Winterkeep

by Kristin Cashore

  But how could Lovisa believe that the Varanas weren’t motivated by the need to protect their own transportation monopoly? If they really wanted to protect the earth, wouldn’t they be throwing their varane formulas at other nations, so other nations could have environmentally safe transportation too? And what about the Dimara family? They were Scholars, shippers who transported Keepish zilfium to Mantiper. If zilfium use became legal in Winterkeep, new laws would limit zilfium’s exportation, and the Dimaras would never find anything Mantiper wanted as much. Lovisa’s own mother co-owned the Cavenda mine in Torla’s Neck with Katu. The mine was situated right at the base of the Winterkeep peninsula, where a narrow strip of land connected Winterkeep with Kamassar. The zilfium had already been mined out of that land, but silver remained. Lovisa guessed that if zilfium trains became legal in Winterkeep, the inevitable train connecting Winterkeep to Kamassar would cut through Ferla’s land, compromising her ability to mine silver. Lovisa did not believe, for one iota of one second, that her mother cared about pollution. She was a miner! Mining was known to pollute the environment! What Ferla cared about was her ability to keep mining.

  And of course the Industrialists had selfish reasons too; they were just slightly more honest about it. Slightly. They argued that the rest of Torla was growing mechanized while Winterkeep was left behind. In another twenty years, how would Winterkeep compete? What about the poor Keepish farmers who could increase their productivity with zilfium plows? What about the poor Keepish fishers who could trawl more with zilfium-driven boats? But the truth was that Industrialist families like the Balavas, or like Lovisa’s own father, wanted zilfium boats for themselves. They were shippers, and an exciting new continent full of people eager to buy things existed to the west.

  Self-interest, self-interest. It was probably why there were no political fights between her parents at home: They had no real political differences, just varying opinions on how to make the most money. Lovisa had a perfect understanding of Ledra politics. And one day before too long, she would graduate from the academy, then be expected to choose a party and an industry. Whatever she chose would become her identity, for the rest of her life.

  Suddenly Lovisa couldn’t bear it. No wonder Katu was always leaving! What if she went to the Royal Continent, where politics were surely no less corrupt, but at least they were simpler, because one person’s greed decided everything for everybody? And more importantly, where she knew no one, and could do what she wanted. She could be like Katu, sweeping into a place, sweeping out again when she chose.

  And then her mind returned to her own home, her brothers. She couldn’t leave them, could she? Especially with the recent list of small, odd things that were happening, none of which would be so noteworthy on its own, but that, together, left her with a suspicious feeling. The air at home tasted wrong.

  Lovisa decided that before she went anywhere, she would find out what Benni was keeping in the attic room.

  Chapter Eighteen

  After Giddon finished his morning ritual of tears, he forced himself up.

  Cobal, he thought, the Estillan envoy who antagonized us.

  Katu, who is missing.

  A disturbance in the water, reported by silbercows, below a many-windowed house on a cliff.

  Mikka and Brek, drowned in the sea.

  These are the mysteries I’m going to solve, he thought to himself, for Bitterblue.

  The morning after the Cavenda dinner party, Giddon found Quona alone at breakfast, or at any rate, as alone as a person could be in a room swarming with cats. At a quick glance, Giddon, who sneezed as he sat down, counted seven.

  “What are you and Hava planning to do today?” Quona asked him pleasantly.

  Giddon and Hava hadn’t discussed any particular plan yet for today, for they’d walked home last night in seething silence. Hava, furious at Giddon for physically restraining her, had ignored every attempt Giddon had made to talk. Hava hated to be overpowered, especially by men. Giddon knew that. But she’d been about to attack a teenager! And they had a job, an agenda, and it was secret. They couldn’t be drawing that kind of attention to themselves!

  “We thought we’d go to the harbor and check in on our crew,” Giddon said, improvising. In fact, he did want to go to the harbor, but to talk to the boating company that had leased the Seashell to Mikka and Brek.

  “Good man,” said Quona. “I’m going north today. I may be gone overnight.”

  “Oh?” said Giddon. “What’s in the north?”

  “My family has property,” she said. “A house and a hangar. We like to check on it now and then. It’s my turn.”

  “I see,” said Giddon, then, as Quona stood abruptly, added, “Well, have a nice day.”

  “You too. My staff will care for your needs,” Quona said, sweeping out of the room with two cats nestled in her arms.

  Froggatt came in next, sat down, and informed Giddon that he, Barra, and Coran intended to travel to Kamassar.

  “It was part of the queen’s original plan for us,” Froggatt said. “We may as well proceed. She’d hoped to establish a Monsean envoy there, in time.”

  “All right,” said Giddon, who didn’t care what the advisers did, but still felt oddly sad at the fracturing of the group.

  “I hope that when we return, Giddon,” said Froggatt stiffly, “it won’t be to the news that you’ve done anything that would have embarrassed the queen.”

  And now Giddon was much less sorry to see Froggatt go. Bitterblue’s advisers had never wanted Giddon on this trip. They’d never, not once, understood or appreciated his value to her, nor Bitterblue’s delicate and courageous relationship with the Council.

  “You mean embarrassed you,” he said, then stood and left the table, though not as dramatically as he’d have liked, given that first he had to disengage his foot gently from that pale gray cat, who seemed to find his left boot irresistible. “Sorry,” he said with his head under the table, then told Froggatt in a chilly voice, “I was apologizing to the cat, not you.” The whole exchange lacked dignity.

  Mere seconds after he’d returned to his room, Hava knocked on his door.

  He was still flustered. “Hello,” he said cautiously as she entered.

  Hava stared at him with an implacable expression, but he knew it wasn’t her real expression. She was changing her face. He decided not to comment on it.

  “I think we should go to the harbor,” she said. “See if anyone knows anything relevant about the day the Seashell went down.”

  “Yes, good idea,” said Giddon. “In fact, I told Quona we were going to the harbor today.”

  “Without asking me if I wanted to go to the harbor?”

  “You literally just said you did.”

  Hava snorted. “Well, what are you waiting for? Let’s go.”

  * * *

  —

  As they walked along the path that led past the Cliff Farm, Giddon tried to decide what, if anything, to say to her about last night. When Hava had run at Lovisa, she’d lost not just her temper, but her judgment. It was unusual for her. Startled, Giddon had done what he did with any friend who surged off meaning to hurt someone: He’d grabbed her, held her, forced her to slow down. He would do the same thing again.

  But she’d lashed out with words that had hurt, because they’d been a version of the truth. “So nice to be big,” she’d said. “It gets you whatever you want, doesn’t it? What a hero you are, Giddon. Sanctimonious. Righteous. Superior. Get your hands off me!”

  Was there something he should say now? Should he apologize? Should she apologize? Where was the line between bullying Hava and consenting to be emotionally bullied by her?

  I think it’s a moving line, Bitterblue said to him as he walked. It’s complicated by your ages, positions, and histories, and the fact that you’re a man. She’s right that your size is an unfair advantage. That doesn’t me
an you shouldn’t ever use it.

  I miss you, said Giddon, with a small laugh that was really a sob. You’ve always told me what you think and feel and need. I’ve taken that for granted.

  “What?” said Hava sharply.

  “What?” he responded, startled.

  “You laughed.”

  “Oh. Private thoughts.”

  “Are you laughing at me?”

  “Of course I am,” he said, trying sarcasm. “Everything is about you, brat.”

  Perversely, this made Hava smile, with a warmth that communicated to Giddon that her emotional blockade was over. “Good dinner party, hm?” she said.

  “Oh, wonderful. Especially the part where the host’s daughter found you snooping in the host’s desk and you almost attacked her.”

  “I bet she won’t tell anyone. She doesn’t seem to care about zilfium, or anything else that matters, so hopefully she’ll just assume I have light fingers and a bad temper and leave it at that.”

  She was speaking in that non-caring tone that always impressed Giddon. He often pretended to be someone other than who he was in his Council work, but he almost always played someone likable. He had difficulty doing otherwise. Hava, in contrast, seemed to have no problem playing a role that left people thinking badly of her. Was it the shadows from his past that stopped him? Giddon had tortured a man for information once long ago, for King Randa, tied him up and hit him, and it hadn’t been a role. He remembered every noise that man had made. The man was probably still alive somewhere, remembering that experience. The people who thought badly of Giddon had reasons.

  Giddon, said Bitterblue, in the gentle voice that meant it was time for him to stop wallowing.

  All right. Giddon tried to bring himself back to the present. He breathed deeply, noticing the tiny, sharp flakes of snow that dove at his face. They were approaching a sprawling city beach dotted with the impromptu camps of travelers and traders, their carts and horses braced against the wind. A giant bonfire rose into the sky, surrounded by people warming their hands and laughing. Beyond the beach, Giddon could see the beginnings of the long harbor, the spires of masts, and the hulls of colorful ships.

  “Have you noticed that a fox is following us?” said Hava. “Again?”

  Every time Giddon saw a blue fox, he got the feeling, like a crawling on his skin, that it was following him, but he knew this was irrational. “Are you sure? There are so many of them.”

  “This one keeps popping up, wherever we are,” Hava said. “I saw it once back on the cliff path too, near the farm. They don’t feel right to me. You know?”

  “I find I’m always guarding my mind against them,” he said. “The way we do with mind readers back home, or Dellian monsters. I know it’s pointless, since they can’t read our minds. But I guess my instinct is too strong.”

  Hava made a humphing noise. “I think I guard my mind against everyone and everything, always. Old habits.”

  Both Bitterblue and Hava had worked to develop that habit as children, to protect themselves from the Grace of their father. Remembering this, Giddon’s mood softened. “They make me nervous,” he admitted.

  “So, where are we going?” said Hava. “What’s the boating company that leased the Seashell called?”

  “I have it here,” Giddon said, reaching into his coat pocket for a piece of paper. Finding it, but not finding the other item that was meant to be in that pocket, a small envelope he always kept there. Alarmed, he began to search all his pockets. When Hava said, “Well? What’s it called?” he ignored her, kept looking.

  It was a thing he carried with him always, transferring it from pocket to pocket, like a talisman to remind him why he did the things he did. It contained a few small, ciphered notes. They were the notes Bitterblue wrote to him and left on her dinner table on the days when her responsibilities kept her from dinner, and Hava and Skye were elsewhere too. Instead of letting him arrive unexpectedly to an empty table, she always had his dinner served in her absence and left him a note to puzzle over. The cipher key would be something on the table, usually something she’d placed in an odd position. An upside-down fork meant “fork” was the key. A napkin folded into a glider meant “napkin” or “glider” was probably the key. Then the note would say something so typical that he would sit there laughing. It might say, “Apple cake on bookshelf,” so he would search behind the books for his dessert. It might say, “Why didn’t the bear wear socks? Answer hidden among rubies,” which would send him to the crown, which sat on its own table in the room. There, he would find another ciphered note that said, “Because he had bear feet.”

  He’d kept every note she’d written him, and he kept his three or four favorites in the envelope in his pocket, always. And the envelope was gone. It was useless to keep looking. He’d been to so many places since the last time he’d checked for it: across the sky in the airship to the Cavenda house, the long walk back again, the journey this morning to the harbor. It could be anywhere.

  “What’s wrong?” said Hava, who was watching him with rising impatience.

  What was wrong was that Giddon was realizing, with a bright white clarity he’d never had before, that a person did not keep notes like that from a friend, carrying them around like something precious, like a treasure, for no reason. It wasn’t normal, it wasn’t a routine thing to do, and Giddon had never wanted to be Bitterblue’s confidant and counselor as she searched for a husband. He’d loved her. He’d wanted to be her husband. And he’d never said a word, never even tried. Why? Because he was a coward. And now she was dead. She’d died not knowing how cherished she was. He’d done every part of it wrong and now she was dead.

  The numbness of his shock made it easier for him to moderate his expression. “Nothing,” he said, with supreme calm. “I lost something.”

  “Okay,” said Hava. “Can I help you find it?”

  “I expect it’s gone forever,” said Giddon stupidly.

  “Giddon, seriously,” said Hava, scowling up into his face. “Did someone stab you with a tranquilizer and I missed it?” When he didn’t respond, she went so far as to wave a hand in front of his eyes.

  “I can’t do this right now,” he said.

  “You can’t do what? Walk along the harbor?”

  “Hava,” he said. “I just can’t.”

  Hava took him by both arms and nudged him, not exactly gently, backward. When his legs met the edge of a bench, Giddon sat. Hava sat beside him, studying his face. “What happened?”

  Nearby, a blue fox was peering at them from behind a post, not even being subtle. When Giddon looked into Hava’s face, her features blurred and he blotted his eyes with his sleeve.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I have a memento I keep in my pocket. I just realized it’s gone. I’m upset about it.”

  “Of course you are. You’re a sentimental goon.”

  “Wow, thanks.”

  “It was probably a locket shaped like a heart with a painting of Bitterblue as a wood nymph, smelling of ferns.”

  “I don’t even know what a wood nymph is, brat.”

  “It’s just like a bully to call me names when I’m being sympathetic.”

  Giddon’s brain was returning a little more every time Hava made him smile. “Is the fox behind that post there the same one from earlier?”

  “Yes,” said Hava. “It has the same smug nose.”

  “Okay,” said Giddon. “Who do you think is having us followed?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest,” said Hava, then pursed her lips. “Have you looked closely at every one of Quona’s cats? Are we sure she doesn’t have a fox?”

  “What?” said Giddon. “What are you talking about? Of course they’re cats! They’re bigger, fluffier, less creepy, and also, they’re cats!”

  “Wow, Giddon. You should join a debate team.”

  “Well, you shoul
d not join a debate team,” said Giddon. “You can’t just propound a theory with no evidence.”

  “I have evidence.”

  “I’m listening.”

  Hava crossed her arms. “I asked Quona how many cats she has. She said twelve.”

  “Yes?”

  “The other night, when we were in the sitting room and we heard scurrying footsteps above, she said it was cats in the attic. But I counted. There were ten cats in the room.”

  “Well? Two cats can make a lot of noise, Hava. You should spend more time with Lovejoy.”

  “It sounded like more than two cats,” said Hava stubbornly. “Or more than two something.”

  “Okay,” said Giddon. “As evidence goes, this is pretty weak.”

  “Well, and then that Nev girl showed up with a fox kit and they both went up to the attic and shut the door behind them, like it was a big secret, and I don’t know about you, I’m sure there are cultural differences, but it was late at night, they’re supposed to have a teacher-student relationship, and I thought it was weird.”

  “I have no argument that Quona is weird,” said Giddon. “But it sounds like now you’re talking about something else entirely.”

  “I think,” said Hava, “that I’d like to take a look at that attic.”

  “Okay,” said Giddon. “I can agree to that.”

  “Now,” said Hava, “are we ever going to talk to that boating company?”

  “I told Quona we were going to the harbor to check in on our crew,” said Giddon. “If you think we’re being watched, whether by Quona or anyone, we should probably do that first.”

  Before the mask of Hava’s Grace came down, Giddon saw alarm in her face, then longing. He thought he understood. Hava loved the ship and its people, but everyone on the ship was touched by the same sorrow.