Fortune's Fool (Eterean Empire Book 1)

by Angela Boord

  I thought about it. I watched him standing there with his hands hitched on his swordbelt, a shaft of sudden light cutting a blade across the wood floor at his feet, and I wondered why he had put a sword to that gavaro’s throat only when the gavaro mentioned me.

  Finally, I said, “You could have killed me before now. Many times. You could have handed me over last night. I might be in the hold of a slaver right now, bound for Dakkar. Or the Sugar Islands.”

  His face transformed. It was the first time I’d ever seen him wear an expression he didn’t try to school. He looked like I’d wounded him. But angry, too. “I’d never sell you south. I’d never sell anyone south. Do you think so little of me?”

  “I don’t know what to think of you, Arsenault. Granted that you were trying to keep me innocent of intent, but what was I supposed to do if the Qalfan said the arm would work? And I returned to my father’s estate with two arms? Do you think the Prinze would believe I had nothing to do with it?”

  He made a noise, a wordless response to what I’d just said. Then he walked over to the fire and kicked ashes over it. It died slowly, a mass of glowing red embers stubbornly clinging to life.

  “Will you come with me to the market, at least?”

  “If I decided to stay here for the day, would I be safe? Would you give me a knife?”

  His jaw twitched. He scuffed more ashes onto the fire with the toe of his boot. A piece of glowing charcoal spilled out onto the bricks, and he kicked that back in, too. “Yes,” he said. “You’d be safe.”

  “Would you let me have a knife?”

  Now his jaw clenched. He stood looking at me for such a long time that I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. No, I thought, this is as far as my freedom goes. I am just a chunk of metal to him, to be sculpted as he wishes. The realization tasted bad in my mouth. I didn’t know why I’d expected any different. Maybe I’d just hoped he would be different.

  But then he bent and slipped his fingers into the upper of his boot. When he straightened, he held a dagger. It was a thin, wicked-looking blade with a polished wood handle that matched the leather.

  He flipped it over in his hand so I could take the hilt.

  “I don’t need you in the market,” he said. “But if you came, I might enjoy the company.”

  Chapter 7

  The Day Market was known for its food, but I was too queasy from the kacin to eat. Instead, we meandered through the textile section on our way to Artisans’ Row. We walked with our hoods up in the chill morning air, so I felt safe, and Arsenault even gave me his arm—his right instead of his left—like a gentleman. It felt strange to be wandering the market with him. To be touching him. His arm, clothed in a sturdy wool shirt, was hard and warm beneath my hand, and his muscles flexed as we walked. Sometimes, my shoulder bumped into his bicep and he would look down at me and an uncertain smile touched the corner of his mouth, and then he would look up again and the air clouded frosty with his breath.

  The clenched-up feeling of earlier had leaked out of me enough that when I saw a stall selling guarnellos, I slid away from him and lingered to admire them.

  He leaned back against a barrel of sand holding one of the tent poles firm against the wind.

  “The blue one,” he said.

  “What do you mean, the blue one?”

  “That’s the one you should buy.”

  I laughed. “Arsenault, I don’t have even a cato. How am I supposed to buy it?”

  “Well, it’s the new moon, so your father paid his gavaros. And they paid me for your sewing. I have the coin with me.”

  “Pay? I’m a serf. The Householder gives us food and shelter; we give him our work in exchange. There’s no pay involved.”

  “A nobleman’s view of the situation if I’ve ever heard it.”

  I bristled, clenching the fabric of a pale green guarnello in my fist. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  He straightened up again, hooking his thumbs in his swordbelt. “Look. Kyrra. I’ve been paying you with daggerwork, but the other men are paying you for your work, too. You’re not a slave.”

  “I didn’t think I was.”

  His shoulders sagged. In relief? Had he really been so worried about the situation? “Good,” he said. “I’d hoped you stayed by choice.”

  “That’s important to you, isn’t it?”

  “Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  I shrugged, fingering the woolen fabric of the guarnello. Not so long before, I would barely have given it a passing glance. But now…it seemed like an impossible luxury, to have two dresses. And to be able to buy one myself?

  “It’s not important to all men,” I said. “Nor to you yesterday.”

  He flinched and looked around. The shopkeep sat far back from the counter with a dress in her hands, stitching with her head down but still keeping an eye on us.

  He curled his hand around a span of scaffolding.

  “It was still important to me,” he said. “I just charged past it. Jon says that sometimes I have a tendency to…overstep a situation.”

  “Overstep?”

  He dropped his hand. “Go beyond what a situation actually seems to require? For good or ill. It’s a failing. I’ve tried to root it out. I built tables for a while. Didn’t think I could get into trouble building tables.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was being earnest or just trying to lighten the conversation, but the image startled a laugh out of me. Arsenault with his sword and his scar, building tables. “You were a carpenter? Are you jesting with me?”

  He shook his head. “No. It was good work, putting things together instead of tearing them apart.”

  He gave me a pained smile.

  “Why did you stop, then? Couldn’t you have gone on being a carpenter forever?”

  He rubbed his forehead. “I suppose… I can’t quite remember why I quit.” The painful smile he’d worn a moment earlier became a dark, puzzled frown. Then he seemed to shake himself and straightened up. “It’s been a long time. I’m sure it will come back to me.”

  “How many winters did you really drink away, Arsenault?”

  The smile returned. “Probably too many. Buy the blue one.”

  “I’ve never had my own coin,” I said. “Do I have enough?”

  “I imagine you know how to haggle.”

  I stiffened. “Of course I know how to haggle. I’m Lieran, aren’t I?”

  “Well, then, I imagine you have enough.”

  “I like the green.”

  “Whatever you like. It’s your money.”

  I stepped back from the dresses to look at both of them. The weave was tight in both, which would make for a warm fabric, but the green was embroidered with white edelweiss, the blue with twining pink roses. There was no difference in the quality.

  “The blue’s better, you think?”

  He shrugged. “It matches your eyes.”

  He smoothed his cloak over his sleeves and walked over to the counter to call the shopkeep.

  He knows what color would match my eyes?

  But I had little time to think about it.

  He counted out my coin to me and I haggled the shopkeep down so that I had a few catos left, and then he bundled the dress into the bag he wore slung over his shoulder and set off at his usual long-legged pace for Artisans’ Row.

  I hurried to catch up. By the time I did, he was already wandering among the tables, stripping off his gloves as he browsed the metals. He stuffed his gloves in the bag, too, then laid his hand down on an ingot of silvery metal as big as my fist.

  He closed his eyes and brushed the metal with his thumb.

  I felt for a moment as if I were intruding on an intimate scene.

  “Arsenault,” I said, out of breath, coming up to stand beside him.

  He blinked, as if I’d startled him. In the space between the flick of his eyelids, his eyes seemed to flash with a sheen like the metal he held in his hands.

  Probably it was just a trick of the l
ight. Like his sword in the alley.

  “Is that why you wanted to come to Liera? To buy metal?”

  He slid a glance at me. “One of the reasons.”

  I looked back at him sourly, the dress all but forgotten. “Was that the official reason?” I said.

  “One of the reasons,” he said again. “I also wanted some wood. Maybe some good iron, too.” He added, almost as if he were talking to himself, “Although steel might be too heavy…”

  “For what?”

  “For a project your father wanted me to take on.”

  “What is that you’ve got there? Is it silver?”

  He shook his head. “No. I don’t know the name in your language. Tiaannamir.”

  I stared at him.

  He smiled ruefully. “Long name. I know.”

  “It’s not that. I just—I always thought you were Vençalan. Because of your name. From the Outer Islands. You know—with your light skin. But —”

  His brows pulled down and he looked at me with a peculiar expression, then caught himself doing it and almost jerked away to browse the table again. “The Outer Islands. Yes.”

  “What language is that metal named in?”

  “Tulan. It’s a northern metal, deposited only in the mountains of the north. Tule, Dagmar. Very strong. Hard to work, though.”

  “I thought you said you made tables.”

  “Among other things. I enjoyed making tables. But I’ve a talent for metal.”

  “Then why aren’t you a blacksmith?”

  That odd, pained look returned. “It’s a long story.”

  “Arsenault, are you feeling well?”

  “Probably just the kacin from last night.” He flashed me a wry grin that wiped away my uneasiness. “Are you hungry yet?”

  “I think…maybe.”

  “Well, I am, so let’s give it a try.”

  He didn’t haggle for the metal, just flipped the shopkeep a couple of coins that flashed gold in the sunlight, and slid the ingot into his bag.

  He’d paid multiple astra for a piece of metal the size of my fist.

  Where did he get so much money? Did my father pay him that well? Why would my father want a chunk of metal from Dagmar?

  I had to jog to catch up to him again and almost lost him in the riot of the Eatery.

  Arsenault stood in the middle of the chaos, looking from one booth to another, while people walked past us with steaming skewers of meat or rolled-up flatbreads full of olives and cheese. “Well,” he said, “I know Dakkaran, Qalfan, Onzarran, and Hamari. But not so much your northern dishes. Just what your cooks feed us in the barracks.”

  “You don’t want to visit the Vençalan booths?”

  “I know Vençalan food. I’d rather try yours. Else what’s the point of traveling?”

  I thought of my father. When I was a child, he would lead me through the jumble of Eatery stalls, past all the strange and intriguing foreign sights and smells, to the set of vendors he liked best—the ones that reminded him of home. He hated having to come into the city, and hated bringing me into it especially. Without his iron grip on my wrist and a contingent of gavaros dedicated to finding me in the probable case that I did manage to escape, I might still be wandering the streets of Liera, unable to find my way home.

  “Some people would rather be reminded of home. If they had traveled far from it.”

  “What good would that do me? I can’t go back. And this time of year it’s just pickled herring and salted cod. I’ve developed the taste for a little spice over the years.”

  “In Onzarro?”

  “There, and on the caravans.”

  “What haven’t you done, Arsenault? Where haven’t you been?”

  “Well, I haven’t been to Saien yet. Or Rojornick—I’m almost certain I’ve never been to Rojornick. Or Gorodnii.”

  I couldn’t tell whether he was putting me on or not. And perhaps I was still feeling a bit vengeful about last night.

  “All right,” I said. “Come on.”

  I led him to an open-air stall where a man was cooking with a big pan over a blazing fire. The flames shot up around the bottom of the pan, which the man shook back and forth periodically, making the contents jump. From here, whatever was inside looked like the deep pink and red corms of a flowering plant.

  “What is that he’s cooking?” Arsenault’s brows knotted and he leaned forward to get a better look, sniffing. “Smells good,” he said uncertainly.

  I walked up to the counter and waved a hand to get the attention of the woman who was working there with the man.

  “How fresh are those?” I asked.

  “Came from the hothouse this morning.”

  “What do you put on them?”

  “Just salt. Straight from the flats. Finest seta you’ll eat in the market today. A whole coneful, only a cato.”

  Beside me, Arsenault murmured to himself slowly, in his foreign accent, “Seta.”

  I had to admit that I was enjoying dragging this out. “My treat,” I said. “I still have a few catos left.”

  “Save your coin,” he said. “I’ll pay. But why does seta sound like your word for silk?”

  “Mmmm,” I said, and flashed my fingers at the woman. “One cone, one bottle of wine.”

  “Three catos,” she said, and I turned to look at Arsenault.

  He fished the coins out of his bag and laid them on the counter. The woman swept them up and they disappeared into her pocket as she bent and grabbed a bottle of red wine. She set it down, then took a wide piece of paper and began rolling it into a cone. When she turned to the man cooking behind her, Arsenault leaned over to me.

  “You’ve a rather smug look on your face. What am I eating?”

  “What’s the point of travel, Arsenault, if you never try anything new?”

  “Here you go,” the woman said, flashing a big smile at Arsenault as she handed him a cone full of crispy red worms.

  I grabbed the wine bottle and doubled over, laughing. “Oh, Arsenault,” I said. “The look on your face.”

  “Are these what I think they are?”

  “They’re silkworms. The Garonze try to compete with us by building hothouses for their mulberries to leaf earlier. But it’s still inferior silk. We sometimes eat our worms, but usually the first crop in spring. By the time the mulberries drop their leaves, we’re sick of seeing worms, and the trees need fed, as well as the pigs and the chickens. All we need for silk are the cocoons.”

  He sighed. “And so, you exact your revenge.”

  “It’s not so bad, Arsenault, truly. See?” I held the bottle against my body with my stump and reached across him to take one of the fried worms from the cone. I crunched it theatrically in my teeth before chewing and swallowing. It was salty and hot and nutty-tasting. I pulled the cork on the bottle and took a long swig to wash it down.

  “The wine’s decent enough, too,” I said. “Not an Imisi mark, of course, but it’ll do. Well? Are you going to try one?”

  He looked down at the cone, his lips pressed tight together, nostrils flaring as he sniffed. Then he sighed. “I suppose I should get this over with.”

  “I could take my revenge in worse ways,” I said. “Have you ever eaten live octopus?”

  “No. And I don’t care to, either.” He picked a worm out of the cone and held it up in front of his face.

  “If you look at it, you’ll never eat it.”

  He slid it into his mouth all at once and bit down on it. His face contorted in disgust. “The texture,” he muttered with his mouth still full. “Kyrra.”

  But he chewed and swallowed and then held his hand out for the bottle of wine. I handed it to him and he took a good long drink.

  “Arsenault,” I said. “They do not taste bad.”

  He lowered the bottle. “No,” he said. “It’s just knowing what I ate that…”

  His voice trailed away. I looked up at him impatiently, but he wasn’t looking at me or the cone or the wine. Instead, he was gazing
across the market, a worried frown pulling down the corners of his mouth.

  I turned to follow the line of his gaze. I wasn’t as tall as he was, so it was harder for me to see through the crowd. But it was easy enough to catch the flash of sky-blue silk and note the way the people swelled out around the group of men who walked through the market like a boat cutting through water.

  “Prinze,” I whispered.

  No, not just Prinze. In the center of the gavaros I caught a glimpse of dark hair and a silver sword hilt, a smile tossed carelessly and bright.

  It was Cassis.

  “Kyrra,” Arsenault said. “Turn toward me. Not quickly. Just as if I’ve spoken to you.”

  I was shaking. I didn’t know why. I didn’t want to be. But I couldn’t stop.

  I turned toward Arsenault as if I were made of metal gears, like a figurine of a girl on a clock, every movement a creaking jerk.

  Arsenault bent down. “Kyrra, look at me.”

  Somehow, his voice cut through the thick haze that had descended upon me. “Take the wine,” he said in a low voice. “We are going to walk away. Just as if we were anybody else. But keep your back to him. I’m going to put my arm around you to hide your right arm against me, all right? Yes? Kyrra?”

  He pushed the bottle of wine into my hand. I nodded and closed it around the neck of the bottle, but I hardly felt it.

  Arsenault slid his arm around my shoulders and pressed me up against him. I felt as if I must be dreaming. I stumbled and his arm tightened around me, holding me up.

  “We’re going to look natural,” he said, “just like any other gavaro and his woman in the market on a sunny winter day. Nobody will notice. We’ll walk back through Artisans’ Row and exit into the city, take the long way around through the Kinless Quarter…”

  “Hey, they have seta today!” one of the Prinze retainers called. It wasn’t all gavaros, then, but maybe fosters or cousins, too—I didn’t recognize the voice.

  “Seta,” Cassis scoffed. “That’s for serfs and farmers, Zio. You waste your money on that. They’ve got fried squid over here.”