothes — you said you were taking me to a party.’

  ‘He’s lying,’ cried Lady Ricinus. ‘Everything he says is a lie.’

  ‘You don’t know what he’s going to say,’ said the chancellor. ‘Or do you?’

  ‘You led me down to the cellar and told me to hi
de behind the barrels,’ said Rix. ‘To watch and learn the family business that was going to make us the richest house in Hightspall.’

  ‘Lies, all lies,’ said Lady Ricinus.

  ‘You had blood on your hands,’ Tali said suddenly. ‘I saw it — ’

  ‘Rixium must have cut the woman’s head open,’ said Lady Ricinus. ‘He was evil from birth.’

  ‘Stop the bitch’s mouth,’ said the chancellor, and she was gagged.

  ‘I’ve often wondered why Rix had blood on his hands before he touched my mother,’ said Tali. ‘Lady Ricinus must have put it there so he would think he’d been involved.’

  ‘You told me to make no sound,’ Rix said to his mother. ‘Hide until the business is done, and if you’re a good little boy you’ll get a reward.’ He felt the vomit swirling in his gut. Every eye was on him, every mouth gaping.

  ‘Then you hacked that beautiful young woman’s head open.’ He choked. ‘I couldn’t move. I heard a child cry … and then … then you said to Father … I still can’t believe you said it — Find the brat and finish it.’

  ‘At first I thought you meant me,’ Rix whispered. ‘But Father didn’t cut the little girl’s throat because he couldn’t find her. She didn’t come out until you left me behind with the body.’

  ‘Lies, lies and more lies,’ mumbled Lady Ricinus through her gag.

  ‘And after I came up, out of my wits with horror, you gave me a potion. Why?’

  ‘To make you forget until you came of age,’ said Lord Ricinus, lurching across the stage with tears flooding from his sunken eyes.

  ‘I was delirious for weeks,’ said Rix, ‘and when I recovered, my memories were gone. But the horror never goes away.’

  ‘How could any mother do such a thing to her son?’ said Tali. ‘How could any father allow it?’

  Lady Ricinus was coldly blank; she would never admit anything. Then the brazier flared as high as the ceiling. Lord Ricinus was holding his second bottle of brandy upside-down over it, the golden fluid feeding the flames. He dropped the empty bottle and looked sideways at Rix.

  ‘Every word my son says is true. The previous Lady Ricinus, my mother, did the same to me when I was a boy.’