Rix did not reply. Tali would not have been able to. Such a threat to her own house would have stopped her heart.
‘I find myself desperately conflicted, Chancellor,’ Rix said, his deep voice even lower than normal. ‘I love my House, and I have always done my duty to it, but I love honour too — my personal honour.’
‘Then look to the hierarchy, boy,’ growled the chancellor. ‘Your country comes first, always. Where your country is not under threat your House comes first, always. Next is family, always. Only then do you count friendship and lesser liaisons. You have until the Honouring.’
Hard heels tapped across the floor. The entrance door clicked open, clicked closed. He was gone.
Tali felt sure that Rix would bow to the chancellor’s threat. He must, as she would have done in the same position. Would she put an acquaintance, or even a dear friend, before the survival of her House and all the members of her family? How could she? How could anyone? Rix knew she was hiding here somewhere and, for the sake of his country, house and family, he would have to turn her in.
The door reopened. ‘Rixium?’ said Lady Ricinus. Her voice had a quaver.
‘The chancellor is displeased, Mother,’ said Rix.
Her voice firmed. ‘And so am I. I told you to find her — ’
‘It’s you!’ Rix said, choking on the words. ‘He’s displeased with you, Mother.’
‘That’s absurd. I’m the very model of propriety …’
‘He’s taken grave offence at all your bribing, conniving and manipulating.’
‘It’s nothing that any other House has not been doing for generations. At least, any House with the least ambition — ’
‘If it’s nothing, how come our treasury is so bankrupt that the palace army hasn’t been paid?’
‘How dare you question me!’ she cried. ‘You are not — ’
‘Not of age,’ Rix snapped. ‘I soon will be, Mother, and if House Ricinus survives that long, I swear — ’
‘You don’t get the keys to the treasury until you become Lord Ricinus.’
‘And that’s unlikely to happen now, is it?’
‘What are you talking about?’ The uncertainty was creeping into her voice again.
‘If Tali isn’t produced by the Honouring, the chancellor is going to grind our House so low it will never rise again. And all because you tried to bribe him, Mother. The chancellor!’
When she finally spoke, her voice was low and savage.
‘Then maybe it’s time to ensure that he can’t bring us down.’
‘Mother, that’s treason!’ cried Rix. ‘We’re at war — the chancellor is a strong, capable leader, the only one we’ve got …’
‘I spoke in haste,’ she hissed. ‘Erase my words from your memory. I never said them. Now get the damned portrait finished — and find that treacherous Pale.’
Tali was trembling, shocked to her core. Taking her hand off the panel in case she made it rattle, she leaned back, thinking furiously. Rix had three days to save her, three days to betray her! And what if Lady Ricinus did carry out her threat?
If she did cast the chancellor down, Tali did not see how Hightspall could survive.
CHAPTER 68
At last, said the wrythen, the host is where I want her. I have the alkoyl and everything is in place. Now to pull the pieces together.Why the Solaces? clamoured the ancestor kings and queens. Why did you remake our people in a new image?
He did not reply. Even if he had blundered there, he could not turn now. His next task was to complete the last leaf of The Consolation of Vengeance then, via the heatstone, wake the embedded command in Rixium. He was close to breaking point and the wrythen was confident that tonight he could tip Rixium over the edge. If necessary, he would take control of Tobry as well. It would be so much easier in the palace, where both men were bathed in the emanations from that enormous heatstone.
Yes, tonight Rixium would take Tali down and do the deed, and once the wrythen had the master nuclix he would use Tobry to dispose of the thieving magian, Deroe. Then the wrythen would kill Tobry from within, Rixium from without, and all five nuclixes would be his.
But he still had that niggling worry about the Herovians rising again. The wrythen had enlisted the intellects of all one hundred and seven ancestors in a collective mind-search for the Immortal Text but they had not found a trace of it. Surely it must have been destroyed.
CHAPTER 69
Rix dared not tell Tobry about his mother’s threat. Not only was it high treason to threaten the chancellor at a time of war, it was high treason to know about the plot and not inform him. My country first,always. So why was he keeping silent and praying that Lady Ricinus did not act on her threat? If Rix said nothing, and the threat was discovered, he would also be found guilty of high treason. But informing on his mother would destroy him.
He turned away from the malignly twinkling heatstone. ‘Tobe, what am I to do about Tali? The chancellor’s left me no choice.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Tobry heavily.
‘If he makes a threat, he carries it out. I can’t pretend to look for Tali. I can’t let her escape, and I can’t allow you to smuggle her away. Only one thing will satisfy him — that I deliver Tali to him by the night of the Honouring. If I don’t, he’s going to bring House Ricinus down.’
‘You have no choice. And neither do I.’
Rix did Tobry the honour of not asking what his choice would be. It was better that he did not know. ‘How can I give her up? She saved our lives.’
‘I don’t suppose he’ll do her any real harm,’ said Tobry, over-casually. ‘And he does need to know about Cython.’
Rix was never sure what Tobry was thinking, as when he had counselled Rix to leave Tali in the enemy’s hands but had actually been provoking him to ride to her rescue.
‘The chancellor is a vindictive swine. He’ll torture it out of her. He’ll break her.’
‘Tali wants to help her country, and a willing prisoner gives far more useful information than can be extracted by torture. She’ll be well taken care of, so where’s the harm in giving her up?’
‘Dammit, I like her.’
‘So … so do I,’ said Tobry. ‘But no friendship between you and Tali can equal the bonds of House and family.’
‘If she were to agree to it there’d be no difficulty,’ said Rix.
‘It would be a neat way out of your moral dilemma.’
‘Would you give her up — if you were me, I mean?’
Again that little pause. ‘The question isn’t relevant. I’ve no House to protect, nor any family. Why are you so worried about this?’
‘The chancellor is a man of his word, but I never said he was a man of honour. It’s common knowledge that he despises the Pale.’
Tobry sighed. ‘It’s worse than that. I did some checking in the archives yesterday. After House vi Torgrist died out, his ancestors seized most of its estates on a dubious legal claim. They have them still.’
‘So he has good reason to want her out of the way. If I give her up, I could be collaborating in the doom I divined for her.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Tobry.
‘Why not?’
‘Murder in the dark isn’t the chancellor’s style. Anyway, since we don’t have the faintest idea where Tali’s got to, the question is academic.’
‘There’s another thing,’ said Rix.
‘From the grim expression you’re wearing, I thought there must have been.’
‘I lay down a while ago and immediately had another of those ice leviathan nightmares.’
‘I’m not surprised. The polar ice spreads further north each day, and every day is colder than the one before.’