Fortune's Fool (Eterean Empire Book 1)

by Angela Boord

  For a moment, it feels like he might say more, and I hold my breath. But then he drops his right hand and looks at his left.

  “Damn,” he says, pulling his fingers out of the mangled sandwich. He shoves the remainders in his mouth and swoops up his boots on his way to join Mikelo and Jon in the other room.

  I gamble that the three men won’t go anywhere while I put my boots on. I need some time to think about everything I’ve heard and seen. But it still doesn’t give me any answers.

  The gavaro I met in Kavo thought the rumors of Arsenault meeting Cassis were just meant to demoralize the Aliente. He had a quick mind, but he was too good-hearted for a gavaro’s life, and much too kind to work in Kavo. I hope he’s moved on by now if he’s still alive. He had served under Arsenault and respected him. Wouldn’t entertain the notion that Arsenault could betray my father and the men he fought beside so completely.

  I couldn’t entertain the notion that Arsenault would betray his men like that either. And I still can’t entertain the notion that he would betray me, although for all intents and purposes, it seems that he has. Those memories must exist somewhere and there has to be a way to make the magic vomit them back up.

  But betraying my father…that’s another matter.

  When I’ve put myself together again, I go into the other room.

  The men are playing cards and eating from a much better tray of food. The kitchens sent Jon a roast pheasant and a bottle of Amoran red. Arsenault straddles a chair and Jon is dealing him a hand. Indij. I can tell by the number of cards and the pile of Mikelo’s silver buttons that sit in a pile in front of Jon. I’ve never beaten him. Maybe Arsenault has.

  Mikelo gives a start when he sees me. “What are you going to do with that gun?”

  Arsenault is busy arranging his hand. You’d never know the subject of our last conversation from looking at Arsenault’s face.

  “Relax,” he tells Mikelo. “It’s not for killing you.”

  I rest Jon’s small gun on the table in front of me as I take a seat. “You never know. Maybe it is. Deal me in.” Arsenault and Jon never take their eyes off their cards as they scoot over to make room for me, but Mikelo eyes the gun.

  It sits there like a dare. Any of us could reach for it.

  I wait to see what he does, pretending to look at my cards. He edges closer…but then thinks better of it. He presses his lips together tight and squints at the cards in his hand. When he leans forward, his hair falls in his eyes the way Cassis’s did.

  Why have I never heard of Mikelo di Prinze? He’s too young to have been one of my suitors, but I would at least have known his name.

  “Pull,” says Jon, and we all lay cards on the table—not the whole hand; that’s not how indij is played. We only play the cards we think will beat our opponents.

  Indij is a game of both strategy and luck. It’s not like kai dahn. You don’t always play your strongest card first. Sometimes, you hold it and lose for a while. Then you pull it out when the deck’s gone down and you know how your fellow players are playing their lords and ladies, generals and jesters.

  The jester is the strongest card in the deck, which means Lierans didn’t invent it. Someone else’s sense of humor. Gavaros love it.

  Jon has three lords, a general, and a page. A very strong hand, but he and Mikelo have been playing a while. Probably he could guess what Mikelo held—a lady, two generals, a farrier, a captain. Not so good, but it’s all he has left. Jon’s beat him handily. But in the fan of Arsenault’s cards lies a jester.

  He half-smiles. “Now, there’s luck for you. Pay up.”

  “I think you bend luck your way,” I say.

  “If only I could.” He scrapes all Jon’s winnings over to his place on the table. Jon sighs and I dig a few coins out of my pocket, and Mikelo frees another of his silver buttons, this one from a pocket on his coat.

  “I don’t understand,” Mikelo says.

  Jon raises an eyebrow. “The jester laughs at all of us. Only one in a deck. You’ve played before.”

  “Don’t you want to tie me up or something? What are you going to do with me?”

  I reach past the gun for his cards and shuffle them into the deck. My turn to deal. “For starters, I’m going to try to take that last button off your coat. Then I imagine I’ll torture some information out of you.”

  He turns pale as a fish belly. Jon shoots me a reproving glance and shakes his head. “Kyrra. That wasn’t nice. Mikelo, she’s joking.”

  So, we’ve dropped the fiction.

  The color comes back into Mikelo’s face fast. “He’s a woman?”

  I sigh. I’ve gotten better at seeming like a man so it doesn’t happen too often anymore, but Mikelo’s response is so predictable, I want to thump him with the deck of cards. “Just be grateful you’ve got some buttons to lose. Draw.”

  Mikelo’s hand shakes as he takes a card from the deck. But to his credit he’s trying to concentrate on the game. “My uncle won’t pay you. He doesn’t deal with gavaros. Not like this.”

  “But you’re in the line of succession.”

  “It won’t save you. His son’s about to wed a fertile wife; she’ll have sons, and I’ll be useless. You ought to let me go.”

  “Now, how do you know that?”

  “It’s knowledge all over town.”

  “Sounds a little desperate, Mikelo.”

  He flushes. “My uncle won’t bargain with an armless woman.”

  I grin at him and lay my right arm on the table so he has to look at it. “I’m not armless. Am I?”

  Arsenault stares at my arm for a moment, then turns abruptly to his cards. “What are you planning to do in the morning? If you’re not going to give him up?”

  “I’ll tell you in the morning,” I say. Thank all the gods I’m playing indij. Curse the gods that Arsenault and Jon were looking at me when I said it.

  “You know you’ll have to deal with Geoffre,” Arsenault says.

  “He’ll either show up or he won’t,” I answer, and start chewing my lip.

  What I want is to talk to Tonia di Sere again. To break into her bedchambers and haul her out of bed in the dark and ask her why she didn’t know her servants better.

  Three ladies, a captain, and a general. What in the name of the underworld does a person do with a hand like that?

  I brush the stock of the gun with my right hand as I draw another card.

  But would Geoffre want his own sonless son killed? In favor, perhaps, of an unknown Prinze missing a few silver buttons?

  Does Mikelo want the succession?

  My head hurts from playing this game. “Pull,” Jon says, and I make a quick decision—three ladies, the farrier I drew, and the captain. The general is my strongest card, and I want to keep it.

  Even Mikelo beats me this time, but it’s best to get rid of your weak cards so you can draw stronger ones the second time around.

  Banging on the door.

  I leap for the gun in the same instant that Jon, Arsenault, and Mikelo do, which tells me something, but I’m closest and I have a metal elbow, so I win. I wrench back the dog with its chunk of pyrite into firing position and pull the gun on Mikelo.

  Jon and Arsenault fall back.

  “Answer the door,” I tell Arsenault as I edge around the table, closer to Mikelo.

  Arsenault scowls but walks to the door, puts his eye to the spyhole, and lets his breath out through his teeth. “Prinze,” he says in a low voice.

  “Guards?” I ask.

  “Yes. And Devid.”

  Mikelo doesn’t relax. Odd. Jon stands on the other side of him, hands at his sides where I can see them. His expression and Mikelo’s are almost twins—tense, like they’re both clenching their teeth.

  “See what they want,” I say.

  I wonder how Devid has managed to track us down so quickly, but probably his guards weren’t that far behind us or he has spies in the whorehouse. That’s likely; whores are the best spies.

 
But Jon might have sent word.

  Arsenault opens the door and stands behind it.

  I make sure that all the Prinze can see the gun I have pointed at Mikelo’s head.

  The girl in front stops in surprise, fear flitting over her face. She’s a pretty little thing, all black curls and blue eyes, wearing a diaphanous gown of sapphire silk.

  Behind her, the guards stand at silver-buttoned attention, Devid among them. Nine years older, but he hasn’t changed much. A few creases furrow his sea-browned skin, and a handful of silver threads sparkle in the dark hair that runs down the Prinze line. He looks more and more like his father. I wonder what Cassis looks like now that he’s grown from boy to man, if his shoulders are broader, if any lines are beginning at the corners of his eyes.

  The girl stares down at the carpet. “These men request a conference. They have been instructed that this is neutral territory and have agreed to shed no blood. We require a similar promise from you.” She lifts her gaze hesitantly, her eyebrows smooth black arches. She can tell I’m a woman, I think. Maybe that’s what surprised her.

  Everyone looks at me now. I settle the gun against Mikelo’s temple. The dog is pulled back, the wheel still set, and my finger rests against the trigger. He goes that fish-belly white again.

  “As long as we’re only negotiating,” I say, “there will be no bloodshed. But I’ll keep hold of this gun and Mikelo all the same, I think.”

  “My father wishes to speak with you,” Devid says, pushing past the girl before she can tell me whether my “promise” is acceptable or not. “He has a room on a lower floor. I’m instructed to lead you there.”

  “You’re just a messenger, Devid?”

  He frowns, taking in my velvet-ribboned queue, my not-quite-flat-enough chest. “I serve my father,” he says, “the Householder of the House di Prinze. He’s come to negotiate for your hostage, which is an honor he doesn’t usually extend to extortionists. I’d suggest you take it, or he’ll see you hanging by four different ropes.”

  “I’ve been threatened with worse,” I say. “Tell Geoffre he can attend me here.” I tug back on the dog to make sure it’s settled in place, and it makes a loud click. Mikelo flinches, violently. “Or not,” I add.

  Devid swears under his breath. “My father doesn’t bargain with gavaros.”

  “Then he won’t have an heir, will he?”

  By the look on Devid’s face, it’s a true guess. Devid should, by all rights, be the next Householder. But Devid has only girls, and so far, Cassis hasn’t managed any children at all. It’s only natural that Geoffre go out ranging for other kin, but how Devid must hate it, to share Geoffre’s love with anyone else.

  As if Geoffre has love to share.

  “Don’t bait my father,” he says. “You’ll lose. I’ll lead you downstairs, and all of you can parley. Your two turncoats included.”

  Arsenault’s eyebrows go up at this accusation. Who is turning which coat? I want to ask. If I don’t know which side they’re on, then at least neither do the Prinze. That’s one thing.

  “We don’t want to parley downstairs,” I say, in what I hope is a neutral tone. “For all I know, you’ve an entire detachment of guards out there in the hall waiting to ambush me. You bring your father up here and we’ll talk. Otherwise, why don’t you just go home and save everyone the trouble. Get yourself another heir somewhere else.” I pause. “If you can.”

  Arsenault gives me a look that says, You just don’t know when to stop, do you.

  Devid stands stiff-legged straight for a moment, then abruptly inclines his head. He looks like a child’s toy soldier, spit-shined in his silver and blue, wooden with anger. “As you wish,” he says, biting off the words. Then he turns on his heel and flicks his hand at his guards. They whirl out of the room, their cloaks a splash of sky blue against the flowered wallpaper. The girl bows, then follows them out. Mikelo starts to shake as soon as they’re gone.

  “My uncle won’t bargain for me. I don’t know why he’s come, but he won’t bargain. He’d as soon let me die.”

  “You must be worth something to him. He’s come here in person.”

  “I don’t know what he’s doing,” Mikelo confesses, looking at me straight for the first time, “but Devid gave up much too easily.”

  Arsenault leans against the wall and folds his arms across his chest, looking more like his old self. “He has a point.”

  “Whose side are you on?” I ask. “Truly?”

  He straightens up. “Mikelo’s.”

  His answer surprises me. “So, you side with the Prinze.”

  “Did he say that, Kyrra?” Jon interrupts, sitting back down in his seat at the card table. He picks up his cards again and begins casually to rearrange them. “I heard him say he stood for Mikelo.”

  Now, there is information I can use. “You said you rolled cowries. What did they tell you? Do you stand for Mikelo too?”

  Jon looks up from his cards. “I do,” he says. “I suppose you should know that. The cowries told me nothing about you except darkness, and here you come in, threatening my ideals.”

  “You only have ideals when it’s convenient, Jon.”

  “You’re not accusing me of being Geoffre, are you?” Jon says mildly. Then his voice turns serious. “Ask Arsenault what he saw.”

  “Geoffre will be here—”

  “Ask Arsenault what he Saw.”

  Saw. Different from mere sight. I turn slowly to face Arsenault, but his jaw has settled into that old expression of when he’d rather not answer. Some things don’t change. “Jon misleads you. I can no longer See as I used to. Or so people tell me.”

  Jon frowns, his brow wrinkling.

  “Who else knows you?” I ask.

  Arsenault rakes a hand through his hair. “I’m not about to lead three people to their deaths just because of some godsforsaken dream.”

  “But you trusted Jon to place you with the Prinze. Your dreams must have told you enough that you stand for Mikelo now.”

  The look he gives me is a haunted one. “Maybe,” he says. “Whatever I was like before, my Sight now is jumbled and confusing. But Jon’s a gambler.” He folds his arms across his chest.

  This was ever the problem with him. “And how is withholding information going to help any of us?”

  “I stand for Mikelo.” His gaze is level. “If you don’t kill him right off, he’s safer with you.”

  I think about this for a moment, until Mikelo starts to laugh. “Safer with her? She’s got a gun at my head.”

  “But Geoffre di Prinze is your uncle.” Jon folds his cards on the table. “Don’t you think he’d pull the trigger himself if you weren’t of use to him?”

  Mikelo falls silent at that. It’s obvious that he knows Jon speaks truth. “I didn’t know I had a patrol gavaro and a smuggler for my bodyguard. Truly, my uncle thinks highly of me.”

  “Many people think you’re their best hope, Mikelo,” Arsenault says softly as he puts his eye to the spyhole again. “And many people would protect your life.”

  Mikelo chews his lip. Jon says, “We’ll see what your uncle has to say, won’t we?”

  So, Jon and Arsenault will switch sides and risk their identities and their lives to protect this skinny, pale-skinned, shaky boy, who can’t be more than two years past his majority. Devid hates him, that I could see, and Geoffre deigns to leave his fortress on the bluff to wheedle or threaten him away from me.

  I thought fifty thousand astra was an enormous sum, but now I find in my possession something so valuable, I don’t know if I want it anymore.

  “We seek safe entry!” the girl calls out again from outside the door.

  “Granted,” Arsenault calls back without waiting for me. I grab Mikelo and shove him behind the card table, then duck behind it myself. Jon joins me, and Arsenault opens the door from behind it again.

  We all know better than to trust Geoffre di Prinze.

  But he walks in with no guard ahead of him. His hair is fu
ll silver now, but the years haven’t diminished him. He still stands as straight-backed as if he were cast in bronze. He wears a cloak of crushed blue velvet adorned with silver clasps and edged with silver brocade, and his trousers are rare indigo silk. On his right, Geoffre wears a black holster out of which protrudes the twin of the gun I hold against Mikelo’s head. On his left, he wears his House’s sword, Kin-Stealer, its hidden blade etched in sapphire serpents, the emblem of a seafaring house.

  Geoffre’s lips twitch in an expression too cold to be called smile or snarl. Like the reptile that represents his house, the movements of his mouth are merely rearrangements of scales.

  “So,” he says. “The infamous kidnapper, and those whom I thought were my allies. Yet you hold no weapons on them. I am betrayed.”

  The cold smile hardens. We are not playing indij any longer.

  “Shall we sit?” Geoffre takes the armchair against the far wall—the most defensible position, the seat of power. Arsenault ghosts by him, wary as a cat. The only other chairs in the room are at the card table. Jon sits, then Arsenault, but it is a long moment before I can force myself to pull Mikelo down and sit next to him.

  Geoffre rests his leg on the opposite knee. “Hello, Mikelo.”

  “Uncle,” Mikelo whispers, tight-lipped.

  Geoffre watches Mikelo for a moment, considering, then turns to me. “You think you can demand that I negotiate. I’ve a squad of guards out there with dikkarros and orders to use them.”

  “The dikkarro is notoriously hard to aim,” I say. “With that much shot flying around, you’d be more likely to hit Mikelo than us. And anyway, my gun is closest.”

  Geoffre taps his chin. “How much money do you want?”

  His presence alone probably means I could ask for a quarter to half the sum my father grossed every year for his silks. But even if I got the money, I wouldn’t make it out of the city.

  But his assumption that I can be bought makes me want to spit.

  “I don’t want money,” I say.

  Geoffre’s eyebrows peak. “A gavaro who doesn’t want money. How extraordinary. I wonder, did you capture Jon and my guard or did you bribe them away?”