‘I- I don’t know,’ she croaked. ‘I hurt all over, but I don’t think so.’ With the strange woman’s help she managed to limp to the armchair the merchant had been using, but the stench of his musty sweat rose up from it and she started shaking again. ‘Not here,’ she said. ‘I can’t sit here.’
‘All right,’ the woman said, helping her up again, ‘let’s try here.’
As Rishta sat down on the ornately carved sofa, adrenalin flushing the last of the drugs from her system, she tried to regain some composure. For the first time she realised there was a second man in the room with them. Carpello lay still on the floor. ‘Is he dead?’ she asked in a soft voice, as if he might hear.
‘Gods-rut-a-whore, but I hope so,’ the woman replied, then added, ‘Sorry.’
She didn’t sound in the least bit sorry and despite herself, Rishta laughed. Pain flared from her broken nose. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ve heard worse. Who are you?’
‘I’m Brexan Carderic. This is Sallax. Please don’t worry – we came to get him.’ She gestured towards the hummock of flab splayed awkwardly across the floor. ‘He’s a killer, a traitor.’ Brexan pulled a chair up and sat down. ‘Rishta, I need to set your nose. It’ll hurt like a rutting mule kick, but it’ll have to be done. I see you’ve had a bit of fennaroot-’
A bit too much,’ Rishta admitted. ‘I might throw up.’
‘I don’t care. I hate these rugs anyway. You can chuck up all you like. If you’ve got a little fennaroot in your system, this won’t hurt as much as it would if we waited an aven or two.’
The prostitute trembled. ‘Do we have to? Is it bad?’
‘It’s fine if you want to smell what’s cooking off to starboard for the rest of your life.’
Again Rishta laughed. ‘All right, go ahead, but try to be quick.’
‘Okay, let’s have you lying down. I think it’ll be easier that way.’
Rishta pulled the blanket tighter and allowed herself to be stretched out on the soft cushions of Carpello’s sofa. ‘Maybe this way I can bleed and throw up on his furniture too,’ she mumbled, trying not to show her fear.
‘We’ll make an evening of it,’ Brexan agreed. She reached for the girl’s shattered nose, clasped it firmly and, without warning, shifted it back into place. As the cartilage crunched beneath her fingers she felt her stomach flop and a gust of nausea blew through her.
Rishta’s screech faded to a moan.
‘You rest there for a while,’ Brexan said. She looked around and picked up the napkin that had been covering the fennaroot platter. ‘Here, for the blood,’ she said, passing it to Rishta.
‘Thank you – I think. Is it straight?’ She mopped up the fresh blood and squinted with her one good eye, but she couldn’t see a thing.
‘Nearly perfect.’ Brexan said as she considered her handiwork. ‘It looks a good deal better than mine, even all swollen and bloody. Imagine that.’
Rishta giggled, wiped away tears and blood, and rested her head back against the cushions while Brexan turned to Sallax.
‘Is he dead?’ she asked quietly.
‘No.’ Sallax grimaced.
‘Good. Let’s wake him up.’ She picked up a jug of water standing on a sideboard and walked back to Carpello. ‘I’m surprised that didn’t kill him, Sallax,’ she said, looking down at the swollen, bloody lump bulging from the back of his head, then poured the water over him and stepped back.
He groaned, and tried to roll over, then caught sight of Brexan and Sallax. He began to sob. ‘What are you doing here?’ he whimpered.
‘We’ve come to kill you,’ Brexan answered matter-of-factly
‘But I posted guards!’ Carpello whined. ‘I’ve had an escort ever since you escaped.’
‘Guards?’ Brexan was amused. ‘My sister could have run them through with a knitting needle. Sallax eats guards like that to stay in shape.’
‘I like them with red wine,’ Sallax interjected.
Brexan grinned; Sallax’s first real joke.
‘You can’t just come in here and kill me,’ Carpello moaned, ‘I did nothing to you, it was all Jacrys, he killed Gilmour, not me. Why would you come here?’ He turned to Brexan. ‘And who are-?’ He froze, a dawning recognition in his face. ‘You? But you can’t-That swim; it was too-’ His voice tailed off and he went even whiter. ‘You can’t have lived,’ he whispered.
‘Oh, but I did,’ Brexan said. ‘We both did.’
‘Versen.’
Brexan flushed with anger and kicked Carpello hard. ‘Don’t you ever say his name again, you-! Don’t you ever say it! Do you understand?’
Carpello wailed, ‘It wasn’t me, I didn’t want anything to happen to you, I would have brought you back to Orindale, but you had to-’
‘Shut up, just shut up!’ She kicked him again.
Behind her, Rishta slipped out of the blanket and began hurriedly pulling on her clothes.
Brexan shouted, ‘You tied him up, you dragged him behind your ship: you don’t tell me what you would have done because you didn’t. I was there!’
Rishta looked around for her shoes.
‘Your Seron?’ Brexan lowered her voice a little, but to Rishta she sounded even scarier. ‘Old scar-face? It took almost all day for him to die. I watched him. With you it will take longer.’
Carpello lifted his face to Sallax and cried, ‘Please, don’t let her do this to me! Please don’t.’ He was as reprehensible a human being as Sallax had ever seen, his whole fat, filthy, sweat-soaked, blood-streaked body quivering. It made Sallax feel sick just to look at him.
He kneeled beside Carpello and leaned in close. ‘Ren,’ he whispered, ‘do you remember Ren?’
Versen’s voice reverberated in the merchant’s head. You’ll be dead, and she will make it last for Twinmoons… He wiped his arm across his face. ‘What was she to you, Sallax? That was a long time ago.’
‘You cut off your mole,’ Sallax said.
‘He did,’ Brexan said, ‘and I wanted to do that myself, to put it on a string for Brynne to wear on holidays.’
‘Brynne? That was her name?’
‘Brynne was – is – my sister, and you should thank the gods of the Northern Forest she’s not here with us today.’ Sallax lashed out with his knife, so fast it was almost blurred, and sliced the end off Carpello’s nose.
Not realising what had happened, he reached up, feeling for his face like a blind man. His fingers came away soaked in blood, and Carpello began to scream.
Rishta screamed along with him and ran for the chamber door. Before Brexan and Sallax could stop her, she was out of Carpello’s apartments and into the hallway.
‘Rutters,’ Brexan cursed. ‘That’ll bring the neighbours. We have to get him out of here.’
‘Right,’ Sallax said, and clubbed Carpello with the hilt of his knife. ‘How are we going to carry him?’
‘I don’t know.’ Brexan looked nervous. ‘We’ve got to take him to find out what he’s shipping to Pellia. Garec and the others need to know and this bloated piece of rancid meat is the only one who can tell us.’
‘Not the only one.’
‘No.’ She shook her head firmly. ‘We’re not talking with him.’
‘What do we do?’
‘Bind him. Bandage his nose – wrap his whole rutting head if you want. Wait a quarter-aven, then haul him down the stairs. I’ll find a cart or a wagon and we’ll wheel him up to the Topgallant. We can interrogate him there.’
Sallax nodded agreement.
‘Oh, and take whatever silver you can find – when the investigators come, I want them to think it was a robbery. Plus, we owe Nedra.’ She pulled up her hood, slipped into the hallway and ran swiftly down the wooden stairs to the street.
THE LARION SENATORS
The almor screamed from somewhere inside the palace. The shrill echo ran into every corner, violating every space and silence, the terrible cry of a soul sentenced to an eternity in Hell. Mark imagined the flames in the cavernous Larion fireplace cowering, shrinking back from the sound.
Garec jumped at the demon’s shriek. ‘Demonpiss, but I will never get used to that thing,’ he growled.