She pasted on a vulture’s smile. ‘Ricinus, my lord, I went too far. I tried to bribe the chancellor, but it appears he’s incorruptible and now — ’
He snorted. ‘You went about it the wrong way, my lady. Your lack of breeding shows. You insulted him and he wants revenge.’
‘How — how do you know?’
‘I talk to people while I’m drinking.’
‘My Lord, he says that, despite your magnificent gift of the Third Army, he’s going to bring us down unless we hand over the Pale girl. And we can’t find her.’
‘Who is she, anyway?’
Lady Ricinus did not speak at once. Tali gained the impression that she was concealing something from him. ‘Just a slave who got out of Cython.’
‘No ordinary Pale, then. What does she want?’
‘To get her claws into Rixium, of course. The fool smiled at her, and now she’s seen what he’s worth she won’t let go.’
You bitch, thought Tali. Is there no lie you won’t tell, no truth you won’t twist to your vicious ends?
‘Her knowledge of Cython will be worth a fortune,’ Lord Ricinus said thoughtfully.
‘The chancellor won’t pay. He wants to get her for nothing and take all the profit for himself.’
‘He always was a greedy swine.’
Lady Ricinus swallowed, then laid a hand on his arm. ‘Ricinus … I’ve been a fool.’
‘What else have you done?’
‘I–I made threats against his life.’
‘You what?’
‘I was driven beyond forbearance. I snapped.’
‘Threats to his face?’ growled Lord Ricinus. ‘I can’t do anything about that, Lady. It’s high treason just to know about it.’ He inspected her pallid face. Upwelling sweat was cracking her caked make-up from beneath. ‘No, if you had, you’d be swinging from the front gates by now with your belly opened and your entrails dangling out your mean little mouth.’
‘I made the threat to Rixium after the chancellor left, but he’ll find out. Rixium can be indiscreet.’ She clutched at Lord Ricinus with both hands. ‘You must speak to him, Lord. Make sure he tells no one, especially not Lagger.’
‘You do realise that if Rix doesn’t speak up, he’s guilty of high treason as well?’
She reeled backwards. ‘No!’
‘You haven’t just put our house at risk, but its whole future. If this comes out, Rix dies a traitor’s death as well.’
‘He won’t speak. He won’t betray his family.’
‘Won’t he? What if he puts country above house? Or his survival above ours?’ Lord Ricinus snapped his fingers. ‘Drink!’
She handed him another bottle. She already had it in her hand.
He drained half of it. ‘You stupid sow, this changes everything. No leader can tolerate being threatened in wartime. He’ll hang us all and burn the palace to the ground. Even if we could give him the Pale, he’d erase House Ricinus to make sure.’
‘What if he were no longer chancellor?’
He stared up at the ceiling for a minute or two, then turned to her. ‘What are you on about?’
The backs of Tali’s hands prickled. What was Lady Ricinus saying?
‘I’m saying that we make good on my threat and take all the profit for ourselves.’
He inspected her through the empty half of the bottle. ‘You’ve dealt us into a deadly game, Lady Ricinus.’ He considered. ‘On the one hand, ruin. On the other, should the chancellor be replaced by someone manageable, we make a majestic profit from selling the Pale girl to our generals.’
‘If we rented her knowledge of Cython to the generals for the duration of the war,’ said Lady Ricinus slyly, ‘we might treble our profit and retain the asset.’
‘Then redouble that profit in the coming peace — if we win the war.’ He scratched his chin. ‘But how to topple the chancellor in wartime? He’s respected as much as he’s feared. No one would support us.’
‘Toppling him is beyond us,’ Lady Ricinus said flatly. ‘But there’s another way …’
He sat upright, staring at her. ‘You’re not suggesting we have him assassinated? No, I won’t have it.’
It was cold in the passage but Tali was drenched in sweat and her knees were giving out. Monstrous woman, surely she could not be serious. But she was.
‘Once he hears about my foolish threat,’ said Lady Ricinus, ‘he’ll surround himself with guards and destroy us. It’s us or him, Lord. There’s no choice.’
‘You’re a fool, Lady Ricinus,’ he said savagely. ‘Gods, how I regret the day I made you my wife.’
To Tali’s surprise, Lady Ricinus bent her head, deferring to him.
‘You’re right, I suppose,’ he went on. ‘Your folly has left us with no choice.’
‘Are we in agreement, Lord Ricinus?’
‘I believe we are, Lady Ricinus. The chancellor has to die.’ He stared at her. ‘Are you in contact with our mutual friend?’
‘I–I can be,’ said Lady Ricinus. ‘I’ll make the arrangements.’
‘Do so, and we may yet survive.’
‘It will be costly,’ she said, biting her lip.
‘Then you’d better find the Pale before the chancellor does. And before you make any deals, make sure of the price you’re getting for her.’
‘I will, the instant I find her.’
Once she had gone, Tali reinserted the plug and sat down in the darkness. Lady Ricinus must know that the palace had secret passages, and she had hundreds of servants at her disposal. They would soon find her, for wherever Tali went she left clear tracks in the thick dust. She shuddered at the thought of falling into Lady Ricinus’s hands; she would be merciless.
What to do? She should tell Rix about his parents’ high treason, immediately. It was his right to know, but that would both endanger him and put him in an impossible position. If he said nothing and the chancellor found out, Rix would be condemned just as much as Lord and Lady Ricinus. But if he betrayed them … Tali did not see how a loyal son like Rix could survive it.
She could not tell him, though that meant that she had to act directly, and soon. Was saving the chancellor’s life more urgent than her own quest? He was a calculating man who appeared to have ill intentions towards her, but could she stand by and allow him to be assassinated in the middle of a war? To lose Hightspall’s leader at such a time would be devastating. She could not allow it.
Besides, the chancellor’s spectible was her one hope of locating the buried magery she needed before she could go after the wrythen. Tali discounted that the spectible no longer worked. That could be a lie put out to deter thieves. She had to get it.
So: she must warn the chancellor about the threat on his life, urgently. She also needed to stay close to Rix, praying that his cellar sketch was not a divination of her own death but a record of her mother’s that would reveal his lost memories of the murder. She had to protect herself from the wrythen’s minions, who could locate her if her guard relaxed and she allowed the call out, and from the killers who were also hunting her.
And not least she had to rescue Rannilt. The poor child must be in agony.
The most urgent roads led to the chancellor, but how was she to get into the most closely guarded building in Hightspall? Remembering that whiff of cinnamon and musk she had caught earlier, Tali smiled. She would go via paths that any normal Hightspaller would find impossible. To a Pale brought up in the maze that was Cython, navigating the labyrinth of tunnels, caves, shafts and passages beneath this part of old Caulderon would be no harder than finding the way through the city streets.
She would go down to the tunnels and sniff her way in.
But first she had to talk to Rix and Tobry.
CHAPTER 71
‘What about this nose?’ Rix said exhaustedly when Tobry came up. He had redone the purple-veined bulb a dozen times but could not get it right.
‘I don’t care,’ snapped Tobry, who was ghostly pale. ‘Make it a bunch of grapes, a turnip, a crystal ball — anything as long as it doesn’t look like a drunkard’s todger.’