Guardian of the Crown

by Melissa McShane

  Muttering sprang up all through the funnel. Willow instantly regretted that last sentence. What if she’d undone whatever good work she’d managed? She could barely remember what she’d said. She made her way back to her seat and dropped into it gracelessly. Catrela again took her hand. “Well spoken,” she said in a low voice.

  “You mean the part where I implied you’re all cowards who bend to prevailing opinion?”

  “A chastisement well needed,” Janida said. “Leave now. You are not entitled to be present for the decision. But…you have our thanks.”

  It was a dismissal. Willow nodded and left the chamber, retracing the path they’d taken to climb a very long staircase until she was outside. The reception hall was in one of the buildings attached to the Jauderish, with a low roof that said, along with the stairs, that most of it was underground. It should have been cooler than it was; maybe that was all the women crammed into it. The sun was working its way toward becoming a brassy disk in the sky that broiled everything beneath it. Now Willow was sweating.

  She stood beneath one of the trees lining the street like a living wall, its fronds drooping as if they too were sweating in the heat. She wished she had her headwrap, but Janida had assured her it would only disorder her hair and make her look unkempt when she addressed the vojentas. The carriage had disappeared, and it probably wouldn’t take her back to the Residence without the rest of the harem. She should go back inside, but she felt drained, both by the heat and by the confrontation, so she leaned against the curved, ridged bark of the tree and closed her eyes.

  With her eyes shut, the sounds of the city were louder: men and women speaking waterfalls, donkeys braying like deep-voiced geese, thousands of feet treading the stony streets. Their metal was at enough of a distance that it didn’t disturb her, sparking brass and shining steel and fizzing silver, the faint itch of copper and the occasional burning speck of gold coin. She wished she’d brought coin of her own; she was hungry. Lines of curved steel of varying lengths—and one straight sword, headed her way.

  She opened her eyes and stood up straight. There was Amberesh, about twenty feet away. He shoved a few people out of his way, apparently cursing at them. Willow made a lightning-fast decision and went to meet him. She had no interest in speaking to him, but he clearly had something on his mind, and if he were going to attack her either verbally or physically, she was better off meeting him in public, especially since she was unarmed.

  “Amberesh,” she said when he was close enough to hear her over the street noise. “How are you?”

  “You,” Amberesh snarled, “you I leave home. You lie.”

  “Only a little. And you deserved it for what you did to Alondra.”

  “Not I do this thing. She I want. You…interfere.”

  “That’s a big word for you, Amberesh.” Willow took a step closer. “You know damn well Alondra hated you. I can’t help it if your delusions put you in a position to be exiled. You should be grateful Salveri didn’t kill you.”

  “He not I kill.” Amberesh put his hand on his sword. “You I make hurt for lose I name.”

  “Right here? In the street? Who do you think will be punished for that?”

  Amberesh snarled at her again and drew his sword. “I say you lie. You thief. Thief you steal from I.”

  Willow shook her skirts at him, eyeing the traffic beyond. No one was paying any attention to them. Maybe this hadn’t been a very good idea. “With me dressed like this? No one’s going to believe it. Now, get out of here. And don’t come after me again. You’ve only yourself to blame for the position you’re in, and if I see you following me, I’m going to tell Janida and let her handle it.” She stared him down, winding her hands in her skirts so their trembling wouldn’t betray her.

  Amberesh returned her glare, breathing heavily, then thrust his sword back into its sheath and turned away, pushing his way through the crowd and shoving anyone who raised a voice in complaint. Willow breathed deeply and waited for her heart to slow down. She knew Amberesh was stupid, but she hadn’t counted on him being so stupid as to attack her in public. Maybe he was more dangerous than she’d thought. She took another deep breath. She’d have to be more careful.

  A carriage drove up to the door, then another, and suddenly women were streaming out of the reception hall, talking over one another so the yard sounded awash in the waves Willow always heard distantly beating the shore. She saw the Serjian carriage in the distance and walked toward it, holding her skirts up out of the dust. Janida and the others met her there. “We succeeded,” Janida said. “They will wait to respond until there a vojenta mahaut is.”

  “But it a decisive victory was not,” Maitea said. “We should not become complacent.”

  “I don’t feel complacent at all,” Willow said. “What happens next?”

  “As always. We meet, we talk, we convince others of the rightness of our cause,” Catrela said. “You spoke well. There will many be who wish to speak again with you.”

  The carriage began moving with a jolt that made Willow grab its sides to steady herself. “I still have to discover who wants Felix dead. I have to have time for that.”

  “It Sahaki is not,” Catrela said. “Sahaki Beppinda wishes from Tremontanan politics herself to distance. She has broken with Mahnouki and attempts to become vojenta mahaut on her own terms. She cannot risk an assassination to be linked to Sahaki, even though Felix’s death would increase Terence Valant’s power and therefore maintain stability in Eskandel. But we will not allow her vojenta mahaut to become.”

  “So that’s one down. There are still far too many possibilities.”

  “Including the one that says Terence Valant the assassin is,” Janida said. “Better the guard on the King to increase, if we cannot prove the assassin’s identity.”

  “The best way to protect him is to eliminate whoever’s trying to kill him. He shouldn’t have to live in fear.”

  “I have not yet given up hope,” Catrela said. “You search the docks, I search the principalities. We will find our enemy.”

  Willow felt the long streak of silvery steel just at the limit of her perceptions. Speaking of enemies… Should she tell Janida about Amberesh? She turned her head casually to look in his direction, but saw nothing but crowds. If Janida knew Amberesh had threatened her, she’d likely assign bodyguards to Willow, and that would mean the end of investigating Felix’s would-be assassin. She’d just have to be alert when she left the Residence. And never be unarmed. “We’ll find them,” she agreed, “but it had better be soon.”

  Chapter Eight

  Caira helped Willow change out of the golden gown and into the plainest clothes she owned: tan linen trousers and a matching tunic-shirt with a deep V-neck, a white headwrap and the complicated sandals. She still didn’t look Eskandelic, but she hardly looked Tremontanan, either. Willow settled her pouch around her neck. She was dressed all wrong for the slums of Umberan, but it had been three days since she’d seen Rafferty, and the meeting with the vojentas had left her antsy and disinclined to wait for word from him.

  She sensed Amberesh on her tail about halfway to the enclave and touched the sheath of her wrist blade. Whatever Amberesh had in mind for her, she doubted it was friendly, and it wasn’t impossible she’d have to defend herself.

  Time to make his life harder, she thought, and turned the corner into a residential area she’d scouted out the last time she’d been down that way. It had several cross-streets, most of which connected to each other, and she took the second of these and doubled back, paying close attention to where Amberesh and his distinctive sword went. He took the wrong street, then corrected himself and cut across an intersection, heading directly for her. She turned and ran, crossing one of the little parks that smelled fresh and cool even at midday. Amberesh followed. Damn. He probably knew she knew he was there now.

  Quickly she worked her way back to the main street and out to a meat market that smelled of blood and warm flesh, then down a side street and
around a corner into an alley wide enough almost to be a street. The buildings on either side were old, but well-kept, without the crumbling stucco Willow had seen in other, poorer parts of the city. Strings of hanging wash stretched between the balconies, shirts and undershorts drifting lazily in the ocean breeze. Willow eyed the nearest balcony. Its cold iron railings burned in her senses. How desperate was she?

  She took a running leap and grabbed the railing, bit back a scream at how cold it was, and hauled herself up. Without a pause, she climbed onto the rail and reached for the next balcony. She rolled over the rail of that one and lay flat on its floor, grateful it was wood and not a slab of iron. Breathing heavily, she closed her eyes and searched for Amberesh. There he came, moving steadily but not slowly, past the street, past the alley. She flattened herself as low as she could get, praying that he was like everyone else and didn’t look up.

  The straight sword went motionless at the head of the alley. He can’t follow me even if he sees me, she thought, but that didn’t leave her inclined to stand and wave at the man. The flapping of the laundry sounded like birds flying past, and she heard real birds crying to each other somewhere nearby. Amberesh was silent, unmoving. Willow breathed in the smell of the hot wood against her cheek and licked her dry lips. They tasted of salt. How long would she have to wait?

  Finally, Amberesh’s sword began moving—down the alley. Willow resisted the urge to peek over the edge of her balcony and prayed no one would come out to collect their laundry. Amberesh passed beneath her without pausing. He was barely within range of her magic, and at some point she’d have to take a chance. Carefully, she rolled onto her back and considered her options. There was one more balcony above her, and then the roof—if she could get that high, she could avoid Amberesh indefinitely. If she could get that high.

  She rolled back over and scooted on her stomach to take a peek over the edge of the balcony. Amberesh’s steps slowed the farther he walked, and as she watched, he turned around. She ducked out of sight. He didn’t shout or do anything to indicate he’d seen her, just walked back down the alley and turned left to follow the street. Oh, he’d lost her, all right.

  Willow got to her feet and brushed herself off—and the door opened. A small child, younger than Felix, stood gaping at Willow. She carried a wicker basket bigger across than she was in both hands. Willow realized she had a hand on the railing and snatched it away. “Hello,” she said.

  The little girl dropped the basket and began speaking in Eskandelic, rapidly and with feeling. “I’ll just be going now,” Willow said, clambered up on the railing, and reached up for the next balcony. She just had time to see a woman follow the child outside before she was up and over the railing and reaching for the edge of the roof.

  She landed in a crouch on rough stucco that had been worn by time to feel like a pebbly streambed, her face inches from a rosebush blooming pale peach. The bush grew not from a garden bed, but from a pot a few feet across that bore the remnants of paint, red and gold and green. More pots stood nearby, all bearing roses of dark red or white or yellow or even a blue-black Willow had never seen before. She walked among the flowering bushes, marveling at the delicate scents filling the air, touching one of the unopened buds that felt like living velvet. Chairs and a wirework table stood at the center of the garden. An arched trellis bore twining vines that put the seats in shade, and Willow almost sat before remembering she was an intruder.

  A hatch with a loop of rope for a handle lay at the edge of the rosebushes. Willow left it alone. She didn’t want to intrude any more than she already had on the residents, and that woman had probably told all her neighbors about the Tremontanan “thief” who’d gone to the roof. Which meant Willow had to get off the roof as quickly as possible.

  She ran to the end of the building. It shared a common wall with its neighbor, so going from one to the other was as simple as stepping over a three-foot wall that was more a marker of territory than a structural support. She kept going, running lightly along the row of buildings until she came to the end. There, a gap of about five feet separated one row building from the next. Willow backed up and took a running leap. It was almost too easy, certainly easier than leaping roofs in Aurilien, where everything was steeply pointed and not nice and flat and covered in flowers.

  She stopped on the other side of the gap and peered over the edge. No Amberesh. She was too far up to perceive his metal, but she didn’t see him with her natural eyes either, just a crowd of people going about their business with no idea there was a woman leaping walls and climbing balconies above their heads.

  She left the wall and looked out across Umberan, which was blistering white and cream in the noon sun. From this vantage, she could see more gardens, some of them growing low to the ground, others with trellises whose flowering vines trembled in the salt breeze. Why didn’t Aurilien have anything like that? Well, the roofs are sloped, and who’d take care of the gardens? She felt a lingering sense of disloyalty to her city, as if she was blaming it for not being drenched in the southern sun.

  With a sigh, she moved on along the new row of buildings until she came to another that had those lovely, if cold, balconies as good as stair-steps all down its back side. She worked her way down to the ground, then stood shivering despite the noonday heat, rubbing her arms and casting about for Amberesh. Nothing.

  Someone shouted, and Willow turned to see a man in a dark robe and a white headwrap pointing at her. Willow turned and ran. She didn’t need to speak Eskandelic to know she’d been pegged as a thief.

  She threaded her way through the thinning crowds, all those people going home for dinner and a nap, doubled back a few times, then finally came to a panting halt near one of the public fountains. No one had followed her, but then she’d found over the years that if you could outdistance your pursuit in the first fifteen seconds, you were usually home free.

  She splashed her face with cool water and waited for her heart rate to slow. Amberesh wasn’t going to find her again in a hurry. He’d probably search all afternoon, and he’d be sweltering in all that armor. Served him right for trying to frighten her. Running was a short-term solution, but short-term was all she cared about this afternoon.

  The streets of the Tremontanan enclave were mostly empty, though the men and women on the streets eyed her suspiciously. Willow strode past, pretending to ignore them. She really needed the right kind of clothes if she was going to come down here frequently. Maybe Rafferty could direct her to an appropriate shop.

  The trellised courtyard of the khaveh-house was empty, the door to the adjacent building shut. Willow sat at one of the little tables and closed her eyes, feeling out her surroundings. She’d learned that many businesses shut down after dinnertime, when the heat of the day was worst. Not that Umberan, with its cool sea breezes, felt nearly so hot as Aurilien. She sensed short silver streaks, the ubiquitous belt knives of a handful of men or women, in the nearby buildings, but no one in the khaveh-house next door. Now what?

  She leaned farther back in the little chair and let the sunlight filtering through the trellis relax her muscles. A thick, unfamiliar vine twined through the wooden slats, smelling hot and green and peppery, and it cast interesting shadows over the table and her hands. She could go looking for Rafferty, or failing that, one of his friends. They might be friendlier now that their boss had vouched for her. Or she could sit here and breathe in the peppery air, mingled with salt and brine, and lay down her responsibilities for a few minutes. When was the last time she’d truly been able to relax? Before Kerish and Felix had disrupted her life. Not that she resented it.

  And she didn’t resent it. She couldn’t even summon up irritation at either of them. Leaving Felix was unthinkable, and Kerish was…still the same, and yet so different. Suppose he hadn’t come to her that night? He and Felix might be dead now, probably would be dead, and she’d still be midnighting and cursing Terence Valant for an Ascendant King. The thought chilled her.

  “We’re not open
yet,” a voice said. Rickard, Rafferty’s compatriot, stood just inside the door to the khaveh-house, of which only the upper half was open.

  “I came to see Giles Rafferty,” Willow said. “Is it all right if I wait here? I don’t expect service if you’re not open.”

  “I can tell you where he lives.” Rickard opened the rest of the door and came toward her, pointing. “Down the street, take the third left, then it’s the house with the green door. You’ll recognize it when you see it.”

  “Thanks.” Willow stood and nodded to the man, then set off in the indicated direction.

  The houses along Rafferty’s street were typical of lower-class Umberan, only a few arm-spans wide, three or four stories tall with shared walls, like sheer cliffs faced with brown plaster. Only one had a green door, and it was a vibrant, eye-watering green with a rusty iron knob. Willow knocked at the door and waited.

  Eventually, she heard a heavy tread from deeper within the narrow house, and shortly the door opened, revealing Rafferty in his undershorts and a thin cotton shirt, scratching his thick blond hair. “Willow,” he said. “Something wrong?”

  “Just wondering if you’d learned anything more about our assassin.” Rafferty seemed unembarrassed by his state of undress, so Willow decided not to draw attention to it.

  “I have. Come in, let me get you some water or something.”

  In contrast to the plain exterior, the inside of Rafferty’s house was as vividly colored as the door, the walls painted a deep, glowing blue, the floor strewn with fat cushions in multicolored striped upholstery. A mosaic lamp of red and purple glass in irregular shapes hung low over the center of the room. Rafferty disappeared through a doorway to the right and came back with a metal pitcher and a couple of wooden cups.