Blood of the Delphi (The Harmatia Cycle Book 2) Page 5

  “What?” Zachary joined him, standing at his feet.

  “The two years I spent dead.”

  Zachary cleared his throat. He didn’t like to think about those years, when obsession had made him devoid of anything good or pure. Sverrin watched him steadily.

  “Did I ever tell you what it was like?”

  “You said it was like being suffocated,” Zachary said. “Crushed in darkness.”

  “Yes.” Sverrin nodded sombrely. “You did not burn my soul free, so I remained, unable to pass into the next life or return to the old until you saved me. It was like being buried alive. But you, above anyone, can understand that terror.”

  Zachary shifted with discomfort and Sverrin sighed.

  “But even from death, you faithfully returned me. I’ve always been able to trust you, Zachary. You have been a great friend and teacher to me for over twenty years. Which is why it pains me to see you turning from me now.”

  “Sverrin?” Zachary’s stomach constricted as Sverrin lunged forward in his throne and seized Zachary’s jaw between harsh fingers. His eyes burned like wild-fire and Zachary could see a sudden madness strumming through his King’s blood. One look into Sverrin’s face and Zachary’s knees grew weak, nausea rising into his stomach.

  “What is Rufus Merle to you?” Sverrin’s grip didn’t loosen, his voice terse.

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Zachary insisted.

  Sverrin released him, pushing him back. The King’s expression was torn between betrayal and anger. “You tried to kill him once for my sake,” Sverrin reminded. “Why do you defend him now? He is a traitor.”

  “I defend the truth, no more,” Zachary said.

  “Rufus Merle is a dangerous man.”

  “And I would be too, if I were hunted! But I would be a man none the less.” Alone as they were, Zachary allowed his voice to rise. “Athea—he’s not a demon! He’s not…not a monster. Sons of the gods,” he cursed, “those Kathraks have turned him into a living nightmare!”

  Something in those words seemed to stir Sverrin’s interest. “Those Kathraks?” he said softly. Zachary didn’t reply. “Not this again, Zachary.” Sverrin rolled his eyes.

  Zachary hesitated, glancing at the door pensively. “I am not alone in this. There’s unrest, Sverrin. Kathra is our ally, but they’re starting to take liberties. There are alchemists roaming our libraries, trying to get into the archives! They’re learning techniques which are forbidden to all but the Magi. We are sworn to serve the kingdom, but these alchemists have no similar binding. Each day, they learn more and more of our secrets and Kathra grows in power.”

  Sverrin appeared puzzled. “But Zachary, did you not defy the stars to put a Kathrak King on this throne?”

  “No, Sverrin.” Zachary shook his head. “I defied the stars to put you on the throne. And the blood that makes you King is Harmatian.”

  Sverrin seemed to concede this, nodding thoughtfully. “Blood right is a funny thing in this city,” he finally said. “I learnt that the day I shed mine at the hands of that Delphi assassin. The assassin you failed to stop.”

  The words struck hard, burrowing deeply into Zachary’s gut like an arrow shaft. In an instant he felt defeated. Sverrin considered him, pleased by Zachary’s beaten expression.

  “Kathra is our fathering nation. The Magi have been greedy with their knowledge and stunted the growth of our neighbouring kingdoms. Having Magi Ambassadors is all very well but by sharing in this knowledge we have earned a favour far greater. You see, there is a crop in Kathra superior to ours. Do you know what it is?”

  Zachary shook his head. He felt numb.

  “Men,” Sverrin said. “Soldiers, farmers, workers…cheap labour. The coffers of the castle have never been more full nor the bellies of my people.”

  Zachary didn’t reply. He’d seen the cheap labour of which Sverrin spoke—men who were almost slaves, taken from their homes and put to work. As for those who reaped the benefit of a full coffer…It was a much more particular number than Sverrin liked to boast. Zachary kept his thoughts to himself. Sverrin seemed satisfied and quickly steered the conversation back to its original purpose.

  “We have long underestimated the enemy. My father did and it led to my death. No more—I will rule with an iron fist and see that everyone knows Harmatia is not forgiving to those who betray her. So next time word comes up of Rufus Merle, word which has been warped to install a rightful sense of fear…Zachary, I would ask that you do not defend him. Am I understood?” There were unspoken words in this question, a threat, a warning, and maybe even a cruel invitation.

  Zachary bowed low. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “Good.” Sverrin clapped his hands, the sound loud in the hush of the room. “That will be all.”

  Again Zachary bowed, stepping back and walking out of the room. In the darkened corridor, Zachary composed himself. To the far right he could hear the large gathering in the hall, preparing for the banquet. Turning on his heel he set off to the left, up a flight of stairs. Zachary could hardly show himself in the great hall now, shaking as he was.

  “There, see—Beshwa.” Rufus lowered the map and pointed, with some satisfaction, down toward the village. Cushioned between the forest and the hills, it was a small industrial town, with a constant stream of smoke rising from the forger’s chimneys, and water-mills that tirelessly worked the river. “I told you we weren’t lost,” Rufus said smugly.

  Joshua scoffed. “We’re three hours late. It would’ve been quicker to go through that passing rather than around it.” Joshua broke off to clear his throat.

  “The forest was too dense and there could’ve been a swamp. I had no desire for a repeat performance of our last venture. I’m never trusting the will-o’-the-wisps again.”

  Joshua gave a small snigger and urged his horse on toward the town. Rufus followed, pulling his dust mask up over his nose.

  As they entered the town Rufus was struck by how different it was to their previous posting. Here, he could see poverty in the ill-keep of the houses and the beggars in the street.

  Glancing around the street, Rufus pulled up and tried to get his bearings. He didn’t know the Moineau family, nor were they expecting him, so there was no indication where they lived.

  Spotting a common stable in the corner, Rufus waved to a rather bleary looking stable boy, who blinked stupidly. “Yes, you.” Rufus beckoned again as the stable boy pointed up to himself, unsure. “Have you got room for two more?” Rufus held up a couple of coin.

  The stable boy glanced back into the stable behind him, and then signalled Rufus to wait, as he went in to check.

  Rufus grumbled, rubbing his eyes. They were tired already from the dust which hung in the air. Turning back, he found Joshua was engaged in conversation with a rather haphazardly dressed woman. She had a good figure, rolling hips and buxom breasts which bulged over her frail, openly cut chemise, her waist bundled into a sensuous purple corset.

  Wonderful. Rufus gritted his teeth. My brother is being accosted by the local whore.

  “He’s lovely,” she said, stroking Joshua’s horse, her fingers tickling its velvet nose. “I’ve never ridden a fine breed like this. Bet his stride’s smooth as satin.”

  “You can have a go if you like, I don’t mind,” Joshua offered and Rufus shuffled his own horse across, intervening with a warning cough.

  “Bless you, sweetness,” the whore cooed, “but I’m not sure your companion would approve. Good day to you, sir.” She caught Rufus’s eyes mischievously.

  “Good day,” he said tersely, tipping his head.

  “Your page’s offerin’ me a turn on his horse.”

  “He’s my son, and so I hear.” Rufus frowned across to Joshua, who ignored him, trying to flatten his hair which was wild from the wind. Glancing back to the stable, Rufus searched hopefully for the stable boy. He’d yet to emerge.

  “Your son?” the whore continue
d. “Beggin’ your pardon sir, I see it now—you’ve the same eyes. Wager he takes after the lady then?”

  Rufus didn’t reply, still looking desperately for the stable boy.

  The whore remained undaunted. “Will she be joinin’ you in Beshwa? Or are you free for the night?”

  “We’re free,” Joshua answered in Rufus’s stead. “My mother died a long time ago.”

  “My blessed boy—I’m so sorry! And my condolences sir, what a heartache you must’ve borne.”

  “Yes. I certainly bore it,” Rufus said between his teeth, glad of his mask. He didn’t feel comfortable out in the street, exposed.

  “I can help with that.” The whore moved across to him, unabashed by his dismissive tone. She studied him carefully, her eyes a pale grey.

  “With what?” he asked, almost aggressively.

  “Your grief. Your anger. I know just the way to ease your troubles right out from under you. Especially after so long.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Rufus’s said snidely. “Harlot.”

  “Papa!” Joshua gasped, and the whore smiled, putting her hands on her hips as if the name pleased her. “I’m sorry, he’s tired from the journey,” Joshua said, eyeing Rufus who turned away sulkily.

  “No, no—I understand.” The whore seemed amused. “Harmatian men can’t always stomach the open way of the Betheanian women.”

  Rufus grunted in disagreement, his thoughts on Luca with her hitched skirt and shoulder-less dresses, and how she would candidly strip naked to swim, never ashamed of what nature had given her, nor embarrassed of how others might react to her sweet body. Rufus missed her sorely in that moment.

  “Apologise,” Joshua commanded him.

  “No.”

  “Rufus,” his brother said in a warning tone and Rufus turned angrily back.

  “I only called her what she was,” he snapped and was surprised to find the whore laughing. She beckoned him down toward her, as if she meant to tell him a secret. Despite himself, he leant across. She reached her hand up and pulled down his mask.

  “Rufus Merle?” she asked and his heart seized. She released the mask and stepped back. “Easy.” She saw him tighten his grip around the reins. “The Moineau said you’d come. They gave me the key to their house to deliver to you…Though you’re six months early.”

  Rufus couldn’t believe his ears.

  “It can’t be. You mean to say—you’re a Delphi Knight?”

  She squawked, tossing back her head, her hand on her hip.

  “The man who bedded my mother was, so I suppose there’s a lingerin’ attachment. No need to sound so horrified.”

  “Apologies,” Rufus said sheepishly.

  “Forgiven—but only because you’re handsome.” She winked, fluttering her eye lashes.

  “Where have the Moineau gone?” Rufus pressed. She gave a languid roll of her shoulders.

  “How should I know? Way I see it, they fled to sanctuary.”

  “Why?” Joshua leant in, worriedly.

  “Your guess is as good as mine. Bethean’s growin’ dangerous, don’t you know? Kathraks are walkin’ these roads now, askin’ questions, lookin’ for the Knights. Sometimes they even catch one. I’d flee too, if I had a neck worth gold. Here.” She pulled up her skirts and stripped away a heavy set of keys, which had been sewed into her undergarments. She passed them up to Rufus. “It’s the third house on the far right of the square. I’ll come and deliver food, and any messages that get past on, and maybe you’ll let me stay for a night, if you’re feelin’ generous?”

  “I won’t be,” Rufus assured.

  “Hard one to tempt.” She didn’t seem put out by the challenge and caught a coin expertly as Rufus flicked it down to her. She examined it, giving him a grin worthy of a Korrigan. Rufus shuddered. “I’ll be gone then. Don’t fret, pretty—my legs are always open but my mouth remains sealed.”

  And with that she sauntered off, just as the stable boy arrived to take Rufus and Joshua’s horses.

  Perhaps the most unforgiving part of court life was that privacy was a rare luxury. In a castle teeming with servants, Magi and the rest of the gentry, Zachary had learnt from a young age that no place in Harmatia was truly safe. People saw and people listened.

  He was eight years old when he first came to the capital. Unimpressive, scrawny and tight-lipped, he was four years younger than the rest of his class and had learnt very quickly where he stood in the hierarchy of the academy. It took him years of steady investment to build up the loyalty of his peers and, at the height of his career, Zachary had enjoyed the sanctuary he’d built in his new home. Harmatia became his city, a place where he was respected and even loved—a faithful wife for whom he would gladly lay down his life.

  But the times changed, as they were prone to, and where once the streets had offered him a modicum of power and security, they reverted now to their conspiratorial and watchful state. Fortunately for Zachary, his childhood status as an outcast had provided him with an intimate acquaintance of the castle grounds. He’d come to know well the dark nooks and corners where secrets might dwell unnoticed a while. For the most part, he was much too big now to fit comfortably into many of them but there was one that had become a frequent haunt in the growing months—a small, secluded perch on the roof between the Great Library and the castle.

  It was here Zachary stood now, smoking between two squatting gargoyles. These days it seemed one of the only places he could think clearly, away from the pressures of endless court politics. Zachary needed a space where he didn’t have to train his expression according to who was watching. Up here, he could be as playful or as gloomy as he liked.

  Blowing out forcefully, Zachary watched as the smoke dispelled into the crisp air above him, his fingers tight around his pipe. He felt wretched. An uneasy energy had been waging siege on him for some time, battling against a muscular lethargy that refused to let him expel it. He’d tried a number of things to rid himself of the heavy feeling—daily rides, extra training, long walks at night—but more and more he’d begun to grow wearily accustomed to it. He would stay abed hours longer than he ought to, and would sigh and heave at the thought of doing things which had once brought him pleasure. He’d grown still in a speeding world. When he wasn’t submitting to this fatigue, he would feel flushed and nervous instead. Paranoia ruled him and Zachary knew why.

  At first, the joy of Sverrin’s revival had blinded Zachary to the truth. Sverrin was just as he’d been—strong, decisive and ambitious. He laughed loud and hard, drank and duelled with Zachary, raced him around the city on horseback. But as the years had ripened, a dark ache of uncertainty began to form like a stone in Zachary’s gut. It had been small things at first—the hollow way Sverrin sometimes looked at people, how he could stand so still like death was upon him again, the strange hunger that sometimes appeared on his face when he thought no one was looking…

  Over time, there were little occurrences—irregularities in behaviour, so small one might not have noticed them. Sverrin forgot simple things or replaced certain truths with others, as if they were facts. He would fabricate tiny events that Zachary knew hadn’t happened and seemed uncertain about his own memories. The first time the changes had really struck Zachary however, was the incident with the dog.

  One of Sverrin’s hounds obtained an injury during a hunt, after being kicked by a dying buck. The poor dog was old, slower than it used to be. They’d discovered it keening and moaning in pain beside the dead deer. Sverrin had frowned, tutted and then, without any occasion, shot the dog through the head and turned homeward with their game. Zachary had been horrified. The dog may not have been capable of hunting again but it could have certainly lived another few years, retired and warm by the fire. It had been such a loyal and loving pet, Zachary couldn’t believe Sverrin had been capable of putting it down solely on the loss of its usefulness.

  Up until then, Sverrin’s peculiarities were easily ignored, but from that moment their presence grew on Zachary u
ntil they were all he could see. Soon the truth was stifling him, like a foul and potent poison in his veins. Each year, Sverrin seemed to be less of himself and more of something else.

  Loyalty became a formality, an empty shell. Even Sverrin had sensed Zachary’s unease. And like that, the sparks of a once roaring friendship died, withering away like an aging man. For Zachary, who’d loved Sverrin, the frustration of it all could have brought him to tears, did it not simultaneously rob him of the ability to indulge in such a relief.

  Zachary brought the pipe back up to his mouth. He sucked it and expelled a huge cloud of smoke, allowing it to billow over him. He felt truly hopeless.

  “Arlen?”

  A hand touched his shoulder. Zachary’s heart bolted and he pushed off from the wall, spinning on the spot. On the narrow ledge, he stumbled slightly and an arm shot from the darkness and held him in place as he regained his balance, poised on the edge. Belphegore exhaled in relief and pulled Zachary back safely against the wall.

  “By Notameer’s Light, you gave me a scare there,” Belphegore said. Zachary slumped into a crouch, his arm clutched against his chest as his heart thundered.

  “Oh, I am intimate with the feeling myself, Master,” he said. “How did you get up here?”

  “The same way I presume you did, Arlen—there was a window, rather conveniently propped open, on the top floor corridor.”

  Zachary felt himself smile. At over a hundred and seventy years, Belphegore was as agile as a man a quarter of his age. Even so, it didn’t cast away the rather amusing image of his master hoisting himself up through the window and shinning up the ledge onto the flat of the roof.

  “How did you know I was here?”

  “I heard renewed rumours that the gargoyles were coming to life.” Belphegore came and sat beside Zachary, settling himself at his apprentice’s side. “It took no great stretch of the imagination to guess you might be responsible.”