Elias’s plate was nearly empty. The monk’s, in contrast, was barely touched. “You’re good friends,” Brother Francis said.
“Since we were boys.” More like brothers, but Elias kept those words to himself.
Brother Francis said, “A king whose elder brother is alive is in a . . . tenuous position.”
Elias stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth. He set it aside. “In some kingdoms, maybe.”
“In most kingdoms.” Brother Francis sipped wine from his cup. “If I were to ask you to keep my existence to yourself, how would you answer?”
They regarded each other across the small table. Elias said, “I won’t keep this from him.”
The monk’s hand tightened around his cup, then slowly relaxed. “You trust him with your life, it sounds like.”
“I do,” Elias said.
“Do you also trust him with mine?”
Elias shook his head vehemently, knowing what the monk suggested. “He would never . . . you don’t know him.”
“That’s true.” Brother Francis studied the contents of his cup as he spoke. “I remember an infant in my arms. I remember trying not to drop him. And failing once when Lady Esma was not looking. I don’t know him like you do, Lord Elias. But no man can serve two masters. That I do know.”
“Ulises showed me the maps,” Elias reminded him. “I’m here because he sent me to find you.”
“I wonder if he truly understood the risks?”
Elias was not proud of what he was about to say. He nearly held his tongue. “I offered to stop looking.”
Brother Francis was startled. “For us?”
“Yes.” Elias found it hard to meet his eyes. “After we left Javelin, when we realized that one of you, maybe all of you, might still be alive, I offered to forget about the riddle. To forget about you. Ulises said no.”
The silence filled every corner of the cottage, every corner of the last eighteen years. At last, Brother Francis said softly, “So be it. You trust him. I will trust you.”
“Good.”
Some time was spent concentrating on their meal before Elias spoke again. “You’re content here, Brother. I see it now, though I did not believe it could be true. After your jailer died, was my father also content?”
Now it was Brother Francis who had trouble meeting his eyes. “No. He was not. He missed his family.”
That night, sleep escaped Elias entirely. He sat outside with his back against the cottage, one knee drawn up, watching the stars and thinking of Mercedes. Black hair down to her waist, eyes green as sea glass. A smile that could stop his heart if he was not careful. He saw her in Javelin, calming the spirits. He saw her standing at the water’s edge with her bow raised high. He remembered their kiss outside her door.
Wherever you are, Mercedes, please be safe.
He fell asleep near dawn, coming awake only when he felt something hit his side. Indigo plants. His mysterious hooded helper had not seen him.
Only half awake, Elias mumbled, “Thank you.”
The stranger started violently, spinning around and tripping on the hem of his robe. Without thinking, Elias lurched to his feet and grabbed the man’s hand. They both toppled over onto the sand. After the first shooting pain in his leg, Elias felt nothing.
In the gray light of dawn, he saw the stranger’s hands, ungloved. Not stricken with leper sores, as Elias had pictured, but as blue as his own.
Holding his robe together beneath his chin was a gold compass pin.
His hood had fallen back. The face that Elias saw was his own. Many years from now, after a hard life lived. Bearded, hollow-eyed, not a leper.
Not a stranger.
Elias could not say how long they sat there sprawled in the sand, the only sound the lapping of seawater along the shore. He let go of his father’s hand. Lord Antoni stumbled to his feet, doing nothing to hide his tears. His father was gone, racing down the beach until he was lost from view.
Twenty-Four
ERCEDES HAD TRACED Elias’s route south. He had made no effort to conceal himself; stealth had not been his goal. An innkeeper and stable master had recognized him. Lord Elias? Certainly, he was here. Didn’t stay long, though, wasn’t as friendly as usual, and he looked like he’d been in a fight. Nothing she did not know already.
She lost him in the last town before Alfonse. There were no more sightings, of Elias or his horse. His trail had gone as cold as this feeling inside her. She refused to call it terror.
Where are you, Elias? Where did you go?
Time was spent in Alfonse. She questioned the king’s soldiers, but they were of no help. Nothing outside the ordinary had taken place, just the normal routine of petty thievery, tavern brawls, and bickering neighbors. And, oh, a lost soul had thrown himself off the cliffs some days back. Tragic, but it happened sometimes. She did not interview the soldiers only, but plowed through the rest of Alfonse until the entire city was turned inside out and every contact questioned, bribed, and threatened. She had burned bridges there, with nothing to show for it. And when finally she had left, it was with the unshakable feeling that she was leaving him behind.
Regretfully, her entourage encountered no bandits or others of bad character along the roads. They at least would have offered a distraction. The tears came only once, late at night, on the return journey to Cortes. But it was only that once.
Because she’d had plenty of time to think on the ride south, and then north. And she had taken a very close look at Katalin’s tax scroll. Mercedes had no proof. No motive. Only a hunch, a theory pressed up against her heart, keeping company with her fear.
In the castle’s great dining hall, life went on as usual. There were no foreign dignitaries to entertain, and the king’s table was crowded with the everyday assortment of noblemen and noblewomen. Ulises spoke with Lords Pistorius and Bernat. Mercedes watched them laugh at something he said and thought her cousin could have been an actor on a stage. No one would guess how upset he was behind that smiling facade.
The lords were accompanied by their wives: Lady Pistorius; also Lady Bernat, who would never know that until recently, her younger sister had been alive and well within the forest of Javelin. One could fill an entire world with all the things we did not know.
Mercedes had chosen to dine at a table among the castle women, which she did on occasion. Katalin was there, along with Mistress Galena, her pet monkey, Jorge, chattering happily on her lap as she fed him morsels of octopus from her plate. Madame Vega sat directly across from Mercedes.
“Where is Lord Silva this evening, Madame?” Mercedes glanced past the geography mistress to a nearby table crowded with boisterous geographers. Always the loudest table in the hall. Elias and Lord Silva were noticeably absent. “I hope he’s well.”
Madame Vega smiled, though her eyes were tired. “Perfectly well,” she said. “He’s gone to Esperanca to inspect the expedition ships. He did not want to leave Reyna, but . . .”
“I understand.” Mercedes pushed the octopus around on her plate. “Reyna looks better.”
“Much better. The doctor expects a full recovery. My prayers have been answered.”
“My prayers as well.”
Perfectly pleasant conversation. A graceful back and forth, like a dance. The wine was heady tonight. Mercedes took a few sips only.
Around them the conversation had turned to babies.
“They have not decided on a name,” Madame Julián was saying, disgruntled. “And they will not take seriously my suggestions, when I am only trying to be helpful.” Master Julián served as the king’s tailor. The Juliáns’ eldest daughter was to give birth soon. The infant would be their first grandchild born.
“Which suggestions, Madame?” Katalin asked.
“If it is a girl, perhaps Chastity,” Madame Julián said. “Or Charity, Prudence, Patience—what is wrong with those?” she demanded over the laughter.
Mistress Galena was blunt in the manner of old friends. “You’ll curse the c
hild with those names, Rowena. She’s bound to fight it, and then they will have to rename her Feckless, Impertinent, Greedy, or . . . what is the opposite of chastity?”
From there, a string of possibilities poured forth.
“What of Olivia?”
“Or Tanis?”
“Julieta?” came another suggestion.
There were murmurs of agreement for the last.
“What of Evangeline?” Mercedes asked. “That is your name, is it not, Madame Vega?”
Katalin made a small choking sound. Both Mistress Galena and Jorge fell silent. Mercedes did not look at them.
Madame Vega had just taken a bite of octopus. She stopped chewing, her eyes settling on Mercedes, before continuing. A napkin raised, a dab at the corner of a mouth that no longer smiled. “It is my birth name, yes.”
“Evangeline,” Madame Julián tried. “It is lovely. I will suggest it, as long as you don’t object?”
“Of course I do not.” Madame Vega spoke to Madame Julián.
Her eyes, however, never once left Mercedes, who smiled and said, “Perhaps the baby will be called Lena for short, or Eve. You have used both names before, Madame. They are so pretty.”
Nothing more was said about Madame Vega’s birth name. Supper continued, and the conversation turned from babies to husbands to the terribly high prices demanded by the cloth merchants at the harbor. Mercedes laughed when she was expected to and added her own observations here and there, even as her heart pounded and her hands slicked with sweat. She could turn the actor too when needed. She could play any part, for however long it took, if it meant finding Elias.
The next course included thin slices of sea serpent served alongside a bed of rice and topped with a single fish eye. Red fish eyes were considered a delicacy, though she had never been able to stomach them. The texture, the taste, the slippery feel in her mouth, horrible. Her eye had been shunted off to the side of her plate, hidden beneath a piece of bread so that she would not have to look at it.
Madame Vega’s fish eye was proving to be a worthy opponent. Her hands trembled as she tried to slice through it. Mercedes watched with grim pleasure as the eye continued to thwart, darting across the plate as Madame Vega tried and failed to spear it with her knife. Good. Let her be nervous. Let her be off her guard.
It was not long before others noticed. “Gracious,” Madame Julián said with a small laugh. “Just pick it up with your hand. We will not judge you too harshly.”
Katalin, her eyes first on Mercedes, then on the geography mistress, asked carefully, “Are you well, Madame?”
“A sudden headache,” Madame Vega murmured. “I believe I’ll retire early.”
And Mercedes took this to be her cue. She pushed her chair back. “The noise cannot be helping. I must leave as well. Come, I’ll see you to the tower.”
At that, Madame Vega looked up and met Mercedes’s gaze. Mercedes had seen that look before. In the eyes of a wild pig, trussed with leather ties, right after it had been captured. They stood in unison, which caused the conversation to drop slightly as the men in the hall rose to their feet. Ulises raised his eyebrows as they walked past the high table.
“A slight ailment,” Mercedes explained with a sympathetic look in Madame Vega’s direction. “Please don’t trouble yourselves.”
“Be well, Madame,” Ulises said to Madame Vega, though his sharp eyes were leveled on his cousin, who was not known for her caring bedside manner. “It’s dark. Take escort, Mercedes.”
“Of course.” Mercedes smiled pleasantly, tucking Madame Vega’s limp arm into hers. When she tried to pull away, Mercedes dug her nails into the woman’s arm. A small gasp followed, but there was no more resistance.
Commander Aimon dined at a table full of soldiers. Mercedes did not look at him on the way out. She did not have to. He watched them go, his expression arranged, as always, in a scowl.
Mercedes did not send for an escort. The moment they left the dining hall, she released the older woman’s arm.
“Somewhere we may speak,” Mercedes said. “Privately, or with an audience, it matters not to me.”
Wordless, Madame Vega led them across the courtyard and down a set of stairs, to a chapel tucked away by the orange groves. There were a handful of religious sanctuaries within the castle walls. Never barred, so visitors could find prayer and solace at any hour of the day and night. The chapel doors were studded with iron bolts. Inside, the pews were empty, the altar absent of any priest, though the walls were torchlit and offered a welcoming light. The scent of oranges lingered, mixed in with an oppressive, cloying incense.
Mercedes swung the doors shut behind them. “An appropriate place, I suppose, for a confession.”
Madame Vega’s face was white and stark. “There’s no punishment you can order that will make me feel worse than I already do.”
“Then you don’t know me well, Madame. I assure you, I can make you feel far worse. Where is Lord Elias?”
“Dead by now. I’m sorry.” And with that, Madame Vega walked down the aisle and entered a pew halfway down. She knelt and bent her head, hands clasped before her in prayer.
How long Mercedes stood there, she could not say. Her hands gripped the back pew so hard, her veins stood out like the rivers and creeks on a map.
Dead by now. I’m sorry.
She forced her fingers loose and willed herself forward, one slipper in front of the other. She took the pew directly across the aisle from Madame Vega. Sitting, not kneeling. The silk of her midnight-blue skirts rustled about her. Madame Vega continued to pray, too low for Mercedes to make out the words, but she thought she recognized the rhyme and rhythm of the Sinner’s Lament.
How tempting it was to reach out, grab the woman by the hair, and smash her face into the next pew. A terrible thing to consider in a chapel, but she, too, knew the Sinner’s Lament. She could pray for forgiveness later. But that would not do. Force would not work here. It would not bring her closer to finding Elias, who was not dead, whatever Madame Vega said. Mercedes would have to be patient, and she would have to think. And so she sat, dark spots hovering at the edge of her vision, and waited.
The walls were decorated with the frescoes of saints. Famous ones, obscure ones. Mercedes studied them in detail. There was Master Mori’s Appolonia, with her pliers and bowl full of teeth. Also Saint Matthew, patron saint of stonemasons and military engineers, a fierce-looking man holding a miniature cathedral and standing alongside a battering ram. He reminded her a little of Commander Aimon. She had moved on to Saint Christopher when Madame Vega spoke at last. Very few people could tolerate a silence stretched so thin.
“I am so tired of secrets.”
“Then do not keep them,” Mercedes advised, studying her. Madame Vega’s gaze had not wavered from her steepled fingers. “You reminded me of someone, that day in Reyna’s chamber when we looked at dresses. You wore no paint on your face. Do you remember?”
“Yes.”
“Until yesterday, I could not think who. And then it struck me. You look like Reyna.”
A quick inhalation of breath was the only sign Madame Vega had heard her. Mercedes prompted softly, “Tell me, Madame, who is Lord Silva, to you?”
“He is my father.”
Mercedes was unsurprised. Too late, she had seen the resemblance between Reyna and her aunt. Lord Silva’s secret illegitimate daughter, for, given Madame Vega’s age, she had been born when Lord Silva’s wife was still living. Another story entirely.
Mercedes asked, “Where is your maman?”
“Dead many years.” Madame Vega’s words were brusque. “A farmer’s daughter from Alfonse, swept off her feet by a wealthy nobleman. It’s a common tale, Lady.”
“True,” Mercedes agreed. “But helping one’s father poison a royal party, kidnapping the king’s sons . . .”—here Mercedes had to fight to keep her voice steady—“. . . and returning eighteen years later to finish off Lady Esma, well. That is not quite so common.”
; Out of the corner of her eye, Mercedes spied movement. Commander Aimon in a small alcove, listening. He must have entered through a side door, as silent as a turnip. She shook her head, a warning for him to keep silent. His scowl deepened.
Madame Vega had buried her face in her hands, and Mercedes had to strain to hear her words. “I did not want to do it.”
“I know you did not.” Mercedes tried not to choke on her words. “What did you say to Lady Esma? How did you get her to leave Javelin?”
Still speaking into her hands, Madame Vega answered, “I told her you sent me.”
Mercedes stared at her, horrified. “Me?”
“I said you needed her help. Urgently, and that you would explain once she returned to Cortes.”
“And she agreed?”
“She did not hesitate.”
Mercedes closed her eyes briefly and tried not to think of the bitter words she had flung at Lady Esma’s feet. Words she could never take back. “Where is Lord Elias?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do know. Tell me.”
“I will not speak out against my father.”
Mercedes slammed a fist onto the arm of the pew. Madame Vega jumped.
“He’s finished already!” Mercedes swept an arm toward the alcove. It was then that Madame Vega saw Commander Aimon with his arms folded and his face set in stone. Mercedes had not thought it possible for her face to lose any more color. “Surely you understand that? There’s no going back from this for Lord Silva. But you have a chance. Exile, maybe. And perhaps . . .”—she grasped at carrots she could offer—“. . . you may see Reyna in time. I know you care for her. She is your niece.”
“Reyna.” Madame Vega laughed, a horrible, high-pitched sound that ended on a gasp. She doubled over; her forehead struck the pew in front of her.
Realization came too late for Mercedes.
“No!” She leaped across the way, catching Madame Vega as she slumped sideways. A knife, a supper knife taken from the dining hall, protruded from her belly. For Mercedes, shock gave way to panic. “It won’t be this easy for you! Where is he?”
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