Marishka considered this but could reach no conclusion. Perhaps Ilsabet was right, but she was certainly at odds with Mihael's opinion. 'What should I do?' she asked.
'Just what I said before, Marishka. Do what you're told, since you have no choice, but see that he doesn't fall in love with you.'
Ilsabet looked at her so strangely that Marishka changed the subject. They slept together in the big bed, as they had so often when they were younger. She woke in the morning as her door was closing. Ilsabet had gone.
When Ilsabet reached her own chambers, she bolted the door behind her and went to the cupboard beside her bed. She rummaged behind some old scarves and ribbons and pulled out a wooden box. She opened it, inhaling a musty stench, then carefully lifted a bundle of soft wool fabric, unfolding a blue-and-gold cape and the white wool tunic hidden inside it. The stains of her father's blood had grown darker, and there was a thin coating of mold on the ones that had not yet dried.
She knew that if she wanted to keep the garment intact, she ought to wash it, but she wanted to see the stains there and through them to remember her father's head rolling away from his falling body, to see Peto above him, victorious, and gloating in his victory.
Someday, she thought, I will look at him that way. Someday I will have my revenge.
'At what cost?' These words of doubt were spoken an almost-familiar voice-feminine, gentle, and firm.
Had Ilsabet not been certain that she was alone in this room, she would have whirled and faced the intruder. Instead, Ilsabet pretended not to have heard the spectre. She began to fold the bloodstained tunic into the center of her father's cape. As she did, the stains brightened and began to spread, dripping from the woolen folds onto the polished wooden floor. Ilsabet stifled a scream and dropped the tunic, then looked down at her hands.
They were coated with new blood, which dripped from some hidden source off the tips of her fingers, leaving black stains on the brilliant green satin of her robe. The hallucination stole the breath from her lungs, and her heart pounded.
'At what cost?' the voice repeated.
Then she did whirl, but there was no one there at all.
PART II
EIGHT
Jorani had been nine years old when he first entered Nimbus Castle. He had no title then, his family no wealth. His father played the flute and dulcimer, his uncle the drums, while his mother danced and sang. His duty was to keep watch over their instruments, and to bring new ones when needed.
He was sitting at the side of the hall, engrossed in the beauty of his mother's singing, when out of the corner of his eye he spied a boy a few years older than he moving toward the family's pipes, lutes, and drums. He did not notice the boy's rich clothing. If he had, it would have made no difference. Everyone in the castle seemed wealthy to him, which made his family's scant possessions all the more precious.
Jorani waited until the thief picked up the set of carved wooden pipes, the most beautiful instrument his family owned and his own favorite to play. Jorani faced him. ' Put that down,' he ordered.
Instead the boy turned to run. Jorani sprang. He had expected the boy to put up a silent fight and run as soon as he broke away. Instead, the youth, who turned out to be considerably more muscular than he, let out a terrible scream, then got the better of him and dragged him through the center of hall to the baron's table.
'The gypsy brat attacked me, Father,' the boy declared. 'I want him executed.'
The baron stood. His ice-blue eyes stared with such intensity that it took all of Jorani's courage not to look away. 'You attacked my son?' the baron asked.
'I didn't know he was your son, Sire,' Jorani said. 'He seemed about to make off with one of our instruments. It was my duty to protect my family's goods.'
'You thought my son was a thief?'
Jorani sensed some amusement in the baron's tone and tried to take comfort in it. 'I only knew what my responsibility was, Sire,' he replied.
'Please explain, Janosk,' the baron said to his son.
'In private,' the boy whispered.
'You're the one who made the matter public,' the baron retorted.
'I wanted to play it. I would have put it back.'
'I see.' The baron focused on Jorani once more. 'Do you play?' he asked.
Jorani nodded, picked up the pipes, and played a slow, mournful song.
'Will you teach my son to play?'
Jorani looked up at his father, saw him nod eagerly, and understood. They were poor people. This might give them a chance for more.
The baron seemed to read his mind. 'Will you?' he asked more gently.
'Will your son let me teach him?' he responded.
Janosk nodded.
'Then I will do it,' he said.
The future baron proved to be a far better friend than a musician, but by the time the baron discovered this, he could not have separated the two boys. In time, Jorani forgot the ambitions of youth. Since then, he'd moved from commoner to knight to lord with his own magnificent estate less than a day's ride south of the castle. He was proud of his lands, and it pained him to think how rarely he visited them.
The long friendship with Janosk had made him too accepting of the man's faults, too willing to placate the ruler. When the first small insurrection had begun, he'd urged compromise. When Janosk hadn't listened, he'd advised him in matters of war-well, but not well enough.
After Janosk's death, he'd looked to Janosk's children and the future. Marishka had beauty but all the will of a reed in the wind. Mihael had ambition but lacked intelligence. So Jorani had turned to the one heir who most resembled his friend in temperament. The advice he'd given Ilsabet, while true, was premature.
And he suspected she had already begun to act on it.
As soon as he left the wounded men, he went to his hidden room and studied each of his bottles. He detected nothing missing in the most likely ones. But then, only a little would be needed. If she shook the bottles afterward, the powders would expand to fill the missing space.
It had to have been her, but if so, she had done it slyly-never giving him a hint of her plans, never gloating afterward. He sat at his table with his hands clasped beneath his chin, and debated what to do.
He had reached no decision when the hawks screeched a warning, giving him only enough time to climb the stairs, hide the entrance under his rug, and admit a servant waiting anxiously outside with a summons from Baron Peto.
He'd expected to be questioned, and was surprised the summons had taken so long. He was, after all, the most likely suspect in the bizarre event.
He met the baron in the same chamber where he and Janosk had often discussed political matters. As he expected, Peto went right to the point.
'I know you have some experience in the matter of poisons,' Peto said. 'Can you think of anyone else who might possess that knowledge?'
No matter how much Jorani respected this man, his loyalties remained with Janosk's kin. He shook his head.
'Ilsabet is your pupil, is she not?'
