Aleesha shook her head, even now refusing to believe someone so powerful had robbed Luciena of her inheritance. “Your mother believed Princess Marla would take care of you, lass. I know that’s what your father promised.”
“Then more fool my mother and father.” Luciena walked across the room to the table and dropped the proceeds of the slave sale onto the desk. The purse landed with a dull thud. “Her Royal bloody Highness refuses to even acknowledge I exist. She married my father, extorted his fortune and his shipping business out of him with false promises of a grand future for his only child and then drove him to an early grave, leaving his bastard daughter and her court’esa mother to fend for themselves.”
She stared down at the pile of debts still left to pay. “That’s why we’re in such a mess, you know.
Mother kept waiting for a summons from the palace. She had us living like lords, waiting for an invitation that was never going to come.”
“Perhaps the princess doesn’t know—”
“Princess Marla knows everything that happens in Greenharbour,” Luciena scoffed, turning to look out the window. The street outside was deserted now. It was the hottest part of the day, and although it wasn’t officially summer yet, the heat was enough to drive people indoors until the sun passed its zenith.
“I’m sure your poor mother only did what she thought was best,” Aleesha insisted, obviously disturbed Luciena was speaking ill of the dead.
“I know,” Luciena sighed, leaning her head against the warm glass. “But what’s it got us besides a pile of debts I can’t jump over? Or repay?”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
Luciena shook her head, looking over at the letter that lay on the top of the pile on the desk. It was that letter, more than any other, that burned a hole in her gut. “There’s a difference between owing money and owing a debt, Aleesha. I can live with owing money, but to be unable to help my father’s only brother . . . that hurts more than anything else I’ve had to deal with lately.”
The slave glanced at the desk, and the letter from Fardohnya to which Luciena was referring, and shook her head. “You can’t be expected to take on the woes of every poor sailor in the world, Luciena.”
“The poor sailor you refer to is my uncle.”
“The uncle who fought with your father with every breath he took and never spared him a kind word in twenty years,” Aleesha reminded her mistress unsympathetically. “I don’t care what your father promised him, Warak Mariner had his chance to be a partner in your father’s business and threw it all away for some Fardohnyan fisherman’s daughter. If he’s in trouble now, it’s not your fault. Or your responsibility to make it better.”
“But the boy he wants me to help is my cousin.”
“Second cousin,” Aleesha corrected. “And he’s a Fardohnyan.”
“But he’s still family.”
Aleesha sighed heavily and placed her hands on her hips, frowning at her mistress. “Your uncle fought with your father, Luciena, before you were born and pretty much every day after. When he ran off with that woman, your father warned him he’d never have anything else to do with the Mariner family. He ran off with her anyway. That was his choice and, to be honest, I always secretly admired the man for throwing away so much for love. But now I’m starting to wonder about him, because here he is, with your poor mother barely cold in the ground—and when you can least afford it—suddenly in need of your help.”
“I’m sure the two events are unrelated.”
“Really? Convenient, don’t you think, that this urgent need for money to send his grandson to Greenharbour coincides with your mother’s death?”
“My uncle claims his grandson has some sort of magical talent; that he needs to be apprenticed to the Sorcerers’ Collective.”
“And I’m the demon child,” her slave scoffed.
“You think he’s lying?”
“I think any man who writes to a niece he’s never met the day after her mother dies in the mistaken belief she’s inherited her father’s fortune, asking for money to save a cousin she doesn’t even know exists, is suspect.”
“Then what do you suggest I do?”
“Eat,” the slave ordered firmly. She took Luciena’s hand and led her to the table before making her sit with a firm push. Aleesha shoved the pile of bills aside, along with the letter from Fardohnya and the full purse from the slave sale, and placed the cheese and the flatbread on the desk in front of her.
“And forget about your uncle.”
“That’s easy for you to say, Aleesha. But not as easy to do. Do you know what they do to sorcerers in Fardohnya?”
“All sorts of terrible things, I’m sure. But I don’t care, and neither should you. This Cory—”
“Rory,” Luciena corrected. “The boy’s name is Rory.”
“Whatever.” The slave shrugged. “The point is, he’s not your problem and you shouldn’t try to make him one. Now eat something. I’m sure everything will look better on a full stomach.”
Luciena did as the slave demanded. It was easier than arguing with her. She brushed her dark hair back behind her ears and picked up a slice of the stale flatbread. It tasted like parchment.
“Why?” Luciena asked through a mouthful of bread.
“Why what?”
“Why do things always look better on a full stomach?”
“People think better when they’re not hungry.”
“Do they? I wonder what magical properties are contained in bread and cheese that opens one’s mind to giant leaps of intuitive thinking.”
Aleesha stared at her for a moment and then frowned. “Just eat,” she said after a moment of puzzled silence.
“I’m sorry, Aleesha. I don’t mean to tease you. Do you have any idea about how I can buy us out of this mess, help my cousin and still manage to keep a roof over our heads?”
“You could marry.”
Luciena laughed at the very notion. “Marry who, for Kalianah’s sake? I’m baseborn, Aleesha. My father was a commoner, for all he was a wealthy man. And my mother was a court’esa. I have no dowry.
Any money I might have inherited from my father is either spent or in the hands of the Wolf-blades. No rich man would have me, and it sort of defeats the purpose to marry a poor man.”
“Perhaps you could get a job?”
“I suppose. I’ve an education rivalling a Warlord’s heir,” she agreed. “Of course, I can’t imagine who would hire me, or what they’d hire me for. All the jobs I’m qualified for are the kind they reserve for sons and heirs. And even if I found a job tomorrow, it would be too late to help Rory. Do you think I should try to get an audience with the High Arrion? Maybe she could speak to the Fardohnyans?”
“And tell them what?”
“I don’t know,” Luciena replied uncertainly. “But surely, if the High Arrion intervened on his behalf . . .”
“Then she’d be signing the child’s death warrant, I suspect. Advertising your magical talent by having the High Arrion of the Sorcerers’ Collective in Hythria asking after you isn’t a terribly bright idea in Fardohnya.”
“See! You think he’s in danger, too,” she accused.
Aleesha shook her head. “Even if I did, it doesn’t matter. You’ve got as much chance of getting in to see someone like Lady Alija as I have of marrying the High Prince. And even if you could get in to see her, there’s no guarantee she’d be willing to help you. You’re not the sort of person she usually associates with.”
“Couldn’t you try to be a little optimistic, Aleesha? Just this once?”
“I’ll embrace optimism, my lady, as soon as you start embracing reality,” the slave suggested tartly. “Eat the crusts, too. We’ve not the money to waste these days that you can afford to throw anything away.”
“What’s embracing reality supposed to mean?” Luciena demanded, munching determinedly through a mouthful of tasteless bread.
“I mean,” Aleesha scolded, “you need to get over the
se strange notions you have about your relatives, my lady. Or the lack of them. You’re the only child of a nameless slave and a man who cut himself off from the rest of his family. All the wishing in the world isn’t going to alter that. There’s no big family waiting to embrace you, Luciena, and you’ve got to stop hoping there’s one out there somewhere, looking for you.”
“But—”
“Face the truth, lass. There’s no point trying to find a way to help some boy you’ve never laid eyes on in the hope it’ll give you what you’re looking for. You need to deal with our problems, not the problems of some cousin you hadn’t heard of until a few days ago. For that matter, if Warak Mariner kept his promise to never mention your father’s name again, your cousin probably doesn’t even know you exist.”
Luciena sighed, wondering if her childish secret dreams really were interfering with her judgment. Aleesha was making a frightening amount of sense. “I suppose the timing is a little suspicious.”
“Damn right, it is.”
“It just doesn’t feel right to do nothing.” She swallowed the last of the bread, her mouth dry. “Is that cider?” she added, indicating the glass on the tray.
“Aye,” Aleesha said, walking to the side table to pick up the glass. “It’s the last of the barrels your mother bought before . . .”
Luciena looked up as Aleesha’s voice trailed off. She was staring out of the window. “Aleesha?”
The slave didn’t move.
“Aleesha! What’s the matter?”
“Are you expecting visitors?” she asked, her eyes fixed on the street below.
“No.” Luciena leaned back in her chair and sighed wearily. “More debt collectors, I suppose?”
“Not unless you owe someone at the palace money,” the slave replied.
“What?” All thoughts of her long-lost uncle and her Fardohnyan cousin forgotten, Luciena jumped to her feet and hurried to the window, pushing Aleesha aside to see who was out there.
To her astonishment, there were three horsemen dismounting in the cobbled street in front of her house. They wore the gold and white livery of the Wolfblade House. Palace Guards. Or, to be more precise, the High Prince’s personal guards. Luciena was dumbfounded.
“Maybe that summons is going to come after all,” Aleesha suggested, glancing at her mistress.
“I seriously doubt that,” Luciena replied. “More likely they’ve been sent here to warn me.”
“Warn you?”
Luciena’s expression hardened. “To keep my head down. I imagine the last thing Princess Marla wants is the world reminded she has a stepdaughter born of a court’esa living not three blocks from her townhouse.”
“Look on the bright side,” Aleesha suggested. “That makes her family.”
Luciena smiled sourly. “The irony’s not lost on me, Aleesha.”
There was a pounding on the door as the officer in charge of the small detail announced their arrival with his gauntleted fist.
“Shall I open the door?”
Luciena thought about saying no. She wanted to. She wished she had the courage. But in the end she knew that even if she denied these men entry, it just meant that more of them would be back later. Three Palace Guardsmen she could probably handle.
“Let them in, Aleesha,” she ordered.
“Are you sure?”
She nodded. “I’m sure.”
The officer in charge of the palace detail left his two companions in the hall and saluted smartly as he stopped before Luciena, who was standing near the fountain that trickled cheerily into the near-empty pond at its base. It had been full of exotic fish once. Luciena had sold them not long after the horses to pay the butcher. Now just a few lonely goldfish swam in lazy circles around the pool.
The officer was young. Very young. Luciena judged him barely older than she was. Yet he wore the insignia of a lieutenant of the Palace Guard, a rank of no small responsibility. He was dark-haired, and quite tall with a not-unpleasant face; probably the son of some wealthy nobleman who’d bought him a commission in the Palace Guard to keep him out of trouble.
“You are Luciena Mariner?” he asked, looking around the reception hall on the ground floor with open curiosity.
Luciena had ordered Aleesha to bring her guest here. It was an imposing room with its Harshini-inspired fountain and its high-domed ceiling painted with a mural dedicated to the Goddess of Love, her mother’s favourite Primal God. Because of the murals, the reception hall didn’t look quite as empty as the rest of the house. The young man wasn’t fooled, however; she could see him taking a mental inventory of what must be missing from the room.
“I am,” Luciena replied with as much poise as she could muster.
“I have an invitation for you, Miss Mariner.”
“From whom?”
“Her Royal Highness, the Princess Marla,” the young man replied. “She requests that I pass on her sincere condolences for the loss of your mother, and asks if you would join her for lunch tomorrow, at her home, so she may discuss your future with you.”
Luciena had to bite her tongue to prevent herself screaming at the sheer gall of the invitation.
“Shall I arrive at the front door?” she asked with icy dignity. “Or would it be more appropriate if I sneaked in through the slaves’ entrance at the back?”
The officer seemed rather startled by her reply. “I beg your pardon?”
“Her Royal Highness has not seen fit to so much as acknowledge my existence until now, Lieutenant,” she told him. “I can only assume her shame at my baseborn status is the reason she ignored the vow she made to my father when they wed. I believe I can therefore confidently make the further assumption that the only reason she has chosen to acknowledge my existence now is because of the potential embarrassment I pose to her.”
Luciena expected the officer to be offended by her words, but inexplicably he smiled. “Maybe that’s something you should take up with Princess Marla, Miss Mariner.”
“And maybe I choose not to,” she replied stiffly. “What’s your name?”
“Lieutenant Taranger.”
“Well, Lieutenant Taranger, you may return to the palace and inform Her Royal Highness, the Princess Marla, that I am otherwise engaged.”
“You’re refusing her invitation?”
“You’re very quick, aren’t you?”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like some time to think about this?”
“Thank you, but no.”
“Very well,” he said, as if he wasn’t really surprised by her refusal. “I shall inform her highness of your reply.”
Without waiting for her to answer, the young man saluted sharply and turned on his heel, his highly polished boots echoing through the hall as he crossed the tiled floor. Luciena held her breath, half expecting him to turn around, half expecting him to order the house torched for the insult to the High Prince’s sister, but the young officer did nothing but order his men to fall in behind and left the house without another word.
Chapter 2
Jarvan Mariner, Luciena’s father, had been a commoner—a rough, ill-mannered, but essentially decent man. Elezaar the Dwarf hadn’t thought much about him since Jarvan had died more than six years ago, leaving Marla a widow for the third time, but now, as he waddled across the broad paved courtyard towards Marla’s office, he found himself thinking of little else.
It’s this business with Luciena, the dwarf decided, tugging on his jewelled slave collar as he walked. He must have put on weight recently. It felt tighter, more restrictive than normal, and the sweat trapped beneath the polished silver left an unsightly green mark on his neck.
A court’esa’s baseborn daughter was about to be welcomed into the palace as a member of the High Prince’s family, and the dwarf wondered how the young woman would react to her sudden change in fortune. It was a scandal that would be the talk of Greenharbour for months. Which was probably the reason Marla was taking this unprecedented step at this particular time. Any day now
she would be forced to announce where her son, Damin, was to be fostered. If people were busy talking about Luciena Mariner’s adoption, the announcement about Damin’s fosterage might slip by unremarked.
It was Elezaar who had identified the elderly (and conveniently unmarried) shipping magnate as a likely consort for the princess more than eight years ago—not long after the tragic and unexpected death of Marla’s second husband, Nashan Hawksword. With limited power as a widow, Marla was anxious to remarry and had set her court’esa the task of finding someone suitable.
The marriage had been laughably easy to arrange. No man in Hythria was going to turn down an offer from the High Prince’s only sister, and Jarvan Mariner was no exception. Despite his status as a confirmed bachelor, the owner of nearly a quarter of all Hythria’s shipping fleet was quite prepared to entertain the idea of a union with the newly widowed princess—especially when he learned the offer included a promise to legitimise his only child, arrange a noble marriage for her (an unheard-of boon for an illegitimate child born of a court’esa) and to ensure his daughter inherited his considerable fortune.
The old man had been well past sixty when they married. Slender and bald, with an unfortunate tendency to drool when he was tired, he had died peacefully in his sleep less than two years after the wedding, leaving Marla with a tidy bequest and, more importantly, control over his vast shipping empire, which the princess now held in trust for his daughter, until Luciena reached an age where she could marry and take control of the fortune herself.
That age had now come and Marla had set in motion the necessary steps to introduce her into the family. Her adoption was to be a wedding present to the girl, conditional, of course, on her choosing a husband Marla approved of.
“Elezaar!”
The dwarf stopped, shading his eyes against the sun, and turned to find Xanda Taranger hurrying along behind him, his hand on the hilt of his sword to stop it banging against his thigh.
Xanda Taranger and his older brother, Travin, were the sons of Marla’s long-dead sister-in-law, Darilyn. Orphaned as small boys, both of them had been raised in Krakandar by their uncle, Mahkas Damaran. Travin was still in Krakandar, preparing to take over his father’s estate in Walsark when he came of age. Xanda, as the younger son with no estate to inherit, had been invited by Marla to Greenharbour to take up a commission in the Palace Guard, an opportunity the young man had jumped at eagerly.
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