Guardian of the Crown

by Melissa McShane

  “Alone? You cannot speak our language, and outside the harems you will find few who speak yours.”

  “I know. But if I don’t get out of this place for a few hours, I’ll start climbing the walls, and I mean that literally. Don’t worry about me.”

  “I worry more for the city,” Alondra said with a wry smile. “Very well. We will continue this later.”

  Willow ran back to her room and rummaged through the closet looking for something simple to wear. Silk, fine linen, more silk, something trimmed in velvet…why wasn’t there anything sensible? Then she stopped with her hand wound into a gauzy scarf and laughed at herself. She wasn’t here as a thief, looking for a safe place to stay in whatever the Umberan equivalent of Lower Town was. She didn’t have to worry about hiding. Even so, she thought, selecting linen trousers, a long-sleeved shirt in pale rose, and a white headwrap, I’m not going out there in a robe it will be hard to run in.

  She managed to put on the headwrap in only a few tries, strapped her knife to her forearm, then examined herself in the mirror. She almost looked Eskandelic. Blue eyes were uncommon but not unheard of, but her fair skin wasn’t yet tanned enough by the sun and her cheekbones and eyebrow ridges weren’t prominent enough. At least her nose had stopped peeling. Well, it wasn’t as if she were trying to conceal her identity.

  She still found it easy to get lost in the many passages leading between the buildings of the Residence. The walls were all unadorned pink stone with few windows, cool and comfortable no matter how hot the day. Finally she reached a familiar walkway that led from her own rooms to the main house and strolled along, enjoying the smell of the sea breezes. The walkway turned into an open colonnade that overlooked the courtyard, and to the smell of the sea was added the faint whiff of horses from the adjacent stables.

  She began to hear strange noises, the thock of wood striking wood and the scuff of feet, and hurried along the colonnade until she could see down into the courtyard. Half a dozen men and two women dressed in sleeveless tunics and loosely-fitted trousers lunged and darted at each other, their wooden practice swords clashing and disengaging with incredible ferocity. One man grunted loudly enough to hear over the noise as his partner thwacked him in the stomach with the flat of her “blade.” Small clouds of reddish dust kicked up from the hard-packed earth of the courtyard obscured Willow’s vision slightly, but not enough that her eye wasn’t immediately drawn to Kerish, fighting another man in the far corner.

  Willow watched, breathless. She’d never seen him fight before, though she knew the kind of training he’d received as a child and a young man. Seeing him now…he moved gracefully, as if this were some dance, his weapon flicking here and there, never letting his opponent land a stroke. Gradually, he forced the other man back, a step at a time, until the man was nearly to the wall. He blocked the next swing, struck faster than Willow could follow, and then his opponent’s weapon was on the ground and Kerish had the blade of his sword pressed against the man’s throat. They stood like that for a moment, both breathing heavily, until the other man laughed and clapped Kerish on the shoulder. Kerish stepped back, shaking his head. He bent to pick up his opponent’s weapon and handed it to him.

  The man caught sight of Willow and nudged Kerish, who turned, sword still in hand. Willow felt an intense desire to hide, as if she’d witnessed something intimate and private. From that distance, Kerish’s expression was difficult to see, but he didn’t seem to be smiling, or frowning, just regarding her with that steady, familiar gaze. She put her hand on one of the columns to steady herself against an unexpected rush of desire.

  Kerish raised his sword to her in salute, still unsmiling, and her heart beat even faster. It was the gesture of a champion to his lady, a courtier’s salute. It threw her into such confusion that she turned and ran from the colonnade to the stairs without responding. She stood at the top of the stairs, out of sight of the courtyard, cursing herself. How rude, to spurn his gesture—but how could he behave as if nothing were wrong between them? She felt dizzy enough to sit on the top step and put her head between her knees. Was he mocking her? She wasn’t his lady, not anymore, wasn’t anyone’s idea of a lady. But at that moment she wished she were.

  She retreated all the way around the main building to the front and left by that route. The Residence’s front door was some distance back from the street, opening on the garden Willow had caught a few glimpses of from the upper floor galleries. A long covered walkway lined with bulbous white pillars extended from the front door to the gatehouse, but Willow took the opportunity to go into the garden and get a closer look at the frond-trees, trying to calm herself. Their trunks looked as if they’d been woven out of short, fat lengths of bark, and most of them bowed under the weight of their fronds. Barefoot, it wouldn’t be difficult at all to climb these trees.

  Willow walked around the Residence until she could see the windows of her new room, then estimated the distance between the walls and the nearest tree. Too close. Would the glass of the window, not made to open, be enough to deter an assassin? She’d have to come back later and test the theory.

  She took one last look at her window, then turned to look at the trees again. Her attention was caught by someone hurrying along the walkway, someone who moved furtively from pillar to pillar and therefore stood out as obviously as if she’d run its length, shouting and waving her arms. Her head and face were draped in a veil, a fashion Willow hadn’t seen outside the Conclave, and without thinking Willow set out to follow her. The woman was leaving the Residence, not entering it, and it was probably none of Willow’s business, but after the assassination attempt she was inclined to suspiciousness.

  Despite the woman’s obvious desire for secrecy, she was terrible at watching her surroundings for anyone following her, and Willow barely had to make an effort to stay concealed. The woman passed the Serjian gatehouse without being hailed—of course, she wasn’t trying to get in, but even so Willow expected at least to see the guards acknowledge her—and turned left. Willow wasn’t hailed either, though in her case she was sure it was because no one saw her. She ought to speak to Janida about the alertness of the guards. That explained a lot about how the assassin had been able to get inside so easily.

  The house—Residence?—next to the Serjian Residence was as elegant and huge as its neighbor, though built from creamy white stones instead of the pinkish-tan blocks she was now so familiar with. It, too, had a gatehouse flanking its driveway, which was paved with smaller cobbles than those of the road. The road itself was odd. The paving stones were too clean, the road completely empty of people except for her and the woman, and it unnerved Willow so much she began touching her left arm every few minutes, assuring herself that her knife was still there though she couldn’t perceive anyone she might need to use it against.

  She observed the houses more closely, the narrowness of the road, and realized it was a private road like the one leading to the palace in Aurilien rather than a public street. There were neighborhoods like this in Aurilien, little cities within cities, gated off from the rest of the capital. This made her less unsettled, since it made sense the people who lived here would control the traffic and keep undesirables out of their enclave, but knowing that by some definitions she was undesirable kept her from relaxing entirely.

  She followed the woman down the private road to a black stone arch, pointed at the top and wide enough for only one carriage to pass through at a time. Now Willow heard the noise of people, and carriages. She hadn’t realized how much she missed being in a city until that moment. She saw no guards at the black arch, which she found odd. Was the power of the principalities who lived beyond the gate enough to dissuade thieves? It certainly wouldn’t stop her. But then, she wasn’t likely to go in via the gate.

  Once past the black arch, the woman moved more freely, and Willow had to speed up to keep within sight of her. The street beyond the arch was paved with gray bricks the width of her two hands whose edges were rounded from centuries of t
raffic. The current traffic was doing its best to round off those edges further. Willow didn’t quite have to push her way through the crowds of pedestrians, but she was pressed closely enough that she was glad she’d left her belt pouch in the Residence. All she had in the pouch between her breasts was Tremontanan money, but this was a thriving center of trade, wasn’t it? Even if there weren’t moneychangers, which seemed unlikely, there was the Tremontanan settlement Rafferty had gone to. She could probably find a way to spend her money if she really wanted to. At the moment, she had more pressing concerns.

  The air was filled with the delicious smell of roasted meat and hot, rich Eskandelic coffee, khaveh, sweetened with burnt sugar, beneath which she could barely perceive the odor of animal waste. Umberan was as clean as Kerish had always said. The sound of hundreds of people all talking at once in Eskandelic really was like rainfall. In Aurilien, she’d have paid attention to the conversations with half her attention, listening for indications that someone was coming after her. Here, none of it made sense, and the chances of her picking out the few Eskandelic words she knew were vanishingly small, so she followed her quarry feeling as if she were caught in a hot, dry rainstorm. The woman continued to be oblivious to her presence.

  Willow kept one eye on the Jauderish, which dominated the skyline and provided a perfect landmark to keep her from getting lost, and tried not to think too hard about how easy it would be to scale the sides of some of these buildings. It was all the arches, and the balconies, and the jutting window ledges which bore colorful pots filled with trailing greenery, that made the idea so tempting. At street level, the doors were set into pointed or keyhole arches, every one of which was outlined in bright colored painted patterns, none of which matched each other. Willow examined a few, hoping to work out an underlying system, but it seemed they were all just expressions of the householders’ whims.

  The woman turned onto a smaller street, one which led to what Willow thought was a residential area. There were fewer people, and the narrow streets were empty of merchants and wagons. There were no windows at ground level, at least not facing the street, and the stone houses all butted up against each other the way they did in Aurilien, though these were much taller and narrower and brightly painted. Pots full of red flowers like tiny trumpets hung next to the upper windows, which were open to the breezes that came off the ocean. Gauzy fabric fluttered at many of them.

  The woman knocked at a blue door and finally looked around for someone observing her. Willow had been expecting this and turned toward another door, pretending to knock but covertly observing the woman. The blue door opened, and a man appeared. He was handsome, with dark blond hair and dark skin that contrasted nicely with it, and he put his hand on the woman’s shoulder as if in protection. He looked up and down the street before welcoming her in and closing the door.

  Willow immediately moved toward the door. Too bad there were no convenient windows. Now, how curious was she? She moved on down the street, looking for a back entrance, and found an even narrower street about five houses down that cut across the one she was on; it was practically an alley. It led to an actual alley that ran behind the houses where refuse was thrown, stinking of human waste and rotting food. So much for Umberan’s legendary sanitation. She picked her way through the muck, counting houses, and found no ground-level windows on this side either. Of course. Who would want to look out on this mess?

  She reached the rear of the house the woman had entered and looked around. It rose four stories into the air and had one window at each of them, all of them either open or without glass to block the breeze. Now she had to make a decision.

  She eyed the window immediately above. It would be hard to reach, and this wasn’t her city. If someone saw her apparently trying to break into this house, she could be in serious trouble. She didn’t know how Eskandelics punished thieves, but they couldn’t be more lenient than Tremontanans were. On the other hand, if this woman, whoever she was, had had some part in arranging the assassination, Felix’s safety could depend on Willow finding out the truth.

  She came to a decision and stripped off her shoes. The fronts of the houses had smoothly plastered finishes, but the backs were rough, unfinished red brick that had crumbled with time. Willow rubbed her hands on her trousers, then rubbed her palms together and began feeling around for a gap big enough for her to fit her fingers into. She only had to climb far enough to get her hands on the jutting windowsill, and if she didn’t see anything, well, she’d make that decision when she came to it.

  The stillness of the air, broken only by her heavy breathing as she climbed one painful inch at a time, made her feel as if she were moving through treacly water, as if the ground were trying to assert its hold on her. She kept moving, knowing from experience that stopping to indulge that feeling would only leave her trapped midway between her goal and the so-hard earth. She reached up and got a grip on the windowsill, shifted so she could put both hands on it, and found a couple of toeholds to help support her weight. Then she raised her head and peered over the sill into the room beyond.

  A couple of gauzy curtains blocked her view somewhat, but she could see a narrow bed covered with a multicolored woven blanket and a couple of floor pillows like the ones in the Serjian dining room. The door was just closing behind the man and the woman. The man had his back to Willow, blocking her view of the woman, who had her arms around him. They were kissing, feverishly, their hands working at disrobing each other as fast as possible. Just as Willow was about to turn away in embarrassment, the man swept the woman up in his arms and deposited her half-naked on the bed.

  Sweet heaven. Imara.

  Imara pulled the man down to lie atop her. He kissed her throat, began moving down her body, and Willow ducked away, her face hot. Imara. She hadn’t expected that. She made her way back down the wall and put her shoes on. Imara probably wasn’t plotting against Felix, but what was she doing? Aside from the obvious. Janida certainly didn’t know about this, and Willow doubted any of Imara’s majdrani knew either. A daughter of a principality, meeting with…it was tempting to imagine a forbidden love with a poor man of the streets, but for all Willow knew, he was of high rank and this was just where they met.

  She retraced her steps and headed back toward the Residence, not allowing her preoccupation to distract her attention from her surroundings. Telling the harem the truth…it went against every principle she had. And it was really none of her business what Imara did.

  On the other hand—she remembered something Rafferty had said once, about being nervous about other people’s secrets. If Imara was doing something she didn’t want her family to know about, who knew what she might be willing to do to keep that secret—including endanger Felix? Willow would have to find out more, possibly by talking to Imara herself. As if she didn’t have enough worries already.

  There were still no guards visible at the black arch or at the entrance to the Residence, and Willow considered sneaking into the guard tower just to prove a point, but decided against it. She would climb that tree near her window, decide whether something needed to be done about it, then join the family for supper. Maybe ungoverned heaven would give her inspiration. She could certainly use it.

  She crossed the grounds to stand at the base of the tree, then unfastened her shoes and rubbed one foot against her shin. The linen of her trousers had a slightly slick finish, and the sole of her foot slid before catching on the weave. Soft grass grew throughout the garden, but the ground beneath the frond trees was bare and gritty, with coarse grains that stuck to her feet. She wiped her other foot, then reached up as high as she could and grabbed hold of the trunk.

  Climbing was as easy as she’d anticipated. Willow shinned up the trunk until she reached the spot where the fronds emerged. The tree dipped and swayed, bending slightly under her weight, and she gripped the base of one of the fronds to steady herself. She was a foot or so beneath her window. The fronds brushed the side of the Residence, but when she tried to move furth
er, they bent alarmingly. They wouldn’t support anyone bigger than a child, and a child would have trouble reaching the window.

  “What are you doing?”

  Willow grabbed the fronds to steady herself and looked down at Kerish, who was dressed as casually as she was and sounded just as casual. He stood with one hand on the trunk and had his head tilted back, squinting against the sunlight. “I didn’t even think of the trees,” he said.

  “Is it ungrateful to say I don’t think much of the Serjian Principality’s security measures?” Willow said. If he was going to pretend the moment in the courtyard hadn’t happened, she was happy to do the same.

  “If it is, we’re both ungrateful. I just came back from the scholia and the guards at the gate didn’t challenge me.” He took a few steps back as she descended. “They’re not sufficiently paranoid.”

  “Neither were you, once.”

  Kerish shrugged. “I did listen to you, you know.”

  Willow brushed off her feet and bent to put her sandals on. The urge to say Not about the important things was compelling. Instead, she managed, “I never thought you’d need my midnighting skills.”

  Kerish was silent. She glanced up from her feet to see him looking away from her, into the distance, his jaw tight. “I guess,” he said, “there are a lot of things neither of us expected.”

  Willow rose and wiped her hands on her trousers, leaving pale streaks of dirt. “That’s true.”

  “Willow—” Kerish bowed his head. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry? For what?” For pretending you still care about me?

  “For not being with Felix last night. He would have died if you hadn’t returned just in time.”

  “Kerish, his safety isn’t your responsibility.”

  “Isn’t it? I saved his life once; I feel it’s my duty to keep him safe. And you—”

  “I can take care of myself. You know that.”