Unquiet Land

  “Well, I am quite used to having many sisters, who all are very interested in my life,” Josetta said, hugging herself again. “So, before I freeze to death, tell me! Last night? You were—” She paused, as if trying to think of a delicate way to phrase her question. “Spending time with your friend?”

  “You mean after the confrontation with the Karkans and the little demonstration that the primes put on?”

  Josetta laughed. “There is no way those activities took up all the time allotted.”

  Leah ducked her head and tried to fight down the blush, but she could feel it heating up her cheeks. For a moment she was swept with a mad, girlish desire to huddle in a corner of the house, out of the wind, and pour all her thoughts and worries into Josetta’s sympathetic ears. Honestly, I don’t know him that well and some of the things I do know are frightening. So why do I feel such a powerful bond with him? How has he become so necessary to my well-being? And last night— Oh, I can’t even begin to describe what happened last night . . .

  “Yes. I was with Chandran,” Leah said at last. “It was— I am— I don’t remember feeling like this before. Even with Rhan. I don’t know if Chandran is good for me. I think I’m good for him, but I’m not even sure about that. And I can’t clearly see a way forward.”

  “But you want him in your life?”

  “I do. Oh, I really do.”

  Josetta gave a happy squeal and threw her arms around Leah. “Then you’ll find a way to make it work. I’ll help you. And you should invite him to the party!”

  Leah laughed and pulled back. “I don’t think so. Not yet. But maybe I wouldn’t mind if you met him.”

  “Maybe not in the next few days, with so much to do for Taro,” Josetta said, reaching behind her to open the door. “But soon.”

  “See you tonight,” Leah said, waving and turning away to head into the wind. She could feel the faint grit of ice in the air, but it was strange. She felt warm all over, and the cold didn’t bother her at all.

  • • •

  When she arrived at the shop, Leah burst through the door as if she had nothing but tardiness on her mind. The only person immediately visible was Annova, who was in the back of the room, sweeping up the evidence of last night’s eventful meeting. Not until this moment did it occur to Leah that it might be awkward to see Chandran again for the first time with Annova hovering nearby.

  “I’m so sorry! Taro was at the house and I couldn’t get away,” she apologized.

  “It’s fine,” Annova said with her usual serenity. “We’re still cleaning up.”

  Now Leah felt fresh color burning in her cheeks. She and Chandran had folded up the blankets and put away the jars of spice before they left last night—well, early this morning—but anyone with a passing familiarity with the upstairs storeroom would realize someone had been using the space for a social activity. “Last night was much more dramatic than I expected it to be,” she observed, just to have something to say. “Though, I suppose, with both Nelson and Zoe on hand, I shouldn’t have been surprised.”

  “I was past sixty before I met my first prime, and now I’m acquainted with them all,” said Annova. “It’s been fun.”

  Leah laughed. “I’d have said terrifying, I think.”

  Annova smiled. “And that’s the difference between coru and torz.”

  Leah clapped her hands together like someone who needed to get busy. “Well. I’ll carry those extra chairs upstairs and then bring down fresh merchandise,” she said. “Time to get ready for the day.”

  The chairs were cumbersome burdens to carry up the steps, but the effort was worth it, because once Leah made it to the second story, she found Chandran there before her. As soon as she crossed the threshold with her ungainly burdens, he turned to her with a smile, holding his arms out. She dropped the chairs and flung herself across the room, into his embrace.

  “I missed you,” she exclaimed, her voice muffled against the fabric of his jacket. She could feel him kissing the top of her head, the side of her face.

  “It has scarcely been six hours since you have seen me,” he said.

  She looked up indignantly, and he dropped a kiss on her mouth. “That should have been plenty of time for you to miss me!”

  He laughed and kissed her again. “But then, I have missed you ever since you left Malinqua,” he pointed out. “It has just become one of the constant emotions of my life.”

  “I can’t figure out how to improve the logistics,” she said. “I could move back into my own apartment—but I don’t want to give up the closeness to Mally.”

  “You should never compromise your relationship with her, certainly not for me,” he said.

  “But I don’t see how I can bring you back to my room at night, despite what Josetta says.”

  “That does not appear to be a solution at this time,” he agreed.

  “Although maybe—sometime—if you feel like it—you could join us for dinner,” she said tentatively. “You’ve met Virrie and Mally, and you’d like Josetta and Rafe—it would be strange, probably, at first, but maybe not so bad—”

  “I would like that,” he said gravely.

  “But it still doesn’t solve the problem of how we get private time together,” she finished up. She glanced around the room, then gave him a coquette’s smile. “Though it was lovely here last night.”

  “I think the simplest solution is for me to acquire more hospitable quarters,” Chandran said. “I have not bothered to look for more comfortable rooms because I was not sure how long I would be staying. But if I am to remain in Chialto for the foreseeable future, which now seems likely—”

  “Very likely.”

  “Then the investment is worth it.”

  A question occurred to her for the first time since his arrival. She pulled back enough to search his face. “Do you have the money to cover your expenses?” she asked bluntly. “You left Malinqua so abruptly—I can’t imagine you had time to liquidate your assets.”

  “I did not,” he admitted. “But you forget I have been a fugitive for many years. I made sure I always had large amounts of cash at my disposal, and I set other protocols in place. Since I have been in Welce, I have been able to contact my bankers in Malinqua and recover most of my investments. Everything at my booth in the Great Market was forfeit, and those items represented a considerable sum, but I am able to withstand the loss.” He kissed her once more and released her. “And, of course, you pay me for my work here.”

  She laughed. “Yes, barely enough to cover the rent on your squalid little room, I’m sure,” she retorted. “But I’m glad you have some resources.”

  “Like you,” he said quietly, “I am always prepared to take care of myself, if an emergency arises.”

  She sighed and turned away to survey the room. “Yes, we’re both aware of how quickly life can push us to extremes,” she said. “Now. What’s left to be done up here, and what have you decided should go on display this morning?”

  The three of them worked companionably for the next half hour, at which point the first customers arrived. Leah was tired from lack of sleep and she couldn’t shake the headache, so she moved through the day in a lax and dreamy state. That made her thoughts duller and her decisions slower, but wore away her usual somewhat anxious edge. Not entirely a bad thing, she thought.

  She perked up late in the afternoon when it turned out that the two men who strolled through the door were not buyers, but sellers—Jaker and Barlow back from a long, meandering trip through the countryside.

  “Did you bring me treasures?” she demanded as they hauled three big trunks through the door and set them up in the back of the shop.

  “We certainly think so,” said Barlow, always the more boastful one. “We were up at the northwestern ports where the smaller ships come in.”

  “And ships from some of the northern countrie
s that don’t like to sail all the way south to the Chialto harbor,” Jaker added.

  “Almost all the Soechin captains use the northern port,” Barlow put in. “Saw some Karkan flags when we were there, too.”

  Those vessels probably belonged to the prince and his attendants, Leah thought, if they’d sailed down to Welce after making treaties with Soeche-Tas. She pretended to be disappointed. “I expected you two to bring me goods from places more exotic than Soeche-Tas and the Karkades.”

  “Oh, we did,” Jaker assured her. “I don’t think you’ll find this stuff anywhere else in the country.”

  She introduced them to Chandran, and the four of them went through the items in the trunks while Annova waited on customers. Jaker was right—they’d brought back items Leah hadn’t seen in any other shop in the city, from countries she had only heard of in passing. There were necklaces of brilliant black gems mined only in Botchka, fabrics spun from the fur of horselike creatures in Milvendris, spices from Loelle, seeds from Kelk. Jaker carefully unrolled a colorful shawl woven of hundreds of feathers in bright blue, brilliant pink, and jaunty yellow, and draped it over Leah’s shoulders.

  “You could charge anything you wanted for something like that,” he said. “There won’t be another one like it anywhere in Welce.”

  She watched herself in the mirror, turning this way and that. It was gaudy, impractical, ridiculous, and gorgeous. She could name three of her regular customers who would buy it in an instant. “It’s not the sort of thing you could wear too many places,” she demurred.

  “You’ve got a coronation coming up,” Barlow pointed out. “Seems like just the thing to wear to an event like that.”

  Leah slipped the shawl off her shoulders. “Obviously, I have to have it,” she said. “And everything else you brought. You’re my best suppliers by far.”

  They spent a few minutes haggling amiably about prices, but since they were all determined to be fair, negotiations went quickly. Still, Leah laughed when they agreed on a final number.

  “If I wasn’t so tired and didn’t have a headache, I’d argue a little longer,” she said. “Next time, I’ll be more stubborn. You’ll see.”

  “Headache? That’s too bad,” Barlow said with easy sympathy. “Jaker gets them, too.”

  “It was a late night with a lot of—drama.”

  “I can give you some corvier for it if you want,” Jaker said. “Mine are frequent enough that I always carry some with me.”

  “Corvier?” she repeated. “That was pretty well-known in Malinqua. But it was always sold as a poison.”

  “That’s one of its uses,” said Jaker. “If you take enough, it’ll kill you. But just a couple of drops can have a miraculous effect on pain.”

  “Jaker’s always been interested in medicinals,” Barlow said with a certain pride. “Won’t deal in anything that’s not legal, but he knows about every drug you can find between here and Cozique.”

  “So if you want something—” Jaker said.

  “I think a good night’s sleep is all I need to cure my headache,” Leah said. “But I’ll let you know if that changes. How long are you going to be in town?”

  “Maybe a nineday,” Barlow said. “We both have family to visit.”

  “And more goods to deliver,” Jaker added.

  “What? You didn’t bring me everything?”

  Barlow grinned. “We have other clients we have been supplying for a lot longer than we’ve been supplying you,” he said.

  “But if you keep buying as freely as you did today, we’ll keep saving some of our best merchandise for your shop,” Jaker added.

  “Good. I like a mutually profitable relationship.”

  • • •

  Jaker and Barlow slipped out only a few minutes before closing time, and Annova was right behind them.

  “Can you two close up?” she asked, managing to hold back her smile. “I need to get back to the palace.”

  “Yes. We’ll manage. Thank you,” Leah replied, hoping she sounded dignified instead of flustered, but pretty sure she didn’t. “See you in the morning.”

  Annova was scarcely out the door before Leah turned to find Chandran, and they fell into each other’s arms. She loved the specific shape of his body against hers, his size and height and utter solidity. She loved the spicy smell that seemed to be woven into the crisp fabric of his jacket—or, maybe it was the particular smell of his own warm skin. She loved the feel of his arms enclosing her, tightening around her body as she drew him even closer. She stood there a moment, simply burrowing into him, and then lifted her head for his kiss.

  “That wasn’t easy,” she said after a while. “Being so close to you all day and not even being able to touch you.”

  “I felt the hardship myself,” he said solemnly, but his dark eyes were laughing.

  “Though Annova wouldn’t care. I don’t think. I mean, I’m sure she suspects something anyway. It’s just that—I don’t know that this is the right time—”

  “It is too new,” Chandran said. “Too young to be shared with anyone else.”

  She rested her head against his chest and thought that over. “That might be it,” she said. “Or maybe I’m just a coward.”

  He freed a hand so he could tilt her head up. “In what way?”

  She half shrugged. “I haven’t had the nerve to claim Mally as my own. I’m not ready to tell the world about you. Maybe I just don’t know how to be public about my feelings.”

  “Maybe your last relationship conditioned you to think that feelings do not last,” he countered. “So you hide them, hoping that the loss will not seem so great if the rest of the world does not know.”

  His words hurt—not because he said them, but because they seemed true. Because they exposed her heart as a small, sad, shivering thing crouching in a dark corner. “Maybe I need to get braver,” she said. “And not care about pain.”

  “Everybody cares about pain,” he said. “But it is a matter of degree.”

  She tilted her head to look up at him. “What about you?” she challenged. “You haven’t trusted yourself to have a real relationship in fifteen years. And your last one ended more badly than mine.”

  “By any measure,” he acknowledged.

  “So? Will you be able to trust again? Will you be able to walk back into the daylight?”

  There was a small padded divan in a corner of the store where visitors could rest for a few minutes, recovering from the exertions of shopping. Chandran tugged her over there and sat down, drawing her onto his lap. “I do not know,” he said, his voice raw with honesty. “I know that I trust you as I have trusted no one I have met since I left Cozique. I do not know why this would be so. Could I have misjudged you? Could you be someone other than the person I believe? Could you turn against me, betray me, take a literal or metaphorical dagger and plunge it into my heart?”

  “No,” she said.

  “I have to believe that the possibility of disaster exists, because the possibility of disaster always exists,” he said. “But I want this too much. I want you too much. I am willing to risk myself again, wholly and completely, because the chance of having you in my life offers me so much joy. It outweighs the risk of annihilation.”

  She put her hands on either side of his face. “Chandran,” she said urgently. “I will never willingly hurt you. I will never consciously betray you. We might— This might— Maybe we won’t be able to make this work. But I won’t harm you or turn against you. I won’t—I couldn’t possibly—”

  She couldn’t summon the right words. She didn’t know the right vows. She just kissed him frantically, wrapping her arms around him, clinging to him, trying to make her body the oath, the promise. He returned her fervor, made his own pledge with his mouth, his hands, his body. They had lost the gift of language, but they remembered even older skills, and those were wh
at they called upon as they signed a binding contract.

  • • •

  Leah was home for dinner, but barely—everyone else was just taking their final bites of food or sipping from a last glass of fruited water.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I’ve been running late the whole day.”

  Virrie kissed her cheek. “It’s just dinner,” she said. “Don’t apologize.”

  Mally ran up to give her a hug and settled on Leah’s lap as she sat at the table. One of the servants instantly appeared, carrying a plate loaded with steaming food. “Did you have a good day?” Mally asked.

  Leah couldn’t resist kissing the top of Mally’s head. She refused to look in Josetta’s direction. “I did. Two friends came by with three trunkloads of new merchandise to show me and I bought it all. You’ll have to drop by the shop soon and see everything.”

  “Can Natalie come?”

  Leah lifted her gaze to glance around the table. Sitting between Virrie and Taro was a slim girl about seven or eight years old. She had dark hair, narrow cheeks, and an expression of bright curiosity. And she was watching Leah with great interest. She and Mally looked enough alike that they could pass for sisters. Which they’ve done for five years.

  “I’m Leah,” she said. “Are you Natalie?”

  The girl nodded. “You’re the one from Malinqua, aren’t you?” Natalie asked.

  “Well, I’m from Welce, but I lived in Malinqua for five years,” Leah answered.

  “Why?”

  “Because I didn’t like the way my life was going in Welce and I thought it might be better somewhere else.”

  “Was it?”

  “It was, actually,” Leah said. “I met a lot of interesting people—and I found interesting work—and I came closer to figuring out the person I wanted to be.”

  “Isn’t everybody already a person?” Natalie wanted to know.

  “You’ll find that she can ask more questions than anyone else in all of Chialto,” Taro said.

  “You told me it was good to ask questions,” Natalie shot at him. “You said that it was one of the things you liked about me.”