Return of the Guardian-King

  Moments later, the leader among them was recognized as a barge captain just arrived with a load of wounded soldiers from the front, and the place convulsed with excitement. He was ushered immediately to the lower floor, where table and chairs were shoved into the place normally reserved for the musicians, and there he held forth with his news.

  “Now, I can’t say any of this for sure, since they all had different tales, but the gist is, Crown Prince Leyton is said to have had some sort of talisman that he claimed would clear away the mist so our cannon could fire.”

  As his words penetrated, Maddie’s heart seized. A talisman to drive away the mists?

  “He planned to draw the enemy in around Torneki, then use the talisman to drive off the mist while our gunships, waiting hidden on the Chesedhan side of the isle, came round to blast them all to pieces.”

  Just like on the Gull Islands. As the captain continued with the details, her eyes went inexorably to Trap, who watched the man white-faced and tightlipped. It had been two years since Leyton visited them in Springerlan. . . . No! I cannot believe that. I will not believe it. Not until I hear it from his lips. . . .

  Whatever Leyton had, it hadn’t worked. The mist hadn’t cleared, and the Esurhite galley commanders, apparently understanding the plan themselves, had slipped around the island and brought their vessels in close under the hulls of the waiting gunships before the Chesedhans even knew what was happening. Southlanders had swarmed like termites across the decks, leaving the Islanders to beat back the horde they themselves had invited in. Leyton and his men had been cut off. Hadrich had taken one of his own galleys to the island to rescue him. And had been wounded in the effort—though not seriously, according to the barge captain.

  “Molly!” Her employer’s voice hissed into her awareness, her assumed name registering belatedly. “Stop yer gawking and get into the kitchen! They need ye there.”

  She almost told him to mind his own business and leave her be, but she caught herself and hurried to the kitchen. Lindie now slumped on the bench beside the back door, glassy-eyed and shivering even as she insisted she was fine—she just needed a minute to rest.

  “We don’t have a minute!” Hulet, head of the serving staff, cried. When she still refused to move, he cursed her vigorously for her weakness, then the esteemed gentleman for his bad timing, and finally the kitchen itself, just because. Then he ordered Maddie to take the sick girl’s place.

  Irritation washed over her, and again she nearly refused.

  “When you’ve delivered the trays,” Hulet said, “don’t forget to refill the wine glasses. Mace is already in there.” He turned away and spoke to another. “They’ll be wanting their coffee soon. How are you coming with that?”

  Sighing, Maddie balanced the tray of stuffed dates on one hand, the platter of honeyed pastries on the other, and set off. The esteemed gentleman was set up in the Nobility Room, on the far side of the Gilded Ram’s inner courtyard. The servants’ entrance was at the back. Balancing her trays, she shouldered the door open and stepped into deep darkness, the air warm and heavy with incense. For a moment she could hardly breathe, for it pressed about her like thick cotton and resisted her attempts to drag it into her lungs. As the door swung shut behind her she felt as if she were falling down a well. Then the air rushed into her lungs and the feeling passed, as did the darkness. With her eyes adjusted, she saw the room was merely dimly lit.

  The esteemed gentleman’s tent did indeed fill the entire hall. Red and white silk swooped outward from a central stanchion, then draped down in what she surmised to be the six walls customary of an eastern warlord’s deniga. She couldn’t tell for sure because curtains partitioned off a smaller space on the far side of the room. Thick Sorian carpeting covered the floor, and the space had been lit with candles flickering in clear glass pots—some colorless, others tinted amber or scarlet—and arranged in artful groupings around the room, as well as the main table. Small plates of onions stood among them to keep away the staffid.

  Kyra was just finishing her song as Maddie entered, the musicians playing out the final few bars. As the sounds faded, one of the musicians plucked the strings of his lirret in a wandering and repetitive melody meant only to fill the silence.

  It was immediately clear which of those at the long, linen-clad table was the esteemed gentleman, for he sat at its center, facing the entertainers. He wore a dark silk tunic with a dark robe over, edges stitched with silver and trimmed with small red stones that flashed in the candlelight. Thick dark hair tumbled in loose waves about his shoulders, framing a handsome, angular face, darkened with the closely trimmed beard easterners favored. As dark as the tented chamber was, she was surprised at how clearly she saw his face. In the flickering, multihued candlelight, it glowed like warm gold.

  The innkeeper, Serr Penchott, stood just inside the door with one of the Sorites, and Maddie heard the latter asking him if he had any dancers.

  “None trained, sir,” the innkeeper replied with far too much trembling deference. He suggested Kyra might try it, and Maddie heard the Sorite give a derisive snort as she passed out of earshot and approached the long table. Suddenly the esteemed guest’s face turned slightly, light flashing off what looked like gilding on his cheekbones as his dark eyes fixed upon her and his nostrils flared like those of a hound catching a scent. Blushing, she averted her eyes, feeling the intensity of his gaze until she stepped onto the platform and came around behind the men who sat along the table beside him.

  From the corner of her eye she saw him turn away to speak to his seatmate. Reaching past the shoulder of the third man from the end, she laid the first of her trays onto the table. Continuing down the line of backs, she deposited the second as Mace laid hers before the esteemed guest himself, and Hulet covered the table’s far end.

  Free of the tray, Maddie picked up the jug of mulled wine and worked her way down the table, filling the shallow drinking bowls as she went. As she’d expected, the men spoke in Sorian, a language she did not know. Thus, though she could hear them clearly, she had no idea what they were saying. Her time had been better spent in the common room back in the main part of the inn.

  Finally she stood at the right shoulder of the esteemed gentleman, reaching past him once to snag the drinking bowl, then again to put it back. She thought he was ignoring her until, as she pulled her hand away from the replaced bowl, he seized her arm with his right hand, the nails of which were long and gilded. The sight of them startled her as much as the fact that he’d seized her, and she froze in sudden alarm. He held her gently, though, as he turned her hand and lifted her wrist to his nose, then closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.

  The light flashed upon the fine gold scaling that had indeed been painted—or glued—across his cheekbones, and the delicate skin immediately surrounding his eyes had been stained a pale, cool blue, enhancing their depth and just now the dark length of his lashes. Her heart pounding wildly, she fought the urge to jerk away, and focused on the amber and obsidian signet he wore on his clawed right forefinger. She recognized the jackal as belonging to one of the older, more respected houses on Torneki, but . . . no matter. If he moved his nose upward along her bared arm so much as a hair, she would twist herself free of him and walk away. She was queen of Kiriath and First Daughter of Chesedh, after all. She didn’t have to put up with this sort of thing, and if it destroyed her little charade as “Molly,” so be it.

  He did no more than sniff deeply at her wrist, however. Then his fine lips quirked as he opened his eyes and turned to look up at her. “When will your child be born, miss?”

  His grip tightened an instant before her reactive jerk backward, and he held her fast, staring up into her eyes. Chills rushed over her as he smiled disarmingly, perfect white teeth flashing in his swarthy and startlingly handsome countenance. “I can smell it, you see. Smelled it the moment you entered.”

  She gaped at him.

  He rubbed his thumb gently across her wrist. “How much would you take for
it? When the time comes, of course.”

  “Take for it?” Maddie’s voice came out high-pitched and tiny.

  “You are wed, with a father to care for it? That is why you work nights at this difficult and demeaning job—one that is surely beneath a flower so lovely as yourself?”

  “I—” Her voice choked off as blood rushed hotly into her face. Flower? No one had ever called her a flower. Not even Abramm. And though everything about this man set her back up, she could not deny the warm pleasure his words and dark gaze provoked in her. She jerked up her chin. “I don’t see that’s any business of yours, sir.” Which of course was the last thing a serving maid should be saying to an esteemed guest. Penchott would have a heart seizure when he heard about it, as he surely would in about half a minute. Mace was already heading toward the door.

  The dark brows lifted and the gentleman laughed softly, a marvelous sound that stirred her as she had not been stirred for nearly six months now. “My, but you are high spirited for a serving wench.” He turned to his tablemate. “You’d think she was the queen herself. Serr Penchott must really have his hands full with this one.”

  The others laughed as Maddie’s face burned again, her discomfiture so convoluted she couldn’t begin to sort out all its sources. And why did she have the feeling that everything he said had a double meaning?

  The dark gaze returned to hers. “I mean you no insult, girl. I but offer a solution that will benefit us both. The child would have a good home, far better than what you could provide for him, and I will—”

  The meaning in his words slammed into her like a windblown door, and this time when she jerked backward, he let her go.

  “My child is not for sale, sir!” she declared.

  “Oh, come now. Even here in Chesedh such things are done all the time. Particularly by those in your profession.”

  “In my profession—?” And suddenly she saw what he meant, what he thought she did when she wasn’t serving tables. Renewed outrage swept through her, and she glimpsed the beginnings of his smile as she whirled and stalked for the door, mortified, furious, and half afraid he’d call her back or order his men to stop her.

  “I like a woman with fire,” he commented to one of his companions. “We’ll have to come back here.”

  By then she was stepping into the servants’ hall, free of the closeness of that stifling room and finally able to breathe again. Fear nipped at her heels, and she passed through the main room heedless of the barge captain, still going strong. She halted only long enough to glance up to where Trap sat in his upper-level booth. His gaze focused on her instinctively, though he was deep in conversation with his tablemate, Admiral Hamilton, who had arrived in her absence. She gave a thought to telling him she meant to leave, but memory of the Sorite’s words roused another wave of mortified indignation and she hurried on toward the kitchen. He thinks I am a whore! He tried to buy my child!

  Several people spoke to her as she passed, but she had no idea what they said. She found her cloak, told Hulet she had to go home right now and that she didn’t know if she’d be back tomorrow or not.

  She was out the door before he could answer. His shouted protest followed her into the yard, only to be snatched away by the wind as she hurried up the alley to River Street. Images of the Sorite gentleman sniffing her wrist assailed her. “I can smell it,” he’d said. It made her flesh crawl. So did the gilding on his cheekbones and the golden claws on his nails. He thought I was a whore! Her emotions ran from mortification to chagrin to outrage as the wind blew ever more strongly, seeming to oppose her every step.

  Finally, when an especially strong gust caught her cloak like a sail and nearly dragged her off her feet, she stopped. And realized she had no idea where she was.

  The empty street gleamed beneath the kelistar streetlamps, deserted save for several humps she thought were sleeping drunks and a pack of dogs nosing some refuse up near the corner about a stone’s throw away. She turned slowly, gazing at closed and boarded-up storefronts, at darkened windows she did not recognize. From this vantage she couldn’t even see the palace, the shops’ peaked roofs blocking her view. Dried weeds and bits of rope tumbled down the street, driven by a wind that was growing sharp with the scent of rain. Scraps of fabric and leather scurried along; a tin cup clacked along the cobbles, rolled over and over by the wind.

  She faced back the way she had come, her wind-driven cloak now enfolding her in great obstructing billows. Nothing looked familiar, and several of the lanterns stood dark up the way, their glass shades broken by the wind, the kelistars in them put out. Nor was there any sign of Trap. He must not have realized I was leaving, she thought with dismay. And rightly so, since her shift wouldn’t be over for two more hours.

  Two new dogs emerged from an alley not far down the street from her and peed on the brick walls at its entrance. These two were large and brown, while the others were smaller and pale. The bigger of the pair sniffed a clump of weeds, then looked up at her, its eyes reflecting the lantern light in eerie copper disks. Then its gaze shifted to the dogs up the street behind her. Its companion’s head came up likewise. She turned to look at them again herself, pulling strands of hair from across her face as the cloak now pulled and jerked at her shoulders. A tendril of fear crawled through her.

  How could I have been so mindless?

  There were six dogs in the first pack up at the bend in the street, three medium sized, two of them larger than she liked, and the sixth she thought was a jackal. As if it felt her eyes upon it, the jackal looked up and froze, staring at her intently. A moment later, one of the larger curs saw her, too. The tendril of fear thickened. Dog packs could be dangerous, even deadly, to a person alone and unarmed. The hot spice mixture she carried in a secret pocket in her cloak would not work in this wind, and the short club looped round her wrist was not nearly enough to deal with so many threats. Best to get away from them as quickly and unobtrusively as she could.

  She turned, intending to cross the street on the angle so as to avoid the two dogs who’d come out of the alley, and froze in horror to find two large men standing where the dogs had been but moments before. Her first, irrational hope that they would scare off the dog pack was immediately dashed by the awareness that they were coming straight for her. Recollection of Trap’s innumerable warnings about traveling alone through the city at night flashed through her head, and she knew she was in trouble. But she was upwind of the men, and there were only two of them.

  Without missing a beat she strode purposefully across the street as the cloak billowed forward around her again. She had to fight to find the pocket she’d sewn into it and the bag of spice.

  They crossed the street to cut her off, and when she judged them close enough, she tossed a handful of spices into the nearest man’s face, then flicked her wrist to grab the club and smash it against his temple. He reeled backward coughing and sneezing as the wind flung the cloud of cayenne, ginger, and cloves into the face of his companion, and he, too, was overcome with a sneezing fit. She dodged around them, but a jerk on her cloak wrenched her backward. Then a hand gripped her arm and pulled her around. She went with the flow, letting her free right hand come around to fling the bag and the rest of its contents into her assailant’s eyes.

  As he wilted into a second fit of coughing, she twisted free of him, only to find the other man had recovered enough to lumber toward her— A shout rang out as a third man stepped out of the alleyway now across the street, the steel of his unsheathed sword gleaming wickedly in the lantern light. She recognized her finance secretary at once, even as her attackers fled up the street, away from the dog pack at her back.

  As Trap drew up beside her, she straightened. “I’m all right,” she said quickly, turning so the cloak would blow away from her. “They didn’t hurt me.” She looked about for her spice bag, but the wind had blown it away. He took her arm and steered her back into the alley from which he’d just emerged. With the sudden relative abatement of the wind, they didn
’t have to shout.

  “What are you doing out here, ma’am?” Fury made his voice low and hard.

  “I . . . I don’t know. I mean . . . I was pretty upset, and I guess I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”

  He frowned at her. “Penchott told me you were sent to serve his esteemed guest after all. Is that what got you upset?”

  She stared back at him, feeling suddenly and intensely foolish. Yes, the Sorite had called her a whore and tried to buy her child, but what of it? She was pretending to be a serving girl. Ronesca had called her the same thing this morning. Why was she so upset?

  Back in the street, framed by the alley’s shadow-swathed walls, three dogs stepped into view, sniffing at the spot on the wall where the other pair had recently left their marks. More of the pack ambled up to join them, the jackal last of all.

  Trap pushed her around in front of him. “We can talk of it back at the palace,” he said firmly.

  CHAPTER

  5

  Six days after arriving at Caerna’tha, Abramm awoke to a deep sense of depression and the all-too-familiar howling of the wind in the eaves outside his dormitory cell. Gusting snow granules ticked erratically on the cell’s shuttered window, through which filtered the muted light of a new day. He lay on his side on a straw-mattressed cot, his back to the outer wall, clutching heavy fleece coverings to his chin as he stared at the stone-floored chamber before him.

  He’d dreamt of Maddie again last night. The details were lost to sleep, but her essence lingered strongly, feeding his sense of loss.

  Outside, upward of ten feet of snow had already accumulated, through which they’d had to shovel tunnels just to get to the covered walkways leading to the woodpile, well, stables, and sheepcotes. For several days now he had joined Rolland, Cedric, and Oakes Trinley up on the roofs, battling freezing wind and biting snow to shovel off the new accumulations—a task they’d soon have to repeat for the kitchen, sheepcote, and hay barn. In fact, the latter was so close to collapse they would be shoring up its beams from the inside before anyone would risk stepping onto its outside.