House of Sand and Secrets (Books of Oreyn #2)(70)

“There are,” he says.

I tilt my face up and close my eyes briefly. That’s one good thing. “Right.” I take charge. “You and Isidro do what you must. Master Sallow, if you could help me move this.” I indicate the body.

Sallow raises his eyebrows but kneels down to grab the boy under his arms and haul him free.

“I’d stay clear of the teeth, were I you.” I follow him down and into the apartments. “Take him up to the lavender suite.” I instruct a serving maid to bring me a spare shirt and trousers from the servants’ uniforms, and another to arrange hot water and new clothes for Jannik and Isidro.

Sallow watches me as I carefully unravel the stinking filthy cloths from the boy’s body. “The first sign that he moves,” I say. “Hit him.” The boy is pinch-thin, but now that I’m looking properly at him under the lights of several fatcandles, I can see my earlier guess was wrong. He’s not really a child, perhaps a few years younger than me, emaciated, and every rib showing like a starving dog’s.

I send for another bowl of warmed water and set to washing the filth and blood away. His skin is bruised, slack, the dark hair a matted snarl. Around his neck is still a thin iron collar with tiny leaves stamped into it. “We’ll need this off.”

Master Sallow leaves to find our head gardener, Master Bermond, who comes with his hands bound in leather gloves and carrying a wicked-looking tool with pincer-blades. He snaps the iron collar with single powerful twist. The metal clatters on the floor, and Bermond leans forward to hold it up in his gloved hands. “Nasty thing,” he says.

“You’ll need to dispose of that,” I say. “It must never be found.”

“As you say.”

I shiver to look at the damage it’s done to the vampire’s throat. Years of burns on burns. The skin is rotted, filled with pus and charred flesh. I have no idea where to begin.

“Maggots,” says Bermond.

“I beg your pardon?” I look over at his dark face. “How so?”

“They eat at the dead meat.” He shrugs. “Everyone learns it sooner or later.”

“Consider me instructed – you know how to do this?”

He nods once. “I’ve maggots for feeding the hens,” he says. “I can bring some.”

I take another glance at the filthy wound. “Good, yes. Please do.” I’ll leave that for now and work on cleaning the rest of him. The fresh blood washes easily from his face, but his nose is a mess of tender bruising, swollen and disfigured. I do the best I can, and work his limp arms through the sleeves of the clean shirt, and his legs into the trousers. The nakedness does nothing for me; it is rather like putting the skin and fur back on a dead animal – a bizarre and hideous task.

When he’s dressed I rebind his wrists and ankles with the strong rope Bermond left for me.

Jannik enters the room just as I’m tying the final knot. He is still pale, as always, but without that sweaty, hungry look. His wounds are hidden. I stand, reach out and lay one hand softly against his chest, just lightly feeling the bandages beneath the silk. He winces.

“Scriv?” I draw back. “I thought it would all be gone by now?” Certainly, I can feel no trace of magic in my system; all that I’m left with is a pounding vicious headache behind my eyes, and a sour taste I cannot swallow away.

“A little,” he murmurs. “You’ve cleaned him.”

“Except for the burn. Bermond is going to come deal with that – maggots – don’t ask, and the hair.” I eye the mess. “I think I’m just going to cut it all off.”

“He’s not a pet for you to groom,” Jannik says.

“I know that. All I gave him was a little decency.”

Isidro slips through the doorway. “I want to go home.” He is cleaned, dressed, his hair combed back into place. Even the bruises look better now that the cellar’s grime is washed away. Despite this, Isidro has lost something of himself. Whether he lost it in Eline’s house, or in Harun’s treatment of him, or his own mother’s betrayal, I don’t know.

“I can’t stay here,” he says.

“It was a pleasure,” I snap back at him. “The next time you decide to run away and get yourself sold to a madman, I’ll leave you to rot.”

He glares at me. “I suppose I should thank you.”

“Oh sweet Gris, never mind.” I raise my hands in exaggerated despair.

A groan sounds from the boy, and we all of us fall silent and stare at the shifting body. The cloth they gagged him with is lying next to his cheek. I wonder if I should have stuffed it back in his mouth. Too late now.

A pale tongue tip darts out of his mouth, licks at his dry lips. His eyelids flutter.

“I’m not staying,” says Isidro. “Get me back to Harun.” Panic colours. his voice.

“Hush.” Jannik catches his arm gently, but his gaze never leaves the boy lying at their feet. They both take a few paces back, leaving him a wide berth.

He wakes shrieking. Loud enough that all I want to do is press my hands over my ears and let Isidro lay into him again. “Gris.” We’ll need to knock him unconscious. Maybe Isidro was right and I should have just snuffed him out like a fatcandle

He falls silent as suddenly as he began, and curls up, bound wrists resting just below his knees. He flicks nervous glances back and forth at us, at the room, down at the clothes I’ve dressed him in. He scrapes his arms up and down against his legs.