His salon was dark. Someone could have been hiding there but his senses suggested otherwise. The same went for the other business rooms of his chambers. That left only his bedchamber, the second-largest room and the one most suited for ambush because of its myriad of hiding places.
He stopped at the door, his night-sensitised eyes sweeping the room. The lamp beside his bed had burned down to a flicker. There was no one on the bed, or behind it that he could tell. What about underneath?
No, Blathy would not hide under the bed, and as he had that thought he knew she was here. She had sworn revenge after he’d killed Leatherhead, and Blathy was not the one to deviate from her purpose. She was a big, vengeful woman, not far short of his own height, and she was here to let every drop of blood out of him.
Yet his chivalrous instincts, and his upbringing, meant that he could not kill a woman. He would have to disarm her, put her to trial and let the judges take care of her. Unless she killed him first.
He moved in, sweeping Maloch from side to side as he searched along the tops of the wardrobes and in the spaces between the furniture. If he saw her, he would strike her down with the flat of the blade, then overpower and bind her.
Blathy was too cunning for him, too quick and too quiet. She must have been lying flat on top of the eight-foot-high wardrobe, out of sight. Her weight landed on his shoulders and a knee drove into the back of his neck, dropping him to the floor beside the bed and paralysing him.
Maloch went skidding and under the bed. She tore off his steel gauntlet and tossed it aside. Rix twisted his head around and caught a glimpse of her — wild-eyed, savage, blood seeping through a bandage on her left shoulder. So he wasn’t her first victim.
Blathy knelt on his back, her knees pressing excruciatingly into his kidneys. Her left hand burrowed into his hair, jerked his head back, and her knife rasped as she drew it from its sheath.
“You killed my Arkyz,” said Blathy. Her husky voice was trembling with emotion. “You cut off my man’s beautiful head and threw it in the offal heap, and I’m going to do the same to you. I’m going to rub your dead face in it.”
He could smell her pungent sweat, read the blood lust in her face. She was a strong, coarse woman, and the reek of her would be the last thing he experienced in this life. He was still paralysed and could do nothing to save himself. He could not even speak. All he could do was watch the knife as she brought it slowly and lovingly towards his throat.
CHAPTER 66
Smack! It came out of nowhere, the unpleasant, pulpy sound of metal pounding into flesh and breaking bone. Blathy went over backwards, the tip of the knife raking across Rix’s left cheek as she fell.
His paralysis had eased enough for him to roll over, though not enough to get up. Behind him, Blathy was on hands and knees, blood streaming from her broken nose, holding the steel gauntlet that had done the damage. But who had thrown it? She tossed it aside and crawled towards Rix’s exposed throat.
Glynnie came out from under the bed, on her knees, swinging Maloch in both hands. She swiped at Blathy, the blade passing so low over Rix’s head that he felt the wind. He tried to bury himself in the carpet.
Blathy lurched to her feet, her proud nose dripping blood, and blood running down her arm from the bandaged shoulder wound. Glynnie sprang to her feet and struck upwards, aiming a ferocious blow at the older woman’s neck. Blathy leaned backwards to avoid it, then laughed mockingly.
She was almost a foot taller, twice Glynnie’s weight, and with the long knife in her hand she had the same reach as Glynnie swinging Maloch two-handed. And Rix could tell she had fought many a battle with that knife. She was fast, skilled and driven by malice.
He groaned and tried to get to his feet. Blathy kicked him in the back of the head, knocking him flat and renewing the paralysis. Clearly, she knew all there was to know about dirty fighting.
Blathy slashed at Glynnie, who avoided the blow with a dexterity Rix would not have thought possible. Blathy struck again; again Glynnie wove aside. They danced their way around the room, past the end of the bed and down the other side.
“No,” cried Rix. “She’ll pin you in the corner.”
Blathy drove Glynnie backwards with a furious set of blows, only ending when Glynnie, with a wild slash, almost took her opponent’s knife hand off at the elbow. Blathy drew back. Glynnie leapt up onto the vast bed, rolled across it and landed on her feet beside Rix. She ran around the end and now Blathy was pinned against the wall, though only for a minute. She drove Glynnie backwards again.
They fought up and back, up and back again. Blathy was tiring now, her movements slower. It was always the legs that went first, and she was much older.
The big woman tensed, and Rix could read her plan. Blathy was going to attack in a furious onslaught that would drive her small opponent backwards against the bed, and then she would cut her open.
Glynnie went backwards until her back came up against the side of the bed. Blathy rushed her. Glynnie ducked a savage slash to the throat, raised her sword at the perfect moment and Blathy drove herself onto it, all the way to the heart.
Blathy’s eyes were wet. She reached out, as if to her dead lover, and smiled a sweet smile. “Arkyz,” she whispered. “At last.”
It was over.
Glynnie left Maloch in her opponent’s chest, stepped around the body and came across to Rix, wobbly in the knees. Sweat was running down her cheeks, her face was scarlet and blood dripped from her elbow from a gash on her upper arm. He got to his knees, tried to pull himself up on the bed, but failed.
Glynnie’s breast was heaving. She looked him up and down.
“Help me up,” said Rix, his voice hoarse and crackly.
She put a small hand on each shoulder, holding him down.
“What is it?” A sudden terror struck him; had she joined the mutineers? No, the thought was preposterous.
“Anything you want to say while you’re on your knees?”
He swallowed. “Only how desperately ashamed I am. I’ve treated you badly.”
“Abom — ” She stumbled over the word. “Abominably.”
“Yes. Abominably. I’m deeply sorry. Can you ever forgive me?”
“I have to think about it. Can you get up?”
“I don’t think so. My neck — ”
She went around behind him. Her damp fingers probed the back of his neck, down the vertebrae. The little hairs stirred there. She shoved hard with her thumbs, he heard a small crack and the numbness faded. He lumbered to his feet, looking down at Blathy. “You were right.”
“What about?” said Glynnie.
“The day we came, you said Blathy was one of those women who would only ever have one man. Now death has reunited them.”
Distantly, he could hear the sounds of fighting now. “Glynnie, it’s mutiny.”
“I know.”
She jerked the sword from Blathy’s chest and handed it to him, then the steel gauntlet, which was covered in Blathy’s blood.
His hand shook as he drew it on. “Stay here.”
Rix ran out and down, towards the yelling and the sound of blade on blade, which seemed to be coming from the dining hall. Glynnie followed, carrying Blathy’s knife. He burst in. The hall was lit only by a couple of lanterns and it took a while to make things out.
Holm had been backed up against the wall. He had a sword in his hand and was fighting two men at once, the brothers Hox. Rix could tell them from behind by their stubby legs and long, rectangular torsos. They weren’t skilled swordsmen, though they were tough and tenacious. They ought to be able to take down one old man.
Yet they were the ones flailing away, their wild blows striking sparks out of the wall, while Holm was moving back and forth like a fencing instructor. He was light on his feet for an old coot, using no more energy than he had to and defending effortlessly, though he had passed up several opportunities to kill his opponents. Surely he wasn’t a pacifist?