The Nightingale's Tooth by Sally McBride

Author:Sally McBride [McBride, Sally]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: history, historical, fantasy, gods, god, bird, girl, woman, female, france, medieval, middle ages, europe, spain, transform, transformation, shapeshift, shapeshifting, shape shifter, death, afterlife, magic
ISBN: 9781928011880
Publisher: Brain Lag
Published: 2023-01-13T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

The Catamite

“What! When?” I jumped to my feet. Immediately all my blood drained to my feet, making them throb worse than ever. I felt sick. “Where is he?”

“Here. He was brought to the city yesterday, straight to Petru’s palace. I heard about it only an hour before you returned.”

I knew he would be tortured until anything he knew came out. Petru had no mercy for spies. Look what had happened to Sigrun and her family.

It was already too late for us to run. And I didn’t want to. Immediately my mind began to churn with schemes to rescue Eneko, each more ridiculous than the last. Petru Dominus had the weight of centuries behind him, and the massed wiles of rulers determined to punish rebels.

I said, my voice quavering, “If only Papa were here. He could buy Eneko’s freedom, couldn’t he? Couldn’t he do something?” Something miraculous. He was my father.

“You should thank all the Gods that he isn’t here, Vara. He’d be in chains beside Eneko right now.”

*

Three interminable days later, we got news that Eneko Saratxaga was to be tried within the week, along with other suspected criminals, in the coliseum, in front of the usual crowds that came to watch the spectacle of justice being meted out. The term justice meant little. To gain the notoriety of the coliseum you had already been convicted.

This was terribly quick. Usually interest in a public trial was whipped up over weeks, the better to generate profit for the sponsors. Lord Petru must have wrung as much information from him as he wanted and was now ready to make an example of him. What if Eneko was in a tub of bloody water right now, eels sucking out his innards? He’d only have to keep him alive until the trial, the better to set an example with his public death.

I cried myself into sickness, and had to be dosed with herbs to calm me. But the horrid images would not leave my mind.

My mother had managed to send off a cryptically-worded warning to my father, using some convoluted path of messengers. Whether it would get to him was up to the fates. As was what he chose to do with the information. I was forced to accept the very real possibility that we might never see Papa again, for he would be insane to return home now.

At last I remembered I had been invited to visit Miss Marsh, up in her scientific aerie among her precious specimens. To distract myself, I decided to go. Besides, it was time I made a proper thank-you to Akil, and perhaps to worm my way into his affection… The thought that he might help us somehow lurked in my mind. He was a magical being, after all. It was possible he could somehow free Eneko…

I needed to give him a present. What might a resura want? Jewels? Inappropriate for me to give him, no matter who or what he was. I owned some very nice

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