She finished her curtsies to each of the tables in turn, but Rafi didn’t watch. He was too confused by the look on his uncle’s face.
“Where did you find her?” Fernando asked, grabbing Rafi’s arm as he sat down. “Where did she come from?” A deep line furrowed the man’s forehead, but he only had eyes for Johanna.
What was it about the girl that had the dukes, even the long-widowed Fernando, panting like dogs in late summer? She was attractive, but there were a lot of beautiful women in Santarem. There was even a decent selection in the dining hall.
“She’s much too young for you, Uncle.” Rafi forced humor into his tone.
“Oh, I disagree there. Women are not like wine. They’re better before they age.” Belem winked at Lady DeSilva. “Present company excluded.”
The lady ignored the comment and answered her brother’s question. “Johanna is the daughter of two Performers. Her father was killed in a tragic accident, and she lives near the Milners’ mango orchard now.”
“Unfortunate,” Belem mumbled as he shoveled a bite of dessert into his mouth. “A girl like that needs a man in her life. Or a duke.”
Fernando and Lady DeSilva didn’t seem to hear Belem, too involved in their whispered conversation.
Rafi leaned back in his chair, waiting for Johanna to begin her story and to dispel the horrible mental picture of her snuggled in his uncle’s arms. Or Belem’s for that matter.
She reached into her cloak and threw a fine black powder high into the air. It hung like a glistening sheet of fog, hiding her from the audience’s eyes. She lowered her voice, speaking softly, but it still carried to every corner of the room.
The story was that of a huntsman, lost in a dark forest. Awful beasts stalked him, and Johanna’s pale hands danced across the fog, giving the impression of a great chase.
A spark appeared off to the left, her arm held far from her body. She tossed the glowing fleck into the cloud of dust. The entire thing ignited, illuminating Johanna like some sort of nymph in a fairy tale, a perfect illustration for the story. The huntsman was pulled to safety by a woman of indefinable beauty and strength—a goddess.
Bits of burning ash fell, like stars tumbling from the night sky, but nothing caught flame. Rafi had heard the story before, and had even seen it done with the same effects, but Johanna told it with a fresh passion.
The huntsman offered the golden goddess everything to repay her for his life, and she took it.
Johanna tossed two more handfuls of powder into the air, one golden, one purple. As they swirled together, they gave the impression of two shadows locked in an embrace.
The story didn’t have a particularly happy ending: The huntsman died, and the goddess roamed Santarem with the child of their union as her only company.
But Johanna managed to twist the words into something heart-achingly beautiful and poignant. Rather than sadness, Rafi felt the goddess’s joy in her child—the first Keeper. He had his mother’s ability to tap the elements for power, but it was tempered by his father’s humanity and mortality.
Johanna raised her hands above her head, and a bright ball of white light seemed to appear in her hands. The goddess, in the form of Mother Lua, looked down on her people every night and watched over her child’s progeny.
Rafi tried to look away, to ignore Johanna and the spell she wove over the audience, but there was something hypnotic in her eyes. He felt like she told the story for his ears alone, that some invisible thread connected them.
“I should like to meet her,” Fernando said softly as the story concluded.
The thread snapped with a harsh recoil. Rafi gasped as if he hadn’t drawn breath since the first word spun off Johanna’s tongue.
“I told you she was exquisite,” Belem said in an overloud whisper.
Chapter 48
Johanna
The applause was thunderous. Johanna reveled in the audience’s reaction, knowing she’d affected them all. The women dabbed tears; the men clutched their lovers’ hands during the romantic tales and the laments. They laughed when the story called for it and cheered and gasped at all the right moments.
Except Rafi.
He leaned far back in his chair, long legs stretched out in front of him, seeming the relaxed lordling. But unlike Belem—who lolled to one side of the chair with his ever-full wine cup dangling from his fingers—Rafi’s act was incomplete. His arms were folded a bit too tightly across his chest, and he shot measuring glances at the men on either side of him.
He’d never make it as a Performer. His real feelings are too evident.
Rafi managed to bring his hands together in an unenthusiastic applause as Johanna finished the last story she’d prepared for the evening. She planned to take a few requests, sing a bit, then return to her room with her brothers.
“The evening grows late, but perhaps the head table has a particular selection they’d like to hear?” She posed the question to Rafi, hoping his answer might give her a hint at his interests and what her performance lacked in his eyes.
He waved to the man on his left. “I’ll defer to my uncle. He won’t have the pleasure of hearing your lovely voice as frequently as I.”
Lovely voice. Johanna hid her look of disgust with a curtsy to the Duke of Impreza.
The man, an older, more distinguished version of Rafi, exchanged a look with Lady DeSilva before speaking. “I do have a request. An odd one perhaps.” He laced his fingers together and rested his elbows on the table. “I had a Performer visit my estate after the treaty was signed. He told an incredible tale called ‘The Survivor of Roraima.’ Do you know it?”
Johanna hoped her cape disguised the goose bumps that rose along her arms and her too-stiff spine. She knew the tale; it was the last story her father had ever spun.
Most of the stories she told were old, embellished and elaborated. But that story was fresh, the words bleeding from wounds not-quite healed.
“It’s not a particularly pleasant story, my lord,” Johanna said, imagining the pall that would fall over the dining room as every person thought of their lost king, his kindhearted wife, and their angel baby, or perhaps a loved one or friend who’d been trapped inside Roraima’s walls as the township burned.
“I’ve never heard it,” Lord Belem said, for once sitting in his chair rather than draping himself across it. “I should like to hear it as well.”
Rafi quirked his dark eyebrows—black peaks sharp with curiosity—and her decision was made.
“Once there was a beloved king,” she said, taking a few backward steps to the center of the floor. “He was a hardworking man who toiled alongside his people. In the spring, he harnessed his mighty war horse to the plow and prepared his people’s fields. In the fall, he wielded a scythe and helped them harvest. In times of peace, he hosted feasts where all, even the most humble peasant, were invited to dine at his side. And in times of war”—she paused and made eye contact with several members of the crowd—“he welcomed his people inside the walls of his fortress and protected them.
“Many years passed, but the king had not found a suitable bride. His people were concerned, and they sent girls and women, young and old, from every state and from the isles to gain the king’s hand, but none could earn his fancy.
“Then, one night, a girl appeared at his gate. Her clothes were torn and filthy, her hair a matted mess. She trembled from fatigue and hunger, but nothing could disguise her beauty. People who met her said she seemed to shine from within.”
A few heads in the crowd nodded their agreement. Some of them had certainly met Wilhelm’s queen.
“The kingdom rejoiced, for their king had finally found a woman whose heart was pure and who wasn’t afraid of hard work. They had one year of blissful happiness, and the queen gave birth to a lovely daughter.
“But all was not well. One lord was unsatisfied with his station in
the land. He sought more power, riches, and glory.”
The double doors to the dining hall burst inward, slamming against the stone walls. Two men with shining breastplates strode into the room, escorting a broad-shouldered man in a deep crimson cape. Diamonds twinkled in both of his ears, and a narrow band of gold wrapped around his brow, pressing flat his black hair.
There were gasps, and a chair clattered to the floor.
“Fernando!” Lady DeSilva said, grabbing her brother’s arm, but his sword was already sliding free of its scabbard.
Rafi jumped up from his seat and stepped in front of his uncle. “Stop,” he commanded.
Dom, Captain Alouette, and the weaponsmaster appeared at Duke Fernando’s side, all with hands on their weapons, ready to draw.
The man in the doorway watched the scene with a smile that only reached his lips. “I didn’t expect such a welcome.” He pressed his hand over his heart. “Perhaps I should offer my apologies, Lady DeSilva. I sent an outrider to announce my early arrival, but it appears the message didn’t reach your ears.”
The duchess extracted herself from the group of men, shooting one concerned look at her brother. Rafi stood close, nearly nose to nose with his uncle, speaking in a tone too low to reach Johanna’s ears. Not that Fernando seemed to be listening; he only had eyes for the richly appointed man in the doorway.
“Duke Inimigo,” Lady DeSilva said as she approached the group; her tone was just south of frigid. “This is a surprise.”
Chapter 49
Leão
“They have a council and wear cadarço,” Leão said as he and Pira curried the horses. “It could be a coincidence.”
He waited for her to toss a sarcastic remark or eye roll his way—she couldn’t get through any conversation without some caustic observation—but she didn’t respond, her hands moving efficiently over the horse’s coat.
With currying combs still in hand, he walked to the next horse down the line and started on its far side so he could see her over the animal’s back. He liked to watch her face when they talked. She tried so hard to seem implacable, not letting anything affect her, but her eyes gave her away. They were bright and fiery, revealing every time she thought he said something stupid and tilting up a bit at the corners when she tried to hide a smile.
He hadn’t been able to make her smile in days, and he’d finally figured out why.
“I feel like I owe you an explanation for my actions in the barn,” he said, watching her. She wouldn’t make eye contact, but her hands hesitated for a moment. “I’m not sure what you thought, but I wouldn’t break the law. Not even to get information about Performers’ Camp.”
She met his gaze with a flat stare, then resumed her brushing with an irritated head shake.
“You have to know me better than that. I don’t break the laws,” Leão continued. “I’m a member of the Elite Guard. I live to uphold them.”
“You honestly think I’m upset with you over a matter of the law?”
Upset was a mild way to describe her attitude toward him, and Leão didn’t think he’d done anything else to deserve her ire. “If it’s not the law, then why are you mad at me?”
He dodged the currying brush she chucked at his head.
“I don’t give a fig about the law, Leão. We’ve broken the law dozens of times just to get here.” She rounded the tail end of his horse and pressed a hard finger into his chest. “It’s about using that girl to reach your goal.”
“I don’t have much experience with kissing, but she seemed to enjoy it.”
She slapped him too fast for him to react, then spun on her heel and marched away.
“I don’t understand why you’re angry,” he mumbled, pressing a hand to his stinging cheek.
Pira continued her trajectory beyond Tex and Jacaré, who were spitting rabbits over the fire.
“Where are you going?” Jacaré said as she stepped out of the circle of stones that delineated the camp’s boundaries and headed into the woods.
She didn’t answer.
Jacaré stood, but Tex put out a restraining arm. “Let her go. She may find out something helpful.”
Chapter 50
Rafi
“Let me go,” Fernando said through clenched teeth. He gripped his sword with white knuckles, but the men on either side of him weren’t going to let him use it.
“Uncle, please. Don’t start anything here,” Rafi asked, placing a hand on Fernando’s chest. A vein in the man’s neck hammered in time with one above his eyebrow.
“I’m not starting anything, Rafi. I intend to finish it.”
Lord Inimigo, Duke of Maringa, raised empty palms. “I come unarmed, bearing gifts, accompanied by family.” He waved, and a girl stepped into the dining hall. Behind her stretched an endless line of servants, all in matching livery and wearing thick, silver bands around their necks. “I wanted to welcome your nephew into manhood. I bear you no ill will, Lord Fernando. I know I’ll never earn your forgiveness, but perhaps we can dispense with the hostility between us.” He offered a smile, his teeth so white they reflected the light. “Let’s put aside the past and move toward the future.”
“You’re a butcher and a murderer. Your men hung our king from the ramparts of his castle and killed every man, woman, and child within the walls of Roraima.” He turned suddenly, pointing his finger at Johanna. “This Performer was telling us the tale to remind us of your nature. Finish it, girl. Tell them about the screams of the dying.”
All eyes focused on Johanna, and for once she looked uncomfortable under the scrutiny.
“Enough,” Rafi shouted. “I will not allow my naming day to result in war. In Santiago, we uphold the treaty and expect all of our guests to do the same, or they will be asked to leave this state.”
Duke Inimigo sketched a half bow in acquiescence. Fernando shook his head. “Then I shall leave. I warned you that I wouldn’t sleep under the same roof as this Keeper-blasted excuse of a man.”
“Fernando, please.” Lady DeSilva held out a beseeching hand, which was ignored.
“Escort me out, Rafi.”
“Dom, you and Master Ortiz stay here and make sure all of the men from Impreza follow us out,” Rafi commanded. “Captain Alouette will accompany us.”
The men stepped away, allowing Fernando to return his sword to his hip and, without another word, they all turned for the dining hall’s far doors.
“Good-bye, Fernando,” Duke Inimigo yelled. “I had hoped to meet you under different circumstances.”
“The next time I see that man, I hope he’s on the end of my blade,” Fernando responded, loud enough to draw a few gasps.
Rafi’s jaw tightened, as did his grip on his uncle’s arm.
The grooms in the stable yard were manic, running to the barracks, saddling horses, adding foodstuffs to panniers. In this case, the eavesdropping servants had done Rafi a favor.
“Send them away,” Fernando commanded, signaling to the grooms and men nearby. Rafi shooed the onlookers back and helped his uncle prepare to ride.
“I have two things to speak with you about, and I’d hoped to have more time to do it. But now . . .” He threw his saddle over his horse’s back. Fernando pressed his thumbs into a notch in the saddle horn, and the section slid aside. The compartment hid a small linen bag. “We can work out the details later, but I intended to name you heir to my estate at your naming ceremony.”
He pressed a sigil ring into Rafi’s palm. Rafi knew the emblem without looking. He could feel the fins of the great fish cutting into his skin.
“I know it would be too much land for you to manage alone, but I hoped you would train up Dom and send him to me to act as your regent.”
“Uncle—”
“I don’t have time to debate this. Just agree for now.” He pressed on, not waiting for an answer. “The second thing is that
girl, that Performer. I think she could be in danger. Someone is hunting girls that match her description. My lieutenant’s daughter was murdered after attending a performance last year. Another, a maid from my own estate, has been missing for five months.”
“What happened to them? Why were they targeted?”
“It could be a sick infatuation with a specific type of girl, or . . .” Fernando shook his head, eyeing all the people in the yard. “Your mother has her own suspicions. I’m not sure if I believe them, but post a guard on Johanna’s rooms and at her house.” He gripped both of Rafi’s shoulders.
“Of course. I’d never let harm come to any of my people. I’ll do everything I can to protect her.”
“Make sure you take care of yourself, too.” Fernando opened his mouth to say something else, but shut it as one of his guardsman approached.
“We’re ready to ride when you are, my lord.”
“Mount up. I’ll be with you momentarily.”
The guard nodded and called to their small contingency. Fernando waited until the man had moved a fair distance away. “With Inimigo and Belem under your roof, you must tread carefully,” he said, eyes searching out a threat. “Don’t let Belem’s laziness fool you. He may look as harmless as a jellyfish, but we both know their sting is deadly.”
“I’ll be careful.”
Fernando’s face broke into a fierce grin. “I’ll miss you, boy, but I hope to come back before the first winter storm.”
“All right.”
The man gathered him into a tight hug. Rafi held on, wishing that his uncle was willing to stay.
No chance.
Fernando swung into the saddle, whistling to his men, and they left the yard at a gallop. The horses’ hooves thundered like the threat of rain in the distance, and Rafi wondered if perhaps the storm was already upon him.
Chapter 51
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