CHAPTER 94
Di-DA-doh,
Tali had been hearing the triple call for hours and she now knew where it came from. Deroe was hunting her for the master pearl. He had ordered her mother killed for her pearl, and he had to pay, though Tali wasn’t sure she would get the chance.
The chancellor’s eyes had been on her at the end of the Honouring. For Hightspall, magery meant the difference between victory and defeat, and once he realised that she carried the master pearl, she would die for it.
Outside the palace gates, thousands of shanty dwellers had gathered to see the fall of House Ricinus, though few seemed to be enjoying the spectacle. How could the wealthiest house in Hightspall, one that had endured for generations, be toppled so quickly? And if Ricinus could fall, what hope was there for their miserable selves, with the enemy bound to return and no one to come to their aid?
It was not yet sunrise but Tali’s day felt week-long. Was Deroe watching her now? How would she recognise him? With the magery of three pearls, he could disguise himself as anyone.
Inside the gates, the guests from the Honouring watched silently, the men in their crumpled dress suits, the ladies bleary-eyed and bedraggled. They weren’t rejoicing either: the fall of a noble house that had, albeit briefly, inhabited the First Circle, reminded them of the fragility of their own positions.
Where was justice when the innocent were taken with the guilty? That kindly old man, the Master of the Palace, hung silent and still, as did the nine heads of his departments, four from the left side of the gate beside him, five from the right. They, at least, had been hanged with their clothes and their dignity. Lord and Lady Ricinus, naked, scratched and bruised after being dragged all the way from the palace, shuddered in the bitter cold. Tali’s toes were freezing in her ballroom slippers.
‘Hang Ricinus and his wife together,’ said the chancellor as the sun rose.
They were forced onto the scaffold below the great arch of the gate. Without her clothes, make-up, corsets and back brace, Lady Ricinus looked smaller and older, and walked with a stoop. It was impossible to see, in this pathetic baggage, how she had intimidated so many for so long. Tali avoided looking at Lord Ricinus’s drink-ruined body.
She could not bear to witness Rix’s agony, either. He was standing so still that he might have been turned to basalt, his fingers clawed over his heart as if tearing out his own falsity. Who would want to watch such a sight? But his parents were the last of House Ricinus, that had fallen and would never rise again, and he was required to see them on their final journey.
The barbed ropes were placed over their heads. No words were spoken for their souls; no priest or abbess was permitted to attend them. They were to die unshriven, cursed by the Five Heroes and forsaken by their Gods.
The chancellor gave the signal. Rix’s mother and father fell together. Lady Ricinus’s chicken neck snapped like the frail rib bones she had once stood on so contemptuously and she died at once. Lord Ricinus hung there, slowly choking, and though his death took five dreadful minutes, no mercy stroke was permitted.
A thousand klaxons howled, all over the city. Tali turned away as the ritual disembowellings were carried out. And we call the Cythonians barbaric. This was not justice; it was vengeance.
‘Who would have thought the execution of noble traitors could be so good for morale?’ Tobry said bleakly that afternoon. ‘I knew Lord and Lady Ricinus were hated, but …’ He trailed off.
‘I’m amazed there’s any fireworks left in Caulderon,’ said Tali.
It was still an hour until dark, but the rockets and the fiery wheels showed up clearly under the gloom created by a heavy brown overcast sky.
‘Or any grog. If the enemy were to attack now, they could walk in.
’ They were watching the celebrations from the tower inside the palace gates, wondering what, if anything, was left for them after such a disastrous night and day. The surrounding streets were clogged with drunken men and women, and even children, moving in colourful surges this way and that.
‘It’s not the enemy we have to worry about tonight,’ said Tobry.
Down the road, several dozen thugs were attacking the gates of a mansion with a ram. On the third strike the hinges tore out and they swarmed through, followed by hundreds of drunken shanty dwellers. The guards were torn to pieces, the rioters flooded into the mansion and shortly the leaders reappeared, dragging a plump man and a small grey-haired woman with them. The woman was struggling furiously, the man curiously listless.
‘Thissel and Teala of House Neger,’ said Tobry, shaking his head. ‘I knew them well, once.’
‘What have they done?’ said Tali.
‘Treated their servants too well. They’re good people — and that’s a fatal weakness now.’
‘They’re not going to kill them …’
‘It’s happening all over Caulderon. So
She looked where he was pointing. Smoke rose from half a dozen of the great houses and another was fully ablaze.
‘Why are they destroying those beautiful houses?’ said Tali, aching for her own, ruined manor.
‘What they can’t take with them, let no one have.’
‘But what does it gain anyone?’
‘Vengeance is power, the only kind the shanty dwellers have ever had, and how they glory in it.’
A huge man raised an axe. The heads came off, the bodies were strung from the broken gates, upside- down, and pelted with muck. The mob split, one part heading to the next manor, a smaller wedge heading up the hill towards Palace Ricinus. Only then did Tali realise the inevitable and remember that Rannilt was all alone.
She ran for the palace, pain spearing through her thigh with every step. Tobry matched her stride, but as they reached the front steps the horde came streaming towards them.
‘Lock the doors! Hurry.’ Tali took hold of the left-hand door and heaved.
‘Leave it!’ Rix stalked out, thrusting the doors wide, and the look in his eyes was so haunted that shivers crawled across Tali’s back. If ever a man wanted to die, he did.
‘There’s a hundred of them …’ began Tobry.
‘A
He stood at the top of the six broad steps outside the palace doors, hand on his sword hilt, waiting.
Tali hesitated, then moved out to his right. Tobry took position on the left.
The horde reached the foot of the steps, led by a huge, raw-boned fellow, taller than Rix and broader across the shoulders. His threadbare shirt and trews had diagonal sprays of blood from the earlier killings. He carried an axe with a six-foot handle and a bloody blade a foot across.
‘It’s the lording who betrayed his own parents,’ sneered the axeman. ‘Run, little lord — let’s see how far you get before I spill your guts.’
Rix put his hand on the wire hilt of his sword but did not draw.
The axeman hefted the gigantic axe. ‘I’m going to chop your arms and legs off and split you for kindling.’
As he lumbered up the steps, Rix took several steps backwards. The axeman grinned and called the rest of the mob with a sweep of his arm. At least twenty followed, carrying axes, mattocks, knives and a sword or two. Another hundred waited below.
Tali’s belly throbbed. A rasping sound beside her was Tobry drawing his blade, though what could it avail him against so many? They were going to die here. And Rannilt inside, without waking.
The axeman’s weapon was back over his shoulder, ready to swing, yet Rix had not drawn his sword. Surely he wasn’t so far gone as to let the brute cut him down?
‘Rix?’ Tobry said in a strangled gasp.
