“Yes. A comfort.”
“I am Tyressa Joden.”
Keles shivered. “I am Kulshar Joden.” He stiffly offered the name the Prince’s ministers had supplied him, not at all liking that she had used the surname first.
“I know.” She smiled slightly, then glanced out at the water. “Ah, Wentokikun. Do you suppose that man up there at the window might be the Prince himself? He would watch to see Keles Anturasi off, don’t you think?”
“Perhaps.” Keles’ mind raced. “Or one of the Keru.”
Her smile broadened a little. “Perhaps. We have the same name. I don’t believe in coincidences, do you?”
“No, I do not.” He looked around and saw no one nearby. “You are Keru?”
“And entrusted with your safety, yes.” She kept her voice low. “You should continue your quiet ways, as your accent will never pass as Helosundian. You’re berthing below with most of the other passengers while your double will get the second-best cabin aboard. You’ll want to be very careful.”
“Are there enemy agents on board?”
She snorted. “If there are any active ones, I will find them and deal with them. You must be wary, though, for anyone could see something odd. And if they let their puzzlement slip to someone else, that person, or someone they talk to, could be in communication with the enemy.”
Before he could ask, she added, “And the enemy could be anyone.”
Keles smiled ruefully. “I am glad you were able to narrow that down for me.”
“I’ll do my best.” She pointed a finger toward the river’s south shore. “How far do you think it is to the bank?”
Keles shrugged, but studied the distance for a moment, then answered. “Sixty-seven yards, give or take.”
“Precisely. You’ve just given yourself away.”
“What?”
“No one save a cartographer or surveyor would estimate the distance the way you just did. Most would say ‘a middling bowshot’ or ‘further than I can throw a stone.’ ”
“But you’re here to protect me.”
“And how do you know that?”
Keles quickly reviewed their conversation and felt his stomach fold in on itself. He began to slide back along the railing away from her. “I guess I don’t.”
Tyressa grabbed him by the shoulder and he tried to bat her hand away, but he couldn’t break her grip. He wanted to take that as confirmation that she was Keru and there to protect him, but the only thing it signified was that he was in trouble.
“Stop, Kulshar.” She loosened her grip, but only a little. “I was told to tell you the sculptors won’t include your beard, and the painters will work with brown.”
A sign from the Prince. Another shiver rocked him and her hand fell away. He shook his head. “You are going to have to work hard with me, right?”
“I will, yes, but there are advantages. I know you can learn. I think you will take orders.”
“Yes, to both of those.”
“Good. You’re like the Prince in the first, and I wish he were like you in the second.”
Keles smiled. “Is that why you are here?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m on this trip because I earned my grandfather’s ire.”
“I have no grandfather. He died in Helosunde.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Tyressa turned and leaned on the rail. “Why is that? You didn’t know him. From what my family has said, he makes your grandfather look pleasant.”
“I still won’t say I’m happy for you.” He turned and leaned his elbows on the rail, too. “But you know what I mean and you’re evading the question.”
“What question was that?”
“Why are you on this trip?”
She said nothing, but nodded in the direction of Wentokikun. “I was given an order. I am here.”
“That’s it?”
She looked at him sidelong. “That’s all you need to know.”
He frowned. “Maybe I need to know more.”
“That is all I want to tell you.”
“But, if I’m to trust you . . .”
Tyressa shook her head. “You don’t have to trust me. You just have to trust that I know what to do and how to do it, and that I will do my duty. Anything beyond that is immaterial. The Prince trusts us. Why should you be different?”
“If he asked that sort of question, would you answer him?”
“That, Kulshar, is a hypothetical question with no validity, so it gets no answer.”
“I see.” He fell silent, letting the scent of cook smoke supplant the river’s heavy, sour miasma. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you angry.”
He waited for a reply and when he got none after a moment or two, he looked over and saw she’d drifted away. Keles considered going after her, but hesitated. It was probably for the best he didn’t, since that could attract attention. Moreover, she could have been off to check something he didn’t notice. He felt frustrated and helpless, and that sank him back to the night of the Prince’s celebration.
He’d made his bold statements to Majiata and waited for her reply. He expected she’d scourge him, but it would have been worth it. In an instant, he’d seen how shabbily she’d treated him, and his resentment had been immediate and strong. He’d braced for her to strike back hard, fully shocked and petulant.
Instead, she’d just looked at him and begun to cry. Tears welled in her eyes, then gushed down her cheeks, melting cosmetics in a dark stain. He imagined, just for a moment, that this was all for effect, but then tears splashed down to soil her gown. Her lower lip trembled and her nose began to run. She looked up at him, her moist eyes summoning up a torrent of guilt.
She said nothing.
Keles had immediately been of two minds. The first was certain he was being manipulated. How could someone who had used him so ruthlessly be so vulnerable? He knew this was just another ploy, another way to get under his skin and make him hurt.
The other part of him just melted. This was the woman he had loved, and he’d been cruel to her. He’d reduced her to tears, which was bad enough, but he’d done it there, at the Prince’s Festival, where everyone could see how he had shamed her.
He wanted to reach out and hug her, offer some sort of comfort, but he couldn’t raise his hands. She looked so small and weak, so hurt by what he had said, that he questioned his vehemence, his certainty. Could I have been wrong all along? Maybe she does love me.
The two halves of his mind warred against each other, which left him standing before her frustrated and impotent. Not doing something was worse than doing the wrong thing, but how should he act? He could turn his back on her, walking away, but that would have been even more cold and callous. Yet standing there just increased the awkwardness and made it so very much worse.
Keles had instead turned toward the wine table and held his cup out to be refilled. He had intended to offer her some of the wine, but when he turned back, she had already retreated, cutting swiftly through the crowd, audible sobs accompanying her tears. People looked from her to him—a few with surprise, but more with anger on their faces. One and all they seemed to be saying, “She might have had it coming, but did it have to be now?”
Jorim had rescued him. His younger brother had approached, gotten a cup of wine, then pulled him aside. “Are you all right, Keles?”
Keles had drunk, then nodded. “Yes.”
“What happened?”
“She came to forgive me. She told me it wasn’t my fault.”
Jorim laughed heartily and spoke perhaps a bit louder than he might have otherwise. “She forgave you? You, the one who prevented her from being clawed into sweetmeats? She forgave you?”
The effect of his brother’s words had been immediate, both in Keles and the surrounding audience. Gossipmongers immediately repeated his remarks, countering what they’d said when watching the drama unfold. What had been an emotional encounter shifted into one more entertainmen
t for the evening.
The change in Keles was one he now reexamined as he stared down into the waters. He’d steeled himself to accept that what the people in that room felt about him didn’t matter. He’d done nothing wrong. She’d chosen the confrontation and he’d just dealt with her as best he could.
Here, too, what he thought of his guardian and what she thought of him likewise didn’t matter. They both had missions to fulfill, and would do so. Tyressa would keep him safe, he would complete the survey for the Prince, and that would be that.
That seemed right to him, but after a moment’s reflection he located the flaw in his thinking. What Tyressa thought of him, and what she thought about how he conducted himself, were very different. There were things he could learn from her, especially about being observant. While she might be charged with his safety, he couldn’t cede that responsibility to her. Not only did he owe it to himself to be observant, but he had to think ahead to a time when she might not be there to help him.
To this point in your life, Keles, you have been sheltered. Just because he’d learned to deal with his grandfather didn’t mean he was prepared to deal with the world. There were going to be folks, like Majiata, who wanted certain things from him—such as his knowledge or even his death. He needed to be wary of them.
Do any less and you’ll not be worth the lead it would take to cast you. He smiled. Any less, and you’ll not even be worth the dross that spills out of an overfilled mold.
Chapter Twenty-seven
14th day, Month of the Dog, Year of the Dog
9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court
162nd Year of the Komyr Dynasty
736th year since the Cataclysm
Jandetokun Inn, Moriande
Nalenyr
Nirati slipped the hood back on her white mourning cloak as she entered the Jandetokun Inn. Those gathered in the common area on the main floor slowly quieted as they realized someone in mourning was in their midst. Since she had thrown the cloak back and wore no tear tracks drawn in black down whitened cheeks, the others became instantly aware that the person being mourned was not a family member. Their conversations began again, but at a low murmur that would remain sober until she left.
She found their deference a comfort, for she still remained in shock. The death had been so brutal—at least, this was the impression she’d had of it from gossip and whispers. Those of her cousins who talked about it didn’t think it was the sort of thing a young woman should hear, so she dwelt in ignorance. This left her imagination free to conjure up all sorts of ideas. While she wanted to suppose that what she made up was worse than reality, somehow she didn’t think it was.
Nirati also found herself feeling guilty. She might have, once, thought of Majiata as a friend. Majiata had been younger than she and always a bit aloof. Nirati had tried to like her when Keles began courting her, but they had never developed a deep friendship. Nirati’s hopes that they could become as sisters died quickly, and that left her with a crystal-clear vision of what the woman was doing to her twin.
That Keles had remained ignorant of how horribly she was treating him came as no surprise to Nirati. Her twin had the tendency to see the best in people, acting as if they had risen to fulfill the idealized role he’d pictured for them. The reality was often quite different.
But at least he learned to deal with Majiata. Their confrontation at the Prince’s celebration had pleased Nirati. It marked a shift in Keles’ attitude. She hoped it would stand him in good stead in the middle of the wildlands—though she dreaded the inevitable conflict it would cause when he returned and had to deal with Qiro directly.
Try though she might, she could not project what Keles’ reaction to the news of Majiata’s death would be. Before he had started to grow, she would have imagined that it would have hurt him deeply. He would have felt, somehow, it was his fault, and he would try to make amends. With her death, the Phoesel family might have gotten maps and concessions that even her wedding to Keles would not have gained them.
Now, however, his reaction remained unpredictable. It was possible he could revert to his old ways and become overly kind to her family, but Nirati doubted that. Likewise she didn’t think he would laugh at the news or hoist a glass in favor of her killer. She didn’t think he would swear vengeance on the thing that had done this either—Jorim would have, but not Keles. But, however he chose to deal with it, she resolved to be there to help him.
She put her twin out of her mind as she mounted the steps to the rental rooms above the inn’s main floor. Though she had not been there before, she knew unerringly which room she was bound for. Others might have put this down to her family’s skill with cartography, but it was less complicated. Her informant had been very specific in his instructions, as well as in relating that the resident did not want to be disturbed.
Topping the steps, she turned left and moved toward the front of the building. She knocked gently on the middle door and waited. She heard nothing, so she knocked again, more loudly. When that brought no response, she hammered her fist on the door, then spoke in a very clear voice. “It is Nirati Anturasi. I am not leaving until I speak to you, and I’ll beat on this door until my fist is bloody.”
That brought some noise from within. Beneath the edge of the door light flashed, indicating the heavy curtains had been drawn back. The agonized gasp that accompanied the light suggested the person within had enjoyed too much drink and too little sleep.
“The door is open.”
Nirati slipped the latch, but hesitated in the doorway. While light flooded in through the window, the room still had the sour scent of nightsweats and bodies long unwashed. She would have expected things to be more disorderly, but aside from tall boots lying flopped over in the middle of the floor, gloves scattered to two corners, and an ale bucket tipped on its side near the bed, things looked relatively neat.
They contrasted sharply with Junel Aerynnor. He sat on the side of the bed, his shoulders slumped, wearing a stained linen nightshirt and two days’ growth of beard. His hair needed taming and his sunken eyes were rimmed with black and tinged with red. His skin looked white enough that had he leaned over and retched into the bucket, she would not have been surprised. In fact, she almost righted it and slid it to him. She closed the door and moved to the chair by the small table beneath the window.
“I had no desire to intrude on your grief, Count Aerynnor, but you have no one else here that I know of.”
He glanced at her, his lips pressed in a grim line. “The Phoesel family has no desire to see me. I was the one to bring them the bad tidings. When her father asked me to tell him what I had seen, I had no idea he wanted me to lie. In the north, perfect candor would have been expected.”
Nirati seated herself without waiting for an invitation. “I heard of their reaction. The constabulary asked you to identify her instead of the family?”
He rubbed his right hand over his eyes. “It sounds so official that way. One of the constables who had attended her punishment recognized her. As he was going to her home he chanced across me. I agreed to accompany him, but now I wish I never had.”
Junel’s hand fell from his eyes and he stared past Nirati. “There are things men are not meant to see.”
Nirati nodded as a shiver ran up her spine. “What can I do for you, my lord? If you want to tell me . . .”
He snorted. “That offer from anyone else would be an invitation to gossip. Not you, Nirati. You’d tell no one.”
“So tell me.”
Junel shook his head. “No, you’d have it locked inside the way I do. That’s not a burden anyone should have to bear.”
She slipped the clasp on her cloak and allowed it to drape back over the chair. “I think, my lord, you will find me stronger than you imagine. If it is such a burden for you now, imagine the relief at having it shared. I will bear it, and not blame you.”
He half smiled. “I know you Anturasi are more hardy than the Phoesels, but even so . . .”
“I think you are feeling guilty for not having prevented this tragedy. It was not your fault.”
“How can you say that?”
“I know you. You once saved her from Viruk talons. You would have done that again.”
“Is that who they say did it? A Viruk. The Viruk?” Junel’s eyes tightened. “It was enough of a mess that he could have.”
Nirati nodded. The hottest gossip in Moriande suggested that the Viruk Rekarafi had slain Majiata to cleanse some blot from his honor. The authorities had asked for him to be produced for examination, but the ambassador said her consort had long since quit the city. She even submitted to a search of the embassy, but the constables could not find him.
Some wags even went so far as to suggest that after killing the girl he had set out in pursuit of Keles. Nirati shivered. She’d seen the scars on his back and had no doubt that Rekarafi would rend Keles limb from limb if he found him. Perhaps the Prince’s deception will give Keles enough time to get where the Viruk cannot find him.
She blinked and refocused on Junel. “The Viruk is the leading candidate, but plenty of other rumors abound. One even suggests one of my brothers did it.”
“Keles or Jorim?”
“Keles. They say his heading upriver was a trick, and that he could have ridden hard to join the ship after he did the deed.” Nirati shook her head. “Now, tell me. What happened?”
Junel sighed and his shoulders slumped further. “It was all quite a muddle. I was living with the Phoesel family, but I knew that Majiata and I were a poor match. Her father was still upset about her having embarrassed the family and lost your brother. I was a poor second choice, and while Majiata’s father was polite, he was not silent in sharing that opinion. Still, I was better than nothing.
“I had expressed my reservations about our union to Majiata and said I planned to leave her home. Three days ago, when I awoke, I found a note in her hand slipped beneath my door. She begged me to do nothing rash and to meet her in the city after dark, away from her family. She asked me to burn the note, which I did.”
A Secret Atlas Page 22
