Fighting tears, Greta returned to the upstairs chambers. Ilsabet had gone, and Greta was thankful.
When she was feeling sad, Greta would often sit at Ilsabet's dressing table, looking into the priceless silver mirror, dreaming of what it would be like to be the lady of this castle, the mistress of all around her.
She did so now, but the daydream held no comfort. All she could see were the lines in her face, her thinning hair.
Ilsabet would never miss the loss of a tiny bit of her magic. And if Greta were careful, she could hide the changes. Ilsabet would never know.
She opened the cabinet and rummaged inside until her hand closed over the red silk scarf that hid the kerchief. Frightened of discovery, she unwrapped the contents quickly.
As she pinched off a small piece of the soft black mass, she kept her senses focused on the hall. It would not do for Ilsabet to come back unexpected and find her in the act.
The very feel of it in her hand made her dizzy. She ate it quickly, but as she tried to wrap the package to return it to its hiding place, her hands went numb, her knees gave way. Even then, she thought it was the magic working, and fell without making a sound. Though she still breathed, she could not speak. Though her eyes were still open, she saw nothing.
Kashi found her and screamed for help.
Ilsabet was summoned from dinner. Peto and Jorani followed her to her chambers. As she knelt beside Greta, her attention fixed on her servant, Peto saw the kerchief. His hand moved toward it.
"No!" Ilsabet cried and grabbed his wrist.
"Ilsabet is right," Jorani said. "Greta may well have been poisoned. The touch alone could be deadly. Leave it where it is until I return."
Peto pulled his hand back and looked at the dour man. Friend and advisor to his enemy, poisoner if the rumors about him were correct, yet Peto was now twice in his debt. He wondered if the deaths since he had come to Nimbus Castle were some sort of deadly play designed to push him into some unknown action. If so, who was writing the script, and was his own death a part of the plot?
If it were, Jorani could have killed him a dozen times over. As for Ilsabet, holding her servant close to her chest, whispering endearments, she could only be innocent.
Greta died minutes later, with Ilsabet still holding her. Even then, Ilsabet remained where she was, kneeling on the floor, hugging her until Peto reached down and gently pulled her to her feet.
As he did, he was struck with the same incredible passion he had felt the evening she swore loyalty to him. It was the brightness of her eyes, he thought, and the way she so stoically hid her grief. As he held her, he wished they were still on the riverbank, discussing happier days.
Jorani returned moments later, carrying a mongoose the cook kept in the kitchen to kill the rats that were constantly trying to destroy her larder.
He placed the creature on a table, then slipped on a pair of gloves and put the kerchief beside it. The animal sniffed at the dark mass. Smelling only molasses and flour, it tried to nibble at the edge, but Jorani held it back. Instead, he placed the animal's paw on the sticky lump and waited. The mongoose shuddered, rolled onto its side, and died that instant.
Ilsabet gave a strangled cry and turned to Peto. "It's not you they want to kill, is it? The poison was wrapped in my kerchief. If I had come back early from the meal and touched that horrid thing, it would be me lying there," she said, then pressed against him, trembling like a frail bird in his arms.
"You and Mihael have come to mean a great deal to me in the last few months. I won't let any harm come to you," Peto said.
"No harm? Your servants are in our halls. Your cook prepares the meals. Your healer treats our illnesses and injuries. Which of them was untouched by our invasion? Which has no reason to hate the Obours?"
He winced at the truth of what she said. "Hatred means nothing without knowledge," he reminded her. "I'll find the one who has both."
"My father. My stepmother. My sister. Now the servant who raised me. You'd best hunt quickly, Baron Peto, or there won't be any of us left."
Peto kept his word. By the following evening when the servants were laying the wood for Greta's funeral pyre, his surgeon, his healer, and two of his soldiers who had lost relatives during Baron Janosk's ill-fated invasion were already on their way back to Sundell. In doing this, Peto acted against the advice of his own advisors, as well as Jorani.
"The poisoner could easily be one of our own servants," Jorani had argued. "We caught a great many spies in the castle during the civil war. It's quite possible that we overlooked one or two."
Mihael had nodded, but his support was vague, as if his thoughts were elsewhere.
"I'd feel more comfortable if I knew what sort of poison it was." Peto had looked to Jorani as he said this. Jorani shook his head, appearing as perplexed as he had earlier.
When he'd dismissed his staff, Peto had asked Jorani to remain behind. "Is there anything you wish to say to me in private?" he questioned.
"I wish there were," Jorani replied.
"I want you to know that whatever means you feel are necessary to end these strange deaths will have my blessing," he said.
Jorani understood exactly what Peto meant. He locked eyes with the baron for a moment, then bowed and left. Through the funeral ceremony he said little to Peto, nothing to Ilsabet. He left as soon as the pyre had flared.
He had not lied about his confusion. Though he'd seen no signs of the silky spiderwebs in the substance that had killed Greta, nothing else would have destroyed the mongoose so quickly, and Ilsabet was the only one who had access to the spider's poison.
Peto had just given him permission to end the poisonings by whatever means were necessary. And he had the means, didn't he? The means were all around him.
Jorani had never believed himself a weak-willed man until now. But as he sat, trying to consider the most humane means to end Ilsabet's life, he knew he could never do it. Nonetheless, he had to confront her, to find out why the woman closest to her had to die. Even at this late hour, he doubted she'd be sleeping. He picked up a lamp and went downstairs. Just outside her door, he encountered Mihael. The young man seemed as troubled as he and asked to speak to him in private.
Jorani could well imagine the subject, as he followed Mihael down the hall to his rooms.
SIXTEEN
Ilsabet had not slept more than a few hours since Greta's death.
Each time she closed her eyes, her mind took her back to those few moments she had held Greta before the woman had died. The pain, the fear of death, the terror of Greta's last moments had coursed through Ilsabet, filling her with energy as an empty goblet might be filled with wine. It seemed that in some unfathomable way she had fed on Greta's agony.
As soon as she was able, Ilsabet had fled her own rooms and the men bending over Greta's body. She took refuge for a time in her sister's chambers. The tall oval mirror before which Marishka had preened in her fancy gowns now reflected Ilsabet. Yet, if Ilsabet had not known it was a mirror, she would have thought the reflection was someone else-someone delicate, pure, and incredibly beautiful.
She could not ignore the obvious any longer-something was changing her, and it was not the deaths themselves.
She knew this to be true because she'd fed at other times: sitting with Peto as Marishka died, she had feasted on his grief; in Argentine she had sat at Rilca's bedside, not out of devotion but to take energy from the woman's pain.
But she'd only become certain of the change in her in the days before she swore allegiance to Peto, when she had poisoned the three imprisoned outlaws. No one cared, she had told herself then. And there had been no prisoners in Nimbus castle for weeks before they came. Here was a perfect chance to test a new poison.