by M K Hutchins
How could he? Sorrel should be sobbing his heart out, after the way I tossed him aside.
The thrice-cursed young woman giggled. Sorrel, engaged. Not to me. He hadn’t wasted any time.
“I spoke with Lady Egal,” the vixen said. “Given that you’re the Acting Master Chef, she insists on putting together our wedding. I told her we’d need to wait some time for your father.”
“Nonsense! He doesn’t want us to wait months until he can come. I’ll talk to Lady Egal this evening. I’m sure we could arrange it in two weeks.”
At least I’d be dead by then.
Sorrel finally noticed me. “Sorry. Did we keep you waiting?”
“N-no. I’m just delivering dishes.” I dropped my eyes to the floor and shuffled past.
How could I say anything? I wasn’t Plum. I was Dami, the rumored poisoner. Plum died the night Dami ran away.
If I’d been his betrothed, would he be as kind, as solicitous, to me? I couldn’t believe otherwise.
I set the tray by Osem. She glanced up. “You look ill. Worried about the trial?”
Right. The trial.
“Sorrel’s rearranged the schedule. I’ll have a half-day off tomorrow. Think I could be of any help?” Osem asked.
“I’ll meet you outside the kitchens, after I taste Lady Sulat’s lunch.”
Osem nodded and turned back to her crocks and plates. I had to cross the kitchen to get back to where Moss waited in the doorway. Between the hearths and crowded apprentices, I couldn’t avoid walking past Sorrel.
I accidentally brushed his elbow. My breath hitched in my throat.
He didn’t notice. His betrothed blathered about her dress while he mused about the menu. They monologued in tandem. Did that count as a conversation?
Moss leaned on the doorframe. “You’re taking your time. Trying to poison someone?”
He chuckled at his own poorly-timed joke.
Sorrel’s face hardened. “Poison?”
“Just a jibe,” Moss said.
Tanoak frowned. “Not just a jibe. Most people think she did it.”
“Get out!” Sorrel waved his hands at me, like he was shooing a crow from a garden.
I ached to explain, to defend myself, but I didn’t have the words. I scurried away, Sorrel’s scowl burning the back of my skull.
I waited on Lady Sulat’s porch for Nisaat or Bane until the moon rose, but Blue Lord Torut must have stayed in tonight. By the time I retired to my dark closet, my mind had raced over my brief encounter with Sorrel a thousand times.
His hematite-brilliant eyes. His laugh. His kindness to his fiancée.
I wished I could kneel in the shrine at home, but kneeling on my mattress would have to do. I kept my voice low so the guard outside couldn’t hear. “Dear Ancestors. If it’s not too much to ask, could you plague Dami for me? Nothing that would harm her in battle. But maybe some boils on the backsides of her knees. Or under her arms. You know, uncomfortable places. Doesn’t she deserve that much?”
I didn’t feel anything in response. Perhaps the Ancestors weren’t interested in handing out boils. I considered praying for warts or scabs, but collapsed onto my pillow instead.
I cried myself to sleep.
I worked with Poppy all morning, then met Osem in the afternoon as promised. Lady Sulat didn’t seem to care where I spent my time. My eyes still ached from crying last night. I felt like someone had rammed a bucket of carrot peelings inside my ears in an effort to crack my skull open from the inside.
“You... look like you slept well,” Osem said, giving me a look-over that meant the opposite.
I couldn’t explain Sorrel, so I didn’t. “The trial.”
“You’ll be a scapegoat for someone else’s poisoning, even if that’s not in the official charges.”
“Exactly.”
“Let’s walk.”
I strolled next to her, our skirts oddly mismatched—gray and black now. Osem led us to a small garden, a circular patch of lilies, not yet blooming. They’d unfurl spectacular, orange flowers when summer came. That’s when Father and I picked and dried the bulbs, so we could all enjoy their peppery flavor through winter. I sighed. Sorrel probably picked lilies with his father, too. We could talk about so much, if only we could talk.
“Have you tried looking at the servant’s waiting list?” Osem asked, jerking me from my thoughts.
“The girl Fir’s trying to bring in resigned. Her record’s trapped in the treasury now.”
“Problematic.”
Osem talked to me without a wisp of doubt as to my innocence. I wished I could make her candied hazelnuts. Reciprocate her kindness. But I didn’t know how to tell her all that.
“I’ve searched elsewhere for answers,” I said instead. “I think Lord Torut might be involved. If anything happened to Lady Sulat, he’d become the Minister of Military Affairs. He’d have more influence with Purple Lord Heir Valerian if his beloved aunt vanished, too.”
“Maybe.” Osem frowned. “But you can’t hold coincidence against a man in court.”
I explained how I’d sneak into Torut’s quarters, once Nisaat told me he’d left for an evening of carousing.
Osem stared at me like I’d sneezed radishes. “How will you get in?”
“I hoped you’d have ideas. You have a good grasp on how the palace works.”
Osem stood. “Let’s go for a walk to admire the outside of the Royal Shrine.” Only blue- and purple-ranked citizens could enter the Shrine itself. “That little excursion will take us past Lord Torut’s apartments.”
“Thanks!”
She snorted. “I’m not helping you, Dami. I’m showing you how stupid your plan is. You’ll get caught.”
“I’m already in trouble.”
“But you’re not locked up in a cell, surrounded by Palace Guards. It could be worse, Dami. Things can always get worse.”
Crushed clam shells lined the walkway to the Royal Shrine, white and glittering in the afternoon light. Massive log pillars, painted black, supported a black peaked roof over white walls—colors as stark as death itself.
A lilac hedge separated the Shrine from Torut’s apartments—a low building of varnished redwood. A lawn spread before it, broken up with a pair of curly-barked madrone trees. Yarrow spread around their bases like white lace.
“It’s easy to see into,” I said. Not that we saw anyone besides the door servant.
“That’s a bad thing. No cover for you.”
“Oh. Is it better from the other side?”
Osem shook her head. “That puts you near Captain Gano’s guardhouse. It’s back there, along the wall of the Royal Bear House. You’d be spotted for sure.”
I couldn’t see the guardhouse, but a pair of guards stood above the wall gate to the Royal Bear House. No, I couldn’t sneak in. I’d have to pretend to have some kind of business at Lord Torut’s. I chewed my lip. The fabric-backed lattice windows of his apartments stared blankly back at me.
The wall guards looked fidgety, so we continued toward the Royal Shrine and sat on one of its garden benches.
Purple Heir Valerian strode up to the gates of the Royal Bear House, flanked by four guards. He looked like a miniature version of them, his face properly solemn instead of exuberant like at Lady Sulat’s apartments. The guards on the wall let him in without pause.
“The Purple Heir... he’s quite the intelligent child, isn’t he?” My mind churned, watching those gates shut behind him.
Osem nodded. “Lady Sulat’s proud of what a scholar he is.”
“He seems to like puzzles. Finding things out. Curiosity for curiosity’s sake.” I chewed my lip. “Do you think... if I asked him...”
“You want to enlist Heir Valerian as your spy?” Osem stared at me.
I shrugged and stared down at the lawn. “I don’t have access to the Royal Bear House. He does.”
“Listen to yourself. You want him to spy on his father?” Osem shook her head. “I doubt he wants to—or is able to—
keep secrets from him. You may as well paste a poster in the marketplace accusing the king.”
Purple Heir Valerian did have difficulty navigating Lady Sulat’s political questions. “You’re right.”
“Of course I’m right.”
Osem stared up at the black, peaked roof of the shrine. The wind stirred. I needed an ally like Heir Valerian. Someone who could go places I couldn’t.
“I’m not sure he’d help anyway. Why would he? He doesn’t care about you personally. He owes you no debts. You have nothing to offer him.”
She was right. The only people who cared about me here—Bane and Osem—were doing all they could.
“We should go,” Osem said. “I hope you can see now how bad your plan is.”
A deep, quiet voice behind us asked, “What’s a bad plan?”
I jumped and turned. Five palace guards in blue, one the tallest man I’d ever seen, stood behind us. Before we could run, they surrounded us.
The tallest guard—he stood head and shoulders above me—wore a purple armband, elaborately embroidered with a bear. That had to be Gano, Captain of the Guards. His severely-trimmed mustache looked like a black gash over his lip. “I’ll ask you once more—what are you planning?”
“Skinny dipping in the south pond at midnight,” Osem replied before I could swallow. She shook her head. “Now all these men know, Dami! We’ll never manage. I enjoy a swim, but I hate being ogled by shameless louts.”
Osem was slick.
“My guards saw you loitering outside the Royal Bear House. I heard you speak of a plan. Suspicious, isn’t it, considering one of you already faces a trial?” Captain Gano loomed over me. “Why are you here?”
“It’s a public garden.” The protest sounded childish even to me.
“And that isn’t an answer.”
“By my Ancestors!” Osem shook her head. “Are you that mad about missing the skinny dipping? I doubt your wife would approve.”
One of the guards chuckled, but Gano didn’t flinch. “Some questioning is in order. I’ll take you both into custody now. Lady Sulat is too addled from childbirth to be responsible for accused criminals.”
Osem hooked her arm through mine. “If it’s all the same to you, given that our swimming plans are ruined, we must now make a detour to the bathhouse.”
I ignored the knot in my throat and strode with her, elbowing past the guards.
Gano snapped his long fingers.
Something cracked against my ankle, flaring pain. I screamed. My foot buckled and I fell.
I rolled onto my back in time to see the butt of the guard’s spear whir around to strike me again.
With my good leg, I landed a kick straight on his kneecap. The guard grunted, shifted his stance back, and swung again with his spear butt. I rolled, knowing I wouldn’t be fast enough.
Someone screamed. The spear dropped to the ground next to me. A bolas with cherry-sized weights entangled the guard’s hands—his flesh welted red around it.
I scrambled to my feet. Moss stepped next to me, the granite bolas that usually dangled on his belt now in his hand. Where he’d pulled the smaller bolas from, or if he had more, I had no idea. I’d never been so happy to see him.
He glanced at me. “Dami, Lady Sulat needs your assistance. If you’ll pardon us, Captain Gano.” Moss bowed respectfully, but his eyes didn’t leave Gano or his men.
Gano’s lips formed a tight white line. He waved the guards back. I hobbled as fast as I could after Moss, with Osem’s help.
“That could have been ugly.” Osem glanced at my leg. “Uglier.”
My ankle throbbed, burning from the inside out. I couldn’t tell if it was broken or badly bruised. “It should’ve been worse. We were outnumbered.”
“Captain Gano might be willing to pick a fight with two servants,” Moss said, “but starting an actual skirmish between the Palace Guard and the Military? No. There’s a reason I entangled the guard instead of breaking his wrists.”
My pulse slowed and my brain started working as we neared Lady Sulat’s apartments. Moss’s presence couldn’t be a coincidence. “You were spying on me.”
“What do you think I was doing the rest of the time I followed you around?”
Of course. I cursed myself. Lady Sulat didn’t know if I was guilty—but she did know that a poisoner wouldn’t work alone. She gave me so much freedom to see what I did with it. Who I might report to. Then she’d have the name of her true enemy. “Did you stalk me when I talked with Bane, too?”
Moss whistled an innocent tune.
I missed Clamsriver, where the only cleverness required was a deft knowledge of vegetables. Vegetables, I could handle.
Moss and Osem helped me into Lady Sulat’s sitting room. I lay on the floor and elevated my foot on a chair.
“You stay with her, Moss,” Osem said. “I’ll fetch the chef. He’ll tell us if she needs a surgeon.”
“I don’t—” I began, but Osem had already left. I mumbled the rest to myself: “—need a surgeon.” I sighed. “You’re good with those bolas, Moss.”
“Told you I was lucky to find someone silly enough to give me five-to-one odds.” He eyed my foot. “I guess you won’t be running, eh?”
I closed my eyes. Captain Gano probably confronted me simply because he wanted the prisoner Lady Sulat was keeping from him. But with how close he lived to Lord Torut, I wondered if they could be co-conspirators.
All my theories were as thin and insubstantial as spider webs.
The door guard admitted Osem. “I’ve brought the chef,” she said.
I felt like an idiot for not remembering what that meant with Hawak gone. Sorrel stood next to me. Sorrel of Westbank. My pulse jumped, shooting more pain up my leg.
He frowned at me. “Aren’t you the poisoner?”
“Accused poisoner,” Moss chirped. “It’s not the same thing, is it?”
Sorrel shook his head, but he knelt by my foot anyway. He was a chef, tasked with bringing health and longevity. It didn’t matter that he thought I was a traitor to our profession.
“This is recent?” he demanded flatly.
“Yes,” I said.
“Hmm. Can you wiggle your toes?”
I could dance on the moon, if it made him happy. I wiggled.
“Good. Now point your toes to the ceiling. Good. Now straight out, toward the wall.”
I did so, trying not to wince.
“Well, it looks like this isn’t so bad...” He trailed off, frowning. “I never did catch your name.”
“Dami.”
His frown deepened. “Dami? Why does that sound familiar? You don’t happen to be from Clamsriver, do you?”
I couldn’t say otherwise. Moss stood right there, spying for Lady Sulat. “Umm, yes.”
“I knew it! Poisoners and heartbreaks! You have a sister named Plum, don’t you?”
He’d called me a heartbreaker! I blushed and smiled. He’d wanted me.
Sorrel glared at me down his thin nose. “You think it’s funny that she abandoned our engagement like that? I thought she wanted to marry me, not mock me.”
My mouth felt like stale flour. I still wanted to marry him. I’d kiss him right now if he leaned a little closer. I could still envision us in a kitchen somewhere, chopping leeks and laughing at each other. “She...”
“She what?”
Osem and Moss both stood back, watching with amusement.
I clenched and unclenched my hands. What could I say? That I—no, that Plum—still wanted him? That there was hope for our marriage?
There wasn’t. Not unless I lived. Not unless I could entrust him with the secrets that drove us apart—or my whole family would be executed for treason.
I couldn’t risk that. Not yet. Not ever. Plum died the night Dami ran away.
“You wouldn’t have liked her anyway,” I mumbled. Saying those words felt like vomiting obsidian knives.
“Then she shouldn’t have played with me! Tortured me!” he shouted, l
oud enough to be heard inside the building and out.
I kept my voice at a more reasonable level. “Torture? The engagement’s broken not a whole month and you’re cavorting with some other girl in the kitchens.”
“You make it sound like a scandal. We’re betrothed.”
“I heard.” I didn’t bother hiding every ounce of hate I had for that twit.
His jaw clenched. I braced for another outburst, but he swallowed hard. “Not that I owe you any explanation, but Violet’s the girl I was always supposed to marry. My father trained her father in the palace kitchens, and chose Palaw to be his successor. When Master Chef Palaw himself retired to see Red Lord Osem into exile, he asked my father to do the honor of picking the next Master Chef. They have the deepest respect for each other.
“But Violet has no love of cooking, so for years, I refused. I accepted Plum, a girl below my rank because I could imagine us together—chopping leeks in the kitchens and laughing. I wanted a wife who was my equal.”
My chest felt like an egg shell under a block of granite. He’d imagined our future exactly as I had.
“But I was wrong to refuse Green-ranked Violet for so long. She may not have any talent as a chef, but she’s faithful and I’ll love her until the day I die. I’m glad I have her. That I wasn’t left grieving for long.”
From the bitterness in his tone, he still grieved.
“As soon as I can manage,” Sorrel continued, “I’ll be a married man. The mistake of trusting your fickle, yellow-ranked sister will be a distant memory. What’s Plum’s excuse?”
Acidic pain laced his every syllable. I wanted to ease his heart with the truth and cook him something sweet.
“How should I know what Plum was thinking?” However much it hurt, I shifted so I could stare him straight in the eye. “But I promise you, she’s not off gallivanting with some young man. She was crying when I left for my post. Shame on you for fawning over someone else so soon.”
Sorrel shook his head. “Shame on me? For doting on my betrothed? No.” He dusted the front of his shirt. “Maybe I don’t know Violet well. Maybe she isn’t the accomplished chef I dreamed of marrying. But she’ll be my wife and so I’m going to cherish her.”