‘I think I know it already.’
‘Sometimes my paintings are divinations. What if she’s going to be caught and killed, and I’m seeing it?’
He stared at the canvas, worms squirming under his skin. Why would he paint such a thing when Tali had risked her life to save his? The bond between them was indissoluble.
Tobry walked around the sketch a couple of times, reached out towards the woman’s cheek, then drew back sharply and walked away.
Rix checked the sketch again. Why would he be seeing Tali’s death? ‘Tobe? Answer me.’
‘I don’t know what to say. Some of your paintings have divined the future.’
‘Most haven’t.’
‘But this is a powerful imagining, the strongest I’ve ever known from you. Even when you white the sketch out, the scene comes back the next time you pick up a brush — only more of it.’
‘I don’t know what to do,’ said Rix. ‘I can’t think.’
‘These two people at the end of the bench are the key. Paint them and, if we recognise them, we’ll have the answer.’
‘I’ve tried a hundred times, but nothing comes.’
‘Keep trying. This is getting dangerous.’
Rix had a sudden flash of poor Luzia and the red mouth opened across her old throat. ‘I know! Clear out and let me work.’
There came a forceful rapping at the entrance door.
‘That’s Lady Ricinus,’ said Tobry. ‘White it out, quick! I’ll bring Tali up.’ ‘What are you going to do with her?’
‘Take her out a window with the climbing straps.’
‘With an injured leg?’
‘I hauled you back up the other night.’
Tobry ran down the stairs. Rix painted over the sketch with broad strokes and put the canvas in the back of the cupboard. He was on his way down when he heard his mother’s key in the door, and Tobry still had not brought Tali up. What was he supposed to do? How could he choose between Tali and his house?
He sprang the rest of the way and skidded across the floor at the bottom of the steps. Tobry was in Rix’s bedchamber, looking under the bed.
‘Where is she?’ Rix hissed.
‘I can’t find her.’
The door opened. ‘Rixium?’ came Lady Ricinus’s voice.
She was advancing down the hall, and next to her tottered an absurd, hunched little figure in shoulder-length wig, high heels, knee britches and stockings — the chancellor of Hightspall.
Absurd but deadly. His nose and chin formed a nutcracker and his eyes were like miniature black olives, so deeply sunken that nary a gleam escaped them. He was a small man with a big voice, and he was accompanied by a dozen female flunkies.
‘Good day to you, Lord Rixium,’ said the chancellor, bowing. ‘Where is Thalalie vi Torgrist?’
CHAPTER 67
A bellow of fury shook Tali from a sleep blessedly free of pain and shifting shadows. She shot upright, her heart thundering.
Another roar. ‘Damn you to the Pits of Perdition!’ It was Rix, up in his studio. What was the matter? Was he being attacked? She crept up the steps. He was across the studio, brush in hand, dabbing at his father’s face and cursing the portrait with each stroke.
The shocking cellar sketch came flooding back, and all her previous doubts about him. She limped down to the scalderium and sat on the cold floor. Could he be a cold-hearted hypocrite, or did he genuinely not remember her mother’s murder? How could he not remember? Was he covering up for the killers?
Another glimmer of memory came back. The boy had appeared some time after the killers had gone up that corkscrewing stair, and there was no evidence that they had known he was there. Could he have been in the cellar innocently? Had he witnessed the murder, or only arrived after Iusia was dead?
She had to confront Rix and demand to know what he had been doing there. It was risky, though. If he was covering up for someone and she forced him to choose, why would he choose her? But then, why sketch the murder cellar and leave it out where anyone could see it? It made no sense.
As she was sitting there, Tali caught a faint, musty-mouldy smell, which was odd since everything here was perfectly maintained. She walked around, sniffing. The smell reminded her of the tunnel through which she had entered the palace, though she could not tell where it came from.
Rix’s studio was quiet now. She went up the stairs, taking them slowly, wondering how best to approach him. He was ten yards away and had his back to her, dabbing distractedly at the sketch and talking to Tobry — the racket must have woken him. Damn. She had hoped to find Rix alone.
‘That’s not funny,’ cried Tobry.
‘What are you talking about?’ said Rix.
Tali backed down the stairs until only her head was showing.
‘You’ve painted Tali’s face on the woman on the bench,’ said Tobry.
‘Gods! What’s the matter with me today?’ Rix clutched at Tobry’s arm. ‘I’ve had a horrible thought.’
‘I think I know it already,’ said Tobry in a low voice.
Tali raised her head, straining to hear.
‘What if she’s going to be caught and killed, and I’m seeing it?’
They gathered around the sketch, blocking her view. Tali slumped onto the step, quivering. Could Rix be right? His paintings certainly had a power she had seen nowhere else. If he had divined her death, her enemy was going to succeed.
She the one. What if Mad Wil had it wrong? What if Tali was the one who made it possible for the wrythen to succeed, and for Cython to regain the land it had lost two thousand years ago? How could she matter that much? But if she did, and the fate of Hightspall rested on what she did next, she had better think carefully.
She peeped again. Tobry paced around the sketch a couple of times, reached out towards the woman’s cheek then drew back sharply and walked away. Or was Rix merely sketching her mother’s face from some lost childhood memory?
The killers at the end of the bench still had no faces and she gathered that he was unable to paint them. It made one thing clear, though — he wasn’t covering up for anyone. He had lost all memory of the murder and, if the sketch could not bring it back, what hope did she have?
But if the sketch was a true divination, she might not have long to live. She was withdrawing when a sudden resonance struck her about that smell in the scalderium. It so precisely matched the smell of the tunnel through which she had entered the palace that there had to be a connection. A connection!
The original building on this site, she knew, had been a manor constructed at the time Caulderon was founded by the Five Heroes. Indeed, the manor had been built by the leader of the Heroes, Axil Grandys, and in subsequent centuries the palace had been constructed around and over it, enclosing it like a shell.
The Two Hundred and Fifty Year War had been raging then, and there could have been many secret passages and escape tunnels. Could there be another exit in Rix’s scalderium, one long forgotten?
She walked around it, sniffing. The musty odour came from the far side of the enormous tub, where there was a narrow space between it and the wall. Tali wriggled into the space, which was as clean as the rest of Rix’s chambers. Not a speck of dust had been missed by the meticulous maids.
She pressed high and low on the wall and the side of the tub, which was covered in large travertine tiles, and everywhere in between. The tunnel smell was stronger here; there had to be a space somewhere close by. She wiggled her fingertips into every tiny gap and under every ledge, and using everything that her mother had taught her about the workings of the secret hidey holes in Torgrist Manor.
A thunder of rapping on the entrance door made her jump and she cracked her forehead on the side of the tub.
‘It’s Lady Ricinus!’ said Tobry from upstairs.
Should she run up and hope he could get her out the window and down the vertical wall of the tower in time? How could that succeed, in broad daylight? Lady Ricinus knew Rix had sneaked out the other night and she was bound to have people watching. The tunnel was Tali’s only hope.