I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him as Marishka would have done. But I could not help thinking that by winning my love he flatters himself. Ah, he is in for such an awakening.
I'd just put the jewelry away when we were interrupted by a pounding on the door. In a palace where servants were unflinchingly polite, the urgency of the sound made Peto wary.
As soon as he unlocked the door, I could see that the news wasn't good. We went downstairs and met the guard who had come from Nimbus Castle.
"Jorani is right," I said after the man had detailed the unrest the killing had caused. "One of us must be there. I have to go."
Peto nodded. I could see how much he wanted to go back with me, but Sundell custom made that impossible. He had to remain in Sundell for the funeral of his fallen soldiers. I sat with him for the next few hours, holding his hand, feeling his rage and pain.
My gowns were finished by nightfall. I put on the silver one and the crystal jewelry and went into the bedroom I shared with my husband. As I walked toward the bed, I saw my reflection in a full-length mirror. The moonlight had turned my hair to silver and the gown seemed to flow like water over my body. I had never felt so cold, or so beautiful as I turned to Peto and held out my arms.
NINETEEN
Jorani could never understand madness, yet now it seemed to be all around him. Word of the killings at the border guardhouse rolled like a deadly tidal wave through the castle, then Pirie, then all of Kislova. The fact that six of the dead were from Sun-dell was ignored. The fact that the Kislovan soldiers had been new recruits and one had fought for the rebels before the invasion seemed to be all that anyone considered. Suddenly, Baron Peto was not a savior but a tyrant, more hated than Janosk, who had at least been one of their own.
Nobles of various Kislovan estates were waiting for Ilsabet at Nimbus Castle. She wore the silver gown, the crystal jewelry, the matching silver shoes. When she stepped from the carriage, pale hair in delicate ringlets over her back, Lord Ruven took her hand and escorted her into the great hall, past the assembly, to the seat of honor her father had once occupied.
Jorani waited beside it, and as she climbed the stairs, he thought how right it was that Janosk's most able child should finally sit in his place.
The silence that greeted her arrival was the last for hours. Though Ilsabet was undoubtedly exhausted from the long journey, she listened carefully as nobles gave their opinions on what should be done. Most wanted to continue the alliance with Sundell-as if anyone had a choice in the matter-which had proven so beneficial to the country. A few suggested ways of appeasing the peasants. One old lord, a staunch supporter of Janosk, was inexplicably in favor of invading Sundell.
"They'd hardly expect such a move. And we'd have the support of the people, that's for sure," he said.
Ilsabet listened politely to the man, then explained to him that Sundell was far too strong for the remnants of the Kislovan army. "Besides, the work of one insane officer cannot be allowed to undo what has become an economically advantageous alliance."
Jorani was surprised at his relief. Had he really thought she would do something foolish out of revenge? As he listened to her propose imprisonment for those speaking against the occupation and execution for anyone who took up arms against Sundell, he realized she was as harsh a ruler as her father had been. With a pang of regret, he also decided she might have fallen in love with her husband.
When they were alone in her chambers, she dispelled that last thought by throwing her arms around him and kissing him. "I thought of you every day," she said and moved away from him. The silver fabric of her gown caught the light, and as she walked toward the window, it seemed to glow.
"Do you care for Peto at all?" he asked.
She shook her head. "But I've learned to lie so perfectly," she answered. "And I'm pleased I went there. I've discovered so much." She told him of the plans she'd made for the castle, then took him to her room where servants had uncrated the books she'd borrowed and piled them on her reading table.
Given her interests, she'd chosen well, Jorani noted. There were neatly written and illustrated volumes on plants of the region, on the uses of molds and chemicals, on the spread and treatment of disease.
"They're a strange people," she said. "So many of the books were covered with dust or crumbling with age. I was in awe of the knowledge they ignored. I've already read some of the ones I borrowed, but I wanted to share them with you. And just before I left, I discovered this behind a shelf of books. I doubt anyone knew it was there." She held out a slim pile of pages, crudely bound.
He sat at the table and opened it. The writing was faded to a pale brown, almost unreadable against the yellowed pages. He read the first page slowly, then looked up at her with concern. "Don't keep this, Ilsa-bet. This does not deal with healing, nor even with poisons. This is sorcery, black and terrible. It also mentions a curse connected with the potion's use."
"It describes how to raise the dead. If you had fallen, wouldn't you want me to use such a thing on you?"
"Never! Don't even think of ft." If there had been a fire in the hearth, he would have flung the volume into it, half expecting it not to bum.
"I've read nearly all of it already," she lied. "I never forget what I learn. If you don't want me to share the knowledge contained here, I'll bum the book as soon as I'm finished."
"No," he said. "I won't destroy such knowledge, though I'll never use it." As he spoke, he knew this was a decision he would one day regret.
When Jorani turned to leave, she gripped his arm and drew him inside, kissing him again, then going to the table, filling a pair of crystal goblets. "I told you we would rule together." She handed him a glass.
He took it, sipped it, thinking there was something inevitable and tragic about the love he felt for her. Nonetheless, he stayed.
Beside him in bed, Usabet thought about the amber potion she had deliberately stopped taking. The time for a child had come. No heir of Peto's
would rule Kislova or Sundell. Someday Peto would know the truth of that as well.
Later that night, she dreamt of her ghosts-Mar-ishka with her white wolf, Dark with the girl she'd seen in the camp, the rebels she'd poisoned in the dungeon, even the soldiers in the guardhouse. They were together, moving toward her across the mist-covered Arvid River, up the narrow winding staircase that led to the room where she lay, tossing in the nightmare.
She screamed and tried to fling off the covers and run from them, but the mists were all around the bed, the room. She was lost in them, lost in the horror of what she had done. She forced herself awake and with a broken cry reached across the bed for Jorani. He had gone. She was alone, and the dreams had somehow followed her into the waking world. She saw the shifting forms of her victims floating through the dark room, their white hands reaching out to brush her face.
She cringed back, but the ghost of Marishka moved closer to plant a frigid kiss on Ilsabet's cheek. "You must not destroy him, Sister," she whispered, "or you will destroy yourself, as well."
Pulling the covers over her face, Ilsabet lay in the bed, her heart pounding, her body shaking, terrified like the child she almost was.
Emory's father had been a rebel, captured and executed in the last days of the fighting. After the failed invasion and the fall of Janosk, Emory had done his best to take his father's place around the farm, but found it impossible. Before, he had managed the flocks in the hills south of Pirie while his father and younger brother tended the barn and the fields. Now Emory wished his family were larger.
Even a little sister would be welcome to help with spring planting.