by Amy Raby
“Yes, sir. I won the tournament this year in Beryl.”
“The emperor was impressed by your accomplishment.” His blue eyes studied her with a more than casual interest.
“I’m honored by that.”
“And you’re from the province of Dahat?”
Please don’t be from Dahat yourself. It would be a disaster if he were looking for someone to swap childhood stories with. She’d been to Dahat, so she could provide a few details about the region, but she hadn’t grown up there. “Yes, sir.”
“How are feelings toward the emperor there?”
Her forehead wrinkled. What sort of question is that? “Citizens of Dahat have great respect for Emperor Lucien.”
Remus laughed. “You think this is a loyalty test, don’t you? Tell me the truth, Miss Salonius. Emperor Lucien likes to know how public sentiment runs throughout his empire. Platitudes and blind expressions of loyalty mean nothing to him. He wants honesty.”
Vitala bit her lip. “I’ve been on the Caturanga circuit for more than three years, sir, longer than Emperor Lucien’s reign. What little I picked up from my visits home is that while most of the citizenry supports him, there are some who disapprove of his policies and preferred the former emperor. I imagine that would be true in any province.”
“Indeed,” said Remus. “There are those who miss the old emperor Florian and his Imperial Garden. Have you had the privilege of visiting it?”
“Visiting what?”
“Florian’s Imperial Garden.”
“No, sir. This is my first visit to the palace.” Vitala was puzzled. He had to know that already.
“Ah,” he said. “You should seek it out during your visit.”
“That would be lovely, sir.”
The carriage tilted backward. Vitala looked out her window. They’d passed through the city and started up the steep hill that led to the Imperial Palace. The carriage was navigating the first of half a dozen switchbacks. When she turned back to Remus, his eyes had lost their intensity. Whatever the test was, it seemed she’d passed it. “You are the first woman to win the Beryl tournament,” he said. “Pray tell me who you studied under.”
Vitala smiled. This was one of the questions she’d been coached on. “My father taught me to play when I was four years old and I showed an aptitude for the game. Within a year, I could beat my cousins. Later, I studied under Caecus, and when I’d mastered his teachings, I studied under Ralla.” She droned on, feeding him the lies she’d recited under Bayard’s tutelage. Remus leaned back and nodded dully. It seemed he’d lost interest in her. Thank the gods.
As the carriage crested the final switchback, Vitala craned her neck for a look at the Imperial Palace. Three white marble domes, each topped with a gilt roof, rose into view, gleaming in the sunshine. Next appeared the numerous outbuildings and walled gardens that surrounded the domes. A wide treelined avenue directed them to the front gates.
Inside the palace, silk hangings of immeasurable value draped the walls, while priceless paintings and sculptures graced every nook. She’d never been anywhere so boldly ostentatious. What a contrast to Riorca, with its broken streets and ramshackle pit houses! How much of this had been built by Riorcan slave labor?
Two Legaciatti, both women, met them inside the door. Vitala studied them, curious at the oddity of female Kjallan soldiers. Bayard had told her that women made ideal assassins for Kjallan targets because Kjallan men didn’t take women seriously. Ostensibly, that was true; Kjall was patriarchal, and women had little power under the law. But as she’d traveled on the tournament circuit, she’d learned the reality was more complicated. Most Kjallan men were soldiers who were often away from home. In their absence, their wives had authority over their households. Women and slaves were the real engine of Kjall’s economy; few men had many practical skills outside of soldiering.
“Search her,” ordered Remus.
One of the women beckoned. “Come along.”
The search took place in a private room and was humiliatingly thorough. Vitala knew what they were looking for: concealed weapons or perhaps a riftstone. They would not find either. She didn’t wear her riftstone around her neck; it was surgically implanted in her body, along with the deathstone, her escape from torture and interrogation if she botched this mission. Her weapons were magically hidden where none but a wardbreaker could detect them. And there were no Kjallan wardbreakers; only Riorcans possessed the secrets of that form of magic.
As she put her clothes back on, the Legaciatti emptied her valise, checked it for hidden compartments, and pawed through her paltry collection of spare clothes, undergarments, powders, and baubles. They found nothing that concerned them.
They repacked her things and led her up two flights of white marble stairs. The walls were rounded and concave; she must have been in one of the domes. Her room was the third on the right from the top of the stairway. A young guard with peach fuzz on his chin stood in front of it, wearing an orange uniform but no sickle and sunburst. Peach fuzz. He looked familiar.
The young soldier lay on the cot, his wrists and ankles bound. His blanket had fallen to the floor, a result of his struggles. His eyes jerked toward her, wide with fear, but when he saw her, he relaxed a little. He wasn’t expecting a teenage girl.
“Miss Salonius?”
He shouldn’t know her name. How did he know her name?
“Miss Salonius?”
And why did he sound like a woman?
Vitala blinked. The Legaciatti were staring at her in concern. “Miss Salonius?” one of them asked.
“I’m sorry.” Gods, where was she? Marble walls. The Imperial Palace.
“You stopped moving. You were staring into space.”
“Sorry, I was . . . Never mind.” Averting her eyes so that she wouldn’t see the young man guarding her door, she stepped inside.
Vitala’s room was a suite. Just inside was a sitting room with a single peaked window along its curved wall and a pair of light-glows in brass mountings suspended from the ceiling. The room was lavishly furnished with carved oaken tables and chairs upholstered in silk. A bookshelf on the far wall drew her eye. Among its contents, she recognized all the classic treatises on Caturanga and some she’d never seen before, as well as books on other subjects. An herbal by Lentulus. Cinna’s Tactics of War. Numerous works of fiction, including the notoriously racy Seventh Life of the Potter’s Daughter. Who had put a book like that on an otherwise erudite bookshelf?
On a table in the center of the room sat the finest Caturanga set she’d ever seen. Pieces of carved agate with jeweled eyes winked at her from a round two-tiered board of polished marble. She picked up one of the red cavalry pieces. The rider was richly detailed down to the folds of his cloak. The warhorse was wild-eyed, his beautifully carved expression showing equal parts fear and determination.
Had Emperor Lucien set up this room just for her? No, of course not. He hosted many Caturanga champions. Probably all of them had been housed here.
The bedroom was equally fine, with a high four-poster bed, silk sheets, and a damask down-stuffed comforter. The silk hangings were blue and red. Was that by design? Blue and red were the traditional colors of Caturanga pieces.
“You will reside here until the emperor summons you,” a Legaciatta instructed. “Take your rest as needed, but you are not to wander about the palace. If you desire something, such as food or drink, ask the door guard. If you wish to bathe, he can escort you to the baths on the lower level.”
Vitala nodded. “Thank you, ma’am.”
The Legaciatti left, closing the door behind them. Vitala went to the window—real glass, she noted—and peered out. Below was a walled enclosure obscured by a canopy of trees, through which she caught glimpses of red, purple, and orange. The famous Imperial Garden? Looking up to take in the broader view, she noticed a patch of too light blue in the s
ky and picked out the Vagabond, the tiny moon that glowed blue at night but faded almost to invisibility in the daytime. God of reversals and unforeseen disaster, the Vagabond wandered across the sky in the direction opposite the other two moons, and was not always a favorable sighting. “Great One, pass me by,” she prayed reflexively.
Leaving the window and lighting one of the glows with a touch of her finger, she pulled Seventh Life from the bookshelf. Sprawling on a couch, she waited upon the pleasure of the emperor.