“I don’t know,” Dorrin said. “I thought of the same thing. I’m sure if it were possible, someone would try it.” Bitterness rose in her throat, nauseating. How could anyone engender children just to use them so? “But whether that is possible … I don’t know, and I don’t know how to find out.”
“I suppose,” Selfer mused, “it’s no worse to do it to your own family than to strangers. At least it’s not hurting outsiders.”
Rage blinded Dorrin for a moment; she fought it down, thought her way through what he meant. “I thought it was worse,” she said finally. “Family loyalty … but I see what you mean. It cannot be right to bear children just to destroy their futures … but the family so vile deserves to lose its own, not impose that loss on others. Though they have, at least some of the time. One of them is a merchant in Valdaire.”
“Anyone we’ve dealt with?”
“I’m not sure,” Dorrin said. “All it says here is merchant—not the merchant’s name. And a moneychanger in Vérella.”
“Vérella! That’s not good at all. And no name?”
“No. But if we look for the moneychanger the family used there, I would expect to find him.”
“Only men?”
“No. But mostly.” Dorrin sighed. Exhaustion weighed her down. Her own, or imposed by that boy upstairs? “This is a long, deep plot,” she said. “I never realized that as a child. That they valued cruelty and power, yes—but not this way.”
“Not all of them,” Selfer said. “You’re not like that.”
“I hope not,” Dorrin said.
“And there might be others, even here. Another girl like you among the children.”
“Or boy,” Dorrin said. She sighed again. “I have to believe that. I have to look for that, as well as the evil.”
“But couldn’t you bind this boy’s magery and send him under guard to Vérella?”
“If he confesses, when I confront him—but I don’t see how I can risk it. Us. The entire domain. If I fail here, the prince and Council will have every reason to invade, raze the entire domain, and kill everyone Verrakai has touched. Innocent people will die, and Tsaia itself could be torn apart.”
“Do you really have any doubt that you can kill him? A mere boy of nine winters?”
“Oh, yes. If he is Carraig, then he’s no mere boy. He is older than my father was, and had training and experience in the use of his magery for decades before he transferred into this boy. And if he’s still older—if Carraig himself were invaded—he may have generations of experience, and power much greater than mine. I have not been able to think of any stratagem he will not have imagined. That’s why I want you to remove all Phelani troops from the house—”
“That’s crazy.”
“No. If his magery defeats mine, your danger is extreme. You must fire the house and all in it, then ride as fast as you may to Vérella. Or—wait—send a squad to Kieri, in Chaya.”
As evening dimmed, Dorrin waited for Restin in the dining room, as prepared as she could be. Restin would of course notice every magical preparation, unless the gnurtz dulled his senses enough. She feared it wouldn’t.
The boy who came in and bowed politely to her looked as harmless as any boy his age. “You are the new Duke?” he asked in a light tenor.
“Yes,” Dorrin said. “I am now Duke Verrakai.”
“What happened to the former Duke?”
“He died,” Dorrin said. Then, having no desire to drag this out, she said, “Attarik Verrakai, Carraig.”
A flicker of eyelid. “Who’s Carraig?” in the same light tone. The command to reveal his true identity didn’t work—she would have to depend on her ability to detect such transfers.
“You,” Dorrin said. “Uncle Carraig, to me. I remember you.”
“I’m Restin—” The boy stopped, bit his lip, then grinned, a most unpleasant grin. “What fool made you duke, Dorrin? You have no power. No one can rule here without it—”
Caught by his gaze, she had no voice, nothing but fear. All the nightmares of her childhood rose in her mind, all the fear, all the misery, all the pain. In the same sweet child’s voice, he spoke softly, almost gently. Carraig did that, she remembered, caressing helpless prisoners with his voice as he tormented with his hands. No doubt at all that this was Carraig, not a child pretending another identity. Which meant she must kill him, if she could, unless the gods provided another way. She prayed, for all of them, but felt only a listening stillness.
“I don’t know how you found out, little Dorrin. I suppose one of the others told you … you will tell me, you know, later. But for now … I see you are frightened, child, and that is well. I have had to be so meek with the others, to fool the maids. It’s been too long since I had the pleasure of seeing someone truly afraid … just sit there, Dorrin, and let me taste your fear … I could be in your body, you know, ugly as it is. Imagine that. Your soldiers obeying someone they thought was you. That foolish prince—”
Warmth caressed her mind, but it was not his magery. She was not the scared child she had been; she was Dorrin, shaped by the Company of Falk, by Falk himself, by near four hands of years as Kieri Phelan’s captain, veteran of more wars than Carraig had seen. She had known a paladin … at the memory of Paksenarrion, it was as if Paks were at her side. Her own magery leapt forth, and Restin/Carraig stopped, held motionless.
A dark mist gathered in the air; Dorrin thrust the dagger she’d prepared with deathwish powder into the child’s throat and wrenched it side to side. Blood spurted out; the dark mist thickened.
“Ward of Falk!” Dorrin said. The mist hung there, not quite touching her. “Begone,” she said. It writhed like a swarm of insects but did not dissipate at once. She drew her sword; it flared blue, as always in the presence of evil, and she pointed it at the thickest area of mist. “Go and never return. Go to the High Lord for judgment, and harm nothing on your way.” The words she had learned so many years before, training to be a Knight of Falk, came to her in the old language from no one knew where. “Adakvarteh preklurtz, preklurtz tavin vantish …”
By the end of the adjuration, the mist had gone, vanished. Dorrin looked at the child’s body, sprawled in its chair, blood still wet on the table, the chair, the floor.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Ward of Falk for the soul you were born with, and the child who died, and may Falk and the High Lord forgive me this killing, that was not my desire.”
Nausea twisted her, two days’ worth of disgust and horror and shame; she made it out the front door and spewed on the steps, retching until she had nothing more to lose.
Fine figure of a Duke she made … and yet, what could be more appropriate to Verrakai House and its history than vomit on the entrance steps? She stood up, shaky but cleansed, fetched a lamp from the reception hall, and lit the torch that stood ready for her to signal Selfer and the others that she had prevailed.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
They had not gone as far as she advised; they were with her sooner than she hoped. “Ware the steps,” she said as Selfer neared them. “I … don’t like killing children.”
“He wasn’t a child, if he was what you said,” Selfer said. “But I’m not surprised. You do not take delight in suffering or death.”
“Flattery?” Dorrin said, smiling.
“No, my lord. Observation.”
From someone who had seen her in battle, not only recently but in Aarenis, it was strange testimony but comforting.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Are there more such spies here?” Selfer asked.
“Among the children? I’m not sure. I must question the maids more closely. Once I suspected this boy, I didn’t test the others with my magery lest he attack one of them then and there.” She sighed. “I don’t want to panic the children who aren’t possessed, or the maids. We’ll need to conceal Restin’s death, and consider how to handle the body.”
“We can’t just bury it?”
“There’s blood magery
here, Selfer. We will need to be sure that every drop of blood is cleaned up, for instance—and burn the rags we clean with.”
“I’ll have someone—”
“I need to be there.” At his look, she shook her head. “No, not from guilt—to ensure that the evil in this house doesn’t harm those who come in contact with it.” She scowled, looking past him into darkness. “I don’t know enough, that’s the truth. I never thought I’d be coming back here; I never wanted to know about it, how it works, what the warding spells are. And now that’s put you and the entire realm in danger. It’s not enough to be disgusted by it—it feeds on disgust and revulsion.”
“So … what will work against it?”
“Falk and Gird and the High Lord have power against it, but I sense they expect me to do the actual work.” Suddenly, for no reason, Dorrin felt lighter of heart. “I suppose that’s proper. I swore to be Falk’s servant, when I took the ruby. To the gods belong power, and to us the work of our hands.”
“Then the first step is cleaning up a mess in the dining room?” Selfer said. “That sounds within human strength.”
Dorrin straightened. “Indeed. Set your guards for the night, Captain, and then send me a couple of strong-stomached soldiers.”
The blood smell in the dining room was strong but not more than Dorrin had endured many times before in a life of soldiering. The body seemed to have shrunk, as bodies did when not animated. All the adult cunning and malice had gone from the face; Dorrin lifted the body, cradling the head, and laying it upon the table.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she murmured to the corpse. “They used you, as they used me. You will rest easy in your grave; your soul has long returned to the light, and the Lady will cradle your bones.”
She searched along the paneled walls, and found the door that led to a linen pantry. By the time the men came with water and rags, Dorrin had wrapped the body in a linen tablecloth and bound it with brocade curtain ties. “I believe it is safe for burial,” she said. “But in the morning, and far from this house. The child who was suffered long before his body was taken; the body should be far from that suffering.”
“Yes, my lord,” Selfer said.
“I will go up and speak to the nursemaids; they’ll be wondering why I haven’t sent Restin up to bed.”
“You aren’t going to tell them?”
“That I killed a nine-winters child? No. Tomorrow I must try to get them to understand what he was, what the death-sickness was, but not tonight. The children who aren’t involved need sleep.” She yawned. “So do I. I will tell them he’ll sleep somewhere else.”
“They’ll worry—”
“I can’t help that,” Dorrin said. “It’s the business of nurserymaids to worry.”
Upstairs, she found, as she expected, the senior maid at the door of the nursery, looking worried.
“My lord, Restin should be in bed—it’s past time—”
“I know,” Dorrin said. “He is in bed, but not here. He is old enough to have a room of his own, you know.”
“Yes, but—”
“He is sleeping,” Dorrin said, putting just a touch of power into it.
The maid’s worried face smoothed. “Yes, my lord.”
“Just take care of the others,” Dorrin said. “And get some sleep. If the weather’s fair tomorrow, you can take them out in small groups to exercise in the garden.”
“Yes, my lord.” The maid curtsied and went into the nursery, dimly lit by a lamp at either end. Dorrin caught a glimpse of the rows of beds, the little lumps of sleeping children, before the door closed.
She went back downstairs. She didn’t want to sleep in the dining room, but she was desperate for sleep. In the end, she slept in the main reception room, in bedding taken from the rooms upstairs, with her own Phelani soldiers on guard.
She woke at dawn, to the low-voiced mutters of two guards wagering on when she’d wake, before or after they’d been relieved for breakfast.
“Before,” Dorrin said from her nest of blankets.
“You could’ve slept another glass or two, Captain,” one said.
“My lord, Sef; say my lord. She’s a duke now, not a captain.”
The two most inveterate gamblers in the cohort. “I might have known,” Dorrin said. “Black Sef and Merik. You two would wake a corpse, arguing odds.”
“We was really quiet,” Sef said. “Just barely said a thing—”
“I wasn’t awake,” Dorrin said. “And now I am. That’s how loud you didn’t talk.”
“Sorry, Cap—my lord,” Merik said.
“I needed to get up anyway.” She felt rested, but dirty, itching with the need to bathe. Today, surely, she could find time to get clean all over. And make real plans for the next days, not just reacting to one thing after another. Somewhere out there still more Verrakai plotted the realm’s destruction. “Light more lamps. I’m going to see if the kitchen’s stirring.”
“It is,” Sef said. “I smell sib.”
Dorrin could too, now that she paid attention. “Good,” she said. “I want hot water.” She picked up her pack with its change of clothes, and headed for the kitchen.
There, warmth came from both the hearth and the ovens. Two young cooks thumped at lumps of dough, a row of lumps under a cloth would be ready when the oven heated, a can of sib simmered at the edge of the hearth, and a pot of porridge hung from a hook bubbled even as a red-faced maid stirred it.
“My lord Duke!” Farin bobbed a curtsy. “What do you need?”
“A can of warm water,” Dorrin said. “And a place to wash up.”
“There’s the bathing rooms upstairs,” Farin said. Dorrin shook her head. “Well, then … the servants’ bath, just out there. It’s not … not fancy …”
“I don’t need fancy,” Dorrin said. “I do need to be clean.” She grinned at the cook. “I was a soldier, you know. I can bathe in a cold river, at need. But warm water is better.”
“Jaim—bring water cans!” Farin turned back to Dorrin. “A mug of sib, while the water heats?”
“That would be lovely,” Dorrin said. She looked around the busy kitchen. Where could she be out of the way while water heated?
“Just there,” Farin said, nodding to a corner with a low stool. Dorrin took the mug of sib and sat on the stool, watching. Two more lumps of dough, shaped into rounds, were set next to the others. Farin opened one oven, thrust in an arm, shook her head, and shut it again. The other, she deemed ready. She took down a long-handled wooden paddle from its hook on the wall, and slid it under half the loaves, then swung it around and into the oven with one movement. Dorrin noticed that the others all stepped neatly out of the way without a command, even the youngest.
Work resumed instantly. The young bakers, now they had shaped the last of the dough, cleaned their workspace, took mortars and pestles from a shelf, and began grinding seeds—spices, Dorrin realized, as her nose recognized figan among others.
“Water’s hot,” Farin said. “Jaim, Efla—carry these out to the bathhouse.”
The servants’ bathhouse had a half-barrel tub hung on the wall, a stone floor with a channel for washing feet, and a stone trough with a plug at one end for washing hands. A leather water sack hung from the plugged pipe that supplied water. Dorrin put her pack down on the ledge above the trough, took down the water sack, and pulled the plug. Icy water poured into the sack; she plugged the pipe again when the sack was full. By then the kitchen servants had the barrel tub down and a stack of towels beside the steaming cans of hot water.
“You may go,” Dorrin said; they nodded and withdrew.
She mixed one can of hot water with cold in the barrel tub for a bath, and used the other for washing her hair. Clean and dry at last, and in clean clothes, she felt fully awake, alert.
When Dorrin came back into the kitchen, her dirty clothes stuffed in her pack and water cans atop it, she found Selfer talking to the cook. Servants rushed to take the cans from her.
Farin tur
ned to her. “My lord—your captain suggested meat for breakfast in addition to porridge and bread. We do have smoked ham, of course, and sausages.”
Dorrin’s mouth watered. “Fried ham. Do you have any eggs?”
“The hens have only just started laying, my lord, and we used yesterday’s eggs in the bread.”
“That’s all right,” Dorrin said. “Ham will be enough, with the porridge. And if there’s someone who can wash my shirt—”
“The laundry maids heat their water after breakfast,” Farin said firmly. “If you’ll just leave your things in the passage—” Not in her clean and busy kitchen. “Now, my lord, meals for today?”
Dorrin let Farin guide her to the selections the cook really wanted—yes, that haunch of venison for dinner, with baked red-roots, stewed fruit in spices, a steamed pudding, and for midday, a pastry pie of minced meat and vegetables. She touched Farin lightly with her magery—but that commanding presence wasn’t a transferred Verrakai, just the cook’s own ability.
Breakfast that morning was the first meal Dorrin enjoyed since arriving. Porridge with honey dripped in it, fried ham, hot bread swiping up the fat from the fried ham. The sun rose into a clear sky, with ground mist along the stream; in the distance, the subtle colors of early spring created a picture of peace and beauty.
She made lists while eating, and after breakfast set about them. With a squad of Phelani, she went back into the old keep, searching from top to bottom with great care. It had been used for storage as well as holding prisoners: the family treasury, the armory, rolls of woolen cloth dyed Verrakai blue, jugs of blue dye, stacks of records. Dorrin had all this carried outside. Some levels were empty; they had once been occupied, some even recently—some beds with feather ticks and blankets still on the frames, chests and wardrobes still holding clothes, a leather purse with three copper coins.
“It’s like plundering,” Mekli said, staggering past her with a load of old books.