Saint's Blood: The Greatcoats Book 3 (31 page)

Somebody called my name again, but by then I was already stumbling to the stairs, my feet barely touching the steps as I struggled to remember where the meeting rooms on the first floor of the palace were. Brasti and Kest chased after me.

‘Tell the doctor to follow us,’ I shouted as I ran.

‘Why?’ Brasti asked. ‘Who’s—?’

‘Those men couldn’t feel pain. They didn’t care about being interrogated. They just wanted to do as much damage as they could before they died.’

The memory of the assassin in the throne room played over and over again in my mind: his mouth full of blood, his hand reaching up to grab Valiana behind the neck, pressing his lips against hers.

The toxins pool in the tongue
, Doctor Pasquine had said.

The Diplomatic Chamber, a modestly sized room off the massive hall housing the throne, provided a more discreet and comfortable venue for important negotiations. The décor was elegant but not ostentatious, creating a feeling of calm and safety. Or at least it would have, had Kest, Brasti and I not just kicked in the door.

‘Um, Falcio?’ Brasti whispered, ‘Are you sure about that theory of yours?’

‘What in hells is this?’ bellowed Hadiermo, so-called ‘Iron Duke’ of Domaris, a man of considerable bulk who always had a pair of retainers standing next to him holding his massive two-handed sword, just in case he suddenly needed to show everyone how dangerous he was. Hadiermo’s most notable feat by my reckoning was the way he’d lasted barely two weeks in the war against Trin before he’d sued for peace. Iron is sometimes quite bendable, it appears.

Next to him slouched Erris, Duke of Pulnam. He was very nearly as old as his Duchy, and as devoted to his religion as any man who thought it best to get on the Gods’ good side whilst he still could; Erris also had the distinction of having waited a full two weeks longer than Hadiermo before betraying Aline.

‘Treason! Betrayal! Duplicity!’ he shouted, in between bouts of coughing, evidently unaware that each word meant pretty much the same thing.

Also seated at the great oval table were Duke Jillard, who looked mildly amused at our entrance, Pastien, Ducal Protector of Luth, who looked as if he knew he should probably say something but wasn’t sure what exactly, and Valiana.

‘Falcio?’ she asked carefully.

Beside the council, more than a dozen guardsmen and retainers were seated at the back of the room, and I found myself both annoyed and curious about why I was counting two Inquisitors and a cleric among them.

Nothing seemed amiss.
Valiana looks fine
, I thought. But I wasn’t about to take chances. ‘You have to come with me,’ I said, reaching out a hand to her.

‘How dare you disrupt the business of this council?’ Hadiermo demanded.

‘Forgive me, your Grace,’ I replied, not wasting any effort on sounding convincing.

Valiana stared at me for what felt like a long time and I expected her at any moment to command me to leave, or at the very least ask me to explain why I’d just broken up a meeting of the Ducal Council. As she did none of those things, I examined her face, and started to notice the signs of strain: the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, as if she were trying to ignore a headache, the paleness of her cheeks, the soft sheen of moisture on her forehead.

‘Oh—’ she said, as if in that instant she had worked out everything that had taken me so long to understand. She rose to her feet, slowly, supporting herself on the table. She was shaking. ‘I’ve been feeling so . . .’

‘It’s going to be all right,’ I said, my hand still extended towards her. ‘The doctor will be here soon.’

‘It was the blood from his tongue, wasn’t it?’ Valiana shivered, just for a second, and at first I took it for revulsion at the memory, but then it happened again—

‘I’ve had enough of this.’ Duke Erris creaked to his feet. ‘Bad enough I should waste my time with a girl playing at being Realm’s Protector, but—’

‘I didn’t even know anything was wrong at first,’ Valiana said, talking to me as if we were the only two people in the room. She brought her fingers up to her face and very softly ran her nails down her cheek. ‘Then it started to . . . it just keeps whispering to me.’ Her eyes filled with tears that spoke of a terrible struggle, of terror and frustration and, now, finally, of resignation. ‘I fought so
hard
, Falcio. I swear I did.’ The fingers ran down the cheek again, but this time they bent inwards like claws and the nails left bloody tracks down her face.

‘No!’ I cried, bridging the distance between us, completely ignoring the guardsmen’s swords and the Inquisitors’ pistols, all aimed squarely at my chest. I could see that Valiana was about to let go completely.

‘Hold on, sweetheart. You’ve got to hold on.’ She hated it when I called her ‘sweetheart’, but I meant it as a kind of reassurance; a promise that we would fix whatever was wrong with her.

She gave me the tiniest of smiles in response, a last valiant effort before the battle was lost. ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ she said, and then Valiana val Mond, Realm’s Protector of Tristia and the bravest person I’d ever known, went completely, undeniably mad.

Sometimes, in the dark hours of night when I can’t sleep, when I’m convinced that someone is coming for me and my hands reach of their own accord for my rapiers, I wonder what I must have looked like during the Lament. As the Dashini Unblooded tortured me, taking me step by step towards the ninth death, I wonder what madness and despair etched on my face? Would I even have recognised myself?

I stood there watching Valiana writhing and screaming uncontrollably as she tried to tear the flesh from her bones in that elegant chamber, surrounded by finely dressed Dukes with all their retainers and guardsmen, and I thought I knew what I must have looked like at the very end of the Lament. Whatever poison was in the Needle’s tongue, it was dragging Valiana shrieking to her own ninth death.

‘Someone help me, damn it!’ I shouted, grabbing hold of her wrists and struggling to hang on to them. I hauled her hands away, sickened at the sight of her flesh caught in her nails, but with mad strength, she tore them back from me and again tried to claw at her own face.

‘Don’t try to hold her with your hands,’ Kest warned, wrapping his entire left arm around hers and twisting away from her, using the leverage of his whole body to keep her immobile. I followed his lead and for a moment it looked like we had control of her – but then she screamed, so loudly I thought my eardrums would shatter. Her eyes were so wide and confused that I knew she had no idea where – or who – she was. She kept pulling against my grip, almost dragging me off-balance, and when that failed, she started kicking, hitting me first on the shin and then on the knee. I stumbled, horribly aware of my injuries, even with the hard candy, and tried to wrap my own leg around hers to stop her. Brasti tried to hold her ankles and got her heel in his face for his troubles.

‘Someone help, for Saint’s sake!’ he shouted, but no one else moved, not the Dukes, not their retainers or guardsmen.

‘See here!’ Duke Erris said, his wheezing old voice practically cackling with glee, ‘see what happens when you give a woman power? It breaks her mind like glass. And look at these feeble Trattari, barely able to hold her!’

Speak again and I will see you dead
, I swore as I struggled to hang onto Valiana.

‘What ails her?’ Pastien finally asked. He went so far as to rise to his feet, but he wasn’t actually coming to help.

‘She’s been poisoned,’ Brasti said, trying to hold her ankles again. ‘Now go and find out why that damned doctor isn’t here yet!’

The sound of light footsteps from the hall reached me, followed a moment later by the sight of Aline running into the room, Tommer close behind her. I shouted, ‘Don’t come in here!’, but I was too late: Aline was staring in horror at what remained of the woman who had saved her life so many times. I saw more fear in Aline’s face then than in all the times her own life had been in danger. ‘Oh, no—’ she whispered, then she turned and fled the room.

It’s not her fault
, I told myself firmly, tying to ignore the profound sense of disappointment that was washing over me.
Of course she’d run – she’s seen too many of the people she cares about hurt.

‘Tommer, you leave as well,’ Duke Jillard said, rising to his feet.

‘What ails my sister?’ Tommer asked.

‘The woman is clearly mad,’ Duke Hadiermo said, coming round the table to face Valiana, ‘and I call a vote of this council to remove her as Realm’s Protector.’

‘Get the hells away from her, you fool,’ I warned, barely able to cling on to Valiana’s arm.

‘Perhaps this is not the time, Hadiermo,’ Jillard suggested laconically, which made me wonder exactly what he was planning. The Duke of Rijou
always
had a plan.

The Iron Duke of Domaris reached out a thick, meaty hand and attempted to clamp it around Valiana’s jaw – only to pull it away bloody and missing a chunk of flesh from the heel of his palm where her teeth had ripped into him. ‘Take this madwoman into custody!’ Hadiermo commanded his guards. ‘A night in a cell will sort her out.’

‘She’s losing her mind, you fat arse,’ Brasti said. Then Valiana’s wild flailing caught him in the side of the head and he fell to the floor. She kicked out again and her heel caught Hadiermo on the hip. She was spitting and foaming at the mouth, her eyes looking everywhere and nowhere at once.

‘My blade!’ Duke Hadiermo called to his retainers and instantly they hefted the two-handed greatsword and started towards him. ‘I will save us all a great deal of—’

He stopped speaking as he noted the tip of a short, thin sword at his cheek. The room fell silent, except for Valiana’s mad shrieking, as all eyes turned to the small hand holding that blade. There was not even the slightest suggestion of a tremor.

‘The next man to lay hands on my sister faces me in the circle,’ Tommer of Rijou, standing a full two feet shorter and a good two hundred pounds lighter than the Iron Duke, said, his young voice clear as a bell.

*

It has long been a puzzle to me how the Dukes of Tristia manage to keep their family lines intact when they seldom show any signs of caring for anything beyond their own power and sense of entitlement. In this one respect, Duke Jillard was different: he very clearly loved his son.

‘Back away, Hadiermo,’ he said now. He hadn’t raised his voice, but his intent was clear.

The Iron Duke didn’t bother to hide his disdain. ‘See what has become of this nation? You would let your boy issue threats against his betters?’

‘He isn’t threatening his betters,’ Jillard replied. ‘He’s threatening you. Now step away from the Realm’s Protector and be very, very careful that you don’t inadvertently touch my son as you do so.’

It says something rather terrible about our world, that as I stood there trying desperately to hang onto Valiana, whose crazed thrashing was losing none of its force, I found myself admitting to some small shred of respect for Jillard.

‘The hells for all of you,’ Hadiermo said at last. He signalled to his retainers and turned to leave the room, nearly running over the doctor, who was finally rushing in, her healer’s case clutched in both arms. He pushed the small woman out of the way, not caring that he’d nearly knocked her to the floor, then turned and yelled, ‘Better to have summoned the veterinarian to deal with this creature!’

Doctor Pasquine’s composure was remarkable as she set her case on the table and opened it. ‘Keep her steady, if you can.’ She removed something small and shiny and then opened a small vial and carefully poured some of its contents onto the object.

‘What in hells is that?’ Brasti asked. ‘And what took you so damned long?’

The doctor carefully held up what looked like a three-inch long very narrow knife. The contents of the vial could be seen sitting in a groove that ran the length of the blade. ‘I had to get an inunction blade,’ she replied. ‘It’s the only way to get the fluid into her vein.’

‘You’re going to cut her?’ I asked, my mind spinning back to the Dashini Unblooded and their long, thin needles.
This isn’t the time for
reminiscences
, I told myself.
Focus.

‘We need to calm her and this is the fastest way. Now keep her steady or I’ll end up slicing her vein open.’

We did our best, while the rest of the room watched.
Always fascinating to watch someone else suffer, isn’t it, your Graces?
I thought bitterly.

The doctor gripped the inunction blade tightly, like a knife-fighter about to face her opponent, and with a single, precise thrust she drove it into Valiana’s arm.

‘How long?’ Kest asked, grunting from the effort of keeping Valiana still.

The doctor didn’t answer; she was peering at her patient, looking concerned. ‘Something’s wrong. The amount I gave her would put a pony to sleep – she should already be unconscious.’

‘Give her more,’ Kest said, a growing urgency in his voice.

Doctor Pasquine shook her head. ‘I can’t – too much could kill her.’

‘She’s going to die if you don’t,’ Kest said. He turned his head to me. ‘Falcio, she’s not weakening.’

At first I didn’t understand. ‘So? Just hold her. If you’re tired—’

‘No,
look
at her, Falcio: Valiana’s barely half our size and it’s all we can do to hang onto her. Her muscles and joints can’t take this kind of strain – she’s going to tear her arms from their sockets.’

‘What can you do?’ I pleaded with the doctor, and without a word she refilled the groove in the tiny blade and drove it into the vein. This time I could feel something happening to Valiana but whatever it was, it wasn’t affecting the madness that was driving her.

‘It’s not working,’ Doctor Pasquine said. ‘It’s as if there’s something more than poison doing this, something almost—’

‘Spiritual,’ said Ethalia from the door, her face pained as if she were standing too close to a fire. She was leaning a hand on Aline for support. She looked down at my girl. ‘You were right to bring me, my Lady, Ethalia said. ‘This is an enemy that all of us must face together.’