by Jill Braden
“Splendid.”
Her forlorn servants were gathered in the sparse shade of a palm tree. Piles of luggage surrounded them. Khyram dug the toe of his boot into the sugary sand. She despaired that everything would be left to her, but Kyam finally stopped peering off into the distance and focused. He spoke to native men lounging about by the station and arranged for them to carry the luggage to the compound. She was now quite pleased with him.
“As soon as we’ve settled in, I’d like for you to arrange an introduction to Lady QuiTai,” she said.
Kyam seemed to have swallowed yet another fly. “Lady QuiTai?”
“Grandfather wants me to have tea with her.”
“Tea?” He didn’t seem to know if he wanted to laugh or cringe.
“I’ve heard so much about her. I assume she already knows I’m coming. She seems to have excellent sources of information.”
Kyam lost the battle with his control and laughed out loud, though not unkindly. “She most assuredly knows you’re here. She’s the woman who stopped Khyram from taking an unexpected swim.”
“Oh, the green sarong! I should have known.” Nashruu stood on her tiptoes and peered back at the wharf. She felt stupid for not realizing to whom she’d been talking. Somehow she’d expected the infamous QuiTai to be more intimidating. Haughty. And much taller. Instead, QuiTai had been polite, even though she’d clearly known who Nashruu was.
Her cheeks burned under her palms as she tried to hide her shame. She’d actually told QuiTai she might hire her as a servant. Grandfather would be furious. Had QuiTai been insulted? She’d seemed amused, but not angry.
“Do you see her?” she asked Kyam.
His eyes swept over the crowd. He tensed. The change on his face frightened her. He looked too much like Grandfather.
She couldn’t tell where he was looking. She looked over the sailors and dock workers but couldn’t see anything that would anger him. Mityam Muul, a fellow passenger from the Golden Barracuda, shuffled down the gangplank, but an elderly legal scholar wasn’t anything to get upset about. Besides, she doubted Kyam knew the man. Her gaze continued over the crowd.
She sucked in her breath.
Captain Voorus was standing behind a stack of crates at the entrance of a warehouse. She hadn’t expected to see him yet. Why hadn’t she seen him on the wharf?
He bent down as if listening intently to someone.
The crowd parted enough to show her a flash of virulent green. Jealousy surged over her as Lady QuiTai placed a finger against Voorus’ lips. It was such an intimate gesture. He bent closer to her face. Were they kissing?
Kyam’s jaw clenched as he, too, watched the couple.
QuiTai caressed Voorus’ cheek. He captured her hand in his and pressed it to his heart. Nashruu gasped at the anguish on his face. He tipped back his head and laughed, but she knew it could only be bittersweet.
She would have given anything to hear what they said. She wasn’t prepared for this. Her corset strangled her as she fought for her breath.
Khyram tugged on her hand. “Mama, what’s wrong?”
She forced a smile onto her face. Her hands shook as she opened her little coin purse and drew out a perfumed lace square. “It’s the heat, darling.” She waved the lace before her nose.
Voorus and QuiTai peered around the crates before emerging from behind them. As they walked down the wharf, they made no effort to hide that they were having a conversation, so why had they ducked behind the crates?
They stopped in front of Mityam Muul. For a moment, she thought they’d parted so the elderly man could hobble by, but from her gestures, QuiTai was introducing the men to each other. Then she gently took his arm, and Voorus picked up Mityam’s valise. They headed toward the funicular.
“What the hell is she doing with a man like that?” Kyam growled.
Nashruu wasn’t sure if he meant Voorus or Mityam. She wondered about both. Mister Muul had said nothing on the trip over about working for the most notorious woman on the island. Their spies had never mentioned that Voorus had taken a lover, much less QuiTai. They’d been too busy trying to catch Kyam in her bed.
Grandfather would want to know about all of this.
Chapter 2: The Governor’s Favor
Kyam crushed the invitation he’d been writing into a ball and tossed it in the wastebasket under his desk. He reached for another thick card embellished with the colonial government’s chop in gold leaf – another waste of money they didn’t have. He dipped his brush into the ink tray and tried again to find the words that would bring QuiTai to him. Something that wouldn’t arouse her suspicions. Something polite.
He splashed a thick, angry line across his latest attempt. Polite wasn’t coming easily for him.
He dropped the card into the trash with the others. The brush clattered against the crystal ink tray as he set it down. He put his feet up on his desk and leaned back to stare up at the delicate gold filigree in the center of the ceiling, something he did for hours most days. He hadn’t changed anything in the office since he’d become governor. The fussy, overstuffed furniture reminded him of his mother’s salon, but he couldn’t be bothered to replace it. After all, he didn’t intend to stay.
Last night, he’d received a communication from his old masters in Intelligence. They wanted him to recruit QuiTai to work for Thampur. A simple matter, they seemed to think. They had no idea what they were asking.
Unless he counted shouting at her earlier today, he hadn’t spoken to her since the rice riot. Levapur was a small town, so it wasn’t as if he could avoid her entirely, but he could nod curtly and move on. She didn’t seem to care that she was being shunned, though, which made it pointless.
He tapped his bottom lip.
How was he supposed to convince her to become an agent for Thampur? She hated the Thampurians. She’d never forgiven them for stealing her people’s land or for the injustices heaped upon the Ponongese by the colonial government. She only had one loyalty, and that was to the Devil.
Leaning forward again, he picked up the brush. It hovered over the card.
Convincing her to work for Thampur would be simple compared to writing this invitation. The first meeting with her would not go well. She’d smile coldly at him. She’d give him that look. He might as well get the humiliation over with, but how? Nearly a year of silence made it awkward.
Except for the dwindling stack of invitations and the inkwell, Kyam’s wide desk was clear. He’d stashed his reports in the cabinets behind his desk, but if she came now, it would look as if he didn’t do anything all day. She didn’t need to know that he was idle.
He spun around and opened the drawer under the map of the Thampurian Empire. Surely something would be safe enough to leave out. He put the dullest report he could find on his desk.
He spread the papers around artfully.
I’m using props, he thought with disgust. QuiTai would mock him for that, because she could always tell. He shoved the papers away.
What if she refused to answer his invitation? He had to talk to her. She was his only hope.
He buried his face in his hands.
He’d known better than to get involved with her, but he’d done it anyway. He’d thought he could walk away. Instead, somehow, she’d crept under his skin. No, not under his skin. Her hold on him went much deeper than that.
His superiors shouldn’t have asked him to do this. They’d said her services were essential. He’d told them it would be useless to try to recruit her and that he wouldn’t attempt it. He had folded his arms across his chest. He’d been adamant. But they’d known his price: he could return home if he delivered her to them.
They didn’t seem to understand that they had to offer her something in return for her services too. Did those fools think she’d be so flattered by their interest that she’d say yes? If they thought he knew her price, they were wrong.
This meeting was going to be brutal. She’d draw his soul’s blood and leave wounds that
might never heal.
~ ~ ~
A restless murmur rose from the marketplace below Kyam’s office. Something had the shoppers upset. Things would calm down in a few hours, on the surface, but the tension never fully went away.
If only his people would understand that the rice riot had irrevocably changed Levapur. They couldn’t keep pretending that they could carry on as they had before. He’d have to start drumming that message into his fellow Thampurians soon – but right now, he had to figure out how to phrase his invitation to the woman who had sent that seismic shift rippling through the town.
Lady QuiTai, I know this invitation will come as a surprise...
Except nothing surprised her, ever.
His office door flew open. The brush blotted the last word as he fumbled it.
QuiTai herself stood on the threshold. She never simply walked into a room; she made an entrance.
It was as if he’d spoken of the devil and summoned her. Did she have a spy in his office? Indignation followed swiftly on the heels of shock. How dare she barge in unannounced?
Like the halo of light around a jellylantern, an aura of power surrounded her. Others reacted to the space her personality devoured, but he knew from experience to keep his eyes on its nucleus.
Earlier this morning, she’d been dressed for business in the newest Ingosolian fashion. What did it mean that she was now wearing a lumpy sarong? Wasn’t this business? Was she insulting him?
What was she doing here? It was eerie how she seemed to anticipate the future. Had she known he’d planned to send for her today?
Her lips parted slightly. A frisson of anticipation invigorated him. Any moment now, the verbal battle would begin. He had the sensation of rousing from a long sleep, of shaking off a lethargy. Her presence was electric. He’d forgotten the rush he got from sparring with her.
Soldiers appeared in the doorway behind QuiTai, jostling for position. No Ponongese was allowed to walk through the government building unescorted.
“Only five guards? It seems the militia vastly underestimated you,” he said.
He’d practiced that tone in so many daydreams. Light, pleasant, slightly teasing. It was supposed to show there were no hard feelings. It was supposed to make her pause.
She hardly seemed to have heard him. Then, as if someone had thrown a switch, she indulged him with a tight smile.
“It’s time we had a little chat, Governor Zul.”
Her mouth had no business caressing his name like that. The silky insinuation in her voice traveled across his skin and down– Kyam cleared his throat and scowled at her.
She walked toward his desk but did not sit. She turned to the soldiers flanking her. “Thank you, gentlemen. You may go,” she said coolly, as if they were hers to command.
“You’re dismissed,” he told them. “Please, Lady QuiTai, have a seat,” Kyam said more courteously, indicating a chair.
Her eyes slid sideways and remained there until the door closed behind the soldiers.
He hoped she’d say something cruel to him, so he would feel better about the confrontation they were about to have. It didn’t matter what, as long as it made it okay for him to rage back and then demand a favor from her.
He didn’t feel angry at this moment, though. He didn’t feel worried about her anger either – because she was here, with him, and the old feeling of adventure was back – and something more. That was part of her charm. Calamities always followed in her wake, but she was impossible to resist.
Her hands lay folded in her lap, but at any moment she might flick her long black braid over her shoulder or smooth her sarong. She might smile mockingly at him. He drew a deep breath, hoping to catch the spiced scent she wore at the hollow of her throat, but she was too far away.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” He sat down and nudged the wastebasket under his desk with the toe of his boot. He hated the way he sounded. He’d become an Intelligence officer to escape the starched formality of his mother’s salons, but here he was, talking as if he were back in Thampur, wearing a velvet sherwani jacket and holding a silver-tipped walking cane.
“We need to talk about the ludicrous new law forbidding my people to assemble,” she said.
He clasped his hand together on his desk. “I regret that we cannot.”
“It was a serious mistake when your Grandfather first enacted it, and an even worse idea to bring it back. Normally I’d blame Chief Justice Cuulon, but he seems to have your support.”
“It doesn’t matter what I say. Cuulon controls the laws.” It was true. There was nothing he could do.
“Arresting my people for gathering, even in the marketplace, and especially on festival days, is an error you’re going to regret. It’s the first step down a very dark path.”
It dawned on Kyam that, after all, she had no idea he’d been about to invite her to come see him. What a relief. She wasn’t clairvoyant. She wasn’t spying on him. This visit was a coincidence.
“I cannot discuss it with you.” It made him strangely happy to deny her.
“I thought you wouldn’t. Coward.”
The insult didn’t dampen his relief. “I’m quite busy,” he said dismissively, covering his reaction.
She rolled her eyes.
“Unless you have something else to say to me, Lady QuiTai, it’s time to leave.”
He was bluffing, of course. They had barely started, and she’d already given him leverage to use against her. She wanted the law repealed; he wanted her soul for Thampur. Could it possibly be this easy? He felt almost giddy.
“I had somewhere else to be today. Unfortunately, circumstances forced me to delay my plans. As you can imagine, I don’t care to be inconvenienced like this. We’ve lost enough time to your nonsense already. It’s time for you to stop sulking,” she said.
His jaw dropped. He’d forgotten how blunt she could be, and how rude. “I have not been sulking!”
She made an offhand little noise of disagreement that set his teeth on edge.
He disciplined himself to a reasonable tone. “I’ll admit I was angry about the rice riot and being forced to take this office. I’m not as quick as you, but I finally pieced it together. Grandfather had you neatly trapped. You didn’t have many options. I understand why you chose to betray me.”
She clasped her hands together and batted her eyelashes theatrically like a pantomime princess admiring her hero. “So all is forgiven. You have no idea how much better I’ll sleep tonight.” Her hands dropped as her face settled into a darker expression. “Like the dead.”
This reminded him of the old days – back before they’d worked together, when they’d been bitter enemies. He didn’t like it. What he longed for was that magical sliver of time when they’d been allies in their search for the Ravidian bioweapons farm. Their lives had been in peril, but working together had been thrilling.
It felt as if his chance to bargain with her was slipping away. He needed to remind her that she’d come to ask him for a favor.
“I don’t see that the law harms your people. It’s only applied when crowds are deemed to have a potential for violence.”
The waters were chummed. All he had to do was wait. Any moment now, she’d jump to her feet and lecture him on all the ways he was wrong. Any second now, she’d lose her temper. She’d rail against injustice and the militia and... She wasn’t moving. If she wasn’t going to demand he change the law, how could he negotiate with her?
“You don’t wish to discuss the assembly law. You won’t admit you’ve been sulking since the rice riot. I see no further need to talk,” she said.
No! This wasn’t supposed to happen. She never gave up that easily. This was one of her games. It had to be. Despair washed over him. What was she up to? How had she slipped through his fingers?
“Is there anything else I can do for you, Lady QuiTai?” He hoped he didn’t sound desperate.
She mulled over something. His spirits cautiously edged up, wave
red, and then tried to rise still further as he watched her for the slightest hint of what she was thinking. He leaned closer.
Her shoulders lifted in a slight shrug. “I almost hesitate to mention it.”
Sure she did.
The words seemed to prick her lips as she spoke them. “There is a small matter of murder.”
What murder? He didn’t know about any recent murders. His mind raced but got nowhere. Family lore held that his great-grandfather had once escaped a sinking boat with only a sock and a candlestick in his hands; Kyam felt as if he didn’t even have a sock.
He didn’t recall hearing about any murders of note recently, but official reports took weeks to reach his desk, and since he’d become governor even gossip seemed to bypass him. It was entirely possible she knew about something he didn’t. It was also entirely possible she was the murderer.
If he gave a flippant response, maybe she wouldn’t see that he didn’t know what she was talking about. “Small? Since when is murder a small matter?”
Contempt sparked in her odd eyes. “The way your militia is handling the investigation, one might think they’ve decided murder doesn’t matter. I’m glad to know that you still take it seriously.”
“What investigation?” he asked. He didn’t know of any investigations. If he had, he might have helped. It would have given him something useful to do.
“What investigation, indeed, Governor.”
There was still a chance he could bluff his way through this. “Well, you know…” He tried to think faster than he talked, but he needed more time. “The militia are soldiers, not police. Their job is to defend Levapur from foreign invaders. They aren’t trained in the art of detection.”
“Exactly. So why don’t you put your police force on the case instead? Oh, that’s right. You still haven’t created one.”
He jabbed a finger toward her, but stopped himself before he raised his voice. The important thing to remember was that he needed a favor from her. Pride be damned. He wanted his freedom. He settled back in his chair, lowered his hand, and tried to look like a hapless civil servant. “I’ve been busy.”