Vengeance

then threw it down with another heavy sigh.

‘You used to love painting,’ said Tobry, sitting down. He brought out a liqueur bottle from behind his back, filled his own goblet and leaned back.

‘I still do.’ Rix selected a smaller brush. ‘When I’m working, all my troubles disappear, but this picture won’t come right.’

‘Your heart’s not in it,’ said Tobry. ‘You don’t want to do it.’ He sipped the liqueur and his eyes rolled upwards in bliss.

Rix’s knuckles whitened around the brush, which snapped. He tossed it aside, irritated by the pleasure his friend could take from the simplest things while he, Rix … ‘Of course I want to do it,’ he said. ‘It’s for Father’s great day.’

‘When is his Honouring?’ said Tobry.

Rix glanced at the cherry wood month-clock by the stairs. The knife-blade hands seemed to be spinning towards him. He blinked, focused and it was just a clock.

‘Eleven days,’ he said ominously. At this rate he wouldn’t have his father’s face finished by then, and the whole portrait had to be completed by the Honouring. That it not be done was unthinkable, for he was a dutiful son, and yet …

‘Would you like me to leave you alone?’

‘You’d better get back to my women,’ Rix said curtly, collecting crimson paint on the tip of another brush.

Laughter echoed up the stairs. ‘They seem happier without me.’ Tobry rubbed his chin. ‘And considering how hard I tried to please them, I find that a tad ironic.’

‘You find everything ironic.’ Rix dabbed at the line of his father’s twisted mouth, then scraped it off. ‘You don’t take anything seriously.’

‘With the world about to end in ice or fire,’ Tobry said lightly, ‘why should I? Life is a joke at our expense. I sometimes wonder if the entire universe isn’t a farce.’

As Rix reached out to the canvas, he felt the palace closing around him like dungeon walls. He was exhausted, but if he went back to bed the nightmare would batter him again, and again. He could not stay here, must not be here the night after tomorrow -

‘Are you all right?’ said Tobry.

‘What?’ Rix felt dislocated, as though a segment had been snipped from his life.

‘You’ve been as still as a gargoyle for a good five minutes.’

Rix cast the brush down. ‘I can’t do it … Come on.’

‘Where are we going?’ Tobry rose lazily, goblet in hand.

‘Anywhere but here.’ Rix thought for a moment. ‘Let’s go hunting in the mountains.’ He held his breath, waiting for Tobry to tell him what a bad idea it was, hoping he would. ‘Don’t try to talk me out of it,’ Rix said half- heartedly.

‘I wasn’t planning to. I love it when people run away from their responsibilities.’

‘I’m not running away — ’ Of course he was, and Lady Ricinus would be furious. Rix stopped, wryly imagining her listing him into the month’s flogging tithe. He wouldn’t put it past her.

‘I’d encourage you to neglect all your duties,’ said Tobry, studying the canvas. ‘For instance, it can’t possibly take eleven days to finish this. Leave it ’til the last night, then fling the paint on with a bucket. None of the philistines at the Honouring will know the difference.’

Had Tobry been talking to anyone else, Rix would have laughed. ‘Oh, shut up and come on. Bring the liqueur.’ Was he turning into his drunken father already? ‘No, leave it.’

‘What say I bring it and you don’t have any?’ Tobry said cheekily.

‘I suppose we might need it,’ Rix rationalised. ‘For the cold, I mean.’

He had to get away from Lady Ricinus who controlled every minute of his life, from the terrorised servants and the beautiful palace which was as suffocating as a coffin. Tobry didn’t know how lucky he was, having nothing.

Rix ran down the stairs to the dressing room, exchanged his kilt for mustard-yellow woollen trews, selected a pair of black knee-boots and heaved them on. He reached for his favourite weapon, a magnificent red broadsword he had been given on his seventeenth birthday, then hesitated.

‘Is that a new one?’ said Tobry, pointing to a battered scabbard at the back. A square hilt, tightly wound with worn black wire, protruded from it.

‘Actually, it’s a family heirloom, and ages-old. Mother told me to use it but I don’t like it.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s too light. I’m afraid it’ll break,’ Rix lied.

Tobry carried the scabbard out into the salon, drew the sword, sliced the air across and down, then diced it. ‘It’s beautifully balanced.’ He flicked the tip, ting. ‘Lovely metalwork. It’s titane, almost unbreakable. And damnably hard to forge.’

It had a bluish tint and the blade was slightly curved, like a sabre, though it had cutting edges on front and back. An inscription down the blade was so worn as to be illegible save for the first two words, Heroes must.

‘Heroes must?’ said Tobry, looking from the blade to Rix, then back to the blade. ‘What does that remind me of?’

Rix had no idea. ‘Mother said it’s enchanted to protect its owner,’ he said reluctantly. His throat tightened. He thumped his chest a couple of times to clear his air passages.

Tobry ran a finger along the flat of the blade and pale yellow swirls appeared in the air around it. ‘No ordinary charm, though.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s not meant to work against soldiers, or wild beasts.’

‘Really? What’s the good of it, then?’

‘It protects against magery.’

Sweat formed in Rix’s armpits. ‘Why would anyone attack me with magery?’

‘I can’t imagine,’ Tobry said drily. He handed it to Rix and went out.

The sword jerked like a dowsing rod and swung around until its quivering tip pointed towards the heatstone. For a few seconds Rix strained to hold it, then it stilled like any other lifeless blade.

Was the magery of a sword enchanted to protect its owner worse than the attack of some uncanny creature? Probably not. He slammed it into its scabbard and belted it on, shuddering. After considering his kilt, head to one side, he tossed it into his bag in case the weather turned warm.

Tobry reappeared with a small case containing balms and potions, bandages and needles.

‘What’s that for?’ said Rix irritably.

‘When some beast tears your legs off, I’ll be able to sew the loose skin over your stumps,’ Tobry said casually.

Rix felt a phantom pain at mid-thigh level, but shook it off.

‘Why go at this time of night?’ asked Tobry.

‘It’ll be light when we get there.’

‘And by the time the servants wake Lady Ricinus, she won’t be able to order you back.’

Rix didn’t bother to reply. Tobry knew him better than he knew himself.

‘What are we hunting?’ Tobry went on.

‘I don’t care, the more savage the better. I need to cleanse myself.’

‘Of what?’

‘I can’t tell! But there’s something wrong inside me.’

‘Drinking and wenching aren’t crimes. Even Lady Ricinus encourages you in that.’

‘I’d feel better if she disapproved. What kind of a mother urges her only son into debauchery?’

Tobry opened his mouth, but wisely closed it again.

‘Something is badly wrong with the world,’ said Rix. ‘And I feel as though it’s all down to me.’

‘Hightspall’s troubles began over a century ago.’