Royal Airs

by Sharon Shinn

  Steff glanced at the soldiers who were just now tramping inside. Sorbin was arguing with one of the newer members of the guard unit, but without any heat; it sounded like they might be trying to set up a sleep schedule for the next few days. “Who are all these fellows?”

  “That’s why it’s complicated,” Rafe said.

  “Why don’t we all sit down and talk?” Josetta suggested. “Steff, are you hungry? I’m starving. And this might take a while.”

  • • •

  No one was supposed to know the truth about Rafe, so they went with the fiction they’d told the soldiers: Rafe had overheard some incriminating information during a late-night session of penta, so the regent had assigned him an armed guard, with a royal heir thrown in to disguise the reason. Steff seemed less agitated about Rafe’s danger than Josetta’s identity

  “But—you’re—the princess?” he stammered. “I should have—I didn’t bow! I should—”

  “You should just be courteous, which you have been,” she said with a smile. “I’m not a very picky princess.” He still seemed overwhelmed so she tried to put him at ease. “What do you plan to do while you’re here? Are you looking for a job? Do you need somewhere to stay?”

  Steff looked uncertain. “I slept at Samson’s tavern for the first night, but I like it better here.”

  Rafe shook his head. “This is why I haven’t wanted you to come to the city. I don’t have a place that’s suitable for you.”

  “Take him to your apartment in the port,” Josetta suggested. “Maybe Kayle would even give him a job.”

  “Any job,” Steff assured them. “I’ll work hard.”

  Rafe thought it over. “That might be feasible. How do you feel about doing maintenance on machines?”

  Steff’s eager look changed to consternation. “Farm machines? Here in the city?”

  Rafe started laughing. “Oh no, much better. Smoker cars and aeromotives. Kayle runs a bunch of factories where he builds them.”

  Now Steff’s face lit with delight. “Aeromotives,” he breathed. “That’s what I want to work on.”

  “I can tell you’re brothers,” Josetta said.

  Rafe told Steff, “Wait till you hear what I’ve been doing lately.”

  • • •

  Despite the fact that both Rafe and Steff were dying to get to the port, they spent three days southside while Josetta finished stacks of paperwork and checked on construction at the tailor’s shop. Rafe had expected Steff’s presence to make things more awkward with Josetta, but it didn’t. For one thing, Rafe thought, Steff was still young enough to be fairly self-absorbed; he didn’t care too much what was happening to other people unless it had a direct impact on him.

  For another, Josetta handled the whole situation with the easy diplomacy he figured she must have learned at court. “Rafe stays in my room, of course, but you can pick where you’d rather sleep,” she told Steff on that very first night. “Here in the shelter—where it tends to get very crowded lately—or over at the construction site, where Callie says most of the workmen have been staying.”

  Steff nodded. “That’s where I was the past couple of nights. Suits me fine.”

  “Good. Then you can head over after dinner and we’ll see you in the morning.”

  They had their meal, played a few hands of penta, and saw Steff off, accompanied by a couple of the other construction workers. And then it was time for Rafe to follow Josetta up the stairs to her room, shut the door, and take her in his arms. There had to be more than fifty people settling down at various places in the building, some of them, like Foley and Callie, barely a thin wall away. But it didn’t matter. Rafe forgot they were nearby, forgot they even existed. He was alone with Josetta, and there was nobody else in the world.

  • • •

  Since he had to keep himself occupied while Josetta was busy, Rafe spent the next three days with Steff at the tailor’s shop. He had never had much chance to work alongside his brother, and he was impressed at the boy’s steady hands and quiet self-confidence. Some of the older men—clearly recruited from the ranks of potential tenants—even went to Steff for advice on how to handle certain tools or complete tricky joints. Steff showed his skills to advantage in those interactions: His instructions were clear, his patience unlimited. Rafe was pretty sure Kayle would find Steff a worthy hire.

  But. “Maybe you should attend one of the training schools, really learn how to do this stuff,” Rafe told him.

  “Maybe later,” Steff said. “I just—I want to get started now. I feel like I’ve wasted too much time already.”

  It was a sentiment Rafe could definitely understand.

  Rafe was also impressed by how much had already been accomplished at the new location. An outdoor stairway had been constructed to lead residents to the upper levels, where the open spaces had been neatly divided into small bedrooms. On the bottom story, a long, narrow bathing room had been built along the back wall. Of course, there was no water yet, and the tailor asked them several times a day when the coru prime would return to fulfill Josetta’s promise.

  “When everything’s ready for her,” was the standard response of the bald, burly man who seemed to be overseeing the job. “Got to make sure all the pipes and sewers are in place.”

  But either that was a stall tactic to shut the man up, or the pipes and sewers were miraculously completed overnight, because Zoe showed up late in the afternoon of the third day. She was accompanied by Corene and a couple of guards.

  “Well! Isn’t this nice!” Zoe exclaimed as she insisted on touring the entire site before living up to her part of the bargain. “I wouldn’t mind staying here myself some night.”

  “It won’t be quite as nice once it’s filled with Josetta’s usual patrons,” Rafe reminded her with a smile. “It will be crowded and noisy and full of questionable characters—”

  She smiled at him. “I might like it even better then.”

  Corene had made the whole circuit at Steff’s side, while Zoe and Rafe followed a few feet behind. Steff hadn’t had much chance to be awed at the appearance of another princess in his life, since Corene had greeted him with: “Are you as interesting as your brother?”

  “I don’t know,” Steff had replied, taken aback. He glanced at Rafe. “I never thought he was that interesting.”

  That made Corene laugh. “No, you never think your siblings are. They’re usually just annoying.”

  “He wasn’t around enough to be annoying. I just always thought he was lucky, because he got away.”

  She glanced around the construction site. “Well, it looks like you got away, too.”

  When they were done inspecting the upper floors, they trooped downstairs to find the tailor and his sons impatiently waiting. Zoe exchanged a few words with the big bald worker—confirming, Rafe supposed, that the all-important pipes really were in place.

  Then she wandered into the bathing room and simply stood there a few moments, wearing a faraway expression, almost a look of bemusement. The rest of them crowded around the doorway, watching her, but she didn’t recite incantations or seem to strain against heavy invisible burdens. She just looked as if she was trying to recall a not-very-interesting conversation she’d had a few ninedays ago so she could manage to say something polite to the woman she’d met on that occasion, if she happened to see her again.

  Then she gave her head a small shake, turned to smile at the tailor, and said, “I think that takes care of it.”

  The tailor was suspicious. “You didn’t do anything! Was it all a lie? Are you really the prime?”

  “I should have the guards arrest you,” huffed Corene, clearly offended, but Zoe just laughed.

  “Try the spigots,” she invited.

  Still scowling, the tailor pushed through the doorway and wrenched at one of the faucets in the communal shower. He shouted and jerked back a
s water spurted out and doused him from above. Excited, his sons followed him into the room, running from faucet to faucet, opening each to its maximum flow. Water gushed from all of them, pattering onto the stone floor and slowly filling the room with steam.

  “There’s a hot spring that runs right under this part of the city,” Zoe said with satisfaction. “Such a luxury in a place like this.”

  The tailor and his sons were laughing and hugging each other, but Corene splashed up to them, disregarding how soaked her trousers and her shoes became. “You should apologize right now to Zoe,” she commanded. “Zoe never makes promises she doesn’t keep.”

  • • •

  Callie prepared a special dinner to celebrate the arrival of water in the second location, though Rafe thought the happy mood owed as much to the four bottles of wine he’d slipped off to buy. Well, he never actually “slipped off” anywhere these days; he was accompanied by Steff and trailed by three guards, and they drew no little attention as he stopped at a nearby tavern to make his purchase. Then again, the bartender didn’t try to cheat him on the price, which was more or less routine here in the slums, so he supposed there were some advantages to always having an armed escort.

  The meal was convivial, even Callie and Foley consenting to join them, though the cook jumped to her feet the minute the meal was over and Foley joined the other guards to divide the evening shift.

  “When will people start moving into the second building?” Zoe asked.

  “Sometime in the next nineday,” Josetta said. “I won’t be here, though, since Rafe and I plan to go down to the port tomorrow.” She glanced at him. “He’s been very good, but I can tell he’s itching to climb into another aeromotive.”

  “I don’t want Kayle to replace me,” Rafe said. “Arven’s probably all healed up by now and ready to take my place.”

  “I want to see you fly. Can I come, too?” Corene asked.

  “If you want,” he said. “If Zoe says you can.”

  “Well, I’d like to see such a thing myself!” Zoe exclaimed. “If we come with you tomorrow morning, will you be flying by afternoon? I don’t want to be gone from Celia too long.”

  “I don’t know when Kayle will schedule the next flight,” Rafe admitted. “I know there was another model almost ready to go, but there are so many factors that determine a launch.”

  “Can I go even if you don’t?” Corene asked Zoe.

  “No. If I can’t have fun, you can’t have fun.”

  Josetta was laughing. “Send a note to Darien and tell him you’ve been called away for a few days and he will need to take care of the baby. Because it’s obvious you want to come with us.”

  Zoe was wavering. “Well. Maybe if we arrive early in the morning. If Kayle says no flight for another nineday, we go home. But if there’s a flight tomorrow, we stay.”

  “Excellent,” Rafe said, refilling their glasses with the last of the wine. “Off on another adventure.”

  Steff and the princesses were clearing the table when Zoe drew Rafe aside for a private conversation.

  “I like your brother,” she said. “Did you tell him your story?”

  He shook his head. “I was sure Darien wouldn’t want me to. But I’ll admit I’m worried. If it turns out that my mother was the royal, not my father, I’ll have to. He’ll be in just as much danger as I am. It didn’t seem so risky when he was down on the farm, but if he’s in the city where anyone might see him—”

  Zoe nodded. “I was sure that was on your mind. So I made a point of taking his hand this afternoon.”

  “And?”

  “None of Ghyaneth’s bloodline in him at all. Steff is safe from Berringese justice.”

  Rafe felt a peculiarly powerful sense of relief; he hadn’t realized how deep his fear had run. Steff didn’t bear any telltale markings, of course. No one would have been able to identify him as a Berringese heir just by sight. Still, Ghyaneth sounded like the type to be frighteningly thorough, and if he had ever learned of another claimant to the throne . . . “Good. Thank you. I’m glad he’s just an ordinary young man.”

  Zoe was smiling. “I’m sure, like you, he’s extraordinary in his own way.”

  • • •

  Of course, Zoe and Corene had to share Josetta’s room, which meant Rafe followed Steff back to the tailor’s shop to spend the night. So, the next morning, no one looked particularly rested by the time they assembled their caravan of one prime, two princesses, one prince, one brother, eight guards, and two drivers.

  “When I think how simple it used to be to just walk out the door and go somewhere,” Rafe marveled.

  “I know,” Corene said. “That was one of the reasons I loved traveling with Barlow and Jaker! It was just us and Foley. So easy.”

  “Who are Barlow and Jaker?” Steff asked her. As the youngest, they had been relegated to the cramped back bench of Zoe’s elaymotive. Corene had seemed displeased at this arrangement until she realized Steff would be sitting beside her, and then she’d become almost complacent. Rafe figured she could tell how much Steff was dazzled by her, and she liked soaking up his adoration.

  “Merchant traders that Josetta and I traveled with one winter,” she said, and then launched into the whole story.

  The rest of them carried on their own conversation, and the trip to the port passed in a much less tedious fashion than it usually did. They found Kayle at the factory, conferring with one of his designers, but he broke off his conversation to greet them.

  “Are you finally recovered?” he demanded of Rafe. “When can you fly again?”

  “This afternoon, if you’ve got a machine ready,” Rafe answered with a laugh. “I’ve brought a few friends who’d like to witness a flight.”

  “Not today,” Kayle said, shaking his head. “Not enough notice for the crew. Tomorrow, though. The K5 is ready to go.”

  Corene grabbed Zoe’s forearms with both hands. “Can we stay? Please? It’s just one more day. Please?”

  “You and Corene can sleep at my house,” Kayle told Zoe. “And then you and I can talk.”

  Zoe had looked undecided at first, but those last words convinced her. Rafe reflected that the primes had no end of conversation ahead of them. She said quietly, “You’ve heard from Darien?”

  Kayle nodded. His face softened more than Rafe would have expected; the elay prime never seemed like the empathetic sort, but maybe he’d had tragedies of his own. “A sad business all the way around,” he said. Then his mouth twisted. “And more politicking to follow. The very sort of conversation I hate the most.”

  “Yes, you and I are not good at all the plotting that comes so naturally to Nelson and Mirti,” Zoe agreed. “Our strengths lie elsewhere. But we must work together for the good of the kingdom.”

  Kayle sighed and agreed.

  • • •

  Rafe returned to the training facility for the afternoon to discover that enduring a crash and passing a nineday without any strenuous exercise had left him weaker and slower than he liked. He was sore and sweaty by the time he joined Josetta, who had dutifully followed him to the facility, though she’d brought a stack of books to while away the time.

  “Sorry, I know that was boring for you,” he said, bending in to give her a brief kiss, careful not to drip perspiration on her tunic. “I hope the others had a livelier day.”

  Indeed, it turned out that Zoe, Corene, and Steff had passed a most delightful afternoon. When Zoe learned that Steff had never seen the ocean, she borrowed a boat from some Lalindar relative and took the young people sailing. Over dinner, Steff rhapsodized endlessly about the joys of being out on the open sea and wondered whether he should sign up to be a sailor instead of a factory worker.

  “I thought I sensed a little coru in your blood,” Zoe said, amused. “But I confess I didn’t think you would take to the ocean so wholeheartedly.”

>   “What are your blessings?” Corene asked.

  “Mostly coru,” he admitted, “including travel and surprise. My father would laugh and say those were the wrong blessings for a torz man. But I was never torz.”

  “What’s the third blessing?” Corene wanted to know.

  “Synthesis.”

  There was a short silence at the table. “Interesting,” Josetta said. “That’s one of Rafe’s blessings, too.”

  “I didn’t think you had blessings,” Steff said to his brother.

  “Josetta picked them for me.”

  “Josetta always picks the best blessings,” Corene said.

  There was a little more talk, but everyone was tired, and Rafe thought Zoe was eager to get to Kayle’s place and discuss state matters with the elay prime. The first time Steff yawned, Josetta pushed herself to her feet. “Well, we’re leaving here very early tomorrow, so you two should probably be getting to Kayle’s,” she said. “See you in the morning!”

  Rafe had resigned himself to the notion that he would be sharing his room tonight with Steff, not Josetta, but the princess was not so easily defeated. As soon as her sisters were out of sight, she gave Steff her usual friendly smile and said, “You won’t be nervous if you’re here alone, will you? Rafe and I will be just across the hall.”

  Steff yawned again and shook his head. “I’m fine. A little privacy will be nice after the past few days.”

  “Then we’ll see you in the morning, too.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  Rafe wondered if it would ever become a casual thing to climb into the pilot’s box of a live aeromotive and prepare for takeoff. His brain was singing with adrenaline, his stomach was clamped with nerves, but all in all he would describe his state as elated rather than fearful. He forced himself to do a final check of all the gauges and dials, reminding himself of all the ways the K5 was different than the LNR. It was bigger, for one thing, no roomier in the pilot’s box, but with a broader wingspan and heavier drag. Noisier, too. The throttle placement was farther to the left, and he’d already knocked his knee against it once.