by E. J. Beaton
There was no way any attackers downriver would fail to notice a craft decorated with bright colors, an ice-bear, and a leopard, yet Cassia looked so pleased that Lysande managed to conjure a smile. It served you well to smile when you did not know if there was still a crack between you and a colleague, to scatter sand over whatever fissures might remain and pretend that suspicion had been buried beneath the grains; yet Lysande did not have to search hard to find an expression to suit the circumstance. As she took in the grin brightening Cassia’s face, her own heart juddered in her chest. While the Irriqi and Dante boarded their boat, she walked over to Raden.
“My horse is still sleeping off the gallop. It’s been quite a ride, since your letter. Feels as if I spent most of it jolting around on a stubborn child with hooves. At least I won’t be wrangling a mule for the next leg of the journey, unlike some . . . Fortituda take pity on them.” He looked more tired than he sounded.
“I still wonder if two hundred guards will be enough,” she said, low enough for only him to hear. “Telling Jale might be wise, too.”
“Prince Chamboise’s uncle doesn’t have a reputation for welcoming Axium Guards.” Raden looked darkly at a pair of Lyrians. “He tried to turn one of my officers away from Lyrian territory with her whole legion, last year. Better not to risk more, if you’re asking me.”
Derset came to her side and nodded cordially to Raden. Lysande watched Raden’s face, but if there was a knowing look or the slightest hint of disapproval, she did not detect it; of course, it seemed to her that the mark of certain private activities with her advisor must be stamped across her face. Yet she had kept her façade up, had she not? And the way Raden had snuck a glance at her entourage told her that he was more concerned with what he had raised with her when they last spoke—she had not forgotten that remark about power sitting on her easily, like a mantle.
Derset leaned forward to converse with Raden about his journey, making inquiry after inquiry: Was Captain Hartleigh enjoying the mild eastern air? Had he found adequate time to leave instructions for the officers who were maintaining order in Axium? Only when Raden was in full flow of discourse about the effects of the wind on their impending voyage did Derset’s glance stray toward Lysande. The style of it was almost formal, if you missed the affection couched within.
She decided not to tell Raden or Derset what she had learned from Charice; time was needed to work through the implications, no matter how tempted she was to share.
The Axiumites filed along the bank to the second vessel. The topsails of the craft, fashioned from gold cloth, blazed in the morning sun; the mainsail billowed sapphire blue, with a spearfish embroidered on it, and she saw that each prow bore swirls of pearl. Beside a sail with a Rhimese cobra, another sail had been embroidered with the Axium crown and letters in silver thread:
COUNCILLOR PRIOR
ORPHAN PRINCESS OF AXIUM
Lysande stared, and turned. “Jale!”
The Lyrian prince looked up from where he was chatting with two women in feather-light outfits and waved to her.
“Was this your idea?” Lysande called.
“Thought you’d like it!”
“I’m not a—” But she saw how he was smiling and sighed. “Never mind.”
“I think there’s not enough silver on the design, though. We should have added a border of crowns, and a new crest of your own—and a dash of diamond thread, of course.”
“Diamond thread would suit you better, Your Highness. It shines brightly, no matter how it is used.”
Jale’s smile gave way to open beaming. He nearly knocked into one of the noblewomen as he turned back.
Lysande happened to catch Dante’s eye, on the next ship, and received the full blast of his approving stare, which she had only recently learned to distinguish from his disapproving stare. She suspected that a compliment to Jale had bought her some good will.
If it had not been for the archers forming a solid border around the deck and perching themselves by the prow, she might have felt nervous as they pulled away. They made quick progress, to the whistles and cries of the sailors in the rigging; the northern half of the Grandfleuve carved through largely uninhabited scrub, and the weather, though warm, did not build to a southern pitch. The Council had the river mostly to themselves, the archers keeping guard, and Lysande spied no suspicious figures on the banks. She slipped down to her room, ducking her head beneath the low doorway, and drew out her daggers, ordering Derset to fend off anyone asking after her.
Since she and Litany had practiced with weapons last night in the ruined Montinetti Castle in Rhime—an arrow shot across the floor here, a rapier swung over the marble curls of a bust there, their banter cobbled together from advice, comparisons, and jokes—she felt invigorated. Now, she threw a dagger at the board Raden had set up on the wall, concentrating on landing the blade in the middle. The hardest thing about throwing daggers was not hitting the target—it was doing so quickly, flicking her wrist and sending the blade flying out of instinct rather than calculation. She tried to call on Sarelin’s training. Litany, as she had expected, had proven to be an excellent shot, and Lysande worked on copying Litany’s firm stance from their practice last night.
The crew amused themselves by gambling with the Axium and Lyrian guards, and even a few of the nobles rolled dice on the deck. The Rhimese set up their tactos-boards at the rear end of the boat, staring each other down. Their leader did not take part in their silent war, and Lysande searched the ship for him in vain. It should have been relief that she felt, surely, rather than disappointment; she was only seeking to debate the Astratto Formulas’ workings with Luca, she tried to tell herself. Not looking to study the soft underside of his jaw.
She joined Jale, who was looking out at the water without seeming to see it, his gaze sweeping across every so often to the other ship. Over a few cups of cinnamon-spiced tea, she insisted that he tell her about the arts of the delta.
“I go in for the choir, myself—but when you see the palace dancers perform the Song of Sun, well, you know you’re alive.”
“Do they really climb over each other’s shoulders and form steps?”
“Oh yes. You needn’t sound so astonished, you know; we are quite limber in the south. My mother used to dance every year in her own jubilee, with dark wings fixed to her back, surrounded by white-winged dancers of every age and shape, recreating the tale of the first messenger doves. She had a famous partner from the dancing school—a young man who leaped and twirled around her more gracefully than any other performer.”
“She sounds a Lyrian ruler indeed,” Lysande said.
“When I asked her why dancing was so important, she would quote the poet Verlaude: that if a princess can leap and slide on stage, she can sidestep in a courtroom, and if a prince can dance before a crowd, he can win his opponents’ hearts. Of course,” Jale gave her a sideways look, “my mother was more concerned with winning bodies, for the most part.”
“I take it you have not been tempted to traverse the same path?”
“There is but one deer for me. That’s how you Axiumites put it, isn’t it? Love and the chase are the same to your poets. Sometimes, I wonder if I am the pursuer or the quarry . . .”
He glanced out across the water. It took a moment for him to notice that Lysande was attending his words, but he showed no inclination to finish the sentence.
They shared stories about their cities, and as the time grew, so did their ease with each other; when Lysande told a joke about Axiumites trying to make a river flow on time, Jale laughed heartily at the punchline. Although his melancholy seemed to have mostly dispersed, at one point she noticed him gazing at Dante on the next ship. The First Sword did not look his way. Jale’s demeanor seemed to droop slightly, and Lysande noted it.
With some reluctance, she looked down to see a bird landing on her arm. The speckled head of Three’s mes
senger nudged her, and she took the envelope from Cursora’s beak. The dove soared back into the clouds.
Lysande made her way down into the hammocks, pushing past guards clutching their stomachs and cooks chopping vegetables, until at last she found the door to her box-like chamber. The dimensions seemed to have been intended for someone much shorter than her.
My dear,
Congratulations on your new plan.
A surge of relief passed through her. Three was not furious, after all.
But I am afraid we have reason to be concerned about your safety. Elementals whose voices never sound in the halls of power . . . these in anger outrank the most envious of nobles.
Nothing is certain; only hints. We will investigate. Keep your eyes and ears open. With warm regards from a warming clime,
3
She folded the paper up, unfolded it, and read it again. Gratitude filtered through her mind, tempered by frustration. Would it have hurt him to explain how and why her safety was at risk? Be clear, damn you. A poisoner? A party of archers? A great rock on the river-bed?
Though she knew what she really wanted to write: Tell me everything you know of Sarelin and Mea Tacitus together. Bad or good. The locket bulged inside the inner lining of her doublet. It seemed to grow heavier as she dwelled on the thought of the White Queen.
She locked the letter in a chest and strode out. In the room at the end of the corridor she found Derset and Litany hunched over a table, and together they shared a half-bottle of pepperwine—the Lyrian wine, with glittering peppercorns mixed through it, left an aftertaste that was half-sweet, half-spicy, and entirely memorable—while Derset recounted a few tales from the delta. She could not help smiling at a fable about a drunken captain who mistook a crocodile for her horse. One lingering glance reminded her of how Derset’s skin had felt warm against hers as they lay on the blood-red bedsheets in the Painter’s Suite, but she had to put that comfort behind her. It was easy to fall into a pattern, and she did not need another dependency.
As Derset was beginning to describe Princess Ariane Chamboise’s duel against Captain Rodrillaud of Bijon—“the handsomest duel that ever was fought, with swords that gleamed blue with sapphires”—a roar of voices cut him off.
“What in the Three Lands was that?” Lysande said.
They all raised their eyes to the roof.
“Your reception, my lady.”
The dice had stopped, and feet were moving about on deck. Lysande emerged to find everyone pressed to the starboard rail. Derset kept a careful distance from her as they made their way through to the front. A platform balanced on stilts, further down the riverbank, and she took in several hundred women, men, and children, all of them yelling and waving. No city colors daubed the throng, only rags in drab hues.
She turned at the sound of her name. Luca was beckoning her from the rear, Tiberus coiled on his shoulder like a dark epaulet. Finally, he stood above-deck.
“Word travels fast,” Lysande said, stopping by his side.
“When you’ve little to talk about but your next meal, word travels like a flaming dove in search of water. I expect that since the Council was formed, that lot’ve been hoping for a glimpse of us.”
“They are not from the cities, by the look of them.”
“Villagers from the central scrub,” Jale said, coming alongside them. “Bone people, my mother used to call them. They have so few possessions that they sell the bones of their dead to traders. Insufferably hard existence, between Lyria and Rhime. My mother said it was a funny thing that in a country with so many leaders scrapping over land, there could be a place that no city-ruler was allowed to claim.”
“I fail to deduce the humor.” Luca gazed out at the crowd.
Staring in the same direction, Lysande could well believe Jale’s remarks. The same plague that had whittled the flesh of the elementals on the back of the executioner’s cart in Axium was present here, too: starvation exacted the same price from magical and non-magical alike. Bile rose inside her, the beginning of a nausea that was bred of guilt. She made to return to her party at the rail, but Luca’s fingers curled around her arm.
“Aren’t you eager to greet your reception party, Prior? We can’t deny the people their orphan princess.”
Although they were too far away to make out the deck in front, cries of “Irriqi!” told them that Cassia must be waving, and Lysande could feel a flutter in her chest at the thought of the attention. She straightened. She pictured Sarelin standing on the palace steps, a year ago, before the jubilee crowd, her shoulders squared to the people. Were these spectators not part of the populace she had claimed to rule for?
By the time they walked to the front of the boat, the faces in the crowd were close: couples barely old enough to be carrying children jostled for space behind the rail, old men and toothless women pressed together at the front, and a smattering of youths waved. Paper, Lysande thought, looking at their skin. They were made of paper. Easy to crumple.
Jale stepped forward to the prow. The cheers swelled to a roar as he began to wave back, beaming and calling out, greeting the crowd with a smile. The bone people shouted so hard that their throats must have ached, lavishing rounds of applause on the prince. When Jale returned to her side, Luca walked forward.
You never knew what a prince looked like until you saw him reflected in the faces of a crowd. The spectators shouted and hailed him, clapping, even holding their children aloft to see; Luca did not beam but greeted them in his own fashion, raising a single hand. Tiberus had coiled around his arm, and man and snake seemed to wave together. Lysande concentrated on the lines of his body, repressing her own anxiety.
“Surprised?” Jale said, at her side.
“He doesn’t seem an obvious choice for the people’s hero.”
“Oh, I don’t know; he’s got a dashing side to him, the mysterious prince of Rhime.”
“The mysterious prince who murdered his brother, you mean,” Lysande said, thinking of Dante’s remarks.
“It’s because he murdered Raolo Sovrano that they’re cheering.” Jale’s voice dropped to a murmur. “My mother told me about Luca’s brother.”
Lysande could not remember hearing any tales of Raolo. Sarelin’s comments about Rhime had usually encompassed the court and city, her dislike firing like a storm of arrows rather than a single shaft.
“Apparently, he was a Quester. I used to think that fanatics who believed in renewing the Conquest were all talk—Mother said they were zealots clutching their books—but Raolo was more of a doer. He rode through the poorest villages from time to time and shot anyone he accused of being elemental. He was ‘cleansing’ the realm.”
Lysande stared. “That’s madness.”
“Oh, I suspect he was all too much in command of his wits. Questers close in on their prey. Sometimes Raolo would pick on those who’d been rumored to have harbored elementals, or told fortunes, or even kept a chip of glass they called a magical stone.”
Lysande could not find a reply. She could see the girls and boys, lined up to be shot. It was one thing to believe the ludicrous notion that anyone who associated with magic was committing a crime against the state, but to actually carry out a punishment . . .
Sarelin could not have known about this. Raolo Sovrano must have hidden it from the crown. But Sarelin killed elementals, a voice in her head chanted. If Sarelin could conceal the fact that Mea Tacitus had spent her childhood working for her, relegated to the place of a servant in all practical ways, what else might she have tucked away from Lysande?
She stared out at the paper creatures before her.
Could she lead for these people—the people who could not afford to bribe her at a banquet? They were all over the realm, people like this. If not so dire in circumstance as the bone people, then they were at least old friends to poverty, and she had done . . . what? Stoppe
d the executions of elementals. What of housing? Of safety? Of food and water and crops?
The crowd on the platform were still cheering, and she realized with a jolt that they were waiting for her. “It’ll only take a minute,” Jale said gently. “You just have to wave.”
“Come on,” Luca said, sliding his palm beneath hers. “The scholar needs a hand.”
He made to escort her forward. The touch was molten, every bit of her aware of his skin. Instead of unclasping, she gripped his hand with every bit of force she could exert; his chin jerked toward her and she read the expression written on his face, before it disappeared, and as she understood the sharp excitement there, she squeezed harder. They were almost level with the platform now. The ship had slowed, and as Lysande turned to face the crowd, the sound washed over her: stomping, applause, and a single word.
“Council! Council! Council!”
“They like us,” Luca said. “Curious, but there you go. Give them a wave.”
All those faces stared at her; all those people, chanting, waiting for her response.
“I’m a commoner in royal clothes,” she said, quietly. “An impostor.”
“That is precisely the point, Prior. Everyone in that crowd looks at you and sees themself in a better doublet.”
The face of a boy at the front struck her as she gazed out. His cheeks had sunk so deeply that they seemed holes, the skin stretched tightly from jaw to ear like a skull wrapped in plaster, yet this skeleton was smiling. His eyes lit up as he saw her, and he bowed, exposing the vertebrae in his neck. Like the elementals, driven into hiding.
She did not pause to consider propriety. She bowed as low as she could in return, her hair falling down around her face and dangling, and she held the pose even when it began to hurt. The noise of the crowd dropped away, but when she straightened up, the storm of cheering swelled beyond anything that had come before.
“Prior! Prior! Prior!”
She looked back at Luca. His gaze was fixed on her, though whether it was with irritation or admiration, she could not be sure.