Jeweled Fire

by Sharon Shinn

  Corene was listening closely. “You sound more like her—her uncle than her lover.”

  “That isn’t a bad way to describe how I feel about her.”

  “But you’re only a few years older than she is! Are you even twenty-five yet?”

  “That’s exactly how old I am.”

  “Hardly an uncle to someone who’s twenty-two.”

  “Well, I can’t explain it any better than that. I admire her, I care about her, and I would have died to keep her safe. But she has found the man who can love her in a way I never did, and I’m glad for her. Glad for both of them.”

  “I still don’t understand it.”

  “Nobody said you had to.”

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “And there’s something else I don’t understand.”

  Foley eyed her warily. “What’s that?”

  “You should have girls all over Chialto madly in love with you.”

  “I should?” He kept his face perfectly straight, but his voice was amused. “You think that’s respectable behavior? I wouldn’t have expected that from you.”

  She brushed this aside. “I didn’t mean you ought to. I meant you could if you wanted to. I mean, look at you!”

  He glanced down at his neat, severe uniform and brushed away a stray crumb. Then he looked back at her, appearing sincerely puzzled. “What about me?”

  “You’re tall, you’re well built, and you look great in royal livery,” she said bluntly. She wanted to see if she could embarrass him, or at least rattle him a little, by making the observations that had long been in her mind. “Plus, there’s this steadiness about you—when you’re nearby, you make it seem like everything will be fine, no matter what else is going on. Don’t you know how attractive that combination is? And you don’t lose your temper and you listen when other people talk and you don’t try to make people do things just because you think they’re right. If I was some ordinary girl, some merchant’s daughter living in the shop district in Chialto, I’d snatch you right up. I’d follow you around, night and day, trying to make you fall in love with me.”

  His face had shuttered at her first words; if she was having an impact, he wasn’t showing it. When she finished, he nodded seriously. “But then, you’re not an ordinary girl,” he said. “What’s more, you’ve never wanted to be ordinary.”

  She felt a little defensive. “So?”

  “So there wouldn’t be any point in trying to make me fall in love with you, would there?”

  For a moment there was absolute silence between them. She narrowed her eyes and studied him. He surprised her by not looking away. “Well, it might be enjoyable, even so,” she said slowly. “Just to see if I could do it.”

  “Maybe not so enjoyable for me,” he suggested. “Just to be part of a game you were playing.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe I wouldn’t care.”

  “That’s not true,” he said softly. “You always care what people think about you. You know when you’ll make someone angry and you know when you’ll hurt someone’s feelings. And sometimes you go ahead and act anyway. But you’re never unaware of consequences.”

  “Maybe I don’t think the consequences would be so bad.”

  “Think harder,” he said.

  “I always thought—”

  He interrupted her by flinging a hand up, and she fell silent. His attention was fixed on something down the road, and as soon as she looked that way, she saw it too: a group of four Malinquese soldiers, all mounted, trotting slowly along the curved street and staring intently at everyone they passed. It was a moment before she spotted the fifth one, on foot, jogging up to each straight-line alley and peering down it to check if anyone was hiding in its shadows.

  Much as Corene wanted to continue their previous conversation, it was clear they had more pressing matters to deal with. “Are they looking for us?” she breathed.

  “Looking for someone. Maybe you.”

  She glanced around. “Not many places to hide.”

  “They’re working their way down from the palace. If we want to stay ahead of them, we need to keep going instead of heading back.”

  She met his eyes. “Or we could let them find us.”

  “Up to you.”

  She debated. “I’m sure they’ll just say they’re concerned for my safety.”

  “Which they might be.”

  She came to her feet and he followed suit. “Let’s see if we can elude them.”

  “Behind us and to the left. There’s another alley. We can cut through there.”

  She hadn’t even noticed that walkway, but of course he was right. Moving as casually as possible, trying not to attract attention, they sauntered toward the alley and ducked in, then raced between the houses to come out on the next block. This one was just as busy as the last, crowded with wagons and pedestrians, and downright noisy. Corene and Foley fell into a brisk walk as they hurried along the outer spine of the curved road, continually glancing between buildings in search of the next shortcut. But this particular road didn’t seem to be linked to the adjacent street by any such means. They picked up the pace. If they had to head all the way to the next place where the road doubled back on itself, the mounted soldiers would have rounded the bend onto this stretch. Good thing there were so many people bustling about; two fugitives would not be easy to spot.

  Corene had just had the thought when the soldier on foot popped out of an alley in front of them and stood with his hands on his hips, looking around.

  Corene swallowed an eek and quickly spun around to hide her face. They either had to go forward and pass this fellow, or head back, and run straight into the oncoming soldiers. She wished she’d brought a scarf to cover her distinctive hair. She could almost feel it waving for attention here in the bright morning air.

  Foley touched her sleeve and then pointed to the road behind them. A large horse-drawn wagon was headed their way, the driver cursing and shouting as he slowly navigated the crowded street. The vehicle was piled high with what looked like every stick of furniture from someone’s house, broad armoires lashed together in the back, chairs and tables tied in a wild tumble, their spindly legs pointing up at the clear sky.

  “Fall in beside the wagon,” Foley whispered. “Keep it between us and the guard.”

  She nodded and obeyed, ducking her head low to hide it behind the imperfect cover of an open bookcase. It was a trick to keep pace with the wagon, which sometimes came to a complete standstill and sometimes moved fast enough that she had to trot to catch up. She didn’t even dare look around to see where the soldier might be now. Within five minutes they were past the spot where he had emerged, but who knew how quickly he might have canvassed the street?

  They rounded the next curve and started back in the other direction, still loitering in the shelter of the wagon. Until it came to a dead halt and didn’t move for five minutes. Foley reconnoitered and came back with the bad news that a couple of passing carts appeared to have collided, and a horse was down, and only pedestrians were getting through for the moment.

  “Though I suspect men on horses could also ease by,” he added. “We better keep moving.”

  They abandoned the shadow of the wagon and strode down the street, looking for another cut-through. This loop was longer than the ones they’d followed so far and looked like it might circle the entire palace before it doubled back—but that suddenly that didn’t matter anymore since they finally encountered one of the paved spokes that sliced directly across the meandering route. It was wider than the labyrinthine streets and even more heavily traveled; most of the traffic consisted of carriages and other horse-drawn vehicles, though the high number of pedaled contraptions ensured that none of the conveyances traveled too fast. Anyone on foot stayed on the sides of the road, out of the way of hooves and wheels.

  “At last,” Foley grunted, steering Corene i
nto the moving stream of pedestrians. “I think this will take us to the outer edge of the circle and then south to the gate.”

  “Maybe we should try to get outside the walls,” she said. “Just to see if we can.”

  His only answer was a nod, but she could tell he was looking around alertly, trying to assess danger. There were dozens of other pedestrians keeping pace with them, most carrying bundles or tools; it would be easy to think the whole city was on the move. Corene had just started to relax when she felt Foley stiffen beside her.

  “What is it?” she whispered.

  “Soldiers. Different ones. Coming in our direction.”

  “Looking for us?”

  “Hard to say. Might just be doing a routine patrol.”

  She lifted her gaze to look for them and spotted the three soldiers some distance ahead. They were riding down the middle of the road, forcing traffic on both sides to squeeze away from them, and they were intently gazing at the faces of all the passersby. While Corene watched, one of the soldiers hastily dismounted and stopped a plainly dressed woman carrying a basket of fabric. After what looked like a brief but heated exchange, he let her go, swung back onto his horse, and caught up with his companions.

  “She had red hair,” Corene said.

  “I noticed.”

  “So they are looking for me.”

  He nodded. “Now that you’ve learned what you wanted to know, we could just go back to the palace.”

  She grinned. “Now I’m curious. I want to see how far we can make it.”

  Two blocks later, the straight road intersected the outermost ring of the labyrinthine route, and they were suddenly in a throng of people moving in a double migration—half of them in one direction, half in the other. Corene and Foley fell in with the traffic following the gentle curve of the red wall straight to the iron gates. It was moving so slowly that pedestrians and single horses intermingled with carts and carriages in one untidy, ill-tempered mass.

  “I can’t believe it’s so crowded,” Corene said, raising her voice so Foley could hear her over the muttering of the throng. “It wasn’t even this bad the day the empress came back.”

  A man passing in the other direction overheard her and paused to chat. He was carrying a massive wrapped bundle over his shoulder—impossible to guess what was inside, though he was bowed slightly under its weight, so it must have been heavy. “The guards are checking every outbound coach and wagon,” he said. “Looking for someone, I guess. It’s going to snarl traffic all day.”

  Corene feigned alarm. “Someone dangerous? A criminal?”

  The man shrugged and shifted his burden to his other shoulder. “They didn’t say.”

  “This is our first nineday in the city. How often do you have a roadblock like this?” Foley asked.

  “Oh, it doesn’t happen but once or twice a quintile. Never fun, though.” He resettled his bundle, nodded, then stepped away, whistling cheerfully. Corene and Foley continued forward a few steps, pausing again when the crowd in front of them came to a halt.

  “They might not be looking for me,” she said at last.

  “Only one way to find out.”

  “But how humiliating! To be stopped at the gate by common soldiers! What do you suppose they’d even say to me?”

  “Again, one way to find out.”

  She glanced up at him. She couldn’t tell from his expression what he thought about any of this. Did he think she was foolish to try to leave the palace in the first place—and even more foolish to play this game out to its conclusion? Did he think the empress was wise to make sure soldiers kept track of her foreign visitors? Or did he find it worrisome that Filomara wanted to keep Corene under close surveillance?

  “What do you think we should do?” she asked.

  “Go out some other day and find another way past the walls.”

  That surprised her into a laugh. “Another way out? You think there is one?”

  “I guarantee there is. Every perimeter has its porous spots. Otherwise you wouldn’t need guards to keep anybody safe.”

  “Huh. I never thought about it that way.”

  “Your friend Leah might know alternate ways in and out.”

  “Of course, we’d have to get outside the palace to ask her about those ways.”

  He grinned. “I’m sure you can leave anytime you like if you’re properly escorted.”

  The crowd was on the move again, and Corene numbly followed it forward. “I suppose there’s no need to go to the gate this morning, though.”

  “Probably not,” he agreed. “But we don’t need to take the very long way back. This street should intersect with the main road that leads directly to the palace. That seems the better way to get home.”

  She nodded and allowed him to shepherd her through the crowd, which grew denser and more unruly the closer they drew to the gates. It was particularly chaotic where the outer curved road met the inner straight one, mingling two streams of traffic into one irate whole. Much easier to be on foot at this particular juncture, Corene thought, as Foley threaded his way past carriages and wagons and restless horses, pulling her along behind him. The impatience of the drivers and riders was palpable and spilling over into shouts and shoving matches as the bottleneck showed no signs of easing soon.

  “And to think, this is all my fault,” Corene murmured. “If any of these people realized I was the reason they were stuck here at the gates—”

  He grinned down at her. “You’d be wishing you had the protection of the soldiers after all.”

  She laughed. “I don’t think so. I think you’re all the protection I need.”

  He was still smiling, but she thought his voice sounded serious. “I hope so.”

  TEN

  Somewhat to Leah’s surprise, Chandran had invited her to continue working for him at the Great Market.

  “There are difficulties in staffing a booth as a solitary shop owner,” he had explained. “I cannot easily have long conferences with individual patrons, or leave to meet with merchants delivering new shipments. It would be useful to have a trusted employee to cover for me.”

  “You don’t trust me,” Leah pointed out.

  “And you don’t trust me,” he replied. “It makes for a mutually cautious—and beneficial—arrangement.”

  At first, she wasn’t so sure. She didn’t need the money, so the idea of holding down a daily job didn’t appeal to her; it would restrict her movements too much. On the other hand, what better place to observe the wealthy and powerful of Palminera than from a stall on the fourth floor of the Great Market?

  “Part-time only,” she said. “Certain days and hours.”

  “As long as you inform me in advance when you won’t be present.”

  “Mmmm, I don’t know that I can always promise that. But if you tell me the days you most want me here, I can do my utmost to honor that.”

  He agreed to the compromise, and their partnership continued. Leah found herself unexpectedly enjoying her working days and spent a little time figuring out why. At first she thought it was because she relished the chance to walk the wide aisles during slow times and visit with the other merchants, learning names, learning trades, picking up scraps of information that might one day be useful for Darien.

  Then she thought it was the camaraderie. Although she had many carefully cultivated acquaintances throughout the city, none of them were friends; she rarely saw any of them twice in the same nineday. But at the market, she could follow the unfolding lives of her fellow workers. She learned when their wives were sick or their sons were getting married. She could commiserate with them when the weather was bad and offer congratulations when they made big sales. She still wouldn’t say she had friends, but she had a circle, and that was almost as good.

  Later she thought it was the sense of accomplishment. She’d never had a job when
she lived in Welce, so the only way she’d ever made a living was by spying for Darien Serlast. It was an altogether different experience to earn money through actual labor. She hauled boxes, counted money, cleaned tables, and waited on customers, sometimes for ten hours at a stretch. She wouldn’t have thought the work was that demanding, but after a long day spent in Chandran’s booth, she would go home and topple, exhausted, onto her bed.

  She liked those days. She liked being so tired that she fell asleep almost instantly; she liked sleeping through the night without dreaming.

  But more than that, she liked the feel of coins in her pocket, coins she practically felt she had minted herself because she could equate each one to an hour of work. The first time Chandran had handed over her nineday’s pay, she had spent nearly all of it on a Berringese necklace that she had admired for three days. It was made of thin, curling strands of gold wire wrapped protectively over dozens of small emeralds, and it was the least practical thing she could have selected from a market full of impractical things. Yet she loved it, and every single time her eye fell upon it, she would smile.

  It was the end of the second nineday before she realized what she really liked about the job at Chandran’s booth. It was having structure to her days. For five years, her life had been utterly shapeless; unless Darien sent her a specific request, she had nothing to dictate how she spent her hours. She had fallen into a routine of sorts, visiting certain parts of the city during certain days, checking in with all her contacts two or three times a quintile, but there had been nothing and nobody to ensure that she kept to a schedule.

  Nobody to notice if, one day, she failed to show up at all.

  Although she and Chandran were still wary of each other, they quickly fell into an easy rhythm. When the market was slow, Leah would work the counter, waiting on customers, while Chandran tallied accounts in the back or logged in new inventory. He handled all the transactions with his regular suppliers, sometimes entertaining them in the curtained-off “office” and sometimes departing for a few hours to meet them at other rendezvous points. Occasionally a new supplier would come peddling down the aisles, offering treasures from Cozique or Dhonsho and swearing that he wouldn’t sell them to any other merchant in the market if only Chandran would promise him favorable terms.