The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [181]
Robert quirked a smile and walked toward the bed. “Muriele, Muriele. Time has not blunted your tongue or your beauty. Your face is as lovely as ever. Of course, they say the face goes last, that age works from the toes up. I’ve a mind to discover if that is true.” He grabbed the cover and yanked it from the bed.
“Robert, do not dare,” she commanded.
“Oh, I should think I shall,” he said, reaching for her breast. She put up her hands to stop him but he clamped her wrists in fingers like steel bands and pushed her roughly back. Very deliberately he flung one leg over her and pulled the other up until he was straddling her, then lowered himself until his body crushed against hers and his face hovered two hands above. Never taking his gaze from hers, he let go one of her hands and reached with the other down between her legs and began hiking up her nightgown. He planted one knee between her thighs and began prying them apart.
He seemed to grow heavier, pinning her to the bed, and his face was now so near hers, it was distorted, the face of a stranger. She remembered Robert as an infant, as a little boy, in the court, but she couldn’t make any connection between that and what was happening to her, this thing with his hand in her privates. She felt her limbs go limp as he started to undo the fastenings of his breeches, and rolled her head to the side so she could not see his face. His hands moved on her like giant spiders, and he smelled like carrion, just as Berrye said.
She let her gaze slip along Robert and past him and saw Berrye creeping toward Robert’s back, something held tightly in one hand. Muriele shook her head and mouthed the word no.
Then, lazily, feeling as if she had all the time in the world, she reached for the hilt of Robert’s knife, drew it, and stabbed it into his side. It went in easily. She’d always imagined it would be something like cutting into a pumpkin, stabbing someone, but it wasn’t like that at all.
Robert jerked, grunted, and sat up on her, and then she drove the blade into his heart. He fell back with a moan, and she squirmed from beneath him, still holding the knife. She was just starting to shake when Alis was suddenly there, supporting her, murmuring reassurances.
Robert picked himself up off the floor, his breath coming in harsh wheezes.
“First the husband, then the wife,” he gasped. “I’m beginning to hate this family.”
There wasn’t any blood, Muriele noticed—or at least not very much. Something was oozing from Robert’s wounds like syrup, but it wasn’t red. She looked at the knife, still in her hand. It was coated with a sticky, clearish resin.
She flinched as Robert staggered across the room, but he seemed to ignore her and slouched once more into the armchair.
“It does still hurt, though,” he said absently. “I wondered about that.” He glanced up at her. “I suppose we won’t marry after all.”
“Robert, what have you done?” Muriele whispered.
Robert glanced down at the wound in his chest. “This? I didn’t do this, love. I was minding my own business, dying—William managed to stab me, you know, against all reason. And then I did die, I think, and now—well, I’m as you see.” He wagged a finger at her. “You did this, naughty girl. The Kept told me so.”
“So it was you in my room, that night.”
“Of course,” he confessed, wiping his brow. “It’s so strange that I didn’t know about the passages. That’s how you got Charles out, isn’t it?”
Muriele didn’t answer. She dropped the knife and clung to Alis.
“You two seem very friendly,” Robert noticed. “Alis, were your attentions to me fraudulent? I mean, I knew they were, but I supposed they came from a desire to resume your place as a palace whore.”
“Please leave her