16. The Gift #2
“It’s time you had this.” Umber set the package he’d brought back on the table. It looked too lumpy and hastily wrapped to be expensive.
The weight surprised Rerdas when he took it, teacup still perched in one hand. “You’re too kind.” He flicked a curious glance at Umber, examining for any sign that the duke disliked the dropped honorific.
“Open it.”
That was easily accomplished. Deftly, he unknotted the twine and tore a great strip of the paper away. In the furnace-orange cast of the lamplight, he thought the metal beneath was gold, but as he batted the rest of the paper aside and stared, he realized it was likely polished steel.
It was some sort of bizarre mask. A strange metal cage with a mess of leather straps dangling from the back, rather like a halter or bridle. Or… He’d seen Yagru use something almost exactly like this on the hunting hounds before. But this was different.
It wasn’t made for a dog.
“A muzzle?” There was a strange buzzing in his ears.
Umber watched him over his tea, head tilted. “Do you like it?”
“Don’t you think it a bit… unnecessary?” He groped for an argument. “It makes me look like I’m unable to handle my”—he swallowed—“my battleboxer.”
“It’s not an insult to your ability,” Umber said. “Merely an extra precaution. It’s not your fault if he’s not up to the proper standards, Rerdas, but you must admit he’s not fully broken.”
The muzzle had a wide metal basket to cover the mouth and chin, and a denser mesh around the nose and above. There were two long, narrow slits for the eyes. He almost let it tumble from his twitching fingers.
Pleasantly, Umber said, “I think you should put it on him now.”
Rerdas stopped breathing. His gaze leapt to Umber’s face. The duke’s assessing gaze belied the warmth in his voice. Umber wasn’t convinced. He might not imagine the full extent of Rerdas’s betrayal, but he suspected something. Or he wanted to humiliate Imalroc just because he could.
Imalroc was in danger. Umber could do anything he wanted, and Rerdas wouldn’t be able to overrule the commands of a duke.
“That’s… an idea,” he heard himself say.
Umber cleared his throat and called to a waiting servant. “Take a few guards and fetch the battleboxer. Bring him here.”
Rerdas hunted desperately for some excuse. Something that would not raise Umber’s hackles further.
With the servants dispatched, Umber leaned his head against the chair and watched Rerdas with uncomfortable intensity. “You are precious to me,” he murmured. “It’s for your safety.”
He couldn’t parse whether the softness in the duke’s voice was care or threat. “I don’t deserve your affection, Your Grace.”
Umber’s mouth quirked into a half-smile.
Rerdas swallowed his heaving panic back down his throat.
He arranged the muzzle across his knees, studying it as though marveling.
They weren’t close enough to the fire that he could somehow stumble and fling it among the flames.
He couldn’t saw through steel with the hunting knife at his hip.
The leather straps were an option, but even if he managed to slice them without Umber noticing, the duke would know as soon as he inspected it that they’d been purposefully cut.
He was going to have to put it—he couldn’t do this.
There had to be a way out.
Trying not to collapse into full panic, he ran his fingers blindly over the muzzle.
He avoided the unforgiving metal cage and traced the more familiar shape of the harnessing bands.
A metal screw anchored each leather strap to the sides of the muzzle.
Similar to the decorative metal button on a browband, the kind he’d always removed from Hasting’s bridles because the horse didn’t like it.
He could dismantle a bridle.
Footsteps outside the room thudded closer.
All he needed was a bit of help from his knife.
Rerdas hung one leg over the other to better hide the muzzle from Umber on the opposite side.
The servants must have fetched every guard in the place, because a crowd spilled into the room, but he was glad for it.
The clamor of their boots perfectly covered the sound of his knife clearing its casing.
None of the Dridian guards looked askance as he laid the knife on the chair beside him; it must seem a perfectly normal response to a battleboxer entering the room. And Umber’s attention trained on where Imalroc stood, regal and untouchable in the center of the group.
Imalroc’s hands were bound in front of him. His lowered gaze revealed nothing.
Pulse slamming in his throat, Rerdas worked the knifepoint against the leather with tiny motions, trying to gouge a wide enough opening that it might slip over the head of the screw.
“You may leave us,” Umber said with a wave.
The guards exchanged glances, but they had no more power to contradict a duke than Rerdas did. They retreated from the room in a reluctant tide. It didn’t sound as though they had moved far.
“Kneel.” Umber’s voice was suddenly imperious.
Imalroc folded to the ground.
Rerdas twisted the leather strap so that the seam rose nearly over the metal head, like a half-undone button. He couldn’t risk making the sharp final yank it needed.
“Approach,” Umber said. He gripped the arms of his chair as Imalroc shuffled slowly forward, still on his knees. The closer he came, the less docile he seemed. Tension sang in every line of his body.
Too late to attempt a different plan. Rerdas shifted, wedging his knife out of sight beside the cushion of his chair.
The duke turned toward him without ever fully taking his gaze off Imalroc. “Do you want me to do it?”
“No, it’s best I learn how to…” Rerdas raised the muzzle, and saw the flash of blue as Imalroc’s gaze flicked up just enough to see what lay in his hands.
Rerdas looked at Imalroc, praying the battleboxer didn’t fight him on this performance. “Just…” He needed to sound like Umber, but instead he sounded as if he’d been punched in the stomach. He couldn’t manage a healthy enough breath to make the orders any louder. “Don’t move.”
He placed the muzzle over Imalroc’s face. Felt the slow, controlled release of air as Imalroc exhaled. Rerdas’s heartbeat thrummed with sickening speed.
Fumbling, he caught up the pair of straps meant to buckle in the back. He gripped the leather pieces, locked away the part of him that wanted to weep, and put a thorn of impatience in every word. “Lower your head.”
Imalroc hesitated. He bowed, but it was too slow.
Umber sighed. “You see, that’s what I mean, Rerdas. He’s nearly there, but you don’t want even that glimmer of reluctance.” He reached for his tea.
Rerdas pulled the leather into the buckle. He hauled the strap so hard Imalroc’s head jerked.
The seam he’d loosened with the knife popped free, the strap recoiling, and the muzzle tumbled. It dangled from Rerdas’s hand by its one remaining attachment.
“Eternals!” Umber sputtered around the tea he had yet to swallow.
“Oh no,” Rerdas said. He gave the duke a worried glance. “I know I tried to tighten it too quickly, but it can’t be all that safe if it breaks so easily.”
Umber snatched the muzzle from him. “That can’t be!”
“I hope you didn’t pay too much for it?” Rerdas asked. He shifted back in his chair, hiding his trembling hands.
“They’ll damn well replace this as soon as I—”
The door shuddered open a bit, only enough that a servant, her expression an apology, could slip through. Wordlessly, she made a wide arc around Imalroc and bowed as she held a small, folded paper out to the duke.
Umber swiped it from her and unfolded it. His expression turned more thunderous as he read. “Fucking Wester,” he said. “He’s making an infernal mess of everything.” Umber tossed the paper onto the rug. “Her Majesty requires my help.”
“No,” Rerdas breathed, hardly daring to believe it. “In Kirinoll?”
Umber glared at the top of Imalroc’s head.
For a horrible, frozen heartbeat, Rerdas was afraid the duke might try to strike Imalroc.
He couldn’t let that happen, but flinging himself in front of Imalroc to shield him would give the whole game away.
He reached for Umber’s hand and clasped it in both of his.
“Don’t leave,” he implored, praying the duke had to.
“Guards!” Umber roared. “Get this fighter back to his chambers.”
The guards charged back in and towed Imalroc up by his restrained arms, rushing him out of the drawing room. Rerdas tried not to look. It wouldn’t help his play with Umber, and worse, he was afraid of what he might see in Imalroc’s face.
Umber rubbed his forehead, groaning, one hand still in both of Rerdas’s. “There’s no way to avoid it, dear heart. She’s not pleased I’m here.”
“But the fight at Bren Kul Mari—”
The duke stood and gave the muzzle a contemptuous little kick. “Our queen has far greater concerns.” He looked down at Rerdas and sighed. “Apologies, I know it’s important to you.” Another sigh. “Finish that fight and follow me to Kirinoll as soon as possible.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” Rerdas said. He looked down at the muzzle, fallen across the imprints left in the rug where Imalroc had knelt. “For you, anything.”