Eye of the Labyrinth (43 page)

Chapter 82

If Marqel had detested being taught to read by Dirk Provin, then being forced to memorize the complex instructions for sailing through the Spakan River delta was infinitely worse. Dirk refused to write them down, making her come to his room each evening to learn the next part, but only after he was satisfied that she remembered the previous night’s instruction without error.

She knew why he was doing it. He did not trust her, and by giving her the instructions piecemeal, he was preventing her from taking any action until he decided it was time. So she struggled to remember the landmarks and the turns, all the while cursing him for his attention to detail.

After nearly two weeks, Marqel had learned all but the last few instructions to Dirk’s satisfaction. She stood in the center of his room and repeated them back to him in a bored voice, then glared at him.

“Satisfied?”

“It’ll do. Although I hope you’re planning to put a little more enthusiasm into it when you speak with Antonov.”

“How am I supposed to do this, anyway?” she asked. “Just go up to him and say, ‘Excuse me, your highness, but I was chatting to the Goddess the other day and she told me how to get through the delta’?”

Dirk allowed himself a brief smile. “I think we can be a little more subtle than that. Can you cry on cue?” Then he laughed at his own foolishness. “Of course you can,” he scoffed, answering his own question. “You can magically make bruises appear, too, as I recall.”

“You want me to cry?”

“Being spoken to by the Goddess is a singular honor. You’re going to be very moved by the experience. And humbled, although that might be asking a bit much of you.”

“I can be anything you want.”

Dirk looked at her disdainfully. “There’s a line I’ll wager you’ve used a lot.”

“Jealous?”

“I thought we’d established how little I desire you, Marqel.”

“Do you really?” she asked curiously. In Marqel’s world there was nothing she could not achieve, nothing that was out of her reach, if only she was prepared to use her body to get it. It seemed unbelievable that Dirk Provin was not driven—at least in part—by the fact that she had chosen Kirsh over him. She stepped closer to him and smiled. “Is that why you chose
me
to do this thing?”

He shook his head at her in disgust. “You’re unbelievable.”

“You ought to know,” she reminded him, close enough now to reach out and take his hand in hers. He did not resist as she placed his hand on her breast and pressed it close.

“Don’t you remember what it was like, Dirk?” she whispered.

He nodded wordlessly, his hand sliding up until he was caressing her throat.

“I remember,” he said softly. Then his hand began to tighten around her windpipe. His metal-gray eyes bored into hers and suddenly she was afraid. “Now here’s something for you to remember. If you
ever
try something like this on me again, you
will
speak to the Goddess, Marqel. In person.”

He let her go with a shove. She staggered backward, gasping for air.

“You could have just said no!” she accused, rubbing her neck where he had gripped her.

“You seem to respond so much better to threats,” he remarked in a conversational tone. “Let’s go over it one more time.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so.”

Still rubbing her neck with a petulant scowl, Marqel did as he ordered.

Marqel knew she wasn’t as clever as Dirk Provin, but she was not as stupid as he assumed. By the following evening, he had told her enough of his plan that she could judge its merits and flaws for herself.

Mostly, she didn’t have a problem with it. The only point on which she vehemently disagreed with Dirk was the fate of the High Priestess. Dirk wanted to see her humiliated. He wanted to glory in Belagren’s shame when she realized he had double-crossed her.

Marqel considered that an indulgence they could not afford. More specifically, an indulgence
she
could not afford. It was all right for Dirk Provin. He was protected by the knowledge he had about the upcoming eclipse, so Belagren would not dare harm him, but she could have Marqel’s life snuffed out in a moment.

Marqel did not actually dislike Belagren enough to care much whether or not she got to witness her disgrace and humiliation. All Marqel was concerned about was that she would be out of the way. Besides, it would be much more poetic—not to mention dramatic—if, on the same night the Goddess chose Marqel as her voice, the former holder of that salubrious position was taken to the Goddess’s bosom to sit at her right hand... or wherever she damn well wanted to sit.

Making her own modification to Dirk’s plan was easy.

Belagren suspected nothing. Marqel had stayed in the palace at Dirk’s request because he had found countless menial and useless tasks for her to undertake as his assistant. If the High Priestess thought it odd, she made no comment about it. If anything, the contempt with which Dirk always treated Marqel probably made Belagren think he was doing it out of spite, which she would understand and, in her current mood, probably tolerate indefinitely.

Kirsh had been to her several times, but his visits had been quick, furtive and ultimately unsatisfying. Marqel found herself being critical of things that had always amused her in the past. Habits she thought were endearing suddenly irritated her.

Dirk was right. Why settle for the boy when you could have the man?

With growing excitement, Marqel looked forward to the day she would reveal her new gift to Antonov. She was sick of sneaking around. She wanted to be openly acknowledged as somebody important, somebody of substance. That was never going to happen while Kirsh was married to Alenor, she realized now. His father, on the other hand, was powerful enough that he could (and frequently did) flaunt any mistress he chose, and nobody dared say a word.

Marqel was still smiling over the shining future ahead of her as she walked up the hall toward Dirk’s room. When she reached it, and noticed the absence of his ever-present guard, she cursed. It was not like him to miss their evening sessions, and they only had a few weeks left before Dirk judged the time was right to put their plan into action. She always thought of it as “their” plan, particularly since she had made a few modifications to suit herself.

“Where is Lord Provin?” she asked a servant who was carrying a tray down the hall in the direction of Alenor’s room.

“He’s with Prince Antonov, I think, my lady. The High Priestess just got back from the Hall of Shadows, and I know Prince Kirshov was called to meet him downstairs.”

Marqel nodded and dismissed the girl with a wave of her hand, wondering what had forced such a meeting this late. Belagren split her time between the palace and the Hall of Shadows, but she had returned to the Hall only yesterday, with the intention of staying there for some time. Marqel had not expected her back so soon.

That she was still excluded from such important meetings simply drove home the need to do something to change her status.
Before too long,
she promised herself,
there won’t be an important decision made in Senet that I’m not a party to.

Marqel headed back to her room, and then, on impulse, changed direction and headed downstairs to the kitchens. She would make a pot of peppermint tea, a habit she had gone to great pains to establish, so that nobody would work out that Marqel’s sudden craving for peppermint always coincided with somebody else dying.

Besides, nothing traveled faster than a rumor, and whatever was going on in Prince Antonov’s study might well be the subject of discussion in the kitchens.

Several pots of tea later, Marqel returned to her room, still none the wiser about what was going on in Antonov’s study. It had not been a wasted evening, though. She had been carefully cultivating the friendship of several assistant cooks, whose cooperation she would need the next time she wanted to prepare a pot of tea that was not quite as innocuous as the one she had shared with them this evening.

Marqel was brushing out her long blond hair when a knock sounded at her door. She wondered if Kirsh had decided to risk coming to her, and debated feigning sleep. She didn’t want to see Kirsh. All he did was remind her of what she would soon have, which made his presence more irksome than welcome. But if it was Kirsh, she might find out what had happened to necessitate the return of the High Priestess.

Putting down the brush, Marqel walked to the door, surprised to find not Kirshov, but one of Dirk’s guards standing outside.

“The Lord of the Shadows wishes to see you, my lady,” he told her politely.

“Now?”

“Yes, my lady.”

Marqel muttered a curse and turned for her shawl before following the guard back upstairs to the fourth floor. She was getting a little fed up with Dirk and his arrogant assumption that he could order her around like a bonded slave. She intended to tell him so, too.

She never got a chance.

“There’s been a change of plan,” Dirk informed her as soon as the guard closed the door behind her. “You’re going to have your visit from the Goddess tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow!” she gasped. “Why?”

“The Baenlanders have kidnapped Misha from Tolace. If ever Antonov is going to believe that the Goddess is talking to you, and not Belagren, it is now, when you give him the information he needs to rescue his son.”

Chapter 83

Lexie, Porl Isingrin, Dal Falstov and Tia Veran gathered on the veranda of Johan’s house a little while after the second sun had set. Lexie had greeted her with a warm hug. Tia met her gaze evenly, and shrugged off her foster-mother’s embrace. Lexie knew her too well to be fooled, and there were things about this tale she was about to relate that she did not want anyone to know.

“Should we wait for Reithan?” Tia asked.

Porl shook his head. “I’ve got someone waiting for him down on the beach. He’ll be here soon. What happened?”

Tia took a deep breath and told them.

She told them about the long trek north, of Dirk’s comments in Tolace about surrendering, about his disappearance in Bollow. She told them of the Shadowdancers’ departure from Omaxin, and how Dirk had used Neris’s blincakes recipe to open the gate, which brought a smile to everyone’s face.

She told them about the High Priestess’s arrival, and without so much as a tremble in her voice, how she had tried to kill Dirk, but had missed hitting anything vital. And then she told them of the trip back to Avacas, of Kirshov Latanya’s strange offer to let her escape, and of how she met up with Misha in Tolace.

What she did not tell them was anything about eating mushrooms or that, for a short, blissfully happy and ultimately painful time, she had fancied herself in love with Dirk Provin.

“How much damage can he actually do?” Porl asked when she had finished her tale.

“A fair bit,” Dal suggested. “He went out with Reithan in the
Wanderer
a number of times. You had him on the
Makuan,
and he sailed on the
Orlando
twice. Even if he doesn’t know his way through the delta, he knows names, faces and, even worse, some of our contacts in the Brotherhood. The Goddess knows what
they’ll
do if they think we’ve crossed them.”

“But we haven’t crossed them,” Tia objected. “Dirk has.”

“The Brotherhood won’t see the distinction,” Porl warned.

“Did he give
any
indication of his intentions, Tia?” Lexie asked. She had been shattered to hear about Dirk, and was still having trouble coming to terms with the fact that Johan’s son had betrayed them.

Tia shook her head. “Not really. But then again, he did... sort of. He kept telling me that he’d written to the High Priestess, but I thought he was joking.”

“He seemed so...sincere.”

“Aye,” Porl agreed. “We should have listened to Tia. She never trusted him.”

“Well, it’s too late now to punish ourselves over what might have been,” Dal reminded them. “What we need to do is decide how we’re going to deal with it.”

“Where’s the little bastard now?” Porl snarled.

“He’s in Avacas,” Reithan announced, walking onto the veranda. “He’s been awarded the title of Lord of the Shadows and has been appointed the right hand of the High Priestess.”

“You were in
Avacas
?” Lexie gasped.

Reithan nodded as he took the seat beside her. “I was in Kalarada when I heard that the High Priestess was heading for Omaxin, so I headed for Avacas. I was about to leave when I heard that Dirk had been captured. I stayed in Avacas looking for you, actually,” he told Tia. “The same day Dirk returned to the city, Alexin arrived with Alenor. I managed to arrange a meeting with him. It doesn’t look good.”

“We were just trying to decide how much he can tell Antonov.”

“A lot.”

“How can we be sure about that?” Lexie asked, still hoping for the best.

“Because he sent me a message, Mother,
telling
me he was going to tell Antonov anything he wanted to know.”

They all stared at him.

“He’s making no secret about what he has planned. He told Alexin to tell us we had about a month before he would reveal the route through the delta, and if we were planning to evacuate Mil, then we should do it before then.”

“Why, that arrogant little—” Porl began, too angry to finish the sentence.

“But does he even
know
the route through the delta?” Tia asked hopefully. “I mean, it’s pretty tricky. It takes years to learn it.”

“He knows,” Reithan assured them. “He’s as smart as Neris, and he grew up on an island surrounded by boats. Dirk’s a pretty competent sailor, actually. He probably had the route memorized the first time we brought him through.”

“I can’t believe he fooled us all so completely,” Dal Falstov said with a shake of his head. “Except for young Tia, here, we all thought he could be trusted.”

“I don’t think he deliberately came here with the intention of betraying us,” Lexie speculated.

“Lexie!” Tia cried in disbelief. “What
more
does he have to do to convince you he’s a traitor?”

“I’m not denying that he’s betrayed us, Tia. I’m simply saying that he didn’t have to warn us of his intentions. Nor did he have to wait.”

“Maybe he’s simply bragging,” Porl suggested. “Gloating over the fact that he could bring us down. Maybe the sadistic little prick thinks it’ll be more fun if we have to sweat on it for a while.”

“Does it matter?” Tia snapped. “Whatever his intentions, he’s turned on us.”

“According to Alexin,” Reithan told them, “if he’s suffering any torment over what he’s done, he’s certainly not letting it show.”

“How long do we have?” Dal asked.

“I met with Alexin about two weeks ago and headed straight back here as soon I spoke to him. If we had a month then, we’ve only a couple of weeks now, before he tells, and another week or two for Antonov to get a fleet organized, and a couple more weeks after that for them to get here.”

“So in six weeks we’re done for,” Tia concluded.

“Six weeks is plenty of time,” Lexie assured them. “We can evacuate everyone safely long before then.”

“To where, Lexie?” Tia demanded. “These people live here because they have nowhere else to go.”

“Some of them will have families in Dhevyn who can shelter them. The rest will have to move inland. We can shelter in the caves for a time.”

“A very short time,” Dal warned. “Tia’s right, my lady. Our options are very limited.”

“They’re limited by only one thing,” Tia declared. “Dirk Provin.”

“What are you suggesting?” Porl asked.

“We kill him. Before he can betray us.”

Her suggestion was met with a round of silent, considered looks. Only Lexie closed her eyes, as if the option was too painful to consider.

“How?” Reithan shrugged. “He’s in the palace in Avacas. He’s guarded constantly. You won’t get near him.”

“I can get near him,” she promised.

“But can you kill him, Tia?” Dal asked thoughtfully. “Have you got it in you to make the killing stroke?”

“Where Dirk Provin is concerned,” she told them with quiet certainty, “absolutely.”

Lexie gave her a worried look, but said nothing.

“If we leave today, we can get back to Avacas in about ten days,” Reithan calculated.

“That’s cutting it awfully fine,” Porl warned. “If you don’t get there before he talks, killing Dirk Provin, no matter how satisfying it might be, becomes an unnecessary risk.”

“Then ask the Brotherhood to do it,” Dal suggested. “We can contact them by bird today.” He laughed humorlessly. “I’d like to see that little bastard dodge a professional assassin.”

“That will cost a fortune!” Lexie gasped.

“If it saves Mil, it’ll be worth every dorn,” Dal replied.

“Let’s do both,” Tia suggested. “Send them a message asking them to take out Dirk Provin if he’s still alive two weeks from now. In the meantime, Reithan and I can go back to Avacas and try to get to him ourselves. If we fail, then paying the Brotherhood to do it will be more than worth it.”

“Aren’t you all forgetting that we have a bargaining chip, here?” Lexie asked.

“You mean Prince Misha?”

“Surely there’s room here for negotiating a settlement?”

“What’s Misha Latanya got to do with this?” Reithan asked, a little confused.

“Tia kidnapped him,” Dal told him, and then he turned back to the others. “The man’s been systematically poisoned over a long time. That’s not the sort of thing you do to a prince you have great future plans for.”

Reithan stared at Tia in shock. “You
kidnapped
Misha Latanya?” he hissed as Dal was speaking.

“Sort of...”

“And even if he was the Lion of Senet’s favorite son,” Dal continued, “Antonov will still not deal with us. He’d rather see his son die, I suspect, than negotiate with his enemies.”

“And suppose we stop Antonov this time?” Porl added. “It doesn’t solve the problem of Dirk Provin knowing the way through the delta, and being at liberty to divulge the information any time the mood takes him.”

“We should contact the Brotherhood,” Lexie decided sadly. “It will be expensive, but I’d rather pay them than risk any more lives in Avacas, when they could be more use here, helping to evacuate the settlement.”

Tia stared at her, quite disappointed that she was to be robbed of her chance at vengeance. “I could do it, Lexie,” she insisted. “I
could
kill him.”

“I know you could, Tia,” Lexie replied. “That’s what worries me.”