“Where do you pick up these phrases? Otherworldly?” He snorted and began tapping his fingers against the table. “Your contact is late, Makin.”
“You insisted on your own transport. I don’t understand your reasoning. I think having K’an Azchai’s men at your beck and call is part of the perks of being a princeling of Barun.”
He bristled at the words. “Don’t call me that.”
“It’s not for your benefit that I do. I am Azchai’s man, not yours. I will give his son-in-law the respect my lord demands, even if he is—somewhat—unsightly today. So tell me.” Makin pressed his hands together and grinned. “You really haven’t done the deed at all? You?”
“Why are we still talking about this?”
Makin grinned. “Is it because of—” He lowered his voice and jerked a finger back. “Her?”
He didn’t need to glance behind them. Sapphire had picked her own table, on account of Makin’s scent (or so she claimed), and was busy reading a book.
“I’d bite that finger, if I were you,” Enosh said casually.
“Why?”
“An old Kag saying. You bite your finger after pointing at the unknown, else you might incur the wrath of a vengeful demon.”
“Acha! You’re right! I don’t want to turn into a frog.” And Makin bit on his thumb hard enough that his face turned red from the effort.
Sapphire casually turned a page, pretending to ignore them. She was good at it, too. He got up, signalled to Makin to stay behind, and sauntered over to the other side of her table. Sapphire, aware of his approach, turned another page.
He peered at her book. “Annals of Rogue Mages and Their Grisly Deaths. Wow, you must really hate me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Such an intense emotion would hardly be worthy of you.” She glanced at him through her spectacles. “As it happens, Vilum spoke the truth. I was told a man fitting Bannal’s description passed through recently, procuring several pack animals—sand-donkeys, I believe—and a guide. He intended on heading north.”
“To Nebel.”
“Perhaps. He could also just as easily avoid the city, choosing instead to replenish supplies along the villages.”
He snorted. “How likely is that to happen, I wonder? A man like Bannal trading with Gasparian peasant-folk?”
Sapphire flipped a page. “He knows we’re looking for him. The shopkeeper told me he paid a boy to scout the docks before he bought the animals. Your men don’t exactly blend with the local populace.”
“You can’t blame me for that.” He sighed. “And here I was hoping I could come up with an excuse to stay behind.”
“Fake an injury. Better yet, I can give you one. Stand still.” She lifted one hand without looking at him.
“Right after you’ve read that book? No thanks.”
“Enlighten me, Ylir. If marrying into the Lord of Barun’s family was so unpleasant, why do it at all? You never struck me as the kind of man who liked getting tied down to anything, least of all a woman.”
“What can I say, my dear Sapphire? I find, in my old age, that the comforts of hearth and family are—”
“If you do not wish to answer truthfully, then spare me the pleasantries. I see your Gasparian friend’s contact has arrived. If we are to be subjected to the sun and sand shortly, I suggest you let me drink the rest of my tea in peace, else you find yourself a footnote in the next edition of this book.”
Laughing, Enosh returned to his table, and found himself face-to-face with a man he had not seen in at least a year. Burg, for his part, did not look surprised. Makin must have told him what to expect.
“Your own transport, you said,” Makin repeated, clearing his throat. “Burg’s been working for a horse-and-caravan company here in Osaimir since he left your employ. I thought it would be a good time to mend fences while we’re at it. You were good friends once, were you not?”
“I’m just here for the job,” Burg said, sitting down. He had grown a beard over the past year. He folded his thick arms over the table.
Enosh, not knowing what to say, managed a polite smile. “I would be happy to entrust my retinue under your care once again, Burg. I take it you’re not returning to the Kag soon?”
“Nothing to come back to,” he said.
“Your fiancée…?”
“I’m touched you recall. She’s dead. Died giving birth to another man’s child, as it happens.”
Enosh looked down. “I am sorry to hear that, Burg.”
“Yes, well, nothing either of us can do about that now. Lay out where you want to go on this here map, Ylir, and let’s get this over with. How big is your party?” He glanced at Makin.
“Oh, I don’t know, between Lord Ylir’s men and entourage of women…”
“There will be no entourage, Makin. I’m not sure my lady wife would approve.”
“Hah! I wouldn’t put it past her. Why—oh, by the Holy King’s flaming beard…”
Enosh turned around and saw, by the doorway, a figure putting down her hood. He had never seen Reema beyond Azchai’s lands, and the effect of her appearance startled her even more than Burg’s.
“Flaming beard indeed,” he murmured, standing up to meet her. From the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Burg smirk.
“My lady—” he began.
She slapped him. From behind, he heard someone chortle, and what distinctly sounded like Sapphire trying not to choke on her tea.
Enosh pressed his fingers over his nose. “Come with me outside.” He didn’t wait for her to argue and walked out onto the street.
“We haven’t been married a week,” she told him.
“I am aware of the passage of time, my lady.”
“Oh, good. I didn’t think you were. I recall you were gone from my father’s estate the exact day after, and now I find you here, a week later, planning to leave for Nebel? Am I correct? You are leaving without my consent?”
“Considering it was your dear father who told me I should go—” Something in the way her eyes flared at his words made him slow down and finish the rest of his sentence in a mumble.
“You married me, Lord Ferral. Not my father.”
“I forget, sometimes…”
“Is this vengeance for our wedding night?”
Enosh looked at her, wondering if she was serious. “I am…not sure what you mean. You were—indisposed that night, were you not? I assumed it was indigestion from roast goat. You advised your servants that you were retiring early and that I was not to disturb you under any circumstances.”
She bristled. “Even as I confront you, you still find a way to insult me. I thought you did not want to marry me at all—why, I met you on our wedding day, even when you had more than enough time to make proper introductions. And now this? My father sees gold when he looks at you, my lord, but I see only an ass.”
Enosh bowed his head. “If this ass may take his leave, my lady. I still have much work to do.”
“Of course you do. I’m sure it’s all very important and I wouldn’t dream of keeping you from it.” She didn’t turn away, though, and he had the barest inkling of something else, something she wasn’t telling him. It reminded him of battle, of that moment before a man draws his sword. It was unnerving, coming from a woman.
Enosh swallowed. “So then…?”
“We will wait for you at the Second Inn, not far from the gates, for when you conclude your business.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I would also like to advise Makin that he is, above all else, still my father’s man, and as K’an Azchai’s daughter, my orders take precedence over yours. You will not attempt to leave without me and my retinue if you know what’s good for you. I don’t know if you’re aware, but certain local laws in Gaspar allow beheadings. Minor princelings are not exempt from this.”
Her words sank in. “My lady, I don’t know exactly what you think about this errand, but you are mistaken. It’s not a vacation. The road from here to Nebel—”
<
br /> “Is long, and arduous, I know. It will be made even more so should your loving wife find more reasons to be dissatisfied with your behaviour. Imagine that, Ferral.” Her eyes flashed. “The Second Inn, as I said, though you need not concern yourself with that. I will leave some of my men here, in case you decide to sneak away. I am not a fool, my lord.”
Enosh glanced at Makin, who seemed amused. “I was mistaken,” he said with a sigh. “I do get an entourage after all.”
They took off before dawn. Partly, because Burg wanted to cover as much distance as they could before the midday heat, and also because Enosh was sure—almost sure—that a spoiled Gasparian princess would give up and go home when she realized she was not made for trekking in the cold, damp, darkness.
He glanced behind him. Lady Reema rode her mare as if traipsing about in grey mornings was part of her routine. She had not, since he had instructed Elad to awaken her two hours before, uttered a word of complaint or—indeed, any word at all, if her maidservants were to be believed.
“You can see better, Burg,” he said, edging his mount closer to the other man’s. “Is she glaring daggers at my back? I want to know.”
“You, married,” Burg said, ignoring his request. He snorted. “I know many men, back home, who should’ve dropped dead by now. All those oaths they’ve uttered…”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
“If you ask me? No. I’m sure you got something out of this. Marriage is a useful tool—but then, you know more about that than I do.”
He sighed. “Aren’t you even going to ask about that?”
“About what? Your affairs are yours. I don’t even presume you’d care to hear about my opinions on them.”
“She went back to Jin-Sayeng, Burg. Mhagaza died the eve of their wedding. Didn’t even get to enjoy his wedding bed.”
Burg cast him a look. “And you’d know that…how?”
He smirked. “I just do.”
“And you sent the little miss back to Jin-Sayeng?”
“She’s reunited with her nephew, last I heard.”
“I see.” Burg did not seem convinced, though, and turned away from Enosh before he could voice out the rest of his thoughts. The man did not try to speak to him again, not during their mid-day stop or when they finally set up camp for the night.
Still, a part of him was pleased that Burg was there. Seeing Burg stalk through camp like a lion on the prowl reminded him of older, pleasant days, when the threat of failure did not loom over his head like a storm cloud.
“I should have never come so far,” Enosh murmured, a cup of stew warming in his hands as he gazed out on the horizon and the flat land sprawling ahead of them. “Too late for regrets, now.”
Reema was waiting for him when he retreated into his tent for the night. She was wearing a thin, white gown, and a simple bead, hanging from a golden thread, was draped around her head like a crown. “My father wants heirs, my lord,” she said, even when he had yet to utter a word.
He coughed. “Perhaps at another time and place, my lady. Our surroundings—”
“I see.” She said it with such venom in her voice that Enosh, for a moment, suddenly understood why so many men grow old in fear of their wives. She folded her hands on her lap. “It is true, then, what they say. About you.”
“And what is that?”
“That you are a magi. Is that the word? A man cursed with the mandra-or running through his veins. Were you born in Gaspar, you would have been sent in service of his Holiness, stripped of all titles, and lands, and the ability to have a family or bed with women.”
“I was not born in Gaspar, my lady. Were I what you told me, I would not have such restrictions imposed on me. As it were, you are gravely mistaken.”
“Then you are celibate for the fun of it?”
“I do not appreciate being ordered about, my lady.”
She pursed her lips. “That same way I don’t appreciate being told I had to marry you, my lord? We are not so unlike each other, so it seems.”
Enosh fell silent and looked at her, sitting there with her legs bent under her knees like they were discussing something as trivial as the weather, or the colour of draperies for their bedchamber. Without thinking about it, he reached out to touch her cheek, and stopped when he saw her flinch.
He pulled away. “I apologize,” he said.
“Don’t.” She glanced at the candle to her left. The single flame danced and sputtered, filling the air with the smell of burnt tallow. “You will go outside to check on the horses and ensure the men have everything they need. I will be asleep when you return. The journey has exhausted me.”
“My lady…?”
“The horses are waiting, my lord.” The resolve was plain on her face. He nodded and stepped back out into the open air. The irony of what had just happened was not lost on him. He wondered what his father would have said about the kind of man he had become over the years.
Interlude
Rysaran sits with his knees bent underneath him in the middle of the temple. There are no priestesses or acolytes about; they know he likes to be alone during his evening tea, which he often takes right there in the temple. Such an act would be considered blasphemy in so many places he has gone to—the temples in the Kag, for instance, or even Gaspar. It is why, for all his restlessness, he enjoys being in Jin-Sayeng, where he is free to examine the prophet’s texts without prejudice. Or enjoy a cup of jasmine tea, as it were.
He glances past the alcove, towards the railings where he could view the city down below. In twilight (and if one squints really hard), Lake Watu almost passes as beautiful. He wonders if this is what the old artists, the painters who did the brushwork on the scrolls in the palace, saw, because he cannot picture a time when the city and the ensuing filth were not part of the lake. In due time, perhaps, he might try to ease tensions and hire learned men from the Empire of Ziri-nar-Orxiaro, where he had been told they would know ways to clean the lake. Jin-Sayeng is so, so very far behind, and his people are more interested in laying blame than solving problems.
There is talk, for instance, of Warlord Yeshin inciting rebellion. He does not have enough proof to have the man brought to him for questioning, but he knows him well enough and it sounds just like something he would do. The Orenar clan has never made it a secret that they thinks they should have been awarded the Dragonthrone. Over two hundred years of resentment. He does not blame them—the towers in Oren-yaro, after all, are just as tall—if not as numerous—as Shirrokaru’s, their army is a lot bigger, and their men grow better beards.
Much, much better beards, he thinks, smiling. It has long been a source of discontent for him that men from the Ikessar clan need to be smooth-shaven, else they risk the chance of looking like the carp from the royal fountains. He has noted, in his travels, that men with beards are taken much more seriously than those without.
“My lord,” he hears the voice of Ureji, his Captain of the Guard, behind him. “I am sorry to interrupt you from your most important meditations, but…”
“You saw the prisoner to Miss Kaggawa’s home?” he asks.
“Yes, my lord. He will be escorted to the palace when it is over, as you requested.”
“You look troubled. Speak up.”
“Sir—that man, he was in prison for practicing the forbidden arts, and it looks like, in that room, with that family…”
“Your soldiers are very discreet, are they not?”
Ureji drops his head.
“Don’t worry about it. If any inquiry comes out, send them to me. What of my other requests?”
Ureji beckons behind him. A woman in a veiled hat and long robes the colour of cherries appears. She bows to him, her hands folded in front of her.
“I made the appropriate inquiries. The man, Goran alon gar Kaggawa, indeed moved to Akki several decades ago with his bride, Oneira aron dar Seran.”
“Aron dar Seran?” He lifts his head, hearing the name. “He married a royal?”
<
br /> “It seems as if she was the lady Hieda aron dar Seran’s niece.”
“I have heard stories, before,” Ureji breaks in. They both glance at him, and he colours and coughs. “Forgive me. I did not mean to interrupt.”
“No, Ureji. Please, tell me.”
“You know, of course, that in the time of your father, the merchants who went by the name of Seven Shadows were responsible for securing trade connections in the Kag.” He smiles. “They ah—certainly didn’t go about it like you’d think, all dull talk and old-man like. There was one, I think his name was Nibo the Slasher? He had these enormous, double blades…”
“So much of those tales were exaggerated,” the scholar says. She dismisses them with a gesture of her hands. “The years after Xiaro’s attacks were a quiet time. People wanted entertainment. Heroes.”
“Be that as it may,” Ureji replies. “I’m simply going by the stories my nursemaid told us. Goran, whom we knew as Goro—met Lady Oneira during one of their exploits while attempting to help Ichi rok Sagar and his men escape from the dungeons in Bara.”
Rysaran nods. “That one I did hear of. This Ichi rok Sagar, then. He is the same man we stumbled upon earlier?”
“It seems so, Beloved Prince.”
“How odd that such a prominent figure would find himself back in there with not a friend to call his own. It is this same Goro Kaggawa’s daughter, if I’m not mistaken, that led us to him.” Rysaran claps his hands at the realization. “It is interesting, is it not? From what I understand, Goro refused the position my father offered him and took his bride back west instead, to establish a home in the village of Akki. A strategic location for a mercantile empire, if the tides had turned to his favour. What a coincidence. Rok Sagar is on his way, you said? Make sure he is allowed to rest before I speak with him in the morning.”
“The Dragonlord is wise in all the ways of the world,” the captain says, bowing. He dips his head back, an act not required of him, by any means, but he likes his men to understand that he respects them. He thinks they appreciate it; Ryabei, his regent, and so many of the other royals do not. The scholar, too, takes her leave.
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