Poisoned Blade

  The king opens one of the books Thanises just brought. The dead youth has already ceased to interest him. “If the prince is apt to have seizures more frequently, we must keep a criminal on hand at all times. The last spark we gave him did not last long at all.”

  “The prince’s disorder eats quickly at his life-force, my lord. Let us hope this youthful spark will carry the prince for many months.”

  “Mmmm.” The king’s attention fixes on the book. “Clean up quickly so he doesn’t wake and see the body.”

  The priests return and with the scholar tidy up and cart off the body as the king remains engrossed in his reading. The air smells of myrrh and cinnamon burned to purify the ground but the stink of untimely, murderous death has stuck in my throat. Even to swallow makes me want to vomit.

  Death—the moment when the spark leaves the flesh—is not a mystery nor need it be feared. When an elderly Commoner servant died in our household, Mother expected her daughters to help wash the corpse. What happened to Lord Perikos’s son wasn’t death but violence.

  Belatedly I remember the conversation between the king and Thanises: Ro is in danger, and with him my entire family. Yet I’m trapped here until Menoë leaves.

  With a relaxed yawn, the boy sits up and stretches. He picks up the big fan and glances around in confusion, looking for the missing youth. Swinging his legs off the couch, he stands, tests himself as an adversary might as she recovers from a fall, making sure her legs will hold her. He ventures over toward the king, who pats the lad on the arm and goes back to his books.

  The prince wrinkles up his nose, sniffs audibly, and makes several funny little faces. Before I have the least warning, he trots to the curtain behind which I am hiding. He can hear the music too, of course. He knows where his mother is.

  Too late I step away, meaning to escape down the servants’ corridor. He sweeps the curtain aside. His eyes widen as he takes me in. If I bolt, it will look as if I have something to hide. A net of fear pins me to the ground.

  “Gracious Father, I found a spider,” he calls over his shoulder in a high, light voice.

  The king, immersed in reading, does not react. Probably he hasn’t heard. But if he finds me here he will have me killed.

  I press two fingers to my lips. A smile lights the prince’s face as if we are playing a game.

  He grabs my hand and tugs me toward the women’s courtyard. I’m so grateful to escape the king’s notice that it doesn’t occur to me until too late that the prince means to barge right in. His grip is frail; he’s small for a boy of twelve. But I dare not break away as he leads me enthusiastically past the other curtain and straight into the center of the courtyard.

  Seeing him, the four ladies who are singing falter. The queen looks around.

  “Gracious Mother, look what I found,” he says into the silence. “See how she is brown all over like a tomb spider! And she is wearing her web.”

  He traces the silvery threads on my dress to make sure everyone notices.

  The worst part isn’t the way they are all staring at me as if they will have to wash the sight of me off their hands the way a butcher cleans himself after he slaughters a beast. Queasiness twists in my gut as Lady Menoë rises, hands in fists and red lips flattened into a thin line that makes her resemble her uncle. Clearly I have arrived before she wanted me.

  The queen extends both hands. “Why, little Temnos, you are looking well today!”

  The prince releases my hand and crosses to his mother. She presses a kiss to his forehead. She is a dainty woman, short and plump with a round face and slightly bulging eyes that convey a vague sense of constant stupefaction.

  “Where did the spider come from?” she asks, with a sharp glance toward the curtains. “Are you the king’s new favorite?”

  The ladies open their fans to hide their shocked expressions. I keep my posture rigid. Horribly, I can’t figure out what to do.

  Menoë glides forward. “Oh, Cousin! How can you think so? This is Garon Stable’s new adversary. She’s the one who defeated my dear Kal at the victory games last month.”

  “Why did you bring her here?” Queen Serenissima’s mildly foolish countenance doesn’t look so foolish when she examines me.

  “I thought you would find it amusing to see her tricks close up.”

  The prince has begun stuffing spiced prawns into his mouth in the manner of a child who hasn’t eaten in a week, oil oozing down his fingers. His gaze flicks from Menoë to his mother and then to me. The measuring intelligence in his eyes isn’t reflected in his childish speech. “I want to see her tricks! Please, Gracious Mother, I want her to be my special adversary and run for me in the palace.”

  Lady Menoë flutters her fan so hard I am surprised the curtains don’t fly right away. “Prince Temnos, my dear cousin, how is the spider to train as an adversary if you keep her caged up for your own amusement?”

  “Are you going to call her Spider just like I said she was?” His vapid grin makes him look about six. He extends a hand, inviting her to take it.

  “Of course, little Cousin.” She ignores the proffered hand.

  “Can you show me some tricks right now, Spider?”

  “Not wearing this dress, Your Lordship,” I say.

  The ladies tap each other with their fans with as much surprise as they might if a crow spoke instead of cawed. “How well she speaks Saroese!”

  Menoë can calculate opportunity as well as the next person. “With your gracious mother’s permission, Prince Temnos, I can arrange for a small Fives court to be built at the queen’s palace, and then I can bring your spider over to show you her tricks whenever you wish.”

  “It needs to be built properly,” I blurt out, irritated by how ignorantly they risk my body and skill. “The greatest risk to adversaries is obstacles so shoddily built that they give way or don’t work properly. That’s how most adversaries get injured.”

  Pressing my lips shut over the rest of my rant, I brace for a flood of abuse from highborn ladies offended that I dared to speak up.

  But they have already gone back to talking with each other about an Illustrious two of them have enjoyed as a lover, and whether to attend the City Fives Court next week instead of the horse races. A wave of servants moves through with fresh trays of food. Amaya is enjoying herself hugely, wandering amid the queen’s court just as if she belongs there, and she does in a way I never can.

  Envy claws at my breast, and for a moment I hate her. Then her gaze flicks to me and she gives me a half wink to remind me we are in this together. And we are. She can learn things I can’t. She’s the only one here I can fully trust.

  An older servingwoman brings a tray of cups and a pitcher of decanted wine to a table beside the queen. Each cup is filled with wine, and then the queen sips from each before handing them out. The first goes to Lady Menoë, and thence down the line of importance.

  The prince seizes my hand with his greasy one and pulls me toward the curtains. In an altered and much older tone he whispers, “That is how my gracious mother shows her visiting friends the wine isn’t poisoned. Never drink anything here unless it’s been tasted first. Come along. I’m going to show you to my gracious father so he’ll know you are my new friend.”

  His new friend with a knife up under her ribs should he have a mortal attack of his disorder while I am close enough to be slaughtered.

  Yet it isn’t his fault he lives on the sparks of murdered men.

  “Call me Temnos,” the boy adds. He takes two steps to every one of mine.

  “Your Lordship, I am too lowborn to be allowed such familiarity.”

  “I command you to do so! When you call me Temnos then I know we are friends.”

  As Temnos leads me through the curtains into the king’s courtyard, both Thanises and the king look up in surprise.

  “Gracious Father! I have found a spider. She is an adversary who is going to come every week to show me how to train for the Fives. But she doesn’t speak a word of Saroese.
May I be allowed to learn to speak Efean so she and I can talk?”

  He grinds his weight onto my toes as he speaks.

  “What is Serenissima thinking to let the boy overexert himself?” the king mutters.

  “Can I have a Fives court of my very own, Gracious Father? A properly built one, I mean, nothing shoddy.”

  Thanises murmurs, “Exercise would do the prince good, Your Lordship. A strong spark burns within him now. A gentle regimen will help him gain strength.”

  “If you are sure… There is no need to learn the crude tongue of the Efeans, Temnos. We can have an interpreter brought in. Where did you get the adversary?”

  The boy’s fingers loosen and tighten with the quicksilver working of his mind. This child is not as innocent as he pretends to be.

  “Cousin Menoë brought her, Gracious Father.”

  “Is Menoë here? I don’t like her visiting your mother. She’s a bad influence.” The king’s forehead wrinkles as his gaze darkens, and I’m surprised by his lapse in calling himself I instead of we, as if Menoë’s presence genuinely agitates him.

  “I will just take the adversary back to Cousin Menoë now. I wanted to show you so you aren’t surprised when you see her next time.”

  The prince tugs me back into the buffer space. The gap between the king’s and the queen’s courtyards signifies something about their relationship but I can’t guess what. How I wish Kalliarkos were here so I could ask him to explain it, or if he knows how the priests are keeping Temnos alive. What will happen to Temnos if Gargaron’s plans to put Kal and Menoë on the throne succeed?

  “Spider!” The prince pulls so insistently on my hand that I bend over. His mouth presses against my ear. “You must never, ever, ever let on that you were left to stand behind the curtains next to the king’s private courtyard. If the king guesses you might have overheard, as I am sure you did, he will kill you. I don’t want you to be killed, Spider. I like you.”

  “My thanks, Your Lordship.”

  “You’re to call me Temnos.”

  “Temnos, how can you know if you like me when we are strangers?”

  “Just do as I say and you won’t get hurt,” he commands in the same imperious tone as the king.

  Dread eats into my heart. The obstacles of the Fives court seem so clean and pure compared to this pit. No wonder Kalliarkos wanted nothing to do with it.

  The far end of the curtains surrounding the queen’s courtyard ripples, and a servant enters. I would recognize anywhere the way Amaya used to parade up and down our courtyard at home pretending to be a lady-in-waiting in the queen’s court. How we mocked her! Now I’m just grateful she’s so good at it.

  “Forgive my thunderous intrusion, Your Gracious Lordship Prince Temnos,” she says softly. Her voice has all the musicality my blunt speech lacks, and it is also so ridiculous I want to laugh. “Lady Menoë has instructed my humble self to guide your spider adversary to the kitchens where by the generous and gracious order of your gracious mother the queen, the royal servants may deign to sweeten the adversary’s lips with leftovers from the supper table. May I have your permission, Your Gracious Lordship? For as it says in the play, ‘Let no one enter or exit the palace without the benevolent oversight of our royal parents.’”

  “Do you attend the theater?” he asks a little breathlessly.

  Amaya sweeps through an elaborate genuflection, and I hide a smile behind a hand. “I do, Your Lordship. It is my chiefest pleasure in life. Do you attend the theater?”

  “No, I’m not allowed to go anywhere outside the royal grounds.” A sigh heaves his frail shoulders.

  “Then you and I shall devise a means by which you can convince them to allow you to walk into the city, Your Lordship.” She steps into a vein of light shining through a gap between curtains. The way the rays illuminate her face is striking.

  “Oh! You are very pretty!”

  She frames her face between upturned palms and flutters her eyelashes. “You flatter me, Your Lordship.”

  Choking down a laugh, I end up snorting, but the prince is too enchanted to notice.

  “If you serve Lady Menoë, then you can come along when my spider comes. Maybe the two of you can be friends.” He tilts his head to one side, examining her as she lowers her hands and then studying me. A squint creases his forehead. “You look a little alike. Isn’t that odd?”

  A jolt of adrenaline slams through me, but Amaya gives a twitch of her chin to signal me to keep my mouth shut.

  “The gods have a strange sense of humor, do they not, Your Lordship?” she says with her most amiable smile. “I laugh and laugh all the time. Do you laugh?”

  Infatuation glimmers in his gaze, the mark of a boy beginning to have a man’s interests. “I will laugh more when you are here to entertain me. What is your name?”

  “I am called Orchid, Your Lordship.”

  “Orchid,” he murmurs, as if awash in the heady scents of a flower garden. “I like that name.”

  He reaches into a pocket and gives me and then Amaya each a gold coin. Gold! A cold flash of uneasiness shivers through me. I’ve never held anything worth so much in my life.

  “A prince is meant to be generous to his followers. You will come next week to teach me the Fives, Spider. Now you’re my trainer.”

  “Of course, my lord.” When I glance at Amaya, she is still staring, mouth popped open, at the gold coin in her hand.

  “Now I’m going to go look for my friend Perikos the Younger. He was fanning me before but I can’t find him. Did you see him?”

  All I manage is a shrug. He vanishes back through the curtains, secure in knowing that whatever he hears his father say, he will not be murdered for it. As Amaya pulls me into the servants’ corridor, she blinks at me like a mirror sending signals across a battlefield.

  I murmur, “Do you have something in your eye, Doma?”

  “You’re so irritating! Tuck that coin away before someone takes it from you.” She walks a step ahead of me, slanting whispered words back over her shoulder. “We only have a few moments to talk. The ladies are distracted by Lady Menoë tantalizing them with hints about what happened to Prince Stratios.”

  “The husband everyone thinks she murdered?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Did she murder him?”

  “I don’t know, but I can believe she’s capable of sticking a knife into a man’s heart. Now listen! Lord Gargaron will be leaving soon to conduct his annual tour of the Garon estates. At my urging Denya has convinced Gargaron to take her along on his trip, and thus me. That way I can look for Bettany at the estates we visit. Now who is the brilliant one?”

  “It’s a good plan,” I mutter, wishing I had thought of it.

  “It’s a fantastic plan, and you know it, Jes. You just hate admitting I’m smarter than you are.”

  “Except you can’t move among Commoners the way I can. Efeans won’t trust you.” I suddenly remember the Efean I need to talk to. “I have an urgent problem. I have to warn Ro immediately that the king knows where he’s hiding, but I can’t leave until Lady Menoë goes.”

  She laces a loose ribbon through her fingers. “That is bad.”

  “If he’s arrested, they might trace his movements and find Mother.”

  “If I can get you out of here now, can you get to Ro-emnu right away?”

  “Yes. But won’t you and I get in trouble if I leave without Menoë’s permission?”

  “I’ll tell her you became ill from the rich food. Clutch your stomach and don’t say anything. Follow me.”

  Amaya minces through the antechamber, brandishing the ribbon, which is braided with the gold and purple reserved for the royal family. It’s so odd to see Patrons—even just stewards and servants—step aside to let us pass. Once we are outside Amaya accosts the driver waiting by the carriage I arrived in. I press my hands to my stomach and look at the ground.

  Her words have the sparkling diction of the highborn, for she can mimic any manner of speech. “I
am ordered by the Most Pure and Elevated Lady Menoë to see that this adversary returns to Garon Stable at once. Be about this charge quickly!”

  I climb into the carriage as Amaya gives me a nod, the only way we can communicate in front of others. I nod back.

  As the carriage rolls away I whisper, “I pray you, holy one, let me reach Ro-emnu in time.”

  But I’m not really sure to whom I’m praying.

  12

  To my utter disgust I find Ro-emnu at his ease in the Heart Tavern reciting poetry to an audience made up of simpering young women and a handful of young men probably hoping to console the girls who don’t catch Ro’s eye. As I stride up he breaks off.

  “You have such a look on your face, schemer! More frantic than sullen.”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “I would never have guessed.” He stands, kisses three of the girls, and leads me over to an isolated table in a shady corner. Neither of us sits.

  He studies me for longer than is comfortable. “I didn’t expect you to visit me again so soon. Is all well?”

  “You have to get out of the city. The king is searching for you.”

  He shrugs. “Weak sauce, Spider. I already know that.”

  “No, you don’t know. His investigators learned the name of the Heart Tavern just this morning. It’s only by chance I was able to get here as quickly as I have.” After returning to the stable I took only enough time to change out of the impossible dress before coming here, although I was careful to take a roundabout path through the Ribbon Market in case I was being followed. “His soldiers could be here at any moment!”

  He leans so close I have to grit my teeth to stop from taking a step backward. It isn’t that he scares me. It’s that I feel the heat of his presence like a dare, as if I’m just one of the girls who want to cluster around him. “It’s so sweet that you care about me.”

  With three fingers I press into his chest hard enough to get him to move back. “I don’t care about you. I care about my mother. She’s in danger because I asked you to take money to her. I’ve just discovered the king is more obsessed with finding you than he is with fighting the armies of old Saro. I can’t chance him tracing your movements to my family.”