Traitor's Masque (41 page)

Confused and still very nervous, Trystan crossed her arms and took a step back. Nearer the window. “Well, you were right about one thing,” she shot back defiantly. “I would never have helped you if you had told the truth. I might not care about politics, but I never agreed to murder.”

“But you agreed to betrayal, little fool. There is not, after all, so much road between them.”

Trystan felt a flush of shame. “Yes,” she admitted, “I was a fool, but I’d like to think I learned something. And”—she lifted her chin—“that I chose rather better in the end than I did in the beginning.”

Lady Isaura’s pale face turned slightly to stare at her, eyes glittering in the dark. “And yet you could have had all you ever dreamed of.” Her voice was bereft of everything but cold, frozen hatred. “I had done it all. Laid down a path for you that would have secured your happiness. And you,” she sneered, almost without expression, “were such a witless dupe that you refused to take it. You threw it away.”

“I could never have lived with the knowledge that my happiness had been purchased by death!” Trystan snapped back, by now nearly as angry as she was frightened.

“But you loved him!” The flat voice suddenly changed to a hiss. “If you really loved him, you would have done anything,
anything
, to be with him!”

The heady combination of terror and fury gave Trystan a sort of courage. “I think you know nothing of love, Lady Westerby. Nothing!” Her own eyes sparked with passion. “Love that kills and destroys to protect itself is not love at all.”

No longer detached, Lady Isaura advanced into the room until she stood only a few steps in front of Trystan. “Nothing of love? I?” Her eyes spat fire and her hands curled into claws. “I know more of love than a pitiful, self-centered child like you could ever dream! My Osric was the only thing that ever mattered to me. More than my fortune, more than my own life.” She turned slightly, approached the room’s empty dressing table and stared into the mirror. “They stole him from me. With their pride and their power, they murdered him as surely as if they had knifed him in the back.”

Trystan could barely recall Lord Osric’s death. She had been perhaps eight or nine, and had barely known her father’s fashionable friends. She could remember that he had been ill for several weeks before he died. It had not seemed to her at the time that Lady Isaura’s grief had overwhelmed her, but Trystan knew herself well enough now to suspect that she had viewed the scene through the passionate self-interest of youth.

“Who is ‘they,’ Lady Westerby?”

The widow whirled on Trystan abruptly. “Who? Who else? Your sterling prince and his pathetic father! The ones who decreed in their infinite wisdom that we could not lawfully trade with Caelan. A foolish cavil over slaves! They made it a crime to bring goods across the border. And my Osric died for it!”

Trystan blinked. Tried to make sense of it. Gave up. “I’m sorry, but what…”

“He had mountain fever.” Trystan had never heard of it before, but Lady Isaura seemed to expect this. She turned away and paced over to the window. “It’s rarely seen, and does not pass from person to person.” She seemed impatient, scornful. “Our healers could do little more than diagnose him. There is only one known cure and it can be found in only one place.”

Trystan thought she understood. “And so you poisoned the king? Because you blamed him for Lord Osric’s death?”

Lady Isaura turned to face her again, drawing herself up with dreadful conviction. “If he had not refused to open the borders, the medicine would have been available. We sent a trader to Caelan, but it took time to avoid the patrols, and the journey was too long. My Osric was dead before he could return.”

Trystan actually felt a pang of sympathy. To watch someone you loved die because the cure could not reach you in time—she could not imagine the torment.

“I’m sorry,” she offered haltingly, “but—”

“I wanted them to feel what I felt,” Lady Isaura interrupted in a low and terrible voice. “To know the terrifying helplessness of watching someone die. The guilt of believing you could have done something different, better, faster…” She broke off with a furious-sounding oath. “That fool Ramsey will be just like his father. To rid this kingdom of them both seemed the most valuable service I could perform before I died. And I so nearly succeeded.” Lady Isaura turned the full force of her gaze on Trystan. “Except for you.”

Trystan froze. The naked hatred in the older woman’s eyes pinned her where she stood. She suddenly knew what it felt like to be hunted.

Her heartbeats were loud enough to count. Five, she had marked, when the figure in white moved, striking, all claws and cold fury. Trystan had endured too much terror, in too short a time. Her thoughts were slow, sticky, and muddled. Her body moved for her.

Like a wild creature, she bolted for the door, looking for any way of escape. Panic lent her speed, but it was dark, and the house was not her own. For an instant, she turned the wrong way, thinking of her own room, her own hall, her own stairs. The delay was not long, but it was enough.

She had just reached the top step when her head flew backwards and her feet abruptly lost purchase. Her body whiplashed sharply and struck the floor without warning, the tearing pain in her head her only clue. Lady Isaura had a handful of her hair and seemed prepared to rip it out.

Screaming involuntarily, Trystan shielded her eyes as she caught a glimpse of nails, striking for her face. She wriggled and twisted frantically, ignoring a sharp pain from her ribs in her need to get off the floor. Striking out with elbows, feet, anything she could still move, Trystan landed a surprisingly hard blow to her assailant’s face. She heard a strangled shriek from Lady Isaura, followed by warm, wet drops, indicating she had probably broken something.

The grip on her hair eased and Trystan took advantage of it to scramble to her feet, only to be knocked into the wall, the bannister pressing hard and cold into the small of her back. She tried to find her feet again, only to realize that she was half on, half off of the stairs and there was an implacable grip around her throat. Lady Isaura’s pale face came suddenly into view, blood now smeared in a dark pattern across her skin and dripping down the icy white of her gown.

“I’m sorry, Trystan.” A harsh whisper emerged from that bloodstained mouth. “But I do not like to lose.”

Her grasp tightened. Trystan’s vision blurred.

In a desperate panic, she kicked out as hard as her borrowed skirts would allow. The worn material ripped, an incongruous sound in the midst of their now silent struggle. Trystan kicked again, harder, this time connecting solidly with Lady Isaura’s knee.

It gave. The grip on Trystan’s throat did not.

Overbalanced, Lady Isaura fell backwards, momentarily taking Trystan with her. In one last, flailing effort, Trystan’s hand caught the bannister behind her. And held on.

The sudden jolt tore the vise from around her neck, letting her draw one gasping, shuddering breath. For the space of that breath, Lady Isaura balanced, between lunging and falling, her face wavering between hatred and terror. Until, with one surprisingly forlorn wail, she lost her fight with gravity and toppled backwards.

The staircase had never seemed so long to Trystan. She watched, helpless, one hand on her bruised neck, while the white-clad form of Lady Westerby tumbled endlessly towards the bottom, going limp before it finally ended its descent.

Hysteria took a fresh hold on Trystan’s throat, wringing a few helpless whimpers from somewhere deep and uncomprehending. She waited for Lady Isaura to move. Waited for her to speak. Waited for someone else to speak. Surely someone had heard the sounds of their struggle and would come. No one did. Trystan was shaking almost too badly to move. She did not trust her legs. She could only inch down the stairs, clinging to the bannister, believing with each breath that the pale, blood-spattered body at their foot would at any moment rise up and renew the assault. Almost hoping that it would. Desperate for proof that she was not alone in the house with empty darkness and a dead woman.

By the time she reached the base of the stairs, Trystan knew her father’s friend was gone. Her limbs were too far askew, her head at too unnatural an angle, for there to be any doubt. But she approached the body anyway, reached out a shaking hand, needing to see the face of a woman she had known since childhood if she was to believe completely in her death.

Shuddering in revulsion, she touched Lady Isaura’s shoulder and rolled her slightly, till her hair fell back. Her dark eyes were wide and staring, an unblinking accusation even in the dark. Which was not, Trystan belatedly realized, as dark as it should have been. Moonlight streaked the floor with long, deep shadows, moonlight that was entering through the wide-open front door. The door that had not been open when Trystan sneaked across the walk. She glanced back at the body, but body it was and would remain. She could accomplish nothing by staying.

Throttling back the urge to scream, whether in horror or frustration she wasn’t sure, she rose from the floor and began to limp hastily away.

Or at least, she tried. Trystan let out a shriek of terror when her progress was impeded by a warm, solid wall.

The tall, dark figure laughed in a very un-wall-like way as he twisted her round and clasped her wrists together behind her back with one, remorseless hand. “Hello, little mouse.” The silken whisper sent tremors down her spine and raised bumps on every inch of her skin. “I’m so very glad you’ve come.”

 
Chapter 15
 

Kyril Seagrave was not a man much given to anger. Curiosity and irreverence were his besetting sins, and though they frequently infuriated other people, he rarely suffered such strong emotions himself. But that night, as he strode swiftly towards the outer bailey and his waiting horse, Kyril was cold with rage and did not bother to hide it.

He had known the brothers Tremontaine for most of his life. As a child, Kyril’s natural disadvantages had made him a perfect butt for Rowan and his friends, and it was only Kyril’s determination never to return to his own home that had kept him at court. Well, that and his eventual friendship with his tormentor’s brother.

The younger prince had idolized the elder, and despite his anger and frustration at Rowan’s lack of compassion or discretion, Ramsey had never really stopped believing that Rowan would one day come back to him. Perhaps tell him that all those years of cruelty had been nothing but a joke.

Unfortunately, King Hollin shared that blindness where his elder son was concerned. Frequently incensed or despairing at his erstwhile heir’s behavior, he had never quite been able to bring himself to believe in the depths of Rowan’s depravity. And now? That blind love was about to prove deadly. And to more than just the king.

Elaine, the real Elaine, had nearly paid with her life as well. A pale, shivering creature, the girl had managed to stutter her way through her story, which had told them very little they had not already known. She had seen no one, knew nothing, and only wanted to go home. At least it had answered the question of why Lady Westerby had bothered with an imposter. The real Elaine was so timid she had nearly fainted when Kyril spoke to her. She would never have survived the ball, let alone a political conspiracy.

And Rowan had stolen her life. Wrenched one girl from the midst of her quiet, retired existence and used another as a dupe. He had driven a wedge between a woman and her family, stirred up violent unrest and attempted to murder his own father.

Kyril did not really care why. All he felt was a grim sort of pleasure at the task his friend had set him: find the bastard before he could hurt anyone else.

It was already growing late by the time he left Evenburg. The streets of town were lit and all but the wealthy or bored had retreated to their own homes for the night. For several hours, he drifted, between taverns and the newly fashionable clubs, buying drinks and listening. Little of note was being said, but there was an undercurrent of tension. Threads of uneasiness ran through the gilded and carpeted parlors of every exclusive establishment he visited. It seemed uncomfortably like waiting, even if no one knew for what.