Fanuilh by Daniel Hood (ebook reader with highlight function TXT) 📗

The woman in his imagination had a stentorian voice, a voice like a trumpet, a voice that carried across miles as well as attic rooms. She did not even whisper when she stuck daggers in wizards. Why was he so sure?

"You're not going to start that again, are you?" said Necquer, exasperated. "I've told you, she's my wife. There's nothing else for it. You're looked after well enough."

She wanted him to leave his wife. She was pregnant, and he would not leave his wife.

"That's a good girl," Necquer said after another pause, reassured and magnanimous. "No more arguments, then. I've only got one other cheek." He laughed.

One other cheek? One other cheek to bruise. She had hit him, not some nonexistent bandit. When he came back from Warinsford, he went to see her first, before his wife. And she had hit him, hard enough to leave a mark.

"Then you'll be rid of it?" The merchant's tone was more serious; there was uncertainty in his voice, and a shade of apprehension. "There are herbs, I know. See Viyescu, he can get them. You're not so far along, are you? It's not even showing."

Rid of the child he had sired. That was a reason to kill a man, Liam supposed, because he had gotten you pregnant and would not marry you and ordered you to get rid of it. But she had already gone to Viyescu for the santhract. And after Tarquin's death she had frightened him enough to get it for her. So why try to kill Necquer, if she was prepared to do as he wished?

He clearly heard the rustle of skirts across floorboards. She was moving, and, by the sound, towards him. For a moment, he thought irrationally that she was going to open the door and find him, and then he caught hold of himself. She was coming to Necquer, and he heard another sound, the brushing of cloth against cloth. Was she embracing him? Then a loud kiss. Yes. He prayed with all his might, squinting his eyes in the dark with effort. Please, please, please, speak.

"I'll attend to it soon," she said, and his eyes sprang open and his mind reeled. "Soon. For now, drink your wine and let's to bed."

Gods, what have I done?

"A fine idea, my sweet," Necquer said, the smug smile practically audible.

Liam heard the merchant's words, but they were eaningless to him.

He knew the voice, though he had never heard it used seductively, the way Tarquin had. A dozen revelations fell on him with stunning force, and his arms trembled so much that he had to lower himself to the stairs, resting his forehead against the damp wood.

She wanted Necquer dead for his betrayal, for refusing to spurn his wife, because she was fierce that way. She had killed Tarquin, he was sure, because he had threatened to reveal her.

"Finish your wine," she said with an indulgent laugh.

And he had done that because he had discovered that the virgin's blood—so hard to come by, so useful, and Donoé couldn't possibly supply enough, however willing she was—had not been real. How could it be, when she was not a virgin? So when the illusion spell failed because of the faulty blood, the wizard had cast the spell Lons wanted instead and threatened to reveal her. And for nothing, nothing at all. She had agreed to lose the child, to reconcile herself to his wishes, to go to bed with him again.

Liam did not want to move. Self-reproach held him in an iron grip, and he wished the dark would surround him and become complete.

Gods, I have so completely bungled this whole damn thing. His mistakes were beyond repair.

He could not tell Coeccias, he could not tell Fanuilh. He could not tell them, because then he would have to tell them what he had done in his weakness and imbecility.

"When I've more of a thirst, after." After what was clear. Necquer gave the word a lecherous weight. There were footsteps, moving away.

After, Liam thought miserably. After I've crawled back down these steps and ridden as far away from Southwark as I can.

"Careful, it'll spill," the beautiful, musical voice laughed. "You'd best drink it now, or it'll end on the rugs."

Would she not shut up about the wine? He did not want to hear her anymore. He. wanted to get Diamond from the stables and ride north, to Torquay, maybe, or the Midlands, or maybe further.

"You want me drunk, do you?" Necquer laughed aloud.

Drunk, of course, drunk, Liam thought, shaking his head bitterly, drink the wine, drunk if she can't have you dead. Drunk is—

His head jerked up in the dark, and he gaped at the door. Drink the wine—

Because you powder santhract and take it in a cup of wine or cider to hide the bitter taste, and the right amount of santhract will terminate a pregnancy and too much will kill a man.

He scrabbled to his feet and jumped forward, stumbling on the stairs but gaining his balance again as he hit the door.

It burst open and he slid to a halt in his stockings.

"I didn't think—" he began, and stopped, because what he had not thought of was what to say.

Necquer and Rora stood in the middle of an expensive carpet, swaying close to each other, shocked, the merchant's hand on her exposed breast, the cup in his other hand at his lips. A broad bed, with snowy sheets, a wide window to the right. A huge number of candles, shocking after his time in the darkness of the staircase.

"Poison!" Liam shouted. "Santhract!" He pointed at them, and Necquer dropped the cup, still staring. Only a little wine spilled out. Rora's face twisted in rage.

"Questor," Boult gasped hesitantly from behind him. When Liam had suddenly burst open the door, he had hurried up.

Rora lunged at him, her teeth bared in an awful snarl, but Necquer instinctively grabbed her arm and pulled her up short. The momentum carried her around toward the window,