Fortune's Fool (Eterean Empire Book 1)

by Angela Boord

  I stiffened. I couldn’t help myself. Whether it was at the sound of his voice or his words, I couldn’t have said. But there was a hitch in my step that caused Arsenault to stumble a little. His arm pulled down on my cloak and the wind gusted and my hood fell down. I couldn’t reach up to put it back on because I was holding the wine.

  From behind us—too close—I heard Cassis’s voice again.

  “Wait,” he called. “You—do I know you?”

  Arsenault cursed softly under his breath.

  I looked up at him, just a moment. The expression on my face must have been one of terror. My emotions were like a storm. They didn’t take me all at once. The fear came first, like the wind ahead of the rain. But the rain, the thunder—all of that was on its way. I just couldn’t sort it yet. Couldn’t name it.

  And Arsenault was dragging me along.

  “You!” Cassis called. “I’m talking to you! Didn’t you hear me?”

  His voice came from right behind me.

  And then—he touched my left shoulder.

  I tried so hard to remain looking straight ahead or down at my feet. But I couldn’t stop my initial reaction, the reaction anyone would make, which was to glance upward, to see who had touched me.

  It was all a whirl. Cassis’s dark eyes, the wind whipping his hair in his face—the wind whipping my hair in my face, thank all the gods, tangling it beyond all hope and hiding me behind its screen. I knew I had lost weight and I didn’t think I looked the same as I had a year and half before, but what did he see in my eyes when I lifted them—just for that instant—to his?

  “Get your own girl, Mestere,” Arsenault growled, in a voice even I didn’t recognize. “This one’s mine.”

  I snapped my attention to Arsenault.

  Arsenault’s hood hid everything but a brief glimpse of his profile and a disdainful snarl. His scar was on the other side, but all the danger I had seen in him earlier this morning was on display. He was taller than Cassis by a good handspan and his body was tense against mine. His right hand was free and he could get at his sword now, for better or worse.

  “Are you threatening me?” Cassis asked. “There are ten of us here, six gavaros and four householders. You wouldn’t stand a chance. Do you want to go with this man, miss? Are you really willing?”

  Was he going to be a gentleman? To me?

  Now the anger rolled up. Instead of answering, I jogged my arm out as if trying to pull away from Arsenault, and I all but hurled the wine bottle down in front of Cassis.

  The bottle shattered, spraying glass and wine everywhere. Cassis jerked backward. Arsenault yanked me forward. A crowd began to form, to see what the commotion was, and Arsenault pulled me into it.

  “Walk fast,” he said. “Don’t run.”

  Behind us, voices, boots, and swords clattered together. Cassis must have rounded up his gavaros, unable just to let it go.

  “Dammit,” Arsenault said.

  “Not that way,” I whispered. “Come on.”

  I couldn’t pull him in the direction I wanted him to go, so I just went that way. He didn’t know the Market like I did.

  To his credit, Arsenault simply followed me—not holding on to me now, so I could go faster. I ducked in and out of people, heading toward the edge of the Market. When I heard the sound of running boots, I ran too.

  Behind the wooden stalls were the old buildings of the Day Market, where silk and spices and merchant cargoes still traded. Behind those buildings lay a smaller canal that led to the Mera di Capria and the alley where the Day Market dumped its trash.

  There were piles of crates and packing and broken pottery. Rotted vegetables. Fish guts. A couple of kinless children picked over the rotted food for something to eat.

  “Quick,” I said. “Arsenault, the seta.”

  He was still holding the cone in one hand, gripping it so tight, the cone had collapsed at the bottom. He looked down at it as if just realizing he was still holding it and then, understanding what I meant, he held it out to the children.

  “Here you go,” he said. “There are going to be men here in a moment. Take these and eat.”

  One of the children—a girl, about ten years old—grabbed it from him and ran, followed by a boy, probably her brother. As they were disappearing down the alley, I squeezed into the close gap between buildings and slid past a crate full of shattered amphorae into a hidden doorway.

  Arsenault followed me.

  It was a tight fit for both of us but especially for him. He stood bent over and had to slide his left arm around me because there was nowhere else to put it. He thrust his right hand through his cloak, maybe so he could pull a knife sheathed at his back. Then he whispered a word in a language I didn’t know.

  The air changed—as if it grew closer around us, shimmering and thick as liquid.

  Cassis and his men pounded into the alley.

  “Did they come this way?”

  “Dear gods, what is that smell?”

  “Cassis, what do you care about a gavaro’s whore?”

  “She looked familiar; that’s all.”

  “But you share your tavern girls well enough, don’t you?”

  Snickers from the other retainers.

  Hate welled up in me so suddenly, it felt like a rush of blood in my ears, blotting out sound and vision. Not just hate for Cassis—hate for myself, too, that hope would spring up just because some idiot Prinze retainer accused Cassis of giving me special treatment.

  Arsenault drew me closer against him with both hands, crushing me against his chest. Maybe he thought I was about to leave the doorway and get myself into trouble.

  All I could hear for a moment was the rapid beating of his heart.

  Best you put that away, Jon had told him when he unsheathed his sword. There are Prinze about tonight.

  Was Arsenault running from the Prinze, too?

  “Zio,” Cassis said. “Shut up. I’ve never hurt a girl, and you know it.”

  “Well, except—”

  “Shut up.”

  Dear gods. They were talking about me.

  Cassis kicked something. Wood splintered and splashed as it landed in the canal.

  I flinched. Arsenault put his hand on the back of my head and pressed me tighter against his chest.

  Finally, Cassis sighed. “It doesn’t matter. If she wanted to be with that bastard, there’s nothing we can do about it, is there? Dammit, now all my clothes smell like shit.”

  The sound of their bootheels on the bricks clicked farther and farther away, until the keening of gulls and the distant noise of the market again formed the outside world.

  But my world remained the dark circle of Arsenault’s arms, the soft scrub of his shirt against my cheek as he breathed, and the sound of his heart, gradually slowing as time dragged out and Cassis didn’t come back.

  Finally, he moved. His right hand drifted away from me and he leaned back as far as he could to look out the doorway.

  A big breath and most of the tension went out of him. The air around us seemed to spread out again, the way air should.

  “He’s gone. Kyrra, are you all right?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But, Arsenault—why are you hiding from Cassis di Prinze?”

  Part III

  Chapter 8

  Seven years later and I’m retracing my steps from that long-ago trip with Arsenault to Liera. First, I’m going down to the Talos, to meet Razi and Nibas for our regular weapons practice, and then I’m going to hide from the Prinze in the Day Market again.

  It’s barely light when I step into the practice yard at the end of the Talos. The yard has always been a vacant spot, not too far from Jon’s old house. The Etereans built a round here for fights or circuses, and it was too hard to put up any buildings on top of it, so it just remained as it was until the gavaros who were waiting on their contracts put it to good use. Now it’s full of gavaros who come to trade gossip and blows in the misty dawn.

  Impossibly, Razi’s already wait
ing on me, sitting on a fence in his fighting robes. His urqa pulls into his mouth like he’s yawning, but he’s covered this morning, not in the sort of situation where he wants to show his face.

  “I didn’t expect to see you so early,” I say.

  He pulls the urqa down a little so he can speak without it muffling his words too much. “You get what you wanted last night?”

  Damn. I’m not sure I want to admit that Vadz is dead yet. I feel shaky and try to get rid of the feeling without taking the deep breath I want to. “No,” I say.

  “Vadz couldn’t get it for you?”

  “He didn’t get the chance.”

  “Did somebody cut out on you?”

  I walk over to the wall where all the blunted practice weapons hang in neat rows, provided by the Houses who use the circus to scout for swordsmen. Swords, knives, spears, staves, halberds. Leather gloves and shields have their own space. I grab a pair of heavy, steel-studded gloves, which I pull on over my own thin leather ones, and then I take down a battered longsword. “Where’s Nibas?”

  Razi gets down off the fence and joins me at the wall. He chooses two short swords, as usual. They approximate the curved watered-steel swords he wears at his side, of which I have long been envious.

  “Nibas is coming later. He had a long night.”

  “Nibas had a long night?”

  “There’s a courtesan at the Lady he likes. Don’t let him fool you, Kyris. He’s actually a man under all that growling.”

  I laugh. “You forget I’ve seen him drunk. And amid crowds of grateful townspeople.”

  Razi smiles and chuckles softly. “He’s told me some stories. But you didn’t answer my question.”

  I move into one of the marked-off spaces in the ring and fall into the guard stance Arsenault taught me. Razi follows, holding his swords crossed over his chest. He bows.

  “May the Magnificent Sun forever shine upon you, Kyris,” he says, the same way he begins every fight, but this time when he steps back, he says, “Who did that Qalfan work for?”

  I step around the edge of our circle, watching for an opening in his defense. “Sere. Vadz told you.”

  “Sere don’t usually hire Qalfan gavaros at home. The only ones I know work for their foreign ventures. Where they’re more likely to run into the Empire.”

  He makes a feint that I see coming. I sweep his blades aside with a long stroke of my own. He comes up and under my sword again, fast, and I jump backward.

  “I can’t give you the details.”

  “That kind of job, is it?”

  He lunges forward with a more serious effort. I have to work hard to turn him aside. He’s using short swords, but he’s taller than me, so my longsword only puts us even in terms of reach. In terms of strength…

  One of his swords whistles down too quick for me to stop. I throw my right arm up to block it.

  The blade clangs against it and we both move apart, breathing hard.

  “That is an unfair advantage,” he says.

  “We’re fighting. Everything’s fair.”

  “Lieran bastard.”

  “Whatever it takes.”

  He comes at me again, pressing me hard, blades whirling at my head. I beat him back, barely. My whole body is still stiff from sleeping in the alley, and I wonder why he wants to know about the Qalfan. Does he know something I don’t?

  My inattention costs me. I bring my sword up in preparation for a downward cut, but he gets underneath me and slashes my left arm.

  The swords are blunt so they don’t cut, but when a Nezar hits you with one, it still hurts. You can’t tell by watching Razi when he’s off duty, but he’s trained as one of Qalfa’s elite fighters. My left hand spasms open on its own. Taken by surprise, I lose my grip on the two-handed sword even though my right arm is strong enough to use it one-handed. The sword falls to the dirt and I bend over, gripping my forearm.

  “Point,” he says. “Haven’t had your coffee yet, have you?”

  “Shut up, Razi.”

  That blow hurt. I flex my fingers, trying to regain feeling in my hand.

  He steps up close to me and leans down. “Does it still work?”

  “It will,” I say, straightening up.

  “You’ve got something on your mind.”

  I bend down to pick up my sword.

  “I’ve got a lot on my mind. I have a lot of errands to run today.”

  “Some people just use Qalfan robes to disguise themselves, you know.”

  I look up at him.

  “It’s true. Irritating, but true. It’s convenient, if you know how to wear an allaq and urqa. Hide yourself and you might be anyone. Do anything.”

  “Do you know that gavaro from last night, Razi?”

  “I can’t see through cloth. And sometimes, slaves do come up into the ranks from other lands.”

  “It’s my business, though, isn’t it?”

  “Look, I’m just pointing something out. I thought you ought to know. If you’re working for the Sere, they’ll pay you well, but just—watch your back, yes?”

  I nod. “I am watching it.”

  “Well, good,” he says, then lifts his swords and grins. “Because you never know when someone’s going to come at you from behind.”

  After I finish up with Razi, I take all my bruises to the best place for news in all Liera -- the morning café in the Day Market, where the old men sit and drink coffee and play cards. I’ve got a few hours until the Sere countinghouses complete their transfers so I can see if I’ve been paid. A few hours to worry about the man I’m going to have to see if I want a gun.

  Jon Barra.

  I ran Jon down as soon as I walked off the ship that brought me home from Rojornick. He and Arsenault had a complicated relationship, but I thought that one might call them friends…if Jon called any man friend. If anyone would know where Arsenault was, it would be Jon. If anyone had helped him hide…the only man who would have helped him hide…

  Jon Barra.

  But even Jon thought Arsenault was dead. Or at least that’s what he told me.

  I’ve spent the last few months trying to keep out of Jon’s long shadow. Jon is either well known or notorious in Liera. Like me, he left when the wars started, and like me, he fought in Rojornick. Unlike me, he maintained a twisty web of influence and income that survived the fighting. As a result, he’s one of the few Dakkaran merchants remaining in Liera. Since the Prinze destroyed the Dakkaran royal family.

  But I need to hear the news before I see him again.

  The morning café used to be held in the expansive halls of the trade buildings during the winter, but now it’s housed in a hastily constructed wooden structure that backs to rubble.

  The morning hasn’t warmed much, and my right arm groans painfully with the change in temperatures as I step inside the cafe. I rub my wrist as I make my way through the tables, looking for an open seat among the old men, gavaros, and merchants who have already claimed most of them. A roaring fire heats the room, which smells blessedly of coffee.

  I slide into a tall seat at the end of the service counter where kitchen girls go back and forth, pouring coffee and carrying out trays of pastries. I don’t have any money, which means I’m going to have to rely on the goodwill of a kitchen girl for breakfast. Again.

  “Kyris!” one of the girls calls out cheerfully. “Be right there!”

  I nod at her, forcing a smile I don’t feel. The man sitting next to me sets down a sheaf of papers and pushes his chair back.

  “Hey, mestere,” I say, putting on my best and broadest Rojornicki accent, trying not to think of what Razi and Nibas would think of me if they could hear. “That’s the café’s paper, yes? Belongs to Ser Carvoli?”

  “Yes,” he says with a sniff, leaving the papers where they fall and making no attempt to hand them to me. “If you can read.” He leaves without otherwise acknowledging me.

  “Lierans,” I mumble. Put on a Rojornicki accent, and everyone in town assumes you’re a
barbarian. I grab the paper and press the folds flat against the wood of the counter.

  Page 1:

  GEOFFRE DI PRINZE TO DEDICATE NEW TEMPLE TO GOD OF KNOWLEDGE

  Sketch of an Eterean-style temple with an enormous front staircase, leading up to a giant statue of Erelf with his ravens huddled on his shoulders, looking down on the populace below him.

  page 2:

  PIRATES ATTACK PRINZE SPICE EXPEDITION, TAKE NO PRISONERS

  Well, that explains itself. If it was Qalfan corsairs, I hope they sank the boats and made off with a fortune in nutmeg.

  Page 3:

  MADNESS IN THE NIGHT MARKET

  A sketch of Vadz lying limply half in the fountain, bleeding out like a sacrifice all over the ground. Standing around him are a host of screaming women in masks…and a man who is supposed to be me, I guess, leering down over Vadz with a knife, the hawk mask making him—me—look like a carrion eagle.

  “Damn,” I mutter.

  The neutrality of the Night Market was threatened last night when a known Smuggler was Viciously Murdered near Erelf’s Fountain. The Watch has declared that the Murder was almost certainly the result of a Betrayal among Criminals. The Murderer is suspected to have ties to Aliente Rebels intent on bringing down the peace…

  Aliente rebels again. I wish they existed. But if they did, I would have found them by now.

  I let out a frustrated noise through my teeth and smack the paper down on the counter, only to find myself looking at a startled kitchen girl.

  “Oh!” she says, and jerks backward, the cup of coffee she carries sloshing over the rim. A couple of drops splatter her hand. I leap up from my seat to help as she hisses and sets the cup down on the counter, but she’s wiped her thumb with her other sleeve already.

  She gives me a pained, lopsided smile and sucks the burn on the back of her thumb.

  “Read something you didn’t agree with, Kyris?”

  “Oh,” I say, remembering quickly that I’m supposed to be Rojornicki, “it’s only some of your expressions I am having problems with. You have so many dialects, a person wonders why the news cannot be written in Vençalan for everyone to read, yes?”