“Perhaps you’re right to be mistrustful.” Lady Esma also remained standing, her hands on a chairback. They had discovered earlier that her leg, far from being a plain wooden stump, had been carved into the shape of a seahorse. Just like the figurehead inside the old warehouse.
Lady Esma studied Mercedes with a peculiar expression on her face. “Who are you?”
“My lady Esma.” Mercedes spoke formally; they might have been strangers greeting each other at the king’s high table. “My name is Mercedes. My mother was the lady Alyss, wife to Prince Augustin, brother to King Andrés.”
There was a sharp intake of breath. “Was the Lady Alyss? She is no longer?”
“My maman has been gone two years.”
Clearly, Mercedes’s mother had not been a stranger to the lady Esma. Tears sprang into the older woman’s eyes, which she tried fiercely to blink away. “Of what ailment?”
Mercedes did not answer. It was Elias who responded, his tone brusque. “An accident.” This was not the time to speak of Lady Alyss, or of how she died.
Lady Esma’s gaze fell on Ulises, who’d placed an arm around his cousin’s shoulders, then on Elias, whose words were so obviously a lie. But all she said was “I grieve for your loss.”
“And my mother grieved for yours” was Mercedes’s cool response. “She spoke of you often as a dear friend. Your death was felt keenly in our household.” Her unspoken words lingered. Esma’s assumed death had caused her mother unnecessary sorrow. It was not something Mercedes would easily forgive.
If Lady Esma heard the rebuke, she gave no sign of it. She glanced at Elias’s map carrier, the brown leather battered from years of abuse. “You’re a mapmaker? A geographer?”
Elias bowed. “Yes, Lady. My name is Elias, son of—”
He was stopped by her laugh, short and humorless. “I know who your parents are, Lord Elias.” She pulled out a chair. “Sit. If I wanted to harm you, I would simply call out. The children have always been very . . . protective of me.”
It was a warning of her own. As if to underscore the threat, Elias saw a flash of yellow at the window, followed by giggles and an indignant squeal from the pig.
They sat.
Lady Esma placed a bowl on the table. She poured water into it from a pitcher, then submerged several white cloths and wrung them out. She handed them to Ulises and Elias. Not Mercedes; she was not covered in dirt and scratches as they were.
“Mind your lip,” Lady Esma said to Ulises, who pressed the cloth to his face and winced. “You showed foresight in bringing a woman with you.” Lady Esma took the chair beside Ulises. “I’ve seen the men who venture into Javelin on their own. They believe the old stories of pirate gold buried here and decide the risk is worth taking. A few of them are still here, somewhere.”
She spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. To her, the dismembering of men was something unremarkable. Elias found her just as unsettling as the spirits lingering outside.
“My lady Esma,” Ulises said, “how are you here? The entire kingdom, including your family, thinks you’re dead.”
Lady Esma looked as if she was having some sort of silent argument with herself. The crease between her brows deepened. “I should start from the beginning,” she said.
“It’s as good a place as any,” Mercedes said.
Lady Esma folded her hands on the table. They were rough, with skin like tree bark, and unlike those of the ladies of the court, bare of even a single piece of jewelry. “First, will you tell me . . . what has become of my family?”
A brief silence. Mercedes said, “Your sister is Lady Bernat?”
“Yes. She was not Lady Bernat when I left. She was betrothed. Is she well?”
“Quite,” Mercedes said, still wary, but her tone was not unkind. “Lord and Lady Bernat have three children. Two boys and a girl. Their eldest son is nearly grown.”
Lady Esma was quiet. “And my parents?”
Mercedes said, “I am sorry, Lady, we never knew them. They passed on long ago.”
Lady Esma did not look surprised, but her voice was more subdued when she said again, “I should start from the beginning.”
“Please,” Ulises said.
“Bartolome was seven years old,” Lady Esma told him, “and at that age, he had no interest in becoming king. He wanted to be an explorer, an adventurer. Just like Antoni. To find out for himself what lay beyond the Strait of Cain.” To Elias, Lady Esma said, “Your father promised to show him some magic compass rocks that could be found on the hill by the lemon groves.”
“The leading stones,” Elias said.
“Yes.” Lady Esma glanced down, noting, “You have his hands.”
Elias’s fingers curled reflexively. “Lady?”
“Your father’s hands were always covered in paint, usually blue,” Lady Esma explained. “Strange. I haven’t had that thought in years. Why that color?”
Everyone was looking at Elias’s hands, freshly stained by the leaves of the indigo plant, like his father’s. It was a detail he’d never known, some small connection to a man he did not remember.
“I use it to paint the sea,” he said. “The rivers, the lakes. Blue is the color a mapmaker uses most.” Uncomfortable, he let his hands drop beneath the table, out of sight, and felt Mercedes’s hand slip into his. They did not look at each other, but instantly he felt better.
“I see.” Abruptly, Lady Esma stood. Her chair scraping. Her leg scraping, too. They watched as she busied herself in filling four mugs. They were passed around; Mercedes and Ulises eyed their drinks with dubious expressions. And no wonder—the liquid was thick and green, like pea soup, and smelled curiously of limes.
“Verboun?” Elias asked. The brew was popular in the roughest of ports. Once, on Coronado, he’d made the mistake of drinking his fill in a single evening, and he had paid the price for it all the next day.
Lady Esma said, “We’ll need something stronger than water for the conversation we’re about to have, I think.”
Ulises looked into his cup, then at the red oleander drying above the window. Oleander was a well-known poison. He said to their host, “You first.”
A half smile formed. What might have been approval flickered in Lady Esma’s eyes. She tossed back her cup.
Elias was impressed. He took a delicate sip, then set his cup down and rubbed Mercedes’s back while she gagged and coughed. “It’s an acquired taste, Mercedes. Take a breath.”
“Is that what it is?” Mercedes breathed in and out, and said, “I don’t think I’ll be acquiring it again.”
Elias shared an unexpected amused glance with Lady Esma, who asked, “Where was I?”
Ulises’s face was fiery, but he answered evenly enough, “The picnic.”
Lady Esma’s hands tightened around her empty cup. “We decided to make a day of it. We brought a feast, games. Prince Teodor came along only because he wanted to be wherever his brother was.” Elias would reflect on it much later, her flash of pain at the mention of the younger prince. “When we left that morning, it was with more than enough guards to protect us. Or so we thought. We did not expect danger to come from within.”
“Someone had poisoned the wine barrels,” Mercedes said.
“Yes. Not the cask belonging to the boys. Their cider was kept separate. They’d had their fill already.”
“You didn’t drink the wine?” Elias asked.
“No. Though I would have, eventually.” Lady Esma’s eyes had taken on the stare of someone recalling a nightmare. “I went into the grove for privacy, and it was not long before I heard . . .”
This time, the silence went on for such a time that Ulises prompted, “Lady?”
“People screaming,” she said. “Being sick. And then the horses coming fast. There were five men wearing masks that covered the lower half of their faces. They swept in and snatched the princes by their necks. As if they were kittens.” Anger threaded its way around her words. “Antoni tried to stop them, but it was five against o
ne. They beat him, and when he fell, they threw him over a horse.”
Elias could feel his heart hammering in his chest. “He was alive when he left?”
“All four of them were.”
“Four?” Ulises asked sharply.
Lady Esma said, “Yes. One of the servants, I believe. A girl.”
Elias sat back. It made no sense. The only people missing were the boy princes, Lady Esma, and Lord Antoni. Everyone else had been accounted for, claimed among the dead. Every servant, every soldier. What girl did she speak of?
Mercedes had visibly thawed toward Lady Esma during the retelling. “You were right to stay hidden,” she said. “The . . . Mondragans would have killed you, too.”
Lady Esma turned to her, perplexed. “Mondragans? Those men weren’t from Mondrago. They were del Marian.” The silence was absolute. Even the ghosts were quiet, peering in through the window.
Ulises found his voice first. “You’re mistaken,” he said, his tone flat. “A Mondragan soldier confessed. He was following his king’s orders.”
“Confessed? What became of him?”
Ulises said, “He was hanged.”
Lady Esma’s hand went to her throat. “And Mondrago?”
“Is ours now.”
Lady Esma’s eyes never left the king’s. “I heard them speak,” she said, insistent. “I will never forget it. They sounded as del Marian as you and I. It was their native tongue.”
Elias said, “I know several languages, Lady. It would be a simple thing for me to pass for a Lunesian or a Caffeesh if I wore their clothing and hid my face behind a mask.”
But Lady Esma was shaking her head. “That was not all. Two of the men stayed back while the others . . . did what they were told. I heard one of them say, ‘We will not speak when they are near. They will know my voice.’ And the other said, “Don’t you want them to know?’ ‘No,’ he answered. ‘It will be worse for him . . . the wondering.’ ”
Neither of Elias’s companions looked capable of speech just then, so he asked, “Did you recognize their voices?”
Lady Esma hesitated. “One sounded like you. A nobleman. The other was rougher. He said, ‘The king won’t stop looking until someone is punished for this.’ And the first man . . .”
It was Mercedes who filled the void with a quietness steeped in ice. “Don’t stop now, Lady Esma.”
Lady Esma looked at her without expression. “He said, ‘Coronads, Mondragans, Bushidos . . . I don’t care who they blame. I’ve done what I came to do.’ The other man answered, ‘I don’t care who they blame either, so long as it isn’t us.’ ”
Mercedes had gone very still, and her face . . . Elias stood; he could not sit while Lady Esma threw one revelation after another at them. He paced to one end of the chamber, turned, paced back.
Among the three of them, Ulises was the most composed. “How did you come to be here?”
“Once they’d gone,” Lady Esma said, “I looked to see if anyone had survived. There was not one living soul there. I was not myself after what I saw. I ran into the woods and wandered for some time, eating what I could find.” Her lips twisted at the memory. “I knew nothing about surviving in a forest then, and I ate berries that were not meant to be eaten. The spirits carried me here to this cottage. It had been abandoned.”
“They cared for you,” Ulises said.
“Yes,” Lady Esma said. “Much later, they told me the bad men had returned the next day. The girls could hear them calling my name, though the men would not come into the woods. They must have realized by then that I was missing. Not among the dead, and certainly not with them.”
“And your leg?” Ulises asked. “You did not carve that yourself.”
“There was an accident, years ago. The carving was a gift.”
She had left a lifetime out in the telling. And Elias could see from her expression that her story would stop there.
He reached for his carrier and tried to calm his racing thoughts. “My lady Esma, you’ve told your story, and I thank you. May I tell you another?”
“Yes.”
Elias showed her the map and explained all they knew. Reading aloud the riddle in the border. Pointing out the alder and oak, not palms, that made up Javelin Forest. He finished with “Whoever painted this map knew you survived that day, and that you were somewhere in these woods. Can you explain how that could be?”
Lady Esma looked at the image of herself on the map. A woman with a cross, surrounded by her faceless wards. Elias held his breath, waiting for an answer.
Her eyes lifted to his, stunned. “Antoni saw me,” she said quietly. “He was beaten, badly. But as they were riding past, he looked straight at me. One eye swollen shut, the other bloody. He mouthed one word only.”
“What word?” Elias asked.
“Hide. He told me to hide. And he pointed toward the forest.” She wrapped her arms around herself and, though the chamber was warm and pleasant, shivered. “Do you know, I hear their screams sometimes, in my head? It was so many years ago. And yet I hear them still.”
Barely a word was spoken as Lady Esma saw them back through the forest. Whatever Ulises thought was tucked away behind a stony expression. Mercedes was the quietest of them all. She walked beside Elias, ashen but for the two spots of color on her cheeks. A smoldering torch.
As for him, the spirits that trailed after them were the least of his troubles. A thousand questions ran through his mind, every one of them unanswered. If the Mondragans were not behind that long-ago crime, who was? And if his father and the princes had not died a watery death, where had they gone? They must be dead, for how does one keep the presence of two royal princes and a lord of the realm a secret without a whisper making its way home? There was no place so isolated. Why had they not sent word? He thought of the maps and felt himself a fool. Perhaps they had, the only way they knew how.
Another horrible thought: if the Mondragan king had spoken true, then del Mar had laid waste to a kingdom wholly innocent. Killed the royal family and scores of their countrymen, ravaged their lands, destroyed their heritage.
For nothing.
“Your horses are just there,” Lady Esma said.
Pulled from his grisly thoughts, Elias saw that they had reached the edge of the forest. It was early evening, though the sun was bright. The days were growing longer. If they hurried, they would be able to travel most of the way home with enough light left to guide their way. Elias gathered the horses. He handed the reins to Mercedes, murmuring, “Mercedes, are you all right?”
“Why shouldn’t I be?” she said, and did not meet his eyes.
Ulises reached for Lady Esma’s hands, stopping when she drew back sharply, her leg digging a shallow trench in the sand. Elias saw the sympathy in his friend’s eyes and wondered when Lady Esma had last touched another human being. Eighteen years?
Ulises said, “Come with us.”
“No.”
“Then I’ll speak with your sister. She must be told—” Lady Esma’s horrified look silenced him.
She said, “You think you’re doing me a kindness. You’re not. My family remains safe because I’m dead.”
Elias had been tightening the strap on his saddlebag. At her words, he looked over. Not because I am thought dead, but because I’m dead. She had chosen her words deliberately. Lady Esma had no intention of ever returning to her old life in Cortes.
Ulises would not give up so easily. “It’s been eighteen years, Lady.”
“What does time matter?” Lady Esma asked. “My king, you must take care. You’ve said you are not the only ones who know of the maps.”
Lord Silva, Reyna, Commander Aimon.
“They’re friends,” Elias said. “Not anyone who would wish us harm.”
Lady Esma said, “Friend or foe, it takes only one to speak carelessly, and if the wrong person suspects you know more than you should, your life . . . your lives will be forfeit.” She turned to Mercedes, who was sitting marble-faced on her ho
rse and staring off into the distance. “You’re angry. I do not blame you.”
Mercedes looked down at her. “Angry,” she repeated in a tone that had both men exchanging alarmed glances. “My father died before I was born,” Mercedes continued. “He fell at Mondrago. Did you know this, Lady?”
“No.”
“Of course you would not, cowering here in your forest.” Mercedes brought her horse forward so that it was within inches of the lady Esma, who, to her credit, did not flinch. “Once, when I was very young, I visited the market with my maman. She did not venture out often, but I had begged her to go, and finally she said yes. Our guards were not quick enough to protect her from a man who appeared from nowhere, who hit her in the face and called her names . . . names no child should ever hear her mother called.”
Lady Esma had fallen back a step. Mercedes pressed on. “He had lost his son during the siege, you see. He had lost his wits to grief. And that day . . . it was the first time I understood that there was something wrong with being part Mondragan, and that being part del Marian mattered not at all. Because of what had happened to my dear lost cousins. It was the first of many insults I’ve witnessed, Lady. And my maman was so gentle and kind, every word against her was like that man’s fist. You would know this.”
By now the tears were falling unchecked from Lady Esma’s face. “Yes.”
“Shall I tell you how she died?” Mercedes asked. “You wanted to know.”
Lady Esma said nothing. Her eyes were red with sorrow.
With her face devoid of color, Mercedes’s freckles stood out in stark relief. “I am an emissary for the royal house of del Mar. Two years ago, she saw my ship off as she always did and waited until it had disappeared from the horizon. And then she filled her skirts with rocks and walked into the sea.”
“Mercedes,” Ulises said, his voice strained. “Dearest.”
Elias did not try to silence her. He had been the one to tell her of her mother’s death. The nature of it. Sailing off even before Lady Alyss’s funeral, he had caught up with Mercedes on Lunes. She had smiled when she’d seen him riding into the castle courtyard. Surprised and delighted to see him. After that day, she had not smiled again for a very long time.
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