Scholar of Decay (2 page)

Dmitri had never learned to hide what he was feeling, and this afternoon, he looked distressed.

“Natalia.” He combined bow and dismount, somehow managing to make them both look graceful. “I have to speak with Aurek.”

“He’s in his study, but …”

“His study.” Dmitri’s lips thinned. “I might have known he’d be no help!”

Natalia sighed. In many ways, the two were very much alike. Once one of them got an idea into his handsome head, it practically
took direct intervention from the gods to get it out again. Aurek believed Dmitri was an undisciplined fool who thought only of himself, and Dmitri believed Aurek was a cold intellectual who cared for no one. They were both wrong, but Natalia was having a difficult time convincing them of that. “What’s the matter?”

“What makes you think something’s the matter? I mean, just because Aurek doesn’t deign to notice me, that doesn’t mean no one does.” He threw the words away with such total indifference that it was obvious he had to be in some kind of serious trouble.

For a handsome young man in Borca, serious trouble could mean only Ivana Boritsi.

“I’ll go and get him for you.”

“If you think he’ll come.”

She laid her hand on his arm and smiled comfortingly at him. “Yes, I think he’ll come.”

Leaving Dmitri pacing about the garden, Natalia hurried back to the study. She was so intent on coming up with the best way to win the argument she was about to have with her husband that she never noticed how quiet the house had grown … how there were no servants about.

The smell of heated metal drifted toward her as she pushed open the study door.

“Aurek?”

A man with wild gray hair and even wilder eyes stood by the pedestal, clutching Aurek’s red leather book.

Natalia stepped over the threshold and stared in confusion at the stranger. “Who are you?”

He smiled at her, and she saw madness twisting the curve of thin lips.

“Fate,” he said.

Hands Clasped Behind His Back, Aurek Nuikin Stood
in the tower window and watched the light fade over Pont-a-Museau. Dusk masked the worst of the decay, replacing the rot with a patina of shabby gentility. Even the river, flowing sluggishly between the islands and through the canals, seemed less fetid than it had under the light of an unforgiving sun. For those who knew no better, dusk made the city appear a much less dangerous place than it actually was.

Aurek knew better.

The search for knowledge had occupied his entire life; had destroyed his life; could, perhaps, redeem his life. After months of frantic study, of piecing together travelers’ tales and rumors for which he could find no source or validation, the search had led him here, to this island city in Richemulot, in the desperate hope that in these ruins he could find his salvation.

As he watched, dusk gave way to darkness, and the true face of Pont-a-Museau emerged.

In the near distance, someone screamed

His mouth twisted as he pulled the shutters closed. In a very short while he would face Richemulot’s greatest challenge. It was long past time to prepare.

A huge, humped form scurried across the slate roof of the Chateau Delanuit and paused outside an attic window. Much larger than the giant rat it resembled—almost the size of a large dog—it dug front claws into the rotting wood of the windowsill and thrust its wedge-shaped head into the house. Apparently satisfied, it squeezed the rest of its ebony body through the opening, the movement so lithe, so fluid, it seemed to be pouring itself into the attic as though it were made of liquid darkness rather than corporeal flesh.

Once inside, it moved purposefully down a steep flight of stairs and along a wide hallway. No lamps lit the gloom, but it moved in the half-darkness of the corridor as easily as it would have in full sunlight. More easily perhaps. Although not strictly nocturnal, it much preferred the night to the day.

It paused for a moment outside a closed door. Rising up on sleek haunches, weight balanced by a hideous length of naked tail, it laid one paw against the wood and appeared to be thinking, notched right ear cocked forward, claws flexed. Some of the reddish brown stains that covered them flaked off to disappear in the pattern of the marble floor. After a long moment, the creature shook its head—as though reluctantly dismissing the dark possibilities gathered about it—dropped to the floor, and continued on its way.

The door it wanted was open. Tail lashing, it slunk into the room beyond.

A few minutes passed before Louise Renier stepped out into the hall, a red silk robe tied loosely around her waist. Her furious summons brought a servant racing up from the first floor at a dead run.

“Yes, mamselle?” he panted, trying very hard not to stare at the curves of ivory flesh exposed by the gaping robe.

“Nothing works around here,” Louise snarled, pushing a thick fall of ebony hair back off her face with a bloodstained hand and tucking it behind the edge of her ear. “The bellpull’s broken again, and I want a bath!”

Hours later, Louise stepped out of her suite in time to see a whimpering servant scurry past, blood dribbling out from under the hand clutched to her cheek. Sighing deeply, she hurried down the corridor, carefully avoiding the glistening drops that gleamed like jewels against the marble floor. A pity, she thought, and not for the first time, that such an enthralling color occurs only in such an … ephemeral form. It was never half so pretty when it dried.

She paused with one hand on the door to her sister’s suite, smiled almost ruefully, and entered.

The outer room was empty, so she made her way to the inner chamber, her gaze lingering over the furnishings as she walked. In sharp contrast to the chaos in the rest of the chateau, these rooms were practically empty, the pieces richly simple, the arrangement sparsely elegant. Louise hated it. She remembered when this had been their grandfather’s suite—before Jacqueline had killed him—and with all her heart, she longed for the chance to gut the rooms to the bare walls and replace everything with her own more opulent style.

At the open door to the bedchamber, Louise paused and stared fixedly at the back of Jacqueline’s slender neck. A few steps, a quick twist, and control of Richemulot would pass on—to her. But though she’d grown weary of waiting for her turn to rule, she had not grown weary of living. Jacqueline had to have heard her approach, and to try anything now would be tantamount to suicide. She’d have had a better chance earlier in the evening—
better, but not assured, which was why she’d decided, once again, to wait. Her sister’s death would be meaningless if she didn’t survive to enjoy it.

Arranging her expression into a parody of concern, she asked, “Trouble?”

The woman seated at the dressing table turned. Sleek, black brows rose into a delicate arch. “Concerning what?” she wondered.

“I saw whatever-her-name-is.” Louise stepped forward, red kid shoes sinking into a carpet that had a design so complex several children had gone blind weaving it. “It looked as though you two had a disagreement.”

Jacqueline lifted one bare shoulder and let it fall in a graceful, minimalist shrug. “Hardly trouble; the stupid woman thought she was permitted to have an opinion on what I wear.”

“And she’s still alive?”

“I like the way she does my hair.” Gleaming braids wrapped round her head in an ebony crown. Glancing up at her twin, she smiled and murmured, “What do you think?”

“Beautiful.” It didn’t matter what she thought; there could be no other answer. Louise clenched her teeth as Jacqueline’s smile broadened. Both sisters recognized the question as the petty test it was. She fought the urge to touch her own hair, artfully arranged to cover her damaged ear. “Are you ready?”

“Not quite.” Shaking the folds out of her gown’s full skirt, Jacqueline stood. “Why don’t you go on. I want to see Jacques for a moment before I leave.”

Louise fell into step beside her. “I’ll wait. No point in taking two boats when one will serve.” No point in arriving anywhere before Jacqueline. Better to share a welcome than to stand and watch her twin’s arrival, forced to acknowledge the reception as warmer than hers. Even thinking about it set her teeth on edge. There had
been too many times in the past when she’d stood unwillingly in Jacqueline’s shadow. It would not happen tonight.

“Mama! You look beautiful!”

“Don’t I always look beautiful?” Jacqueline wondered, her voice just slightly edged.

“Oh, yes, Mama, always,” Jacques hastened to assure her. “But tonight you look especially beautiful.”

“Thank you, my darling.” She bent and kissed the soft black cap of his hair. He preened under the attention. “And what of your aunt?”

Staring adoringly up into his mother’s face, Jacques shook his head. “Tante Louise is beautiful, but not as beautiful as you, Mama.”

Well trained, Louise thought. Jacqueline had spent a careful ten years raising her son so that when he thought of his mother, he thought only of how to please her. Even as she found the results disgusting, Louise had to admire the technique. Unless things changed greatly, this boy would never grow up to wrest control from his mother’s dead hands.

Unless things changed greatly.

“Will you bring me something from the party, Mama?”

“Why should I?” Jacqueline wrapped long white fingers around the boy’s pointed chin and squeezed just enough to dimple the flesh. “I hear you bit your tutor.”

“He made me angry.”

“And what did biting him accomplish? It only made me angry.” She shook his head from side to side. “At you.”

“No, Mama!”

“Yes, Mama. You must learn control. Lack of it was your father’s
greatest fault. It would make me very sad if you to grew up to be like him.”

As Jacques had heard all his short life how his mother had removed his father, it was hardly surprising that he paled. “I’m not like him, Mama! I’m not!”

“Good.”

He basked in her smile.

“Perhaps I will bring you something from the party.”

“Thank you, Mama!”

Watching their embrace, Louise ground her teeth. No one was closer to Jacqueline than Jacques. What a weapon the boy would make against her sister! In her hands he could be a lever to pry Jacqueline out of power and into the grave. But she’d never get her hands on him.