Page 122 of A Trade of Blood

Fotia covered her eyes. “You believe he saw the web at work.”

“Correct,” said Ana. “Lyimo had already been poisoned and conditioned by Jalin Burav. Though he’d done a poor job of it! He had to resort to forcing the man’s head into the waters to drown him—which Trikao saw. He saw it andlet it happen.For after this, he had the advantage of young Jalin. He could reveal that this boy was a murderer—and he now knew that Jalin possessed a powerful, altered tool.”

My eyes fluttered in my head, and I recalled what Istelia had heard Jalin say as he wept:I am owned. My soul is not my own anymore. He owns me utterly. What a fool I was.

“Your father forced the boy into a pact,” Ana continued. “Perhaps he even suggested the two would be compatriots, united against the cattle families who had so misused them. It would be a very compelling story to a young, unbalanced mind! Jalin gifted him with the web, instructed him in its use—and then Trikao carefully set about killing your cousins. He poisoned the wells used by specific inns. Then, as seneschal and overseer of family business, hearrangedit so that they stayed at those innsspecifically.Many times, long enough that they all became infected! He then carefully arranged the demises of Sagma, then Gevma. Oh, he wasverythorough. Took his time.”

“That is madness!” said Ippeas. “Why would he do this?”

“Oh, I thought that would be quite obvious,” said Ana. “He did it to ensure that you, Ippeas Armenta, overlooked by Velona and assigned to no more than driving cattle, would be the sole inheritor ofall the Armenta lands.”

Ippeas’s mouth fell open. Fotia recoiled and pressed a hand to her lips. “By hell,” she whispered, “I will be sick…”

“He wantedmeto be heir?” Ippeas said, astounded. “But that can’t be so! Father lost the competition with Velona, he can’t inherit at all!”

“Correct!” said Ana savagely. “Hecannot inherit. But Velona is still the prime child of your clan, and she can damned well do as she wishes! So if all her children are killed, and there is only one surviving child of the entire line, well…her options would be limited, but evident, true?”

Ippeas collapsed back into his chair, horrified beyond speech.

“H-how did you know to draw him out?” asked Fotia.

“I wouldn’t have been able to at all, without your help, girl,” said Ana. “For it was the manner of Sagma’s hanging that made it clear to me. A very tricky thing, to condition a person to hang themself.”

Then I understood.

The memory came swirling up within me. Eyes quaking, I spoke aloud, echoing Velona’s words: “Sagma dreamed of being unable to leave her room, unable to make anyone hear her, and was forced to dress herself before her mirror over and over again! And when she died, she was dressed as if she had just arrayed herself for the day, her dress and ribbons all done—as if she wished towake upfrom this never-ending nightmare.”

“Correct, Din,” said Ana. “Sagma had been conditionedwhile dressing herself.When she heard the conditioning tunes to do so, she would have been compelled with a powerful, mad desire to do just that. Yet Trikao had drawn her outside, where he had hung the noose for her—yet it was not a rope.” She turned her blindfolded head to Fotia. “Was it?”

Fotia, quaking, shut her eyes and whispered, “A ribbon.”

“Yes,” said Ana. “The last thing she tied about her neck everymorning, before walking out to greet the day! Entranced, young Sagma climbed up upon a stool, and slipped the noose about her neck—and perished.” She leaned close. “And who gave her these ribbons? Who seeded her life with the things needed to condition her just forthis? Who gifted her with the very tools she’d one day use to take her own life? He told us himself that he had showered your cousins with treasures. He clothed his malice with such tender generosity. Or am I wrong? Did another gift Sagma with all these luxuries?”

The two of them said nothing.

“How clever he was,” said Ana. “He made sure no death resembled another, so no one could think it was anything but fate—yet then, finally, his hand was forced. He learned from Jalin Burav that his sister, Zansay, had confided in him a great secret—not only was she Castus’s lover, but she and Castus planned torun away.” She pointed at me and said, “Din! Recall the boy’s words!”

My eyes fluttered, and I chanted in an eerie approximation of Castus’s voice: “We planned to run away together, you know. Escape this horrid feud. We weren’t sure where we’d go. To the Outer Rim, perhaps. We’d cast our fates to the wind even in that wild place, if it gave us freedom. If my family were to know, it would have doomed me. But I wound up doomed regardless, true?”

“Trikao realized he had to move swiftly then,” said Ana. “For if Castus and Zansay actually did run away, that would endanger everything—not because it’d be a scandal, but because it would mean a living prime heir would bebeyond his reach!

“To achieve this, however, Trikao had to take care of Castus before he could escape,” said Ana. “But he was a cunning thing and had already prepared a way to eliminate the boy. Why force him to wade into a stream when you could get him hanged? An evil thing—and it was cleverly done, too. He had already taken pains to condition Castus, playing the conditioning tones as the boy labored in the flensing halls, making him swift and thoughtless with the knife. But it was even more brilliant than it appears! For in doing so, this act would implicate and eliminate another threat to him—Jalin Burav. He knew that Burilis would bring his daughter’s body back to their estate. Heknew her skull would fruit. He knew that the nature of the guiding web would then be revealed to all. He knew that, eventually, some authority would come to reexamine the bodies of his nephews and niece. And who is the greatest architect of the guiding web?”

“Burilis Burav,” whispered Fotia.

“Correct! Castus would be promptly hanged for this clear, simple murder—and then the Buravs would take poor dead Zansay home and suddenly be revealed as killers, using the web as their weapon! He’d fell all his enemies all at once. And no one would ever,eversuspect poor, sad, weary old Trikao.” She shook her head, her face fierce. “Yet then, of course, Din and I came. He had to scramble a bit to manage us. For example, it was the night that he came to see you, Ippeas, that he played the dreadful note that caused the fungus to sprout from Castus’s head. And there he was able to come leaping in, crying out in horror, and pretending all the while to be innocent. He even went so far as to infect his own body and depict himself as a victim! And while he could have bewitched himself with his own music from the pipe’s call, he prevented this with a simple fix—afew daubings of wax, applied to his ears, rendering himself deaf to its sound.”

Ippeas stood from the table, his whole body trembling, his face twisted with anguish. “I…I can’t believe this! I just can’t, I justcan’t…”

“I’m afraid it’s so, young Ippeas,” said Ana. “Imagine now—why was it that Jalin Burav tried to make sure you, of all people, were present in his family house when he put it to the torch? Why go out of the way to make sure you were there? It makes no sense—unless you believe that your father had threatened and used him, and that he knew your father’s plans. Young Jalin wished to strike out in one last, vengeful act, killing the one person Trikao loved.”

“Please,” whispered Ippeas. “No more.”

“He also had a plan for Velona, of course!” said Ana. “It was playing out before your very eyes. Didn’t even need to use the web for it. The old woman decided to move forward with fertility treatments—but it was up to the seneschal of the house, overseer of all familybusiness, to select the people who would provide them. Easy to choose the medikkers with a rather poor success rate, true? He even went so far as to try to condition Din and myself, just in case we ever grew too near to him—and in this, he ensured his doom. This was the mistake that tipped my thinking and sealed his fate.”

At this, Ippeas collapsed and began to weep. Fotia held him tight and shot a poisonous glance at Ana. “Must you barrage him with these horrors? Can’t you even give him a moment to…to…I don’t know, to recover from this?”

“He needs to know,” said Ana coldly.