The Poison Throne (17 page)

She was alone with these images, they were her own personal devils, and more and more, as her solitude went on, she felt they were going to drive her mad.

And all day there was the incessant scrape of chisel on wood, the unending scouring of the file. Sounds that usually meant creation, pride and satisfaction. But now it was Alberon’s face under the blade and Oliver’s face, Albi’s name and Oliver’s name, all day long, curling away in slivers and spirals of fragrant red sawdust and shavings. Disappearing, a layer at a time, under the sharp edge of her own tools.

She longed for Razi. She longed for fresh air. She longed to focus on something further way than the end of her nose.

On the morning of the third day, Wynter stood for a moment, looking at the little poem that Jonathon had written when Alberon’s beloved Shubbit died. This was to be her next task, to wipe this moment of tenderness from history, to pretend it had never been, and she just couldn’t begin. Finally she put her tools down and left.

Lorcan was grimly planing Alberon’s name from a plaque in the lower corner of a redwood wall panel and he didn’t look up as she passed him by. He kept his head bent to his work, his hair and eyelashes speckled with red sawdust. Wynter closed the door quietly behind her, telling herself that she’d only be a while.

She stood on the steps in the early dawn, looking up into the trees. Her hands and arms were still vibrating with the rhythm of mallet on chisel. There was a taste of sawdust off her lips, the scent of shaved wood permeating her clothes. But the morning smelled of living wood – yew and pine and damp birch, and it felt incredibly good to be outside in the daylight, with the air on her face. It was almost intoxicating.

She let her burning eyes drift along the trees. She took in the horizon, lifted her head to the grey and rose coloured sky. Gradually her shoulders and back unknotted and her neck relaxed. Through the open library windows she heard the steady, shushing grind of Lorcan’s plane, shaving, shaving, shaving. Undoing three or four days of his beautiful work in a single hour.

She turned suddenly and walked away from that sound. She went down the long back steps and around by the birch trees, putting space between herself and the library. She wanted no more of this steady, daily unravelling of her father’s legacy to the world.

Maybe Razi would be at the stables? It was barely past dawn and the deserted complex had a sleepy unearthly feeling, as though she were walking through a dream. She cut through the narrow alley between the spare horse stalls and the feed store. The exercise ring was ahead of her, and she could hear the
trit-trot
of a horse circling the arena. Dust spiralled across the mouth of the alley in the slanting early light.

She was passing the dim mouth of an empty stall when a low moan of pain stopped her in her tracks.

From behind the wooden wall, Christopher’s voice gasped, “Stop! Wait!” low and urgent.

Wynter crouched down, her hand on her dagger, the words
ambush
and
assassin
scurrying across her mind.

Then another voice, feminine and impatient, whispered, “What is it?”

“Just hold on a moment…” Christopher again. There was a moment of rustling, and the woman giggled.

“Here… we go…” panted Christopher.

“What in God’s name is that?” whispered the woman, doubt and fascination overriding the husky expectancy in her voice.

“
That
…” Christopher paused with a grunt. The woman giggled and then gasped, releasing a slow luxuriant
uhhhhhhh
. “That…” growled Christopher breathlessly, “… is your protection… against the likes… of me.”

He made another sound, another moan, which Wynter realised instantly, and with burning embarrassment, wasn’t pain at all. She fled up the alley, her cheeks blazing.

A sudden rage against Christopher Garron slammed her hard under the heart, like a punch to her chest. He seemed to be having no problem finding comfort!
He
seemed to be perfectly fine! But where was Razi? While Christopher pleased himself, where had he abandoned Razi?

She found him at the exercise ring, sprawled listlessly on a milking stool, his long legs stretched out in the dirt, his back to the red-washed feed-store. He was supervising a horse being put through its paces and was dressed for work, dusty leggings, dusty riding boots, a pale green, loose-weave tunic. But he looked utterly exhausted and she doubted he would have the energy to sit a saddle.

Wynter stopped, shocked at how drawn he was, how much older than his nineteen years he looked. Even his usually glossy mass of curls seemed tired – a dull, untidy mat hanging over his half-closed eyes.

There were six or seven enormous, black-clad guards dotted around the ring – bodyguards. One made to stop Wynter, but Razi waved him away, smiling at her and moving his fingers in greeting as she crossed the yard.

“Hello, brother,” she said, kneeling beside him in the dust, and turning to watch the big horse cantering at the end of its lunge rope. It was magnificent, one of those arch, high-headed princes of a horse, uncut and fiery. “Is he one of yours?”

“Aye.” He put a hand on her head and smoothed her hair with a long affectionate stroke. Then he let his hand drop tiredly back into his lap.

“Your tomcat is on the prowl,” she sneered, and he turned his head questioningly. “Christopher,” she clarified, “he’s sowing his oats in the stalls.”

To Wynter’s great surprise, Razi laughed, so suddenly and loudly that the guards all glanced their way. “He found her, then?” He grinned, his teeth showing white in his brown face, his eyes sparkling. “I should never doubt him!” And then he laughed again, Razi’s luxuriant, chuckling laugh, and Wynter had to smile in return.

Impulsively he took Wynter’s hand in his, kissed it and held it loosely in his own, smiling to himself and watching the horse with renewed interest. His face was transformed with delight, and he was nineteen years old again. Tired, yes, and wan from pain and his recent ordeal, but not wasted looking, not defeated. It was such a radical and profound difference to how he had looked just moments before that Wynter felt all her anger at Christopher drain away.

She put her head on Razi’s shoulder and despite her former desire to talk, she didn’t speak. This was enough. All the terrible subjects that they should have been discussing, all the awful truths and secrets, Wynter let them lie beneath the horse’s trampling hooves, let them be pounded into submission. They drifted up with the dust that rose from the exercise ring, and she was free of them for a brief and fragile interlude.

They sat quietly together, as the heat of the day built around them and they watched while the master groom put Razi’s magnificent horse through its paces. Just as if they were any other brother and sister, on any normal morning. Razi murmured comments now and again. Wynter replied and occasionally she threw in a comment of her own. The groom shouted questions, and Razi answered them with a nod or a few words. On the periphery of their vision the guards stood like black, impassive cockroaches. Save for their presence, it was peaceful, a perfect moment of comfort that was doomed to end too quickly.

Wynter felt Razi tense beside her, and he slowly got to his feet. Following the direction of his gaze, she saw a councilman standing in the shadows of the indoor arena. He was keeping out of sight of the soldiers and staring pointedly at Razi. Wynter recognised him as Simon De Rochelle, one of the few councilmen who hadn’t forced Razi to the throne. Beside him lurked a ragged-looking fellow, lithe, tanned and furtive. He had the stiffly rosined hair and beard of a west country Comberman, and he was covered in dust.
Straight in off the road
, she thought,
a messenger of some sort
.

Razi nodded to De Rochelle, and the two men melted back into the shadows.

“Wynter,” Razi murmured, still looking after Simon and his companion. “Go tell Christopher that I’ll meet him in the kitchens in the next quartering of the shadows. Tell him not to wander about.”

“What’s going on?”

He turned his head and glared down at her with all the authority of his royal heritage, and she felt a small flare of anger that he would think to use that look on her. But he didn’t soften, and she sourly dropped her eyes.

“How do you propose to lose your guard dogs?” she asked.

He glanced coldly at the looming soldiers. “Just give Christopher my message,” he said, “and I’ll worry about the rest.”

He went to walk away, and Wynter caught his hand, not wanting to part on such an unpleasant note. She needed something more from him before he left, but she wasn’t sure what that was. She found herself gazing up at him, tearfully.

He swung back, impatient to be on his way, but then he saw the distress in her face. “Sis,” he said tenderly, putting his hands on her shoulders, and then he faltered. What could he possibly say to her? There was no comfort that could be given with words, nothing soothing he could say that wouldn’t be a lie or a platitude. They looked at each other for a moment, struggling to express how they felt without actually dragging all the terrible facts of their situation into the light.

And then Razi hugged her. He wrapped his arms around her and enfolded her in the warmth of his long body, bending his head down to rest his cheek on the top of her head. She let herself lean into him, and closed her eyes, breathing in his scent, that warm mixture of horses, sandalwood and clean linen. And for a moment she felt small and hidden and protected.

“Go on,” he whispered, too soon, and he kissed the top of her head. Then he was gone, dust swirling around his legs as he strode across the sun-blasted arena.

The guards moved to accompany him, and Razi flung up a hand without looking at them. “Give me a moment,” he ordered. When several of them continued to follow, Razi turned on his heel and levelled them with an unbelievably cold glare. “Goddamn you,” he hissed. “Unless you’re planning on wiping my arse, I suggest you give me a God-cursed moment.”

The guards faltered and dithered, and Razi stalked away without waiting for their response. Then they turned back to the ring and let him pass around the back of the indoor arena, and out of their sight.

Wynter stood for a moment, the guards eyeing her. Then she slowly made her way back to the alley. The stall where she’d last heard Christopher was quiet now, and Wynter stepped into the dim interior fully expecting him to be gone.

He was lying on his back, his ankles crossed, his left arm covering his eyes and his right arm flung loosely out from his side. He was completely naked, his chest rising and falling in peaceful sleep.

Wynter gasped. She wasn’t a stranger to male nudity, but there was such an air of open sexuality about Christopher that she caught herself looking in a way she’d never really considered before. For the first time ever she found herself wondering what it would be like to have a man press his body against hers. What it would be like to have a man kiss her in that way she knew men kissed women when they were expressing more than simple affection.

These thoughts brought such a giant, frightening surge of emotion that she squeezed her eyes shut and turned away. She was left with an impression of slim, well-made limbs shimmering against the dusky hay, shockingly dark hair against the pale skin of his chest and stomach, and, surprisingly, the dull gleam of silver snake bracelets hugging the tops of both of Christopher’s arms.

He’s Merron!
she thought, her eyes opening in surprise.
He doesn’t look Merron!

She dithered for a moment, then she resolved to leave the stall and announce herself with a knock, thus giving Christopher the chance to get dressed in privacy. But she must have made some small sound, a scuff or a rustle, because, before she could take a step, Christopher had leapt from the hay, making her skitter backwards in shock. He rose to his feet in one smooth action and took up a defensive crouch, his black-handled dagger held out, his other hand raised.

“
Cé hé sin?
” he said hoarsely in Merron. Wynter realised that she was silhouetted against the glaring light of the alley, and all Christopher could see was a black shape lurking in the doorway.

“It’s me. Wynter.”

“Oh,” he sighed, and relaxed, lowering his knife and pushing his hair behind his ears. “Razi’s in the exercise ring with the stallion,” he said, gesturing casually towards the arena, and then he looked away to find his clothes.

He was completely unfazed by his nudity, and began to dress unhurriedly and without any self-consciousness. But he seemed surprised when she didn’t leave, and then disconcerted when he caught her staring while he did up the stays on his undershirt.

Christopher cleared his throat pointedly, and Wynter turned away as he bent to pick up his underthings and his trousers. She didn’t look again, and he rustled about behind her, sitting on the hay to pull up his trousers and put on his socks and tunic.

“I’m done,” he said, and when she turned, he was just slipping the dagger into his boot. He leant forward, his hands dangling between his knees, looking up at her in puzzlement. “Do you want me to walk you around to him?” he asked, genuinely solicitous, but obviously confused at what he took for her reluctance to go to Razi. The sunlight emphasised the sloping bones of his narrow face as he tilted his head.

“You’re Merron,” she said, and then, in response to his surprised look, “I saw your bracelets. You belong to the serpent Merron.”

“You know the Merron?”

“A clan of panther Merron used to winter in Shirken’s forests. I got to know some of their customs. You wear the symbol of the serpent Merron.”

Christopher put his right hand over the bracelet on his left arm and said earnestly, “They’re not the originals. I had to have them remade.” It seemed important to him that she understand this, as though it would be a crime to pretend that these were the original artefacts. “The originals were stolen from me.” He unconsciously ran his thumb over the gap where his finger should be.

“I have no desire to cause offence,” said Wynter, unsure of how he would take it, “but… you don’t
look
Merron.”