by Cara Witter
“I’m up for either,” Nikaenor said, “as long as there’s no swimming involved.”
“I’d like Perchaya to come with me,” Kenton said. “As my wife.”
Perchaya sputtered. “Your wife?”
The entire group turned to look at her, and Perchaya’s face turned red.
But Kenton moved on without missing a beat. “And Nikaenor and Sayvil need to work on securing our exit. He looked up at Nikaenor. “Which will involve some swimming.”
Nikaenor groaned, and Perchaya still looked like she was absorbing her part as Kenton’s wife, no doubt imagining the affection they might show in public. Though from Daniella’s experience, courtly marriages were aloof as often as not.
“Wait now,” Jaeme said. “You said we were either in with the queen or dead. What do we need an exit for?”
“We expect I’ll be queen in exile,” Saara said. “My aunt isn’t going to hand over her throne just because she sees me holding the godstone. If she was going to cede power that easily, she wouldn’t have tried to have me killed the minute she suspected what I was.”
Jaeme rolled his eyes. “So you were planning to sell out my nation for your stone.”
They’d already solved that problem, but their exit posed a new one. Daniella hesitated. “Tir Neren is buried in the cliff. It’s the single most defensible city in all of the Five Lands and will be just as hard to escape, by foot or by boat, won’t it?”
Kenton smiled. “That’s what we need Nikaenor and Sayvil to work on. We’re not going to walk out or sail.” He paused for dramatic effect. “When we leave Tir Neren, we’re going to fly.”
Forty-two
When they disembarked from the boat in the coastal city of Pendarth, Jaeme felt like the land itself was swaying under him. As he followed Kenton and the others through the busy streets—past the throngs of people with dark skin and loose, bright clothing, many of whom turned to stare at the group of foreigners—he found himself fighting the urge to sway back and forth, as unsteady on his land legs as he was in his assignment from the Council.
He’d been on boats before, of course, but never for such a long time at once, without so much as the sight of land. He’d made a point of watching the captain realign their course to the stars by night, if only to assure himself that they were actually making progress and not passing through the same waves again and again.
Many nights Daniella had joined him, looking up at the stars. And he’d revised his previous opinion—if he had to seduce her, he wished she wasn’t so beautiful. Not just her face, but her sharp mind and her hesitant guardedness, and the gentle sweetness that revealed itself only in snatches, though those were becoming far more common the longer they traveled together.
It made Jaeme want to protect her, which was the opposite of what he was supposed to be doing.
Jaeme walked close to Daniella, resisting the urge to take her hand as the five of them followed Kenton through the streets—Saara having stayed on the ship, confined to her cabin. Even in Pendarth, they couldn’t take the chance she might be recognized.
The rest of them, however, had jumped at the chance to put their feet on solid ground. And to see Kenton try to purchase clothing fit for a Mortichean nobleman in a city that was nearly as far from Mortiche as one could get in the Five Lands.
The city itself had a feel similar to coastal cities on the mainland like Berlaith, with much of the market area fanning out from the bustling harbor. The buildings here, though, appeared to be made of some kind of hardened clay—deep brown and flat on top, with wooden balconies jutting out from second and third stories. The main roads were winding but wide, giving enough room for multiple carts to pass, along with the occasional brightly painted coach bearing some wealthy merchant or noble. The trees were tall and skinny, with large fronds splayed out at the top—similar to the palm trees that grew along the coast in Bronleigh, but these leaves were smooth edged and yellowish. Many of them were decorated with hanging silk ribbons or long strings of seashells.
Jaeme was trying to determine if the decorations were for some kind of holiday, when Kenton stopped the group in front of a clothing shop with an open storefront. Just under the overhang sheltering the shop from the sea breeze, Jaeme could see a wooden form of a man wearing a jacket in a style that would have been only a few years out of date in Mortiche, but instead of being constructed from wool or linen or even velvet, it was made entirely from bright purple silk.
Gods, that thing was atrocious. Perhaps he should be glad that Kenton’s plan called for him to be the one who needed noble clothing, not Jaeme.
Kenton waved down the shopkeeper—a woman with dark brown hair that hung to her waist, wearing a simple shift dress made from crinkly, magenta silk.
Daniella stepped up to the woman, saying something in Tirostaari. The woman motioned to the suit on the rack, talking animatedly, and Daniella’s eyes widened as she tried to keep up.
Jaeme smiled. She was adorable when she was nervous.
After a few interchanges, Daniella turned to Kenton. “She wants to take your measurements,” she said. “If we stay here a few days, she can have a suit made for you in whatever color you want, but she’ll have you try on the ones she has here, to get a feel for the fit.”
“Please put him in that one,” Jaeme said, pointing to the purple monstrosity. Behind Kenton, Perchaya hid a grin, then turned away to examine the racks of dresses.
“You want something like one of those,” Daniella said to Perchaya, pointing farther back in the shop, where the simpler styles gave way to extravagant dresses with many-layered skirts, which were closer to the current style in Mortiche. Though Jaeme had never seen anyone at a Mortichean ball in a dress quite as bright.
“Do you know where they get their dyes?” Jaeme asked.
“Insects mostly,” Daniella said, brightening at the question. “Some mollusks, too. There’s even a particularly spiky cactus that yields a gorgeous gold color. Tirostaari textiles are actually a fascinating subject. I read a whole volume on it in one night.”
Jaeme smiled. “Of course you did.”
Daniella eyed him like she was trying to decide if he was mocking her, but then smiled shyly back at him in return. Jaeme felt his heart beat faster.
She reached out, rubbing the back of her hand against the sleeve of one of the dresses as the shopkeeper handed Kenton and Perchaya each an outfit and motioned to a pair of curtains sheltering the back corners of the shop from view.
“I’m going to take a look down the street,” Sayvil said. “There has to be an herbalist here somewhere, and what with all the injuries you lot have sustained, I’m running low on supplies.” She paused. “And I can think of a few things that might come in handy when we reach Tir Neren.”
Nikaenor stepped into the street and immediately jumped back to avoid being run over by a large ox pulling a cart full of chickens. Ignoring a glare from the driver, he turned back to Sayvil. “I’ll come with you. I think I smell an herbalist down there.” He pointed over his shoulder in the direction of said smell, which even over the chicken stench Jaeme could tell was some kind of simmering meat.
“You and your stomach,” Sayvil said. “Don’t you do anything but eat?”
“You sound like my mother,” Nikaenor said, rubbing his belly.
“She’s old enough to be your mother,” Jaeme said.
Sayvil glared at him. “I’m nobody’s mother.”
Jaeme winced. “I only meant because he’s so young—”
“You’re married, right?” Nikaenor said. “Why don’t you have any kids?”
Sayvil’s mouth hardened into a thin line, and she motioned to Nikeanor. “Come if you want,” she said, pointedly ignoring the question. “But we’re only scouting. I’m not spending money until I have Daniella with me to translate. I’m not sure about the exchange of currency here, and I certa
inly don’t want to pantomime haggling.”
Jaeme had written a note at a money-changer in Berlaith to borrow a full batallion against his accounts in Mortiche—enough to fill even Nikaenor’s stomach with plenty left over for clothes and other needs. He wasn’t sure how he’d been talked into bankrolling this expedition, except that he hadn’t wanted to find himself marooned on the island nation of Tirostaar with his pockets empty.
And he did sort of like that Kenton would have to appeal to him for any purchase he wanted to make.
Jaeme turned back to the shop to see Kenton stepping out from behind the curtain wearing a shirt that flared around his wrists with a little fringe of lace that would have been more fitting for a minstrel than a lord of Mortiche. But Jaeme had seen several like it on the nicer-dressed men in the street, so he gathered it wouldn’t be entirely out of place. The shopkeeper pulled out a string and began to mark various measurements on it, pinching the folds of the fabric around Kenton’s waist, to Kenton’s obvious discomfort.
“What do you think?” Daniella asked.
Jaeme regarded Kenton with one eyebrow raised. “I think he looks ridiculous. If he’s going to dress like me, we should have bought him some clothes back in Berlaith.”
“I think he would have preferred that as well,” Daniella said. “But I meant these.” Jaeme turned to find her holding a pair of simple loose cotton breeches, which billowed below the knee in the Tirostaari style. She grinned at him. “I think they’d suit you.”
Jaeme laughed and she placed the pants back on a rack of different colored breeches in similar styles. When she turned back, her eyes caught on the piece of paper that had worked its way out of the top of Jaeme’s belt pouch.
“Are you writing someone?” she asked. “Or is that the missive to the queen to announce your arrival?”
Jaeme stuffed the paper back down into the pouch, glancing over at Kenton, who was handed another outfit by the shopkeeper and sent behind the curtain again while the woman circled Perchaya, examining the fit of the flowing skirt around her waist.
At least they hadn’t noticed. Still, he’d meant for the letter to stay hidden. Kenton had insisted none of them write anyone to tell them where they were, but Jaeme had an obligation to let Uncle Greghor know that he had not, in fact, completely deserted his mission. The fact that he was currently traveling in the company of Daniella herself was the perfect excuse not to explain to his uncle—or the Dukes Council—about this nonsense about being the bearer of Kotali. If Kenton turned out to be right, Jaeme supposed his uncle would need to know about that eventually, but he’d put off mentioning it until it became absolutely necessary. He wasn’t about to mention Daniella being some sort of weapon, either—a charge which, despite Daniella’s fears and Kenton’s wild accusations back at the inn, Jaeme wasn’t even sure he believed and certainly wasn’t about to risk her life for, orders be damned.
The bit about Diamis and Lord Tehlran being blood mages, though—that tidbit he’d gladly give the Council to froth over.
“Um, no,” he said. “Not for the queen. Don’t tell Kenton. I don’t need to hear his speech about secrecy again.”
Daniella arched an eyebrow. “I’ll try to refrain from letting it slip during one of our long, intimate conversations.”
Jaeme half smiled at her, feeling a twinge of guilt over all the things he wasn’t telling her. Still, if she knew he had been sent to follow her, her guarded shell would close up again. He knew her well enough to be sure of that. “I know Kenton insists we not write to anyone, and I see his point. We have to be careful. But I need to let my uncle know I’m alive, at least. I owe him that.”
“That makes sense,” she said. “I think at least Sayvil and Perchaya have done the same. And I heard Nikaenor dictating a letter to Perchaya the other night, to be mailed when we arrived.”
Ha. They all must be hiding this from Kenton, which gave Jaeme a smug satisfaction.
“I wonder what that would be like,” Daniella continued, “having a family member to write to, someone who’s actually concerned about you as a person, not as a tool.”
Her wistful expression made Jaeme want to put his arm around her, draw her close. He knew her relationship with her father was less than pleasant, and clearly she couldn’t help that. But a woman as smart and beautiful as Daniella must have others who cared for her.
Then again, he remembered the way her traveling companion had treated her in Drepaine. As if Daniella, though of higher station, was worthy of scorn. “What I don’t understand about you,” he said, “is why you put up with them.”
Daniella looked confused. “My father?”
Jaeme shook his head. “The nobility. The lady I met in the garden in Drepaine, what was her name?”
“Adiante,” Daniella said.
“Adiante. The way she treated you. Tehlran and the others, keeping you silent in the meetings. You didn’t go there with nothing to say. You probably knew more about shipping law than the rest of us combined.”
Daniella looked away. “I read a book or two, but I would hardly say—”
“I’m only saying that I know what a sharp mind you have. I’ve been on the receiving end of your wit myself, if you remember. I don’t understand why you doubt yourself. Why you let them make you doubt yourself, I suppose.”
An awkward silence followed, their first in quite a while.
“I’m not sure they make me doubt myself,” she said finally. “I simply feel . . . worthy of their doubts, I suppose.”
“You’re wrong,” Jaeme said. “You’re not the least bit doubtworthy. They all must have known it, too. I have the feeling that you were an annoyingly precocious child who was always outwitting her governess.”
Daniella’s smile returned, which made Jaeme feel as if he was doing some good, even if this conversation was clearly difficult for her. “Well, my governess was Adiante’s mother. It wasn’t hard.”
Jaeme laughed. “Gods, that would make for an unpleasant childhood, wouldn’t it?”
“It did. Adiante’s random bouts of nastiness were rivaled only by her mother’s. It was like living in “The Tale of The Two Screeching Sherkvas.” Only without that little person that magically pops in and turns them into figs. Now that would have been useful.”
“I see why you don’t want to write anyone,” he said.
“You know the most obnoxious thing,” she started again, “was that Adiante was perfect, at least in her mother’s estimation. She was petite, beautiful, and incredibly concerned with being the ultimate noblewoman. Whereas I was gawky, more than a little awkward in formal settings—as you’ve experienced first-hand, I might add—and always more concerned with what I was reading than what I was wearing. Yet her mother seemed to hate me more for the ways I was different, instead of merely reveling in the fact that her daughter was so much more well bred.”
“I don’t think it’s preposterous,” Jaeme said. “She was jealous. They both were.”
“Jealous? Of my propensity to trip up stairs or to fall into fountains?”
“Well, to be fair, the latter was mostly my fault.”
“The only thing I can see them being jealous of was my position, although they were both awfully concerned with my marriage prospects,” she continued. “They were always going on and on—‘Daniella, spending all this time with your head in a book won’t help you catch a suitor’s fancy’ or ‘Daniella, you’ll never find a nobleman who will appreciate all your peasant quirks’ —like I had grown up in a stable or something.”
Her words pricked at Jaeme, as if he’d stepped on a pin. He imagined that Daniella did have a number of suitors. Even some of the dukes in Jenaium had commented that it was odd for her not to have been married off for Diamis’ political advantage. He wondered now if it was because of this business about her being a weapon, which still didn’t make much sense to him. It was clear to Jaem
e she was only a woman in a bad situation—a beautiful, clever, interesting woman at that.
And he realized he didn’t like the idea of her catching some suitor’s fancy one bit. “Did you?” he asked.
Daniella bit her lip. “Grow up in a stable?”
He forced a smile. “Find a man who really appreciated you.”
Daniella’s cheeks pinkened, the color flattering on her. “Not a nobleman, no,” she said, looking quickly away.
Ah. “But there was someone, wasn’t there? A merchant’s son, maybe, or a young man who worked at the castle, pining away for the princess . . .” Jaeme stopped, all inclination to cover his own seriousness with jest dropping away as he saw the pained look on her face. She glanced out onto the street, as if trying to escape in that direction, if only in her mind.
“You loved him,” he said quietly.
Daniella faltered, but didn’t speak. And for the first time, Jaeme wondered if the Council hadn’t been wrong about her lacking a suitor. Perhaps they’d merely been unaware of the man who had hold of her heart. Perhaps, all this time, even during the hours she and Jaeme had spent together on the boat playing shula and mocking Kenton and talking about history and the ballads of Mortiche—perhaps all along she’d been pining for the man she’d had to leave behind.
The man who was not Jaeme.
He knew he shouldn’t prod her any further. She was still refusing to look at him, and he’d obviously made her uncomfortable enough. But Jaeme had to ask. He had to know. “Do you still love him?”
She looked up at him, then, meeting his eyes. “No,” she said simply.
Jaeme was alarmed by his own sense of relief. Gods, he was supposed to be following this girl. Seducing her, yes.
It had never been in the bargain for her to seduce him in return.
Jaeme cleared his throat again. “Well. I’d better get off to the courier with this letter before Kenton untangles himself from that getup and rounds us all up for another lecture about how we lowly bearers had better not screw this up for the rest of you.”