At present, however, thoughts of shame and distress were too trivial to be considered. In any case, Kelven had long since bereft him of any instinct for self-concealment he may have possessed. To Reave’s inquiry, he replied as well as his sense of doom allowed, “I wanted the widow.”
“For her wealth?” Reave asked.
Jillet shook his head. “Wealth seems pleasant, but I do not understand it.” Certainly, wealth did not appear to have given either the widow or Kelven any particular satisfaction. “I wanted her.”
“Why?”
This question was harder. Jillet might have mentioned her beauty, her youth, her foreignness; he might have mentioned her tragedy. But Reave’s clear gaze made those answers inadequate. Finally, Jillet replied, “It would mean something. To be loved by her.”
Reave nodded. “You wanted to be loved by a woman whose love was valuable.” Then he asked, “Why did you think her love could be gained by alchemy? Love worth having does not deserve to be tricked. And she would never truly love you if you obtained her love falsely.”
Jillet considered this question easy. Many candles ago—almost from the beginning—the pain in his arms had given him the feeling that his chest had been torn open, exposing everything. He said, “She would not love me. She would not notice me. I do not know the trick of getting women to give me their love.”
“The ‘trick,’” Reave mused. “That is inadequate, Jillet. You must be honest with me.”
Honey or desperation gave Jillet a moment of strength. “I have been honest since he put me in this place. I think it must be hell, and I am already dead. How else is it possible for you to be here? You are no kinsman of mine, Reave the Just. Some men are like the widow. Their love is worth having. I do not understand it, but I can see that women notice such men. They give themselves to such men.
“I am not among them. I have nothing to offer that any woman would want. I must gain love by alchemy. If magick does not win it for me, I will never know love at all.”
Reave raised fresh water to Jillet’s lips. He set new morsels of honeycomb in Jillet’s mouth.
Then he turned away.
From the door of the chamber, he said, “In one thing, you are wrong, Jillet of Forebridge. You and I are kinsmen. All men are of common blood, and I am bound to any man who claims me willingly.” As he left, he added, “You are imprisoned here by your own folly. You must rescue yourself.”
Behind him, the door closed, and he was gone.
The door was stout, and the chamber had been dug deep: no one heard Jillet’s wail of abandonment.
Certainly the widow did not hear it. In truth, she was not inclined to listen for such things. They gave her nightmares—and her life was already nightmare enough. When Reave found her, she was in her bedchamber, huddled upon the bed, sobbing uselessly. About her shoulders she wore the tatters of her night-dress, and her lips and breasts were red with the pressure of Kelven’s admiration.
“Madam,” said Reave courteously. He appeared to regard her nakedness in the same way he had regarded Jillet’s torment. “You are the widow Huchette?”
She stared at him, too numb with horror to speak. In strict honesty, however, her horror had nothing to do with him. It was a natural consequence of the Divestulata’s love-making. Now that he was done with her, he had perhaps sent one of his grooms or servingmen or business associates to enjoy her similarly.
“You have nothing to fear from me,” her visitor informed her in a kindly tone. “I am Reave. Men call me ‘Reave the Just.’”
The widow was young, foreign, and ignorant of the world; but none of those hindrances had sufficed to block her from hearing the stories which surrounded him. He was the chief legend of the North Counties: he had been discussed in her presence ever since Rudolph had brought her to Forebridge. On that basis, she had understood the danger of Jillet’s claim when she had first met him; and on that same basis she now uttered a small gasp of surprise. Then she became instantly wild with hope. Before he could speak again, she began to sob, “Oh, sir, bless Heaven that you have come! You must help me, you must! My life is anguish, and I can bear no more! He rapes me and rapes me, he forces me to do the most vile things at his whim, we are not wed, do not believe him if he says that we are wed, my husband is dead, and I desire no other, oh, sir! You must help me!”
“I will consider that, madam,” Reave responded as though he were unmoved. “You must consider, however, that there are many kinds of help. Why have you not helped yourself?”
Opening her mouth to pour out a torrent of protest, the widow stopped suddenly, and a deathly pallor blanched her face. “Help myself ?” she whispered. “Help myself?”
Reave fixed his clear gaze upon her and waited.
“Are you mad?” she asked, still whispering.
“Perhaps.” He shrugged. “But I have not been raped by Kelven Divestulata. I do not beg succor. Why have you not helped yourself ?”
“Because I am a woman!” she protested, not in scorn, but piteously. “I am helpless. I have no strength of arm, no skill with weapons, no knowledge of the world, no friends. He has made himself master of everything which might once have aided me. It would be a simpler matter for me to tear apart these walls than to defend myself against him.”
Again, Reave shrugged. “Still he is rapist—and likely a murderer. And I see that you are not bruised. Madam, why do you not resist him? Why do you not cut his throat while he sleeps? Why do you not cut your own, if his touch is so loathsome to you?”
The look of horror which she now turned on him was unquestionably personal, caused by his questions, but he was not deterred by it. Instead, he took a step closer to her.
“I offend you, madam. But I am Reave the Just, and I do not regard who is offended. I will search you further.” His eyes replied to her horror with a flame which she had not seen in them before, a burning of clear rage. “Why have you done nothing to help Jillet? He came to you in innocence and ignorance as great as your own. His torment is as terrible as yours. Yet you crouch there on your soft bed and beg for rescue from an oppressor you do not oppose, and you care nothing what becomes of him.”
The widow may have feared that he would step closer to her still and strike her, but he did not. Instead, he turned away.
At the door, he paused to remark, “As I have said, there are many kinds of help. Which do you merit, madam?”
He departed her bedchamber as silently as he had entered it, leaving her alone.
The time now was near the end of the day, and still neither Kelven himself nor his dogs nor his servingmen knew that Reave the Just moved freely through the manor-house. They had no reason to know, for he approached no one, addressed no one, was seen by no one. Instead, he waited until night came and grew deep over Forebridge, until grooms and breeders, cooks and scullions, servingmen and secretaries had retired to their quarters, until only the hungry mastiffs were awake within the walls because the guards who should have tended them had lost interest in their duties. He waited until Kelven, alone in his study, had finished readying his plans to ruin an ally who aided him loyally during a recent trading war, and had poured himself a glass of fine brandy so that he would have something to drink while he amused himself with Jillet. Only then did Reave approach the Divestulata’s desk in order to study him through the dim light of the lamps.