Isle of Blood and Stone

by Makiia Lucier

  As Elias fought to stay conscious, his hand closed around a familiar object trapped between the floor and his hip. His pouch. He worked the brass compass divider free of it and stabbed backward, blindly, deep into flesh. He heard a sharp, satisfying cry of pain before darkness rolled over him and he felt nothing.

  Seventeen

  VE, LADY?”

  Katalin, Cortes’s Royal Tax Collector, wore a baffled expression. She was a trim young woman with a neat, tidy appearance: a single braid down her back, her robe the color of sand and unadorned by fur collar or cuffs or jeweled pins. Like Mercedes, she was half Mondragan and half del Marian. Unlike her, Katalin’s hair was a magnificent flaming red. “Is there anything else you can tell me?” Katalin asked. “Her father’s name, perhaps? Or his guild?”

  “I’ve next to nothing,” Mercedes confessed. She was perched on the edge of Katalin’s worktable in the castle’s tax chambers. She had fled the dining hall as soon as she was able and come here. Ulises, merciful cousin that he was, had invited Ambassador Greger on an evening stroll through the menageries. Her presence had not been required.

  These chambers were part of the Exchequer, or treasury, a long, cavernous space lined with shelves that nearly buckled under the weight of scrolls and ledgers. Empty moneybags hung from hooks on the wall. Tables displayed scales at their centers. In the light of day, the chamber would be filled with taxmen and their apprentices. At this late hour, Mercedes had found only Katalin working by candlelight and surrounded by orderly towers of gold squid and silver double-shells. She said, “All I know is that her name is Eve. Even that may be misleading, given all the possible variations.”

  “Eve will be a nickname, likely,” Katalin agreed. She sat back in her chair, her expression turning thoughtful. “She could be an Evalin or an Eva-Jean or a Genevieve. . . .”

  “Eva-Mari,” Mercedes offered.

  “Exactly so.”

  “The Eve I’m looking for may not live in Cortes any longer,” Mercedes said. “She may not even be alive. My thought is that she’s between the ages of thirty-three and forty-three . . .” Katalin’s expression brightened at that bit of knowledge, and then fell once again when Mercedes finished with “. . . though I cannot say for certain.”

  They turned as one to regard the ledgers on the shelves, ledgers that held the names of every tax-paying citizen of del Mar for centuries. It did not help that women took their husbands’ names when they married. Elias’s mother, for example, went from the unmarried Lady Sabine to Lady Antoni to Lady Isidore. And once married, their names disappeared from the tax records altogether; only their husbands’ names were recorded.

  But.

  If a woman was unmarried and her wages paid to her alone, she would be in these records, somewhere. A slim chance was better than no chance at all.

  Mercedes said, “I know what I ask. It will be like searching for a ring dropped into the sea.”

  “It’s daunting,” Katalin admitted. “But not impossible. If I may make a suggestion?”

  “Of course.”

  Katalin gestured toward the shelves. “Lord Isidore knows these ledgers better than anyone. I could send a messenger to him in Esperanca—”

  But Mercedes was already shaking her head. Lord Isidore would have questions. And she would not want to lie to Elias’s stepfather after all the kindnesses he had shown her over the years. Simpler to leave him out completely. She said, “I can’t have anyone knowing of this except you. I’ll have your word on it.”

  Katalin was quiet for a time. “Lady,” she said, “I know you spoke to Lord Isidore on my behalf. After my father passed on. I know I’m here because of you, and I’m grateful.”

  Mercedes had met Katalin a year ago, through Elias. Katalin’s father had worked at the harbor collecting the custom duties on imports and exports. His daughter had worked by his side, but after he died, a new customs officer was put in place. Katalin was left with no employment. At the same time, the position of Royal Tax Collector had become available. The council had balked at naming a woman to the position, thankless job though it was. Particularly one who was half Mondragan, though no one said so in Mercedes’s hearing. She had nearly run out of breath arguing on Katalin’s behalf. But in the end, she had won.

  As Royal Tax Collector for Cortes, Katalin rode throughout the parishes, gathering taxes on the king’s behalf. Always with an armed escort, because she was a woman, a Mondragan, and someone who carried around bags of gold. And because no one liked the taxman.

  Mercedes looked around the gloomy chamber with its scales and ledgers and endless monotonous work, or so it seemed to her. “You’re thanking me for this?”

  Katalin’s smile dimpled. “I am.” She turned to the wall of ledgers with a thoughtful, determined expression. “I’ll start immediately. If there are Eves in these tax rolls, I’ll find them for you. You have my word and my silence.”

  Mercedes thanked her and left, and thought: Nothing to go on but a name.

  Four hundred steps led up to Elias’s tower chambers. Years ago, Mercedes had taken it upon herself to count them. She climbed them now, around and around the winding steps, the torches on the wall lighting her way through the darkness. Her courage faltered on the twentieth step.

  Her outburst on the beach had mortified her. A display like that, in front of the children, in front of Ambassador Greger. She wanted to clutch her head and groan every time she thought of it. And then the kiss. And then supper.

  What would she say to him?

  You always know what to say, Mercedes. That is your gift.

  It was not true. She was not the sort of person who spoke easily of what she felt in her heart. She could not put into words her fear, watching the serpent turn its gaze to Elias, and knowing that if her arrow failed, he would be lost. And she would be lost. She could not say these things.

  Someone was coming down the stairs at a fast trot. Mercedes did not want to startle anyone. She called out, “Basilio?”

  The footsteps stopped. No one answered. Mercedes placed her slipper on the next step, and whoever was there turned tail and ran back up the stairs. Or maybe two people; she could not say for certain. She could hear the scuffling of feet like rats across stone. A door opened and closed.

  Mercedes continued upward, cautious. There were many chambers in the lower levels of the tower, rooms for the other geographers and their servants. People passed through this stairway regularly. Why would anyone feel the need to hide from her?

  Her ears twitched at another sound. A whimper? A moan? Very faint and coming from above. She drew her dagger from her belt, lifted her skirts off the steps, and ran.

  There were crows in his bedchamber. Elias heard the cawing as he came to, and felt agonizing pain behind his eyes. The sound grew louder and more frantic.

  “Crows,” he said, and opened his eyes.

  “Hush.”

  Mercedes. He was lying on the floor with his head cradled in her lap. Worry clouded her face, and over her shoulder, he saw that the shrieking was coming not from crows, but from Basilio, wringing his hands in the corner and wailing.

  Mercedes said, “Basilio! You hush, too! Find help.” Basilio fled. Mercedes helped Elias sit up. She kept her arms around him.

  “What happened?” he mumbled. “My nose—”

  “Looks very bad. Don’t speak.” She fished a handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped his face, slow and careful. The cloth came away bloody.

  He closed his eyes and held himself very still, trying to keep the sickening dizziness at bay. His nose throbbed painfully. He must have drifted off, because when he looked up, Basilio had returned, Madame Vega on his heels. Her face was white and shocked. She knelt beside them.

  “Look here,” she commanded of Elias. “Now look there. Hmm. There’s a knot on your head the size of a serpent’s egg. What have you been up to?” Madame had brought with her a wooden box with a handle on top. As soon as she lifted the lid, the pungent aroma of lavender ointment filled
his nostrils.

  Mercedes asked, “Are you well, Madame?”

  Madame Vega paused with her hand in the box. Elias tried to focus on his geography mistress, saw a face more tired than usual, eyes rimmed in red.

  Madame Vega murmured, “A speck of dust in the eye only, Lady. Thank you.” She turned to Elias. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

  “No, Madame.” A thought struck him; he bolted upright, startling Mercedes, and looked across the chamber. “Basilio, the map?”

  Reyna’s map had been left on the table. Basilio shook his head. “It’s gone, sir.”

  Elias could see Mercedes struggling to hold her tongue, even as her eyes clearly asked, “Where is the other one?” Before he could answer, young faces gathered in the doorway, whispering. Reyna was among them. The children fell to the side as Ulises stalked into the chamber with Lord Silva.

  Ulises demanded, “What happened?”

  Elias tried to clear his head. “He was already here. They were.”

  “Who, Elias?” Lord Silva asked.

  Madame Vega reached down and picked up his brass compass divider. The points were red with blood, still fresh.

  Elias shook his head. He didn’t know. “He had a sword—”

  From Basilio: “It wasn’t a sword.” He pointed a shaky finger toward the far side of the chamber, beneath the window.

  Lord Silva crossed the chamber and picked up something that looked like a club. He appeared flabbergasted. “Well, we know the weapon, at least. Where did this leg come from?”

  A horrified gasp from Mercedes, a sound that echoed around the chamber. Ulises grew very still. Elias squinted through the dimness. Lord Silva held a wooden stump. It was covered in blood, but Elias could make out the seahorse, intricately carved. Just as he formed the thought Lady Esma, the screaming started.

  A child’s cry, pouring in through the open window.

  Eighteen

  HEY FOUND LADY Esma in the geographer’s courtyard, her body tossed upon the southernmost point of the mosaic compass. The tiles beneath her shimmered green and silver. On any other evening, a work of art to be admired beneath a full planting moon.

  But not on this night.

  Tonight, a tight-lipped Commander Aimon crouched beside her body directly across from Elias. Mercedes stood nearby, alongside Ulises and Lord Silva. Onlookers kept to the edges. They crowded every inch of covered passageway. Hector was one of them. Elias could hear him wailing in his mother’s arms.

  “She was just there! I was running, and I tripped, and she was just there. Maman, she did not have a leg!”

  “Shhh, my darling.”

  No one dared approach. Not with the king looking as he did, cold and remote, until one peered a little closer and saw his eyes full of rage and the pulse ticking wild at his throat. As for Elias, he knew he was disturbing in his own way: a face bruised and mottled, his nose set at an odd angle . . . and hands that weren’t quite steady as he reached down to close Lady Esma’s eyes.

  Closed for the last time. Never again to see the stars in the sky, or the moon riding low among them.

  If the commander noticed Elias’s trembling hand, he did not say so, but sat back on his heels and said gruffly, “She was beaten to death.”

  “Yes,” Elias said.

  Lady Esma wore the same clothing he’d seen her in days ago. Shirt and trousers, one leg rolled up to accommodate a wooden stump that was even now in his chamber under Basilio’s watchful eye. Every inch of her that he could see was battered purple and black. Beaten until she died, likely with her own leg. His mind reeled from the cruelty of it.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder. Mercedes, eyes filled with a terrible guilt. Her last words to Lady Esma had been angry ones.

  “What will we tell everyone?” he asked her.

  Because they must be told something. The curiosity pulsed around them. Like a heartbeat. Like a living, breathing thing. Better they were fed some tale than to have someone nosing about, discovering what they should not discover.

  Her answer came quietly. “No one can know who she is. We will say . . . we are unable to identify her, though her features suggest she is of Lunesian descent. Perhaps a mariner. Commander Aimon is looking into it. The king, of course, is outraged that such a crime would occur in his kingdom, in his castle. He will not rest until her murderer is apprehended and made to answer for this crime . . . or something similar. I will think of more later.”

  “I remember when she was nearly a child herself,” Lord Silva said, stricken. “Always with a little prince by her side. Who would do such a thing?”

  “She was safe in that forest,” Ulises said. “The girls would never have let anyone harm her.”

  Elias said, “Which means she left. Freely.”

  From Mercedes, an angry whisper: “Why? She would not leave Javelin for anything. Why now?”

  Just then, a hush fell over the crowd. A horse and cart appeared beneath an archway and made its way, slow and plodding, across the compass toward them. A robed woman drove the cart; two burly men walked beside it. It was over in minutes. When the cart stopped, the woman exchanged brief words with the king and the commander. Lady Esma was covered in linen and placed in the cart. It rumbled off as quietly as it had come.

  “Lord Silva,” Ulises said abruptly.

  The Royal Navigator had been staring after the departing cart. He jumped slightly. “Yes, my king?”

  “Two strange men entering your tower. Someone might have noticed.”

  “Three,” Elias said. They turned to him in question, and he clarified, “There were three. Someone stayed in the shadows and watched. He didn’t say a word.”

  “You’re certain?” Mercedes asked.

  “Yes.” Just before Elias had lost consciousness, he’d seen a third figure. In the corner, eyes glittering beneath a dark hood.

  Lord Silva’s mouth pressed into a thin line at the revelation. “I’ll look into it at once,” he said, and then hesitated. “My king, may I speak?”

  “Of course.”

  “I worry about the boy,” Lord Silva said.

  Elias glanced over at Hector before he realized Lord Silva meant him. He felt his cheeks flush hot with humiliation. The commander was listening. And Mercedes. As he was reduced in height, in width and breadth—a child to be protected still.

  “Elias could have been killed today,” Lord Silva continued. “Right under our noses. I wonder if we should rethink his role in this.”

  Elias’s response came flat and angry. “No.”

  Ulises studied Lord Silva, expressionless. “You would have him walk away?”

  “This was a warning,” Lord Silva said. “A very clear one. I don’t wish to lose both father and son, and have to explain the loss to his mother.”

  “No,” Elias said again. “Don’t ask it of me.”

  Support came from an unlikely source. “He’s rattled a cage, my lord Silva,” Commander Aimon said. “He’s scared whatever’s in it. It’s a little late, I think, for him to just walk away.”

  Ulises turned to Elias, who glared back and silently dared his friend to do as Lord Silva asked. “Well, Elias. It looks like someone is trying to frighten you.”

  “Ulises—” he began.

  “And?” Ulises interrupted softly. “Are you frightened?”

  The look Elias sent him showed everything he felt. Ulises studied him, then said, “Good.” He turned to Lord Silva, “We’ll continue as we’ve been.”

  Lord Silva’s expression tightened. “My king . . . As you wish.” He bowed, stiff and correct, and walked off. Mercedes turned to watch him go.

  “Mercedes,” Ulises said, bringing her attention back around, “I want her buried in her family crypt. She will not rest in a stranger’s pit.”

  A pause. Mercedes asked, “Without her family knowing?”

  “Yes.”

  After a moment, she said, “I’ll see to it.”

  A brief glance as she passed Elias, a promise they would s
peak again before the night was over. And she was gone, taking Commander Aimon with her.

  There were just the two of them now. Ulises said, “Find out who did this. Bring them to me. I have plans for them.”

  “I’ll see to it.”

  Ulises clapped him once on the shoulder. And then he, too, was gone.

  Elias strode across the courtyard to Hector, who had his arms wrapped around his mother’s waist. Madame Grec opened her mouth to speak, took a closer look at Elias’s face, and snapped it shut again.

  Elias crouched before the boy. Was it only this morning he had been at the cove, trying to coax him into the water? “It’s been quite the day for us, Hector.”

  The boy sniffled. “Yes, Lord Elias.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, sir. Are you?”

  The smile came involuntarily. “Just. What were you doing out here?”

  Hector said, “Cook said I could have an extra sweet if I went to the kitchens. She said I could choose.”

  “Ah,” Elias said, understanding. “What did you choose, then?”

  Hector pointed to the far end of the courtyard, where a small object lay on the tiles. “I tripped over her and dropped my cake.” A tear dropped to the ground. “I did not mean to scream.”

  Elias said, “There’s no shame here, Hector. Anyone would have been afraid.” He tried to think past the vicious pounding in his head. “Did she open her eyes at all? Did she say anything?”

  “No. She was . . . she was not there.” Hector’s face crumpled.

  A hand came down on the boy’s shoulder, and Madame Grec said quietly, “Enough.”

  Elias thanked Hector and made his way to his chambers, ignoring those who tried to speak to him. His mind was plagued by doubt and suspicion. Why had Lady Esma left the forest? Had she remembered something else and come to Cortes on her own to tell them? By coincidence, had she been spotted by her killer and done away with before she could speak with them? It was a large and unlikely coincidence.