The Poison Throne Read online

  He’s seen the doctor’s robes, Wynter thought, and wants a consultation. Some ache or pain, or some fever in the troupe. Well, I’ll give him something to need consulting about…

  She bristled as the man crossed the room, ready to let rip at him. But, to her amazement, Razi, his face wry, lifted a finger in greeting and murmured to himself, “So that’s where you’ve been, you bloody tomcat. You’ll get yourself tarred if you’re not careful.”

  Blissfully ignorant of Razi’s comment, the young man slid and sidled his way through the kitchen turmoil, his mouth lifted in a crooked smile as he rapidly approached their table. My God! thought Wynter, her face incredulous, This? This is who Razi was waiting for? This rake? Has the world gone mad?

  Her mouth was actually hanging open when the fellow finally got to them, and she had to make a conscious decision to snap it shut as he sauntered up and lounged against the wall by their table.

  “Razi,” he said by way of greeting, drawing the name out into something insinuating and sly. At the same time, he looked Wynter up and down with undisguised interest. She’d seen that look before, had become accustomed to it ever since her body had blossomed into all its various curves and roundnesses. She treated it to an even greater measure of shuttered disdain than usual.

  “Christopher,” murmured Razi, putting a similar sly emphasis on the name, and Wynter was astounded to see that he looked amused.

  Christopher, eh? she thought. Well, I’ve met people like you before, Christopher. Wynter said the name in her head, drawing it out as Razi had done, but without the obvious affection that her friend had put into it. She found herself glaring up at this man, her rage such that she made no effort to hide it. I’ve met lots of people. Just. Like. You.

  You saw them all the time in palace life, people who latched on. People who used. They would find someone close to the throne and befriend them, usually separating them from the people who cared about them, before bleeding them dry. Not that Razi was any type of idiot. But Wynter had seen fear, isolation and need make fools of the wisest men. I’m watching you, she thought as the young man curled his lip at her in a very speculative smile. I have your measure.

  She opened her mouth to say something sharp about the maid, but Razi was already talking. He was smiling up at the young man, his slow, spreading, generous smile. The easy tone of his voice and the amused affection on his face filled Wynter with a sudden and childish jealousy and she had to bite down on her bottom lip to stop unreasonable tears from springing to her eyes. It dawned on her that she was really quite drunk.

  Step back, step back, she thought urgently, sitting up straighter and breathing deep to clear her head, “speak not in your cups, lest ye regret when sober”. What had she been thinking, slurping down that cordial when she was already so tired? She forced herself to focus on the conversation and tried to quell the urge to leap up and push this Christopher right over on his backside and kick him up the kitchen steps.

  Stop looking at my friend like that! she thought, He’s not yours.

  Razi was murmuring low, his head tilted to look up into Christopher’s face. The young man had slanting grey eyes, the eyelashes so thick and black as to seem kohled. He was leaning down, listening to Razi with an indulgent smirk, his hands tucked behind his back.

  “If you get one of those girls with child, Marni will march you up the aisle herself and I’ll help her tuck you into your marriage bed, you bloody rake.”

  Wynter expected the young man to affect innocence, to spread his hands, or to play the man of the world, but his face settled for a moment into genuinely hurt inquiry, “You don’t think I’d ever ruin a lass, do you, Razi?”

  Razi smiled and shook his head slightly and the young man straightened, his tomcat grin back in place. “Anyway,” Christopher said, turning his eyes to the maids again, “I only give what’s asked of me; never go where I’m not invited, so to speak. And you of all people should know there’s ways and means of avoiding that kind of trouble, what with being a doctor and all… aye…” he murmured, his eyes drifting along the row of giggling maids at the plate board. “There’s enough bastards in this world without adding to their poxy ranks.”

  Razi just smiled, but Wynter felt the sting of that remark on his behalf and bristled. “Many of those bastards are more worthy than you,” she said sharply, and she was surprised that Christopher didn’t just burst into flames at the heat of her glare.

  Christopher levelled his grey eyes at her and half-smiled. “I meant no offence, little mankin. There are only bastards standing here.” He bent his waist in a little bow.

  Oh! He was assuming that she’d been offended on her own behalf, and was telling her that he, too, was the product of an unwed union. Blind indignation rose up in her and she almost said My parents were wed, thank you very much! The retort leapt to her lips but she realised, just in time, that the indignant pride in those words did nothing but insult Razi and expose a previously unsuspected prejudice in herself.

  Careful, she thought, quickly gathering her wits, the wine has tied your head in knots.

  “Your little friend looks tired, Razi.” Christopher’s lilting voice swam through the fog, “Would you not let him to bed?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” exclaimed Wynter, slapping the table with one hand, the other pressed to her pounding temple. “You know full well I’m not a boy! Stop acting the jester, you haven’t the wit!”

  She felt rather than saw the young man draw himself up, and thought, Ah, here we have it. You suffer from pride, don’t you, you dangerous braggart. Pride controls you.

  “I only meant not to insult your disguise, firebrand.” His voice was cold. “But you might want to work on it a little harder. You’ll never pass for a boy with all those bumps and curves.”

  She lifted her head and raised her lip in what she hoped was a disparaging sneer. “I’m not disguised as anything,” she said, “I’m exactly what you see.”

  “A boy who butchers wood for a living?” sarcasm dripped from every word, and Wynter glared at him.

  “A fourth-year apprentice, guild approved, chartered for the green.” None of it meant a thing to him. She could see him trying to process the meaning behind the words and failing. Where are you from, she thought suddenly, that you don’t know guild ranking in something so prevalent as carpentry?

  Even the lowest dung-haulier, attached to the tiniest principality, would know their ranks and roles off by heart. For a courtier to be so utterly ignorant about the symbols of professional rank would be tantamount to being blind, deaf and dumb.

  She straightened slowly and looked at him anew. A newcomer then, a stranger to court life. This made him the most dangerous of idiots, ambitious but ignorant. She had seen people like him cut bloody swathes through a royal household. Intentionally or otherwise, people like this could be a poison that would blacken the body of state, spreading death and corruption in their wake.

  He saw the antipathy in her eyes and she saw a steel rise up in his.

  Beside her, Razi shifted, but Wynter didn’t look at him. She just kept her eyes locked on Christopher’s. Then the young man suddenly tilted his head into an unexpected smile, dimples showing at the corners of his mouth. His eyes sparkled with wicked humour and, just like that, she found herself ensnared in a staring contest, unwilling to be the first to look away.

  How did this happen? she thought desperately, feeling panic building at this ridiculous turn of events. How have I let this dolt corner me so badly?

  He was, after all, just one of the many flies that buzzed around the dung heap of state. She should be able to brush him off Razi without breaking her stride. But here she was, stuck in a childish staring match, her dander up and too proud to break off.

  Razi cleared his throat, “Children, children…” he admonished mockingly, but his warm voice sounded troubled.

  “When does your troupe move on?” Wynter asked coldly, not breaking her stare.

  She saw incomprehension
in Christopher’s face, and he shook his head and squinted at her, “What do you mean?”

  She waved a hand up and down to indicate his clothing. Unconsciously, her eyes followed the gesture. Damn! But Christopher appeared not to notice. “You’re an entertainer, aren’t you? A tumbler of some ilk, or a musician?”

  She heard Razi hiss in a breath beside her, and a strange, cold stillness came over Christopher.

  “Christopher Garron is my horse-doctor.” Razi’s voice was hard and had an odd quality to it. “In the three years and a half that I’ve known him, he’s taught me more than I’d ever hoped to learn about horses and their care.”

  Three and a half years? They’d known each other that long? And, judging by Razi’s body, horses had become his passion, so he and Christopher must spend a great deal of each day together. Over three years of being in each other’s company, working together at something they loved. While I rotted alone in the dank North. She squashed this thought as viciously as she could, it being unfair to both herself and to Razi. Would she truly have denied him a friend in all those years? Hadn’t she longed for a friend herself? No, she thought, I longed for home. For home and for Razi and for Alberon – no other. And anyway, I would have made a better choice than this… this dangerous sybarite.

  Even as she thought those harsh things about him, it was already becoming painfully clear to her that the main reason she distrusted this Christopher Garron was the very fact of his friendship with Razi. She was so jealous of him that she could happily have stabbed him in the heart.

  Christopher was speaking again, that lilting Northland accent. His eyes were cold, his expression flat as iron. The dimples had disappeared from the corners of his mouth. “You’re right. Very observant. I am a musician. I tend to Razi’s horses because of my skill and love of them, not because it’s my heart’s passion. I’m the best musician in all the North Countries. Famed in Hadra, where I’m from, for my skill on the guitar and fiddle.”

  Later, when she was lying in bed, trying to sleep, she would remember the way he said that, the look in his eyes still eating at her. I am a musician. Not I was, or I used to be, but I am. As though the music still burned inside him as a living thing, trapped and scrabbling to get out, but never capable of escaping.

  “I’m not in disguise, despite your implications. I don’t need to dress myself up as something I’m not in order to win some attention.” His tone was acidic and he sneered down at her carpenter’s outfit. “And though I know there are some men who like those kind of games, I don’t believe our friend here is one of them.”

  Razi scraped out another little hiss. “Christopher…” he warned softly.

  Wynter held her hands out, with all their lumps and scars and calluses.

  “It’s not my clothes that make me what I am. Nor my proximity to the throne that earns me my bread. I make my own way. These are workman’s hands, they speak for themselves.” She lifted them up to him, palms out, and that gesture, too, would haunt her in the night. Why that? Why had she chosen that particular gesture with which to prove her worth?

  Christopher just stood looking at her, his grey eyes opaque, his face unreadable.

  “I see that you think I make use of our mutual friend,” he said coldly. “I assure you I do not. Perhaps this prettied up little farce of a life suits you, but I no more want to be in it than a cat wants to dance, I—”

  “Oh God, that’s enough!” Razi kept his voice low and he slapped the table only lightly, but the two of them leapt, startled by his sudden sharpness. “Why don’t I just stand up, here and now, and let the two of you mark your territory out on me like dogs! Wynter, you can have my left leg, Christopher, you have my right! Then we’ll all know where we stand and this bloody… this bloody prowling can stop!”

  He glared up at them in exasperation. His words cut right to the bone of the matter, shaming them both, and they deflated like pig-bladders after a stick and ball match.

  “I just… I wanted you to be friends!” he said gently, “I want you to like each other. Can we at least give it a try?”

  Wynter looked at Christopher. There was uncertainty in his grey eyes and hurt, and she still felt a bitter gall of jealousy in her heart and the not unreasonable fear that he was a destructive influence. He was a destructive influence, goddamn him. But for Razi’s sake she half-stood and held her hand out to shake Christopher’s.

  She felt an immediate flash of anger when he hesitated, and she withdrew her hand and glared. Christopher released a grunt of frustration, looked about him in distress and then submitted with a sigh. Reluctantly, without looking at her, he held out his hands, not for her to shake, but for her to see, and Wynter gasped and pulled away slightly.

  Even with all her experience of wounds and scars and the terrible disfigurements that war and hard labour brought to men’s bodies, she found his hands shocking. They were so out of keeping with his easy, self-confident grace. It was with a sudden pang of admiration for his skill that she realised he’d managed to keep them hidden from view the whole time since his arrival.

  He’s a thief, she thought with a shock.

  “I’m not a criminal,” he muttered, as if reading her thoughts, and she could tell that he was used to people jumping to that conclusion. A natural enough one, this being the punishment for theft in the North. But she’d never seen it done so viciously, with such awful scarring, and never to both hands. She gazed at the terrible wounds as if expecting them to speak, or transfigure.

  He had fine, strong, white hands, the fingers slim and nimble looking. Yes, she thought, without satisfaction, a musician, God help him, and it’s obvious. But the middle finger of each hand was missing. The one on his right was a relatively clean amputation, the finger chopped from its socket, although the mess of shallow scars and runnels up the back of his hand told her that he must have fought madly. The knife had skipped and slid about, mutilating the surrounding flesh and the other fingers around it as the blade dug out his finger. The wound on his left was truly awful, because it spoke of such tremendous brutality. Only a small, gnarled stump of the finger remained, and that was badly crooked, as though the perpetrator had attempted literally to twist the finger from its socket. A long, pale ribbon of scar ran down the back of his hand and disappeared into his cuff, clean and surgical, as if someone had drawn an infection, releasing the pressure on an abscess.

  Wynter couldn’t help it – her first thoughts were, he has the advantage on me now, anything I say will make me look an ignorant brute. And then, no more to her credit than the first thought, you seem to have a talent for annoying folk, Christopher Garron. Whoever did this really wanted to hurt you.

  She looked up into his face, expecting triumph, and waited for him to press home his advantage. He had all the weaponry he needed now to make her look small in front of Razi. But there was only a shy kind of apology in his smile, and her heart jolted in her chest like an abrupt bang on a drum: My God, you really have no idea how to play the game, do you?

  He remained standing there, this slim, pale young man with fine black hair and slanting grey eyes, shyly holding out his mutilated hand, unaware of her ungracious thoughts. She must have stared at him for a long moment because eventually he said, “Do you still want to shake my hand?”

  Oh Christopher, she thought, with a sudden surge of sympathy, this life will eat you up. It may well choke on you in the process, but you won’t survive it. And then, with much colder intent, she thought, I’m not letting you take Razi down when you go.

  She stood smoothly and smiled and took his hand. He accepted her handshake with no further self-consciousness, looking her in the eye and nodding a smile at her, the dimples back in force. “I’m Wynter,” she said, “Well met, Christopher Garron. God bless you and your path.”

  And Razi grinned with delight.

  Under the King’s Eye

  “How is Lorcan? Does he fare well?” Razi slid his eyes sideways to her, judging her reaction. Here was one of those obl
ique questions that meant everything or nothing, depending on how you responded to them. The course the conversation took after such an inquiry was up to the one giving the answer. Does he fare well? Could be inferred as, is he alive? Has he maintained his pride? His sanity? His health? She could deflect all those subtexts with a simple he’s fine, and with anyone but Razi a simple he’s fine would be what she’d give.

  But this was Razi and she said, “My father is unwell, brother. I fear for his life.”

  Razi turned to her, concern written in broad strokes across his handsome face. The three of them were making their way up the back stairs, Christopher and Razi having decided that they needed to show Wynter their beloved horses. She had indicated her consent with a tired shrug; maybe they would become absorbed and she could lie down on a haystack and close her eyes for a while. Christopher had walked on ahead of them, giving them space. Not so dense then, she thought, as he had casually let the distance between them grow.

  “Would your father allow me to examine him? Or would it be imprudent to bring it up?”

  “Oh God,” she groaned, “don’t bring it up, Razi, please. He’s mortal afraid of seeming vulnerable.”

  “I don’t blame him in the least,” muttered her friend, his brown eyes darkening. “Where is he now? Maybe I can sneak a look at him, judge his humours from afar.”

  Wynter sighed and ran her hand over her burning eyes. Razi took her by the elbow and leaned in as they continued up the steps. “Wyn? You need to lie down, you’re all worn thin. Why don’t we accompany you to your chambers, and let you bathe and rest? I’m being selfish…”

  She laughed and shook her head and held a hand up to silence him.

  “Razi, even had I a chamber to retire to, I couldn’t bear the thought of being apart from you so soon. I’ll lay my head on a bag of hay and let yourself and that fellow play with the horses, all right?”