The Poison Throne (19 page)

Christopher’s gaze flicked past Razi, down the slope. They could hear shouts rising up by the palace. “Hurry, Razi!” he urged, “Make him talk!”

Razi leant in close to Jusef’s pain-creased face. “If you tell me who sent you, I promise to kill you quickly. You won’t feel a thing.” The man’s legs jumped under Wynter’s weight, and she clutched them convulsively. She glanced in horror at Razi’s ruthless profile. His voice was so sure, so blackly cold. Christopher was staring past them, down the hill, his face tense.

“I am loyal to the crown,” Jusef growled, then he gritted his teeth against the pain as Christopher twisted a handful of his hair.

Christopher bent his head down, and murmured in Jusef’s ear. “You just tried to kill a royal prince, you syphilitic cur. That don’t sound too loyal to me.”

“I am loyal to the
crown
!” shouted the man again, bucking against their combined weight and then yelling at the pain it caused his ribs.

Christopher glanced back down the slope and his eyes widened. Wynter turned her head and saw that there were shapes moving towards them through the trees. Suddenly Christopher was talking, urgently and persuasively.

“Now you listen,” said Christopher, his lips moving against the man’s ear, “they’re coming for you. They’re already at the base of the hill now. If they get you they’ll take you to the keep.”

Jusef continued to struggle, despite his pain, but Christopher just kept talking, and as he went on, the big man gradually stilled, his eyes widening, and he began to pant with more than just pain. “Shall I tell you what those vultures did to the last fellow Razi gave them? First thing they did? They drew his eyes from the sockets. They were amazing careful, didn’t even puncture them. You ever seen an eye drawn from its socket? It’s like a bloody grape, so it is. They left them hanging from strings, swinging on his cheeks.”

Wynters stomach lurched.
No Christopher! No! I don’t want to hear this!

“I kept wondering,” mused Christopher, his tone conversational. “Could he still see?” Jusef’s eyes rolled to Christopher, but the young man was bent so close to his ear that he couldn’t have seen anything but hair and a portion of Christopher’s cheekbone. “Then they took hot pokers… have you ever smelled that? Hot metal on flesh?”

Christopher’s voice had dropped a register and Wynter tried to bury her head in her arms, so that she wouldn’t hear the rest. But it was impossible to do so and still keep hold of Jusef’s legs, so she heard Christopher say, “Well, anyway, they took those pokers, and they made certain that the poor miserable bastard would never shit again. You get my meaning?”

Jusef let out a hoarse yell of terror, and Christopher’s voice dropped blessedly low so that Wynter was spared any further additions to her awful library of horrors. All she heard after that was Christopher’s indecipherable murmuring and Jusef’s strangled moans of fear.

She turned her head away and pressed her wet cheek against the man’s trembling legs. A movement downhill caught her eye, and she started in panic at how close the soldiers were. They were nearly upon them and, oh God! Jonathon was with them!

“They’re coming!” she screeched, “They’re coming! Don’t let them get him! Don’t!”

Jusef screamed in panic.

“Tell me!” shouted Razi, his blade still pressed to Jusef’s straining neck. “It’s your last chance!”

“His Highness, the Royal Prince Alberon! It was Prince Alberon! He sent the word, my Lord! He sent the word that I kill you.”

Razi snatched the knife away from the man’s neck and sat back, horrified.

“Razi,” hissed Christopher, his eyes on the huge body of men approaching through the trees. “Razi!”

But Razi was staring at Jusef, the knife dangling uselessly, his eyes wide with shock.

“Razi! Razi!” Wynter begged, her mind full of that chair, those flames, and the terrible images that Christopher had painted. “Don’t let them! Don’t let them!”

“Please, my Lord,” whispered Jusef, tears running down his face. But it was too late. The King was already striding towards them, his face hard, his squad of guards on his heels.

“Good Frith,” moaned Christopher. He whipped the knife from Razi’s hand and, in full sight of the King and all his men, ended Jusef’s life.

Wynter wailed. “NO! Christopher! NO!”

Razi leapt up, his face appalled and took two horrified steps back. “Oh God! Drop the knife!” he cried. “Chris! Drop the knife! They’ll kill you!”

Christopher, looking stricken and terrified, dropped the knife to the ground. He rose to his knees, his hands up, palms out.

“He’s unarmed!” Wynter called out, turning to face the advancing men. “He was protecting my Lord Razi!”

The King stormed across the small space between them, and Razi spun to intercept him. Jonathon’s face was wicked with anger, and when Razi stepped between him and the still kneeling Christopher, Jonathon backhanded his son without any warning. It was a massive bear-like swat to the head: Jonathon was a huge man, as tall as Razi and broader. The powerful blow sent Razi spinning to the ground. He rolled a short distance down the steep slope and smacked against a tree, curling around his wounded shoulder with an agonised cry, even as he was trying to gain his feet.

Wynter yelled and leapt towards him, but one of the guards latched onto her arm and dragged her back. She struggled and he shook her so hard that her eyes vibrated in her head. Her teeth clicked together onto her tongue, filling her mouth with the bright copper taste of blood.

Jonathon strode past her, intent on getting to Christopher Garron. Wynter fought the guard, straining to keep the young man in her sight. He was gazing up at the King who now loomed over him. Then Wynter saw the awful truth dawning in Christopher’s eyes, and she stopped struggling. Christopher looked into the King’s face, dropped his hands and accepted that he was about to die.

“Your Majesty…” he whispered, but got no further. Jonathon grabbed him with a roar, lifted him from the ground and swung him, head first, into the nearest tree.

Razi howled as he scrambled his way towards them, and Wynter resumed her frantic struggle against the guard.

“Christopher!” she screamed, “Christopher, no!”

Christopher’s head rebounded off the trunk with a resounding
crack
. Incredibly, he didn’t go down. Instead, he staggered backwards a few steps, his mouth open, his eyes dazed and then stood there, swaying drunkenly but not falling. A thin line of blood dribbled down his forehead and ran into his eye.

One of the guards eyed him with sneering amusement. He jabbed him with his finger, and Christopher staggered sideways a step or two without seeming to notice.

“Leave him
be
!” bellowed Razi, pushing his way through the ring of soldiers. “And let her
go
!” he snarled, slapping the guard’s hands away from Wynter. She stumbled from his grip, rubbing the top of her arms, her eyes glued to Christopher.

Razi shoved the men aside in an attempt to get to his friend. But before he could reach him, Jonathon took the young man by the hair and slammed his head against the tree once more. This time, Christopher did fall, sliding smoothly to the ground with a moan, his eyes still open. Blood welled slowly from his nose.

Razi launched himself in a two-fisted blow at the King, punching him soundly in the chest. Jonathon staggered sideways and looked at Razi in genuine surprise, as if he’d just dropped from the sky.

The chief guard stepped between father and son, his fist raised, but Jonathon stayed him with a gesture. He looked Razi up and down with puzzled disdain and said, “What are you
doing
, boy?”

“He’s my
friend!
” screamed Razi. “He was protecting me!”

Jonathon’s face crimsoned with rage, and he grabbed Razi by the collar suddenly, and shook him until Razi gagged. “Your
friend? Your friend?
You’re not a commoner, boy! You have no friends! You have subjects! He’s your
subject
!”

Wynter put her hand to her mouth, not knowing what to do. She was like a child among giants, and she couldn’t take her eyes from Christopher who was just visible behind the shifting screen of the guard’s legs. He was lifting and dropping his right hand in a slow ineffectual movement, his unfocused eyes roving the dappled canopy above him.

“He was
protecting
me!” Razi’s voice cracked with desperation, and Jonathon released him with a small push, causing him to stumble backwards.

“He cheated us,” the King said, his voice dangerously low. “He killed a man we wanted taken alive, and he robbed the throne of its informant. He’ll be taken to the keep, Razi, and we’ll see how many more fingers he will lose before I feel repaid.”

Razi cried out in despair, and this time three of the King’s guards grabbed him before he could fly at Jonathon’s throat. Wynter sobbed loudly, then immediately pressed her lips shut, wishing herself invisible, when Jonathon turned his baleful glare on her. She saw him assessing her, and like beads clicking on an abacus, she saw plans and options and schemes form and shift and take shape in his eyes as he puzzled out her place in all this.

“What are you doing here, Protector Lady? Do the Moorehawkes thwart me too?”

Razi groaned and closed his eyes in desperate frustration. “Oh leave them
be
, Father! I beg of you!”

The King roared at him, making Wynter jump. Jonathon raised his fist to his son, but caught himself at the last moment and just shook it in Razi’s now furiously defiant face. “Stop talking like
a peasant
! You do
not
beg! You
never
beg! You are the
heir apparent
!”

“I think the sun is in the King’s eyes,” growled Razi, spit flecking his lips, his teeth bared as he surged against the restraining guards, putting his face up to his father’s. “His Majesty mistakes me for my
brother
!”

Father and son faced up to each other for a moment, like territorial wolves. Then gradually Jonathon’s expression changed into something darker than rage. He looked at Razi in a new manner: an up and down, speculative manner. Wynter didn’t like this new expression. It was remote and calculating, all Jonathon’s fury fading in exchange for a carefully scheming assessment of his still furious son.

On the ground, by the tree, Christopher murmured something in Merron and rolled onto his side. The King glanced at him and gestured to his guards.

“Take him,” he said casually. “Feed him to The Chair. Let the remaining inquisitors winkle him out.”

Wynter screamed in panic and tried to push her way to Razi, but he didn’t react. He had gone very wary and still, and was watching his father, his chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow breaths.

Two soldiers dragged Christopher up by his arms, and he hung between them, limp as a rag. He mumbled again in Merron: “
Is mise
…
fear saor
.” He tried to raise his head but couldn’t, and his face was hidden in a tangled, bloodied net of hair.

Jonathon turned his head slowly back to Razi, and met his eye. Wynter saw the sly triumph in the King’s face, and her heart skipped a beat.

“Well, boy?” asked the King.

“I will not wear the purple,” said Razi, very quietly.

“Yes, you will,” said the King. “You will sit without protest. You will eat at each remove. And you
will
wear the purple.”

Razi shook his head slowly, in sorrow and despair. “I will not wear the purple,” he whispered, his eyes glittering.

Christopher was making a real effort to move now. He managed to hold his head up for a few moments at a time, and kept trying to bring his feet under him. He tugged vaguely against the guards’ grip.

“Girly?” he slurred, and Wynter’s eyes overflowed with tears when she realised that he was calling for her.

“I’m here, Christopher,” she said. “I’m all right!”

He raised his head slightly and peered through his curtain of hair, seeing nothing. “Raz…” His head dropped forward again, and he moaned.

“Take him,” Jonathon ordered, gesturing without taking his eyes from Razi’s face.

The guards heaved Christopher upright. “You’re off to the keep, my lad!” one of them sneered into his ear. Christopher’s eyes rolled open, and Wynter knew that on some level he understood what that meant. The guard realised this too, and grinned in delight. He whispered savagely in his ear again. “They’re going to put you in The Chair!”

Christopher released a hoarse, terrified scream and began to thrash weakly against the big men. They laughed and started to drag him backward down the hill.

“No!” moaned Wynter. “Razi! No!”

But Razi was staring at his father, who was showing his teeth in a merciless, triumphant grin.

“You will attend the banquet tonight, and every night,” said Jonathon smoothly.

Razi dropped his head.

“You will eat at every remove.”

Razi shut his eyes.

“You will don the purple robe of heir.”

Razi whispered, “Yes.”

Christopher’s cries were fading into the distance and Wynter’s sobbing was harsh in the silence. Jonathon rubbed his hands. “Good! The Hadrish will stay in the keep tonight. You stay true to your word, and he will be released unharmed tomorrow.”

“At least tell him he won’t go to The Chair,” Razi pleaded, raising his eyes to glare hopelessly at the King. “At least do that.”

But Jonathon just smiled, and Wynter knew he would do no such thing. He patted Razi’s shoulder suddenly, with a tenderness that was obscene under the circumstances. Razi’s lips trembled and his eyelids fluttered in suppressed rage.

“You will learn, son, that friends are a luxury that no king can afford. Your only duty, your
only
concern must be the welfare of state. Everything,
everything
, comes second to that. Including yourself.”

Razi shrugged off his father’s hand and turned away. Jonathon shifted his attention to Wynter, who was staring after Christopher, her hands pressed to her mouth, tears tolling down her face.