The Boy with the Porcelain Blade (26 page)

‘It’ll be all right, Lucien. I promise. Camelia will be back soon. But you have to allow for things to change.’

He looked at her, their faces inches apart. His mind reeled with the thought of her lips brushing against his own. He shivered, willing himself to discover that sensation.

But she broke away, slowly but firmly. There was a shadow of mistrust in her eyes.

‘Don’t go now,’ he said, but the words tripped, stumbling on his teeth and tongue.

‘I have things to do. I should go.’ She eyed him, full of wariness, and left without another word. He got no sleep that night, wondering at the moment that had passed between them. He chided himself for driving her away, painfully aware he needed to see her again soon and feel her arms around him again.

27

The Domo’s Apprentice
KING’S KEEP
–
Febbraio
315

Lucien ran forward, remembering all the times he’d shrunk in the presence of Demesne’s most trusted servant. The long hours fearing the Domo’s visits to his apartment as a child. Every occasion the gaunt man had haunted his nightmares. The countless abducted women, Navilia among them, the starved and the lost. The outcast Orfani killed quietly, out of sight. Then the jarring recollection of the Domo sweeping him out of the
sanatorio
like vermin, sending him sprawling down the stairs, away from Rafaela. The sword in his hand cried out for violence, he would not deny it.

He swung, blind rage taking him off balance, leaving him open. His lips had peeled back from his teeth in a snarl of reckless fury. The Domo responded with short jabs from the butt of his staff, forcing Lucien back, blunting his momentum. The silent roar of his rage drowned out any pain the Domo inflicted. Lucien swore, then blinked, coughed. The ever-present flies were thick in the air, thicker than he had realised in the darkness. They were a barely seen vapour, a drone of wings around him. The cloud of tiny bodies swarmed over the Domo’s opponent, the gaunt man apparently immune to their interference. Lucien batted and wiped his face. He was sure there was something in his mouth, writhing, crawling. The sound of them filled his ears. He faltered.

The Domo stepped forward, opening with light, probing attacks, striking at unprotected shins, stabbing at knees with the butt of the staff. Lucien parried, the weight of the steel blade unfamiliar, his wounded shoulder tiring. He searched in vain for some clue where the next attack might come from, but the Domo’s face was inscrutable. The chin jutted out as if made from granite, the mouth was an unmoving line. Lucien knew all too well what lay hidden beneath the hood. What he lacked was a way to read his opponent.

Suddenly he was pressed back against the wall, the Domo towering over him, feinting and striking, yet out of reach of his own attacks. Lucien coughed, feeling as if the flies had invaded the deep places of his lungs, were in his ears, in his throat, threatening to consume him from inside. With sparse room to parry, he wrenched a lantern from the wall, throwing it down at the feet of the Domo. The glass shattered, metal door sprang open. Lantern oil spilled across the flagstones, soaking up into the ash-grey vestments of the King’s steward. The Domo gave a grunt of irritation, tried to step back. Too late. The lantern had remained stubbornly alight.

A wordless howl escaped the warden’s lips as his robes caught. Flies singed, spiralling down to the floor. The Domo staggered back, stumbling into the wall, ricocheted back into the centre of the corridor, where he clawed at himself. The skeleton-thin hands beat at the flames, wrenched at the fabric. Lucien looked on aghast. The memory of Anea’s apartment burned brightly in his mind. The smell of oil, the mindless panic, the terrible heat. The descent from the window and the taste of smoke in the back of his throat.

Amid the inferno the Domo dragged off his garments, ripping them with desperation when they would not come loose. Finally free, he drew himself up to his full height, the true awfulness of his frame revealed. The spines on his forearms looked a brittle, shining midnight-blue. The four vestigial arms set into his chest curled about one another, pathetic and twisted. His frame was stooped yet taut with ropes of muscle straining beneath the pallid skin. His sex was a stunted thing, half-formed at best. The Domo’s mouth was a curve of cruelty, six eyes regarding Lucien with insect-like indifference. Beside him the pile of rags continued to flame and smoulder.

Burned and soot-stained, the Domo sprang forward, horribly fast, the staff drawn back to strike. Lucien acted purely on instinct, every parry, every sidestep, every feint and strike he’d ever learned now the product of reaction alone. The Majordomo’s assault was relentless. Lucien wove the sword around himself in a nimbus of steel, the blade flashing in the lantern light with each sweep, but the staff slipped through his defences. He gasped in dismay as the staff cracked against his ribs, then he felt his knee go numb as it was smashed on one side. Next his right shoulder was buffeted, sending him back, hammering into the wall behind. The impact numbed his left arm, leaving him unable to parry. The butt of the staff slammed into Lucien’s forehead. The ceiling above spun and pitched around. Lanterns hanging from pitons on the walls trailed light across his vision, to be replaced by tiny sparks of white dancing before his eyes. He found himself with his cheek resting on the cool flagstones of the corridor.

He tried to speak.

Then nothing.

Lucien blinked, his breathing shallow and faint. He didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious. Flies with scorched wings scuttled around him.

‘I could have given you everything,’ droned the Majordomo, somewhere out of sight. ‘Golia was only ever meant to be a puppet, someone we could use to scare the populace – and the houses – into obedience. As the new Majordomo you could have had whatever you wanted. You would have been the real power in Demesne.’

Lucien rolled onto his back. His body was a choir of pain, the various wounds and bruises competing in volume. All the voices discordant. He tried to concentrate.

‘Me? Majordomo?’

‘You would have been responsible for the day-to-day running of Demesne, for the entire island, all the people of Landfall.’ The Domo paused, drawing in a wheezing breath. ‘This role does not come without certain advantages. If one has the mind to exploit them.’

The Domo was standing across the corridor from him, wearing a ragged kilt he’d fashioned for himself out of the ruins of his robes. Somehow the rope belt had survived the flames. His staff rested on the floor, clutched in soot-stained hands, the end sunk in a crack between the flagstones.

‘Your own tower. Rafaela. Anea. Stephania. Whoever you wanted. All the tailors at your beck and call, the finest meals, the finest swords, the rarest books. Anything you wanted. You, Lucien, you could have shaped Demesne.’ The Domo coughed, a prolonged racking that left him speechless. Spittle emerged flecked with black, stretched, dripped to the flagstones. The Domo took a moment to compose himself.

‘You were never going to offer me your position,’ Lucien sneered.

‘Then who? Anea? Hardly a public speaker. I don’t have the luxury of time. I can’t wait for Dino to grow up. You were always the perfect choice. Why else do you think I intervened at your testing?’

‘I see,’ mumbled Lucien.

‘Think of it. You would have been able to influence every house. Replace that idiot
capo de custodia
, suggest a new
professore
to Maestro Cherubini. Push for better wages for the farmers – whatever you desired. You and Golia were supposed to herald a new age after three centuries of the king’s insanity.’

Lucien coughed, propping himself up on his elbows, then slithered away from the Domo. He slumped against the wall, head lolling to one side, dizziness lapping against him in nauseous waves.

‘You were supposed to be a new beginning for these old stones,’ continued the Domo, a mourning tone in his flat voice. ‘Instead you only sought to pull them down around you. I’m not sure why I expected different: angry children only ever seek to destroy.’

‘Rafaela,’ murmured Lucien, sounding drunk even to himself. The Domo remained silent, his horrific visage looking down at the crumpled Orfano.

‘If I become your novice, will you set her free?’

The Domo paused; the vestigial arms on his chest twitched and writhed. Fingers on a skeletal hand flickered in agitation before returning to stillness. The only sound in the corridor was of laboured breathing, a deathly wheeze.

‘You’re too disobedient, Lucien. You have no thought for anyone or anything outside your own desires. You’re incapable of taking instruction.’

‘My own tower, you said?’

‘Yes. Wherever you wanted to live in Demesne.’

‘I could take instruction in return for my own tower.’

‘Perhaps. But you threw that chance away. I blame Giancarlo. He was always too keen to encourage this competition between you and Golia. This childish feud, this vendetta. Ridiculous. And Anea—’ the Domo’s mouth twisted in disgust ‘—is next to worthless. I ordered Golia to start that fire in her apartment, but he let Giancarlo in on the plan. Before I knew it they had found a way to eliminate both of you at the same time.’

Lucien looked up at the Domo. He’d always suspected of course, but hearing the admission shook him.

‘But you survived, found a way out. And not only did you save yourself, but you saved Anea too. That’s when I realised how dangerous you were. You would have been a perfect Majordomo.’

‘And you’ll put an end to the king?’

‘Of course,’ said the Domo sourly. ‘His madness bleeds into the countryside, pollutes everything. Everyone.’

‘And the abductions will stop?’

‘Of course. Without the king there is no need for them to continue.’

‘I can set aside my disobedience if the abductions stop.’

The Domo considered this, hand straying to his great jaw, his many eyes blinking at different times. He remained silent.

‘If you can persuade Golia to enter into this… this arrangement, I can become the Domo you’ve always planned for.’ Lucien struggled to his feet, hoping he didn’t pass out. It took him a while to stand, visibly shaking with the effort. The Domo didn’t move, didn’t speak. His six mismatched eyes gave away nothing. The silence was stifling.

‘Perhaps all is not lost,’ droned the Domo, finally. Lucien allowed a flicker of a smile to cross his features.

‘With the right sort of robes, no one need know it’s me. It can be our secret.’

‘We may need to
remove
Giancarlo.’ The Domo added a weight to the word that spoke volumes.

‘I’d happily perform that task – to prove my loyalty, of course.’

‘Yes. I can see how this could work,’ replied the Domo, ‘possibly better than I could have hoped.’

‘My own tower, and Rafaela safe and sound. That’s all I ask.’

‘I’m sure we can agree on satisfactory terms.’

‘And Dino and Anea given titles?’

‘As you wish. Although titles rarely mean power, as you will soon learn.’

‘There is one small problem,’ said Lucien, eyes narrowing.

‘Which is?’ grunted the Domo.

‘All the women you’ve taken, all the lives you’ve wrecked, the pain you’ve caused.’

The Domo blinked, six eyes filled with confusion, saying nothing.

‘Crimes like that can’t go unpunished.’

Lucien’s blade was already moving, but not toward the Domo, rather the staff as it stood vertically before him. The sword smashed into the wood, held fast by the crack in the floor. The noise was like one of Virmyre’s chemical detonations. Suddenly the Domo found himself clutching three feet of oak staff instead of six. The sundered end toppled to the floor and rolled away into the darkness.

Lucien snarled and pressed in, unleashing a series of slashes and strikes that D’arzenta would have been proud of. The Domo fell back, pitifully trying to turn the blows aside, emasculated, clutching his broken staff. Cuts appeared in the Domo’s flesh, bleeding clear fluid that turned pale blue. Lucien forced them from his mind and pressed on.

‘Stop this, Lucien.’ The Domo’s voice wavered. ‘We are brothers.’

Lucien didn’t pause, didn’t want to hear the words, didn’t want to unravel the lies spilling from the Domo’s lips.

‘Be quiet.’

‘You and I are Orfani.’

‘Be quiet!’

‘Just as Dino and Golia are.’ He staggered back, wheezing, holding out a placating hand. ‘Anea too. We are all the king’s children.’

‘BE QUIET!’ snarled Lucien, and the sword flickered through the Domo’s arm at the elbow.

The hand spun away, severed, forearm trailing, hit the wall and came to rest on the floor, the blood transparent. The Domo hissed, his dry lips pulled back from his yellowing teeth in a dreadful rictus. He swung hard at Lucien’s face with the remains of his staff. Lucien dropped to one knee to avoid the crushing blow, using the momentum to slash at the Domo. The blade passed through the steward’s leg. Pain jolted through Lucien’s arms. The Domo looked down, mouth gaping, then he pitched over, landing hard and jarring, the staff clattering on the stone floor.

‘It’s like pulling the legs from a spider,’ whispered Lucien in sick fascination. ‘You don’t die, just keep crawling.’ The Domo gazed up at Lucien, cold fury in his many eyes.

‘Finish it, you bastard child!’ It was the first time Lucien had ever heard the Majordomo shout.

‘Give me the key,’ growled Lucien, desperately wanting to plunge his blade into the Domo’s chest, keen to rid Landfall of his presence once and for all. The Domo responded by swinging the remnants of the staff at his knee. Lucien stepped back and parried on instinct, his blade sliding under the wood, severing the Domo’s other hand at the wrist.

His howling filled the corridor, subsiding into cursing, then unintelligible sounds that might have been the old tongue.

‘Give me the key,’ whispered Lucien, sickened at the carnage. The floor was awash with pale blue blood.

Slowly, tremulously, the atrophied arms that crossed the Domo’s chest unfolded. Clutched in one tiny deformed hand was the blackened key. It was a cruel thing, two-pronged and bearing jagged teeth. Lucien reached down warily, snatching it away. The Domo wheezed and cursed quietly under his breath, a furious catechism.

‘Finish it! Finish it, you hateful child.’

‘I’ve meted out more than enough death. I’m sick of it. No reason why you should get such an easy way out.’

‘They’ll hunt you down. You’ll die for the murder of the Orfani.’

Lucien smiled. ‘Too bad Dino survived.’

The thin lips opened, the face, so unreadable all these years, aghast.

‘You failed, Domo.’

‘But…’

‘It was Dino who rescued Anea and I from the oubliette. You underestimated him.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Lucien almost felt sorry for the hideous creature at his feet, shorn of limbs and now his towering self-assurance.