by K. C. May
“We’ll have to get her elder’s approval to restrict her from leaving the grounds.”
“Did I say anything about keeping her from leaving the grounds?” Milad stalked toward the door. On the wall beside it hung a crossbow.
Korlan felt himself go clammy as he watched the justice captain take the weapon from its hook and turn to him, his eyes alight with fury.
“Take this to the docks and handle it, but don’t do it in front of her. She doesn’t need to know why her pet dolphin quits showing up.”
Korlan made no move to take the offered crossbow. “You want me to… Sir, I can’t do that.”
“Oh, I think you can.” Milad went around his desk and flipped open a book. He used his finger to trace down a few lines and then across the width of a page. “Persha and Sira are counting on you. They’ve been arrested. Their fate is completely in your hands.”
“What?” Korlan asked, his voice screechy. “Sira’s a baby.”
“Baby or not, she spit on a justice officer. That’s a petty crime.”
“Spit?” Korlan asked, aghast. “Don’t you mean drooled? That’s what babies do.”
“It was definitely a spit. I Observed it myself.”
“That’s absurd. You can’t possibly be serious.”
“You do not want to test me, Rastorfer. Tell me what punishments are suitable for petty offenses.”
Korlan’s mouth went dry as he imagined his infant daughter, only eight months old, being punished like an adult.
Milad slapped his open palm on the desk. “Tell me.”
“Bucking and gagging,” Korlan said, his voice quiet. “Riding the sawbuck. Ballering. Sir, please. You can’t. She’s too young to walk yet.”
“At her age, she probably can’t balance on the sawhorse either, so it’ll have to be bucking and gagging.”
A sob burst from Korlan’s lips. The idea of an infant being subjected to such a painful, awful treatment was too atrocious to imagine. “No, please,” he whispered.
“Your wife’s crime is more serious than that. She resisted arrest and is charged with misdemeanor assault on a justice officer. Name the most common punishments for misdemeanors.”
Befingering, fimbling, and tarring and feathering. “No,” Korlan wailed, his eyes burning. “Please, sir, you can’t.”
“If you carry out your assigned duties without argument, the enforcers in Burnd will ensure your wife and daughter stay together in the jail cell.” Again, Milad offered the crossbow. “And I’ll ask the sentencing elder to consider leniency this time.”
Reluctantly, Korlan took it.
In the hallway, Rivva took a breath, letting out the stress and excitement that had her arms and hands jittering. She strode down the hallway to her father’s office, feeling anxious about the upcoming conversation. As she neared, she was slowed by the sound of hushed voices coming from within. The door was closed, and the servant was down the hall, waiting. He gave her a small shake of his head, a warning not to interfere.
At first, Rivva thought her mother was in there with him, arguing about something or other as they often did in recent years. She would have continued to her own office and bided her time until it was over, but she caught a glimpse of her mother talking to the Minister of Domestic Matters, who oversaw, among other things, education, about which Queen Harienne was profoundly passionate. No, the woman’s voice wafting through the door wasn’t that of her mother, which meant it was another cabinet minister, possibly the dominee. Most likely the dominee. She spent nearly as much time at the palace as she did at the four Iskori temples around Jolver.
“Listen to me, Jakub, and listen good. This is a Truth Ministry matter, and you will not interfere. That woman is a danger to us all. Mark my words. She is a fox among hens.”
Rivva leaned toward the door to hear better. Is someone else in there with them?
“That may well be,” the king said, “but that’s the wrong approach. Look at what happened the last time. We should be nurturing a relationship with her, not trying to leash her like a dog.”
“Enough. I’ve already issued the command.” The woman sounded like the dominee. Rivva was sure of it. “Pretend you had no hand in it, if you wish, so she doesn’t blame you.”
“I had no hand in it.”
“Bah! You’re pathetic.”
The voice grew nearer, along with soft, carpeted footsteps.
Rivva hurried down the hallway, her heart beating fast. The last thing she wanted right then was to be caught eavesdropping on a private conversation. She ducked into her office just as the door’s latch clicked, then turned, counted to three, and walked out, striding purposefully around the corner toward her father’s office.
The dominee veered left to avoid a collision. “Careful.”
“Oh! Forgive me, Dominee,” Rivva said with a hand to her chest. “My mind was off in the weeds. How fare you today?”
Dressed in a silken robe of orange and adorned with jewels on her fingers, wrists, ears and neck, Dominee Ibsa smiled. She was beautiful when she smiled, for the sparkle in her eyes outshone the glitter of her jewels. “Very well, thank you, Princess Rivva. And you?”
“I’m quite well, indeed.” She asked about the dominee’s blooming mums and asters and chatted briefly about the toad lilies that weren’t living up to expectations. Rivva was less interested in gardening than in maintaining a pleasant relationship with the temple leader. For some reason, the woman had undue influence with the king, a bone of contention for Queen Harienne. Rivva didn’t wish to alienate the woman until she knew why.
“Next time I see you, I’ll tell you about the Colchicum,” Dominee Ibsa said as she took a step backwards.
“Please do,” Rivva said with her broadest smile. “I’ve been begging Samfer to plant some in the rear garden next spring. I’m sure your garden will have me as green as ivy.”
“As always, it was a pleasure seeing you, Your Highness. Please give your mother my warmest regards.”
Rivva cocked her head slightly. “I shall make certain of it.” She tried to stretch her smile even wider.
At last the two parted. Rivva made the mistake of looking over her shoulder as she headed to her father’s office and caught the dominee doing the same. The elder woman wiggled her fingers in a wave as she started down the stairs.
I don’t trust her any more than Mother does.
Rivva found the king at his desk, spectacles perched on his nose as he went over a paper in his hand. Aside from the omnipresent servant standing stiff and tall, no one else was in the room, which surprised her. She rapped on the door. “Sire, may I have a word?”
“Ah, there you are,” he said, looking over the top of the page at her. “You missed the cabinet meeting.”
She made her way to his desk and sat in one of the chairs across from him. “I know. I’m sorry. Something came up that needed my attention.”
“Anything I should know about?”
Considering the king hadn’t actually authorized Jora to investigate the smuggling, she needed to broach the subject carefully so as not to implicate her. “Yes, Papa. I found a coin. A foreign coin.”
He motioned to the door with a wave of his hand. “Shut the door.”
The servant exited, closing the door behind him.
“I planned to visit the Bank of Jolver to ask if anyone knew it,” she said.
Concerned deepened the lines in his face. “Did you?”
“Not yet. I decided to ask Quirza first, hoping she could identify it.”
He let out a breath and settled into his chair, looking older and more tired than she’d seen him in recent weeks. “And what did she say about it?”
“She claimed not to have seen its like.” Her voice came out soft, hitched by her disappointment.
His expression remained neutral as he shuffled some papers on his desk. “Curious. What’s your concern, dear?”
Her mouth dropped open. “Does an unusual foreign coin in the palace not concern y
ou when we suspect someone is smuggling godfruit to our enemies?”
“Of course it does, but one coin means nothing.” Her father picked up the papers and tamped their bottoms against the wooden surface to align them. “You say you found it? Where?”
The glimmer of a plausible lie came to mind. “I found it under the floor in Quirza’s office. I happened to walk past last week as she was putting a board back into place under the rug. I was afraid she might be embezzling our money and went to look there a few times since then, but I didn’t find anything until just today, when the gleam of a coin caught my eye. I’m afraid she might be involved in the smuggling.”
“You haven’t been poking your nose around in that, have you?” he asked.
Someone knocked on the door. Rivva wanted to tell whoever it was to go away, but she didn’t dare.
“Yes?” her father asked. “Who is it?”
“It’s Behrendt, sire,” came the muffled reply.
Her father sighed. “Come in.”
The steward entered and glanced nervously at Rivva. “I brought news of an unexpected problem, Your Majesty.”
“Yes? Cough it out. What news?”
Behrendt cleared his throat and cast his gaze to Rivva again. “Perhaps I should return when you’re alone, sire?”
“It’s all right. Go ahead and tell me.”
“The week’s delivery never reached its destination, sire, and the captain is missing.”
“God’s bloody challenger.” King Yaphet turned to her with an incredulous look on his face. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“What delivery are you talking about?” she asked, afraid she already knew the answer.
“The delivery of foreign coins,” the king barked.
“Oh, Papa, no,” she cried. “Please don’t tell me you’re involved in the godfruit smuggling.”
“Listen to me, Rivva. It’s more complicated than you realize.” He made a shooing gesture with his hand, and Behrendt backed out of the room and shut the door behind him.
“No, no, no,” she said under her breath. She stood and started pacing, unable to bear hearing this admission while sitting. Her stomach roiled, and she wrung her hands in time.
“You have to understand, that money pays to keep our soldiers fed, clothed, armed, and bandaged when they need it. The war is contained. We have an agreement of sorts. We don’t have to worry about attacks upshore or enemy forces invading Jolver and overrunning Serocia. As long as we have soldiers on the Isle defending the Tree, as long as we supply the nighttime smugglers with enough godfruit to keep them coming back in manageable numbers, we’re safe.”
“What about all the men who die? Keevyn and Siveon—your own sons—died in a useless, stupid war.”
King Yaphet stood and went to the window that looked out over the rear garden. “It’s not that simple, dear. It costs money to feed all those Legion soldiers.”
“Why can’t we sell godfruit like we do silk and allspice? Surely selling the godfruit would bring in more money than smuggling it does, and our men wouldn’t have to die.”
“While establishing open trade in godfruit with Mangendan, Arynd Ban, and Barad Selegal is an attractive proposition, it’s not feasible.”
She whirled on him, heat burning her face. “Why not?”
“Because Retar himself wants it this way.”
Rivva’s mind went blank. She couldn’t have heard that correctly. “What?”
“Retar has told us many times—through the Dominee, of course—that this is how it has to be. We maintain a sort of equilibrium with the war at his behest. As much as it destroyed your mother and me to lose our sons, there’s nothing we can do to end this war, not then, not now. Perhaps not ever.”
Rivva stared at him in stunned silence. She wasn’t surprised to learn the dominee was involved, but the god? It made no sense. He wouldn’t tell them what to do. He never told anyone what to do.
“Every week, the collected money from the sale of godfruit–”
“The smuggling, you mean,” Rivva muttered.
“–is brought up from the Isle through a handful of trusted agents and delivered to Quirza, who then has it melted down and made into jewelry and Serocian currency. If one person in the chain fails, we have a problem.” He exhaled hard and rubbed his temples with the thumb and middle finger of his left hand. “And we have a problem.”
Rivva drew her brow as her heart broke a little more. Never would she have believed her father was involved in the smuggling. He himself had called it an act of high treason. What was it called when the king himself committed such an act? Highest treason? “Because one shipment of money is late?” she asked.
“Only one person knew the identities of all the individuals involved, and he’s now missing.” He started to pace as he always did when he thought deeply about something, a habit she’d picked up.
“Missing?” No, Rivva thought, Jora knows who each of them are as well. Anxiety burned in the pit of her stomach. I pray she didn’t do something rash.
“What is it?” he asked.
She blinked in confusion. “Sire?”
“I know my own daughter. That look on your face tells me you know something about this. Does it have anything to do with the man you’re hiding in the old jewelry shop?”
He knew about the Colossus? Of course he would. Behrendt wouldn’t have withheld something like that from him. “No,” Rivva said. “I don’t think so. He’s just–”
“You didn’t ask Jora to investigate after I told you not to,” he said, his tone accusatory.
Rivva trembled, truly afraid for the first time in her life. He wouldn’t charge his own daughter with treason, would he? His heiress? “No, no. Of course not.”
“If Jora’s involved,” he said, pointing an angry finger in her face, “so help me, she will pay. And if you’re lying for her…” He turned his gaze back to the garden below, his shoulders squaring as if he was preparing himself to face an unpleasant task. “…you’d better hope I don’t find out.”
Chapter 22
The sergeant took the bag of coins from the box under his seat, climbed down from the wagon, and stretched. He made small talk with the stable hand for a minute, seemingly oblivious to the younger man’s lack of attention. “Well, I’d better not keep the captain waiting,” he said at last. “Take your time unloading the bodies. I’m going to grab a bite to eat before I start back.”
He trudged across the brick drive toward the Legion building and stopped, scrunching his brow in confusion. “Hey, what happened to the Colossus on the end?” he called the stable hand.
The boy looked up, squinted at the building, and shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe the wind knocked it over and broke it.”
The sergeant shook his head. “Five hundred years standing there through hurricanes and storms and earthquakes, and a stiff breeze knocks it over? That doesn’t sound right to me.”
“Maybe they took it for repair,” the boy offered. “Ask Louris. He might know.”
The sergeant continued on around the building to the door. Inside, he approached the reception desk. “Hey, Louris, what happened to the statue in the back of the building?”
The old man looked up with a blank expression. “Which one? There are eight of ’em back there.”
“Not anymore. The one on the end is missing.”
“I don’t know anything about it.” Louris went back to his stamping.
“Don’t you find it odd?”
“What am I supposed to do about it? Tell someone who gives a hang.”
“Fine. I’ll tell Captain Kyear,” the sergeant said as he started up the stairs.
Jora had to do something quickly or the sergeant was going to sound the alarm. She called Sonnis to her. “Take the form of Captain Kyear.”
The worm slithered and morphed into the form of a man, straightening into an upright posture. It looked so much like the captain, only his mother would know him for an imposter. Or perhaps n
ot.
“Good,” she said. “Stand behind the desk. Say everything I whisper.”
The sergeant burst into Kyear’s office and stopped short.
Jora turned, putting an expression of surprise on her face. “Sergeant?” she whispered as quietly as she could.
“Sergeant?” the false Kyear asked.
Jora scrubbed a finger under her nose to hide the movement of her lips. “Don’t you know how to knock?” she mouthed.
“Don’t you know how to knock?” the ally asked in Kyear’s voice. Jora couldn’t control his facial expressions, and so he stood there looking mildly curious rather than annoyed.
“Oh.” The sergeant blinked a few times. “Uh…” He looked at Jora then back to Sonnis. “Sorry, sir. I thought–”
“You have something for me?”
“Yes, sir.” The sergeant offered the bag of coins.
Sonnis made no move to take them, and Jora didn’t know how to instruct him to do so without speaking the command aloud. If she whispered take the bag, he would simply repeat the words. “Put it on my desk,” she whispered, and Sonnis repeated the words.
“Yes, sir.” The sergeant glanced apologetically at Jora as he set the bag of coins on the desk. “Sorry to interrupt. I should’ve knocked. I don’t know what came over me.”
Jora turned her head away so he wouldn’t see her mouth the words.
“Dismissed, Sergeant,” Sonnis said. “Shut the door on your way out.”
“Yes, sir.” The sergeant headed to the door but paused when he reached it. “Oh, sir? Did you know one of the Colossus statues is missing?”
“Of course I know, Sergeant,” Sonnis said. “It’s being repaired. Now get out.”
When the door was closed, Jora let out a breath. That was too close.
She took the money and put it into one of Kyear’s desk drawers, hiding it under some papers. If someone came to look for it, they’d find it fairly easily, and any suspicion about her involvement in Kyear’s failure to deliver it to the barbery would be allayed. And with Arc’s help, she could hide Captain Kyear until she figured out what to do with him.
