by Sharon Shinn
“That was very kind.”
Melissande turned to Liramelli. “Shall you begin by pouring keerza?”
Liramelli nodded at Alette. “I thought Alette might start? At meals, before you eat anything, you always say something silently. A prayer, perhaps? And I thought, if you wanted to, you could say it out loud today.”
Alette went absolutely motionless, her big eyes fixed on Liramelli’s face, and for a moment Corene worried that it had been the wrong thing to say. Perhaps Alette hadn’t realized her private moment had been observed; perhaps what she was praying for was to see everyone at the table die painfully from an ingestion of poison. Then she dropped her gaze and bowed her head.
“I would like that,” she said in a subdued voice. The next sentence she spoke was in Dhonshon, and Corene didn’t understand a word. But she saw the multilingual Melissande nod, and Melissande echoed Alette’s final word as if it were a benediction.
“Now the keerza,” Melissande said, and Liramelli poured steaming cups for all of them.
“This doesn’t taste nearly as bad as most of it does,” Corene remarked after her first sip.
Liramelli grinned. “It’s a special blend that most purists despise, but people who aren’t used to keerza tend to prefer it,” she answered.
“Indeed, it is almost tolerable,” Melissande agreed. “I can envision asking for a second cup.”
“My father will disown me if he realizes I’ve served it to anyone, so don’t tell him.”
“It will taste even better with dried lassenberries on your tongue,” Melissande said, prying the lid off a white wooden box she had set in the center of the table. Inside were nestled brownish-yellow globes of fruit that were about the size of Corene’s fist. They were sprinkled with some kind of raw sugar and smelled like citrus and honey. “I promise, you will love these.”
The lassenberries were sticky and messy and such an odd color, but they tasted like the distillation of delight, and Corene took a second one out of the box before she’d even finished the first one. “Your father has to send you some every nineday,” she spoke around a full mouth. “I’m not joking.”
“Alas, they are only in season for about half a quintile and there are never any left because people eat them all up. As you can imagine,” Melissande replied.
“I can’t believe you were generous enough to share them with us,” Corene said.
“I know. I am already regretting it.”
Alette spoke up without being prompted. “I think you will like the seed-wax cakes as well,” she said. “Unless the cook was not very good.”
Like the lassenberries, the seed-wax cakes weren’t much to look at—hard, flaky biscuits flecked with bits of black and drizzled with a dried red sauce. But they made a satisfying crunch when you bit into them, Corene found, and loosed a complex medley of sweet flavors on the tongue. A sip of bitter keerza between bites enhanced the taste of both.
“This is the best meal I’ve had since coming to Malinqua!” Corene exclaimed.
“I am not sure lassenberries and seed-wax cakes really constitute a meal, but I think I agree with you,” Melissande said.
Alette’s face relaxed into something resembling a smile. “It is certainly the most enjoyable one I’ve had,” she said. She actually addressed a question to Corene. “But did you not bring some delicacy from Welce for us to share?”
“Not food,” Corene said. “A ritual.”
She had carried the blessing coins in the red velvet bag Josetta had provided, and now she poured them all into an empty bowl in the center of the table. The small brass coins made a happy clinking sound against the china.
“In Welce, as some of you know, everyone is affiliated with one of the five elements of earth, wood, fire, air, or water, and each of the elements is associated with eight blessings,” Corene said. “When children are born, their parents find a temple and have three strangers pull blessings for them, and these blessings are considered theirs for a lifetime. We also go to temples anytime we need guidance, and pull a blessing or two for that particular day. You can pick your own blessings, but it is always considered best if others do it for you—and because three is one of our propitious numbers, it is even better if three people pull them.” She gestured around the table. “There are four of us. I thought we should all choose for each other.”
Alette looked grave. “What if we pick the wrong ones? Bad ones?”
Corene shook her head. “It’s impossible. They’re all blessings. They’re all good.” She didn’t bother to mention the ghost coins that lurked in the blessing barrels at some temples—very old coins that had been worn so smooth by much handling that it was impossible to tell what the original glyphs had been. The ones Josetta had sent were all freshly minted; no troubling ghosts lurked in this bowl.
“I will go first,” Melissande said. “All of you pick blessings for me.”
Liramelli and Alette watched closely as Corene swirled her fingers through the pile and pulled out a coin. “Charm,” she said, and laughed. Of course this was a blessing that would be bestowed on Melissande.
Liramelli went next, and showed Corene the coin she’d drawn. “Beauty,” Corene deciphered.
“Accurate so far,” Liramelli said.
Alette focused seriously on the task of mixing the coins and pulling a single one from the bowl. “Flexibility,” Corene said. “Accurate on all counts, I would say.”
“Indeed, I like these very much!” Melissande said. She had pulled out a piece of paper and was jotting down the attributes. “I am quite sure I would like someone who had all these traits.”
“Me next,” Liramelli volunteered.
Corene was hardly surprised when Liramelli turned out to be endowed with gifts of honesty, loyalty, and kindness. “We hardly even had to pull blessings to learn that,” she said.
“Of course, you could just be making these up as they occur to you,” Melissande pointed out.
Corene laughed and dug in a pocket of her tunic. “I knew you would think that! So—here—I brought Josetta’s list of the blessing glyphs and what they mean.”
Melissande flattened the paper on the table between her and Liramelli, and they studied it intently. “Indeed, she appears to be telling us the truth,” Melissande judged. “How much fun this is! I would enjoy drawing a blessing every day, I think.”
“That’s what I do. Well, unless I forget. Now the three of you pick blessings for me.”
This was quickly done, and in a moment Corene was looking at the symbols for vision, courage, and luck. A little thrill went down her back. These were the same coins Josetta, Zoe, and Rafe had drawn for her before sending the bag of blessings to Malinqua. The same ones stamped on the gold, silver, and bronze rings she wore on her right hand. She didn’t mention this fact, merely thanked the others and tossed the little disks back in the bowl.
Then she turned casually to Alette. “Would you like us to pull some for you?”
Alette hesitated a moment before nodding. “Yes, please.”
Corene didn’t know about the other two, but she felt nervous as she swished her fingers through the bits of brass and hoped she picked out something useful. The one that came to her hand wasn’t exactly reassuring—and awfully familiar. “Courage,” she said.
Melissande pulled a coin and searched for it on Josetta’s list. “Hope,” she pronounced.
Liramelli did the same. “Love,” she said softly.
There was a long silence while Alette thought over their words and the rest of them tried not to breathe. Finally Alette said, “I would be grateful to be given such blessings.”
“You can have them made into charms or rings or paintings or anything, really,” Corene said. She tugged on her necklace to show them the blessings stamped into the metal; she didn’t draw their attention to the rings on her fingers, though, because she was stil
l a little spooked by that coincidence. “See? My lifetime blessings are clarity, change, and courage, and I wear them all the time. You could do something similar.”
“I will think about that,” Melissande said. “Some sort of memento to remind me of my time in Malinqua.”
That caught Liramelli’s attention. “Remind you? Does that mean you plan to leave us sometime? Go back to Cozique?”
Melissande shrugged with her usual elegance. “Perhaps. I like Malinqua—very much!—but will I want to stay if I am not chosen as bride to the next heir? I am not so sure.”
Liramelli looked oddly sad at this news, despite the fact that scarcely a nineday earlier she had mentioned that she didn’t think Melissande liked her. We have become friends in these last days, Corene thought. She would bet Liramelli was as surprised as she was.
Liramelli glanced at Corene. “What about you? Do you plan to stay or go?”
Corene shrugged, too. “Depends on whether or not there is a role for me here. I like the idea of being the next empress, but if I’m not picked for that job—” She lifted her hands in a gesture of uncertainty.
“Would you go back to Welce?” Liramelli asked.
Ah, that was the question Corene wrestled with every time her thoughts reached this juncture. “I don’t know what I’d do.”
Melissande nodded at Alette. “What about you? Would you stay or go home?”
And that was the point of this whole exercise, Corene thought, admiring how artlessly it had been done. Trying to pry information out of Alette.
Alette’s face went very still and for a moment Corene thought she wouldn’t answer. When she did speak, her voice was so low that they had to lean forward to catch her words.
“I cannot go home,” she said. “My father would not have me.”
They all exclaimed out loud at that, speaking over one another as they expressed shock and demanded to know how such a thing could be.
“It would be a failure to return, and my father does not tolerate failure. Just ten days ago he had my mother and my sister put to death.”
They should have cried out again, but the words were so stark that they could only stare at her.
Alette briefly lifted her eyes, saw their expressions, and dropped her gaze again. “You are wondering what their crimes were,” she said, her voice even softer. “But there were no crimes. My sister failed to win the interest of a Berringese suitor, and my mother failed to prepare her well enough that she would succeed in that task. Thus the order for their executions.”
“But—but—that is so awful, I have no words,” Liramelli stammered.
Melissande’s voice was hard. “Your father has many wives, does he not? And many children? Does he consider them all expendable?”
Alette nodded. “Ten wives when I left—nine now. Twenty-one children. Sixteen living.”
Another strained silence.
“He’s had five of his children put to death?” Corene asked.
Alette merely nodded.
“Then it is good you are here in Malinqua,” Liramelli said firmly. “We won’t send you back no matter who gets married and who is sitting on the throne. You can just stay here as our guest.”
Alette’s face looked even more sad. “You cannot protect me if he wants me dead. If I am not married to the man who is chosen as heir, he will send assassins to dispose of me. You do not understand what a blot it is on his honor to have his children fail.”
“Oh, I think there are many more blots on his honor!” Melissande exclaimed.
“Maybe you should run away from Malinqua,” Corene said urgently. “To Welce or Cozique or even Berringey—though I don’t know that they treat people any better in Berringey, to tell you the truth.”
“I think he would find me anywhere in the southern seas,” Alette said. “To be truly safe, I would need to flee to Yorramol.”
It was a country so far away none of them had ever met anyone who had actually lived there, though now and then exotic shopkeepers claimed to sell wood or jewels obtained in that unlikely place. The journey could take half a quintile, and who knew what kinds of savages might await travelers on those mysterious shores?
“You could never go so far,” Liramelli said. “Not by yourself.”
Alette was silent for a moment. “There is someone,” she said at last. “Who would travel with me. Who would keep me safe. But first I would have to leave Malinqua undetected, and there appears to be no way to do that.”
Melissande flicked a look at Corene, and said in the airiest voice, “Yes, I have noticed that! The empress’s guards are most attentive to the comings and goings of Filomara’s guests. It would be quite difficult to leave the palace and head for the wharf and book passage on a ship without royal soldiers trying to prevent you from leaving.”
Liramelli frowned. “That’s not true.”
“I assure you, it is.”
“I agree with Melissande,” Corene said reluctantly. “The empress does seem to keep a very close eye on us.”
“Only to guarantee that you’re safe. Think what trouble there would be if you were harmed while under her care!”
“I think it is more than that,” Melissande said. “I think she does not want us to leave the city—or the country.”
“But that’s ridiculous,” Liramelli said. “If you want to go home, tell her that. But you can’t blame her for having guards watch you closely while you’re her guests and she’s answerable to your families.”
She seemed so upset that Melissande made a graceful gesture. “Perhaps you are right. I am not used to so much—supervision—in Cozique. Perhaps any monarch would be so assiduous when hosting foreign guests.”
Corene laughed. “I promise you, if you were visiting Chialto, my father would know where you were at all times. He wouldn’t care where you went, and he certainly wouldn’t stop you from leaving, but he’d pay attention. My father pays attention to everything.”
“You see?” Liramelli said. But Corene thought she sounded troubled. “It’s not so sinister after all.”
“It does not matter what Filomara’s guards do or do not do,” Alette said. “I am watched by my father’s men at all times, and they will do whatever he asks.”
Melissande looked straight at Alette. “Yes, let us return at once to the pressing topic of your safety,” she said. “You say there is someone who would spirit you away if you could get out of the palace undetected? We pulled the blessing of love for you. Is it a man—or perhaps a woman—who would act so heroically on your behalf?”
Alette’s dark face flushed and she looked down again at the scraps of food on her plate. “A man,” she said softly. “And I do love him.”
“Then you should never have been sent to Malinqua to try to make a match with one of Filomara’s heirs,” Liramelli said.
Alette glanced at her. “He is not royal. He is not cocho—unworthy—but my father would never have let me marry him. My mother told me that if my father knew—”
But just speaking the words “my mother” made her voice choke up and her words trail off. She covered her eyes with her hands and turned her face away. Liramelli jumped up and flew around the table to hug her, though it wasn’t clear Alette welcomed the embrace. Corene just sat there in horror, staring; for a few moments she had almost forgotten the bitter news that had made Alette so grief-stricken she wanted to die. She and Melissande exchanged brief glances full of wretchedness and pity.
Liramelli was patting Alette’s back and making useless promises into her dark hair. “We’ll work something out, you’ll see. We won’t let you go home to be killed. You’ll be all right now.”
Alette pulled away and tried to put herself in order, scrubbing her face with the heels of her hands and tugging her clothing back in place. “I do not wish to be rude after you have all been so kind to me,” she said at last. “Bu
t I find I am anxious to be alone.”
Corene and Melissande quickly stood up and the three of them made disjointed, awkward goodbyes. “I’ll leave the lassenberries, if you’d like them,” Melissande offered.
Alette attempted a smile. “That is generous indeed.”
“Oh, I have two more boxes in my room that I will not share with anyone.”
“Then I accept.”
The three of them headed toward the door, but Liramelli turned back to brush her hand along Alette’s shoulder. “Come talk to me anytime. I mean it. I will help you anyway I can.”
“Yes—me, too,” Corene said.
“And I. All of us. We shall be your champions from now on,” Melissande added.
“Thank you,” Alette said. She sounded sincerely grateful and utterly exhausted. “It is very good to know.”
A few more offers of friendship, a few more expressions of gratitude, and the three of them were finally out in the hallway and heading back toward their rooms. The minute they considered themselves out of earshot they began voicing their outrage over Alette’s impossible situation. “We must do something,” each of them said at some point, though it was hard to think of exactly what that might be.
“I’m glad she told us, at any rate,” Liramelli said as they came to a halt outside Melissande’s door. Melissande and Alette both had rooms on the third floor of the white wing, but they were so far apart from each other they were hardly neighbors. “All this time I just thought she was unfriendly. And it turns out she’s horribly sad and in fear for her life. It makes me feel terrible for not trying harder.”
“I am not sure she would have told you much, no matter how nice you were to her, until she became desperate,” Melissande said. “But she no longer cares if she lives or dies, so she has little left to lose now by speaking the truth.”
“We have to do something,” Liramelli repeated.
“We’ll come up with an idea,” Melissande replied, opening her door. “Corene, do you want to come in and get that hairpin you asked to borrow?”
Corene had asked for no such thing. “Oh, sure. Thanks.”