by Sharon Green
“At the moment, we are nearly done with gathering information,” Embisson told her smoothly, meeting the intensity of her gaze with calm. “Knowledge is power, after all, and once we have all the data we need, we will then be prepared to formulate a workable plan. Are you completely dedicated to being a part of that plan? If we’rediscovered before we can put it into effect, our end will be as horrible as our enemies can make it.”
“I’m prepared to take that risk,” Eltrina replied, her chin rising with the challenge. “And if you should happen to need gold to make the thing workable, let me know at once. Grall’s account at the bank was extremely full, and my expenses these days are minimal. How soon will it be possible for me to return? How soon do you expect to have all the data you’ll need?”
“We’ll have it in two days at most, so return here then,” Embisson replied. “But first I must ask: how safely are you hidden? If you should be taken by the guard now, we could well be taken up right after you.”
“I’m in a place where no one will find me, so don’t worry about that,” she said, this time completing the action of replacing her hood. “And as for betraying you if I’m taken, that, too, has been considered and planned for. If they find me, only I will suffer. But I don’t intend to be found, so I’ll be back in two days.”
“You’ll forgive me for not rising,” Embisson said, in fact returning himself to the slumped position he’d been using so often of late. “And as far as anyone is concerned, we never spoke.”
“Lord Edmin, I do hope that your father will soon be feeling well enough to be himself again,” Eltrina said, no longer even looking in Embisson’s direction. “I’ll return to find out if he is, and until then I bid you a good day.”
Edmin nodded to acknowledge the wish, then saw the woman to the door. The servant who had brought her waited a short way up the corridor, and when Eltrina was escorted away toward the front door, Edmin closed the door to the room and returned to his father.
“I hope your actions were wise, Father,” Edmin said, his expression faintly troubled. “I’ll admit that the woman wasn’t pretending to feel what she wasn’t, and yet to allow her into our secret…”
“Into only one of our secrets,” Embisson pointed out as he straightened again. “And that much was necessary, to keep her from doing what she threatened to. I’m of two minds about her, Edmin, and must think a while before I decide which road to take. She could well be extremely valuable to us, and yet I know from past experience that the woman isn’t to be trusted. Her ambitions are far too exalted for a female.”
“Her current ambitions run the same course as our own,” Edmin said as he resumed his seat. “I believe I’ll look into her story in the next day or two, and whatever I find out should help you to make up your mind about her. My own opinion is valueless, as I merely knew her to nod to. Perhaps, in two days when she returns, you may have decided to let her in on our other secrets.”
“Perhaps, in two days when she returns,” Embisson corrected slowly, “we may be fortunate enough to have something of true interest to share with her. If our plans go properly, and if she proves to be what she claims… It would be pleasant to have allies again…”
Ruthless allies, Embisson finished in his own thoughts. Edmin was one such and certainly the best, but there was always strength in numbers. And even if their plans went perfectly, they would still require as many allies as they could find…
At least until they had the upstarts firmly under their control. After that their allies could be put into the position of followers and servants, where they would more properly belong…
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Lady Hallina Mardimil jumped at the sound of her bedchamber door opening, but it was just one of her serving girls. She’d become a nervous wreck ever since that ghastly experience at that so-called respectable inn, and having paid back the fool who was responsible for her going there hadn’t helped in the least. The fool was dead, but she still shivered in bed, jumping at the least sound.
“Excuse the interruption, my lady, but the physician is here to see you,” the serving girl said, her expression one of deep concern. “May I show her in?”
“It’s a waste of time, but go ahead,” Hallina muttered, not at all pleased. Anyone would have thought that another woman would have understood exactly how much she was suffering, but that fool of a physician… She’d tended Hallina’s bodily hurts and claimed to have gone a good distance toward healing them, and hadn’t believed Hallina’s denial of that. She was in pain for chaos’ sake, and words telling her she couldn’t be weren’t of any help at all.
“I understand that you refuse to leave your bed,” the physician, Lady Sislin, said as soon as she entered the room. “That isn’t good for you, Hallina, and I must insist that you rise and go back to your usual life.”
Sislin, an older woman who had grown to be a bit bent over, looked more like a crone than a powerful noble who enjoyed dabbling in other peoples’ lives. Hallina stirred at what she’d said, but that was as far as she was prepared to go.
“I can’t rise as long as I’m still in pain,” Hallina said clearly, staring at the older woman. “You’ve done something wrong, Sislin, and now you’retrying to cover it up by saying I’m imagining things. If you can’t stop the pain this time, I’m going to call another physician.”
“Another dozen physicians will tell you the same thing I have,” Sislin countered, looking not the least unsure as she stopped beside the bed. “It’s the memory of the experience that continues to give you pain, not the injury itself. If you rise and resume your normal life, the memory will fade and so will the pain of it. As long as you remain lying there, it has little chance to fade.”
“You sound as though you know exactly what I’ve gone through,” Hallina said bitterly, aware of the undertone of dismissal in the other woman’s voice. “You don’t know, Sislin, can’t know unless you’ve had the same thing done to you. Have you had that experience, that you now presume to give me advice?”
“My husband indulged in that sort of thing all the time,” was the surprising reply, this time spoken stiffly. “And yes, I was beaten as well, so I do know what you’regoing through. You’redoing what I did at first, weeping helplessly and asking why it had to have happened to you. Your poor little pride is shattered, and all you can do is snivel.”
“And you think there’s something else to do?” Hallina demanded, but shock dulled the edge of her words. Sislin, having the same thing done to her…?
“Of course there’s something else to do,” the woman said, ignoring the chair which had been drawn up beside the bed for her. “You figure out exactly who is responsible for what you’ve been made to go through—and that one isn’t you—and then you take steps to see that it never happens again. Once that’s been done, the memories fade and you’reable to live again.”
About to protest that she’d already done exactly that, Hallina stopped herself with an unsettling thought. Her agent Relsin may have been immediately responsible, but the ultimate reason the entire problem began was what that ingrate of a son of hers had caused to happen. If not for him, she never would have been put in the position of having to look for those who would get her own back from those disgusting children on the Throne…
“The one who is responsible, yes,” Hallina murmured, finally seeing the truth. “Take care of that one, and you never have to worry again. But what do you do if that one is out of reach? How can you stop the nightmares if you can’t get to the one who is ultimately responsible for them?”
“You wait until that one is in reach,” Sislin said very simply, giving Hallina a glimpse of horribly determined patience. “When that happens you strike, and the waiting time can be used to make very sure that your strike will find its proper mark. Leave nothing to chance, and then chance cannot betray you.”
“No, only people betray you,” Hallina said with a slow nod, now understanding exactly what she must do. “To give them another chance at
betrayal would be foolish, so you give nothing of the sort. Yes, I believe I will get up now.”
Sislin smiled her approval and turned away to summon one of Hallina’s girls to assist her, but Hallina needed no help. She did still suffer from twinges of pain, but now she no longer wanted them gone. They were a reminder of the betrayal she’d suffered—and a goad to make very sure that the betrayer failed to live long enough to betray her again…
* * *
Delin Moord sat in his chair with no expression on his face, but his mind writhed with hatred and a desire for freedom. Those feelings were pure camouflage, of course, as he actually had all the freedom he needed at the moment. Freedom enough to do what needed to be done, at times when no one knew they were being done by him…
“Kambil, are you sure you’rereally in the mood for this?” Homin asked the one Delin hated the most. “It was only yesterday that your grandmother died, after all…”
“Grammi would have been the first to say that life goes on,” Kambil replied, obviously forcing himself to that philosophical outlook. “And we’ve earned a celebration, so there’s no real reason not to have it.”
The others made sounds of support and gratitude, something Delin was glad not to have to join in. They all sat at a relatively small table for dinner in Kambil’s wing of the palace, a table meant to be used by the Five together with no one else joining them. For the first time since Delin had met him, Kambil looked less than totally sure of himself. That could well be because he no longer had his partner in control, his beloved grandmother.
Delin had taken very great pleasure in bringing about a stroke in her, which had left her aware of her condition but helpless to do anything to change it. She’d actually tried to reach him with her Spirit magic, to control him the way she and her grandson controlled the others of the Five, but the stroke hadn’t allowed her to do that. As an Earth magic user, Delin had known that a stroke would rob the old woman of her ability, and he’d taken great pleasure standing in her bedchamber and laughing at her. Then he’d arranged for the second, fatal stroke to hit after a number of hours, and he’d left to return to the palace.
And there had been nothing of blackouts, nothing of anyone else doing the deed. Delin felt the deepdown pleasure of that, of knowing he was truly free of all interference. When the proper time came he would tell Kambil all about it, laughing while he described the old woman’s frustration over her helplessness. When she felt his second touch she must have known she was going to die, but not knowing when—or if she would manage to alert someone to her plight—would have added to her torture. She could have been saved—if a good physician had been called soon enough. She must have struggled to the very end to get someone’s attention in that household of sleeping people…
The servants began to bring in the food then, and Delin’s mouth watered with the aroma of it. Kambil’s cook was even better than his own, and Delin hadn’t had real food to eat since that one time after he’d been freed by the servant woman. He would have preferred being nowhere near the other four of his group, but for a real, true meal…
“Oh, that’s to be given to Lord Delin,” Kambil’s voice came, and Delin looked up to see that he spoke to a servant who carried a large bowl of something. “Lord Delin has taken some sort of vow, so he won’t be joining the rest of us in what we’re eating.”
As soon as Delin had seen the bowl, he’d known what Kambil was up to. The bowl would contain the gruel he’d been forced to eat all along, but this time he would also be forced to watch the others feast as he choked it down. Hatred for Kambil flared in Delin’s mind, and Kambil smiled to show that he was fully aware of it. The others chuckled quietly to indicate their own awareness, but no one said anything else.
Delin was lost to seething fury for a while, which carried him to a land of bright red blood and severed bodily parts. When he finally returned it was to see the others well begun on their meal, and his own fare beginning to turn cold. For that reason he reluctantly turned his attention to it—but stopped abruptly in the midst of reaching for a spoon. There was something about the gruel which felt different and wrong, and all thoughts of hunger departed as he gave his full attention to discovering what that was. Kambil couldn’t have known what he’d done, but that didn’t mean the fool wasn’t up to something…
It took Delin a surprising number of minutes to discover just what was different and wrong. If he hadn’t been so completely familiar with the gruel’s composition he might well have missed the first signs of difference, even though the dish was basically pure and simple. The … addition to it was so subtle that Delin wasn’t able to figure out exactly what it was, but it certainly had nothing to do with Puredan. And after a moment, when it occurred to him to check the dishes the other four were consuming with such gusto, he was only just able to notice the same substance. If he hadn’t had the gruel as an example to use, he never would have been able to see anything in the food at all.
Well. Delin slumped back in his chair, pretending to brood while he thought furiously behind his façade of safety. It was fairly obvious that someone had put something into all their food, but just what that something might be was the most pressing question. The second question, of course, was what to do about it, aside from not ingesting any of it himself. If it was a poison it was already too late for the others, seeing how much of the food they’d already eaten. Even he was able to see nothing of it in their systems, which meant that no physician would be able to neutralize it to save them.
So saying anything about the substance would achieve nothing but letting his enemies know that he was no longer under their control. Delin’s lifelong habits refused to let him do that, even if the other four would soon be dead. But there was nothing to say for certain that they would be dead, so the habit of silence remained strong and unbreached. His only option seemed to be to sit and watch and wait, letting the passage of time determine what would or would not happen to his groupmates.
The others spent the rest of the meal stuffing their faces, chatting to one another and undoubtedly enjoying themselves even more at the knowledge that someone at the table had been denied the enjoyment of joining them. When they finally sat back, replete satisfaction clear in all their faces, Kambil looked over at him.
“Oh, Delin, what a pity,” the man drawled, looking at him as someone else might look at an insect. “You’ve apparently lost your appetite, as you haven’t even touched your meal. Well, don’t fret about it. The next time we have something to celebrate, I’m sure you’ll join us completely—by eating your own fare. You can’t very well earn a pardon with good behavior, after all, since your behavior isn’t your own choice. And since the rest of us are ready to leave the table, you may be excused to return to your own wing.”
Delin rose immediately to his feet with an inner growl, hating the way he’d been sent to his rooms like a small, naughty child. He let the hatred carry him out of the dining area and into the corridor, and then all the way back to his small, single room. Even once there he gloated only beneath the raging anger, and then sat down to wonder what was in store for the four who had laughed so well as he’d left their presence. Hopefully it would be painful rather than fatal, and then he would take his turn to laugh…
He’d already undressed and lain down on his cot, but wasn’t yet asleep when the knocking came at his door. Rather than waiting for his acknowledgment to enter, a servant burst in looking wild and ragged. The man held a lamp which he raised to examine Delin, and his relief was immediately obvious.
“Excellence, thank the Highest Aspect that you’reall right!” the man blurted, no more than a short step from showing terror. “The others of your Five … they’reterribly ill and the palace physicians are helpless to aid them! Will you … come and see what you can do?”
Delin nodded with feigned concern, but made no effort to race out of his wing as he was. He stopped to dress first, and although it only took a brief moment or two, the servant was nearly beside himself.
The wing closest to Delin’s was Selendi’s, and when he entered the incredibly ornate bedchamber there were more than half a dozen people standing around staring at her where she lay. Or, rather, where she writhed on the bed, screaming out her pain. She took no notice of any of the people so concerned about her, the sweat drenching her hair and covering her body suggesting why.
“How long has she been like this?” Delin softly asked the servant who had brought him there. “And is she as unaware of us as she seems to be?”
“It’s been nearly an hour since her screams woke her servants, and yes, she does seem to be completely unaware of us,” the servant replied, his gaze fastened to her writhing form. “The others are in a like state, and we simply don’t know what to do!”
“I want to see them before I try anything myself,” Delin said, more interested in seeing his tormentors in agony than in trying to end that agony. It had been perfectly clear from the first that Selendi wasn’t on the verge of dying, at least not yet. She had quite a long time to suffer before she reached her end, a result which thoroughly delighted Delin. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought he’d been the one to arrange such a marvelous situation…
The servant nodded jerkily and hurried out of the bedchamber and into the corridor, probably heading for Homin’s wing, which was the next one in line. Delin followed him at his own pace, but when they reached the public corridor which led to all the wings, he was stopped by one of the palace guardsmen.
“Excellence, this was left at the front gate by a man wearing a privacy mask,” the guardsman said, handing over a small package. “The guard who took it was told that the Five would send for it when they needed it, and then he walked away. After that it was a good two hours before the furor began, and that was when the gate guard sent the package in here. It’s only a slim chance, but maybe there’s something in it to help…”
