Liar's Moon

by Elizabeth C. Bunce

  “What’s that?” Rat said, sitting across from me at the table. He had dressed and shaved, and set about slicing an apple into wedges, half of which he piled before me.

  “I’m not hungry,” I said, pushing them aside. Someone had let the orange cat in, and it hopped onto the table beside me, stalking my apple with its slow, amber gaze.

  “You’re always hungry. Still trying to figure out your Bal Marse mystery?”

  I snapped the book shut. Rat was good about the whole magic issue, and I’d mentioned my curious discovery at Talth’s house — but this was one area where I didn’t push the boundaries of trust. What he didn’t know couldn’t hurt either one of us.

  “Fair enough,” he said equably. “I’ve solved your other one.”

  I looked at him blankly. He’d solved . . . the murder?

  “Your anonymous letter?” He whipped it from his doublet. “It was sent by —”

  “Raffin Taradyce,” I said, feeling only a little bad for interrupting.

  “Well, you certainly know how to spoil a surprise. Still, it wasn’t wholly a waste of time. You may thank the grocer’s next to the stationer for your breakfast, mistress. Since you’re unlikely to thank me.”

  I met his gaze solemnly. “Thank you. May Mend-kaal of the hearth praise your everlasting generosity.”

  “See? Was that so —”

  “I need a favor.”

  “What a surprise.” Rat plucked the cat from the table and settled it in his lap, waiting.

  “I need to see Lord Decath,” I said. “Can you arrange that?”

  “You mean, can Hobin arrange that? Why don’t you just go visit Decath? I thought he knew you.”

  “I tried. I couldn’t get in to see him at home, and I don’t know where else to find him. But it needs to be discreet.”

  “Digger, love, you do realize discreet and Lord Hobin don’t belong in the same sentence, right? I’m sure he’ll do it. But you won’t like it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Rat grinned evilly across the green rind of his apple. “He wants you to come for dinner.”

  Lord Hobin’s teriza sat just a few piers down from the house where I’d met the Ceid family. Rat took me there by boat the next evening, just as the moons were rising over the water and the heat from the day was starting to lift. Together, we looked the part for dinner with nobs. Rat wore his powder blue suit, and I wore a heavy gown of coppery red satin that Rat had produced out of thin air, perfectly tailored to my small frame.

  “And you’re sure Decath will be there,” I pressed for the thousandth time.

  “Stop fidgeting.” Rat leaned over the edge of the boat to trail his fingers in the water. “This is Celyn Contrare’s debut into Gerse society. Try not to ruin it for her.”

  Lord Hobin was an official in the Ministry of War, not a high-ranking noble but comfortable enough. As if anyone could really be comfortable in that position in this climate, with word spreading of border skirmishes and pitched battles that drew closer to Gerse by the day. If Wierolf really was gaining ground, as some of the more optimistic rumors claimed, Hobin’s job, and along with it his favor at court, had to be in jeopardy. As we neared the teriza, I took in the ivory brick façade, the green banners listless in the airless evening, the guests already gathering on the terrace, and told myself I’d survived worse. This is for Durrel.

  When we mounted the travertine steps to Hobin’s back terrace, a dozen pairs of eyes swung my way, curious, measuring, predatory. Nobody actually whispered anything, but they might as well have. Their thoughts were as loud as any gossip: There goes the Inquisitor’s sister. Oh, is she the one? Funny, not much to look at, is she? I can’t decide — does she look like a Sarist?

  “You must be Digger,” said a robust voice behind me. “Halcot talks about you endlessly.”

  I turned to see a trim man in his fourth age, graying at the temples and softening at the waist, but still handsome. “Lord Hobin,” I said. “Thank you for your hospitality.” I gave him my very best curtsy, learned backstage at tavern theaters and perfected at the court of Bryn Shaer.

  “Think nothing of it,” he said. “I’ve been dying to meet you, but Halcot said you’d never come. I must say, you’re not nearly so shocking as he described you.”

  I had to laugh at that. “Oh, wait. It’s early. I’m sure there’s still plenty of time for me to disrupt your evening.”

  “Digger,” he said confidentially, hooking his arm through mine and leading me across the terrace, “look around you. You would have to make a very concerted effort to overset this society. Oh, look, here’s Koya. Do you know Davinna Koyuz?”

  The same Mistress Koyuz was at that moment springing lightly up the terrace steps, trailing yards of pearl gray beaded silk behind her. Her color was high, and she waved at Hobin.

  “Koya! My treasure.” Hobin bowed low and kissed Koya’s outstretched hand. “I was so hoping we’d see your husband this evening.”

  “Don’t be silly, you know he and Claas never go anywhere.” She rose from her curtsy and gave him a glittering smile. “They’d love it if you visited them, though.”

  “Here, darling, why don’t you take Celyn,” Hobin said with careful emphasis on the name. “I think she’d feel more comfortable with you. You’re the only person here more notorious than she is.” With a completely wicked smile, he kissed us each and strolled off into the tangle of his guests.

  As Koya dragged me about, introducing me to people as if she and I were lifelong friends, I realized that Hobin was right. My presence here tonight no doubt deflected attention from her mother’s murder and her relationship with Durrel. I saw Lord Ragn across the court and tried to move in his direction, but Koya was steering me toward the banquet table.

  “Rat looks good,” she said, giving the neckline of her bodice a tug. I didn’t blame her; it was getting warm in here.

  “You know Rat?”

  “Everyone knows Rat,” Koya replied. “His parents are wealthy, you know. Growing up, whenever the Granthin and the Ceid gathered, the children got thrown together by default. He’s a nice boy.” She sounded almost sad when she said that.

  Suspicious, I probed gently. “And Hobin?”

  “Hobin’s Hobin,” she said inconclusively, ending the conversation with a smile. “And look, here’s our dinner. He’ll want you to sit with him.”

  Hobin’s food was good — rich, expensive, much of it imported or heavily taxed, tiny slices of some pink citrus fruit from Talanca, the sweet, blue mussels harvested from the Oss at low tide (I’d heard about them all my life but never eaten them before; after my first bite I decided I’d never eat anything else), goblets of sparkling Grisel from Corlesanne. “The last in the city, my good gentles, so drink up and enjoy it!” Corles wine had been banned a few months earlier, when that nation openly pledged its support for the Sarists.

  Conversation swung easily from topic to topic, but only skirted the surface of any but the lightest of subjects. No one mentioned the war, the succession, the Inquisition, or the Green Army spreading through our streets like a summer plague. It was exactly what I would have expected from a dinner party held by someone Rat was involved with. But by the time they served us a frothy confection of strawberries and some kind of flaming sauce (fire! And dessert!), talk shifted to more serious matters.

  “What do your sources tell of the war, milord?” a plump woman in pink asked Hobin.

  “What do yours say?” he replied, to general laughter.

  “Only that the front will reach Gerse by the end of the summer,” she said. “Do you think that’s true?”

  “Nonsense. There hasn’t been fighting in the city in a hundred years,” one of the male guests said. “Even the last uprising never came near our gates.”

  “This is more than an uprising,” someone said. It was not until I felt everyone’s eyes on me that I realized it was me.

  “Mistress Celyn has it right, as she must surely know,” Lord Ragn said. “W
e must be careful not to discount Prince Wierolf’s army as a band of disgruntled rebels. With support from Corlesanne and Varenzia, and more popular support than anyone wants to admit, they won’t be as easy to defeat this time.”

  “Spoken like a true Sarist,” said the lady in pink.

  “Not I,” Lord Ragn said.

  “Then you’re for Astilan,” said the young man beside me, but Lord Ragn only smiled.

  “And why haven’t you made your allegiance plain, milord?” Lord Hobin said.

  “You mistake me,” said Lord Ragn. “I’ve never made a secret of my politics. But when this conflict is over, people in Llyvraneth are going to have to go back to living and working together. Someone needs to be here to help make that happen. People neither side hates.”

  “Or people both sides hate equally,” I said.

  Lord Ragn lifted his glass. “Spoken like a true courtier.”

  “Come now, Lord Ragn, there’s no call to insult the girl,” said Koya, making everyone laugh.

  As we ate, one of the diners mentioned some story about a Greenman who’d been found dead a few days earlier, up in the Fifth Circle. He’d been discovered in an abandoned house, not a mark on his body. “But a handprint on the wall behind him — in purple paint.”

  My attention had wandered, but it snapped to at that. “What? Where was this?”

  The pink lady glared at me, but her companion said, “Out near the city wall, where they’re building that new armory. I only heard about it because my housemaid comes from that neighborhood.”

  “Do you think it was Sarists?” asked the eager young courtier to my side.

  “Hardly,” Lord Hobin put in. “Assuming it happened at all, assuming this wasn’t the hysterical fancy of an excitable servant, I’m sure it was nothing more than some poor vagrant who expired from hunger. Plenty of that these days, anyway.”

  “If rumor spreads, we’ll be seeing purple handprints all over the city,” the older gentleman said wearily, as if he were predicting an outbreak of fleas. Nobody mentioned the obvious: Such a rumor was likely to whip the Greenmen into a terror, more devoted than ever to scouring the city of magic users. I kept my eyes on my plate, but I still felt more than one stare boring into me.

  The meal broke up shortly after that, and as everyone rose and milled about, I approached Lord Ragn, who held his arms out to me for an embrace. “Celyn, my dear! What a joy it is to see you again. Our stray cat has finally found her way to the bowl of milk, I see.”

  “If you feed them, they’ll never leave.”

  He gave a warm, rolling laugh; it was the line Lord Ragn had given when Durrel presented me to his family. “Well, we don’t feed you enough, apparently. You’re looking thin. Come stay at Favom, and Morva will fatten you right up.”

  “I’d like that.” My last visit to the Decath country holding had been rushed and confusing, and my memories of the fine old house and grounds were clouded with grief and panic. “Milord, I bring news of your son.”

  His face shadowed over, and he nodded. “Come. I’m sure our host won’t mind if we speak privately in here.” He led me to a set of glass doors I had assumed opened onto another terrace, but which admitted us into a small, comfortably furnished office, its wide windows open to admit the night breeze. And any common thief skulking about in the bushes outside; Hobin had papers (not to mention more tangible valuables like candlesticks and inkwells) lying about everywhere. I quite fancied that inkwell, actually — scarlet Tratuan glass, traced with gold — I wondered if Hobin would miss it. No wonder Tegen had liked Nob Circle so much.

  Lord Ragn settled himself in an ornately carved chair, drawing it close to a small bench by the window. “You’ve seen Durrel? Please — tell me, how is he?”

  “Not well,” I said bluntly. “Milord, have you been there?”

  “No, I —” He shook his head. “He doesn’t want to see me.”

  “That isn’t true.” But I stopped, wondering. Maybe Lord Ragn was right. Durrel was in a bad way up there, and he was proud. “You should go anyway.”

  “I know,” he said. “It’s just . . . I don’t want to make things worse for him.”

  “Worse?” I said. “I don’t understand.”

  Ragn looked grim, and he didn’t answer for a long moment. “Things can go very rough for nobles in prison. If I call attention to his presence there, I’m afraid it will make him a target. For thievery, or violence, or —” He faltered. “Besides, the Ceid have effectively blocked my applications for a visitor’s pass.”

  “Can they do that? You’re a lord!”

  Something twisted in Lord Ragn’s expression. “The Ceid have the royal shipping contracts for goods in and out of the city, and the supply lines to the troops at the front. That’s powerful leverage right now for the king. And I have —” He spread his hands, encompassing nothing. “They’re hoping to break him by keeping us apart.”

  I leaned closer to Durrel’s father. “I can get you a pass,” I said, willing meaning into every word. Thanks to Raffin, I had everything I needed for a flawless forgery. Lord Ragn looked confused for a moment, and then alarmed.

  “No! Celyn, that is a hanging offense if you were to be discovered! I couldn’t possibly allow you to take that risk.” He rose and paced to the cold fireplace. I wanted to follow, but something in his manner held me back. “Gods,” he said under his breath. “I can’t believe this is happening again.”

  “Milord?” I said. “What do you mean?” Barris had said something strange about Durrel’s history, but it hadn’t meant anything to me at the time.

  “There was an . . . incident. In Tratua. A few years ago when Durrel was studying there. A girl was hurt. It was a horrible time, and he’d only just begun to move on from it. This time, I’m afraid I won’t be able to help him.”

  “I can help.” I explained how someone (I didn’t say who) had sprung for my arrest and bond, just to get me inside the Keep to talk to Durrel, but Lord Ragn only looked more worried.

  “Be careful,” he said. “This situation is far more delicate than you realize, and you’ve already put yourself in too much danger. Perhaps it’s best if we let things take their course. We must have faith that the truth will come out in due time.”

  “Take their course? If things keep taking their course, they’ll be cutting Durrel’s head off by the end of this month!”

  “No!” Lord Ragn turned back, his face set. “By all the gods, my son is not a murderer!” He took a steadying breath, a hand to his strained forehead. “I know you know that. Forgive me. You’ve been a very good friend to this family, Celyn. Durrel is lucky to have you. Can you tell me how he is? Does he have everything he needs?”

  “He needs you,” I said, but I told him what I could of Durrel’s condition, his state of mind. “Maybe if you just sent word, a little money? They can’t stop that.”

  “Of course,” he said, his expression just slightly relieved. “And what about you? Do you have everything you need?” He drew a purse from his belt, loosening the drawstrings. “Money? Safe lodgings? I know my niece’s family was concerned when you left them. I should like to report that Gerse has not forgotten you, that we did not merely abandon you to the wolves upon your return.”

  My heart caught a little in my chest, and I nodded. “Yes, milord.”

  “Will you let me give you a little something? It can’t be easy, being on your own.”

  “Milord, it isn’t necessary,” I began, but he looked so stricken that I didn’t protest further, and let him drop a handful of gold coins into my hands.

  “Nonsense. You’re practically family.” Lord Ragn put a hand on my shoulder. “It was good to see you,” he said sadly, and I realized with a start that he was ending the conversation.

  “Wait, milord — Durrel thought Talth might have been killed over some business she was involved in,” I said in a rush, before he could slip away from me.

  He frowned. “I assure you that her son Barris was questioned closely
by the Watch, and if they had discovered anything to exonerate Durrel, surely we would have heard.”

  “He also asked about his wife’s chambermaid, the one who claims she saw him.”

  “Celyn.” Lord Ragn’s voice was gentle. “I know you want to help, but truly, the best thing you can do for Durrel right now is be his friend. Good night.” He brushed the top of my head with one light hand, as if I really were his kin. I wanted to tell him I could save Durrel, but he was gone before I could form the lie on my lips and will it to become true. The truth will come out in due time, he’d said. But in my experience, the truth was bashful; it tended to stay hidden until somebody made it come out.

  I lingered in the little office for some time after that exchange, frustrated and weary and in no mood to don my Celyn Contrare mask once more for the benefit of the assembled audience. With a sigh, I rose and walked to the window. The moons shone brightly on Hobin’s desk, and I couldn’t help glancing down at his papers. Maps showing troop movements, quartermasters’ reports . . . I turned one of the maps into the light. Where was Wierolf? Did he have enough men, did he have enough food? Was someone there to remind him to eat, to watch his right side when he struck a blow from above?