Jeweled Fire

by Sharon Shinn

  Leah was surprised the first time Chandran asked her opinion about potential new wares. These happened to be small, finely crafted wooden boxes with hidden drawers barely big enough to hold a gold coin.

  “What do you think?” he asked her. “Is this something a rich woman would buy?”

  “I’m not a rich woman,” she answered, but she inspected the merchandise anyway. She instantly loved the little boxes, so varied in woodgrain and color, so smoothly finished, so delicate in her hand.

  “If you decide to carry them,” she told Chandran, “you should invest in a few rings or charms or loose jewels, too. Men looking for gifts for their wives and daughters will be happy to have all the work done for them in advance.” She glanced at the supplier, whose pale face looked hopeful at the thought of a sale. “And then even if he does sell boxes to someone else on Great Four, yours will still be distinctive.”

  “Clever thinking,” Chandran approved. “Let’s buy twenty. You pick them out.”

  So she spent a pleasant half hour carefully checking out each individual box, pulling out the drawer to be sure it didn’t stick, examining the joints, and making her selections. The next hour passed even more enjoyably as Chandran sent her out to buy trinkets to fill the secret compartments.

  “Now I’m a little nervous, though,” she told Chandran as she filled about half the boxes with her new acquisitions. “If nobody wants them, I’ll be the one to blame.”

  “Which is why I expect you to work hard to sell each one,” he said imperturbably. “You now have a stake in the game.”

  “You won’t make an effort, too?”

  “Oh, I will. But I have noticed that the more I myself like an item, the more eagerly I display it to customers—and the more frequently it sells. I do not know if my enthusiasm for a product makes me a better salesperson, or if my unwillingness to be wrong just makes me try harder.”

  She laughed. “Maybe both of those things.”

  “That is what I suspect.”

  In any case, Chandran was right. Leah was so enamored of the wooden boxes that she had no trouble finding buyers for them, and all of them were gone within a nineday.

  “You have an eye,” Chandran told her. “If you see other items you think we should sell, bring them to my attention.”

  It shouldn’t have pleased her so much—Why did she care if a Coziquela merchant working in a Malinquese market had a profitable quintile?—and yet it did. She might be good at something after all. Something besides spying. Something besides watching other people live their lives and wondering what they knew that she had never learned.

  • • •

  As Corene had promised, she sent updates to Leah once or twice every nineday, but since she was trying to be circumspect, sometimes her messages were obscure. For instance, the first one:

  I bought some lovely beads when I was at the market. I might send you some one day if I think you’ll like them.

  Leah assumed the beads were red, and if she received a packet of red stones, she should understand that Corene was in danger. But she hoped any real request for rescue would be worded a little more clearly.

  A few letters later, Leah received a note that was even more difficult to decode.

  By now, the whole city knows that Steff has been certified as Filomara’s grandson, and she’s planning a celebration. I wanted to buy something special to wear at the gala, but there was such a crowd I found it impossible to get past the iron gates. Maybe someday I will ask the palace guards to escort me out and I’ll have more luck.

  What did the princess mean by that? Had she tried to leave the palace on her own and been stopped at the exit? That was the way Leah read it, anyway. It raised the very real question: If Corene ever did need to be rescued, how would Leah manage it?

  Time to put some strategies in place.

  Leah spent the next few afternoons down at the wharf, paying attention to how often Welchin ships were at the harbor. There were usually one or two tied up at the dock, most of them small private vessels, doubtless ferrying cargo between Welce and some of the other southern nations.

  She picked the ones that looked most prosperous and asked to come aboard to meet the captains. If, after a little general conversation, she judged them reasonable and relatively honest, she started asking her real questions: How often are you in port? How quickly can you make it back to Welce? What kind of payment would you require to carry a delicate cargo back to Chialto on very short notice?

  “What kind of cargo?” was the inevitable question at this point.

  “Human.”

  “Criminal?”

  “No.”

  “Worth something to the empress?”

  “Worth something to Darien Serlast.”

  That always got their attention. If the captains immediately jacked up their prices, she mentally crossed them off her list—though, if the time came, she might not be able to be too choosy. If they showed great willingness to do a favor for the regent-who-would-one-day-be-king, she paid a few coins on deposit as a good-faith gesture.

  One of the captains was a blunt red-faced woman who looked strong enough to wrestle a sea monster and who had introduced herself as Ada Simms. Captain Simms had obviously pieced the whole puzzle together with no trouble. “It’s his daughter, then, that he’s worried about?”

  Leah played dumb. “Excuse me?”

  Captain Simms nodded in the direction of the palace. “His oldest girl. Princess Corene. She’s not liking Malinqua after all? Thinking about leaving suddenly?”

  “The princess is happy at the present moment,” Leah replied. “But as you know, the situation at a royal court can change unexpectedly. I’m just helping to prepare her against any contingency.”

  “Well, that’s wise,” the captain said. She rubbed her great raw hand over her weather-beaten jaw. “But you’ll have a harder time getting her out if Berringey sets up another blockade.”

  Leah cursed under her breath. Every few quintiles, or so it seemed, Malinqua and Berringey started threatening each other with war, which mostly resulted in skirmishes at sea and a choke hold on trade. Until now, Leah had never found the hostilities to be more than inconvenient. But if she was trying to spirit Corene out of the country—

  “Does that seem likely?”

  Simms shrugged her burly shoulders. “There’s some talk about a Malinquese ship that disappeared last quintile, then a Berringese ship that disappeared a couple ninedays later. There were some shots fired at us as we came sailing in. They seemed to be just for show, but it wouldn’t take too much of the Berringese navy to set up an effective blockade.”

  “And then no ships get in or out?”

  The big woman grinned. “We-elll, I wouldn’t say that. It’s just harder to move merchandise.”

  “There’s a smuggler’s port?” Leah asked.

  The captain regarded her steadily for a moment and clearly came to the conclusion that this whole conversation might have been the bait for an elaborate trap. “There might be,” she answered finally, “but I wouldn’t know where it is.”

  More she wouldn’t say, and Leah knew better than to badger anyone for details; such tactics only made the informant grow more stubbornly silent or start handing out lies just to get rid of her. She was sure she could find out about the smuggler’s port from other sources, but she liked Simms. She wanted to win her over.

  “I wonder,” Leah said. “Do you think we have any acquaintances in common in Chialto? Someone who might vouch for me?”

  The captain looked interested. “Might be.”

  “What kind of cargo do you carry?”

  “Mostly mechanical parts,” the woman answered. “Valves and small motors and such. Although—” Suddenly her rough face softened with a grin. “My next trip out I might be carrying an elaymotive. One of those smoker cars that run on gas? I hear
the empress is dying to have one of her own, but she’s been negotiating with Kayle Dochenza about his price.”

  Leah’s head snapped back. “Kayle Dochenza? The elay prime?”

  The captain couldn’t help looking pleased with herself. “One and the same. We’ve been doing business for five years now. He’s as odd as they say, but smarter than most people realize. And any contract he writes is good as a quint-gold. He never reneges.”

  Leah leaned back in her chair, feeling like she’d finally stumbled on a little coru luck. “I know Kayle Dochenza,” she said. “I’ll give you a letter for him, and he’ll vouch for me. Then you’ll know you can trust me.”

  The woman looked impressed—but not entirely won over. Anyone could claim to be a friend of Kayle Dochenza’s, after all. “Good enough,” she said. “I’m heading for Chialto in the morning. I’ll be seeing the prime in a couple of ninedays.”

  “Good,” Leah said. “I think this will be a very profitable arrangement.”

  • • •

  Chandran, of course, knew all about the smuggler’s port, though he insisted he preferred not to do business with the captains who used it. “When the taxes are equitable and the system is fairly managed, it benefits everyone to abide by the rules,” he said. “My business will only thrive if there are roads to bring customers my way and guards to keep them safe. The nation will only thrive if there is a strong commercial class and successful international trade. We help each other. I have no desire to operate outside the system.”

  “So you’ve never bought or sold illegal goods?”

  “When there was no other option.”

  “For instance, during the last blockade.”

  “Yes,” he said reluctantly.

  “Then introduce me to somebody who can help me when I have no other options.”

  She didn’t much like the man Chandran produced a few days later, thin and nervous, with a hoarse, raspy voice that sounded like a permanent side effect from being nearly hanged. In fact, she suspected that Chandran had chosen the least prepossessing individual from his short list of smuggling contacts in the hopes of discouraging Leah from cultivating such an acquaintance. She found the thought amusing—and oddly touching.

  The rogue was a font of information, though, telling her where she might find him on certain days, what prices he charged for various services, and what kinds of goods were most likely to pass through the illicit venue.

  “Can you tell me the next time a ship from Welce comes to the smuggler’s port?” she asked. “I’d like to meet with the captain.”

  “I could,” he said doubtfully. “But it’s not like any of them linger. The ship would be gone before I’d made it halfway to the city.”

  She throttled her irritation. “If I gave you a little money to share with the captain,” she said, “would he or she stay long enough to meet me?”

  “That might change things,” he agreed. “Most of those bastards will do anything for money.”

  As was so often the case, she had to hide her amusement at his complete unawareness of irony.

  “Then here are a few coins. See that they’re liberally distributed—keeping whatever amount seems fair to you, of course. I’ll be in touch again in a nineday or so.”

  He pocketed the money, looking quite cheerful. “Pleasure to work with you,” he said. “I’ll see you soon.”

  • • •

  All these preparations meant little, Leah knew, if she couldn’t get Corene out of the walled city. Assuming the princess could escape the palace itself, she wouldn’t find it easy to elude the guards at the main gate. But the stone wall that enclosed the inner city wasn’t completely secure; Leah knew of several places where it was possible to slip across the border, and she spent some time visiting each of them.

  Most were along the red wall, where the mortar holding the stones in place had loosened over time. There were always sections where the wear of centuries had been aided by the zeal of miscreants, and just enough blocks could be moved to allow someone to wriggle through. Of course, the empress’s men were constantly on the lookout for such breakdowns, and the bolt-holes were always being patched over with stronger materials, but new ones would spring up just a couple of yards farther along. A few discreet inquiries, a few coins judiciously handed out, and Leah was able to find three spots in the wall where someone who was desperate or enterprising could find a way in or out.

  After she’d inspected the third escape route, Leah leaned against the sun-warmed stone and watched the afternoon traffic amble by in the summer heat. In the improbable event that Corene had to escape from the palace, Leah would tell the princess to meet her at one of the weak points in the wall. They would slip through the breach and run for whichever port was open, and there Corene would board a friendly Welchin ship that would immediately set sail for Chialto.

  Leah frowned. There was a lot of ground to cover between the palace and the harbor—easily ten miles, and the smuggler’s port was even farther out. Leah would need to provide a conveyance of some sort—a wagon, a horse, one of those four-wheeled contraptions. Something that she didn’t need to care for or think about on a daily basis, but that she could commandeer at a moment’s notice if she needed.

  As soon as the thought occurred to her, she muttered a Coziquela curse and slumped against the stone. This might take a little cogitation. She knew plenty of people with carts and wagons—and horses, when it came to that—but most of those were in daily use and none of them were conveniently near the palace. She would have to send out some delicate inquiries and come up with a pretty good lie if she was going to provide transportation on demand for a fleeing princess.

  She was still thinking the problem over a few days later when a palace footman brought her an envelope from Corene. Inside was the usual opaque message—and a single red bead.

  The princess had written:

  I’ve decided I MUST go back to the market tomorrow and buy more of these red gemstones. Wouldn’t it be fun if I ran into you there?

  Leah rolled the smooth bit of glass between her thumb and finger and felt a prickle of anxiety scratch through her veins. Despite all her preparations, she hadn’t really expected this. She hadn’t truly believed Corene could be in danger.

  Would the princess really be at the market in the morning? Would she be able to make it out of the palace after all?

  ELEVEN

  After some thought, Corene decided not to mention her little adventure to anyone. She could hardly put the details in a letter to her father, of course, since she suspected that Filomara or Garameno read her mail. In her next note to Leah, she made a light reference to the unsuccessful outing, but since her wording was so vague, she couldn’t be sure Leah would take her meaning.

  She found herself equally reluctant to relate the story to anyone living at the palace. She didn’t want to accuse the empress of keeping her a prisoner, didn’t want Steff to leap to Filomara’s defense, didn’t want Melissande to start speculating as to why they were being watched so closely. So she just didn’t talk about the escapade.

  There were plenty of other things to talk about, anyway. Hardly a day passed without someone sharing some new tidbit about the upcoming gala, which was currently rumored to be a masked festival. But an even more interesting topic was Alette.

  Corene and Melissande and Liramelli had decided it was up to them to comfort Alette—whether or not they knew why she needed comforting—and they’d started to drop by her room every afternoon for determinedly cheerful visits. The first few days didn’t go particularly well. Servants stayed nearby the whole time, limiting conversation to trivialities, and Alette was both listless and monosyllabic.

  But the fourth day went noticeably better, due to Melissande’s brilliant idea. “We will have a cultural afternoon in which we celebrate something special about all our countries,” she proposed. “There is a shop b
y the Little Islands where they sell foods from Dhonsho, and Jiramondi and I went down there yesterday. I bought these odd little cakes that the woman assured me are very popular, and a pretty little tablecloth to put them on. My mother just sent me some boxes of dried lassenberries from Cozique—they are so good. Liramelli, perhaps you can bring some keerza for us to drink, and Corene—”

  “I’ll bring blessings,” she said. “We can’t eat them, but they will make for an interesting activity.”

  “Excellent,” Melissande said. “Maybe we can nudge Alette out of her melancholy.”

  Certainly the bustle of setting up their afternoon extravaganza was impossible for Alette to overlook, because Liramelli and Melissande had engaged servants to help them set up tables and arrange plates and bring in the hot keerza pot. Somehow, as Liramelli laid items on the brightly printed tablecloth and Corene pulled four chairs from various corners of the room, Melissande managed to thank the maids and kitchen workers and push them all out the door.

  So for the first time since Alette’s aborted jump from the tower, they were alone with the Dhonshon princess.

  “Come, come! Let us sit!” Melissande invited, and they took their places around the table. Alette moved with a sort of cautious uncertainty, perching on the edge of her chair and staring at the items spread before her as if she couldn’t believe they had materialized.

  “All this—for me?” she asked in amazement. She took a fold of the tablecloth between her fingers and rubbed it as if it was silk and soothing to the touch. It was really some kind of cheap cotton, Corene thought, but maybe what Alette was trying to absorb through her fingertips was the color, which was a happy riot of reds and purples and blues.

  “We wanted to cheer you up,” Melissande said. “So we each brought in something from our own countries that we could celebrate together.”