The next day, she sent a letter and some money to a publishing house in Murio, subscribing to three of their medical periodicals in the name of the Benevolent Union hospital in Wildern. Postage would be steep, but it was worth the expense. Even when the other healers left — and she wasn’t entirely sure Gaspare would leave, for one — the Academy would keep sending more new healers. And translating articles for the Kaveran doctors and healing priests might foster more goodwill between the Nessinians and their host country.
In one of the shops near the hospital, she spent some of her remaining funds for two of the magnifying devices. The Benevolent Union would no doubt reimburse her for at least one of them, and if they wouldn’t, then the other healers and doctors would.
She’d expected to spend several days in the museums and galleries, when she eventually returned to Murio. She could not bring herself to go for the first four days. The day after the debate, after posting her letter to the publisher, she convinced herself to go for the sake of her gallery. Her lackluster spending in the boutiques had left her plenty of capital. Time was too short to commission any pieces, but she selected a few that were for sale in some of the smaller galleries, most of them from rising artists.
She found two pieces that would be perfect for Quasta’s collection — a small alabaster statue of a maiden pouring water, and an understated portrait of a hunting party. For Keth she collected the season catalogs for every stage in the theater district and one of Letta’s pieces that she came across in a gallery: a trio of dancers raising cups from a scene in The Marriage of Eulalia.
Tufarian art was scarce in this Divine Balance-majority city, which had always found Eytran and Lundran iconography to be richer source material for secular art. She finally found a shop with a stash from a few artists, and selected some handsome paintings for Sister Sulli’s collection. Finally, following a hunch about Agent Shora’s tastes, she found a painting of the Nessinian countryside — not her mother’s, and not from any noted rivals — and, from a shop on the edge of the waterfront, a painting of an athletic competition that was nearly worthy of Letta’s work in the treatment of its lush human forms. Having secured her backers’ purchases, she retreated to a park to read the books she’d bought until evening fell.
Her parents kept their distance, letting her ghost through their new home on her way in and out. Their new cook left platters of food in the kitchen, set aside for her. Though their paths rarely crossed, she grew to almost like him.
* * *
The day before the signing, a memory sheared through her mind, waking her from sleep: Keifon had asked her for a book he could read in Nessinian. The thought of him lay heavy on her chest. She wasn’t going to sleep any more today, so she threw on a dressing gown and padded out to the kitchen to make herself some chamomile tea. As she rifled through the cabinets, the cook appeared in the doorway to his room. “Can I get you anything, Miss Despana?”
She closed the cabinet, feeling strangely guilty. “No, thank you. I just wanted to make some tea.”
His face fell into comfortable lines as he smiled. “I see. The tea is in the square jars in the cabinet just to your right.”
“Oh. Thank you.” She reached for the next cabinet and found her parents’ usual array of herbs and flowers for tea, lined up and labeled. The jar of chamomile was cool against her skin. After so much time away, it was nostalgic and awkward to be addressed by an honorific other than Healer or Agent, or to try to talk to someone in her parents’ personal staff. Her family had always employed help at home, but it would be decades before she could afford such a thing herself.
The cook nodded. “Do tell me if you need anything.”
“I will, thank you.” As he turned to leave, she spoke up. “Actually — what’s your name? My parents have just called you Cook since I’ve been here.” It was a little strange. They’d always called Raffaele by his name, as well as Paride, who had taken care of Agna and Lina when they were little. True, their former gardener had gone by “Grey,” but that nickname had nothing to do with his position. And they’d never called Tane by her true name, because she’d asked them to call her the Islander word for auntie. Among all of them, only this quiet new cook was called by his title. With all the raving her parents did about his skills, it almost seemed unfair.
He might have glanced toward the opposite door, leading to the rest of the apartment. “It’s Basilio, miss.”
“Good to meet you, Basilio. I hope this job is working out for you.”
The cook’s shoulders eased. “Thank you, Miss Despana. Your parents are exemplary people, and I’ve enjoyed working for them.”
“That’s good to hear.” She bent to light the stove, which was already neatly piled with wood and tinder in preparation for tomorrow morning’s breakfast. To assuage the tickle of guilt at having co-opted Basilio’s work, Agna silently promised to set it up again after she made her tea. She closed the stove door and began to search the cupboards again.
“Third to your left,” Basilio said, turning toward his room again.
“Thanks.” She offered a wave as he withdrew, and tried to be quiet as she gathered a cup and saucer and the kettle.
She got the water boiling without kicking up any more fuss, and leaned against the door into the central room to watch the dawn through the glass doors. Outside, the garden was a dark mass in the shadows. Even in a pre-dawn hour between the fall festival and Midwinter, it was warm enough to go without slippers. Wildern was probably buried in snow.
Her thoughts had come full circle, then: she had no idea how Keifon was faring alone. She’d avoided news of Kavera, sticking closely to publications about art and medicine. Any of the newspapers that would carry international news focused on the workings of politics, and politics could go jump up a pipe; they were part of what had gotten her into this situation. Before she left, she’d pick up a paper and catch up. She’d do it out in a cafe, not at home, where she’d have to make small talk with her parents.
She hoped Keifon had run into some of his old army mates around town, the ones who would not cause him too much pain. She hoped the kittens were doing well. By the time she returned, they would no longer be kittens at all.
When the water was ready, she gave up her musing and returned to the kitchen to prepare her tea. As she sat on a stool in the kitchen and drank, she plotted out her remaining time in Murio. She’d expected to have so much time, enough to revisit her old haunts outside the Academy, to tour some museums and galleries, perhaps to stop by and visit her cousins on her mother’s side. Instead, she had one more day. The appointment with the magistrate was tomorrow morning. She might have enough time to meet with Marco. He’d pulled her aside and asked her at the end of the meeting with her father and her aunt and Letta, before they split up through the halls of the agency.
Part of her wanted to duck his invitation and show up at the appointment without talking beforehand. But she had to be fair to him. He’d have to face scrutiny from the rest of the agency and from his noble relatives. He’d have to put up the facade that this arrangement wasn’t entirely mercenary. She was running away, after all. No one in Wildern even had to know.
Besides, this wasn’t his fault. They were both pawns in the game, and there was no reason not to work together.
* * *
As soon as the bookstores opened, she browsed through novels and grammar references and history books, fighting the thought of what Keifon might say about this. He held family and relationships as sacred, but on the other hand, he wasn’t a stranger to — to, well, arranged marriage. And wasn’t that what this was, in the end? Maybe he would understand. She couldn’t hide it forever; she wanted to be open with him. She just didn’t know how. She had six weeks at sea to figure it out.
In the end, she bought a medical text they could use in their library at home, and a book of stories that would complement the Nessinian folk tales he’d bought in Prisa. She’d bring her entire childhood library with her, all the novels and at
lases she’d loved, but she wanted something that was picked out just for him.
In a cafe, less than twenty-four hours before she would stand in the courthouse in the new silk dress, she bought a slice of cake, a carafe of Furoni coffee with cinnamon, and two newspapers: one of news in Murio, and one of international news.
The Murian news in the Criterion carried her through her first cup and all of the cake. Any mention of the succession was approached obliquely, leaning on assumptions and references, as was prudent for a professional news organization. Anonymous broadsheets could get away with naming names and throwing bricks, but any publisher who expected to stay in business had to tread carefully.
As she’d gathered from her brief talks with her mother and Marco, King Ruga was rumored to be unwell. Even if he recovered, he was eighty-six years old and refused to name an heir. The most likely Families to seize the crown next seemed to be House Sinaro, who had more money than anyone short of the Academy; or House Balieri, who had thrown their support behind a charismatic young scion who had made a name for herself in finance. Meanwhile, the democratic protesters continued to make noise, insisting that the Families were all corrupt and needed to be tossed out.
The Pircis were a small house. They did not merit much mention in the royal race. Agna turned the pages away from politics. Soon it would not be her concern.
The front-page news in the World’s Eye was the crowning of a new queen in Furon. Agna skimmed it, wondering idly how Rone’s friend Maisha had fared when she returned home, and whether she had gotten mired in her own country’s politics. Was there no way to escape, in the end? Either way, she would probably never know, and no one she knew from the Academy was left in Murio to ask.
On the second page, she set her coffee cup down so hard it sloshed into the saucer. Yanweian Army Splinter Group Closes Border with Kavera.
Kazi na Furujia, a major in the Daranite Yanweian National Army, had led a strike of construction workers in the middle of a project meant to assist shipping and travel between their “largely agrarian” nations. He had issued a set of demands to the Yanweian and Kaveran governments, most of which were related to Yanweian guild laws, with some demands about Kavera’s use of tariffs and taxes resulting from the new trade route.
The Kaveran government had agreed to meet with na Furujia to discuss his terms. The Yanweian government had mobilized a branch of the police from the mid-sized farming hub of Ceien to apprehend Kazi na Furujia, whom, they said, acted without governmental authority. The Daranite church, under whose authority the Army normally acted, had refrained from comment.
Kazi’s terms were laid out in a sidebar, couched in explanations about the caste system that seemed almost insulting. Below the story, anonymous opinion pieces argued the pros and cons. Agna glazed over before she finished them.
He’d made his move. And his terms handed Keifon’s old life back to him, assuming he would get over Kazi’s old directive not to show his face in the country again. If Yanwei lifted the ban on people without names — such a bizarre system, no matter what Keifon said — then he could practice as a doctor in his home country after all. If Kazi no longer forbade him to return to Yanwei, and his career path had been hacked smooth out of the Yanweian social system, what was keeping him in Kavera?
The last few lines of the main article drew her eyes. The splinter group and their local sympathizers have closed the supply lines from Yanwei. As winter approaches in this cold mountain town, experts predict hardship if the protesters do not step down.
Agna folded the paper, smoothed out a creased corner, and sipped her coffee. She told herself she’d leave the papers for the next patron, but she knew the page about Wildern would come with her on the ship. It was the only connection she had with her old life, with the lives that had gone on in her absence. Experts predict hardship. She’d buy a Kaveran newspaper the minute she landed in Vertal. She was tired of being in the dark.
* * *
The address Marco had given lay in a neighborhood not far from Letta’s studio. Even in the early morning shadows, Agna could see that last night’s trash had been cleared, and the lenses of the streetlamps were polished brightly. The mannequins in the boutique windows wore the sleek, close-cut styles she’d seen in the downtown boutiques, but here the shops lay side by side with discussion salons and coffee houses rather than banks and jewelers’ shops. It looked like the sort of place where a well-heeled business student would live. If she hadn’t stayed in Kavera, she might have gotten an apartment in a place like this; it was a short carriage ride away from the agency offices.
Agna clenched the note in her palm and tiptoed up the steps of one of the apartment buildings. Her skirts brushed past the trailing vines planted in the boxes along the stairs. She’d put on one of the dresses she’d left behind, a serviceable dark-green linen that had been reasonably fashionable two and a half years ago. Now she looked like a servant, creeping in from a late night. Did Marco have servants? She fervently hoped not.
After knocking, she scrubbed her hands in the doorway fount, washing off the ink that had transferred from the note onto her skin. She stuffed the note into her pocket just before the door opened.
Marco’s dark hair was damp, and he wore house slippers, but otherwise he was just as composed as he’d been when they met in Letta’s studio. Agna managed to maintain eye contact. They were equals, co-conspirators. There was no reason to be nervous.
“Good morning, thanks for coming. Did you have any trouble finding the place?”
“No, no trouble at all. Thank you.” She followed him into the apartment, which smelled like old paper and coffee. It was small compared to her parents’ apartment, but well-appointed; dark wood bookcases lined many of the walls. Between two of them hung a painting that had to be one of Letta’s: a man and woman in exquisitely detailed clothes from centuries past, lounging among the ferns in a forest clearing.
“Have you had breakfast?” Marco padded through the entryway into a kitchen outfitted in textured tile and polished metal.
“I haven’t.” She’d been too nervous this morning to even make tea, and Basilio the cook had given her a sympathetic smile and let her be. She’d left a note on the breakfast table and fled before her parents woke up.
“Would you like some? Just the usual. I’m not the most imaginative cook.” His wry look eased a little of her tension.
“Thank you for the offer.” Agna tucked her hair behind her ear — her appointment to have it arranged was in two hours — and clasped her hands against her stomach. “I’m not sure I could handle it right now. I should probably try, though.”
“Well. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. You’re welcome to it, if you like. Do you mind if I eat while we talk?”
“No, I don’t mind.”
As Marco gathered plates and bowls for breakfast, Agna stole a look around the kitchen and strained to listen. The apartment seemed quiet, apart from the clink of plates and silverware. They were very likely alone. That was for the best, in the end; she wasn’t entirely sure she wouldn’t be a disgraceful mess during this discussion. So this was the first time she and Marco would meet alone. It might be the last.
Over the last year and a half, they’d exchanged dozens of letters about art trends in Murio and in Kavera, about business strategy, about family news and politics and philosophy. Even though they’d only met once, his thought processes and his ideas were as familiar as if they’d been friends for years. If circumstances were different, they might have become friends in truth. She might have gone to dinner with Marco and Letta and Lina every week, drinking wine and talking about plays and growing into adulthood together.
Marco turned, his arms loaded with covered platters. Agna reached out to take one, needing some way to be useful. He thanked her and picked up a ceramic carafe instead. “Just through here.”
Agna followed him into a sitting room, which was also lined with bookcases and paintings. Her feet sank into the deep pile of the carpet as s
he approached the low table, which was ringed by a couch and two upholstered chairs. Marco stooped to lay out the platter and carafe, and Agna did the same.
“Take a seat.” Marco’s hand flicked over the whole arrangement. “I’ll be right back.”
She perched on the edge of one of the chairs as he returned to the kitchen. The cushions were springy, and her muscles ached as though she were coming down with something. Lack of sleep, most likely. Nothing serious. In spite of herself, she eased away from the edge and leaned into the chair back. She fluffed her skirts over her knees. She didn’t want to look presumptuous or slovenly, but then, this wasn’t a business meeting. She wasn’t sure what it was, exactly, but it wasn’t business. They’d covered that exhaustively already.
Her pen pal returned with a tray of cups and saucers and set it next to the carafe. “Coffee?”
“Oh, yes. Well. I should have some food with it, I suppose. Makes me jittery, otherwise.”
He chuckled under his breath. “As I said, you’re welcome to eat if you like.”
“Thank you,” she said, as he poured the dark brew for each of them. “The only people in Wildern who import coffee are the other Nessinians who work in the hospital, and they make it in our break room. It used to remind me of studying in coffee houses when I was at the Academy, but now I guess it reminds me of work.”
That made him laugh outright. “I’m sorry to have reminded you of work when you’re on vacation.”
“Hah. Some vacation. — No offense.”
“None taken. Sugar, lemon, cream?”
“Goodness.” She missed coffee with cream. You couldn’t very well leave it out all night in a break room. In the coffee houses it had been commonplace. “Cream, please, and a little sugar.”
Marco added half a spoonful of amber crystals from a bowl and poured some cream from a ceramic pitcher. He balanced a spoon across the edge of the saucer and slid it toward her on the table.
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