us. It’s us or him, Lord. There’s no choice.’
‘You’re a fool, Lady Ricinus,’ he said savagely. ‘Gods, how I regret the day I made you my wife.’
To Tali’s surprise, Lady Ricinus bent her head, deferring to him.
‘You’re right, I suppose,’ he went on. ‘Your folly has left us with no choice.’
‘Are we in agreement, Lord Ricinus?’
‘I believe we are, Lady Ricinus. The chancellor has to die.’ He stared at her. ‘Are you in contact with our mutual friend?’
‘I–I can be,’ said Lady Ricinus. ‘I’ll make the arrangements.’
‘Do so, and we may yet survive.’
‘It will be costly,’ she said, biting her lip.
‘Then you’d better find the Pale before the chancellor does. And before you make any deals, make sure of the price you’re getting for her.’
‘I will, the instant I find her.’
Once she had gone, Tali reinserted the plug and sat down in the darkness. Lady Ricinus must know that the palace had secret passages, and she had hundreds of servants at her disposal. They would soon find her, for wherever Tali went she left clear tracks in the thick dust. She shuddered at the thought of falling into Lady Ricinus’s hands; she would be merciless.
What to do? She should tell Rix about his parents’ high treason, immediately. It was his right to know, but that would both endanger him and put him in an impossible position. If he said nothing and the chancellor found out, Rix would be condemned just as much as Lord and Lady Ricinus. But if he betrayed them … Tali did not see how a loyal son like Rix could survive it.
She could not tell him, though that meant that she had to act directly, and soon. Was saving the chancellor’s life more urgent than her own quest? He was a calculating man who appeared to have ill intentions towards her, but could she stand by and allow him to be assassinated in the middle of a war? To lose Hightspall’s leader at such a time would be devastating. She could not allow it.
Besides, the chancellor’s spectible was her one hope of locating the buried magery she needed before she could go after the wrythen. Tali discounted that the spectible no longer worked. That could be a lie put out to deter thieves. She had to get it.
So: she must warn the chancellor about the threat on his life, urgently. She also needed to stay close to Rix, praying that his cellar sketch was not a divination of her own death but a record of her mother’s that would reveal his lost memories of the murder. She had to protect herself from the wrythen’s minions, who could locate her if her guard relaxed and she allowed the
And not least she had to rescue Rannilt. The poor child must be in agony.
The most urgent roads led to the chancellor, but how was she to get into the most closely guarded building in Hightspall? Remembering that whiff of cinnamon and musk she had caught earlier, Tali smiled. She would go via paths that any normal Hightspaller would find impossible. To a Pale brought up in the maze that was Cython, navigating the labyrinth of tunnels, caves, shafts and passages beneath this part of old Caulderon would be no harder than finding the way through the city streets.
She would go down to the tunnels and sniff her way in.
But first she had to talk to Rix and Tobry.
CHAPTER 71
‘What about this nose?’ Rix said exhaustedly when Tobry came up. He had redone the purple-veined bulb a dozen times but could not get it right.
‘I don’t care,’ snapped Tobry, who was ghostly pale. ‘Make it a bunch of grapes, a turnip, a crystal ball — anything as long as it doesn’t look like a drunkard’s todger.’
Rix laid his brush down. ‘What’s the matter with you today?’
‘I’m so worried about Tali I can’t think.’
‘I’m worried too, but I’ve got to get this done.’
Tobry did not reply.
‘You have to help me, Tobe. I can’t do this by myself.’
Tobry checked the nose, cursorily, and sat down. ‘It’s beautiful. Perfect.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ Rix fretted.
‘Just finish the damn portrait. At this stage, it doesn’t matter what his nose looks like as long as he’s got one.’
‘There is such a thing as artistic integrity.’
Tobry jumped up and took him by the shirt front. ‘Have you been out today?’
‘I’m not allowed out.’
‘Would you like a report from the front?’
‘No, but I’m sure you’re going to give me one.’
‘You’d better sit down.’
‘I don’t want to sit down.’
Tobry picked him up by the shirt front and the belt of his kilt and threw him two yards onto the couch, which skidded backwards under his weight until it hit the wall.
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ said Rix. ‘I’ll sit. Spit it out, then.’
‘I’ll start at the furthest distance and work in. Firstly, our forces have been attacked
‘That’s bad,’ said Rix.
‘Secondly, a thousand Cythonians have swarmed up from a rat hole at Tumulus Town — ’
‘Never heard of it.’
‘Yes, you have. The chancellor told you about the attack there.’
‘Oh,’ said Rix, rubbing his temples. ‘Right. Where is Tumulus Town?’
‘It’s a scabrous suburb on the south-east side of Caulderon. Thousands of tiny shanties, hundreds of alleys — ’
‘Why would they attack there?’
‘It’s a strategic hillside — the perfect base for an attack on the rest of the city. They already hold thirty streets, they’ve driven out everyone who could run and probably slaughtered those who could not, and it’ll take us five times their number to gouge them out. And the enemy are gathering. At least thirty thousand of them.’
Far more than all the armies in Caulderon. Rix was silent, shaken.
‘Then,’ Tobry went on, ‘there’s the outbreak of dead-lung in the villages near Plegm, and all around the Rat Hole.’ Rix sat upright, staring at him. ‘What, you hadn’t heard about that?’
‘I told you …’ said Rix.
‘You can imagine who’s being blamed for it,’ said Tobry. ‘The treacherous Pale. If Tali is seen outside, she’s likely to be killed on sight.’
Rix put his head in his own hands. ‘Is that all?’
‘I’ve hardly started. Packs of jackal shifters have attacked dozens of villages that we know of, and doubtless many more where no one survived to tell about it. They go for the children first. It’s horrible, Rix. Unbearable to see what they do to them — ’ Tobry’s voice cracked.
Rix shivered. Nimry, Tobry’s little brother, had been killed by a jackal shifter and Tobry had never got over it.
‘A few have even been seen in Caulderon,’ Tobry went on, blank-faced, ‘though the Gods know how they got here.’
‘I suppose the mushroom eaters sent them up through their secret tunnels.’
‘And there was an attack on the gates of Palace Ricinus, just hours after the chancellor left.’
