by C. L. Clark
She beckoned Luca to follow her into the house, and Gillett, the captain of the royal guard, fell in behind Cheminade. Luca’s two other guards brought up the rear. Her constant shadows.
Cheminade kept talking as she led the princess into the town house, but Luca lost the conversation entirely as she gaped around the woman’s home.
Luca was not a person to be surprised by finery, but Cheminade’s home was cluttered with the bounty of a life of exploration. A massive lion pelt nailed to the sitting room wall greeted her first. The maned head was still attached, the darker ruff sticking out stiffly at all angles, its eye sockets empty and mouth gaping to show yellowed teeth almost as long as her fingers. Shelves lined the walls, and they were crammed with trinkets of gold and silver: creatures that looked human aside from an abundance of limbs or the rears of beasts, long-spouted oil lamps, intricately patterned cups and plates—and even a small skull that Luca hoped had belonged to a monkey.
She reached out a hand to stroke the lion pelt as they passed it, and Cheminade paused the stream of her chatter.
The governor ruffled the lion’s mane casually, but her smile held the tilt of pride. “A gift from the wild tribes that roam the desert. They’re sovereign, never did bow to the Shālan emperors. They wouldn’t abandon their god, as one of their leaders explained to me. Call themselves the Many-Legged, for the animals they worship, you see.”
“A gift?” Luca tentatively stroked the mane, too. The fur was coarse, the strands thick. The empty face sent a chill up her spine.
Before Cheminade could respond, another guest entered the sitting room from the foyer. He wore a thin woolen tailcoat over broad shoulders and a body that looked like strength only just softening in his middle. His knee-length breeches showed thick calves.
Casimir LeRoche, comte de Beau-Sang, a small region in southern Balladaire. His eyes were bright when he saw Luca, and he immediately dipped into an elaborate bow.
“Your Highness,” he murmured to the ground. “A pleasure to see you on this side of the empire.” He allowed himself to be led into the dining room by a servant, but not without one brief smile. Where Cheminade’s grin was open and enthusiastic, Beau-Sang’s smile was sharp, his lips thin. Luca watched his broad back as he departed. Beau-Sang owned the quarries, which meant anyone who needed sandstone or quartz had to pay him for the pleasure.
Which meant he was one of the most powerful men in the colony, even if he didn’t have the highest rank.
At the door to the dining room, a Qazāli footman in a simple gray tailcoat and blue knee breeches bowed and announced Luca to the room. Inside, a host of Qazāl’s most established Balladairans waited while a string quartet played in the background. Some she recognized—nobles who had come south to explore new ventures; others she did not—likely merchants, or possibly friends of Cheminade’s. Even, to her greatest surprise, the Sand from the hanging, the one the old man had yelled at, was there, wearing a crisp black uniform. Luca realized she was holding her breath and had clenched her cane in her fist. With effort, she released the air and her grip and followed the footman to her seat.
Then she saw that the three tables in the room were all low, in the Qazāli style. Her heart sped up. She couldn’t afford to show any signs of weakness here, not yet.
Her host recognized the hesitation. Cheminade’s mouth went round, a perfect O of realization. Before Cheminade could make any embarrassing efforts to accommodate her, Luca smiled tightly.
“It’s fine.”
“I only wanted to give you a sense of Qazāl’s traditions and culture, Your Highness. I’m so sorry.”
“Truly, Lord Governor. I’ll be all right.”
She wasn’t, not really. Though Gil helped her down with a steady arm, they were all expected to sit cross-legged. After a quarter of an hour, the pain had her shifting as imperceptibly as she could. Others, at least, were having similar difficulties. Down the table, the dowager marquise de Durfort was complaining loudly about the arrangements—“The indecency of sitting like barbarians!” Luca smiled privately, thinking of Sabine de Durfort and how, after one of their nights together, the new marquise contemplated where, exactly, to send her mother to get the old woman out of the way. Apparently, Qazāl was not far enough.
To distract herself from the pain, Luca turned to the food instead, including a Qazāli dish composed of beans that Cheminade called “chickpeas” and various vegetables. Round loaves of bread were stacked at intervals along the table, as were small roasted chickens, seasoned with a smoky red spice.
To Luca’s right, Cheminade dug into the meal, explaining the dishes to Luca as she went. Somehow, the comte de Beau-Sang had gotten himself placed directly across from Luca, so that they were sharing the same pile of bread, along with another figure Luca had not expected to see so soon and in such social circumstances. General Cantic, in a fresh black uniform with a general’s golden sleeve, sat to Beau-Sang’s left, across from Cheminade. Cantic wielded her knife and fork surgically, taking small efficient bites and staring intently at her food—except for whenever she glanced at the Sand, who sat beside her. The Sand who had helped stop the assassination attempt.
Luca had never met one of the conscripts before. The woman wore a lieutenant’s double wheat stalks on her collar—not near high enough to accompany Cantic to a meal with the elite Balladairans of the city under normal circumstances. Was she Cantic’s protégé? The Sand sat quietly, observing the flow of conversation. She had steady, dark eyes, a sharp jaw, and black hair cut close to the scalp. She easily imitated Cheminade’s unique way of eating the Qazāli food, folding the bread and scooping the chickpeas with tidy efficiency. She seemed completely unflustered by her return to her home country, the almost assassination, and the hanging.
Luca realized Beau-Sang had asked her a question and was waiting for an answer. His focus was entirely on her. He reminded Luca of an overturned fruit basket: his straw-colored hair, eyes like ripe blueberries, ruddy apple cheeks, and squashed strawberry of a nose.
“I’m sorry, what was that, monsieur?”
He smiled. “Is Qazāl everything you expected?” His look took in the food, the tables, and Cheminade’s dining room, which was as full of trophies as the sitting room.
Luca was still grappling with that question herself. Whenever she had thought of her father’s addition to the Balladairan Empire, she had imagined something more beautiful. More adventurous. More benevolent. The hanging alone was a sharp contrast to those visions, as were the dirty, disheveled masses of people her carriage had navigated through to get here.
“There were some surprises. How often are there hangings like today’s?” she asked, rubbing her thigh beneath the table. A dull ache throbbed wherever the bones had broken and mended poorly—which was everywhere.
Beau-Sang’s face went grim. “The rebels have been getting bolder, but this is the first attempt on someone’s life, Your Highness. I’d say their numbers are growing. They need a firmer hand, or we’ll all lose our livelihoods. You, above all, shouldn’t be put at risk.” He looked pointedly at the governor.
Luca glanced at Cantic. The general clenched and unclenched her fist around her knife before stabbing another vegetable. They had done their best to keep knowledge of the attack to those who had been there and those who needed to know: Luca, Cantic, Cheminade. They couldn’t stop gossip that the soldiers and dockworkers spread, though.
Cheminade arched an eyebrow back. “Actually, Your Highness, our execution rates have remained consistent with the last five years or so. There was an increase in rebel activities, but that’s why we’ve asked our dear general to step in. Her experience with the Brigāni and the Masridāni will be invaluable, I’m sure.” Despite Cheminade’s warm tone of voice, there was a bite to her smile that made Luca suspect this wasn’t a compliment.
On Cheminade’s other side, someone struggled to suppress a cough. Luca craned around and saw the only other non-Balladairan guest. The Qazāli man clutched his napkin
to his face while Cheminade stroked his back intimately and pushed a cup of wine at him. He waved her away. Across from him, the Sand soldier was surprised at their intimacy, too—though she didn’t have the grace to hide her expression, eyes wide, mouth half-open. The general whispered something sharply to her, and the Sand mastered herself.
“My soldiers’ comportment has been exemplary,” Cantic responded coldly. She nodded at the soldier beside her. “As you’ve noticed. The lieutenant and her troops will continue to do what must be done.”
Luca had never known Cantic intimately, only by reputation as one of the bloodiest, most effective generals in the Balladairan military. Little was based on fact, however; the original primary reports were mysteriously unavailable, even to Luca—she’d looked. One text credited Cantic only with “Masridān’s expedient surrender.” Whispers spoke of massacre.
Yet Cantic was one of Guard Captain Gillett’s close friends. She belonged to a minor noble house that came from the oft disputed and currently Balladairan region of Moyenne, and many suspected future treachery, but her service record was—almost—impeccable. Luca found it difficult to believe that Gil, with his distaste for so many nobles, would stomach someone so brutal, no matter how effective.
Luca turned the subject slightly. “Which colonial teaching method did you use, then, General? Droitist, I take it?”
Cantic looked surprised at first, then she frowned in disgust and shook her head. “No. The Droitists are cruel. They have no idea what it takes to run an army, let alone foster loyalty.”
“So you’re a Tailleurist?” Luca asked her.
The older woman stroked her chin with a thumb, and Luca wondered if she had looked like this planning the Sands’ lessons years ago, rubbing her face and concentrating on the theories of leadership like Luca had. Luca also wondered if Cantic realized her dear uncle regent was behind the Droitist theories she thought were so ineffective.
“I suppose you could say so. They’re the closest thing. The Tailleurists like their ideas of pruning and encouraging. I developed a suitable combination of the two, I think. Cut off the most undesirable traits and encourage them in other ways. Look at the orphan schools run by the Droitists in the empire—there’s one in southern Qazāl, if you ever visit. The children are miserable wretches. Half-starved for the slightest infraction. If the children had a chance to escape or kill their masters, they’d have no reason not to take it.”
Beau-Sang chuckled heartily enough that his barrel of a torso jostled the table. “General, I never pegged you for a sentimentalist.”
The general’s lips went tight. “Destroy your soldiers and you make them useless.”
“Nonsense. Look at my boy here. Richard. Strong Balladairan name.” Beau-Sang snapped once, and his personal lackey knelt by his side with a pitcher of wine.
The lackey was a young Qazāli boy, not more than ten years old, with somber brown eyes. As he refilled Beau-Sang’s wine, Luca noticed he was missing two of his fingers. The knuckles were covered in thick scarring.
“He was at one of the Tailleurist charity schools. They’re too soft there. You don’t want them to be useless. If he’d stayed there, he’d finish and still be fit for nothing but begging.”
The young conscript stiffened beside Cantic, arrested midbite, and Luca wondered what the soldier thought of her own education. She didn’t look half-starved, but the quick, furtive glance she gave Cantic didn’t seem so far from the looks the boy with the missing fingers gave Beau-Sang.
“He certainly appears eager to please.” Luca tilted her head in acknowledgment; she couldn’t bring herself to smile.
Beau-Sang saw where Luca’s eyes lingered. “You wouldn’t tolerate disobedience from a hound, would you? His Grace the duke regent has the right of it there. We should be grateful for his ideas.”
Cheminade was murmuring to the Qazāli man beside her. Though Luca couldn’t see his face, she saw the tender hand Cheminade placed on top of his darker one, the gentle squeeze.
Luca tapped her fingers idly on her utensils. “We have the perfect example of the two schools of thought. Why not let the lieutenant speak for herself?” She opened her hand to the conscript. Frankly, she had always thought her uncle’s theories a little too stringent, but she’d never had the chance to speak to someone on the practical end of them.
At first, the lieutenant looked startled. Her voice cracked. “I am grateful, Your Highness.” She cleared her throat and tried again. “For the general’s steady hand. Military training, reading and writing. History. It’s an education as good as anyone else’s in Balladaire, and we’re better soldiers for it. We—the colonials—almost single-handedly held the Taargens out of Moyenne.” The soldier straightened her shoulders and, for once, met everyone’s eye.
Beau-Sang smiled patronizingly at her. “That’s nonsense. Balladaire’s regular regiments were there to support the colonial brigade every step of the way.”
“With respect, sir,” the lieutenant said, leaning forward so that she could see him on Cantic’s other side, “the regular regiments were often unfortunately days, sometimes months late with their support. We fought the Taargens and their priests—”
The general cleared her throat and glared the conscript into silence. Luca was impressed, though. Whatever the general’s strategy had been training the Sands, it seemed to have worked. The lieutenant was articulate, competent, and restrained. Not the most diplomatic, but soldiers weren’t known for their tact.
“I always did say they were trainable,” came a reedy voice from down the table. The dowager de Durfort. “Dogs, just begging for a master.”
It was crude, and typical of her, but Luca didn’t have a chance to react. Cheminade slapped the table sharply. Heads turned and people jumped, causing a wave to ripple across the room.
“Enough,” the governor-general said. “I won’t welcome you into my home and be treated like this.” The look Cheminade gave Beau-Sang was quelling, and the other tables went silent. “An insult to my family is an insult to me.”
“Surely you understand we’re not referring to you, Nasir.” Beau-Sang smiled benignly and dismissed Richard with a wave of his hand. “There are differences in… quality.”
Luca accidentally met the Sand’s gaze. A flare of anger flashed across the other woman’s face before the Sand lowered her gaze back to her plate and popped the knuckles on one hand, one finger at a time. That brief burst of confidence that had allowed her to speak had vanished. Luca felt a pang of sympathy.
Trying to head off the murderous look in Cheminade’s eyes, Luca stepped in delicately again. “I’ve also been curious about the stories of Shālan magic. I’d like to read more of the histories.”
Another dismissive wave of Beau-Sang’s large hand. “The time for chasing their so-called magic died with the king.”
Luca’s lips thinned in anger, but an embarrassing flush crept up her cheeks. “I was actually referring to the Second City. I want to see the libraries.”
Cantic chuckled, wiping her face with her napkin. “Not likely, Your Highness. The bridges and docks to Briga and the Second City were destroyed long before we got here. They call it the Cursed City now. The one time we went through the trouble of sending soldiers, they came back empty handed. Nothing but dust.” As if it was an afterthought, Cantic gestured vaguely toward the world beyond the walls of Cheminade’s home. “We confiscated books from the temple, and there were some in the buildings we converted into guardhouses. One of the aides can show you at your leisure.”
“I see.” Luca was filled with sinking disappointment. Until, surreptitiously, Cheminade caught her eye and winked.
With the practiced grace of a diplomat, Cheminade turned the subject to less consequential matters, like the food and the heat, and Luca let them go on without her. She found herself seeking the boy Richard in the shadows, where he waited with the other lackeys, Balladairan and Qazāli alike. She tried to catch a better glimpse of Cheminade’s companion at the tab
le, too, but all she could see of him was a thick, dark, curling beard from the front, and a bald head and narrow shoulders from the back. The Sand never spoke another word unless spoken to, as if she had been ordered to silence.
After dinner, all the guests retired to the sitting room to mingle. Cheminade deftly encouraged Beau-Sang to find someone else to talk to, while she led Luca and Cantic to a quiet corner. She foisted small silver cups of something dark into their hands. Coffee, a Shālan drink that was already becoming a prized export.
“He’s certainly enthusiastic.” Luca held her steaming cup of coffee, the dark liquid bitter. It cut through the lingering tastes of the meal.
Cheminade snorted. Her face had gone sour during dinner and hadn’t turned cheerful again. “He’s enthusiastic about his economic fears,” she said. Luca hadn’t thought the governor capable of the quiet discretion with which she spoke now. “Nas—Nasir, my husband—hates him. As I’m sure you saw.”
Luca bit her cheek to keep her surprise from her face. Husband. The governor-general of the Shālan colonies had married a Qazāli.
“Beau-Sang is right to worry. The city isn’t safe. While I work with the governor to make it safe, Your Highness, I recommend you stay in the Quartier or the compound,” said Cantic.
Her tone was one used to obedience, and Luca bristled.
“How do you plan to ‘make it safe,’ General? Have you located the rebel leaders?”
Cantic frowned, cradling her cup of coffee in strong, leathery hands. “I apologize, Your Highness. That’s confidential between my officers. Our intelligence must be kept close. We’ve been compromised. The attack was proof. The rebels shouldn’t have known you were coming.”
“Do you think I’m going to have myself killed? Or worse, sabotage my empire? I came to help stop the rebellion, General, not sunbathe.” Luca frowned. “Did you get anything useful from the prisoners before they were executed, at least?”
The general’s jaw flexed with her gritted teeth. “Not particularly. Only a few noms de guerre.” She scoffed. “So we put them outside to bake before they hung.”