Anne Bishop: The Voice

It didn’t occur to me until much later that Kobrah and Tahnee never once suggested abandoning this part of the plan. I suppose that, more than anything, proved none of us belonged in the village where we had been born.

The plan was simple. I would go in on the pretense of consoling Chayne on the loss of the dowry and the embarrassment of Kobrah’s behavior. I would slip a third of the drug I had bought into a drink, avoid any amorous advances Chayne might think to make before he drank down the drug, and then get The Voice out of the house and into the cart so we could be far down the road before anyone realized we were gone.

I just didn’t know how to do any of that. So I prayed hard and with all my heart, because five lives were at stake now. The horse had become a conspirator with us, and even though he was a poor, dumb beast, I was sure the Elder would blame him for following the girl who had offered him food.

Tahnee held the horse, petting him to keep him quiet. Kobrah remained in the cart. I went around to the front and rang the visitors’ bell, still wondering what to say to get myself inside at this hour.

That wasn’t a worry. Chayne answered the door looking sleepy, rumpled, and surly, and I suspected he had been drinking, even though he wasn’t supposed to when he was on duty. Then another expression slithered into his eyes as he looked at me, and I felt a thread of pure fear roll down my spine when I realized I wasn’t the only one who had a drug that had been purchased in some shadow place. Chayne had his bottle with him, because he used it on The Voice as well as on Kobrah.

And he intended to use it on me. I looked into his eyes and knew it.

“I heard what happened this afternoon,” I said, sounding a little breathless. “I thought . . . maybe . . . you would want to talk to someone.”

“Talk?” he laughed softly, and I heard the sound of a heart turning evil. He stepped aside to let me enter. “Sure, we can talk. Come back to the kitchen. I was having a bite to eat.”

There was bread and cheese on the table, as well as half a bottle of wine. Looking at Chayne’s flushed face, I had a feeling that wasn’t the first bottle he’d opened tonight. Which explained why he hadn’t paid attention to the sound of a horse and cart.

“Let me get you some wine,” he said, picking up the bottle and taking it with him to the cupboard that held the glasses.

Watching him to make sure he wasn’t paying close attention to me, I slipped a hand in my skirt pocket and took out the vial of potion. I worked the cork with my thumb, loosening it while I glanced at Chayne’s glass of wine and then back at him. He would see me if I reached across the table, and if he saw my hand over his glass . . . Then he turned toward the kitchen window, and I thought my heart would stop. Had he heard a noise? I was almost certain he wouldn’t see the horse and cart unless he went right up to the window and looked out, but I couldn’t take that chance. And I couldn’t waste the opportunity he provided by turning his back on me. So I pulled the cork off the vial and dumped some of the drug into Chayne’s glass, heedless of how much I was using.

“Is there anyone else here tonight?” I asked, tucking my shaking hands in my lap while I worked the cork back into the top of the vial.

He stopped moving toward the window, but he still kept his back to me.

He hadn’t heard a noise. He wasn’t interested in looking out the window. That was just the excuse he had used for turning away from me while he slipped his drug into my glass of wine.

He came back to the table, set the wineglass in front of me, and smiled the kind of smile women instinctively fear. “No, there’s no one else here tonight. Except The Voice. She’s the perfect chaperone.”

I would have been a fool to come here alone. I hadn’t been a friend to Kobrah when I had kept silent after overhearing Chayne tell Dariden about the drug. Now all our fates came down to whether I could avoid drinking from my glass without arousing Chayne’s suspicion.

“Drink up,” Chayne said, raising his glass in a salute as he watched me.

He knew I knew about the drug—and he didn’t care. He was between me and the door. We were alone. He wasn’t so drunk that I could get away from him.

Then a door slammed, making us both jump. A moment later, Kobrah stood in the kitchen doorway, breathing like a bellows, looking as if she’d run here all the way from her house.

“Are you going to poison Nalah too?” Kobrah asked. “Isn’t it enough that you ruined me?”

“Go home,” Chayne said coldly, turning his back on her to look straight at me. “Go back home while you still have one. And if you say anything else that causes trouble, I’ll be looking for a new wife, and you’ll be grateful for any place that will take you in. You know what they say about an orphan’s life.”

He didn’t see the rage on her face, but he smirked when I, trembling, whispered, “An orphan’s life is one of sorrow.”

Looking pleased, Chayne said, “That’s right,” and drank all the wine in his glass.

The Apothecary assured me the drug would work fast. Even so, agonizing hours filled the space between each heartbeat before Chayne staggered, grabbed at the table to keep his balance, then collapsed on the floor.

I caught Chayne’s wineglass before it rolled off the table, righted the bottle before the rest of the wine spilled out, then got around the table in time to stand between Chayne and Kobrah.

“I was going to kick his face until it was all smashed and broken,” Kobrah said in that dreamy, insane voice. “He deserves to have his face smashed. You don’t know all the things he’s done.”

I held up a hand to stop her, then crouched beside Chayne. His eyes were open, but his mind was swimming in some dream world and his limbs wouldn’t work for a few hours.

“You,” he said, drawing out the word.

Inspired, I stared at him. “Us,” I said, raising a hand to draw his attention to Kobrah, who was standing behind me. “We are the goddesses of justice and vengeance. Tonight we wore the faces of women you know in order to test you, human. And you failed.”

Kobrah laughed, a chilling sound.

“When the sun rises tomorrow, you will stand in front of the Elders’ Hall and tell everyone about the drug you gave your wife. You will confess every harm you have ever done to any living thing. If you do not, we will come back every night for the rest of your life. We will come back in a dream, night after night, and peel the skin off your face so that everyone will see who you really are.”

I stood up and walked out of the kitchen. Kobrah followed me.

“If he doesn’t confess all the things he’s done, will he really have that dream?” she asked.

“Yes.” When I bought the drug, I had emphasized the need to hide the memory of my presence and had been assured that, in the first minute or two after the drug was taken, the person would believe anything he was told.

Kobrah smiled. “That’s better than kicking him in the face, because he’ll never tell the Elders everything he’s done. He would end up among the Un-Named.”

We opened doors, searched rooms. Most people never went beyond the visitors’ room, never saw this part of the house. Judging by what could be seen by moonlight, the rooms set aside for the caretakers were better furnished and had more luxuries than any of them knew in their own homes. But there were two rooms that had the basic furniture of bed, chair, and dresser. No rug on the floor. No sketches on the walls. Not one pretty bauble to delight the heart.

There was no need for such things when a person had been silenced and could not voice her pain, when she had been kept uneducated so she could not give shape to her thoughts. When she was caged within her own flesh so that she couldn’t escape other kinds of cages.