by Amy Raby
It warmed her heart to see her Sardossian child mingling freely with these wealthy Kjallan children. Children this age didn’t seem to be as conscious of class and race as adults. None of the boys cared that Rory had yellow hair or that he worked for a living while they spent the day with their tutors. They cared only whether Rory could throw and hit and run, and as it happened, he could do all three rather well. He was so eager to join his friends in the evening that he bolted his dinner, and he’d be out until long after the sun had set, playing by the light of the street glows.
Rory’s engagement elsewhere had a side benefit: it allowed Isolda to spend most evenings alone with Marius.
But on this particular evening she wasn’t sure if she’d be going to the villa. Just as the surgery had closed, two carriages had pulled up alongside the building, their silver trim gleaming in the setting sun. Could this be a visit from Marius’s cousin and benefactor? The conveyances were fancy enough—understated, yet solid and well made. Footmen riding on the back stepped down to open the doors, and the carriages disgorged an intimidating crowd of people.
Isolda backed away, instinctively seeking the shadows as Marius emerged from the surgery to greet these visitors. As she was looking down the street for Rory, preparing to collect him and leave for the harbor district, Marius headed toward her in the company of two of the well-dressed women.
“Isolda, this is Kolta.” Marius indicated the taller of the two black-haired women. “And Shona.” He indicated the other. “Kolta is an imperial representative investigating the gunpowder factory explosions, and Shona is a mind mage in her service.”
Isolda swallowed. So that’s what this was about: the benefactor had taken her up on her offer to provide information about the gunpowder factories.
“I trust them completely,” added Marius. “You’ll be in good hands.”
“Isolda, I’m so pleased to meet you.” Kolta held out her hand.
After a moment’s hesitation, Isolda clasped her wrist.
“My understanding is that you’re sharing information voluntarily, as a service to the empire,” said Kolta. “We’ll be using a truth spell to ascertain the veracity of what you tell us, but if there’s a question you prefer not to answer, you’re under no obligation to say anything at all. You may end the interview at any time. Are these terms acceptable to you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Isolda.
“Let’s use the surgery building for privacy.” Kolta brandished the key, which Marius must have given her.
“One moment, please. I have to find my son.” Looking around, Isolda spotted Rory trotting up the sidewalk toward the villa. He hadn’t seen her yet. His eyes found Marius first. Marius waved him over and headed for the villa in the company of several other people from the carriages.
Good enough; Marius would look after him. She nodded at Kolta, who opened the door to the surgery and motioned her through.
The surgery was empty and dimly lit by the setting sun. Isolda stepped from one light glow to another, touching to activate them. When she turned back, two of the servants or bodyguards had stepped inside the surgery. Kolta seemed to expect this, so Isolda decided it was all right.
Kolta set up a group of chairs in the waiting room and directed Isolda to sit next to Shona. “I don’t know if you’ve had a truth spell cast on you before—”
“I haven’t,” said Isolda.
“It’s absolutely painless,” said Kolta. “But Shona needs to put her hand on you.”
Isolda nodded.
“She won’t say anything unless she detects a falsehood.” Kolta opened her carrying pouch and pulled out a writing tablet, a quill, and an ink pot. “Remember, if there’s a question you don’t want to answer, just tell us you don’t want to answer it, and we’ll move on.”
“I understand,” said Isolda.
Shona reached out and gently took Isolda’s arm.
Isolda forced herself to breathe. She’d never been in the presence of a mind mage before.
“What can you tell us about the gunpowder factory explosion?” asked Kolta.
“Both of the factories that exploded were run by the same man,” said Isolda. She waited a moment to see if the mind mage would say anything, but she didn’t, and a gentle nod from Kolta encouraged her to continue. “His name is Antonius Galbus. I believe he runs a legitimate business as well, something to do with shipping—”
“Did you say Galbus?” Kolta’s eyes went to those of the mind mage. Shona gave a slight nod, and Kolta turned back to Isolda.
“Yes,” said Isolda.
Kolta dipped her quill and began to write.
“I know the blame for the explosions has been placed on my people,” continued Isolda, “and it’s true that my people staffed the factories, but it was Galbus who provided the raw materials and the equipment. He also sold the finished product. I believe he will start another factory soon, once he finds a suitable location.”
“Did you see any other Kjallans at the factory besides Galbus?”
“Occasionally I would see another Kjallan man there, but I don’t know his name.”
“What did he look like?” asked Kolta.
Isolda thought for a moment. “Short and thin. Dark hair. A prominent chin.”
Kolta nodded. “Let’s talk about how the factory was run. How did you get your raw materials?”
Isolda leaned back in her chair, feeling more relaxed. She’d worked at the factory for years, and knew every detail of its operation. “The cycle began on Sage’s Day, when the barrels arrived. Always the wagonloads were covered in raw wool to conceal the contents. The factory had a loading zone, fully enclosed, which was separate from the other facilities. Once the wagon was fully inside, the men would unload it, throwing off the wool and rolling the barrels out from underneath...”
As she spoke, Kolta wrote furiously.
∞
As Marius escorted his guests into the villa, he wished fervently that his cousin would have informed him in advance of this visit, especially if he was going to bring an unfamiliar noblewoman along. Perhaps this was the emperor’s revenge for Marius’s dropping in at the palace unexpectedly to ask for Isolda’s writ. But if he’d had time to prepare, he could have informed his cook in advance to buy meat or fish. As it was, Aurora had spent the day baking bread and simmering his favorite meal, parsnip soup. A perfectly good supper for himself and Isolda and Rory, but it was not going to appeal to this well-dressed noblewoman. Lucien had introduced her as the unmarried daughter of the Tullians, a wealthy family from the north the emperor had been courting as potential investors for his harbor project.
Marius suspected another sort of courtship was in the works.
He felt the young woman’s displeasure as she looked him over. He wasn’t wearing a syrtos today—he never wore one on workdays—but was instead clad in his customary tunic, belt, and breeches. By chance, he’d chosen his least threadbare tunic, the one of soft blue linen, but his breeches were an old pair, selected for comfort, and they were frayed at the bottom. He knew he was making a poor impression.
He was also annoyed at having to give up the evening comforts that had become customary for him after a day’s work: a hearty meal, Rory’s enthusiastic chatter about stick ball, a more intimate conversation with Isolda after the boy had run off to join his friends. And later, the pleasures of the bedroom.
Instead, this evening he would have to play the role of Highly Marriageable Imperial Cousin.
“I understand you’re a Healer?” asked the young noblewoman, seating herself at his dining table.
“Yes.” He tried to recall her name. Gratiana?
“What an unusual choice,” she purred with a smile. “What made you choose healing magic instead of some other variety?”
“I’ve been drawn to the healing arts since I was a boy,” said Marius. “In my youth, I served as an apprentice to an apothecary, so it seemed only natural that when I began my magical education, I should continue in the same
line of study.”
“You may not be aware of this,” said Lucien, taking the seat next to Gratiana, “but Marius’s parents raised him in a small town far from the imperial seat. It’s only recently that he came here to Riat.”
“How fascinating,” said Gratiana. “Your parents must have wanted you to know how the common people lived.”
Marius didn’t know how to answer that.
Aurora entered, bearing a tray of freshly baked bread. She set it on the table, disappeared into the kitchen, and returned with the pot of parsnip soup. The room was crowded, with all the plainclothes Legaciatti standing around, but she weaved her way through them and ladled some soup into each guest’s bowl. Marius cut the bread into slices.
Gratiana eyed the bread. “How rustic. I believe it’s important to know how the common folk live. We lose sight of it, shut away in our villas and surrounded by servants.”
“You’re quite right,” said Lucien. “Now that the wars are over, Kjall’s greatest challenge to overcome is poverty. Since I started giving the land grants to unemployed veterans, production has improved. But the next step is to increase imports and exports, and that means building a world-class harbor.”
Marius caught the hint of an eye roll from Gratiana, and gathered that she’d heard this speech before.
“You must treat commoners at your surgery,” Gratiana said to Marius.
“Of course,” said Marius. “I treat anyone who walks in the door.”
“What sort of things do they talk about?”
Marius had no idea how to respond to this. “Mostly they tell me about their symptoms. The reason they came in.”
Gratiana stirred her soup. She dipped her spoon and brought it to her lips, tasting the broth. She concealed her displeasure well, but he could tell she didn’t like it. She set her spoon down and reached for the bread.
Everybody liked bread, regardless of their social class, and Aurora was a master baker.
Marius picked up his bread, dipped it in the soup, and chewed happily.
When he looked up, Gratiana was staring at him.
Had he made some sort of social error, dipping his bread in the soup? He’d always eaten it that way, as had his parents and his sister, not to mention everyone he’d known in Osler. This was the delight of parsnip soup, dipping one’s bread into it to absorb the flavors.
Lucien, who’d been sipping his soup in the polite manner of an aristocrat, picked up his own bread, dipped it in his soup, and took a bite without saying a word.
The gesture did not go unnoticed. Dipping one’s bread might not have been fashionable among the Kjallan upper crust until now, but if the emperor did it, it became the new fashion.
Gratiana dipped her bread in the soup.
Marius let out his breath. Crisis averted.
Gratiana smiled. “That blue is certainly your color—it brings out your eyes. If it were just a shade or two darker, it would be perfect. I know the most excellent tailor in Riat, and he just received a shipment of dark blue fabrics. Shall I give you his name?”
Marius stiffened. However well-intentioned her words, they were veiled criticism. Gratiana seemed a decent enough woman for what she was, but she represented everything he couldn’t stand about the Kjallan nobility. She possessed an almost fetishistic curiosity about the “common people” while simultaneously looking down on them. Like so many powerful Kjallan women, her interest had nothing to do with Marius himself but in his relationship to the imperial throne. If he married her, she would lose no time in asking him to change all his personal habits and perhaps even his profession.
Still, it was clear that Lucien had brought her here because he needed this family’s help with the harbor. Marius wasn’t going to go so far as to marry or even court this woman, but he owed it to his cousin at least to be polite, and perhaps to steer the conversation in a more productive direction.
He forced himself to sound enthusiastic. “I’d love the name of your tailor. Did he design the dress you’re wearing now?”
“Oh, no.” She laughed. “He only makes men’s clothes.”
“Well, if I were a woman, I’d want the name of your dressmaker.” This was the first he’d looked closely at her dress. It was a shimmering mixture of purple and yellow, quite lovely now that he noticed. “Is that Mosari silk?”
Her face lit, and Marius realized this was the first genuine smile he’d seen on her. “Oh, yes. So few people realize how superior Mosari silk is to other varieties.”
Good thing Rhianne had taught him how to identify it. “It’s a lovely fabric.”
“And so rare. I’ve been asking for a red dress of Mosari silk for ages, but we just can’t get the material.”
“The emperor was telling me the other day that when we build this new harbor, we’ll be able to triple imports from Mosar into Riat.” He hoped that would prove tempting to her. She might want the silk to remain rare, so that only the most privileged families could possess it, but it sounded like she was having trouble acquiring it herself.
“Really?” Her eyes went to Lucien. “Would that mean more Mosari silk?”
Lucien nodded. “Yes, and many other luxury goods besides.”
Marius allowed himself to relax. It appeared she did want imports to increase.
“What about lemons?” she asked. “Up north, we always run out of lemons in the cooler months.”
“The harbor should improve lemon imports as well.”
Marius smiled. He might not be able to fulfill the role Lucien hoped for, that of marrying into this influential family and assuring him of their political and financial support for the harbor project, but he could at least show his support in other ways.
∞
Isolda’s meeting with Kolta took nearly two hours. Isolda had thought she would just hand over the name and a few details and be done with it, but Kolta wanted to know absolutely everything: when and where the materials were delivered, the quality of the materials, how they were handled, what safety precautions were employed, how the finished product was handled, when it left the factory and in what manner.
What Kolta intended to do with all this information, Isolda had no idea, but it was clear the dark-haired woman took the situation seriously. Isolda felt honor-bound to remember as much as she could in hopes that it would prove helpful.
Suppertime came and went. By the time the interview was over, it was dark out, and the Sage was up.
“You’ve been enormously helpful,” said Kolta, stacking several pages of her hand-written notes. “I hope we’ve made the process as painless as possible.”
Shona, the mind mage, rose from her chair. She hadn’t said a word throughout the entire questioning process. No need, since Isolda had told the truth. Isolda had declined to answer a couple of questions that she felt might implicate some of her Sardossian friends who hadn’t been deported, and Kolta, as promised, had moved on to other subjects without pressing her.
As they headed out of the surgery, Isolda saw that Marius’s meeting in the villa had broken up as well. Marius was on the front step of the villa in the company of a nobleman who appeared to be in his thirties—was this man the benefactor?—and a young woman barely out of her teens.
Kolta and Shona walked over to the group, apparently certain of their welcome, but Isolda hung back. The young woman smiled at Marius, and Marius smiled back. She offered him her wrist. He picked it up and kissed it.
Isolda’s chest went tight. That was what this visit was really about—her sharing of information about the gunpowder factories was only a sideshow. Marius’s cousin was introducing this woman to Marius as a potential marriage partner. Why else would he have brought her to Marius’s villa?
“Mom!” Rory dashed up to her and hugged her around the waist. He was flushed and sweating. “I scored six marks today.”
“Wonderful,” she said, her eyes still on Marius and the young woman. “Have you had supper yet?”
“No.”
She hadn’t
either. “Let’s go and do that.”
“Marius said we can eat at the villa when the people leave.”
“Not tonight,” said Isolda.
“Why not?”
She detected a touch of a whine in her son’s voice. Rory preferred the food at Marius’s to what they could scrounge up elsewhere, and the pickings in the harbor district would be slim this late in the evening. Still, she couldn’t bear to go to the villa now. She blinked away tears. Why was she letting herself get upset about this? From the beginning, she’d known it would happen. Marius was miles out of her social class and also highly marriageable. At his age, his family would be putting pressure on him to marry. If he didn’t choose this woman, he would choose another one, soon enough.
She’d known it would happen, but she couldn’t bear it.
∞
Marius handed Gratiana into the front carriage with Vitala. The street emptied as the imperial party packed themselves into their carriages, but Lucien hung back on the doorstep. When only the two of them remained, the emperor pulled Marius aside for a whispered conversation.
“Did you learn anything about Maxian’s problem?” Lucien asked.
“Not yet,” said Marius. “I talked to some people at the university, but I didn’t get a clear answer. There’s a disorder I didn’t know about that causes bruising, but it also has some other symptoms, such as swelling in the neck. I didn’t observe that when I saw Maxian.”
Lucien nodded. “I’ll check for swelling when I get back.”
“I’d like to talk to a few more people,” said Marius. “I don’t think I’ve explored every possibility.” He desperately hoped to find a medical cause, because the alternative was that the child was being abused, and that was a conversation he didn’t want to have with Lucien. Yet for Maxian’s protection, it would have to be done once he’d eliminated everything else. He knew at least one more Healer at the university he could speak to on the matter before he started making accusations that were sure to throw someone’s life into turmoil.
