The Poison Throne

  She leaned forward and smiled uncertainly. “Dad. I want you to let me look for Albi.”

  He stared at her, and then he laughed, a hard, horrified bark of laughter. “This isn’t the Easter hunt, girl! Alberon isn’t crouched behind the wainscoting in the banquet hall, or hidden beneath a bush in the bloody garden like a painted egg! He’s off up the forest somewhere, on the run with Oliver. With the King hunting him down like a dog”

  She sat back triumphantly, and gave her father a knowing, tight-lipped look. “Oh, is he? And how long have you known that?”

  He sighed. “That’s all I know. I swear it to you. Oliver fled after Jonathon got it into his head that he was trying to usurp him. He had him declared traitor. Alberon followed very soon after, taking sides with Oliver against the King.”

  “My God. Did they really try to overthrow the crown? Alberon? And Oliver? Those most loyal of subjects?”

  Lorcan frowned up at the ceiling, obviously just as incapable of reconciling himself to the thought as Wynter was. “It is hard to believe,” he mused.

  “Well, there’s only one way to find out! Who better to tell us than Alberon himself?”

  “Oh, enough!” Lorcan pulled his fingers from hers. He forced himself to sit up straighter against his pillows, shaking his fiery head to clear it. “Enough!” he cried, holding a hand up to silence her. “Let’s say you did manage to sneak a horse and supplies out from the palace without being caught. Let’s say you set off up the mountains at a gallop and travelled for a while without getting raped or robbed or murdered. And suddenly, lo, you find Alberon, camped in the road, cooking himself a fish supper! What in hell are you going to do then?” He looked at her so earnestly that she burst out laughing.

  “After all that! I’d ask him for a bite to eat!” she said.

  “Jesu Christi!” he flung his hands up, and sank back in defeat. “You’re so like your bloody mother.”

  “Actually,” Wynter took his hand again. “I think I’m quite like my dad.”

  He snorted, “Oh shush,” he said, but he drew her hand to him and held it clasped to his chest. “You’d never find him anyway,” he said quietly, “there’s nowhere for you even to start. I’m not going to worry about it.”

  “And if I did find a place to start…”

  “If you did, you’d want to be bloody quiet about it, Wynter. Because you’ll be actively taking sides against the King.”

  Wynter swallowed. Treason, he was telling her, she would be committing treason.

  There was a long moment of silence between them. Lorcan watching the sky, Wynter pondering her next move.

  “How’s your Hadrish boy?” asked Lorcan suddenly, surprising Wynter from her thoughts.

  She laughed. “He’s not my Hadrish boy, Dad! Stop it!”

  His lips curved and his eyes sparkled. “Still and all, though. I bet you’re dying to go check on him.”

  “Oh, that’s enough!” She snatched her hand from his. “You’re a menace! You were swearing me off men this morning!”

  “Does he play cards?” Lorcan asked, and the question so threw her that she coughed in surprise, losing her breath for a minute.

  “Does he… what?”

  “Your Hadrish, does he play cards?” he repeated slowly, emphasising each word for her.

  “Dad…” she said uncertainly. “Christopher’s in pretty bad shape… I doubt…”

  “Go ask him,” he urged.

  “Now?”

  “Now. I’m bored beyond endurance here all day. I need some company while you’re supping my beer at the banquet.”

  “But…”

  He waved his hand at her. “Go, go!… I promise not to gamble… it’s just for fun.”

  Wynter eyed him as she got up. “Yes,” she said, dryly. “I think that would be wise.”

  “Ohhhh,” he crowed, raising his eyebrows accusingly, his gaze not quite steady. “You think he’d best me, eh? You think he’d be my match?”

  “Even with his brains dribbling out his ears, I think Christopher Garron would walk home with your eyes in his pocket tonight.”

  Lorcan grinned blearily, and waved her out. “We shall see! We shall see!”

  Wynter shook her head and headed into the secret passage to see if Christopher felt up to beating her father at a game of cards.

  A Game of Cards

  The shutters in Razi’s suite were still closed against the evening light, and the candles had been extinguished so that the retiring room was very dark. Wynter could barely see. She had to feel her way around the dim shapes of furniture and the many piles of books and scattered objects on the floor.

  Shuffling, banging and quietly cursing, she eventually groped her way across the small space and peered in at Christopher’s door. The shutters let in a diffused light, which, though still very dim, allowed Wynter to make out the interior of the room.

  “Christopher?” she called softly, and stepped over the threshold.

  He was on the bed, curled on his side, lying atop the covers. He was dressed in his long Bedouin robe, his bare feet tucked up, his fists pressed to his forehead. Wynter thought at first that he was sleeping, but as she neared him she saw the slits of his eyes gleaming in the soft light, watching her as she approached the bed. She could hear his soft breathing.

  “Christopher,” she said again, her voice laden with sympathy, “How fare you?”

  He didn’t reply, but his eyes followed her as she knelt by the side of his bed.

  There was a strand of sweat-damp hair caught in his eyelashes and Wynter gently pulled it free and tucked it behind his ear. He closed his eyes at her touch, but opened them again quickly and focused on his hands as though to keep his eyes shut made him feel ill. He swallowed delicately.

  “Is the pain very bad?” she asked needlessly.

  His lips twitched, his dimples lost in the terrible bruising that had spread down his cheek. “I’m mortal feared my head will fall off,” he whispered.

  “Have you taken nothing?”

  “Willow bark tea.”

  Wynter snorted, he might as well be taking milk for all the good that would do for this kind of pain. “No hashish? No tincture of opium?”

  “Oh, how I wish…” he moaned longingly, “but Razi is afeared to dose me too soon. He says I must wait.”

  “For what?” she exclaimed. It seemed so cruel!

  Christopher chuffed a little laugh at her indignance and gasped and swallowed again. “To ensure my brains haven’t run to jelly, I suppose. ’Tis just ’til sunset.”

  Wynter glanced at the shutters. The light was getting old; he wouldn’t have long to wait now. She leant down to examine his damaged face, almost laying her head on the bed beside his bared arms. His warm skin had a spicy scent all of its own.

  Her red hair, where it spread on his covers, glowed in the gentle light from the shuttered window. “Just like a polished chestnut,” he sighed. His breath was spicy warm like his skin, and she closed her eyes and inhaled without thinking.

  “Uh…” she faltered, snapping her eyes open. What had she been about to say? “R-Razi has left my father some tincture of opium, Christopher. Would you like some?”

  He shut his eyes in pained gratitude. “Oh, yes please.”

  She hesitated, then she said, “My father was wondering if you’d like to play a game of cards, to pass the time?”

  “All right,” he whispered amenably, his eyes still shut, and Wynter wondered if he was truly aware of what she was asking. Or perhaps, did he think he had to entertain Lorcan in exchange for the opium?

  “You don’t have to, Christopher, I can bring you the dose here if you prefer.”

  “Would you prefer I stay here?” It was a genuine question, no trace of bitterness or guile. It deserved a genuine answer.

  “I would prefer if you come in to my father,” she said, and he smiled, a definite smile, that finally revealed a trace of dimple in the dark bruising on his cheek.

  It took a long tim
e to help Christopher from the bed and into the secret passage, but she got him there in the end. He carried two fat pillows from his bed, and Wynter steadied him with an arm about his waist as he hobbled along, valiantly trying not to move his head or neck.

  “Stay here,” she whispered, and left him leaning at the secret door to her suite. She went in to close all the shutters and light some candles in her father’s room.

  At the sight of her, Lorcan pulled himself up in the bed. “Oh!” he exclaimed “Has he agreed?” He leaned clumsily towards the drawer in his bedside table.

  “Jesu!” snapped Wynter as he began tilting forward. She pushed him back before the whole long length of him could slide out onto his head.

  Lorcan fell back against his pillows, grinning, and Wynter got his games box from the drawer and tossed it to him on her way out for Christopher. Her father immediately began a bleary hunt for his pack of cards.

  Christopher was waiting at the secret door like a patient shadow. Wynter slipped her arm around his waist and got him moving forward. She saw Lorcan glance up as she helped Christopher into the room, and the smile slid from her father’s face as he got his first look at the results of Jonathon’s brutal attack.

  Wynter knew that Lorcan was a practical, often calculating, and sometimes quite ruthless man, but she saw an almost tangible rage rise up in his eyes at the distorted mess Jonathon had made of Christopher’s face.

  “Good Christ, boy. Are you sure you…?”

  Christopher waved his concern away and sat gingerly on the edge of Lorcan’s bed. His body twisted awkwardly as he tried to look at Lorcan without moving his neck. “Shift your legs,” he whispered, and Lorcan slid over to make room for him.

  Wynter propped Christopher’s pillows against the footboard, and the young man took a deep breath and carefully hoisted himself up and over. He slowly inched his legs around so that he sat facing Lorcan and finally he sank back against the pillows with a shaky sigh. He sat for the longest moment, tense and immobile, his eyes lightly shut.

  Wynter regarded the whole process with held breath and clenched hands. She met her father’s eyes over Christopher’s dark head, and Lorcan glanced significantly at the opium. “I’ll mix you that draught,” she said, patting Christopher’s shoulder and busying herself with the vials and pitchers on Lorcan’s table.

  “That would be lovely,” Christopher whispered. Then he straightened cautiously and peered at Lorcan. “Wh-what’re we playing?” Lorcan hesitated and Christopher waved a hand at him, “Come on. What you got? F… French deck?”

  “Aye,” said Lorcan holding up the big picture cards. “How about a hand or two of piquet?” he suggested.

  Christopher made a noncommittal gesture. “We’d have to strip the deck,” he said and the two men looked at each other. They continued to sit like weary stones, neither lively enough to begin.

  Wynter handed Christopher the beaker of diluted tincture. “I’ll strip the deck if you like, but you’ll have to say aye or nay now because I’ve to dress for dinner.”

  Christopher carefully drained the draught, tilting his whole body backwards to avoid kinking his neck. Wynter put her finger to the end of the beaker and helped keep it steady as he drank it down. She took the empty cup and he straightened with a gasp and slowly wiped his mouth. “Noddy,” he breathed finally and Lorcan gave a satisfied little grunt.

  “Noddy it is. You’re the elder,” slurred the older man and laboriously doled out two cards each, turning up the top of the deck.

  Wynter shook her head at the two of them. They were peering at their first hands, barely able to make out the suits, let alone calculate their points. “God preserve us,” she muttered and went into her room to wash and dress.

  As she went about preparing for dinner the noise of their conversation increased, and by the time she was dressed, there was a sustained, though predominantly monosyllabic exchange going on between the two men.

  Night was falling. Pretty soon she’d have to go down to the hall. She closed her eyes. Damn it. She sighed and sat down on the edge of her bed. Damn it. She lay back slant-wise on her covers and let her head hang from the other side. Damn it.

  She could see out the window from here, upside down, and gazed into the sky. The stars were out in their multitude of brilliance, though the sky was still a dark blue. The crickets were agitating the air in the orange garden.

  Wynter had slipped Razi’s note into her bodice, and it was a small crackling presence against her heart. Forgive me, forgive. That was all well and good, but what was she meant to do next time they met? Even when they were in private was she to call him, “Your Royal Highness Prince Razi” and bob and curtsey like any courtly moppet? Make crippling small talk? Swallow down her hurt when he swept on by?

  She knew what she’d like to do when next she saw him, and it wasn’t an act of sisterly devotion either. She imagined with grim satisfaction the sound her riding boots would make connecting with his stubborn rear and showed her teeth in a grimace-like smile.

  But she wasn’t able to sustain this self-protecting anger, and the longer she lay there, the more likely she would be to turn to maudlin self-pity. She bounced up suddenly, popping off the bed like a jack-in-the-box. Pushing her hair back off her face with a violent little sniff, she shook herself and stalked out to spend what was left of the evening with the two equally infuriating, but still happily available lunatics in the next room.

  Lorcan glanced at her as she totted up the scoreboard. He looked down at his cards and then turned his eyes back to her again, his eyebrows raised. “You look handsome in that dress, baby-girl.”

  Wynter tried to keep track of what she was doing. “I’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes, Dad. Are you only noticing me now?”

  At the end of the bed, Christopher tilted his head back and tried to open his eyes a little wider. “What’s she done to herself?” he asked Lorcan.

  “She put a dress on.”

  “Oh,” he said, “I saw her in a dress once. Fierce handsome!”

  Lorcan smirked at Wynter. See? that smirk said. What did I tell you? Your Hadrish boy!

  Wynter gave him a warning glare.

  “I prefer the sight of her arse in a pair of trousers though,” mumbled Christopher as he looked down at his cards again, apparently unaware he’d spoken out loud.

  Wynter gaped at him and glanced at her father whose eyes had grown to saucers and whose hands suddenly looked very large and capable of snapping a Hadrish neck.

  Lorcan leant forward. He was opening his mouth to let launch a tirade at the unsuspecting young man, when he was distracted by the sound of a body of guards arriving in the hall outside.

  As one they all froze, suddenly alert as rabbits. They heard a key turn in the lock of Razi’s door and a quiet snap and thud as it was opened and shut again. Razi was back.

  It hit them all more or less at the same time: Razi was back to an empty room!

  “Wynter?” Lorcan asked, “Did you leave him a note?”

  Wynter gasped and leapt to her feet. Christopher made a dismayed little sound as they heard a door suddenly bang back against a wall next door. Razi bellowed Christopher’s name and they heard him knocking something over in his panic.

  “Quickly!” Christopher gestured wildly to Wynter. “Before he runs out into the hall!” but she was already flying out the door and into the secret passage.

  Razi was actually at his hall door, his hand on the handle, when she pushed her way into his rooms.

  “Razi!” she hissed, “Stop!”

  He spun to her in a frenzy of terror and panic. “They’ve taken him! They took Christopher!” he cried. “Oh God, Wynter!” He clutched his head, gripping his curls with eye-watering force. “Oh God! What have I done?”

  Wynter flew across the room and grabbed his arms, pulling him down so that his face was level with hers.

  “He’s all right!” she whispered. “Christopher is with us, Razi! He’s inside! He’s playing cards with
Lorcan!”

  As her words slowly percolated through his terror, Razi’s hands loosened their grip on his hair and the panic gradually seeped from his face.

  “Honestly, brother, it’s all right,” she said, patting his arm. “I’m sorry we didn’t leave you a note. We never thought…”

  His eyes filled with tears. He closed them briefly, and then he gently shrugged her hands from his arms and stood to his full height, looking around his rooms as if at a loss as to where or who he was, or what to do next.

  “Come on,” she said, and took him by the hand and led him unresisting through the passage to Lorcan’s room.

  When Wynter came back into the bedroom Christopher had turned awkwardly toward the door, his face anxious. Razi didn’t enter, he just leaned his long body against the doorframe and looked at the two men with weary relief.

  “Sorry, Razi,” Christopher whispered contritely.

  Razi rested his head against the wall. “Did you get your draught?” he asked, every word suffused with tiredness.

  “Aye.”

  Razi nodded. “I must go,” he murmured and turned to leave.

  His three friends exchanged concerned looks.

  “My Lord!” said Lorcan, “Go you to the banquet?”

  Razi only turned his head slightly, his back still to the room. Wynter saw his weary profile as he spoke. His eyes were shut. “I am your Highness the Royal Prince Razi, Protector Lord Moorehawke. You must address me by my proper title.”

  He waited through the shocked silence and nodded when Lorcan whispered, “Aye… your Highness. My apologies.”

  “I am on my way to the banquet. Why do you ask?”

  “I hoped you might accompany my daughter, your Highness. She is inexperienced in the manners of the royal platform, and I thought…”

  Razi held up his hand, cutting Lorcan off and already heading into the gloom of the retiring room as he spoke. “Be ready in ten minutes, Protector Lady, I shall not wait.”

  They sat in stunned silence for a moment. Then Christopher sighed “Well,” he said quietly, “That’s you told, Lorcan.”