Rebellion: Tainted Realm: Book 2 (75 page)

“No,” she whispered. Not at any price.

Holm dragged her down the hall into the bathhouse. “Strip! Be quick! Into the tub.”

She tore off her clothes, numbly, unable to think, then dragged herself over the side into the square wooden tub. Holm collected her bloody clothes, avoiding the stained areas, and tossed them onto the embers in the fire box under the great coppers used for heating water. He filled two buckets from the nearest copper and thumped them down beside the tub. “I’ll pour. You scrub.”

She took up a rough sea sponge and some hard yellow soap, and Holm poured the warm contents of the first bucket over her head. Tali scrubbed until all the blood on her front was gone.

“Again!” He poured the other bucket.

He fetched more water and she scrubbed herself again and again, until she stung all over and felt sure she had no skin left. He collected the sponges, tossed them onto the embers as well and washed his hands, three times.

Tali stood there, naked, trembling. He inspected her clinically, nodded, then took off his coat and wrapped it around her.

“How did you know?” she whispered.

“A good healer always knows how much is in his potion bottles.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not sorry enough! Now get out of my sight!”

“Please, let me explain.”

“Save your breath. You’re going to need it when you confess to Rix in the morning.”

“Do I have to…?”

“He’s the master of this fortress. Of course he has to know. No… more… secrets!”

She stumbled to her cold bed and lay there, replaying the terrible scene. Confessing her folly to Rix in the morning was going to be bad enough.

But how could she ever look Tobry in the eye again?

Neither Holm nor Tali had seen the majestic figure with the tangled mane of hair, hiding in the shadows beyond the black hole. Nor did they see her in the dark on the far side of the bathhouse, but she saw everything. Blathy waited until they were gone, then slipped upstairs, barefooted and silent. She roused Porfry and her other co-conspirators, and told them of the latest depravity.

“This cannot be borne for another day,” she said, hissing between her strong white teeth. “We have to do it now, this very night.”

“But the enemy are outside.”

“I don’t care!” snarled Blathy. “It’s got to be done.”

“All right, but not yet,” said Porfry. “Sometimes the lord isn’t in bed ’til three.”

“The lord’s throat is reserved for my knife,” said Blathy savagely. “He killed my man. We’ll do it as the clock strikes five. They’ll all be sleeping soundly by then. You lot can carve the slut and the old man, then bleed Swelt like the fat old pig he is. He won’t give you any trouble. Do the maidservant Glynnie after that, then Nuddell, and the other twenty we have on our list as cleaving to them and their foul, foreign ways.”

She inspected the mutineers, one by one. They nodded their agreement to the plan.

“When all is done,” said Blathy, “we’ll take the lord’s treasury and slip out the secret way, into the forest and be gone. And the enemy can burn Garramide to the ground for all I care.”

Blathy licked the blade of her knife, spat blood onto her palm, then slid out the door and headed upstairs to await the fifth hour. She was bleeding, bleeding for vengeance.

Neither Holm nor Tali had seen the majestic figure with the tangled mane of hair, hiding in the shadows beyond the black hole. Nor did they see her in the dark on the far side of the bathhouse, but she saw everything. Blathy waited until they were gone, then slipped upstairs, barefooted and silent. She roused Porfry and her other co-conspirators, and told them of the latest depravity.

“This cannot be borne for another day,” she said, hissing between her strong white teeth. “We have to do it now, this very night.”

“But the enemy are outside.”

“I don’t care!” snarled Blathy. “It’s got to be done.”

“All right, but not yet,” said Porfry. “Sometimes the lord isn’t in bed ’til three.”

“The lord’s throat is reserved for my knife,” said Blathy savagely. “He killed my man. We’ll do it as the clock strikes five. They’ll all be sleeping soundly by then. You lot can carve the slut and the old man, then bleed Swelt like the fat old pig he is. He won’t give you any trouble. Do the maidservant Glynnie after that, then Nuddell, and the other twenty we have on our list as cleaving to them and their foul, foreign ways.”

She inspected the mutineers, one by one. They nodded their agreement to the plan.

“When all is done,” said Blathy, “we’ll take the lord’s treasury and slip out the secret way, into the forest and be gone. And the enemy can burn Garramide to the ground for all I care.”

Blathy licked the blade of her knife, spat blood onto her palm, then slid out the door and headed upstairs to await the fifth hour. She was bleeding, bleeding for vengeance.

Neither could Rix sleep that night. The reappearance of the mural had so unnerved him that he had returned to the observatory to scrape off all the white paint. He then chiselled away the painted stone until all trace of the mural was gone.

What would the morrow bring? The bloody end of Garramide, most likely. He looked over the edge. His guards were on duty in the sentry boxes on the towers, and further out the enemy’s campfires were blazing. All was still. What were they waiting for? More reinforcements?

He directed his lantern beam to illuminate the wall, drank some wine, dozed in his heavy coat, woke and had another glass, dozed again. The hours passed. It must have been 4 a.m. by now, the darkest time before the dawn, not that there was any difference in the winter night here, with the sky so overcast and the snow falling.

He was watching the wall, dreading that his mural would reappear from the freshly exposed stone, when Tali came stumbling up in her nightgown. Her eyes were raw, her pale skin looked as though it had been scrubbed with a brick and her blonde hair was all a’tangle.

She stared at the bare wall, looked around wildly, then located him in the darkness ten feet away. “Rix?”

“What?” he snapped. Why could he never be left alone?

“I’ve been a fool.”

“You’ve been a fool, Tobry’s been a fool, I’ve been a fool. Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear about it.”

“I’m a bigger one,” she wailed. She sank to the snow-covered flagstones, put her head in her hands and wept.

Rix stared at her, unnerved. Tali had suffered more and endured more than anyone he could name, yet of all the women he had known, she was the only one he had never seen cry.

“What is it?” he said, falling to his knees beside her.

He held her while she gasped out the dreadful story, covering the front of his coat with tears, and mucus from her running nose.

When she finished, he let out a strangled bark of laughter.

She thrust him away furiously, sure that he was mocking her, and stood up. Rix landed on his back, suppressing the urge to roar like a madman.

“We’re a trio, no doubt about it,” he said. “Here I am, desperately hacking my mural off the wall, terrified it’ll reappear out of nothing and call me to serve a dead man. While, downstairs, you’re carving up the man you love like a beast for slaughter.”

“It’s not funny,” she said, still sniffling.

“Our stupidity is hilarious. How could you imagine it would succeed? Any threat to a shifter always makes them shift to the more deadly form.”

“It started to work back in Caulderon.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “Back then, Tobry had only been a shifter
for an hour
; the curse wouldn’t have taken properly. And he was fully conscious, the rational man in control. And,” Rix said pointedly, “you weren’t hacking a bloody great gash in him with your knife.”

“Had to try,” she said, almost inaudibly.

“No, you didn’t. Tobry refused you more than once. He explained why it couldn’t work, and so did Holm.”

“How do you know?”

“I make a point of talking to the people in my house. Why won’t you ever listen, Tali? Tobry’s shifted too many times; he’s run with the beasts and been one of them. His nature is fixed and can’t be changed, so promise me you won’t try again.”

“I promise.”

“No, look me in the eye when you say that.”

“I won’t try to heal Tobry with my blood again.”

“Do you think I’m stupid, Tali?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Say it properly, without leaving yourself an out – like healing magery.”

She swallowed, looked down. He caught her jaw in his big hand and tilted her face up. “Look me in the eye.”

She did so. “All right. I won’t try to heal Tobry again – with blood or magery.”

“Or anything else.”

“Or anything else,” she repeated.

“I still don’t trust you, but let that be the end of it.”

“You’re not angry with me?”

“I’m furious. You could have been killed or turned into a shifter, trying to do something that never had any hope of success.”

“It’s over,” she said bleakly. “He would have killed me, Rix. Tobry would have killed me – perhaps
eaten
me!” She shuddered.

“It’s not him. It’s the shifter madness.”

“I know, but it’s still over between us. My love wasn’t as strong as I thought it was.”

She shivered. “I’d better go down. I’m freezing.”

He took off his coat and put it around her like a cape. It reached all the way to her feet. “Wait a minute. I’ve got something for you.”

“What?” she said dully. Tali sat in one of the chairs, pulled her feet up and wrapped the bottom of the coat around them.

Rix unwrapped a little flat parcel and handed her the miniature of Lyf. “I cleaned it up.” He brought the lantern close.

“Thank you.”

She studied the miniature. The young Lyf could be seen clearly now, dressed in kingly robes that were a little too big for him, and wearing a simple circlet of filigree silver around his brow. His face wasn’t rendered perfectly, but it made him seem younger, more vulnerable and human.

“Does it tell you what you want to know?”

“Not immediately.”

“Some of the paint had flaked off,” said Rix. “I had to touch it up here and there. Had the devil of a job matching the colours – especially on the silver circlet —”

Tali jumped up and ran on tiptoes to the top of the stair, her head cocked. She had acute senses: her hearing and sense of smell were better than anyone he had ever known. Survival attributes, for a little slave in Cython.

“What is it?” said Rix.

“I heard a cry.”

“Someone hurt?”

“Possibly. It was wild, savage. I… I think it sounded like Blathy.”

“Then it’s on.” Rix ran across and put himself between her and the stairs. “Are you armed?”

“No.”

He pulled a knife out of a sheath and handed it to her.

“Do you think it’s mutiny?” said Tali.

Rix slid on his steel gauntlet, drew Maloch and headed down. She followed.

“I’d say so. My informant didn’t think it would come while the enemy were outside, and neither did I. But if you were seen trying to heal Tobry, you’ve probably precipitated it.”

She stifled a moan. “I’m really sorry. I’m such a fool.”

“If so,” said Rix, taking pity on her, “you’ve done everyone a favour. If we were in our beds, they might have cut all our throats as we slept.”

She gave him a tremulous smile. “What are you going to do?”

“They’ll try to kill you, me, Tobry, Holm and Swelt first. Then everyone else known to be loyal to me. I’ll have to play it as it comes. Run and warn the others. Be careful.”

“Don’t worry,” said Tali. “In Cython, I was the best of all the slaves at not being seen.”

“To survive this, you’re going to need all the skill you have.”

Far below, the clock in the hall outside his room bonged five times, its deep note echoing up the stairwell. If I were bent on mutiny and murder, Rix thought, this is the hour I’d do it, while the overworked household lies in an exhausted sleep. More than two hours of winter dark remained to do the bloody business, gather their plunder and get away.

As he reached the bottom of the stairs on the second level, Glynnie screamed. Pain stabbed through his heart. He’d taken her for granted for so long, and had been so busy fretting about Tali and Tobry, that he hadn’t given a thought to the young woman who had served him so loyally and quietly.

The girl who had been picked on since the moment they arrived in Garramide, because no one dared to have a go at him. The mutineers could be cutting her throat right now.

Rix raced down the stairs on tiptoes. At the bottom he took off like a thunderbolt, hurtled the corridors to his chambers, then froze. The guard who had been stationed outside his doorway lay dead on the floor, blood spreading from a ragged wound in his side. The blow must have come without warning, from someone he had counted a colleague, if not a friend.

Rix sprang over him and through the door. He moved into his chambers, Maloch extended. His steel gauntlet was clenched into a fist that could have broken the granite jaw of the legendary Hero, Syrten. Two minutes had passed since Glynnie’s scream, and two minutes was a long time in a bloody mutiny.

The inner door stood open, a foot away from the wall. Rix pushed it closed. If anyone was behind it he would keep pushing until he crushed them, but he felt no resistance.

A furious rage was growing in him. He had made mistakes, plenty of them, but he had also done everything he could for the hundreds of people who called Garramide home. To have them threatened and murdered, while the enemy were camped outside the gates, was the most monstrous betrayal he could imagine.

His salon was dark. Someone could have been hiding there but his senses suggested otherwise. The same went for the other business rooms of his chambers. That left only his bedchamber, the second-largest room and the one most suited for ambush because of its myriad of hiding places.

He stopped at the door, his night-sensitised eyes sweeping the room. The lamp beside his bed had burned down to a flicker. There was no one on the bed, or behind it that he could tell. What about underneath?

No, Blathy would not hide under the bed, and as he had that thought he knew she was here. She had sworn revenge after he’d killed Leatherhead, and Blathy was not the one to deviate from her purpose. She was a big, vengeful woman, not far short of his own height, and she was here to let every drop of blood out of him.

Yet his chivalrous instincts, and his upbringing, meant that he could not kill a woman. He would have to disarm her, put her to trial and let the judges take care of her. Unless she killed him first.

He moved in, sweeping Maloch from side to side as he searched along the tops of the wardrobes and in the spaces between the furniture. If he saw her, he would strike her down with the flat of the blade, then overpower and bind her.

Blathy was too cunning for him, too quick and too quiet. She must have been lying flat on top of the eight-foot-high wardrobe, out of sight. Her weight landed on his shoulders and a knee drove into the back of his neck, dropping him to the floor beside the bed and paralysing him.

Maloch went skidding and under the bed. She tore off his steel gauntlet and tossed it aside. Rix twisted his head around and caught a glimpse of her – wild-eyed, savage, blood seeping through a bandage on her left shoulder. So he wasn’t her first victim.

Blathy knelt on his back, her knees pressing excruciatingly into his kidneys. Her left hand burrowed into his hair, jerked his head back, and her knife rasped as she drew it from its sheath.

“You killed my Arkyz,” said Blathy. Her husky voice was trembling with emotion. “You cut off my man’s beautiful head and threw it in the offal heap, and I’m going to do the same to you. I’m going to rub your dead face in it.”

He could smell her pungent sweat, read the blood lust in her face. She was a strong, coarse woman, and the reek of her would be the last thing he experienced in this life. He was still paralysed and could do nothing to save himself. He could not even speak. All he could do was watch the knife as she brought it slowly and lovingly towards his throat.