The Ritual (10 page)

She inclined her head and I looked at the chokered half-elf behind her. He was golden blond and muscular, sculpted like a statue, and as I watched him the lady pinched his bicep. “He’s strong, see? I’ve trained him well, and he has good stamina. I’m sure he won’t disappoint you.”

Understanding dawned, and it caused such an intense flash of hatred that I nearly punched her in the face. She used him as her bed-slave, to satisfy her carnal desires, and she wanted to borrow
my
Zashter for a bit of variety? I looked at the blond man again and saw the carefully blank expression and the fixed set to his jaw that served to hide his humiliation. He flashed one look of pure hatred to his mistress’s back, so quick that I almost didn’t see it, before lowering his eyes again.

“Well, what do you say?” the woman pressed me.

“No,” I snapped back, before taking a deep breath and adding, more calmly, “I do not lend him out for those kinds of services. He’s mine.”

She looked taken aback, but I met her eyes coolly, daring her to press, to insist, wanting her to provoke me into some kind of a fight with her so I could scratch her eyes out. Right at that moment she represented everything I hated about elves, and one wrong word would make it spill over.

“Pity,” she said, before snapping open her fan and beating a hasty retreat.

“I’m yours?” Zashter murmured in my ear. “How frightfully possessive of you.”

I turned to him but he still had his eyes lowered, though I could see the half-smile that played around his lips. “I don’t understand you,” I said, baffled by his attitude. “I’m hating every moment of this façade, yet you stroll around as if you’re actually enjoying yourself!”

He raised his eyes a fraction, and now his smile was gone. “Would you rather I moped around like you insist on doing?” he asked quietly. “What purpose does it serve? We both know that I’m not really your slave, so I might as well try and make the most of being here, since I know I’m not likely to ever see anything like this again. I share your distaste, Little Firelocks, I honestly do, but it’s dangerous to let it show around here. Focus on what we’re here for, and try to enjoy ordering me around while you still can.”

His eyes twinkled as he looked at me, and my mouth twitched into a reluctant smile. “I suppose I can’t refuse such a generous offer,” I muttered, and saw his own smile widen.

“That’s better,” he said, lifting his hand as if to brush away a piece of fluff on my sh
oulder. As he drew it back he lightly traced his fingers past my jaw, then he clasped both hands behind his back and lowered his eyes again, the perfect slave once more.

“Are you two finished being absorbed
with each other?” Shani said beside me, startling me. She gave me a teasing grin, but when I looked at Zashter he seemed flustered, and the set of his jaw was a little grim.

Zashter? Flustered?
I thought in astonishment, but Shani tugged at my elbow.

“Come, let’s see what the duke is like. Unless you want to see anything else in this room?”

“No,” Zashter muttered. “I’ve seen everything I need to in here.”

Shani nodded and preceded us into the duke’s audience room, moulding herself into a more seductive pose and changing her walk to a saunter as she did so. I held back a little – Shani was much better than me at the social stuff, so I was better off leaving it to her.

Duke Haster was predictably handsome, with lush walnut-brown hair and piercing green eyes, but my impression after hearing him talk for only a tenth-measure was that he was thick as pigshit, a braggart and extremely fond of himself. Luckily he also seemed fond of women, and very shortly after we had moved to within his field of view he had already turned to Shani and started to flirt with her. I could see it was annoying his wife, but she bore it with a resigned look on her immaculate face that told me that she was very much used to this sort of thing.

Then Shani’s voice woke me from my musings. “That’s a most impressive brooch, your grace,” she said breathily, stretching out a tentative finger to the piece pinned to his chest, which was dominated by a large emerald. “It matches your eyes,” she added coyly.

“It does, doesn’t it?” Haster agreed, guffawing as if it had been the sharpest of wit. “I have some exceptional pieces in my collection.”

“So I’ve heard,” Shani said, fluttering her lashes. “It is said that you have the most astonishing collection this side of the Whitecaps.”

“Is it indeed?” He laughed again, then bent over to my sister conspiratorially. “It is probably due to the crown in my collection.”

“Would that be the Heartstone?” a woman on the other side of him asked, her interest piqued.

“It would indeed, Lady Sohanna,” Haster said, his eyes twinkling. “It is a magnificent piece, large as my fist and red as the lovely Lady Aylin’s hair here.”

“R…red?” I blurted out, gaping at him. “I thought it was a diamond?”

“It is, my sweet Lady Roniel,” he said smugly, grabbing my hand and pressing a slobbering kiss on my fingers. “To my knowledge it is the only red diamond ever to have been found. It is unique, and as radiant as the beauty of you and your lady sister.”

“How… unusual,” I stammered, burying my fingers in my skirt when he let go and surreptitiously trying to wipe off the saliva. “Forgive me, your grace, but I cannot imagine a red diamond.”

“Nor I,” Sohanna agreed, and several other women within earshot added their assent.

The duke seemed to grow an inch in height. “Would the ladies like to see it?” he asked in a stage whisper, waggling his eyebrows around the circle.

“Ooh,
would I
,” Shani breathed, bending forward and exposing her cleavage a little further.

“Then you shall!” Haster stepped down from the little dais he had been holding court on and beckoned us along. I could feel my heart pound in my chest as we followed him, and a quick glance showed seven women trailing after the duke, including Shani and I, followed by Zashter and three other body servants.

“You are so brave,” Shani said, “keeping a jewel such as the Heartstone in your own residence. I would be mortified of it being stolen!”

“Hah!” Haster scoffed. “It is impossible to steal, Lady Aylin. My security is second to none.”

“It is?” she quavered, then placed a hand on his arm. “But of course it is, you are a terribly clever man, after all.”

Don’t lay it on too thick,
I thought, but Haster patted her hand, preening under the flattery. “Yes, I am,” he agreed, “and I’ll show you why.”

He led us to a door and showed us a small cabinet with an intricate-looking lock. “The keys are kept in here,” he said. “See this lock? That’s an interlacing bondage lock. Impossible to open without the correct key. This key.” He produced a tiny key from a chain around his neck – a key that looked as intricate as the lock – and opened the cabinet before dropping it back out of sight.

The cabinet contained a key ring which jingled as he took it down, and a moment of concentration allowed me to estimate that there were probably about twenty keys on there. Haster turned to a door in the wall and selected one of them to open it, before beckoning us onward.

As he led us through door after door after door I tried to keep track of the direction we were going in. Sometimes we bent off to the left or right, but in general we were moving deeper and deeper into the house, which matched Zashter’s information. The locks looked suitably intricate and secure, but I was increasingly confused by the absence of any wards or other magical protection. By the time we got to the fifteenth door I sent a baffled look to Shani, which she answered with an equally baffled one of her own and a helpless shrug. No wards, it clearly meant, and I glanced at Zashter.

He looked calm and composed, and when he saw me look he inclined his head forward a little, indicating that I should pay attention to the duke. I chided myself for yet another lapse of professionalism, and for getting distracted. We were here to scope out the security, not to wonder about any perceived lack of it.

Haster was sorting through his bundle of keys again, and when he had found the correct one he turned to us. “Now, ladies, I will have to ask you to be extremely careful,” he said, grinning like a small child in a toy shop. “We are nearly there, but from here my security gets even tighter.”

Even tighter than unwarded doors with locks that can all be opened if we can but get hold of
one
little key?
I thought, but tried to look impressed nonetheless. He opened the door and motioned for us to remain where we were, before stepping through with extreme care.

“I shall demonstrate,” he said, picking up a heavy-looking bag which was resting by the door and heaving it to the middle of the room. Something clicked, and with a whooshing noise a great blade came rushing past, a huge double-headed axe. It swung back ponderously, and I realised it was a pendulum mechanism. Several of the ladies present gasped, and one managed to faint into the arms of her body servant, but I had to struggle not to gape at something so ostentatious, yet at the same time so useless.

And still it didn’t get any better from there. The last five rooms before the display room all had traps built in, but Haster gleefully demonstrated all their effects, and even if I wasn’t fully up to speed with disarming traps, I was sure that Zashter would be. If this was the legendary security that protected the Heartstone, I mused, then the duke’s rumourmonger was worth his weight in gold.

We arrived at the last room, and it was dominated by a snow-white marble pedestal supporting a white satin cushion. The Heartstone sparkled and shone in the light of several tall, fat candles at the sides of the room, but although it was magnificent, all I really noticed was that it was simply lying there. No cage, no cover, no guard and no hidden trigger mechanism, which was confirmed when Haster scooped up the jewel in his hand and held it out for us to study up close.

I had expected it to look like a ruby, but had to concede that it was unmistakeably a diamond. Rubies were darker, more muted – as I remembered all too well from Zashter’s recent lecture – whereas this gem was bright and hard and glittering. It was bigger than any diamond I had ever seen, and I realised that that was probably better protection than what Haster had surrounded it with. It could not possibly be mistaken for anything other than what it was, so getting rid of it after stealing it would be nigh on impossible.

Of course, we weren’t stealing it to sell it, so none of that mattered to me. As far as I was concerned we now knew everything we needed to know, and I was impatient to get out of there. Haster had taken up his flirting again, and part of me wondered why he didn’t just put a bed in the room and be done with it. His tedious self-flattery was getting on my nerves and wore on my ability to pretend interest in him, so my thoughts drifted ahead to the task of stealing the gem.

No matter from which angle I looked at it, it always came down to one thing: if we had his little cabinet key, we had all we could possibly need. Obtaining it was going to be tricky though, and I could think of only one way – one extremely distasteful way – to achieve it.

I mulled it over in my head, wondering whether I would have the guts, and then I looked at Zashter, who stood at the side of the room with head bent in a posture of subservience. He had brought me here, had put his faith in me, and if anything needed to be done while we were here, it would have to be me who did it.

With that settled in my mind, I brought my hand to my forehead and pretended to sway. “Oh, it’s so close in here, I feel faint,” I said in a watery voice, and in an instant the duke was all concern.

“Lady Roniel!” he exclaimed. “I do apologise, I always forget how claustrophobic this room can get. I would suggest that we return to my other guests.” He ushered us out the door, dropped the gem back onto its cushion and led us back out, meticulously locking all the doors behind us and reactivating all the traps. The other women glared at me, annoyed at having their visit cut short, but I pretended not to notice and leaned on Zashter, trying to ignore the subtle press of his fingers against my waist as he supported me.

“Are you alright, mylady?” the duke asked as we returned to the ballroom.

I fanned myself and continued to breathe shallowly. “I’m not certain,” I quavered. “I… I think I shall need to use the facilities.”

“Of course, mylady. But I insist that you return to me immediately, or I shall be most distressed with concern for you.”

I simpered at him, muttering something unintelligible, and made my way to the bathroom. As soon as we entered the corridor Zashter bent over to me and whispered, “What are you up to?”

I suppressed the shiver caused by his breath on my cheek and whispered back, “I’ve got a plan, bear with me.”

Before he could reply I darted into the bathroom we had visited earlier that evening, and went straight to the basket of soaps by the wash basins. I sorted through them, selected the softest one and slipped it into my sleeve, then returned to Zashter.

“Please stay with me, no matter what I do,” I said to him, “and play along when you have to.”

He raised his eyebrows, but asked no questions and nodded, following close behind me as I returned to the duke. Haster’s face lit up when he saw me approach, seemingly recovered, and he held out his hands as he stepped towards me. “Lady Roniel, your radiant beauty has returned,” he intoned.