CHAPTER 57
Mutiny was unthinkable in so traditional a house, yet if Tobry stayed here much longer, it could come to pass. And with a great battle looming, Rix could not allow any kind of unrest to divert his people from their preparations, or undermine their morale.
“What am I to do, Glynnie?” he said. They were walking a track that ran along the top of the escarpment, where he could be sure he wasn’t overheard.
“Is mutiny certain? I haven’t heard anything.”
“It’s certain that my enemies are whispering about it.”
“Who?”
“I don’t have any proof.”
“But you know who’s behind it.”
“No, but I can guess.”
“Is it imminent?”
“Not according to Swelt. Once the folk of Garramide give their loyalty, they’re not easily swayed. Though they’re angry and afraid of Tobry, it would take a lot for them to rebel. But if they’re pushed too far, they just might.”
“Be honest with them,” said Glynnie. “Call them together and explain why you took Tobry in. He’s a good man — tell them why he’s different to other shifters.”
“Is he, though — is he any different, on the inside?”
“He’s fighting it with every ounce of his will. Even I can see that.”
“But will it make any difference? I’ve never heard of anyone breaking the shifter curse, once it takes hold of them.”
Glynnie did not answer.
“Tobe and I have been through a lot together,” Rix went on. “I love him like a brother. But these people are my people now and I have a duty to them, too. How can I allow a shifter — one who could go mad any minute — to live among them?”
“What if you locked him in at night?”
“Shifters don’t only have their mad fits at night. Besides, Tobry’s a magian, a good one; I’m not sure any lock could hold him. Must I chain him to a dungeon wall? My oldest friend?”
“You could send him away. He’d understand.”
“He’s already offered to go,” said Rix. “But casting him out would feel like I’d betrayed him… and as you know, I’m a trifle sensitive about such matters.”
They paced across to a mossy outcrop in silence, looped around it and headed back.
“Besides,” Rix added, “if he leaves, it’s putting the problem on someone else, because — ”
“A shifter has to feed,” said Glynnie. “Then you only have one option.”
“What’s that?”
She lowered her voice. “Identify the ringleaders and get rid of them.”
“How can I do that? They haven’t done anything yet.”
“They’re encouraging mutiny. Isn’t that enough?”
“Do you remember how the chancellor hung all the department heads of Palace Ricinus from the front gates, guilty and innocent alike?”
“Of course I remember,” said Glynnie. “He forced us to witness their deaths. I felt sure Benn… and I were going to be next.”
“That day I swore that I would treat everyone fairly and justly. I can’t arrest people and cast them out on hearsay.”
“Well, if Swelt is right, you’ve got a few days to uncover the plotters. No matter how careful they are, some of the people they try to recruit will inform on them. And then you can arrest them.”
“I hope so…” said Rix.
“The longer you leave it, the worse it’s going to get. If you’re going to be the lord of Garramide you have to take the hard decisions.”
“Swelt said the same thing.”
Rix stopped by an aged pine whose needles were like stiletto blades, and put his back to the trunk. Glynnie stood waiting several yards away, her hair streaming out in the breeze. She looked at peace, and the bruises were gone.
“How are things downstairs?” said Rix. “Between you and everyone else, I mean?”
“I fixed it.”
“How?”
“What happens downstairs stays downstairs.”
She headed towards the fortress gates. Rix watched her go. Had she fought the other servants, charmed them, or simply undermined their resentment by doing her best for everyone? He suspected that her work in the healery, where she had saved many lives, was at the heart of it. Not even Blathy took her on now.
Rix spent the day helping with repairs to the gates and the wall, trying not to analyse every sidelong glance among the workers, every low-voiced exchange. Logic said that most of the people were still behind him, that only a few troublemakers were plotting mutiny, but without proof, everyone was a suspect.
And perhaps, he thought as he hefted a block of stone no one else could have lifted, he was using physical labour to avoid facing up to the hard truth — that a mutiny reflected as badly on the leader as it did on the mutineers.
That night, without making any conscious decision, he took the steep stairs to the observatory. It would be bitter up there but he did not take a coat. He felt numb, and maybe the cold would rouse him.
At the top he partly closed the shutter of his lantern and passed the narrow band of light across the mural, left to right — and his skin crawled. It was a crude work, done with vigorous brushstrokes and hardly any touching up, yet the cheeks and eyes of Axil Grandys were so like precious black opal that Rix shivered. How had he had managed such realism from such a casual technique?
It raised the troubling question Tobry had hinted at the first night — had something guided his hand? Maloch?
From childhood, Rix had suffered from a deep-seated fear of anything uncanny. His first divinatory painting, done at the age of nine — a youth cutting down a rabid old shifter — had terrified him. Several months later, Tobry had been forced to kill his mad, shifter grandfather. When Rix heard about it he had blamed himself. He had burned the painting and had never found the courage to tell Tobry about it.
He scanned the Grandys mural again. Where had it come from — memory, divination, or the sword’s enchantment? The thought that any aspect of the art he loved could have come from outside him, that he was no more than a conduit for an ancient sword that was using him for its own fell purpose, was too much to contemplate. Yet if it were true -
No! It could not be true.
Had Grandys ever suffered from such crippling self-doubt? It was hard to imagine it, but successful men learned to hide their frailties, or overcome them. If Rix could not overcome this one, he would fall, and Garramide with him.
How could he become the leader Garramide needed? How regain the confidence of his people? And even if he did, how could Hightspall be saved now? Or was it already too late?
He passed the band of light across Grandys’ face again. It was probably the movement of the light that created the illusion; yes, it had to be. Yet Rix could have sworn the stone lips moved.
And he felt sure he heard a whisper inside his head.
Follow me.
Tali lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling in the dark. She wanted to be with Tobry so desperately that she was tempted to damn the lot of them and creep down to the black hole, which some of the servants now called the kennel.
But even if she could defy Rix, Tobry would not. He was deeply ashamed of concealing his true nature from his friend and would turn her away at the door. Tali could take the servants’ abuse, their knowing looks and their calling her slut and bitch, but his rejection had crushed her, and the thought of it happening again was unendurable.
Anyway, after Rix’s impassioned pleas last night, she could not undermine him further. She would not be the spark that lit the fire of mutiny.
She closed her eyes and wiped the tears away. Why wouldn’t Tobry let her help him with healing magery? Did he know it was impossible — or was there another reason?
His own magery was stronger since becoming a shifter, he had said, but more perilous. And now he was practising it day and night. In the past, he had often joked about what a dilettante he was — a man with many natural gifts who had made no effort to master any of them. He was certainly making the effort now, but was he practising his magery because he hoped to save himself with it? Or in despair that he never would, and would soon be dead?