Fires of the Desert (Children of the Desert Book 4) (23 page)

“I do not grant you the right to be here,” she said before he could even open his mouth. “I did not want to indulge in an ugly scene in front of my guests. You are not welcome here, Lord Eredion, and neither is my
daughter.
I was legally given rights to this mansion by the former owner—the heir to the estate himself, Kippin, gave it over to me to hold. I will
not
serve under my daughter; I’ve run that household since before she was born. She has no
right.
But as the king seems to agree with her ludicrous assertions—”

Eredion drew a deep breath, then another, and turned his back on her in an effort to keep his temper. She continued talking, all of it as inane as the beginning; ignoring her took monumental concentration. He looked around at the fluffy white-and-blue draperies billowing in the night breeze, and thought of when he’d last seen them drenched in blood and gore. At last, giving in to temper in the face of her continued prattling, he turned back, took a few long strides, and steered the idiot woman ungently into a chair.

Perching on the arm of the chair, Eredion stared down at Lady Peysimun for a moment. She’d woven gardenia flowers into her hair; the white petals had already muted and wilted against her light hair, but the smell remained strong. He resisted the urge to cover his nose.

“You do
not
have the right—”

“Lady Peysimun. Be quiet and listen to me.
Really
listen, for one single time in your life.”

She blinked up at him, her eyes abruptly rimmed with damp and her jaw trembling. “You don’t have any authority over me. I’m not one of your whores or slaves, so don’t you go snarling and glaring at me like that!”

He began to reply, then stopped, deciding it was time for a diversion before he said or did something irretrievable. Raising his eyebrows and pursing his lips in apparent surprise, he studied her face more closely. She squirmed in her chair and looked away, a hot flush rising to her pale cheeks.

“Don’t you try witching me, either, I’m too old for your games!” she snapped, but the words held little conviction. Eredion almost grinned, blackly amused at just how easy she would be to seduce. She obviously hadn’t taken a lover since her late husband died.

Not in the least interested in pursuing that angle—although that would, admittedly, be an effective way to steer her in the proper direction—he kept his face still and his tone mild with an effort. “Lady Peysimun, you look absolutely
nothing
like your daughter, do you know that?”

Her head ducked a little further. She wouldn’t look at him.

He shook his head, as though astonished at his own idiocy, and said in wondering tones, “I see it now. That explains it all. You were forced to raise a bastard as your own child. No wonder you rejected her as soon as she picked up some power of her own.”

Lady Peysimun bristled, but under his renewed glare made no protest.

“Who’s her real mother?” The one part he
didn’t
know the answer to.

“Some servant whore her father fell in love with,” she said, decades of bitterness sharp in her voice. “I was never anything more than a political convenience. And after my third miscarriage, I was presented the choice of putting up with this whore’s child or being turned out on any pretext he could find.”

Eredion shook his head slowly. “Is she still alive?”

“I doubt it,” she said, her lips thinning. “The priests took her soon after Rosin Weatherweaver became Head of the Church.”

He noticed how her gaze skittered to the side as she spoke. “What an amazing coincidence,” he said dryly. “I’m only surprised you didn’t disown Alyea as soon as her father died.”

She didn’t answer, but her mouth twitched, a small motion but one filled with true anguish. So she did care, in spite of herself, and had been balancing on that terrible edge between hatred and love for years.

Eredion let out a hard breath, almost a snort, through his nose. He had enough, now; he could go through the Church records for a list of prisoners’ names within the proper date range and eliminate possibilities from there. The worst of the Purge hadn’t really gotten rolling for a year after Rosin’s ascension, so the list shouldn’t be too long if he was lucky.

“Where is Kippin?” he asked.

“Gone,” she said, steadfastly studying her hands. “He drew up a legal document deeding his estate over to me. He said he had to go away because of lies my—because of lies Alyea was spreading about him. He’s going to try to find a way to clear his name, he said.”

Eredion snorted. “That deed means nothing. The king has already seized this estate and put out a death warrant for Kippin for crimes against king, kingdom, and city.”

She jerked and stared at him, the color draining from her face. “But it’s all
lies!
He’s innocent! My daughter is
delusional—”

“I was
here,”
Eredion cut in brutally. “I saw what they had turned this mansion into. Move a few of the rugs and you’ll see the blood where they couldn’t scrub it from the stones. Doesn’t it seem
odd
to you that everything is so new, Lady Peysimun?”

“It all looks just fine to me,” she insisted, back straight and the fire back in her face. “Kippin said it was all a misunderstanding and a pack of lies, and that he’d never touched—”

“Lady Peysimun.”

She flinched back into the chair at his volume, all the color draining from her face.

He struggled for control and managed to bring his voice back down to a reasonable level. “I was here through the entire reign of King Ninnic. I watched Rosin Weatherweaver kill two hundred and forty-three women, three hundred and twelve men, and eighty-four children with his own hands. I lost count of how many he
ordered
killed or tortured to death.”

He paused. She had shut her eyes, and the tremor had returned to her hands, now tightly fisted in her lap. She knew what Rosin had been like, and Ninnic; but he would have to drive the point home still harder for her to understand.

“I stopped as many executions as I could. I helped to sneak hundreds of people out of Bright Bay before Rosin could snatch them up. I found out
everyone
who followed Rosin’s insanity. I arranged for dozens of them to die unexpectedly.”

She jerked a wide-eyed stare up at him. He let her study his face for a breath, watched what little color had returned to her face fade away again as she realized that his close presence implied an entirely different danger than seduction.

“No,” he said, “I’m not a nice person, Lady Peysimun. I’ve seen too much. If killing someone can save even one child from being raped and gutted in front of her parents, I’ll hold the assassin’s cord myself.”

Her breath began to wheeze in her throat as she pressed back into the plush chair, her now-terrified gaze locked on his.

He forced his voice to an unemotional timbre. “Believe me when I tell you that when Alyea’s aqeyva lessons were discovered, if not for my interference, your entire estate would have been taken and you would both have become Rosin’s playtoys. After which you would have been turned over to his most powerful followers. Quite possibly Kippin.”

She jerked again, her mouth pursing to form a protest.

“No,” he interrupted. “It’s not a pack of lies, Lady Peysimun. I’ve
seen
Kippin kill. He’s as much a sadist as Rosin was, and one of the best liars I’ve ever seen. And your nephew Kam is one of his top followers.”

“That’s not—” Her gaze jerked up and to one side, then flickered back to him; only a spare half-beat moment, but enough for him to read her desperation clearly.

He rose and leveled a finger at her in warning; she put a hand over her mouth, her eyes brimming with tears again.

“Where is he?”

“Second floor,” she said, the words muffled behind her hand. “Second door on the left from the stairs.”

He paused, narrowing his eyes, then reached out and dragged her hand away from her mouth. “Say that again,” he ordered.

She stared up at him, her jaw tightening and her wet eyes hardening. “No.”

“Thought so. Did Kippin teach you that trick before or after he nearly killed Alyea?” He regarded her with deep disgust. Nothing he’d said had reached her after all. “You have no damn idea what you’re dealing with, Lady Peysimun.”

“Until the King’s Guards come to throw me out, which I
don’t
believe they will,” she retorted, her courage returning all in a rush, “this is still
my
land, Lord Eredion. And I’ll thank you to leave it now. Unless you plan to kill
me?”

It wasn’t her land, and the King’s Guards would be arriving, a matter of hours after Oruen learned of this idiocy. Eredion didn’t bother arguing the point; the less warning she had to disrupt her stubborn misinterpretations, the less chance of her setting up any organized resistance.

As for her last question....

“Don’t tempt me,” he said bleakly, and left the room without looking back.

He stormed out through the main hallways fast enough to be convincing; took advantage of a moment with no watchers nearby to slip into an unlit passage. Standing still, back against a wall, he slowed his breathing to a bare whisper of air. His eyes half-shut, palms pressed against the cold stone behind him, he let himself
not be important.

After three long, shallow breaths, he felt the faint haze in the back of his mind as human-ego and emotion subsided. He waited, blinking slowly, until he was certain the shield would hold, then gingerly retraced his path, moving as though stepping on piles of broken glass with each step.

A weary-eyed servant came towards him. Eredion resisted the urge to flatten himself against the wall, but he did pause, intent on his own utter insignificance, as the woman approached. She passed without so much as a glance. He chose to regard that as proof of success and hoped it hadn’t just been exhausted indifference on her part.

Moving on with slightly more confidence, he bypassed the room where Lady Peysimun had been holding her midnight tea, aiming for the stairs to the second floor. Kippin might be out of town, but grabbing Kam would be just as satisfying, and potentially even more useful.

Great, thick-bodied statues with featureless faces served as end-posts for the balustrade, all carved from the same black marble. The statue style was unique to a recently popular stone carver, dating the installation to within the last two years. Eredion surveyed the grand stairway for a moment, shaking his head as he estimated the cost of shipping the materials plus the labor involved in the seemingly simple construction. The number came out far too high for the aging wife of a dead nobleman to have on hand, and finally explained to Eredion’s own satisfaction just why Lady Arnil had turned a blind eye to Kippin’s dangerous ways.

It usually does come back to money at some point,
Eredion thought grimly, and started up the stairs, wondering what Kippin had given Lady Peysimun to make her believe his version of events.

Then again, perhaps it was obvious. Peysimun Mansion lay against the Red Gate district, one of the shabbiest locations in Bright Bay. Lady Peysimun had always been visibly embarrassed over that. The offer of a much grander mansion, on a much larger plot of land, even if it lay on the borders of the city rather than inside the status-heavy Seventeen Gates, might have been a sufficient bribe. And Kippin had always been a smooth, charming sort.

It was possible he’d seduced her, but not likely, given her earlier reaction to Eredion himself and Kippin’s preference for inflicting pain on his partners. He’d likely flirted with her outrageously, though, and built up layers of bright excitement in her mind. She’d be susceptible to that sort of influence, as long as it never crossed the line into action.

Damn fool woman,
Eredion thought, annoyed. He shook his head, ruefully acknowledging that he’d pulled the same trick in the past. All for good causes—but they were all good causes, weren’t they, from someone’s perspective?

You let my daughter die and rescued servants,
Lennimorn’s voice sneered in memory. Eredion held back a sigh and made himself stop brooding over past matters.

Second door on the left from the stairs,
Lady Peysimun had said, covering her mouth to muffle the lie; so Kam wouldn’t be there. And more than likely, right after Eredion’s false retreat, she’d bolted straight up the stairs to check that her nephew remained safe.

Eredion inhaled through his nose, eyes half closed, and followed the scent of gardenias to the right. It took him to the second door on the
right
from the stairs, but on the left hand wall. Eredion nodded to himself, impressed by Lady Peysimun’s quick thinking. If she hadn’t covered her mouth, he might actually have been fooled. Only her own insecurity had betrayed her.

He stood beside the door for a time, calming himself, securing his utter insignificance. Two more servants went by, neither sparing him a glance. Voices murmured inside the room. He waited, patient as a statue, and at last Lady Peysimun emerged from the room.

Muttering to herself as though annoyed over something, she hurried away without hesitation, wide sandals slapping against the whitestone floor. Eredion let out a quiet breath and blinked, focusing on his surroundings, and listened. Hearing no voices, and seeing no servants nearby, he sent a heartfelt prayer to Comos, then gently eased the door open a bit and waited some more.

A thick snore rumbled from within, and the sour scent of too much wine drifted out the open door. Listening carefully, Eredion heard only one breathing rhythm. Kam was alone tonight.

He slipped inside the room and shut the door.

Justice was a relative concept for Eredion: relative to the gain, in most cases. In this particular matter, Sessin Family had no real interests at stake, but the king did—and so did Peysimun Family, at least as far as Alyea went.

Alyea had put Eredion, not her mother, in charge of Peysimun Family interests while she was gone. Granted she hadn’t known about her mother’s betrayal at that point, but the agreement was valid under both Kingdom and southern law. Eredion would have been within his rights, under southern law, to simply kill Lady Peysimun for her treachery and idiocy, but that wouldn’t have solved anything. Killing Kam, on the other hand....