As evening dimmed, Dorrin waited for Restin in the dining room, as prepared as she could be. Restin would of course notice every magical preparation, unless the gnurtz dulled his senses enough. She feared it wouldn’t.
The boy who came in and bowed politely to her looked as harmless as any boy his age. “You are the new Duke?” he asked in a light tenor.
“Yes,” Dorrin said. “I am now Duke Verrakai.”
“What happened to the former Duke?”
“He died,” Dorrin said. Then, having no desire to drag this out, she said, “Attarik Verrakai, Carraig.”
A flicker of eyelid. “Who’s Carraig?” in the same light tone. The command to reveal his true identity didn’t work—she would have to depend on her ability to detect such transfers.
“You,” Dorrin said. “Uncle Carraig, to me. I remember you.”
“I’m Restin—” The boy stopped, bit his lip, then grinned, a most unpleasant grin. “What fool made you duke, Dorrin? You have no power. No one can rule here without it—”
Caught by his gaze, she had no voice, nothing but fear. All the nightmares of her childhood rose in her mind, all the fear, all the misery, all the pain. In the same sweet child’s voice, he spoke softly, almost gently. Carraig did that, she remembered, caressing helpless prisoners with his voice as he tormented with his hands. No doubt at all that this was Carraig, not a child pretending another identity. Which meant she must kill him, if she could, unless the gods provided another way. She prayed, for all of them, but felt only a listening stillness.
“I don’t know how you found out, little Dorrin. I suppose one of the others told you … you will tell me, you know, later. But for now … I see you are frightened, child, and that is well. I have had to be so meek with the others, to fool the maids. It’s been too long since I had the pleasure of seeing someone truly afraid … just sit there, Dorrin, and let me taste your fear … I could be in your body, you know, ugly as it is. Imagine that. Your soldiers obeying someone they thought was you. That foolish prince—”
Warmth caressed her mind, but it was not his magery. She was not the scared child she had been; she was Dorrin, shaped by the Company of Falk, by Falk himself, by near four hands of years as Kieri Phelan’s captain, veteran of more wars than Carraig had seen. She had known a paladin … at the memory of Paksenarrion, it was as if Paks were at her side. Her own magery leapt forth, and Restin/Carraig stopped, held motionless.
A dark mist gathered in the air; Dorrin thrust the dagger she’d prepared with deathwish powder into the child’s throat and wrenched it side to side. Blood spurted out; the dark mist thickened.
“Ward of Falk!” Dorrin said. The mist hung there, not quite touching her. “Begone,” she said. It writhed like a swarm of insects but did not dissipate at once. She drew her sword; it flared blue, as always in the presence of evil, and she pointed it at the thickest area of mist. “Go and never return. Go to the High Lord for judgment, and harm nothing on your way.” The words she had learned so many years before, training to be a Knight of Falk, came to her in the old language from no one knew where. “Adakvarteh preklurtz, preklurtz tavin vantish …”
By the end of the adjuration, the mist had gone, vanished. Dorrin looked at the child’s body, sprawled in its chair, blood still wet on the table, the chair, the floor.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Ward of Falk for the soul you were born with, and the child who died, and may Falk and the High Lord forgive me this killing, that was not my desire.”
Nausea twisted her, two days’ worth of disgust and horror and shame; she made it out the front door and spewed on the steps, retching until she had nothing more to lose.
Fine figure of a Duke she made … and yet, what could be more appropriate to Verrakai House and its history than vomit on the entrance steps? She stood up, shaky but cleansed, fetched a lamp from the reception hall, and lit the torch that stood ready for her to signal Selfer and the others that she had prevailed.
19
They had not gone as far as she advised; they were with her sooner than she hoped. “Ware the steps,” she said as Selfer neared them. “I … don’t like killing children.”
“He wasn’t a child, if he was what you said,” Selfer said. “But I’m not surprised. You do not take delight in suffering or death.”
“Flattery?” Dorrin said, smiling.
“No, my lord. Observation.”
From someone who had seen her in battle, not only recently but in Aarenis, it was strange testimony but comforting.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Are there more such spies here?” Selfer asked.
“Among the children? I’m not sure. I must question the maids more closely. Once I suspected this boy, I didn’t test the others with my magery lest he attack one of them then and there.” She sighed. “I don’t want to panic the children who aren’t possessed, or the maids. We’ll need to conceal Restin’s death, and consider how to handle the body.”
“We can’t just bury it?”
“There’s blood magery here, Selfer. We will need to be sure that every drop of blood is cleaned up, for instance—and burn the rags we clean with.”
“I’ll have someone—”
“I need to be there.” At his look, she shook her head. “No, not from guilt—to ensure that the evil in this house doesn’t harm those who come in contact with it.” She scowled, looking past him into darkness. “I don’t know enough, that’s the truth. I never thought I’d be coming back here; I never wanted to know about it, how it works, what the warding spells are. And now that’s put you and the entire realm in danger. It’s not enough to be disgusted by it—it feeds on disgust and revulsion.”
“So … what will work against it?”
“Falk and Gird and the High Lord have power against it, but I sense they expect me to do the actual work.” Suddenly, for no reason, Dorrin felt lighter of heart. “I suppose that’s proper. I swore to be Falk’s servant, when I took the ruby. To the gods belong power, and to us the work of our hands.”
“Then the first step is cleaning up a mess in the dining room?” Selfer said. “That sounds within human strength.”
Dorrin straightened. “Indeed. Set your guards for the night, Captain, and then send me a couple of strong-stomached soldiers.”
The blood smell in the dining room was strong but not more than Dorrin had endured many times before in a life of soldiering. The body seemed to have shrunk, as bodies did when not animated. All the adult cunning and malice had gone from the face; Dorrin lifted the body, cradling the head, and laying it upon the table.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she murmured to the corpse. “They used you, as they used me. You will rest easy in your grave; your soul has long returned to the light, and the Lady will cradle your bones.”
She searched along the paneled walls, and found the door that led to a linen pantry. By the time the men came with water and rags, Dorrin had wrapped the body in a linen tablecloth and bound it with brocade curtain ties. “I believe it is safe for burial,” she said. “But in the morning, and far from this house. The child who was suffered long before his body was taken; the body should be far from that suffering.”
“Yes, my lord,” Selfer said.
“I will go up and speak to the nursemaids; they’ll be wondering why I haven’t sent Restin up to bed.”
“You aren’t going to tell them?”
“That I killed a nine-winters child? No. Tomorrow I must try to get them to understand what he was, what the death-sickness was, but not tonight. The children who aren’t involved need sleep.” She yawned. “So do I. I will tell them he’ll sleep somewhere else.”
“They’ll worry—”
“I can’t help that,” Dorrin said. “It’s the business of nurserymaids to worry.”
Upstairs, she found, as she expected, the senior maid at the door of the nursery, looking worried.