by Sharon Shinn
Corene blinked. “I don’t know. I haven’t tried. This is the first day I’ve been out. Naturally, guards accompanied our entire party.”
“Naturally,” Leah echoed, but her voice sounded doubtful.
Corene, who had allowed herself to enjoy the outing without reservation, now found a little tension creeping into her shoulders. It hadn’t occurred to her there might be anything sinister in the fact that so many soldiers had been assigned to their carriages, but maybe the number was excessive. Certainly, she’d been allowed to roam Chialto with only a guard or two at her back, and she hadn’t expected to be guarded by anyone other than Foley while she was in Palminera. So why had so many soldiers come along on this excursion to the Great Market? To keep them all safe—or to keep them all contained?
“You raise an interesting question,” Corene said finally. “Someday soon I’ll try leaving the palace without a royal escort and see what happens.”
“And if you find that your movements are restricted, let me know.”
“That might be hard to do if I can’t get out,” Corene pointed out.
“You have your own guard with you, don’t you? Send him to me with a message.”
“Send him here?”
Leah seemed to debate. “Probably not. Let me give you a different address.” She scribbled information on a scrap of paper and handed it over. “If I send messages to you at the palace, do you think they’ll get delivered?”
Corene pocketed the paper and thought that over. “I think any messages would be read,” she said at last. “So you might have to be careful about what you say.”
Leah smiled briefly. “Of course they’d be read. We need a code.”
“Red gemstones always mean danger.”
Leah nodded. “Then if I think you need to get out of there quickly, I’ll send you a message about rubies or garnets. Come to that address as soon as you can.”
“I will. Thank you.”
“And it’s probably wise to stay in touch regularly.”
“I could send you a note at least once every nineday.”
“And if I don’t receive one I’ll know there’s trouble.”
“All right,” Corene replied. She shook back her hair and defiantly shook off her slight uneasiness. “Though I don’t actually believe I’m in danger. Which you can tell my father. You can also tell him I’m learning a lot about Malinqua and doing my best to charm the heirs to the throne.”
“I’m sure they do find you charming,” Leah said in a quiet voice. “But if it turns out you don’t like them as much as you hoped, you can always go home.”
“Is that one of the things my father said in his letters to you?”
Leah appeared to choose her answer carefully. “He seemed to think you might not consider that an option.”
“I’m not sure it is an option,” Corene said. “I didn’t care much for the life I was living in Chialto.”
“Sometimes it seems like any other life would be better,” Leah agreed. “But sometimes the old one follows you.”
“Did yours?”
Leah’s face instantly shuttered, leading Corene to feel a sudden surge of curiosity. “Not so far.”
Corene had the feeling the other woman wouldn’t share much more personal information, so she settled for the one question everyone from Welce would answer. “So what are your blessings?”
“Endurance, honor, and time.”
One torz, one elay, and one extraordinary blessing. And none of them exactly comfortable. Someone with blessings like those seemed well-suited to espionage, patiently watching events unfold so she could report them back to her employer. A spy or an executioner, waiting for decades, maybe, before enacting justice.
“I can’t tell your affiliation.”
“Torz.”
“Well, I’m glad to have met you, Leah. And glad to know my father has someone in Malinqua he trusts—that I can trust, too.”
“He’s an interesting man, the regent. Soon to be king now, I understand.”
“Yes—and no doubt one of the best kings Welce has ever had.”
Leah nodded, but she looked puzzled. “What happened to the little girl? King Vernon’s youngest daughter? Odelia, that’s her name. I thought she was the heir.”
“She was,” Corene said. “But it turns out Odelia has a condition—it’s hard to describe. She’s lost in her own mind, and she can’t easily get out.”
Leah looked shocked. “How sad for her.”
“Yes, and quite an upset to the court, since none of us knew there was anything wrong.”
“But surely—she must have been at the palace attending functions and meeting people. I mean, I know she’s only a child, but—”
“She and her mother had been living in the provinces and came to court only rarely,” Corene explained. “Whenever they did come to Chialto, her mother brought Mally instead.”
“Mally?”
“A little girl who looked so much like Odelia you couldn’t tell them apart. A decoy princess. It was Darien’s idea, of course.”
“It’s odd to hear you call your father Darien.”
“I was eleven before I knew he was my father. I’d always called him Darien before. It doesn’t seem odd to me.”
Leah watched her a moment. “You’re not close.”
Corene hunched a shoulder. “It’s complicated. Are you close to your father?”
Leah’s smile looked painful. “He’s dead now. But it was complicated.”
“Maybe it always is.”
Before Leah could reply, the curtain was swept back, and the large forbidding man looked in. He cast Leah one unreadable look but spoke to Corene. “Your friends are asking after you, Princess.”
She peered around him to see not just Melissande and Steff waiting anxiously on the other side of the counter, but all the other occupants of the royal carriages, who had apparently managed to catch up with them while she and Leah got acquainted. “So sorry,” she said brightly. “I was just enjoying the chance to speak to someone else from Welce! I’m almost ready to leave.”
She offered a quick wave to Melissande, who made an imperious gesture that meant Come out here right now! “We didn’t even look at pitchers,” Corene said. “Just pick one and I’ll buy it for Zoe. And the music box, too.”
A few moments later she had made her purchases from the merchant, made her apologies to her companions, and taken a few steps down the broad aisle toward the next set of booths. When she could do it without seeming too obvious, she dropped back to where Foley was trailing behind the others.
“You’ll never guess who the shopkeeper’s assistant was,” she murmured.
“An old friend from Welce? I noticed her accent.”
“From Welce, yes, but not someone I knew. She’s one of my father’s spies.”
He raised his eyebrows, then nodded emphatically. “Good. I knew there must be some in the city, but I didn’t know how to contact them.”
She slipped him Leah’s piece of paper. “This is where you can find her. She wants to hear from me at least once every nineday.” She didn’t bother explaining why. Foley was already on the lookout for constant danger; he would hardly be surprised to learn Leah was equally watchful.
“Good,” he said again.
She nodded at the untidy group preceding them down the aisle. Garameno’s servant was pushing the wheeled chair at an even pace; Melissande walked beside him, chatting with great animation. “How’d he get up the stairwell? Can he walk that well?”
“His man carried him and a soldier brought the chair.”
“He must hate that. He seems so proud.”
Foley glanced down at her. “He seems like he would hate even more being confined to the palace, left out of events. I think he seems willing to make whatever concessions are necessary.”
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“A good trait, I suppose.”
“Or a dangerous one.”
“You see danger everywhere.”
“I imagine it as a possibility, certainly.”
She jerked her head toward Leah’s booth. “So. Back there. I stepped behind the curtain. What did you think when I was gone so long?”
His smile was faint. “As I say, I noticed that you spoke to her in Welchin, so I thought it was most likely that you were exchanging news. But I also considered the possibility that she had somehow rendered you unconscious and carried you through the curtain to the booth that I presume is on the other side.”
Corene was laughing. “I’m not sure she would be strong enough to drag my body very far.”
“No, but she could have had accomplices nearby.”
“I don’t see how you could have saved me if that had actually happened!”
“I would have gotten Steff’s attention, which would have gotten the guards’ attention, and several of us would have raced after you. It would be hard for kidnappers to conceal the fact that they were carrying the lifeless body of a young woman through the Great Market. I don’t think we would have had much difficulty finding you.”
“It sounds exciting,” she said buoyantly. “I’m almost sorry it didn’t happen.”
He glanced down again, no longer smiling. “I’m not.”
She touched his arm. “I’m joking. I wouldn’t want to put you to that kind of trouble.”
He was still watching her. “I wouldn’t mind the trouble of rescuing you,” he said. “I wouldn’t want you be hurt or afraid.”
“Well, fortunately, nothing of the kind occurred,” she said.
Just then, Melissande turned around to look for her. “Corene! Up here is a booth you must visit. Candies with a taste I cannot describe.”
She hurried to catch up with the others and fell in next to Melissande. “I’m starting to think you’ve spent every day here at the market, buying things.”
“Well, perhaps not every day, but many of them.”
“We rely on Melissande’s openhanded purchases to maintain the balance of trade between Cozique and Malinqua,” Garameno said with a grin.
“How unfair! You come here as often as I do!”
“My purpose is different. I am collecting information from the vendors and assessing the level of satisfaction of the buyers.”
“So how is the Great Market regulated?” Corene asked curiously. “How do you choose the merchants? How long are their contracts? Do they pay rents or percentages?”
“Corene!” Melissande exclaimed in horror. “That is too absolutely boring!”
“It’s not,” she insisted. “I used to listen in all the time when my father and the council would talk about the best ways to tax the shop districts in Chialto. It’s not as simple as it seems.”
“Well, it is just as dull as it seems,” Melissande said. “I am going to find Jiramondi and have a much more enjoyable conversation.”
She flounced off, but Corene stayed behind, accommodating her steps to the slower pace of the wheeled chair. “The Great Market has two models,” Garameno told her. “There are the booths that have been run for generations by the same families and that bring in such a steady stream of revenue it seems reasonable to assess an annual tax. But there are a few booths on every level that are more temporary, changing hands every few years, and these are taxed on a percentage basis.”
“Of course, anytime you just take a percentage, you have to be sure the vendor isn’t lying to you about his receipts,” Corene pointed out.
Garameno laughed. “Hence the reason I often visit the market, trying to ascertain who is running a flourishing business and who is not.” He lifted his hands from the armrests and gestured briefly. “It is one of the duties I perform for my aunt. In several capacities, I act as her business advisor.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “Formally or informally?”
“A little of both. I sit in on the council meetings with my aunt, the mayor, the prefect, and certain elected officials from various districts, so I have a formal voice there. But we also meet for keerza every morning and talk over pressing issues.”
“Do your cousins meet with her, too?”
Garameno smiled. “They do not have—I want to put this kindly—minds that are as analytical as mine. Many other good qualities, of course, but they don’t think as strategically as I do.”
It was a blatant attempt to show himself indispensable to the empress, though in all honesty Corene had to admit that he was probably right. She hadn’t spent much time with Greggorio, but analytical was a word that had never once crossed her mind when she was with him. Jiramondi was smarter than he was given credit for, she thought—but she didn’t think she’d put him in charge of accounting for the revenue of the whole country.
“So how does it work? Do different council members represent the interests of different guilds, or different regions of Malinqua? Is someone responsible for regulating foreign trade?”
Garameno laughed loudly enough to cause Melissande and Steff and Jiramondi to look over their shoulders in curiosity. “Princess Corene, you surprise me. I would have thought you were only interested in fashion and frivolity, not the wealth and commerce of nations.”
“That’s what everybody thinks about me,” she agreed. “I hated history classes and every single lesson about economic incentives and imbalances. But when I went to live at my father’s house, it was all different somehow. He was the regent, you know, and everyone with a complaint or a scheme dropped by to talk things over with him. He didn’t mind when I would sit in his study and listen. Once I realized that all this stuff was about real people, I thought it was fascinating.”
“Yes, real people with real lives,” Garameno said. “You can raise the tax rate by one percent and put a small merchant out of business. And he closes shop and his family suffers and his children starve. But if you don’t charge adequate taxes, you can’t fix your roads and you can’t preserve the water supply and you can’t pay your navy, so when Dhonsho or Berringey shows up in your harbor with a fleet of warships, you can’t protect your land. It’s a very delicate balance.”
“What would you change,” she asked, “if you were emperor?”
He lifted his head to look up at her. A slight smile lingered around the corners of his mouth, but she couldn’t determine what he meant by it. Maybe he was just amused that a seventeen-year-old girl was intrigued by issues of governance. “I try not to look that far ahead,” he said, “in case I am never emperor. Since—now that we have joyfully welcomed Steffanolo into our midst—my chances are only one in four.”
“It’s hard not to, though,” she answered frankly. “I mean, I was one of four heirs, too, and I always knew my chances of taking the crown weren’t good, but I thought about it a lot.”
“And yet here you are, not even in Welce anymore,” he said lightly. “See what all that thinking got you?”
Before she could come up with a reply to that, Melissande turned around again and impatiently motioned her forward. “Corene! You must see these hairpins! They look like something that would suit a sweela girl.”
• • •
They spent another two hours at the Great Market before everyone confessed to weariness and a desire to return to the palace. Melissande made sure Corene rode in her carriage for the return visit, practically shoving Liramelli toward the other one, so they could sit together and examine the items they’d picked up during the course of the day. Corene had ended up with not only the pitcher and the music box, but also the hairpins and a couple of scarves.
And a small pouch of red glass beads that had been cut and polished to look like rubies.
She’d found them on the second level—where Steff had insisted they stop so he could look at some seedlings on display in the agricultural section. The
beads were so cheap that Corene could buy a handful for less than a quint-silver.
“If you wanted jewels, they have beautiful ones upstairs,” Melissande had said.
“I don’t want to wear them. I want to decorate with them.”
Which was a lie, though she might, in fact, put them in a dish on her dressing table and add a candle or two. Red beads and fire—anybody would call that a sweela combination.
But she really wanted them in case she needed to send a message. To Leah, to Josetta, even to Darien—all of whom now knew the code. Here are some pretty little beads I picked up at the market. Put them in a jar and think of me. How would an innocuous note like that raise anyone’s suspicions? But any of those recipients would instantly know that Corene was in danger—and act accordingly.
Though she didn’t really think she was in danger. Despite the soldiers. Despite the missing girl. Anyway, she was safe as long as Foley was nearby. She glanced over her shoulder, to locate him among the accompanying guards, and found him at the very front of the line, within easy reach of her voice.
No danger at all.
Melissande was yawning as the carriages pulled up before the palace, where the wing of red stone and the wing of white stood in stark contrast under the sultry afternoon sun. “I think I shall be very lazy and sleep until dinner,” she announced.
“Since you are always very lazy, I think none of us are surprised,” Jiramondi replied.
A half dozen footmen stepped forward to help them from the carriages and escort them to the enormous doors. Lorian was waiting for them just over the threshold, and he offered a slight bow as soon as he spotted Steff.
“The empress requests your presence in her study. Immediately,” he said, his voice heavy with portent. “Please come with me right now.”
SEVEN
Corene watched Steff as he grew perfectly still, assessing what Lorian’s words might mean. He turned his head to look at her, and she nodded. The day after they’d arrived, the empress had had Steff’s heritage tested by two very odd men who had arrived in the driving rain. Steff said they had taken samples of his blood, his hair, and his fingernails—and that it had been the creepiest experience of his life. They had explained the kinds of testing they would attempt, though none of it made sense to him. All he knew was that the empress trusted these local diviners to tell her the truth; Zoe’s coru conviction was not good enough for Filomara.
