opportunity to study Ishbel, and gauge, if he could, the best way to murder her at the first opportunity.
Which might be today, were luck to fall his way. Kanubai wanted only two simple things
from Ba”al”uz, sacrifice and this strange object called the Weeper from Coroleas, and the first of
those Ba”al”uz hoped to accomplish today.
For a while Ba”al”uz lingered toward the rear of the hall, helping the servants fill goblets
and refresh platters of food. After a while, confident that no one would remark on his presence,
Ba”al”uz worked his way closer, very gradually, to the high table.
“I need to know your mind on this,” said Sirus, King of Pelemere, leaning impolitely past
Ishbel and looking in Maximilian”s direction. “I need to know if you are willing to—”
“Sirus,” Maximilian broke in, “I have no part in this, surely. I am moving through your
territories only in order to collect a wife, and—”
“An Outlander wife,” murmured Allemorte, who nursed his own private grudge against
the Outlanders for accusing him of Evenor”s murder.
“Horseshit,” Sirus said, slapping a hand down on the table and making Ishbel flinch back
in her chair. “Your damned wife is an Outlander herself, you”re a damned, cursed king, and I
want to know if you are going to back your new wife”s people or me in this war.”
“Sirus!” Maximilian said, appalled that Sirus referred to Ishbel as if she were not
present.
Sirus leaned back a little and looked at Ishbel. “My apologies, my dear. Have I spoken
my mind too true for comfort? Perhaps to reassure me, and perhaps even your husband, who
must be wondering what murderousness he has married into, you can offer me your support in
this little matter. Perhaps even a small revocation of loyalty to the Outlands themselves?”
“My lord—” Ishbel began, her face white, her voice very quiet, but Maximilian
interrupted.
“There is nothing you need say, Ishbel,” he said, catching her gaze. Then he looked back
to Sirus. “Ishbel plays no part in this matter, Sirus. Leave her out of it, please. And me, too. I
play no part in this matter. I am sorry that you and Fulmer have been caught up in this dispute
with the Outlands, but I beg you understand that it is your dispute, and not mine.”
Sirus opened his mouth, his face red with anger, but had to lean back momentarily as a
serving man lifted away his platter.
Sirus glowered at him, but the man had already faded into the background.
“Easy words,” muttered Allemorte, very low, “for a coward.”
Ba”al”uz thought Maximilian might actually strike Allemorte at that. Ba”al”uz had just
taken away Sirus” platter, and was hovering behind Ishbel”s chair, about to reach for her virtually
untouched platter, when Allemorte spoke so foolishly.
Maximilian went completely white, half rising from his own chair, and Ba”al”uz took a
step back into the shadows by the chimney breast in anticipation of physical violence.
If he was fortunate enough, Maximilian would goad Sirus or Allemorte into murdering
Ishbel for him, right here and now.
“Allemorte spoke a little too hastily,” Sirus said, “but you can surely understand his level
of ill feeling. Half of my country, including myself, can vouch to his presence here in Pelemere
when the Outlander Council insist he was murdering Evenor, but still they insist.”
Maximilian sank back into his chair. “Ishbel has nothing to do with this dispute, Sirus,”
he said. “She deserves none of your ill will. Leave her be.”
Sirus glanced at Ishbel, who was leaning toward him as the serving man collected her
platter. He thought she was looking very angry, and he wondered at it. Was her temper caused by
his goading, or because, as an Outlander, she loathed him and his kingdom?
He distrusted all this pretty silence on her part. He distrusted even more the fact that
she”d arrived just as news of the murder had broken in Pelemere. Was she a part of the plot? A
spy, sent by the Outlander Council? An agent, perhaps, intent on harming Pelemere”s interests in
any way she could? Well might Maximilian champion her, but then he was sleeping with her,
and Sirus had no doubts that Ishbel had enough bed tricks up her sleeve to keep her new husband
quite besotted.
“I would like to hear from Lady Ishbel herself,” Sirus said quietly, “of her views on this
matter.”
Ba”al”uz was almost beside himself with anticipation. No one was taking any notice of
him, and now he hummed with the power of Kanubai. He could take Ishbel today, sacrifice her
easily, and make it appear as if by Sirus” hand.
Gods, that would set the entire Northern Kingdoms aflame—Ba”al”uz was by now
enjoying this exercise for its own sake rather than in the hope of pleasing Isaiah or Lister—and
earn Kanubai”s unending gratitude.
For a moment, hovering back in the shadows, he imagined what words of praise Kanubai
would murmur in his mind tonight, what rewards he might have awaiting him on his return, but
then, with supreme effort, Ba”al”uz managed to concentrate on the task at hand. He slipped a
hand inside the pocket of his waistcoat, fingering the vial of poison he had secreted within. It
was a special brew, something he carried with him always, and all it would take was a single
brush against Ishbel”s skin to have her dead within ten heartbeats.
He tipped the vial up and down, coating the stopper”s tongue, then carefully withdrew the
stopper, palming it in a well-practiced maneuver, and moved forward as if to refill Ishbel”s wine
goblet.
Ishbel was furious: with Sirus, with Allemorte, with Maximilian, with the damned
servant who kept hovering about the back of her chair, and with the entire cursed situation. She
hated these words against the Outlanders, even though she had been distanced from them for so
long within Serpent”s Nest. This was her blood they were cursing and deriding and plotting to
spill, and this her heritage they insulted.
Maximilian was trying his best to fence-sit on the matter, and Ishbel could have screamed
with frustration. What in all gods” names did the Great Serpent think she could do here? Married
to Maximilian and forced to listen to this drivel from men who were less than any of the peasants
and criminals she had sent to the grave? How, just half a year ago, could she ever have imagined
that the archpriestess of the Coil could be sunk so low?
And with this damned baby in her belly, which even now was sending cold waves of
nausea through her. Ishbel was terrified that if she so much as opened her mouth she”d spew
forth the little she had managed to eat.
But no, here was Sirus leering at her, demanding that she say something to stoke even
further the fires of his bigotry. That she justify herself.
The servant had now stepped forward again (what was wrong with the man, could he not
stand still for more than five heartbeats?) and was making as if to reach for her wine goblet. Now irritated beyond measure, Ishbel waved a hand at the man, meaning to brush him away, as at the
same moment she opened her mouth to put the damned Sirus in his place once and for all.
But all that came out from her mouth was a low moan of distress as Maximilian”s ring
suddenly screamed—
Danger, danger, darling Ishbel! Danger, danger! Murder, murder!
Two seats down Maximilian leapt to his feet, shoving Allemorte aside in his haste to
reach his wife.
At the same instant the ring shrieked, Kanubai also screamed into Ba”al”uz” mind.
She is not the sacrifice, fool! It is her child I want!
Ba”al”uz cloaked himself in power the instant Kanubai spoke in his mind, shrinking back
once more into the shadows of the great hearth, sliding the poisonous stopper safely into its vile
home. He was safe for the moment, for no one”s attention was on him. Sirus had thought
Maximilian was lunging for Sirus himself (and Maximilian may well have been, for all Ba”al”uz
knew), Ishbel did not have a single idea what was happening about her, Allemorte was still
trying to recover from Maximilian”s shove, and everything else was in confusion.
He could step forward again, step into the confusion, and wipe the stopper against the
soft skin of Ishbel”s neck.
But Kanubai wanted her child more than he wanted Ishbel (Ba”al”uz wasted a moment of
indignation that Kanubai had left it until the very last instant to make this clear). Ba”al”uz
understood that Ishbel would need to die as well, of course, but not just yet…not just yet.
So Ba”al”uz did not murder Ishbel as he had planned. But Ba”al”uz was primed to murder,
he wanted it, he knew he wouldn”t be able to settle if he didn”t do it, and so, while Allemorte
struggled to regain his footing amid the pushing and shoving, and as, to Ba”al”uz” perception,