by Sharon Shinn
“I think there’s someone following us,” I said quietly to Chessie as we turned a corner onto a street that looked marginally more respectable than the last two.
She gave me a sideways grin. “Two, actually. They’re with me. Most people don’t notice them. I’m impressed.”
I smiled tightly. “I’ve developed my powers of observation greatly in the past couple of weeks.”
“That’s what catastrophe will do for you.”
She paused in front of one of the more prosperous-looking buildings, held up a hand to tell me to stay in place, and ducked inside. I tried not to look nervous as I stood with my back to the covered window and kept watch on the street. I could still spot only one of Chessie’s confederates, a slim youth loitering before an empty storefront a few buildings away. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. I wasn’t sure if the extra protection should make me feel safer or more at risk.
After a moment, Chessie opened the door and motioned me inside. The interior of the shop was nothing to look at—a plain room featuring a wide table bolted to the floor, two chairs, and a locked door heading to a back room. Hardly any light sifted in past the heavily curtained window, but a row of lit lamps provided excellent illumination, at least over the table. I assumed anyone who was buying stolen jewelry needed good light to be able to judge the quality of the gems.
The man standing behind the table was short, bald, and wholly forgettable, with indistinct features and a medium build. Even his eyes were an indeterminate gray, though I thought their expression was shrewd as he sized me up.
“No need for names,” he said, “but I’m pleased to meet you. I understand you have some goods to sell.”
“I do.”
“Well, show me what you’ve got.”
“Honest prices for my friend, please,” Chessie said.
“Of course.”
I set the satchel on the table but kept a firm grip on it in case the proprietor had any notion of grabbing it and running from the building. It seemed like a good idea to show him only one piece at a time and agree on its price rather than to dump everything out at once and have him make me one comprehensive offer. He didn’t seem to mind the strategy. He picked up each ring, each necklace, and surveyed it through a jeweler’s loupe before naming a sum. The offers were on the low side of fair, but I accepted all but two of them without comment. On those two, I negotiated and had my way. I thought Chessie looked approving.
“That’s it,” I said when the satchel was empty.
“What about the ring on your finger?” he asked.
My hand closed involuntarily into a fist. “It’s not for sale. Anyway, it’s just a bauble.”
“A rare piece,” he argued. “Only seen two rings like that before and both of them fetched a pretty price.”
I felt a brief flare of curiosity. My grandfather had given it to my grandmother when they were courting, and he’d been a glamorous figure who met a mysterious end, so there could be some wild romantic history to the ring. Maybe he’d stolen it from a high noble or won it in a card game with a sailor or had it bestowed upon him by the king for an act of great valor. But it hardly mattered. I wasn’t giving it up—no, not though we starved halfway between Camarria and Ferrenlea. My mother had said she was giving me the ring to remind you that, wherever you are in the world, someone loves you. I was about to wander deeper into the world than it had ever occurred to me to go, and I would need that reminder every day of my life.
“It’s not for sale,” I repeated.
He stared at my hand for another moment, then shrugged. “Too bad. Let me get your payment for the rest of this stuff.”
“Small coins,” Chessie said softly.
His expression was derisive. “All I carry.”
He unlocked the door and carried the jewels to the back room, returning with a heavy cashbox. Chessie watched him unblinkingly as he counted out my payment, and I refilled my satchel. This is all we have to pay for our freedom, I thought as I slung the strap over my shoulder. I’m not sure it feels heavy enough.
“Come back someday if you ever change your mind,” the pawnbroker said as we turned for the door.
“I will,” I said. I won’t.
The sun hardly seemed to have moved at all when we stepped outside. The whole transaction had been quicker and more painless than I’d expected, though I was pretty sure it would have been a different story without Chessie at my side. “Thank you,” I told her sincerely. “Do I owe you anything?”
She flashed that pretty smile again. “No,” she said. “I’ll do anything for free if it gives Malachi more trouble.”
Under any other circumstances I would have been dying of curiosity, but it seemed pointless to wonder about Chessie when I would never see her again. “Then I’ll just be heading back.”
“Would you feel safer if I was with you?” She nodded toward my bag. “That’s a lot of cash to be carrying.”
“If you’ve got the time and the inclination, I wouldn’t mind,” I said honestly. “At least until we get to the more respectable parts of town.”
She set off with an easy stride and I fell in beside her. “Ah, that’s where all the real crimes are committed,” she said. “By the nobles and the royals.”
I gave her a sideways glance, and she laughed. “But you’re probably less likely to be robbed on the street,” she conceded.
We made it across town without incident, and finally parted a few blocks from the palace. I thanked Chessie again and she nodded and melted away. I did turn to watch her for a few paces, and I thought I picked out her second companion from the busy throng, though I couldn’t be sure.
I’ll have to ask Nico her story, I thought. Although if I only had one more evening to spend with Nico, I probably wouldn’t waste it talking about lost-waif girls and how he happened to know them.
The big brick courtyard seemed busier than usual, crammed with carts and horses and people standing around in groups, whispering to each other as they stared at the wide doors. I cast them a few curious glances as I hurried past them and slipped around one of the long, curving wings to enter the palace from the back. The first person I encountered as I stepped through the door was Lourdes, and she stared at me with as much astonishment as she would show if I’d returned from the dead. “Brianna!” she exclaimed.
I felt my heart bound with fear. “What’s wrong?”
“You’re not with Marguerite?” she said, a question so stupid that even she shook her head at it. “I mean— Then you don’t know …”
I didn’t even pause to demand Know what? I gathered my skirts and raced up the back stairs. I could hear a buzz of conversation that grew louder as I ascended, and when I burst onto the third story, I found a crowd of people gathered in the hallway. I saw Elyssa, Cali, the Banchura triplets, Nigel, Dezmen, and Darrily—all their echoes—with a handful of palace staff lurking at the edges. There were so many of them that it was hard to tell which door was the focal point of their attention, but I had a terrible conviction that it was the one to Marguerite’s room.
I began pushing my way through the onlookers without the slightest attempt at gentleness. “Let me through— Excuse me, I need to get past— Let me through!”
Three soldiers were posted at Marguerite’s door, facing outward and standing shoulder to shoulder to prevent anyone from entering. I strained to see past them to the scene inside.
It could not have been worse. Marguerite and her two echoes stood with their backs to the window, the afternoon sunlight creating halos of their blond hair and picking out the embroidered patterns on their blue dresses. More soldiers were scattered through the room, some rummaging in closets and cabinets, others merely standing at attention to make sure their quarry didn’t sprint for freedom. Malachi Burken, the king’s inquisitor, had planted himself in front of Marguerite and was reading doggedly from a paper in his hand, pausing with every sentence to glance at her and ask, “Do you understand?” Nico stood off to one side, wa
tching his uncle recite the charges, his hands balled up at his sides, his face a stony mask.
Malachi appeared to be finishing up his accusations. “And for these reasons, a charge of murder has been leveled against you, for which the punishment is death. Do you understand?”
Marguerite’s face might have been sculpted from ice. “I understand.”
I couldn’t help myself. “No!” I wailed, and struck at two of the men guarding the door. They were so surprised that they both recoiled, and I was able to slip in past them. “Marguerite! Marguerite!”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nico start toward me, but two of the soldiers in the room had me in their custody before he could take three steps. I struggled in their hold and called out her name again.
Her calm, pale face flushed with anger and she took a hasty step away from the glass. “You,” she said, her voice cold with contempt and loathing. “You sniveling bitch. I trusted you, and you betrayed me.” Patience and Purpose wore matching looks of fury and hatred. Then abruptly, all three of them turned away, as if they couldn’t bear the sight of my face one more second.
“Get her out of here,” Marguerite flung at Malachi as I collapsed in a howl of pain and denial. “Or I won’t speak another word.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
They had to drag me from the room, frantic and despairing. I saw Malachi gesture at Nico, and he strode over to follow my captors out the door. “I’ll take charge of her,” he said to his uncle as he stepped into the hallway.
I had sunk to my knees, forcing the soldiers to haul me along as a deadweight, and I continued to moan and fight and plead. All the spectators gathered in the hallway pressed back against the walls to allow us passage, and I caught glimpses of their avid faces and snatches of their whispered speculation. “Is that the maid? What did she do?” I wanted to spit in every one of their faces.
“Where should we take her?” one of the soldiers asked as he yanked at my arm, trying to force me upright.
“Let’s just put her in my chambers for now,” Nico answered. “I’m sure the inquisitor will want to talk to her later and make more permanent arrangements.”
The guards jerked me to my feet and I stumbled along with them, twisting around to try to see Nico. “I didn’t! She knows I didn’t!” I cried. “Tell her!”
His eyes burned into mine as if he was trying to convey a message, and he gave his head one quick savage shake. But his voice was cool as he replied, “I think it’s best that you don’t say anything else until the inquisitor is present.”
I continued to plead but Nico said nothing more as we completed that long, humiliating trek down the stairs, across the gleaming foyer, and through an unfamiliar hallway where I assumed high-ranking palace staff must have their quarters. Nico unlocked a door and the soldiers dumped me unceremoniously inside. We appeared to be in a two-room suite outfitted with spare but expensive furnishings and so heavily curtained that very little afternoon light sifted through the windows. I scarcely took time to glance around. I was more interested in lunging for the door after the soldiers, but Nico shut it and threw the lock before I could reach the threshold.
“Noooo!” I wailed again, pounding my fist on the obdurate wood. Nico grabbed me roughly by the arm and dragged me into the second room, kicking that door shut as well. Like the outer chamber, this one had more shadows than furniture, though it was hard to miss the large bed that took up most of the available space. But he pulled me right past it and practically flung me against the far wall. Then he took me by both shoulders and started to shake me.
“Are you mad?” he hissed, his face barely an inch from mine. “Marguerite has bought your life with her accusation!”
“She thinks I betrayed her!” I sobbed.
He shook me again. “Don’t be a fool,” he said, just as furiously. “She knows there is no hope for her, but she refused to bring you down with her. If she hadn’t pointed the finger at you, you’d be in that room with her, facing an execution. She saved you. She wouldn’t have done that if she believed you turned informant.”
I struggled to free myself from his bruising grip. “I have to go to her,” I said. “I can’t let her face this alone.”
His fingers tightened even more. “You’d throw away this treasure she’s given you—the last thing, the only thing, she’ll ever be able to give you—your life?” he demanded. “Do you think she wants you to die at her side? Or do you think she wants you to live?” He shook me again and the tone of his voice was urgent. “Brianna! What do you think she wants?”
I forced myself to stare at him, forced myself to think about what he was saying. If he was right—if Marguerite didn’t believe I had betrayed her—then there was no question that she was trying to protect me. There was no question that she was trying to save me from the anger of the king, the vengeance of the inquisitor. If Marguerite trusted me, if she knew that I was faithful, she would not want me anywhere near her.
The realization made me sag to the floor with despair, pulling Nico down with me. Now I started sobbing, covering my face with my splayed hands, struggling to contain uncontainable grief and fear. He drew me into his arms and cradled me against him, murmuring my name and rocking me back and forth.
It was a long time before I cried myself out, and by then we had shifted positions several times. Now Nico’s back was against the wall, and I lay across his lap, my head against his chest, and one of my hands caught in his. Some time ago he had slipped the strap of the satchel over my shoulder and laid it aside, and he had dried my cheeks with the sleeve of his fine linen shirt. I felt both a tightness and a burning in my chest, as if some great fire had charred through my rib cage and roasted my internal organs, but I was finally calm enough to speak.
“What happened?” I croaked.
“The landlady at the inn returned yesterday morning. She not only described Marguerite, she not only recalled her name, but she remembered that the maid had mysteriously gone missing. Every detail she supplied confirmed Malachi’s theories—and pointed him in an unambiguous direction. Couriers arrived this afternoon with the news.”
“Has he told the king?”
“Only minutes before he went to arrest Marguerite.”
I stirred on his lap but did not pull away. “What will happen next?”
“There will be an examination of evidence tomorrow or the day after. Two of Harold’s trusted advisors will hear the case as Malachi lays out the facts and presents testimony. Then the advisors and the king will decide her fate.”
I gazed up at him, mutely asking what that fate might be.
“It will be execution,” he said reluctantly. “She killed the king’s son. It is not a situation that invites clemency.”
I tried to swallow against my tight throat. “How long before the sentence is carried out?”
“Most likely the following day.”
I sat up. “But that is not enough time! Surely the king will need to inform her family! How can he think to kill a high noble of Orenza and not expect the western provinces to mutiny in response? He must wait. Surely he sees that.”
Nico looked grave. “I believe one or two of his advisors are with him right now, making that very point. But Malachi said Harold was in such a rage that he was in no mood to listen to reason. I think Harold will insist on carrying out the punishment without giving Lord Garvin a chance to negotiate.”
It was too awful. I could hardly take it in. I buried my face against his shirt and tried not to dissolve into tears again. “If only I could go to her,” I whispered. “If only I could show her that someone still cares about her, that she is not wholly alone in the world—”
He pressed his mouth against my hair. “You can’t,” he said, his voice as quiet as my own. “And she is.”
I couldn’t bear the thought of encountering any other residents of the palace by making a trip up to my own room—and anyway, Nico didn’t seem too certain that I would stay away from Marguerite if he let me out of h
is sight for one moment. So he sent someone to my room to fetch all my belongings and bring them back neatly packed in my single trunk. I tried not to imagine what the young man had thought as he gathered my clothes and folded my undergarments. “That’s Daniel,” Nico said as the slim, nondescript youth dropped off my luggage and exited with no more than a nod. “He’s more or less permanently assigned to me in case I need someone to run an errand. You’ll probably see him around a lot.”
I had managed to scrub my face and comb back my hair and try to force myself into a more civilized appearance, and now I glanced around the room. We had moved back to the outer chamber and I had insisted on opening the curtains in the faint hope that sunlight might make the day a little less bleak. But the view from Nico’s window showed the refuse pile from the kitchens, though hardly any stink made its way past the glass. I could understand why he mostly kept the curtains shut.
“So. This is where I’m to stay for now,” I said.
Nico made an indeterminate gesture. “You don’t have to,” he said. “Though I’d like to keep an eye on you. And if you’re not with me, I’m pretty certain Malachi will assign a soldier to watch over you. At least until—” His voice trailed off.
I tightened my lips and moved half blindly around the room, touching a finger to the leather armchair, the ebony armoire. Nico stood in the middle, turning slowly to keep me in his sight.
“You don’t have to— I don’t expect you to— I realize everything between us has changed,” he said, uncharacteristically awkward.
I came to a halt with my hand resting on the polished surface of a wooden desk and stared at him across the room. “What is it you’re not saying?” I asked straight out.
He met my eyes without attempting to look away. “I keep waiting for you to ask me the question.”