by Amy Raby
Celeste shook her head. “I know where it is, and you’ve enough to get on with.”
She headed down the main aisle, past stalls and little alcoves where horses stood in crossties to have the dust whisked off their backs and the mud picked out of their hooves. It was blessedly warm here—the grooms kept it so. Down the side aisle and into the second wing. A loud bang startled a trio of barn swallows into frenzied flight.
Atella stepped up to her side, alert and ready.
“I think it was just a horse kicking the stall,” said Celeste.
A stall door rattled open, and a woman darted out into the aisle, slamming the door behind her. Celeste caught a glimpse of a chestnut horse’s head snaking out over the stall door and striking, teeth bared, but the woman was out of range. The head disappeared, and there was more banging.
“Tatia,” said Celeste.
The woman turned. She started at the unexpected sight of an imperial, and dropped into a curtsy. “Your Imperial Highness. Always a pleasure.”
“Patient giving you trouble?” asked Celeste.
“He’ll kick himself lame if he keeps that up,” said Tatia. “But he’s already lame, so it doesn’t make much difference. He’s in pain, and when he starts throwing a tantrum, he just makes it worse.” She cupped her hands around her mouth to amplify her voice. “Sunny, knock it off!”
The banging continued.
“I can help,” said Celeste.
Tatia’s forehead wrinkled. “He’s a stallion. I’m not sure your magic can handle him, but I can get Pilian on the twitch. Pilian!” she cried.
A distant voice called back, “What you need, Tatia?”
“Twitch!”
A sturdy-looking groom appeared from around the corner. “Tell me we’re not twitching Sunstorm.”
“Your favorite horse!” she called cheerily.
With a groan, he disappeared into the tack room.
Celeste had seen the twitch in action. It was a metal clamp that a groom could place on a horse’s nose, which for reasons nobody fully understood tended to quiet the animal. It was painless and humane but didn’t work reliably on the most challenging horses. Furthermore, for her purposes, she preferred to be alone with Tatia. “The groom doesn’t need to twitch that horse. My magic works on any animal.”
“Your Imperial Highness—” began Atella.
“There’s no danger at all,” said Celeste. “But, Tatia, I’m asking a favor in exchange.”
“What’s that?”
“I need gossip.”
Tatia perked up. “I’d give you that for free—especially if you have some to offer in return. What kind of gossip?”
“I heard you were among the party chosen to entertain a group of Inyans last night.”
Tatia’s eyes sparkled. “I heard you entertained the prince.”
“I did,” said Celeste. “And something happened. . . .” She trailed off as Pilian the groom approached, carrying the twitch. He looked as grim as if he were marching to the execution block. “We won’t be needing you after all, Pilian. Thanks very much.”
Pilian bowed and retreated with a spring in his step.
“Let’s start on the horse,” said Celeste.
Tatia went to the stall door, snapped, “Get back” at the stallion, and drew the door open.
The chestnut stallion stood in the middle of his stall, blowing from exertion, his ears flicked halfway back in suspicion. His left foreleg was puffy and swollen, leaving no doubt he suffered. As she approached, his ears flattened against his mane, and he bared his teeth. She reached out with her mind magic and seized him forcefully with a suggestion. I like these people. I want them to come into my stall. Instantly, the stallion’s ears flicked forward, and the expression on his face changed. He lowered his head and chewed, a submissive gesture. “We can go in now,” said Celeste.
“I love it when you come around here. It’s a miracle what you can do with a vicious animal.” Tatia entered the stall and knelt by the stallion’s foreleg.
Celeste followed, trailed by her bodyguard. The praise embarrassed her a little. What she did wasn’t miraculous; it was just typical mind magic applied to an animal. Most mind mages could only ply their skills on people, but a few women could apply the magic more broadly, and Celeste was one of them.
Healing magic, which Tatia possessed, seemed less particular; it worked equally well on people or animals regardless of the mage’s degree of talent. While Tatia worked on the swollen foreleg, Celeste kept her eye on the stallion’s ears and body language, making sure he didn’t get any ideas.
“So you’re looking for gossip about the prince?” asked Tatia.
“Yes. You may have heard that Lucien offered him my hand in marriage last night.”
Tatia looked up. “Well, that’s news. Did he accept?”
“It was sudden. He’s thinking about it.”
Tatia’s eyes twinkled. “And what do you think of him? I caught a glimpse of him in the hallway. He’s a fine-looking man.”
Celeste had a feeling Tatia hadn’t run into the prince by chance; in all likelihood, she’d deduced where he would be and deliberately stationed herself there. That was what made Tatia so useful to her, not just as a friend but as a source of information. Tatia’s family was well-off but not of noble lineage. She moved in different circles than Celeste and was privy to a brand of gossip that Celeste was not. “He’s handsome, yes. But he seemed . . . distant. It could just be the suddenness of the proposal.” And hopefully not the fact that she wasn’t pretty enough for him. She motioned at the chestnut’s foreleg. Tatia was hanging on her words with such interest that she seemed to have forgotten about the horse. “Have you heard anything about Prince Rayn’s romantic life in Inya? Have there been other proposals? Can you think of any reason he’d be disinterested in this one?”
Tatia probed the chestnut’s foreleg. The swelling began to diminish in response to her healing magic. “I’m not aware of any other proposals, but I did hear something. A couple of years ago, Prince Rayn was—how do I say this?—indiscreet in a relationship.”
“What do you mean?”
“He impregnated a girl.”
“He has a child?” The stallion laid back his ears, and Celeste threw a suggestion at him. I’m perfectly happy just standing here. He relaxed.
“A daughter,” said Tatia. “You didn’t know? Everyone was talking about it. He apparently slept with some palace servant, and they must have been lax with their wards, because now he’s got a bastard.”
“Three gods.” She had about a million follow-up questions. How serious was his relationship with the servant woman, and who was raising the illegitimate daughter? In a day of near-universal warding, how had he managed to get someone pregnant?
This could be the reason Rayn had made no response to the marriage proposal, leaving Lornis to smooth things over. He might be in love with the servingwoman. Since she was lowborn, he couldn’t marry her. Perhaps he was delaying his royal marriage as long as he could in order to maintain that relationship.
Why hadn’t Lucien said anything? There was no way he did not already know about the illegitimate daughter.
Tatia glanced up from her work. “Was that the gossip you were looking for?”
Celeste took a deep breath. “I don’t know for sure, but it’s an important piece of information. A good starting point. Thank you.”
“I appreciate your coming,” said Tatia. “You’ve done His Nastiness here a great favor and saved Pilian and me a good deal of trouble.”
Celeste had a feeling Tatia was more grateful for the gossip she’d handed her, about the marriage proposal at dinner and Rayn’s lack of response. No doubt Tatia would begin sharing that news about with relish.
But she was pleased about the horse. She rarely had cause to use her mind magic, and for good reason: it
was invasive and frightening. She certainly wouldn’t enjoy someone entering her mind and making magical suggestions that she had no choice but to obey. Yet in this case its use had been compassionate and kind. The horse had been too mad with pain to allow Tatia to treat him. Now, with his leg healed, he was quiet.
She organized their exit from the stall as if it were a controlled retreat: first Tatia, then Atella, then herself. Once the stall door was rolled into place and latched, she released her magical hold on the stallion and watched him, curious to see if he’d lunge at her. Instead, the animal yanked a tuft of hay from the net hanging in his stall and chewed contentedly.
3
Rayn’s trade negotiations with the Kjallans began poorly. While he was open to the idea of trade in general, what the Kjallans really wanted was brimstone, which he would not grant them. The Land Council had sent along a gift of the substance, which had made the Kjallans think he’d be more amenable than he truly was. The council was desperate to diminish Rayn’s popularity among the Inyan populace; thus they constantly tried to set him up for failure. In this case they might succeed at it.
Coffee, citrus, chocolate, and iron—he offered them all, but the Kjallans did not budge from their demand for brimstone. Their already-established trade agreement with Mosar supplied the tropical goods they could not produce in Kjall. He was wasting his time.
When he’d had enough of the day’s negotiations, he left Lornis and the others to continue the fruitless arguing and returned, annoyed, to the state apartment the Kjallans had granted him for the duration of his visit. There he found a woman trying to speak to his door guards—in the Inyan language, which the guards didn’t understand.
He was not in the mood for this.
“Zoe,” he said in Inyan. “What do you want?”
“This woman is known to you?” asked one of the guards in Kjallan.
“Yes,” answered Rayn, switching to Kjallan himself. “She’s one of my servants.”
“She says she should have access to your chambers,” said the guard.
“That is not true.” He frowned at Zoe, who stood looking innocent and confused, with her hands at her sides and her shoulders hunched. She couldn’t understand a word they were saying. “Don’t let her in without my permission. But I’ll speak to her now.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” said the guard.
He ushered Zoe into his stateroom and, when the guards had shut them in, rounded on her, speaking in Inyan. “This is a bad time. I’ve had a terrible morning, and I’m not in the mood.”
“I could get you in the mood,” said Zoe.
He sighed. Zoe was interested in only two things: sex and Inyan whiskey. “That is not what I was talking about.”
“It could be.”
“Is this all you came for?” Sometimes he wondered what he’d ever seen in her, aside from the fact that she was nice to look at. Before the pregnancy, she’d been waifish, almost boyish. Now she had more curves above and below, a change he found agreeable. Her hair was long and lustrous, blond and straight as hay stalks, though far softer, framing a delicate face and round hazel eyes. She was soft, submissive, and completely unstable.
“I needed to see you,” she said. “I’m lonely.”
Tired of standing still, he turned and paced to the other side of the room. Years ago, he’d tried to rescue this woman—a foolish notion if he’d ever had one. He’d met her in a bar: beautiful, fragile Zoe sporting a black eye given to her by her drunk father. Rayn had downed a shot of uske and ordered her to take him to her father’s farmhouse. There he’d found the man and given him a black eye to match his daughter’s. Then he’d offered the woman a service job at the palace. It was easy work: fetching and carrying.
A few days after beginning the palace job, she’d seduced him in his rooms. He’d been amenable. Why not? He’d slept with servant women before. But the others had understood that there were no implied promises.
Zoe had ended up pregnant, an event so unlikely that she saw it as miraculous, a sign from the Vagabond that they were meant to be together. Despite all that, Zoe had essentially abandoned the girl. After witnessing the child’s neglect, Rayn had hired a wet nurse. He visited baby Aderyn on a regular basis, but Zoe had stopped visiting entirely. It seemed the woman was more interested in her uske than in her daughter.
And though he’d broken things off ages ago, she wouldn’t leave him alone. He thoroughly regretted ever sleeping with her.
“You’re a beautiful woman,” he said. “I’m sure you’ve no shortage of interested suitors. But please, I’m here on business. Leave me alone.”
• • •
Celeste found Lucien in his office, going over contracts with his legal and language advisers. He looked up at her, bleary-eyed. “Is this urgent?”
She leaned on the doorway. “There’s something you didn’t tell me about Rayn.”
He winced, which told her he knew exactly what she was talking about, and waved away the advisers. “We’ll resume in an hour,” he told them. “It’s time for a break anyway.” To Celeste, “Tea?”
She nodded.
The advisers vacated their chairs, and Lucien called to his door guard. “Send up some Dahatrian. And whatever else they’ve got in the kitchen that’s good.”
Celeste slid into a chair on the opposite side of Lucien’s desk. She waited until the room was empty and said, “Prince Rayn has a daughter.”
“I was going to tell you,” said Lucien.
“When?”
“After you got to know him a little. I didn’t want you jumping to conclusions. He’s a good man who ran into a difficult situation at the worst possible age and did some things he now regrets.”
“How old is the baby?”
“About a year,” said Lucien. “Maybe a little younger.”
“Are you sure he regrets what he did?” said Celeste. “Because he didn’t seem very interested in the marriage proposal.”
“I sprung it on him,” said Lucien. “Give him time to get used to the idea.”
“Maybe he’s still in love with the mother of his child.”
“I doubt it,” said Lucien. “From all accounts, it was a meaningless affair with a palace servant that resulted in a pregnancy through ill luck.”
A servant arrived, bearing a tray with two cups, a pot of Dahatrian tea, and a plate of lemon cakes. Celeste poured for her brother and then for herself. “How did Rayn get her pregnant? Don’t they use wards in Inya?”
“Of course they do,” said Lucien. “Nobody knows how it happened.”
Celeste tipped a sugar cube into her tea and stirred. “What does his family think about it?”
“From what I understand, they’re not much in the picture. Rayn’s father, the king of Inya, is unwell.”
“In what way? Is he dying?”
“I’m not sure. I just know that it’s serious, and he’s unable to run his kingdom or manage his family. The Land Council has been ruling in his stead for years.”
“You mean Councilor Burr, that awful man at dinner? He’s been running Inya?” Celeste sipped her tea. It was rich and nutty with a cinnamon finish. “Good Dahatrian.”
Lucien raised his cup in agreement. “Him and others. Did you notice the antagonism between Burr and Rayn last night? There’s a reason for that. Inya’s supposed to be ruled cooperatively by the king and the Land Council. But lately it’s been all the Land Council, because the king isn’t able to govern, and they’ve taken advantage of the situation by trying to pass some unpopular laws. Rayn, though he has no official power until he inherits the throne, rallied the people and stopped some of those laws from being passed. Now the Land Council is out for his blood. They’ll do anything to stop his rise to power.”
“He sounds like he’ll make a good king. But I don’t understand his being careless with wards.”
“Neither do I,” said Lucien. “But mistakes happen. I don’t think it makes him unsuitable as a marriage partner.”
“He sounds like a womanizer.”
“I don’t get that impression,” said Lucien. “As I understand it, there was only one woman.”
That wasn’t exactly reassuring. One woman would be worse than a hundred women, if Rayn loved her. “Are they still together?”
“I am told they are not.”
“What about the baby? Who’s raising her?”
“I didn’t ask.”
Celeste sat back in her chair. “How are the trade negotiations going?”
“Poorly. Rayn doesn’t want to give us any brimstone, which is odd since he brought all those barrels as a gift.”
“Does he think we’re going to turn around and attack his country?”
“He might think that,” said Lucien. “And it’s hard for me to convince him otherwise. He simply doesn’t trust us, and if we can’t change his mind about that, the negotiations will fail.”
Celeste sipped her tea. Maybe that was the reason Rayn lacked enthusiasm for the marriage proposal.
“In fact, I think we need to end the negotiations, at least for the time being,” said Lucien. “We’re going round in circles. I’d like to encourage Rayn to do some looking around Kjall. He needs to get to know us better.”
“I invited him to go riding. He said he was too busy.”
“I was thinking an overland trip or a sea voyage,” said Lucien. “Kjall is a big country. There’s plenty for him to see.”
“Where were you thinking, in particular?”
Lucien shrugged. “Wherever he wants to go. But here’s the catch: I want you to go with him.”
“Me?” She set down her teacup.
“You,” said Lucien. “The marriage may be the key to all of this. If he accepts you, he’ll accept our trade agreement.”
“You want me to . . . charm him, then, on this trip?” She swallowed. She was good at math and linguistics, not at making small talk with strangers.
“Yes, exactly. Win his trust.”
“I think someone else would be better suited for that role.”