The King's Guard (fire and thorns)

by Rae Carson

  “We have a message for your daughter from the king,” I say, handing him a missive with Alejandro’s orders—but not the message itself. “Could we see the lady Isadora, please? We’ll deliver His Majesty’s message, take her reply, and be on our way.”

  “She’s not here,” he says. He holds the missive as if it was a jellyfish, a repulsive thing that might sting him.

  “Where did she go?” I ask. “Our orders are to deliver the king’s message to its recipient, wherever she may be. “

  Lord Solvaño frowns. “I cannot tell you.”

  “Why not? The king will order a search.” I don’t know if he will or not, and the slight deception does not sit well. I shift uncomfortably, imagining Rosaura’s disapproving look.

  “No, no,” he insists. His eyes twitch like a pair of dice coming to rest. “She asked me not to tell.”

  “So you have a way of communicating with her, then?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Then tell her that the king’s messengers await, and she will come to us.”

  “I’ll send her the message,” he says. “I’ll convey her reply directly to the palace at Brisadulce. If she replies, that is. She has always been disrespectful and irresponsible.”

  The last statement is the first he’s said that he actually believes, but it does not at all fit with my impression of the warm, intelligent woman with whom I arranged correspondences and meetings for so many months.

  “We’ll wait here until she responds,” I insist.

  “You don’t want to do that,” he says with a polite smile. “My daughter is not worth the king’s trouble.”

  “It’s not for me to decide who is, or is not, worth His Majesty’s trouble. We’re happy to wait.” And I can’t help adding, “We’ve heard such nice things about the lovely hospitality of the Fortress of Wind.”

  “It will be several days before I can get a message to her. I’d hate to waste your time.”

  “Our time is the king’s to waste, and he asked us to personally collect her reply. We’ll stay until we hear from her. Of course, if it would be faster for us to go to Isadora ourselves, we’re happy to do so.”

  His face goes cold and hard. “I’ll have my staff find rooms for you.”

  “Thank you,” I say. I wait until he’s turning away, and then, because I wish to discomfit him further, I reach inside my jacket and pull forth the book. “Oh, Lord Solvaño, one other thing.”

  “I’m at your service,” he snaps impatiently.

  I hold up the book. “I’ve a personal interest in architecture, and I recently read Master Jinto’s seminal paper on the Fortress of Wind. I’d consider it a great favor if I could tour the original tower.”

  It also might give me access to parts of the fortress I wouldn’t otherwise have.

  He hesitates a breath too long. “Of course,” he says. “My staff will show you whatever you wish. You!” He indicates a young serving woman with a lift of his chin. “See to our guests.”

  She flinches away from him, almost imperceptibly. “Yes, my lord.” Her skin is sallow, and a large bruise purples her forearm.

  The rest of Solvaño’s staff follows as he sweeps from the hall. The servant girl stares after him. Is she meant to spy on us?

  Gently, Miria asks her, “Could I have mint tea, please? Double-steeped?”

  The servant gives her a clumsy but grateful curtsy, then scurries away. Miria has given us a chance to talk privately.

  The four of us bend our heads together.

  “He’s lying,” Miria whispers.

  “Agreed,” I say. “Wherever Isadora is, she is not far. Her father does not strike me as a man who would let her out of his sight. I’m surprised he allowed her to come to court.”

  “He sent her to win King Alejandro’s hand,” Miria says. “He instructed her to do whatever necessary to become queen.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Poor Isadora. My mother always said that forced marriages are a tragedy—no one should have to marry someone they don’t love. Though, looking back, I’m certain Isadora held some kind of affection for Alejandro.

  “So what do we do?” Lucio asks.

  I hesitate, feeling unsure. This is where we could use a statesman. A tried-and-true commander.

  “I can talk to the servants,” Miria says. “See if they know anything. Servants are more likely to talk to other servants.”

  “Yes, good idea,” I say, relieved to have any kind of suggestion at all. “Lucio,” I say. “Wander the docks and the market, ask for stories about the tower.” Lucio is from distant, rural Basajuan and will seem like the perfect yokel to these people. They may tell him things they wouldn’t tell the rest of us.

  “I’m to play the ignorant outlander, yes?” he says.

  A grin sneaks onto my face before I can stop it.

  “I suppose I have no choice but to indulge in a flagon of wine. To complete the part.”

  “I’m glad you’re willing to make such sacrifices for your king,” I say, and he nods solemnly.

  “Fernando?”

  He jumps as if he’s been shot with an arrow.

  Perhaps Fernando is still not over killing a man. If so, I need to distract him. “We must be prepared,” I say. “You’ve proven yourself an able guard, so I need you to stick with me or Miria, watch our backs at all times. Can you do that?”

  I’m not sure it’s the right thing to do, but during the summer I crewed on my brother’s ship, Felix’s response every time I showed even a hint of nervousness or hesitation was to keep me busy.

  “Yeah, I can do that,” Fernando says. The deep breath he takes seems like his first in many long days.

  “You don’t care if something happens to me?” Lucio says.

  I open my mouth to say something scathing, but wisdom, for once, wins out. “I think that, of all of us, you are most able to take care of yourself.”

  “Oh.” Anger plays across his features, warring with acceptance. Acceptance wins. He puts a hand to the dagger at his belt, and his features harden with determination.

  Miria’s expression is harder to read, but I feel as if she’s watching, judging. She’ll report back every tiny detail of this trip. It might even be the real reason she is here. But I can’t think about that too much, not until after we find Isadora.

  The serving girl returns and apologizes, explaining that it’s not the right season for mint, but the cook will be out in a moment to personally offer Miria her choice of spices. “Your rooms will be ready soon after,” she assures us.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “How long do you think you’ll be in Puerto Verde?” she asks with a twitchy smile. I can’t tell if her artlessness is meant to suss out information or if it’s a genuine attempt at conversation.

  “As long as it takes,” I say with a forced smile of my own.

  “Oh. But what if the lady never responds? You can’t stay here forever! I mean, you could I suppose, but . . .”

  “As long as it takes,” Lucio repeats, his voice firm, and the girl’s mouth slams closed.

  11

  ON the afternoon of our second day, the four of us squeeze into my room. It’s a tiny chamber with threadbare furnishings and a single window overlooking the sea. Though the day is too warm, a fire roars in the small hearth. I hope the crackle and spit of wood will confound eavesdroppers—as well as make it unbearably warm for anyone hiding near the chimney, where the wall is thick enough to conceal a listening cubby.

  “How go your inquiries?” I ask Miria, keeping my voice low.

  “Not well,” she admits. “I think I’ve spoken with every cook, scullery maid, manservant, and washing woman in the house, and they are all too afraid to say anything directly.” She pauses. “There is something odd, though. . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “All of Isadora’s personal servants were released from service.”

  I frown. When my grandmother died, her personal attendants were reassigned rather than rele
ased. Mamá said that as long we could afford to keep them, there was no reason to lose skilled, loyal help. “Do you think Isadora is . . . dead?”

  She shakes her head. “The servants speak of her as though she lives, though they refuse to give details. And another thing: Have you seen the boy in the kitchen who is missing a couple fingers?”

  I nod. “Not an unusual injury for the kitchens.”

  “It was no accident,” Miria says. “Lord Solvaño caught him stealing a piece of cake during a Deliverance Day feast. He grabbed the cake knife and cut off the boy’s fingers right there.”

  Fernando gasps.

  “That’s . . . excessive,” I say.

  “Solvaño said he would have cut off his whole hand to mark him as a thief, but the cake knife was not large or sharp enough to get through the boy’s wrist.”

  I suppress a shudder.

  “Well, that explains what I’ve been hearing down on the docks,” Lucio says.

  “Oh?”

  “Half the people I talk to worship him like a god. He punishes criminals brutally and swiftly. They believe it successfully discourages crime.”

  “The other half?” I press.

  “They refuse to talk about him at all. I think . . . I think they might be terrified of him.”

  “Did anyone say anything about Isadora?” Fernando asks.

  “No. Although word is out that Solvaño has ordered extra supplies to host four royal envoys. He’s been bragging about it, apparently.”

  “Envoys?” I laugh.

  “You don’t consider us envoys?” Miria says to me sharply.

  Fernando and Lucio look to me for a reaction, so I’m quick to clarify. “I’m just surprised he’s bragging about hosting us. He could not have greeted us less warmly.”

  “According to the wine merchant, he boasted about how much it was costing him to provide for his important guests. To be honest, I didn’t even realize the merchant was talking about us at first,” Lucio says.

  “You weren’t buying wine, were you?” I ask, suddenly on alert.

  “I don’t have any money, so I tried to barter for it,” Lucio admits.

  I grab him by the collar, ready to go after him like I did in the stable. “I thought you were joking earlier. If you drink on duty, so help me God, you will never carry a sword in Alejandro’s service. If we’d been too drunk to set watch on the road the other night—if Fernando had been too tipsy to hit his target—we’d all be dead.”

  He puts up his hands and leans back, but there is no place for him to go except into the fireplace. “I didn’t mean anything by it,” he says. “I didn’t—”

  “I mean everything by it,” I say. I refuse to end up dead, or even cut from the Guard, because some eighteen-year-old man-boy is in his cups. “A Guardsman gets regular leave, a couple days a month. If you want to spend every minute of that leave drunk, I’ll buy your wine for you. But never, ever touch a drop when you’re on duty. And until we get back to Brisadulce, you’re on duty every single minute. Do I make myself clear?”

  He is silent a long moment. A muscle in his cheek twitches. Then he says, “I didn’t drink any. I wanted to. But I . . .” He looks down. Scuffs his boot against the rug. “I poured it over the side of the dock.”

  “Oh.” I’m not sure what to say. He’s probably lying about pouring out the wine. But what if he’s not? Maybe, just maybe, he wants to make it in the Guard as much as I do.

  Again, I notice Miria watching me. “Do you have something to say?” I ask.

  She shakes her head.

  Lucio straightens his collar and tugs down the hem of his shirt. “It was wine from your family the merchant was selling. A shipload just arrived from Ventierra with an early harvest red.”

  “My brother’s ship,” I say. “He is—was—going to come visit me when they made port in Brisadulce.”

  I’m thinking about whether I should try to meet him here in Puerto Verde when Miria says, a bit archly, “What progress have you made?”

  I sigh. “Well, I’ve ruined a priceless book with bad drawings.” I lean against the bedpost, thumbing through the book. “The mayordomo took me on an impossibly quick tour of the fortress. I had to demand more time so I could make sketches.”

  “He’s catalogued every room in the tower,” Fernando says in a pained voice. He patiently kept watch while I sketched.

  I shake my head. “If they have something to hide, it’s not in the tower. The mayordomo made a point of showing me all twelve chambers, which they now use for storage. They’re cold and damp from the ocean, crusted with sea salt. Some of the walls are badly cracked. The whole place is gloomy and awful; only five chambers even have windows.”

  “Six windows,” Lucio says.

  “I’m sure it’s five,” I say.

  He’s looking over my shoulder at the sketches. “Those drawings aren’t that bad.”

  “The author made these.” I flip the pages and start showing him the sketches in the margins and in back. “These are mine.”

  Lucio winces. “Are you sure that’s a room?” he says. “It looks like a wagon.”

  “From this angle,” Fernando says, cocking his head. “It’s kind of pretty. Like a flower.”

  “Very funny, both of you. What I lack in talent, I make up for in thoroughness. I measured each room by step, took notes of all the details. We didn’t see anything suspicious.”

  Miria leans forward. “If there’s an extra room, it’s well hidden.”

  Lucio nods. “There are definitely six windows in the tower.”

  “How did you count six?” I ask Lucio.

  “From the docks, looking up. I was trying to imagine the story.” He shifts on his feet, looking shamefaced. “About the rescue of the princess.”

  For the first time in days, I feel a sense of hope. “If we rescue this princess,” I say, “it’ll be because of you.”

  Lucio startles at the praise, but his expression goes quickly blank.

  “A hidden room,” Miria muses, tapping her forefinger to her lip.

  “She has to be there. She has to be. If we figure out which one, maybe we can get a message to her through the window.”

  “Let’s all go for a walk,” Fernando suggests cheerfully.

  Given Solvaño’s tremendous wealth, it’s a wonder the Fortress of Wind is in such disrepair. We stroll across crumbling ramparts, wade through overgrown gardens, clamber over the barnacle-encrusted foundation. Everywhere we go, someone watches us—usually a guard, sometimes a servant—always at a discreet distance.

  We’re able to match a few windows with my sketches, but by afternoon, we reluctantly agree that we won’t get a good enough view without some distance from the tower. So we claim a desire to do some shopping, and head down to the market wharf.

  We pretend to browse and sightsee, gradually navigating the maze of docks that twists through the harbor like tree roots. Lucio leads us down an empty jetty that takes us as close to the tower as possible—which is not very close at all. We look up, shading our eyes as the afternoon sun washes the tower in fiery orange, and we finally find what we’re looking for.

  No wonder it was impossible to spot from a nearer vantage, for it is small and inset—barely wide enough for an arm to fit through. It lies three-quarters of the way up the tower and faces directly west. It’s just low enough to catch some ocean spray, which makes the wall too slick to climb.

  But the window is open.

  “Think she’d hear us if we shouted?” Lucio says.

  “That high up? With that surf?” The waves pound at the foundation, then retreat to swirl dark and deep. “If we yelled loud enough, it would bring everyone in the fortress down on us.” The wind whips around us, pulling at our hair and clothes.

  “Fernando,” I say.

  “Yes?” He is looking around for danger, as he has been since I tasked him with watching my back. This jetty seems abandoned; the planking is worn and missing in places, and what’s left is covered in gul
l droppings. But I’m glad he’s on the alert.

  “You won the king’s archery contest,” I remind him.

  “True, my lo—” He stops short of calling me “lord.” He’s done that a couple of times now.

  I point to the window on the tower. “Anyone can put an arrow through a man at short range. I need you to put an arrow through that window.”

  He sizes up the distance, the target, and the wind, and doubt flows across his face. “We’re not on solid ground. And this is a terrible angle. Maybe if I got directly in front of it? But that would mean getting into a boat, which would be even less stable. . . . No, this is an almost impossible shot. Even for the best archer in the kingdom.”

  “I’m looking at the best archer in the kingdom,” I say. “And I believe that you can make it.”

  “You want to put a note on the shaft and send it through the window,” he says.

  “Exactly.” He watches incredulously as I take out my charcoal stick and write in my book: Isadora, if you need aid, give us a sign.—The king’s envoys.

  I tear the page out and hand it to Fernando, who folds it around the shaft and ties it with a piece of spare bowstring. “The added weight and drag of the note does make this an impossible shot,” he mutters.

  “You can do it,” Lucio says.

  Fernando draws, sights, releases. The wind catches it and carries it out to the ocean.

  The next one bounces off the stone wall and falls into the swirling waves below.

  So it goes, shot after shot. I have just torn another page out of the book when the wind whips it from my hands and carries it into the water. I am ruining my mother’s priceless gift, and possibly for nothing.

  “This is my last arrow,” Fernando says.

  He waits until he feels a dead spot in the wind. I hold my breath. He lets fly. This time the arrow looks as if it will miss, but it curves toward the narrow slit at the last second, hits the edge, and bounces inside.

  We break out into cheering. “I can’t believe you made it,” Lucio says, and his huge grin makes him seem positively friendly and pleasant.

  “You said I could!” Fernando replies.

  “I was lying to make you feel better.”