Mother can organize the wedding celebration for another day, and welcome everyone from the kingdom into the palace at another time.
All I want is to go back home and be with Ebony. I want to see her and go on adventures with her, from sneaking into Mother’s garden to sailing with her back here. The nights here are too lonely without her near. Even the twinkling stars are nothing for me, the ones that echo the song in my heart that sings only for her.
If being away from her now has taught me anything, it’s that there’s nothing that should come between love, not even time.
I pull out Mother’s letter just as Caryo returns with a large Mopana man in tow.
The man is dressed in the informal leather attire of a soldier; he comes forward and gives me a quick bow, and I watch him carefully as Caryo stands next to him.
“Your Highness,” he says. “My name is Kirus. I understand you are interested in learning about the Mopana attack on your ship.”
“Yes ,” I say. “I would like to ask you a few questions. You shall be rewarded for your time and honesty.”
Kirus answers my questions; I ask him about things I already know the answers to in order to see if he is honest. From the reports Caryo and my other advisors have been able to give me, I have a good understanding of what happened.
Kirus doesn’t stumble at all, and he confirms a lot of my reports; there are a few where it isn’t likely he would know the exact happenings, but by the time I ask him the question I really want to know, I am more confident I will get the truth.
“Kirus,” I say. “Can you tell me why the ship was attacked after it was emptied of cargo?”
“We had orders from our leaders to do it,” Kirus explains. “The Mopana have stopped the slave trade for now, while we are in negotiations with you. But once they were safe, we were told to torch the ship and cause as much of an upset for Marula’s main port as we could.”
“Do you know why you were ordered to do this?”
“No.” Kirus shrugs. “It is not my place to assume what goes on in the minds of my betters, Highness.”
“It might not be your place to do so here,” I say carefully, holding back a smile. “But I would like your thoughts on the matter.”
Kirus straightens. “My men have been fighting the Baobabi for many years over the water supply, among other things. We are tired of circles of fighting, but it is against our cultural values to admit defeat. If we went to war with Pommier, we would not last; but Pommier is not held to the same values as we are. If I had to guess, we were given the orders to bring you into the war in order to help stop it.”
I don’t think he is quite right about that. Why would they allow us to find out about a slave ship? The Mopana were getting more men; but then, they would be at war longer.
Kirus shrugs again. “I guess some of it depends on what you would see as a benefit. I see nothing but good things for my country, and yours, too, even if you had to come here to solve it.”
I don’t know what to say to that. There are likely no quick and easy answers to these sorts of questions, but something about his response makes me pause.
“Highness?” Caryo asks. “Do you have any other questions?”
“What can you tell me about Dr. Merlacur?” I ask. “He’s the one who owned the ship.”
“He’s close with Queen Varyes,” Kirus says. “I am sure he will find a way to recoup his loss.”
Mother.
An idea begins to take shape inside my mind, and, as terrible as it is, I can’t put it to the side just yet.
“Thank you, Kirus,” I say. “Please give Caryo here your direction, so I may write to you in the future.”
“Certainly, Highness.” He bows to me again, and I excuse him.
Just as he’s about to leave, I call him back.
“Kirus, do you think the Maruli and the Mopana will be able to avoid war in the future?”
Kirus gives me a grin. “Isn’t that the point of war, Highness? To avoid it?”
I chuckle in response, knowing he is right, but there is still no certain answer. When I say so, he is quick to agree.
“We must hope this is the last time,” Kirus says. “But only time will tell.”
Caryo escorts him out of the room, and I am left with my letters to answer, and my return to Pommier to plan.
I pull out my Mother’s letter again. I need to write a response to her anyway, and while I am working on leaving Marula, I can make sure she is happy—or as happy as she will ever be—that I’ve come home after doing my best to settle things.
Not that things will be settled. There is still Dr. Merlacur to find.
I glance over Mother’s letter, only half-reading her careful script—until I start reading more carefully, and then rereading, and then reading it again, as my vision starts to blur with tears.
“Caryo!”
All my plans are forgotten. Everything else will have to wait.
“What is it, Prince Rion?” Caryo comes into the doorway, and I can tell from the expression on his face he is more than worried.
“I have to go home to Pommier.” I can barely say the words. “Something’s happened ... to Ebony.”
I am already moving as Caryo assures me he will take care of things until I get back. I tell him to look for my letters, muttering any number of other things as I reread Mother’s letter, hoping it will say something else every time I look at the words. But it doesn’t; it is always the same: Ebony is dead, likely thanks to a Colonial Equality League member.
She can’t be dead.
I reread the letter again, and I don’t believe it for a second. Any of it.
Especially since Mother is quick to assure me she is working on a new marriage arrangement for me, all so the Pommierian people won’t be disappointed.
“I’m sure I will be able to handle things here,” Caryo says behind me, doing his best to match my pace. “Be safe, Prince Rion.”
I barely hear him; my heart thumps loudly and painfully in my chest.
“Something is wrong,” I say. That’s all I can say right now. “She can’t be gone. She just can’t be.”
Please, God. Please, don’t let this be true.
“I’ll see to the Mopana and the Baobabi,” Caryo says. “Go.”
My fingers clench into a fist. The earlier suspicion I’d felt is growing, fast and furious, until I have to grit my teeth to stop myself from screaming.
“Prince Rion?” Caryo’s voice is deep with concern.
“This is all my fault.” I crumple the letter in my hand. “I shouldn’t have listened to my mother.”
*23*
Ebony
THE BONPETTE FAMILY is a family unlike any I’ve ever known. For some reason, they give me hope, even as they bicker with each other, fail to do what they say they will, and – other than Ruston – can’t seem to keep to a strict schedule. As the days and weeks go by, and I clean their house, do their laundry, and cook their meals, I see them more as an extension of my own family than anything else.
It’s hard to tell if the feeling is mutual.
Verna and Vagarey largely keep to themselves, tending to their contributions to the house as much as they will allow themselves; now that I am here, I’ve noticed that they enjoy talking to me as I do the work for them. It would be a little frustrating, if it didn’t remind me so much of Damaris.
Verna is indeed a writer, but she acts more like a reader. She has a large collection of books, and she consistently assures me I don’t have to attempt to clean her room. It’s a little amusing to me that such a brash woman becomes so shy and quiet when it’s a matter of her work. Vagarey is much more calm in her work. She is teaching me how to cross-stitch and even seems to enjoy the task. I wasn’t surprised to learn she liked to teach the Sunday School at one of the churches nearby.
Dommier is the youngest, and, while he is only twelve, he looks older. He sits and reads for hours, and while he is in the room he shares with the other men, he likes t
o build models and carve wood. He is still very attached to his mother; I’ve found his carvings tucked away under his mother’s pillow, and I leave them there for both their sakes.
Birdon has only met me a few times, and the first time I saw him, his light complexion blistered over in crimson and purple. He sustained quite a bit of teasing from Dommier and his sisters before returning to the woods. So I think he likes me.
Of all the Bonpette family, Ruston is the one who seems to voice his disproval the most, although he has accepted me. Sometimes, I wonder if he’s forgotten this, but there are times when he will come home, sit in front of the fire, and fall asleep there. I’ll bring him tea and some food, and he’ll insist I’m bothering him and I need to stop. But the food is always eaten and the tea is always finished less than an hour later.
Ruston works with me infrequently, as he heads down to the port and into the city. His days are scattered, but his eye for neatness is not. It doesn’t matter how late he comes home; now that I am here, I can see he runs his eye over the fireplace mantle, the bookshelves, and the countertops. When he has a few moments, he teaches me how to take care of his mother. There are a wide range of things he wants me to do.
I am grateful for him, really. I have a feeling as he watches me work and learn that if I was doing the same things at the palace, I would feel a lot more pained and degraded. Queen Varyes always wanted me to work for her, and working for Ruston and his family should have been just as hard on my pride. But it was actually a relief, and while I didn’t actually enjoy doing the work, I was still able to do it and gain something profoundly satisfying from it.
Prudence, for her part, is a joy. While I work with Ruston, she sits patiently through all the times I try to feed her, bathe her, dress her, and even give her medication; but the moment he’s gone, she insists on doing what she wants, and if I am not cunning, coaxing, or careful enough to get my way anyway, she’ll blame me when Ruston gets home. It’s almost like a game between us now, and while I don’t like disappointing Ruston after all his kindness, I am thankful for Prudence’s distraction.
“There’s no need to threaten me with tears,” she says as she crawls into her bed for her midmorning nap.
Prudence is an older lady, with a bad cough that comes with old age. She frequently gets fevers, and she can’t stay awake more than a few hours at a time. While Ruston is certain that she has something incurable, Prudence was the first one to assure me that being born was always a matter of life and death, and her son, for all his training and work as a doctor, refused to see her as anything but an actual patient.
“Ruston is the one who will deal with you if he’s not happy with my progress, but I suppose you shouldn’t be worried,” she says one morning, after our now-habitual battle of wits and fits. “He’s not the kind of man who will make a woman cry.”
“What if I am just so very sensitive?” I ask as I pull up her bed covers.
“But you’re not,” Prudence replies, with a conviction that makes me laugh as much as it makes me tremble. “What’s the advantage in appearing weaker than we are?”
“Maybe I should ask you that,” I say, holding up a warm, empty plate I find sticking out from under the bed. “Can you tell me how this got under here?”
“Don’t be silly, dear. I can’t possibly go to the kitchen, get the bread out of the oven, and go down to the cellar for jam, and then come back in here, all while you’re working on the laundry.” Prudence dismisses me from her room with a shake of her wrist, but there’s a glitter in her eye. “Even saying all that has made me exhausted. No, go and see the rest of my brood, would you?”
I smile and nod, backing up and curtseying out of the room. My smile grows when I can hear a small rumble in her chest. “It would be my pleasure—”
Before I close the door, several plops splash over the front of the house.
“Oh, dear.” I hear Prudence stir. “Not again. I was rather hoping they’d stop that.”
“What is it?”
Prudence tries to give me a small smile, but it comes out as a pained one. “Just more work for you, dear.”
“I’ll get it then,” I say, trying to reassure her before I went to investigate.
“Be careful.”
The small crackling sound repeats itself, and it is then I see the slime of the broken yolk flash across the front windows.
Anger flashes through me, and I hurry to the front door, just in time to see some kids run into the safety of the woods.
“Hey!” I call after them, but they are too busy laughing.
“Shut up, Pomaruli,” one of them calls back. Their giggles increase, but now they are out of sight.
There is that word again, I think. “Pomaruli?”
Verna appears beside me. “Surely you’ve noticed. My brothers and sisters and I are Pomaruli, children who have a mix of Pommierian and Maruli blood.”
“I did,” I admit. “But I didn’t know that’s what it was referred to as.”
“It’s supposed to be derogatory, but it works as a good description,” Verna says with a shrug. “You can’t tell all the time from just looking at one of us. Birdon’s whiter than a dove’s tail, and Vagarey is darker than charcoal. Ruston and I are average Maruli, and then Dommier has the hair of a Maruli and the skin of a Pommierian.”
I thought of my own love for Rion, with his Pommierian blood and his flaxen hair and green eyes. I knew we were different, but he was just as the apples and other fruits in his mother’s garden, while I was a Maruli fruit. “I didn’t realize ... ”
“Some people don’t like mixed-bloods,” Prudence explains quietly.
I wince at her appearance. “You should be in bed, Prudence.”
“If you’re going to start cleaning, I’ll be sure to head there,” Prudence says with a small smile, as she turns away from the egg-splattered window. “The worst part is cleaning up the mess.”
“You’re not offended by their prejudice?”
“Some people insist on making the world an ugly place.” Prudence scoffs. “I’m honestly surprised some still care after all this time. Ruston is nearly in his thirties, and my youngest just turned twelve this last summer.”
“I’ll clean it,” I say, and Prudence nods.
“Thank you, dear,” she says. “Some people make the world ugly, but it’s good to know you’re here. You have the power to make the world brighter, Ebony.”
I watch her leave. I don’t offer to help her, knowing she would be insulted and she would refuse, but as she almost slips, I hold my breath. I exhale once I see her enter her room and I hear her sit on her bed again.
After that, I am better able to attend to egg yolks.
“Mama likes you,” Verna says as I pull out some wash rags from a bucket of water.
“She is a very lovely lady.” I want to tell Verna that I never had a mother at her age, so it was strange to think of her dying. But Verna has a story she wants to tell, and she continues on without any persuasion from me.
“She was a real one, you know. A real lady.” Verna crosses her arms over her chest and leans into the doorway. “Her family disowned her when she married my father.”
“I’ve heard that happens when a Maruli and a Pommierian marry,” I say quietly.
“Yes, many Pomaruli children have an issue with that.” Verna sighs. “We understand better than most why so many Maruli want to leave and go back to Marula. It’s painful to live in a world where you have no home.”
I wipe off more of the yolk, grimacing as the persistent slime falls over my hands. “My mother learned from the missionaries in Marula,” I tell her. “Heaven is supposed to be our home.”
“But you’ve probably wanted to go back to Marula,” Verna presses. “Isn’t that what you want?”
I think about my answer carefully. I’ve wanted to go back to Marula, it was true. I wanted to see the land of my birth and the people there. There is a small part of my heart that yearns for it, as much as the rest of it
longs to see Rion again.
But I don’t know if I would be able to truly go back. It’s not that Pommier has become my home. It was a part of me, but it was not the whole of me. Marula is my roots, and Pommier is my branches. I couldn’t choose one or the other.
“I’d like to go back,” I finally say. “But I already know my mother is not there, so I am sure, as much as I miss its rivers and the plains, the beaches and the wildlife and the people there, it would not be the home I once knew.”
Verna nods. “I worry that’s how this place will feel one day,” she says quietly.
I know what she means. She is worried the world will be less of a home once her mother passes on, and I can’t blame her for thinking it will. I am grateful that God gave me my father to help me adjust to her loss, and then Rion to help me grow a new life.
I want to tell Verna of my own past, but she is done talking to me for now. I think the eggs have made her sad. She heads over to a small stone and sits down beside it, running her hands over the grass as she stares off into the distance.
I let her mourn, but I keep an eye on her. It is only when she heads inside that I notice the stone she was sitting beside isn’t a regular stone.
It is a small gravestone, with the word, “Joy,” carefully carved into it. I recognize Dommier’s style, and while I am certain it is there to honor a person, the sight of it, so close to the front of the house, where eggs and insults had been thrown, makes me shiver.
“Rion,” I whisper, looking up into the sky. “Where are you?”
*24*
Ebony
“THANK YOU, BIRDON,” I say to the tall, gentle giant who helps me with another load of firewood.
He nods, muttering something that sounds like, “You’re welcome,” but it’s hard to know for sure what he’s saying.
“Do you need any for yourself?” I ask. “I know your hunting grounds are quite a bit of a walk from here, but you can still take some if you think you’ll need it.”
Birdon shakes his head and starts to stack up the logs.
Northern Lights, Southern Stars Page 16