The False Martyr (127 page)

He spared a look at her.
She had taken to reading the report he had relinquished. Their time
was almost over, and when it was, she would return to her black
robes, he to Arin’s side. But what would become of them? Secret
liaisons? Knowing looks across the span of a room? Or never seeing
each other again?

With a throb in his heart,
he turned his eyes back to the window, but he saw curls, a sharp
nose, white skin, brown eyes, and round cheeks instead of the
courtyard and city. His thoughts were on the sensation of her body
pressed to his as they slept, of her warm kisses, of her teasing
smile, of the pain and pleasure she had brought out of
him.

“
What are you thinking
about?” Eia asked. She watched him over the top of the papers,
smiling.

And there was that. She
always knows. “You,” he admitted.

“
So sweet.” She held a
hand out to him. He came to her, took it, and returned to his seat.
“Are you thinking about last night? I told you, it is never too
much. The pain this morning only reminds me of the pleasure last
night.”

Ipid could not disagree
though, for once, that was not the focus of his thoughts. “No, I
was thinking about what happens when we return to the
Darthur.”

Eia smiled. Red rose on
her cheeks. She released his hand and ran hers up his arm. “You are
perfect. So sweet in the light and so feral in the night. I thought
maybe you were getting bored of me, that you were ready to move
on.”

“
No, I could never . . .
.” he said too fast and with too much certainty. Eia giggled, a
sound entirely incongruous with the woman he knew when they were
alone. “I . . . I mean, I want to continue being with you, but I’m
not sure how once we’re back with the Darthur.”

Eia rose from her chair
and kissed him, slow and gentle. “We will find a way. Trust me.
You’ve seen how resourceful I can be.” She kissed him again. “I
should put on some clothes,” she said as she sauntered back toward
the bedroom.

Ipid watched her go,
barely noticed that the footman who had been serving them had
finally arrived with a pot of coffee – what might be the last pot
in the Kingdoms given that Liandria had cut off all trade by land
or sea. “Lord Chancellor?” he asked, holding the pot over Ipid’s
cup.

“
Certainly,” Ipid
acknowledged. He picked up a piece of toast and began slathering it
with jam. The servant poured the coffee, a long black stream
blooming from the silver spout of the pot. The spout wavered.
Coffee hit the rim of the cup and splattered onto the white lace of
the table cloth. Ipid jumped back. “Watch yourself,” he
snapped.

“
My apologies, Lord
Chancellor,” the man mumbled and corrected the trajectory of his
pour.

Ipid’s attention turned to
the footman, Henrik. The man had been with him for years – having
come with Jon from the Wildern household. He had served Ipid coffee
countless times. He could not remember ever seeing a drop hit the
table and wondered if the man was alright. Certainly, he was
getting up in his years, face sagging, hands spotted, hair
completely white, but had shown no other signs of decline. Still,
he did seem pale. His hands did shake.
Maybe I have simply failed to notice
, he chastised himself before remembering that it didn’t
matter in the slightest.

“
I will have some as
well,” Eia said from the far side of the room, the promise of
coffee bringing her back before she’d had the chance to
depart.

Henrik’s face hardened.
Ipid’s ire rose at that, but it was nothing more than the look the
staff always seemed to make when they were forced to serve her and
not worth making a point of now. Rounding the table, Henrik poured
another wobbly stream into Eia’s china cup. She reached and took it
from the table, meaning to bring it with her to the room, not even
bothering with the saucer. So many breeches of protocol that Ipid
could not begin to consider them all, and he remembered why, among
many other reasons, the staff disliked her.

The ageing footman
returned to Ipid’s side with a cloth and dabbed away the spots he’d
created on the tablecloth. “No need for that,” Ipid said. “The
kitchen staff will get it when they clear the table. May I have the
cream, please?”

“
Of course, Lord
Chancellor,” Henrik answered voice formal and steady as always. He
expertly clasped the small silver pitcher and added a single splash
of the thick cream, just as Ipid liked it.

“
Thank you,” Ipid said as
he took up the spoon at the side of the saucer and began to stir.
His other hand selected a paper from the stack at his side.
Forgotten, Henrik retreated toward the board at the side of the
room.

There was a crash as a cup
hit the floor. Ipid turned just in time to see the blur of Eia’s
hand as she knocked the cup from his. It careened across the table.
Coffee flew in a wave, scalding Ipid’s hand, staining his shirt,
drenching his toast, ruining the tablecloth, and spraying across
the floor. The cup tumbled over the table, chipped a bowl, upended
a vase, and crashed with finality to the floor. It all seemed to
happen very slowly, so that Ipid seemed to be watching each drop of
liquid, each shard of displaced porcelain. He was just about to
voice his pain and displeasure when a flash of light caught him
from the other direction. Head turning, he barely saw the sharpened
edge of steel slashing toward him.

Jerking back, Ipid up
ended his chair. For a second, he teetered – chair angling back,
legs caught beneath the table – as the knife slashed past where his
face had been a moment before. No assassin, Henrik lost his balance
when the knife failed to reach the resistance of his master’s
throat. He pitched forward, landing across the arms of Ipid’s chair
and providing the deciding momentum. The chair slammed back into
the table, catching the footman between Ipid and its polished
surface. China crashed. Food flew. Vases overturned. Utensils
scattered. Ipid was trapped. A full-grown man covered him, smashed
between him and the table. Their arms were caught, Ipid’s under
Henrik’s, Henrik’s between Ipid and the table. The man squirmed,
cried, fought, and Ipid matched his movements, bring his knees up
into the man’s chest and stomach as he tried to free
himself.

“
Stop!” Eia demanded a
second later. Henrik obeyed, falling almost completely still. Ipid
was not so quick. It took him a moment to realize that he was
fighting against an opponent who had already surrendered. He looked
down and saw a kitchen knife in Eia’s hand held at the throat of
the footman. “Are there more?” she demanded.

As if in answer, three
more servants burst through the door, knives in hand. They were
thrown back almost immediately. Ipid’s eyes shifted from Eia’s
mumbled words to the image of three grown men being lifted by an
unseen force and cast against a wall. Their heads cracked as they
struck. They slumped to the ground, moaning.

“
There are more,” Eia
breathed. “The emotions of the entire household just piqued. We
need to get out of here.”

Henrik shook where he laid
pinned against the table. “You’re an Order-cursed witch,” he
wailed. “You’ve corrupted him. You’ve made him do this.”

Eia ignored him. Tossing
the knife to the far side of the table, she moved behind Ipid and
pulled on his chair with all her might. Ipid helped with his feet,
and they eventually moved the thing back enough for him to push the
crying servant to the ground. Ipid watched the man fall, wanted to
kick him, but he just cowered beneath the table, legs pulled up,
back bent, arms around his head as if expecting to be beaten. Ipid
could not bring himself to fulfill the expectation.

“
We hear you,” the man
mumbled as he squirmed. “We hear you at night with that Exile
witch. She’s corrupted you. She’s made you one of them.”

“
Come on,” Eia yelled,
pulling on his arm, breaking him from the footman’s
words.

Adrenaline ragged through
Ipid’s system. He was shaking, thoughts scattered. His eyes went to
the men lying across the door, to the shaking of that door as
others tried to push it open. “What . . . .” was as far as he got
before the door at the other end burst open. He retracted, nearly
falling over the chair that remained behind him as two of the
Darthur burst into the room.

“
What happened?” the first
of them demanded.

“
A servant tried to kill
the Uhram Machtur,” Eia answered when Ipid failed to find the
words.
Was that what had just
happened?
He somehow couldn’t believe it,
even though he had heard it from the mouth of the man. “Get him to
his office. Gather the warriors. It is time to go.”

The warriors responded
without words. One of them ran down the hall. The other stayed,
watching until Ipid and Eia could join him.

“
What . . . .” Ipid
started again. They went through the door, following the big
warrior with his thick-bladed sword drawn down the hall to the
stairs. Ipid caught only a glimpse of his fellow as he chopped
through two more servants with knives. “What are they doing?” Ipid
asked as they ran. “Why are . . . ?”

“
They’re trying to kill
you!” Eia snapped. “The coffee was poisoned. It was supposed to do
it. I only realized because his unease turned to guilt when he
thought you would drink it. The rest of the household is trying to
see the plot through.” They started down the stairs, running. “I
should have realized, but they kept their emotions hidden until the
end. They were prepared, carefully coached, masking their emotions
so that I would not know their intent.”

“
What does . . . what does
it mean?” Ipid knew that he should not have to ask but couldn’t
seem to make his mind work.

“
It means that Lord Stully
is not satisfied to see you gone. He wants you dead, and he has
gone to great lengths to make sure it happens.”

They cleared the stairs
and burst into the office. Six Darthur waited inside with weapons
at the ready. Ipid’s shaking legs betrayed him as he stepped into
the room so that he had to catch himself on one of the desks. He
panted there, trying to get his head around what was happening.
“What . . . what does . . . ?”

“
It’s happening today!”
Eia yelled. “That was their first attempt, but you can be certain
there will be more. We need to get out of here.”

“
Not . . . I mean it’s
Teaching Day . . . not . . . .”

“
It is today!” Eia came to
where he stood and slapped him. “Get yourself together. You’ve
known this is coming, so stop acting so surprised.”

Ipid shook his head,
feeling his cheek where each of Eia’s fingers seemed to have burned
themselves into its surface. There was a crash somewhere, the sound
of fighting, weapons clashing, screaming, cursing. From the
courtyard outside, Ipid realized. The mob had arrived. It would be
over soon.

Head clearing, he looked
around the room and thought through the mental checklist he had
prepared.
Darthur
. He counted seven warriors. Most of them had already
returned to Arin. He had retained only ten for these final days.
That meant the other three were out there somewhere. They had
orders to come here, but that meant little to them when there was
fighting to be had.

Rynn and Naidi.
Ipid had no idea where the wizard and his
apprentice were. Probably off somewhere clearing rubble, or working
on Rynn’s training, or looking for Dasen – their real purpose, Ipid
sometimes suspected. Ipid could only assume that they could take
care of themselves.

Papers
. He ran to his desk, brushing past Eia, nearly toppling her
as he pushed by, but unwilling to be deterred. He found his satchel
exactly where it should be, opened it, and thumbed through the
papers inside. They were all there. He turned next to the top of
the desk. All the damning evidence was laid out, everything needed
to convict him and free his fellows. Those papers would put all the
blame on him, would show beyond a doubt that this was his doing,
that no one had aided him willingly, that they had fought him in
every step, had conceded only because they had no other
choice.

Eia
. Ipid reached the final item on his list. He looked but
could not find her. He scanned the room, listened to the sounds of
battle outside, and felt growing panic that she had abandoned him.
He had been looking for the wrong color. His eyes had been
searching for her green dressing gown, had skipped over the white
of her naked body as if it didn’t exist. Standing near the
fireplace, she had stripped and was just lifting a black robe over
her head. He watched her, memorizing the curves of her slender body
for what he hoped would not be the last time as the robe fell into
place.

She approached. “There are
too many emotions,” she admitted. “I cannot separate or isolate
them. I don’t know how he knew to do it, but every person in this
house and outside is raging with emotion, and it’s too much for me
to process. I have no idea what is happening. We need to leave
now.” She opened a portal. Ipid did not even feel her draw upon his
scattered emotions – obviously there were more than
enough.

“
Through the portal,” she
yelled at the guards. They looked at the door then the portal and
exchanged silent communications. Four of them broke off and ran
through. The others remained in their places by the
door.