Vengeance

would at least end all. ‘If you stay, you and Rannilt will die the deaths they reserve for escaping Pale. Do you want that for her?’

He jerked free and headed down the steep stairs.

‘We can’t let him go like this,’ said Tali as Tobry came down beside her.

‘Can you stop him?’

‘No, but you can.’ She prayed that Tobry would. Otherwise she would have to use her own plan, and that would shatter him.

‘Tali, Rix was brought up as the heir to a great and noble house,’ said Tobry, ‘one that had raised itself by its own prodigious efforts. He may not have liked his parents, but he honoured what they were and all they had done. Honour and duty and truth were everything to him, and now his world is revealed to be a lie. His family’s rise was bought with the blood of innocents, the parents he honoured were corrupt, and everything that was good about his life has been befouled.’

‘But he’s a good man. Surely people must see — ’

‘To the chancellor, it wasn’t Lady Ricinus who plotted to have him killed, it was House Ricinus. House Ricinus committed high treason and House Ricinus had to pay. But that’s not what ails Rix most.’

‘What does?’ said Tali.

‘Betraying his own parents.’

‘He was trying to save his house.’

‘Does that lessen the betrayal?’

‘They were evil, murderous monsters.’

‘Even so, in Rix’s eyes his dishonour can never be redeemed, and there’s only one way out.’

‘Would you take it?’ Tali hissed, ‘if you’d been put in such a position?’

Tobry’s eyes turned opaque. ‘Before my house fell, I was put in such a position,’ he said harshly. ‘But I lacked the courage to do the honourable thing afterwards. Do you wonder that the chancellor loathes me almost as much as I despise myself?’

His eyes forbade questioning. He pushed past and went down. Tali stood there, aching for these brave and decent men, neither of whom she could help. But Rix had to live and only Tobry could save him. To convince Tobry to do so, she had to tell him this terrible lie.

Would he believe her, though? If the positions were reversed, Rix would not believe her for a second — but Tobry had been in Rix’s shadow most of his life, standing beside Rix while he got everything. Yes, she thought Tobry would believe her lie.

‘Tobry?’ It came out as a strangled cry.

He stopped ten steps below, staring up at her. ‘Yes.’

‘Stop him. For me.’

He frowned. ‘For you? Why?’

Tali’s heart was racketing around her chest. She felt the colour rising up her throat at the dreadful lie she was about to tell. ‘Because,’ she gasped, ‘because I love him.’

He went so still that his feet might have frozen to the step. ‘You — love

— Rix?’

She forced herself to meet Tobry’s bruised eyes, but they were even more unreadable than before. She needed him to act on the lie; she also wanted him to call her on it.

‘I think I have ever since … since Rix carried me down the cataract … I–I can’t do without him.’ She reached down towards Tobry, pleadingly. ‘Please. Save him from himself. For me.’

Tobry took a shuddering breath, lifted one foot and then the other. ‘You do know the fairy tale about the girl who called her lover back from death?’

She went down, step by slow step. ‘Rix isn’t dead.’

‘Isn’t he?’ he said stiffly. ‘I can’t refuse you. But he won’t thank either of us.’

But Rix would live! In a rush of relief, she threw her arms around Tobry and he recoiled, holding her away with upraised palms.

‘What’s the matter?’ She would never understand men.

‘You’ve just pledged yourself to Rix.’

‘But … that doesn’t mean you and I can’t be friends …’

‘I won’t dishonour myself further, Tali.’

His eyes cleared and, for an instant, she saw the despair and loss he was desperately trying to conceal. Then he turned and ran down.

What have I done? Tali thought. And between these two good men, how can I possibly undo it?

When she entered Rix’s salon, he was wearing a sword on each hip and had his boots on. ‘Well, old friend,’ he said to Tobry, ‘it’s been good knowing you. Don’t come after me, will you?’

‘Not if you don’t want me to.’

‘Try to remember me the way I was … before all this.’ Rix extended his hand.

‘I’m the last person entitled to judge anyone.’

As Tobry put out his hand, Tali held her breath. Was he going to do it, or not? And if he was, how?

His other hand was in his pocket and she saw the outline of his elbrot there. As they clasped hands there came a small emerald flash and crackle. Rix was hurled backwards, his head thudded against the heatstone and he fell, dazed. Tobry disarmed him, clamped a set of manacles around his ankle and locked them through the frame of the heatstone.

Rix groaned, tried to get up and discovered that he was shackled. His eyes opened wide. ‘You utter bastard, Tobe.’

‘Yes,’ said Tobry. ‘I am.’

CHAPTER 98

Though she bedded down in front of the heatstone, Tali ached from the cold that night. But even had she been warm, even had the shearing pains in her head not been worse than ever, she would not have been able to sleep.

Rix, sitting as unyielding as a set square by the left-hand end of the heatstone, never took his eyes off her. Had she done the right thing? She could not tell. He knew she had put Tobry up to it and his silence was an accusation — three times I risked my life for you, and when I most needed your understanding you turned on me.

It wasn’t the only thing between them. Rix had not betrayed his mother, because Tali had already informed the chancellor of Lady Ricinus’s treason. But she could not find the words to make this confession. Or perhaps she lacked Rix’s courage.

Tobry lay on his back with his eyes closed, so rigidly that she knew he was awake. He had avoided her eye since the incident on the stairs. How long had he loved her? Thinking back, Tali suspected it was from the moment he first set eyes on her at the oasis.

And what about herself? She cared for him as a friend, yet until her quest was fulfilled and justice done she could not allow any man to be more than a friend. Even so, that magical night at the ball, when she had spent two hours in his arms, still made her glow inside.

She shook off the memories. Glynnie and Benn were curled up together on one of the couches, bathed in the light from the heatstone, sleeping soundly. Their faith in their lord was absolute.

Rannilt’s pulse was barely there now. She was slipping away and there was nothing anyone could do. Fretfully, Tali whipped the iron pages of The Consolation of Vengeance back and forth. What else was the book apart from a call to action? A philosophical work, or a manual for revenge?

From Wil, she knew it was the latest of a set of books called the Solaces. Lyf had made them and, via some incomprehensible magery, transmitted perfect copies to the Matriarchs in Cython, page by page, over hundreds of years. The Solaces told the matriarchs what to do, Wil had said, but what did this book say, and how could she