Voyager of the Crown

by Melissa McShane

  “But they vary according to the crime, yes?” Zara said. The woman nodded. “And the fine is to compensate the government for having to deal with lawbreakers.”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you to know such things?”

  “It’s obvious. And I imagine some of the fine pays your salary, doesn’t it?” Or, more likely, your bribe.

  “Rowena,” Ransom said in a low voice. She ignored him.

  “I have one question,” she went on, cutting across the woman’s next words. “If you put us in prison for not paying the fine, and your government gets no money out of us—loses money, having to house and feed us in prison—do you benefit from that personally, or not?” Her heart was beating too rapidly, but this was both exhilarating and terrifying, because if she’d judged this woman wrong, if she was more proud than venal, they would all be finding out whether Karitians fed their prisoners or not.

  The woman leaned back in her chair, narrow-eyed as if she were thinking hard. “How much have you?” she finally said.

  Ransom tipped the diamonds onto the desk. Zara kept her eyes on the woman and not on the stones, and saw her eyes gleam. She touched the stones, then said, “It is enough for all but one. Choose.”

  Belinda gasped. Zara said, “We can get the rest if you give us time.” And access to Theo’s belt.

  “No time. Dineh-Karit does not treat with foreigners. Choose.”

  “I’ll stay,” Ransom said.

  “Are you out of your mind?” Zara shouted.

  Ransom moved swiftly to take Zara’s arm. “Don’t be a fool. The Zakharis can’t be separated. Theo and Belinda wouldn’t last two hours in a Karitian prison. And you have a mission.” He smiled that crooked, sardonic smile. “Once you’re on Tammerek, find a negotiator and give that person a lot of money. He or she will come back here and release me. It shouldn’t take long.”

  “This isn’t even your journey! You didn’t want to be here!”

  “Sometimes life takes you places you weren’t expecting to go. Don’t worry about me. I speak the language.” He pulled the pouch over his head and pressed it into her hands. “Just in case.”

  “We can give them Theo’s belt!”

  “That would be fatal. She couldn’t turn in that much in fines without being investigated. And it’s too large for a bribe. She’d have to kill us, and possibly the nakati, to keep it a secret. Just do as I say for once?”

  “Ransom—”

  He stepped away from her. “You’ve spoken the law’s verdict,” he said to the woman, “and these two are witnesses.” He nodded at the nakati. “If these five don’t return to Tammerek along with their possessions, the law will punish you.”

  The male nakat nodded vigorously and said something in Karitian, then repeated in Eskandelic, “We will find a boat for you.”

  “But…you can’t stay!” Belinda wailed. “This isn’t right!”

  “It’s how things are in Dineh-Karit,” Ransom said.

  The woman unfolded herself and came around the desk to face Zara. “You go,” she said, “and do not come back.” She gestured at the nakat, who opened the door and motioned for them to leave.

  “I want my Devices back, please,” Zara said, pointing at the box. The woman glared at her, but snapped her fingers at the female nakat, who unlocked the box and handed Zara the Device and the pistol. Zara shoved the Device into her pocket and the gun into her waistband, staring down the nakat. She was so furious her hands were shaking. Ransom staying behind—oh, hell, that name was all too appropriate right now!—that stupid greedy bitch of a Karitian! She closed her fist on her shaking and turned to follow the others out the door.

  “Wait,” Ransom said. She turned in time for him to take three rapid strides across the tiny room and kiss her, hard, his lips firm on hers and one of his hands burying itself in her mass of filthy hair. “That’s not a goodbye,” he said when he released her, his eyes fierce. “I will see you again.”

  Stunned, Zara took a step backward, her eyes fixed on his, then stumbled as her heel caught the stairs. She had to turn around to catch herself, and by the time she reached the bottom of the steps, the door was closed and he was gone.

  She hurried to catch up to Belinda, her heart pounding, the memory of his kiss still on her lips. What was he—how—he couldn’t— She was having trouble thinking straight, didn’t even know where they were going. Why—?

  “If I weren’t so upset, I’d gloat over being right,” Belinda murmured. “I thought he was interested in you.”

  “You saw that?”

  “I was only a foot away. Of course I saw that. Now we really have to get him back.”

  “Belinda!”

  “I’m kidding. It’s either that or run gibbering mad across these docks. Aren’t you afraid they’ll go back on their word?”

  “Terrified. Though I think the nakat, the man, is honorable. He certainly wasn’t happy about his superior. I think she’s extorted far more people than just us. Bribery might be part of their system, but that didn’t feel right.” She laughed bitterly. “Not that I know anything about it.”

  They were back on the pier again—or, not again, because it was a different one. The nakat leaned over a pink and green boat moored to the pier to speak to a woman dressed in a loincloth and a sort of brassiere of twisted dark green fabric. He gestured out across the bay toward distant Goudge’s Folly.

  “Though I’m surprised you didn’t realize, what with all the time you were spending together,” Belinda continued. No one else seemed to be listening, but she spoke in a low voice regardless.

  “I’m too old for him,” Zara said.

  “Not that old. If you were a man and he were a woman, nobody would think anything of it.”

  “No, I mean—it’s not possible.”

  “I just saw some excellent evidence to the contrary. How long do you think it will take to find someone who can release him? We certainly have the funds.”

  “Belinda—”

  “Why don’t you save all of those objections for when you see him again?”

  Zara gave up. It was impossible. She was far too old to be thinking of romance, and certainly not with someone young enough to be her grandson. And he knew who she really was, mostly, so what was he thinking? She must look awful, messy hair, beet red face—I will see you again, she heard him say in memory, and it started her heart beating faster again. She was a fool, and she needed to concentrate, because until they were all on Goudge’s Folly, none of them were safe.

  The nakat straightened and gestured to them. “She will take you to Tammerek,” he said in Eskandelic.

  “What will happen to our friend?” Zara demanded, not moving.

  “Prison is not dangerous,” he said, his eyes darting everywhere but in her direction.

  “Don’t lie to us,” Arjan said. “What will happen?”

  The nakat backed away. “You should send help soon,” he said, and ran back the way they’d come. Arjan’s face was grim. Zara was sure she looked the same. He gave her a hand down into the boat, then settled himself next to Cantara amidships. The boat pilot deftly maneuvered them away from the pier and out across the water toward Goudge’s Folly.

  “Will this take long?” Zara asked. The pilot looked at her with incomprehension. “Will it take long?” she repeated herself in Eskandelic, then, feeling desperate, in Veriboldan. The woman’s face cleared, and she smiled.

  “It is only half an hour,” she said in the same language. “This is a fast boat.”

  “How do you speak Veriboldan?” Theo asked.

  “I learned it a long time ago,” Zara said, feeling every one of her eighty-seven years aching through her bones. Theo subsided, and then there was nothing but the sound of the Device purring like the largest cat Zara could think of. Did najabedhi purr? She closed her eyes and cursed herself for thinking of irrelevancies, but it was either that or trying not to imagine what Ransom was going through. How bad were those prisons? Would it matter that he
had healing magic? Surely even the Karitians valued that over nationality.

  None of that mattered. They would reach Goudge’s Folly in half an hour, they’d find a negotiator, and they’d send that person back over immediately. Ransom might be back before nightfall. Possibly earlier. It was hard to believe it was barely after noon, so much had happened. He’d kissed her. He’d meant it, too. Not a goodbye. Zara closed her eyes against memories. She had to stay focused, because Ransom was counting on her.

  The sun hammered down on her head like heated brass, tempered not much by the wind kicked up by the rapidly moving boat. The pilot steered deftly around other boats like a lunatic, making Belinda squeak every time they came close to colliding with one of the bright flying specks that veered close and then were gone. It was a dance, children spinning and leaping around the grown dancers that were the ships, gracefully curving into the harbor or settled at rest here and there throughout the bay, and if her muscles weren’t knotted with hot tension, she’d be able to appreciate it better. Was there a pattern to it, or was it all just the kind of randomness that could leave an innocent man trapped in a foreign prison—she shook her head to fight off the visions her fiendish imagination insisted on showing her.

  She wished the Device really was the pocket watch it seemed to be, because it felt like much longer than half an hour before Goudge’s Folly went from being a shape misty with distance to a massive rock looming large and bright before them. It had to be an illusion that the little red roofs were so much more welcoming there.

  The island rose to a gentle, flat-topped peak of verdant green, below which lay hundreds of roofs, mostly red, but some blue or tan and one or two stark black like spots of char on a multicolored tablecloth. It looked as though Goudge’s Folly had been settled for generations, which made Zara wonder how long northerners had been here, and how much longer they had to go on the lease. What would happen to all of them if Dineh-Karit decided it didn’t like foreigners polluting its waters anymore? Living on Goudge’s Folly had lost its appeal.

  Traffic at the Goudge’s Folly docks was even heavier than it had been in Manachen, and it took the pilot some time to find a place where they could exit the boat. Zara got off last, afraid the pilot might demand money from them—had the nakat even paid her?—and unwilling to give away Theo’s secret, but the woman just turned the boat around and zipped away toward the mainland. At least something had gone their way that day. Two things, if you counted not being captured or killed by pirates.

  She joined the others at the end of the pier. “What now?” Theo said.

  “I’ll find Falken & Daughter and see if I can get an advance on my salary. You’ll find a negotiator,” Zara said.

  “We’ve still got plenty of gems,” Belinda said, but quietly.

  “Those aren’t ours.”

  “I told you, my aunt won’t mind,” Theo said. “And he saved our lives.”

  “We all his friends are,” Cantara said. “This trouble our fault is.”

  “It’s the fault of that pirate Ghazarian, and let’s all not forget that,” Zara said. “All right. Let’s start asking around for a negotiator. That has to happen first, anyway.”

  The docks were a messy jumble of enormous warehouses and scattered customs houses so comforting to the eye, so northern, Zara almost relaxed. If there hadn’t been that tiny voice in the back of her head screaming at her to hurry hurry hurry, she would have enjoyed being back where people spoke one of the three languages she did. As it was, she felt choked with impatience as they sped across the docks, looking for something that might be a harbormaster’s house, preferably a Tremontanan one.

  Finally, Belinda said, “There! That’s the sign!” Zara looked where she pointed and saw a familiar green and brown sign and shield bearing the triple peaks of Tremontane. They ran faster, dodging sailors and burly men loading wagons, until they stumbled in the door of the harbormaster’s house, nearly knocking over someone who was exiting at the same time.

  “We need a negotiator,” Zara demanded of the room at large.

  “This isn’t the place to go for that,” a tall woman wearing a harbormaster’s uniform said. “And you could stand to be a little more polite.”

  “We have a friend in a Karitian prison who needs help now,” Zara snarled. “Excuse me if politeness isn’t at the top of my priorities.”

  “Good heaven,” said another woman standing nearby. She was about sixty years old and had a face like a cheerful, wrinkled apple, but her voice was aghast. “Dearie, nobody gets out of a Karitian prison.”

  “He told us to find a negotiator and send a lot of money,” Theo said. “Just tell us where to go.”

  The room was silent. “You’re wasting your time,” said the harbormaster finally, “but if you go to the Tremontanan embassy, they’ll have someone there who will tell you what I just did.”

  “Thanks,” said Zara. “Where’s the embassy?”

  “Straight out the harbor gate, down that street,” the harbormaster said. “Third street on the right, follow it as it rises—the slope’s about a quarter mile—then turn left and it’s the fifth house on the right. Looks like the Justiciary, if you’ve ever seen that.”

  “I have,” said Zara. “Thanks.”

  “Good luck,” said the wrinkly woman, but she didn’t sound very encouraging. Zara ignored her and rushed back out the door, once again nearly knocking over someone trying to enter. Was everyone on Goudge’s Folly trying to get in her way?

  “Let’s go,” she said, and they ran.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Goudge’s Folly was as hot and humid as Dineh-Karit, hotter because there were no great trees to hold off the sun, and running was like slogging through flower-scented soup. They ran anyway, down the street from the harbor, until Belinda, panting, said, “I can’t do this, I’m sorry,” and slowed to a walk. The rest of them returned to her side. “You should leave me. I’ll catch up.”

  “If we separated are, we may not find each other again, and we have lost one person already today,” Arjan said. “We should not exhaust ourselves.”

  Zara bit back an impatient reply. “Let’s keep moving. It won’t take long.”

  They walked down a long road lined with the same trees and plants they’d forged a path through only days before, but tamed into a semblance of cultivation. Shops and houses peeped out from the riot of plants thick with red and purple flowers shaped like trumpets; jewel-like birds the length of Zara’s pinky finger darted in and out, dipping their needle-sharp beaks into the flowers and then zipping away again. Zara found herself watching the flight of two of those birds around and under an airy verandah that encircled one of the houses, caught herself, and picked up the pace. Beside her, Belinda was red-faced and breathing heavily, and Zara felt the smallest pang of guilt at pushing her friend so hard, but it couldn’t be helped.

  The buildings they passed were all Karitian, or at least Zara assumed the wide windows, the broad verandahs, and the gently-sloping roofs were designed for tropical weather. They were as identical to each other as the ones on the Manachen docks had been, at least in construction, but were painted in bright colors that clashed with one another. The bold individualism cheered Zara, made her feel as if they weren’t completely alone in a foreign land. The faces were all Tremontanan as well, though no one paid any attention to the scruffy and probably odorous strangers, two of whom were Eskandelic. That cheered her further. Tremontanans as a whole were many things, but xenophobic wasn’t one of them.

  They turned right at the third street and found themselves in a neighborhood of more obviously Tremontanan-inspired buildings, thick-walled and with steeply sloping roofs, though still painted in garish colors. “Bet those houses are miserable in summer,” Theo said.

  “Bet they’re miserable now,” Belinda said. “Is it me, or is the street sloping up?”

  “It you is not,” Arjan said. “I feel it too.”

  The street sloped gently up for about a quarter mile, slowin
g them further, and Zara had begun to regret insisting they stay together when it came to an end, sharply turning left. They’d left behind the commercial district, if that’s what it was, and everything at this end of the street was giant mansions built in the Karitian style, all of them white with red roofs, all of them set far back from the street along curving drives paved in small white stones that glittered in the afternoon sun. “Fifth on the right,” Zara said, and they ran again, Zara breathing in a second wind that propelled her up the new street, which sloped even more steeply, to the fifth mansion on the right.

  It did look like the Justiciary, which had been rebuilt the year she took the throne. Its front was one long colonnade of white pillars that bulged slightly in the middle, beyond which she could barely see the mansion’s cool façade. It lay some distance from the street, past a white ironwork gate wide enough to admit one of those Device-propelled carts from the Manachen docks. Zara ran ahead of the others and fell on it, winded. It didn’t open.

  “Can I help you with something?” A young man in a forest green and walnut brown Tremontanan attaché’s uniform appeared in front of her, on the other side of the gate.

  “We need a negotiator,” Zara panted. This climate would be the death of her, if that were possible. “They told us to come here.”

  “Are you Tremontanan citizens?”

  His tone of voice was so skeptical Zara wanted to shout Do we look like Karitians to you, idiot? and rattle the bars again, but she said, “Three of us are. These are our companions from Eskandel. We’re here on behalf of another Tremontanan citizen who’s been unlawfully detained in Manachen. Please let us in.”

  The man frowned. “Wait a minute,” he said, and walked up the sparkling drive so slowly Zara wished she could propel him along with a good swift kick to his green and brown backside.

  “Why won’t he open the gate?” Theo said. He leaned on it, breathing as heavily as Zara was.

  “He afraid is,” Cantara said. “We do not look like reputables.”