Poisoned Blade

by Kate Elliott

  Temnos’s mother knew. She is part of the conspiracy.

  But there cannot be two queens.

  I don’t even know what I can do but I can’t bear it. I walked him straight into the trap. I grab the lamp off the table and dash back into the passage.

  When I reach the tapestry that opens into the warden’s chamber of the Playwrights’ Pavilion I set the lamp on the floor, lie flat, and ease up the bottom of the fabric. No one is looking my way. Nikonos has a hand on Menoë’s elbow and her face is twisted in a grimace of pain. He presses harder, and laughs when she still doesn’t cry out.

  “Your ability to endure pain is remarkable, dearest Menoë,” he says in a silky voice whose malice makes goose bumps rise on my arms.

  She doesn’t like him at all. She hates him.

  How did I not see it? Everyone told me I was wrong, and yet I refused to see it.

  I hated Menoë because she is Lord Gargaron’s willing accomplice and because I hate Gargaron for what he did to my family. I hated her because she married my father, who didn’t even have the decency to scorn and deride her as a woman who could never take the place of my mother.

  But she is not the villain. She was the spy placed in Nikonos’s camp by Garon Palace.

  And Nikonos’s camp has found her out.

  The queen enters, twisting Temnos’s arm to force him forward just as Nikonos is wrenching Menoë’s in the most agonizing way possible. She shoves the boy toward Nikonos. “Here he is, as I promised. We will have healthy heirs, not this useless weakling.”

  Nikonos draws his sword and stabs Temnos through the gut, then again under the ribs, and a third time with a merciful slash across the throat.

  Free, Menoë scrambles for the door, only to have Queen Serenissima grab her by the hair and yank her to a halt so hard that Menoë crashes to her knees. The queen does not even look at the last twitches of her dying son as the stolen spark that kept him alive fades from his body. All she can see is Menoë kneeling at her feet.

  “Oh, Cousin, you purred and laughed and pretended to confide all your secrets to me, but you never told me the truth, that your first husband caught you in bed with another man—your own cousin Nikonos!—and punished you as you deserved.”

  Nikonos laughs. “You were so contemptibly easy to seduce. I’d hoped my good friend Stratios would kill you and save me the trouble, but he had too much pity.”

  “If you call what he did to me merciful,” spits Menoë.

  She slams her shoulder into the queen’s legs and jerks out of her grasp. Serenissima grabs at her again and where her hand fastens on Menoë’s dress the fabric rips, tearing apart to expose Menoë’s skin. The soldiers hastily avert their eyes, as it is forbidden for lowborn men to see the bare flesh of a highborn woman. But I can’t look away.

  Menoë’s torso is hatched with fierce white scarring, and her right breast has been mutilated and has healed over in a mass of shiny seams like someone chopped bits out of it before giving up.

  “I’m surprised your new husband can bear even to touch you, as grotesque as you are,” says Nikonos with a harsh laugh, “but I suppose a baker’s son isn’t choosy.”

  “His behavior is closer to the gods’ than yours will ever be! His is the courage and intelligence that forges our army. You are a spear made of reeds, an ornament for show.”

  He slaps her.

  She doesn’t back down in the face of death and humiliation. “You and everyone at the court of East Saro knew Stratios was a cruel man who loved to torment me. You seduced me with pretended kindness and sympathy because I was naïve and unhappy. You are the one who should be ashamed, not me. I’m tired of being told I should be ashamed that people abused me!”

  Everyone is enthralled by Nikonos’s towering rage and Menoë’s imperious contempt.

  When the Rings open a path, you have to take it.

  I dash out and dump my lamp of burning oil over the piles of books and scrolls.

  Flames leap up, gathering strength. I throw the lamp at the queen as hard as I can, and it hits her right in the forehead. Screeching, she releases Menoë, who sees me and bolts my way. I grab another lamp, throw it at the soldiers, its hot oil spattering as they flinch back. Burning pages float as ash into the air. I tip over tables to block their path, then shove Menoë past the tapestry. We race down the passage. When she seems determined to run all the way to the Hall of Scrolls I grab her roughly and drag her into the warden’s room of the Masks Pavilion.

  We stumble to a panting halt beneath the yawning crocodile masks. She tugs the ripped fabric of her dress up to cover what cannot be unseen. Her gaze catches on the dead youth, and her jaw sets.

  “Stupid creature,” she mutters, and I don’t know if she means Lord Elotas or Prince Temnos. Or me. “We have to run down to the Hall of Scrolls. We’ll have a better chance of hiding there.”

  “Running to the Hall of Scrolls is what they’ll expect us to do. We’re going to crawl out a window, hide on the roof until nightfall, and creep out over the wall.”

  “How are we supposed to get out windows too high even for men to reach? Much less onto the roof? And over the wall, at night? It can’t be done.”

  “I’m an adversary, Lady Menoë. I can do it, and without leaving any trail. So if you trust me to save you, tell me now.”

  26

  We lie flat atop the roof listening to the shouts and stomps of people searching the Hall of Scrolls, the pavilions, and the Archival warehouses. For a long time I brace myself for ladders thrown up against the pavilion and soldiers swarming over to find and kill us, but instead we hear scholars being arrested on suspicion of harboring a fugitive. Carriages arrive and depart, taking with them our queen and new king.

  My heart is a mire of self-loathing. Why didn’t I listen to Kal and go straight to the Heart Tavern? How could I have led that poor child to his death?

  It’s easier to lash out at Menoë.

  “How did you get those scars?” We lie side by side, like lovers in a bed, speaking in intimate whispers.

  “Your father asked me the same question. I liked that he didn’t pretend not to see them.”

  “I’m sure he’s seen worse. How did you get them?”

  “Why do you think I killed my first husband?”

  “Because he caught you in bed with your cousin?”

  “They always blame the woman, never the man who led her there.”

  “You didn’t have to go.”

  “What if I told you Prince Stratios was a cruel man who all his life was able to get away with brutalizing and murdering whomever he wanted?”

  I wish I could rub Temnos’s blood all over her highborn face. “I’d say he’s no different from the rest of your kind.”

  But she’s not listening to me as she presses a hand to her mutilated breast. “I meant to be obedient because Grandmama told me we needed the alliance. I would endure much more for her sake.”

  “Then why did you kill Prince Stratios?”

  “Because I discovered he was lying to me. He wasn’t going to ally with Grandmama. He was colluding with Nikonos all along, plotting to help him take the throne from Kliatemnos.” An expression like that of a person who can’t look away from a rotting corpse deadens her beautiful eyes. “Nikonos knew how bitterly unhappy I was at East Saro’s court, how alone and friendless, how vulnerable. He seduced me by pretending to be a sympathetic ear, but all along it was part of a plan to disgrace me in order to make sure I could never make a bid for the throne. He’d made a wager with Stratios and his foul circle of companions that he could prove me a whore. And I was, wasn’t I?”

  The last thing I want is to feel pity for her, but I do. I pat her hand to show sympathy, and she flinches away like my touch scorches her.

  I want to shout, I don’t like you either! but I don’t. Instead I ask, “Why didn’t you tell King Kliatemnos that his brother was conspiring against him with the enemy?”

  “I did tell Kliatemnos, and Serenissima too.” />
  “You didn’t suspect Serenissima was in on the plot?”

  “No, I never did,” she replies bitterly. “Why would I? Her own son is the heir.”

  “Was the heir,” I mutter, but she isn’t listening. She’s already forgotten about him.

  “They refused to believe the ruler of East Saro was their enemy because they were the ones who had arranged the two marriage alliances, me to Stratios, and Nikonos to Stratios’s younger sister. Afterward Nikonos convinced them I was nothing more than a jealous and vindictive viper who murdered both my husband and his young bride out of spite and shame.”

  “You killed Nikonos’s bride too?” It’s my turn to flinch away from her.

  “No, he just thinks I did. But I’m glad I killed Stratios and I only wish I had done it sooner.”

  “Why agree to marry into one of the other kingdoms at all, if marriage is so dangerous for a young, friendless bride at a foreign court?”

  “Because that is the risk we have to take. You run the Fives, Spider. You have to take risks to win.”

  “What do you win?”

  She stares at me like my words are gibberish, and of course they are.

  What do they win? The ruling families of old Saro and conquered Efea win everything: the gold, the armies, the fleets, the land, the power.

  “I don’t want to talk about this with a mule like you who can’t hope to understand. You aren’t as special as you think you are just because Kal fancies himself in love with you—his big rebellion!”

  The words don’t even annoy me. I turn my head to look her right in the face, and I smile.

  She stiffens and in a huffy whisper says, “Where are we going?”

  “To the Warrens.”

  “You can’t take me there!” She sucks in a breath as if someone has just kicked her in the gut. “That’s a terrible, dangerous part of town!”

  “You only think so because Commoners live there. Do you know what I think is a terrible, dangerous part of town? The part where a twelve-year-old boy is handed over by his own mother to be murdered, just so his uncle can claim the throne without fearing an innocent rival might grow up to become a man.”

  Her glare would kill a lesser adversary but I have lost all feeling and all fear. I am numb with rage and revulsion, much of it pointed right at myself. All I care about is reaching the Warrens and not thinking about whether Kalliarkos has survived the day. With this, my thoughts slam into a wall. I can’t go any farther down that path.

  The last of the afternoon passes, and the sun sets.

  As soon as we get over the wall and onto the streets, we hide behind the pillars of a portico so Menoë can strip from the towering architecture of her hair all the wire rods, pins, extra braids, and ribbons that have turned it into a sculpture. Let free, her hair hangs silky smooth and straight down her back like the miraculous seaweed tresses of the goddess Hayiyin.

  “I’ll braid it while you strip all the finery from your gown. Use the pins and ribbons to repair the rips. Can you do it?”

  She’s trembling, having gotten sunburned and dehydrated from our time on the roof. “Of course I can do it! You must address me as ‘my lady.’”

  I want so much to slap her. Instead I take calming crane breaths, and discipline triumphs. “My lady, stow everything else in your sleeves in case we have a chance to exchange it for less conspicuous clothing.”

  To my relief she does as I ask. She’s too smart not to.

  Once we have finished, we scuttle along side streets until we reach the lantern-lit Avenue of Triumphs. I press her back into the shadows while I gaze along its length, trying to figure where and when to cross. Oddly, Efeans swarm the boulevard in huge numbers, carrying jars of water on their heads or pushing wheelbarrows filled with bricks and stacks of ceramic pots and bowls. People wearing the white belt that identifies them as individuals willing to exchange sex for money sashay past the foreign soldiers guarding the intersections, distracting them with smiles. Street sweepers make their slow way as patrols on horseback get caught behind them, and while the soldiers shout at the old women to get out of the way, they don’t hit them.

  Whatever the invaders might be willing to do, it’s clear the conspirators have commanded there shall be no violence. They don’t want their city to burn down the first night they rule it.

  “That’s what’s wrong with you Commoners,” Menoë hisses. “You just give in without a fight. Look at them all, out and about as if nothing has happened, offering their wares to anyone who asks.”

  “If you think so, then you’re not very observant.” I am sure Ro and his allies are behind this influx of Efeans onto the streets. “Do you see any children? Do you see any food? That’s all being kept safe behind walls. These people are both slowing down the military patrols and spying on them. If necessary, the bricks in their carts can become weapons.”

  She pauses, examining the avenue with new interest. “I never thought of that. How do we get across?”

  With her hair braided into a single rope, her ripped clothing crudely pinned to hide her gruesome scars, and the decorative wings and eye paint wiped into oily smears on her skin, she no longer looks like a palace lady. But she is obviously a Patron, and as far as I can tell, all the Patrons have fled the streets, even the lowborn and servants. The moment we try to cross one of the monumental avenues a soldier will spot her as standing out from all the Efeans and foreigners, but the only way to reach the Warrens without circling down past the harbor where the enemy ships lie in wait is to cross the Avenue of Triumphs.

  I scan the people on the boulevard and pick as my target a group of about ten women hauling bundles of palm fronds and baskets of reeds like they’re headed to a building site. Waving at Menoë to stay back, I sidle onto the street and lag back through the foot traffic until the women reach me, splitting around me like river waters around a rock.

  “Honored Ladies,” I say quickly, before they are past, “I need your help to get the woman I am with to a safe haven.”

  They halt and make a show of shifting bundles and baskets, switching the heavier and lighter burdens between them, the sort of thing people do when they are carrying burdens a long distance. “If she’s hiding she must be a Patron doma. Why would we help one of them?”

  “Because Efea will rise.”

  A knife blade flashes next to me. Before I can throw up an arm to protect myself, the woman holding it slices through the string that binds her bundle of palm fronds, and they fall in a rustling noise to the street. Soldiers look around as one of the other women begins screeching at her companion in Saroese.

  “Clumsy girl! Pick it up!”

  The foreign soldiers don’t know that Efeans never speak Saroese among themselves, and that her shouting therefore is a ruse to make them think it’s an ordinary disagreement. They watch for a short while, because they’re bored, but women disputing about the tasks of everyday life can’t hold their interest. Making an exaggerated business of gathering up the fallen vegetation, the women kick the fronds closer and closer to the side of the street. Once the group drifts close enough it is simple for Menoë to slide out of the shadows into our midst. A woman shoves a disorganized mass of fronds into Menoë’s arms, and she clutches them awkwardly, concealing her face, as we start walking again. I’m given a basket that clacks softly as it shifts, and when I peek beneath the linen cloth layered on top I find I am carrying a load of fish-gutting knives.

  “Where do you need to go, Honored Sister?” asks the eldest of the women, speaking in Efean so Menoë cannot understand.

  “The Heart Tavern, to meet Ro-emnu.”

  “Are you one of Ro’s sweethearts?”

  A few snicker, and one says, “Who is Ro? Oh! The poet!”

  “No, I’m not one of his sweethearts.”

  My interrogator isn’t satisfied. “What obligation do you owe to this doma?”

  When I hesitate she orders us down a side street, marching past a loitering patrol of soldiers wearing the h
awk of East Saro. She says, in Efean, “Speak, or we will hand you over to the invaders.”

  I can’t think of anything except the truth. “She’s my father’s wife. My father is General Esladas.”

  At the name Esladas, Menoë glances toward me, because it’s the only word she’s so far understood. A strange emotion settles over the women like the ripple of a boat’s wake through still waters. In their glances at me I see calculation, interest, suspicion, and disapproval.

  My interlocutor looks me in the eye. “Honored Sister, I am called Ibi.”

  “I am Jessamy, Honored Lady.”

  “What circumstances bring you here I do not know, but if you wish it, we can bring you by yourself safely to the Heart Tavern and leave the doma to the mercy of her own people.”

  How tempting her offer sounds. How easy to lose Menoë and never be called to account for it, for I can lie and say I never saw her. Father’s ties to Garon Palace severed with no blame attached to me.

  But I will not be one of them. I will not act as they did. It’s true I am half Saroese, for that is the heritage my father gave me. But I am not a Patron and I never want to be one, not anymore. Not after everything I have seen.

  “It would dishonor my father’s courage and loyalty to Efea to abandon her,” I say, even as I wonder if she is pregnant and if it’s true the child, if a boy, could become king in time. “Anyway, Lord Kalliarkos saved the life of the poet, and she is thereby included in the obligation Ro-emnu owes to Garon Palace.”

  “Very well.”

  Deep in my heart I sense my companion is pleased that I have chosen the Efean way of shared obligation rather than the selfish violence of those who conquered this land a hundred years ago.

  In the districts where Patrons live all the gates are closed, but throughout the city enough Efeans walk the streets that soldiers on patrol take no notice of another group of Efean women busy about the never-ending work of serving foreign masters. Once we reach the twisting alleyways of the Warrens the patrols disappear, and the gates to each household stand open. People sit in their courtyards looking out onto the street as runners dash from one clan house to the next bearing messages. People watch us pass with an interested air, for what the soldiers missed they see instantly: Menoë in our midst, struggling as her exhaustion and the unfamiliar experience of carrying a burden combine to unsteady her.