The Poison Throne (47 page)

But peering up into Lorcan’s face, she saw that her father was broken at the idea, hollowed out by it. This puzzled her. Lorcan, though no lover of war, had never shied away from the brutal necessity of physical conflict. He had gone to war himself, and when younger, he had been famous for his ferocious battle rage. In the early stages of this insurrection, before he was sent North, Lorcan had stood at the war table with Jonathon and devised strategies and battle plans that would surely have sent hundreds to their deaths. So why was he distraught by the possibility of his machine being used in defence of the kingdom he loved?

Now, Jonathon? Jonathon, Wynter understood better. He feared the machine being used against him… He had perhaps wanted to keep it for himself, and therefore wished to suppress the knowledge of it. But why had he agreed to destroy it in the first place? Such a powerful tool! None of it made any sense to her at all… It made her all the more determined to seek out Alberon, and get some answers.

Lorcan hissed and Wynter snapped back to herself with a start. He looked pained and gently extracted his hand from her grip. She realised that she had been grinding his fingers between hers, kneading them like dough in her anxiety.

“Oh Dad! I’m sorry.”

He was distracted and upset. “He will regret this in the morning,” he muttered. “When the wine wears off him.”

“Well, he can’t take it back now, Dad! It’s in your possession!”

Lorcan looked at her blankly, then realised that she was referring to the licence. “No, darling. He will regret having spoken like that in front of you. It will eat at him… he will not feel safe. Knowing that he has revealed himself like that to you.” He stared through her. “More than ever you must go. As soon as Razi has left, you must follow him. Do not hesitate, in case you lose him…” He looked into her eyes, shook her lightly, to emphasise the importance of his words. “Do… not…
hesitate
!”

“What of you, Dad?”

“What
of
me? I’m done, that’s the end of it. But I will
not
have you burn in the fires of my making. Go! Follow Razi to Padua! Throw yourself under his protection, for he will never send you back here, I promise you that. Have a good life, baby-girl…” He raised his eyebrows and gave her a twisted smile. “Sure, has the King himself not just handed you the best licence of work ever granted man or woman in the history of his kingdom?” He stroked her hair again and tilted his head fondly. “With your talent, girl, you can’t fail to thrive.”

“Oh, Dad, please.” She wouldn’t look at him then, couldn’t see the determined hope in his eyes and know that she would deceive him right up to the end. Her eyes slid past him in distress, and her face froze at the sight of the cat sitting on the windowsill. It bared its teeth in an impatient snarl and glared at her. She tore her eyes from it.
Oh Christ
.

“Wynter?” Lorcan touched her hand. “Darling?”

She met his gaze and her eyes welled up and overflowed He cupped her cheek in his hand, running his thumb under her eye to wipe away the tears. “Darling,” he whispered. “Can… can we pretend?”

This brought more tears to her eyes and she dipped her head quickly to scrub them away. They weren’t pretending type of people, the Moorehawkes, not pretending type of people at all. She lifted her face to him again, and took his hand.

“Yes, Dad. What would you like to pretend?”

He squeezed her hand. “Let’s pretend that tomorrow is not our goodbye.” Her breath caught in her chest with an audible hitch. Lorcan caught her eyes and held them hopefully with his. “Let’s pretend that you’re going to Helmsford to check a stand of timber. That you’ll be back in a week. That we’ll see each other in a week. Wynter, can we do that?”

It didn’t matter how hard she clenched her jaw, her chin wouldn’t stop trembling, and the tears were back, spilling down her face and dripping off her chin. Lorcan made a desperate little sound and put his hands on either side of her face and swiped her cheeks dry. He pushed her hair back off her forehead, with a determined tightening of his mouth and then wiped the tears off her face again. “Let’s pretend, darling,” he growled. “Please. Let’s…”

“Yes, Dad!” She grabbed his hands and took them from her face, holding them tightly in her own, stilling his ever more frantic attempts to dry her tears. “Yes. Helmsford. Timber. A week. Yes.”

His eyes got huge for a moment, and for a moment, she thought he wouldn’t be able to do the very thing he asked of her. But in the end, he compressed his generous mouth to a thin white line, clenched his jaw to nearly snapping point and nodded tightly.

“I need to go to bed now, darling,” he said. “I will send word to Marcello to come very early tomorrow, that I may get ready to have breakfast with you… before…”

She nodded. “You’ll need your rest,” she said. “And I need to go speak to Marni.” Lorcan tensed, concern sharpening his face. Wynter patted his hand reassuringly. “I shall be careful, Dad. I will stick to the halls.” She glanced significantly at the cat and it stalked haughtily out of sight, along the ledge back to the receiving room window, no doubt. “I promise, there will be no sneaking about, Dad. Nothing shall happen to me.”

Lorcan nodded, and his implicit trust in her almost broke Wynter’s heart.

With a fierce sniff, she shook herself and carefully pushed every feeling down to that roiling place in the pit of her belly. She set her jaw, shoved her shoulder in under Lorcan’s arm, and helped him heave himself to his feet. With her support, Lorcan made his slow way to bed, stiff and agonised. He eased down onto his pillows, as heavy as a stone. He held her hand briefly, not looking at her, then pushed her gently away.

Wynter glanced back at him as she shut his door. He was staring into the fire, his hands clenched on his chest, his face haunted. Sleep was miles from him.

She delayed just a touch longer, going to her room to belt on her dagger and slip a candle and travel tinder-box into her belt-purse. On the point of leaving she added Christopher’s map to the crackling reassurance of Razi’s note against her heart. At the last minute, she shrugged Christopher’s jacket on over her tunic and then she finally went to face the cat.

It was practically spitting with rage by the time she stepped into the receiving room.

“You certainly took your own sweet time, did you not?” it hissed. “I suspect that I have aged considerably in the course of your interminable congress with that man.”

Wynter breathed deep and knotted her hands by her sides. “Let us make haste, then,” she ground out. “Before you slip into your dotage.”

The cat growled and Wynter showed it the door. “You will have to find me another entrance to the passages. I cannot risk my father hearing me enter from here.”

The cat led her through the halls, and it wasn’t long before it paused and slipped smoothly behind a tapestry. Wynter followed. A quick search of the dim panelling revealed the ubiquitous cherub sconce, and she twisted it on its head. A small secret door slid open for them and they made their way into the dusty blackness of the passageways, carefully shutting the door behind them.

Almost immediately, Wynter felt the cat swarm up her legs and body, and curl itself onto her shoulders. The hissing instructions began at once and Wynter’s heart hammered painfully against her throat as she began the winding journey through the dark.

Whispers in The Dark

“S
tretch out your hand and push gently at the panel to your right.”

Wynter did as the cat bade her and the panel slid forward and to the side. It remained impenetrably dark, but the air freshened slightly and chilled. Wynter slipped out of the passageway, still clinging to the doorframe. She was completely blind. Keeping her back pressed against the reassurance of the wall, she ran her hands over the stones on either side of her and lifted her arms to feel the low corbelled roof of an underground passage.

She knew instantly where they were. This was the low-ceilinged corridor where she had first heard the inquisitors torturing the assassin. She froze and strained her ears, expecting ghostly screams. But there was nothing, just the ragged sound of her own breathing and the wild hammering of her heart.

The darkness was a good sign; it meant that there were no torches lit, and no torches meant no activity. No human activity, at least. Wynter strained her ears again. She wished that she could manage to hold her breath, all the better to listen, but she was too frightened and could not pause her fearful panting. It had occurred to her on the journey through the passages, that the spirits of the inquisitors themselves might still be here. Their ghosts intent on causing pain. The thought made Wynter’s knees unhinge, and she gripped the stones of the wall in panic

Ghosts don’t tend to harm
, she thought feverishly,
ghosts don’t tend to harm
. Christopher’s wry lilt came back to her, clear and bright in the blackness.
Tell that to the raw meat we left in the dungeon a few nights ago
. She squeezed her eyes tight:
Oh shut up, Christopher. Ghosts don’t tend to harm. They don’t
…

The cat hissed and squirmed impatiently on her shoulders. “Are you planning a nap, girl?” it asked sharply. “Shall I go grab a bite to eat, and return when you are ready?”

Its grizzled sarcasm forced Wynter to put some iron in her spine, and she pushed herself from the wall with a long, controlling breath. Sinking cautiously to her knees, she felt for her tinderbox and fumbled the candle from her purse. The cat tutted and leapt from her shoulders with a growl. The abrupt loss of its reassuring weight froze Wynter in mid action, and she suppressed a whimper of fear at the thought that it might have deserted her again. She listened for a moment, staring uselessly into the dark, her hands poised in the act of opening the tinderbox. There was no sound to indicate that the cat remained in her vicinity. It had left her.

Wynter felt her mouth tighten into a bitter little line. To hell with the damned creature, she certainly wouldn’t give it the pleasure of hearing her cry out. She angrily turned her blind eyes to the task at hand, and struck the flint over the tinderbox. The ensuing spark lit the hall like a flash of lightning, but didn’t catch the tinder. She bit her lip and struck again, and again. The bright flashes left light-scars on the backs of Wynter’s eyes and she blinked rapidly, forcing the red trails away from her vision.
Come on
, she thought, poising to strike again,
please
.

The next spark caught the tinder, and Wynter bent her head and blew gently until the little pile of wood shavings blazed. She lit the candle with shaking hands, and lifted it over her head so as not to ruin her vision. The candle and the rapidly dying tinder-blaze threw a wavering circle of light.

To her relief and anger the cat stood just a foot away, eyeing her with undisguised contempt.

“Honestly,” it hissed, showing all its needle teeth. “Your species! So utterly dependant on its
props
.” It shook its head in disdain, and stalked into the darkness.

Wynter gritted her teeth, packed her stuff away and stamped out the last of the mostly dead fire. Then, lifting the candle even higher, she followed the cat’s arrogantly twitching hindquarters to the top of the corridor.

The two of them stood at the head of the steps, looking uncertainly down at the door of the torture chamber. The air in the stairwell seemed to writhe under the unsteady illumination of the candlelight.

“I will await you here,” murmured the cat, unusually quietly. “Whatever business you have in The Black Room, it’s… it is no concern of mine.” And it sat stiffly down on the flagstones, its eyes glued to the shifting darkness at the foot of the steps.

Thank you so much
, thought Wynter,
thank you so, so very much for all of your great help
. Her feeble sarcasm warmed her not a jot as she descended the stairs.

She heard the whispering as soon as she neared the closed door, and it stopped her dead. It seemed to fill the bottom of the stairwell as a living presence. It did not so much inhabit the air, as attempt to inhabit Wynter. Hissing and slipping through her skin, it filtered into her brain. It crawled underneath her clothes and ran itself along her ribs. It twisted under her skin, and slid, cold and stealthy, up her spine

The memory of Christopher’s voice rose, bright and clear against the gurgling terror of the whispered litany…
You ever seen an eye drawn from its socket?

Wynter choked out a little sound and took a step back. She began to tremble and her wildly shaking candle spattered her upraised hand with gobs of hot wax.

Every whispered word was clear and distinct, though the voice that spoke was clogged with pain and guttural with fear. It was the Midlanders’ prayer to their virgin. Wynter stood and listened to it, her eyes wide and staring. Fat drops of wax fell into her hair and spattered on her cheeks, as she tried to gather the courage to reach out and turn the handle.

“
Ave Maria
,” implored the desperate voice, “
gratia plena, Dominus tecum
…” The words gained speed, as if afraid of being stopped, “…
benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesu
.” Surely no earthly person could speak so rapidly and so clearly. Wynter felt her head begin to spin. “
Sancta Maria
,” whispered the voice, its wretched pleading reaching new heights of despair “
Mater Dei ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen
.” Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

There was no pause after the “amen”, no ghostly inhale. The voice just continued on into another driving round of prayer, launching once again into “
Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum
…” It rose in pitch and speed. Its desperation palpable “
Benedicta tu in mulieribus
…” it cried, as if the words themselves could save it, “…
et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesu
.”