The manor was small but intricately designed, its parlors and halls arranged in such a way that it took longer than either would have expected to find the private quarters, tucked behind a lush conservatory. A frail old man, clad in fine silks and wearing the badge of a steward, perched on a stool outside the doors. Bleary eyes opened at Ammas and Denisius's approach.
"The wolf children are in mourning," he said in a raspy, sorrowful voice. His gaze roamed over them, something relieved in his expression. "They blame you and yours for this. I know who you are. They have fretted about you for days on end."
"You're not one of them?" Ammas said.
The old man shook his head. "No. But I've served here long enough that they trust me with their secrets. I know how to hold my tongue. I would have told them to speak with you. But it's too late now. They scented you, long before you arrived here. One of them returned from Ismene this very evening, saying the cursewright and a warrior were on their way here. They wanted to do battle. Wanted to tear you limb from limb for daring to set foot here. But -- " The old man shrugged.
"Will you let us in?" Ammas said, gripping his dagger tighter. He didn't think this old man could put up much of a fight, but he trusted nothing in this house.
"Be gentle, I beg of you, cursewright," the old man said, slipping off his stool and unlocking the oaken doors that led to the private apartments. "I left everything as I found it. They did not know what to do, so I told them I would bring priests of the Graces here to take care of things once they had safely fled. Only I will have to answer for this, I think." A dry, humorless laugh left the old man's throat in a cough. "I may ask you to end things for me more painlessly than that."
The old steward opened the doors and ushered them into the apartments, past a sitting room, past a tastefully appointed music room, past a vibrantly colored artist's studio, and at last into the opulent master bedroom. Ammas suspected what he would find there, but the sight of it was no less awful.
Yvelle Nessir, Empress-Consort to Somilius Deyn III, the Emperor's chief assassin and the ritual wolf born from the blasphemous rite, hung from a rafter in the center of her bedchamber. Her face was livid, her hands pale. She had clad herself in a simple white shift, far humbler than the luxurious dresses she appeared in when attending some salon in the Chalcedony Palace. Denisius whispered a prayer to the Graces. From her color, Ammas supposed Yvelle had been dead perhaps an hour.
"Will you keep her -- wolf children from interrupting us?" Ammas said to the steward. "There are certain things I must do if her true children are to be saved from the wolf's blood, and I doubt the others here would approve."
The steward nodded grimly, his eyes taking a sorrowful cast as they gazed over the Empress-Consort's still form. "I will do what I can. They are in a state I've never seen before. I don't believe you're in much danger, but I'd advise you to hurry." Muttering a prayer, he turned and left the bedchamber.
"Will you bring her back alive? Let me speak to her?" Carala had asked Ammas this in the cells under Mourthia House. He had only told Denisius and Carala what Senrich had whispered to him. The others didn't need to know just yet, and he greatly feared Silenio's reaction, but after all that had happened he could not conceive of keeping it from Carala.
"I don't know what her mood will be," he had replied. "I do not understand why she has done the things she's done, why she would send Tacen to lure you into her blood. If she wanted such a thing, why wouldn't she do it herself?"
Carala's face had glistened with tears, but her voice had been steady. "For her protection and mine, I suppose. My father -- if he knew she had slipped his control -- I do not know, Ammas. Maybe he had somehow forced her into her human shape when she was in Talinara."
Ammas, who thought the Empress-Consort had not been under the Emperor's control for far longer than Somilius Deyn would have believed, found that very likely. How out of control Yvelle was he had no idea; if she had fully succumbed to the hunger of the wolf's blood she was apt to be very dangerous indeed. Nonetheless he had promised Carala he would try to speak with her first, find out why she had done this awful thing.
Carala had suggested that perhaps she, Silenio, and her mother could go into exile rather than pay for her and her brother's cure with Yvelle's life. Ammas had not committed to this idea, knowing full well that whatever he felt about Carala he could not permit a ritual werewolf to roam the world freely. At best they would have to be imprisoned, or left in his care, and how that might be accomplished without the Emperor's consent he could not imagine.
Yvelle had solved this intractable problem for them before he and Denisius ever set foot in her retreat. Clearly she had known it would take her life to cure Carala, though how she had come by such knowledge Ammas could not guess. Perhaps Senrich had told her. "Denisius," Ammas said, "help me cut her down. I can't do it myself."
Denisius nodded, swallowing hard, and with some effort they were able to cut the rope, slipping the noose off her head. Ammas was still too weak for these sorts of exertions, so it was Denisius alone who carried her to the poster bed. Gently he laid her down, covering her eyes with his hand and whispering another prayer. A small drift of fabric lay on the floor. Ammas knelt with a grunt and lifted it up, examining it closely.
"Why did she do it? How did she do it?" Denisius stared unbelieving at the pale, still form stretched on the bed. "And why did he do this to her in the first place?"
"The Emperor has been trying to replace the arcane brethren ever since the dissolution," Ammas said slowly, turning the soft, small cloth over in his hands. "Witch-finders, stacking the courts with pliant members of the clergy, and now this: a house of assassins who could work savagely and with total subterfuge. Yvelle had access to every noble house, every foreign embassy, every merchant's guild hall. She could kill as a wolf, or flee as a wolf once the killing was done. And thanks to what my father taught the Emperor, Somilius could be assured of her loyalty." Grimacing, Ammas rose to his feet, limping to the foot of the bed. "But the Emperor wasn't suited to it. I told you how Othma suggested I bind Carala to me. She told me such a bond could only be forged out of affection and love. Do you think the Emperor capable of that?"
Denisius shook his head.
Ammas moved slowly along the bed until he was standing beside Denisius. "I don't think whatever bond the Emperor created lasted very long. Yvelle couldn't strike at him directly. Whether there was some enchantment that prevented her from doing so or not, she was too clever for it. Once she decided to bring her children into the wolf's blood, she did it in a fashion that pointed away from her. She didn't just want Carala, after all. She wanted all of them. Let the Emperor think the Swiftfoot had slipped his leash. He could send her here to Leusenia to be on the safe side. But he never knew she had brought this whole household into the blood as well. He thought of this place as a prison, but really it was her seat of power."
"But why Carala?" Denisius demanded. "Why come after her children in the first place? Had she gone mad?"
"No," Ammas replied. "Perhaps she had begun to think of herself more as a wolf than as a human, and wanted her children at her side. Tacen and Carala flee to Gallowsport, to learn from -- " Ammas grimaced, trying not to imagine what lessons his father had been compelled to teach the Swiftfoot wolves. "Then sooner or later Carala is brought here, where Yvelle could instruct her in what she had become more tenderly. What she did, she did out of love."
"Love?" Denisius said incredulously.
Ammas nodded and handed Denisius the little drift of cloth that had lay at Yvelle's feet. Denisius sifted through it curiously. After a moment his eyes widened in realization: these were cradle clothes, stitched with both the Deyn crest and Carala's name.
"I think her father marrying Carala off was the catalyst. She wouldn't see her youngest daughter offered up the way she had been. Whatever her plan was -- bring her children into the wolf's blood and then somehow overthrow the Emperor, I suppose -- she decided to put it into motion before Carala left the Palace for Marhollow. Perhaps she had only been waiting for some scheme of the Emperor's to turn awry."
"I was the reason she did it?" Denisius sounded positively stricken.
"Don't take it personally, Denisius. Yvelle had an army of assassins at her disposal. If her objection had been to you as a man, I very much doubt we'd be having this conversation right now." With a sigh Ammas looked down the bed at the shadowy rooms that led to the rest of the manor. "That steward was right. We should hurry. I have to do some things you may not want to witness."
Denisius nodded. "I'll mind the door." With a final pitying look at the Empress-Consort's body, he turned and strode down the bedchamber, keeping a watch on the rooms beyond.