Page 86 of The Book That Held Her Heart

“Lady Gharra.” The man’s voice held a familiar croak of petulance. “You may approach with your guests.”

The purple-maned lady led the way, and Arpix, shooting a final, furious warning look at Clovis, followed.

“Illustrious Sir.” Lady Gharra bowed so low before the throne that Arpix finally got his first clear view of the potentate.

Two shrewd, dark eyes met his, underhung with pouchy, discoloured bags of skin. The slightly bulbous nose, pallid complexion powdered to the point at which cracks started to show around his jowls, the loose, wet mouth…Arpix knew him in an instant. Oanold, the cannibal king, the man who had ordered slaughter in the library, whose troops had set it aflame. The same venal, cruel, indulgent suppresser of truth who had hunted the weak from the throne of Crath City instead of ensuring the safety of its people.

“I feel I know you from somewhere.” Oanold stared at Arpix, then glanced at Clovis with a frown. “The angry one too…”

“Illustrious Sir.” Lady Gharra straightened, trying to push surprise from her face. “Mistress Clovis here saved many lives, including my own, at the tourney in Blue Tower Square today. She killed more than a dozen bugs…with a sword…” She still sounded unable to believe it.

“Ah yes.” Oanold continued to frown. “That was today, wasn’t it? Where’s that fellow everyone loves. Looks like a pirate. Golden-something?”

“Erico Goldeye, Illustrious Sir.” Lady Gharra winced. “He was the first to die. All of the champions are dead, nearly a score of soldiers too. An unexpected incursion of winged bugs. She killed them all.” Gharra spread her hand towards Clovis, who certainly looked fierce enough to make the story believable.

“Remarkable.” The potentate sounded less than pleased. “And this one?” He flapped a jewelled hand in Arpix’s direction.

“An expert in killing the bugs, Illustrious Sir. Both Master Arpix and Mistress Clovis come to us from the library as a result of recent developments there.”

“I see…” Oanold narrowed his eyes at Arpix as if trying to see past the barriers holding back the recollections of an alternate life. “Interesting. So, really, they count as my discoveries.”

“Indeed, Illustrious Sir.” Lady Gharra inclined her head.

Arpix edged closer to Clovis and set a hand upon her wrist, finding it vibrating with invisible but palpable rage. She might be unarmed and surrounded by palace guards, but Arpix didn’t entirely trust her not to leap on the potentate there and then. He squeezed and hoped that the squeeze conveyed both his understanding of the depth of her passion, along with the assurance that there would be a better time.

“And you two have come to offer me your services, have you?” Oanold looked from Clovis to Arpix and back again.

“We have,” Arpix stated with a surety he didn’t feel. He needed to stop Clovis speaking. If she didn’t speak, there was still a chance that Oanold wouldn’t understand that the reckless hate in her eyes was all for him. “We went to the tournament to prove our credentials.”

“It sounds as if you impressed Lady Gharra, at least.” Oanold’s sour look suggested that he was still chewing over some grievance he couldn’t quite put into words. “But the leader of nations can’t hand out trust on hearsay.” He ran his tongue over yellowing teeth. “You came from the library, you say?”

“We did.” Arpix inclined his head, choosing not to elaborate.

The potentate nodded. “Indulge me for a short while.” He waved hisfingers in a shooing motion. Lady Gharra immediately bowed and started to back away. Arpix followed her example. Clovis, although she couldn’t bring herself to bow, retreated from the throne without so much as a snarl.

Gharra took them almost to the ring of pillars that supported the false heavens above them.

“What are we doing?” Clovis hissed through clenched teeth.

“Indulging the potentate,” Gharra murmured. “Waiting. Because he’s told us to wait.”

And so, they waited. The potentate summoned and dispatched a courtier, then turned his attention back to the supplicants before him. Over the course of perhaps an hour he dealt with seven cases, almost all of which concerned land disputes. He ruled on the cases without enthusiasm, ensuring that the state grew richer whatever the outcome. A merchant dealing in imported gun barrels complained that a particular general had dealt with him unfairly. A modest amount of compensation was ordained, but the merchant had to ensure increased supplies in the coming year.

Clovis made no effort to hide her boredom, and even Arpix found himself struggling to hide the yawns that wanted to crack his jaw. It had been a night with far less sleeping and far more exercise than he was used to. Since he wasn’t absorbed by the court proceedings, he was one of the first to notice the great doors start to open.

The object that the widening gap between the doors revealed looked familiar. A large rectangular box covered by a black cloth big as a sail. It rumbled forward on poorly oiled wheels, and it was their squeaking as much as anything else that stopped the potentate mid-flow and drew every eye.

“Ah.” The potentate waved the guardsmen forward, pointing to where they should position their charge.

Arpix’s heart fell. Another skeer. Clovis would have to butcher another maimed soldier to convince the potentate, or perhaps the exercise was simply to entertain the members of court who had felt themselves too lofty to join Lady Gharra at such a spectacle. He steeled himself for violence as he watched the guards manoeuvre the object and a sudden horrible thought clutched at his insides with icy fingers. What if it washisalleged expertise the potentate wanted a demonstration of? Would Oanold’s evident distastefor Arpix overcome any arguments that his skills were tactical not hand-to-hand, or would he be forced into a hopeless contest?

Oanold rose from his throne, fabric sliding across the floor, a shimmering mass trailing his advance. “Not everything that has escaped the library recently has been deserving of trust, or even mercy.” He turned his pouchy stare from Arpix to Clovis. “It seems that some of those emerging from the beyond within—I rather like that one, ‘the beyond within.’ ” He singled out a man near the end of the courtier line. “Jammon, write that one down.” Oanold paused a yard in front of his throne. “Some of those emerging from our library in the aftermath of my great work there have demonstrated a natural affinity with the most corrupt elements that plague honest society. Some have no sooner found their way into our great city than they’ve offered aid to the parasites that drain our wealth and poison our blood.”

The potentate glanced around the great cavern of his throne room as if seeking someone, anyone, to challenge his statements. He settled at last on Arpix. “You’ve won Lady Gharra’s seal of approval as a person who knows the bugs. Now win mine as a person ready to bring ruin to my enemies.”

All around the chamber’s perimeter guards shifted their grip on their weapons. Up in the musicians’ gallery, no longer sheltering behind the players, three guards stood, each with a long gun aimed at Arpix’s heart.

At the lift of a single finger, a palace guardsman strode towards Arpix and thrust a spear into his hands.

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