Jeweled Fire

  Liramelli had turned so she could watch the knot of women clustered around Steff. “I would like that,” she said. “I wonder how long it will take the empress to have his blood tested.”

  Because you wouldn’t want to waste your time getting to know him if it turns out he’s not in the running after all, Corene thought. “I don’t know,” Corene said. “But I can tell you this—he’s Subriella’s son. My father’s wife has an ability—I can hardly explain it—all she has to do is a touch a man to know who his ancestors are. I can understand that Filomara wants her own proof, but Steff is her grandson. Don’t hold back from him just because you’re not sure.”

  Liramelli shifted her gaze to look directly in Corene’s eyes, clearly hearing the barb in that last comment. “You’re a stranger here, so you can’t possibly know,” she said quietly. “But I would die for Malinqua. My family has served the crown for more generations than I can count. All I care about is that the next person to sit on the throne is the best person. Whether or not I am attached to him is immaterial.”

  It was the first time Corene found herself liking the prefect’s daughter. But then, Corene always liked people who showed a little spirit. She had the thought that this girl was probably elay, possessing such traits as honor and vision.

  “I imagine that, one way or the other, you’ll end up near the throne,” Corene said. “Won’t you serve the crown after your father?”

  Liramelli nodded. “Yes. And my children after me and their children after them.”

  “That’s what people like—stability in the realm.”

  “Is that what you have in Welce?”

  Corene was tired of going into all the details about the Welchin succession, so she abbreviated. “Mostly. The old king died, and the regent has been chosen to be the next king. And since he was the chief advisor to the old king, everybody knows him and everybody trusts him.” She laughed soundlessly. “Not everybody likes him, but I don’t suppose that matters.”

  “Exactly,” Liramelli said. “There are so many more important things than being liked.”

  Oddly enough, Corene agreed with Liramelli on that point, too. Though I bet people would dislike us for different reasons, she thought. She couldn’t help but laugh and Liramelli, cautiously, smiled in return. It transformed her face so much Corene almost didn’t recognize her.

  • • •

  Although Corene had begun to think the evening would simply never end, a few moments later Filomara strode from the room, obviously using that tactic to avoid answering any more questions. Corene slipped out immediately afterward, giving no one else a chance to approach her, and hurried up to her suite. At her own door she hesitated. Both Melissande and Steff were likely to come knocking, and she didn’t feel like answering questions for her or offering reassurances to him. So she crossed the hall and tapped on Foley’s door.

  He answered as quickly as if he had been standing on the other side, awaiting her. She wondered if he had spent the evening prowling the corridors just outside the dining hall, ensuring her safety, returning to his room just steps before she arrived. She liked the idea, in the general way, but she supposed he needed time to eat and attend to his own basic needs. He couldn’t shadow her every second of every day.

  “How did it go?” he asked.

  “Fine. Can I come in? You’re the only person I can stand the idea of talking to.”

  He stepped aside to let her pass—and none too soon, as she could hear voices down the hall before he shut the door. He dialed up the gaslight to brighten the room, and she dropped into the closest chair. He settled nearby.

  “You’re not acting like it was fine,” he observed.

  “It was just tiresome. All these new people, and half the time talking in a language I don’t understand, and wondering who’s lying and who’s telling the truth.”

  “Except for the language, it doesn’t sound that different from Chialto.”

  She laughed. “No! Maybe that’s why it was so tiresome. I thought it would be more fun.”

  “Did you learn anything interesting?”

  “Hard to say,” she said, launching into a summary of the conversations she’d had over the course of the evening. Foley listened closely, only now and then asking her to clarify who had made some remark.

  “A little odd,” he said when she was done.

  “What in particular?”

  “All those bodies.”

  “Bodies? What?”

  He counted on his fingers. “The empress’s husband, dead. Her daughters, both dead. The one girl’s children, all dead. Two brothers, dead. That’s a lot of heirs to be eliminated.”

  Once again, Corene felt a chill of uneasiness between her shoulder blades. “When you put it like that, it is a little unnerving,” she said slowly. “But—I think some of those are just coincidence. I mean, Subriella was sent off to another country to marry. No one could have expected her husband to want to kill her.”

  “Why not?” Foley said mildly. “Berringey is just across the mountains from Malinqua. Surely it would be easy for someone here to discover the way the succession is handled there. Isn’t it common for potential heirs to be killed off once the new king is named?”

  “Well—yes—”

  Foley shrugged. “So maybe someone knew that, and that person advised Filomara to make the marriage anyway.”

  “And Aravani died from a fever—”

  Foley looked skeptical, and Corene’s discomfort deepened. She said, “I suppose that could have been faked. She could have been poisoned instead. And all her family.”

  Foley nodded. “Four heirs dead. And then two of Filomara’s brothers. How did they die?”

  “No one has told me.”

  “Two more heirs gone.”

  “But everyone says she was never going to name her brothers her successors.”

  “Maybe not. But if something suddenly happened to her, surely one of them would take the crown.”

  Corene felt herself actually shiver. “So you’re saying that someone arranged to have Subriella sent off somewhere she was likely to get killed—poisoned Aravani and her entire household—and murdered Filomara’s brothers? All to clear his own way to the throne? That would take someone with a lot of patience and cold-blooded ambition.”

  Foley shrugged. “People like that abound in royal courts.”

  “As we both know,” she said. She reviewed the list of likely candidates. “I suppose one of her brothers could have been scheming all this time—or maybe the prefect. But whoever it is seems to have given up, because I don’t think anyone’s died for almost twenty years.”

  “You said Garameno was injured ten years ago.”

  “Yes, but that was an accident . . .” Her voice trailed off. “Or maybe a botched murder attempt.”

  “And for all you know, there have been other deaths among the nobility—names you haven’t even heard yet.”

  She shivered again, and this time Foley gave her a questioning look. “Melissande told me,” she said in a quiet voice, “that some high-born woman disappeared a couple of ninedays ago. No one knows where she went.”

  “And why would someone want to get her out of the way?”

  “She was close to Greggorio. Maybe someone didn’t want her to end up next to him on the throne.”

  “They wanted him to marry a princess instead.”

  Corene stared at him, remembering what Melissande had said. “Then that means I’m safe, doesn’t it?”

  “Unless whoever is going around murdering people decides he doesn’t like you, either.”

  She held the stare a moment longer, trying to tamp down a complex surge of emotions: fear, anger, bewilderment, and a touch of self-loathing. If someone’s killing unlikable people, I will surely be on that list. She attempted a smile. “I see I acted with my usual good judgment when I deci
ded to run away to Malinqua,” she said.

  His unexpected smile was amazingly sweet. “It’s true that things tend to be a little more dramatic when you’re at the heart of them.”

  That made her laugh, which instantly changed her mood. “Poor Foley! I always think of you as so calm and so still. And here I’ve plunged you into chaos.”

  He shrugged slightly. “You don’t become a royal guard if you expect life to be ordinary and dull,” he replied. “Part of you likes the chaos. Or at least likes the challenge of taming it.”

  “Maybe that’s why I always feel so safe when you’re around,” Corene said. “Because I’m always at the center of a whirlwind, and you seem like you can settle down any storm.” She spoke lightly, but in truth she was much struck. That explained it exactly, the way she’d always reacted to Foley’s presence. She felt steadier. More sure of herself. Certain that he could keep her from careening off the edge, no matter how events unfolded around her.

  It hadn’t occurred to her that he would be drawn to tumult, but it made a certain kind of sense. So maybe he didn’t mind so much that she’d dragged him off on this adventure—even if it turned out to be more dangerous than either of them had expected.

  Foley gestured toward the door, indicating the whole palace that lay outside these walls. “We don’t know yet if there will be any storms here in Malinqua,” he said. “But it’s best to be prepared.”

  “Prepared for storms or murderers,” she agreed. “Well, you kept Josetta safe for five years, and people really were trying to kill her. So I think I’ll be just fine as long as you’re around.”

  “I hope so,” he said seriously.

  She came to her feet and headed for the door, Foley right behind her. She found herself suddenly exhausted after what had been a very long day. “In any case, I’m glad I brought you with me.”

  He didn’t reply until she had crossed the hallway, opened her door, and stepped into her own room. Then he said, “I’m glad you invited me to come.”

  FIVE

  Everyone else cursed the rain, but Leah welcomed it, because it gave her more time.

  It had seemed likely that within a few days of her arrival, Corene would visit some of the more popular sites of the city—specifically, the towers and the Great Market. Leah had concluded that her best chance of making contact with the princess would be to pose as a vendor at the market, but it wasn’t so easy to slip into the role.

  The Great Market was a massive structure a couple of miles south of the wall that enclosed the heart of the city—though there were those who considered the market itself to be Palminera’s heart. Everything could be bought and sold there, from livestock to opals. The four levels were constructed of contrasting layers of red and white stone and featured great arched openings that admitted sunlight and rain with equal impartiality. A wide metal stairwell spiraled up the center, taking prospective buyers to progressively more well-ordered and expensive levels.

  A butcher might do all his shopping on the bottom story, where cattle and chickens created a wild cacophony and a distinctive smell. One level up were booths carrying household goods from baking pans to common spices. Above them, shoppers could find glassware and small furnishings and shoes and clothes. And on the top level the items sold were things that only the very wealthy could afford: jewels, imported fruits and trinkets, fine musical instruments, drugs for every imaginable use.

  Leah needed to make a friend on the fourth level, where the royal visitors would inevitably shop.

  The problem was that most booths were owned by vendors whose families had occupied the exact same spaces for decades, if not centuries. They were suspicious of strangers and unlikely to let a foreigner borrow counter space for an afternoon.

  The very day that Corene arrived in Malinqua, Leah headed toward the market, climbed to the top level, and browsed through the merchandise on display. She had dressed in her absolute finest clothes, by Malinquese standards—made of simple but expensive black silk—and visited as many booths as she could. She could usually get a sense of when people might be willing to deal, but none of the merchants on Great Four struck her as being open to trades or bribery.

  So she returned to the harbor to ask her new friend Billini for help.

  She had sized him up as a man who dealt in information, which meant he would respond to a truth better than a fabrication. So she was honest with him, up to a point.

  “I just want to meet the new princess—the one from Welce,” she said to Billini over a beer. It was late by this time and the bar was nearly empty again, though Billini had had a packed house once the royal party finally cleared out of the harbor. “I want to be able to tell my friend back in Chialto that I didn’t just see the princess, I spoke to her. She’ll be so jealous.”

  Billini was wiping down the counter while keeping an eye on the few remaining patrons. He grinned. “That she will.”

  “And I thought, surely she’ll go to Great Four, right? And if I was working at one of the stalls when she walked up—” She heaved a sigh of self-pity. “But I was there today and I didn’t see a booth where an owner looked friendly enough to ask.”

  “They’re a pretty closed-off lot,” Billini agreed.

  “I’d pay,” she said glumly. “I’d pay a lot to have a chance to say five words to the princess.”

  A man at the end of the bar called out for another beer, so Billini stepped away for a few minutes. That was fine; Leah hoped it gave him time to think. When he came back, she changed the subject.

  “I have the stupidest landlord,” she said. “He wants to start charging me extra if I keep food in my rooms. Says it brings in the mice. I said, No, you not clearing garbage out of the alley is what brings in the mice.”

  “Landlords are assholes,” Billini said, nodding. “That’s why I’m so lucky I own this place.”

  They swapped a few stories about the general unlikability of the rich and powerful, then Billini tapped his finger on the counter a few times.

  “I might be able to help out,” he said.

  Leah affected surprise. “With what?”

  “At Great Four. I know somebody who wouldn’t mind doing me a favor.”

  She let herself show excitement. “Someone who has a booth? Where I might meet the princess?”

  He nodded. “If you mention my name, Chandran will listen. But he won’t give anything away for free.”

  “Of course! I wouldn’t expect him to. But I don’t want to seem cheap. What should I offer him? What should I say to him?”

  In between Billini’s next few customers, they discussed the protocol and price ranges of bribery, which wasn’t nearly as expensive as Leah would have thought. When she finally departed for the night, she left an exorbitant tip as thanks, but both of them knew very well she had already paid Billini in advance with her information about Steff’s arrival.

  Just as she’d hoped. This was going to be a profitable relationship.

  • • •

  Billini’s friend in Great Four was a commandingly tall, heavily bearded man who spoke with a trace of a Coziquela accent. Leah was intrigued by the idea that Billini only collected friends from foreign lands, but it made sense. They would tend to have less loyalty to the crown and much more loyalty to hard cash. She wondered how Chandran had managed to acquire a booth in the Market. Married for it or murdered for it, she supposed.

  She didn’t ask.

  He traded in foreign fripperies—embroidered scarves, painted vases, tiny glass music boxes that threw off prisms of light while their interior mechanisms spun with melody. He listened without expression as Leah laid her offer before him.

  “One day only?” he asked when she was done.

  “Unless I don’t manage to speak to the princess on the first day she comes here.”

  A very small smile showed through the thick beard. “The royal part
y always stops at my booth.”

  “Then one day only.”

  “Would you pay in Welchin coin?”

  She almost said, No, of course not—I have Malinquese money, but she stopped herself in time. “Would that be an advantage to you?”

  “I have a supplier who would be happy if I were to buy his goods in that currency.”

  “Then that’s what I’ll bring.”

  “You will need to work while you are awaiting the princess’s arrival,” he warned her. “You will need to be courteous and knowledgeable about the items for sale.”

  She glanced at the variety on display. “You might need to spend a few hours training me, but I’m generally quick to learn.”

  “I have time today,” he offered. He jerked his head in the direction of the open wall, where unrelenting rain was making the whole city miserable. “Not many will venture to the market in this weather.”

  “I’m free as well.”

  So she slipped inside the booth, which was the size of a small bedroom. Chandran and his neighbors had created divisions by lining up tall cabinets, back to back with each other, to delineate their own spaces. Some of Chandran’s cabinets had drawers, some had doors, and all were heavily locked. Instead of a back wall, there was a curtain, and through it Leah could glimpse a storage area filled with locked trunks and a very small seating area. On the other side of the curtained area, she surmised, was a vendor whose space backed up to this one. Chandran had one of the coveted middle aisles, close to the stairwell that delivered wealthy buyers and a comfortable distance from the open archways where bad weather came blowing in.

  The front of the booth was a polished wood table laid out with samples of Chandran’s exotic goods. They were designed to catch the eyes of passersby, but Leah suspected that they were the least interesting of the items he had for sale. The very best pieces would be kept under lock and key and only brought out for the discriminating buyer who knew what to ask for.

  The rain never let up and traffic remained slow, so Chandran had plenty of time in between customers to explain what he was selling and how it was priced. Leah was interested to learn that he accepted payment in any kind of currency and could convert monetary amounts rapidly in his head.