Windsinger

by A. F. E. Smith

  ‘I know you’ve done well,’ her father said. ‘And we’re proud of you.’ He could at least have tried to sound as though he meant it. ‘But your first duty is to your parents. Lady Ayla and Captain Caraway know that.’

  ‘We’re on the verge of war,’ Ree contradicted him. ‘My first duty is to my country.’

  He shook his head. ‘All the more reason to get out now.’

  ‘Oh, Cheri …’ Her mother extended a hand, then let it fall. ‘War isn’t a game. Why go and get yourself killed? You’d be much better off settling down with a nice boy and letting the real warriors deal with the Kardise.’

  Ree couldn’t reply to that immediately. She discarded the congealed remains of her butty on the floor next to her, taking a deep breath. Her hands were shaking. She wanted to throw her parents out again, for good this time. Or better still, drag them up to the fifth ring and show them how much of a real warrior she was. But instead, once more, she made her best attempt to reason with them.

  ‘I don’t understand why this means so much to you. You have two other daughters. A son. Six grandchildren already.’

  ‘Seven,’ her mother corrected.

  ‘There you go, then! So many I’ve lost count! You can’t possibly need me to churn out more of them. And it’s not as if you need me to make a strategic marriage –’

  Her parents exchanged glances. Neither of them spoke. And Ree felt something cold and heavy settle in her stomach alongside the food.

  ‘What is it?’ she demanded, anxiety sharpening her voice. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

  ‘Cheri …’ Her father tried to put an arm around her shoulders, but Ree shrugged him off and he made no further attempt to touch her. ‘I made a bad investment,’ he admitted. ‘I owe Derrick Tarran a lot of money, with no way to pay. But since his son has his heart set on you, we agreed that as part of the betrothal bargain, the Tarrans would write off the debt –’

  ‘Lewis has his heart set on me?’ Ree repeated slowly. ‘Why?’

  Her father looked uncomfortable. ‘I talked about you, Cheri. Before all this blew up, I spent some time with the Tarrans both here and at home, and Derrick kept wanting to hear more about my sword-wielding daughter. He found the stories … entertaining, I suppose. And Lewis was there a lot of the time, listening …’ He crossed his arms defensively beneath Ree’s stare. ‘I wasn’t to know he’d think of you as a marriage prospect! As far as his father and I were concerned, you were an amusing anecdote!’

  ‘Then surely Derrick Tarran can’t want me as a daughter,’ Ree said, pushing aside the insult in favour of the one piece of information that might help her. But her father sighed.

  ‘Lewis is an only child. His father’s pride and joy. What the boy wants, he gets. And since his father more or less owns me, Ree … that means he gets you.’

  Ree shuddered. If she’d known, that morning at the distillery, that she was face to face with her prospective father-in-law, she would have … what? The thought derailed as she realised there wasn’t anything she could have done. Not without damaging the investigation.

  ‘He might own you, but you don’t own me.’ The words had been burning in her throat all this time – I’m a grown woman, you don’t own me – but now they were finally free, she felt hollow. Because in the end, it didn’t matter whether she was legally obliged to obey her father or not. If she didn’t marry Lewis, his father would find other ways to call in her family’s debt. She’d effectively have reduced them to penury. Their house and possessions would be sold, her father would lose his merchant’s licence, and they’d be left with nothing.

  Given that, what choice did she have?

  ‘No, I don’t own you,’ her father said, as if he could read her mind. ‘But I’m begging you, Cheri … please do this thing. For all of us.’

  ‘We wouldn’t ask it of you unless we thought you’d end up happier, too,’ her mother added with a tremulous smile. ‘Honestly, chicken, it’s the best thing for everyone.’

  Chicken. Ree’s mother hadn’t called her that since Ree was a little girl. That, as much as anything, convinced Ree that her mother was telling the truth. She really did believe that Ree would be happier married; that this awful, necessary bargain was a blessing in disguise. And though she couldn’t have been more wrong, Ree found it impossible to hate her for it.

  ‘Does he know I’m not a virgin?’ she flung at them, in a last-ditch attempt to free herself. So-called virtue was one of those things prized in the kind of girls who were expected to make good marriages. One had to know one’s heirs were one’s own, after all. So surely, a family like the Tarrans would never accept a girl who wasn’t … intact.

  Yet once he’d got over his very obvious embarrassment, her father spread his hands – ignoring her mother’s scandalised spluttering – and said, ‘To be honest, Ree, I don’t think he cares. It wasn’t even mentioned when we were drawing up the contract.’

  ‘There’s a contract?’

  ‘Well, yes. Since this marriage will also be the settlement of a debt. And, you know, these grand old families … they are used to things being more … transactional.’

  ‘Grand old families are also used to brides who haven’t slept repeatedly with one of the fifth ring’s junior assistant weaponmasters,’ Ree said. ‘So why are the Tarrans willing to waive that requirement? Especially when there’s so much money involved?’

  ‘I …’ her father began, but this time he was drowned out by her mother.

  ‘Cheri! You slept with a weaponmaster?’

  ‘Junior assistant weaponmaster,’ Ree corrected with a certain amount of malice, before adding innocently, ‘I can introduce you if you like. He’s from a very good family.’

  ‘I don’t care if he’s a Nightshade! You can’t marry a weaponmaster!’

  ‘Who says I want to marry him?’

  ‘Cheri!’ Her mother looked as dismayed as if Ree had just told her the world was coming to an end. ‘As far as I can see, young lady, it’s lucky we’ve managed to arrange this marriage before –’

  Ree’s father shot her a warning glance.

  ‘Well, sweetheart?’ he asked gently. ‘Can you do this for us?’

  I think I have to. For a moment, Ree couldn’t speak. She felt tears sting her eyes, but she’d had plenty of practice at keeping them back over the years.

  ‘Let me at least meet Lewis first,’ she said, a little desperately. ‘Give him the chance to know me, not some fantasy he’s dreamed up. If, after that, he still wants to go ahead with the marriage … I suppose I’ll do it.’ Raising her hand to block out her mother’s glad cry and her father’s stammered thanks, she added, ‘Now please go away and leave me alone.’

  After they’d left, she hugged her knees and stared at nothing. This was it, then. The end of the life she’d chosen for herself – because she couldn’t believe the Tarrans would accept her desire to stay in the Helm once she was part of the family. That sort of thing was for less important people, those without a name and reputation to maintain. No, her job would be making witty conversation at dinner parties and ensuring everything went smoothly when her husband entertained business guests. Running a household. Looking pretty. Having babies. All perfectly valuable work, for the right person – which she was most definitely not. Yet in a few short months, she would have to be.

  If, that was, Lewis went through with it.

  She sat upright, a new tendril of hope creeping through her. The marriage wasn’t a foregone conclusion, even now. If Lewis backed out of the deal, that would be a renegement on his family’s side; Derrick Tarran would thereby be put in the wrong, giving Ree’s father a good basis for negotiating manageable terms of repayment. So maybe it was possible for Ree to avoid the trap ahead of her without throwing her family into poverty.

  She just had to convince Lewis Tarran that marrying her was a terrible, terrible idea.

  ELEVEN

  Two days after the ambassador’s death was announced as murder rather than misf
ortune, Zander emerged into the early morning chill to find his father’s aide, Leo, waiting on his doorstep.

  ‘Gods,’ he muttered. ‘What did you do? Fly through the night to get here?’

  Imperturbable as ever, Leo held out a letter. ‘Your father asked me to give you this, Don Alezzandro.’

  Zander broke the seal, then scanned the content of the single sheet with increasing unease. He hadn’t been exaggerating: news of the murder must have been sent straight to Sol Kardis by airship as soon as it came out, and a reply returned with Leo the very next day. Apparently his father had strong feelings on the matter.

  Alezzandro –

  The Nightshade woman murdered one of your countrymen, a man who went to that godforsaken country looking for peace. They cannot be trusted.

  If you do not return home with Leo, I will have no choice but to name you traitor and disown you for good.

  At that point, his father’s formal script degenerated abruptly into an agitated scrawl. Have some sense, Zander, for pity’s sake. I can understand a young man rebelling against his father for a few months to indulge in foreign wine and exotic whores, but this is frankly ridiculous.

  Marco Lepont

  Zander looked up. ‘Do you know what this says?’

  ‘Your father conveyed the gist of it to me, yes.’

  ‘So that’s what he thinks I do here,’ Zander murmured. ‘Wine and whores.’ A smile curled his lips as he remembered saying something similar to Ree, back when they’d only just met. ‘Good to know he holds my work in such high esteem.’

  ‘He means it, Zander,’ Leo said gravely. ‘If you don’t come home this time, you’ll no longer bear your father’s name. Surely you realise that an insult of this magnitude sets every right-thinking Kardise man at odds with Mirrorvale?’

  For the first time, Zander wondered if his father would have gone so far as to order the ambassador’s death for the sole purpose of forcing his errant son back to Sol Kardis. He had, after all, been willing to put an entire peace treaty in jeopardy for that very same purpose. But the thought didn’t last long, because although Marco Lepont might be a bossy old man with a stick up his arse who’d far rather go to war with strangers than understand them, he would never countenance anything as fundamentally chaotic as murder. The Mirrorvalese aphorism killing is wrong except in law or at war could have been written specifically for him. While hacking a man’s limbs off was sometimes a necessary evil, it had to be done according to the rules.

  ‘I suppose,’ he said slowly, ‘I must not be a right-thinking Kardise man, then. Because it hasn’t yet been confirmed that Lady Ayla killed Don Tolino – and that being the case, cutting all ties with Mirrorvale would be an over-hasty step to take.’

  ‘It’s all but confirmed,’ Leo replied. ‘She was the only person with Tolino when he drank the poisoned liquor that killed him – and by her own admission, she was the one who gave it to him. I understand the Helm are going through the motions of an investigation, but it can only be a delaying tactic. The answer is clear enough.’

  He gave Zander a sympathetic smile, as though he knew how much the truth must sting. And sting it did. Ree and Penn hadn’t given the same picture at all, last time Zander had seen them. They’d talked about trying to find a traitor within Darkhaven’s walls, someone who had killed Don Tolino and nearly killed Ayla in the process. They hadn’t even mentioned the possibility that Ayla herself could have committed the crime, let alone that she was the only plausible suspect.

  ‘So why do you think she admitted giving him the poisoned drink?’ he asked, clutching at twigs because all the branches were broken. ‘With so many possible opportunities to murder a man who was her guest, why would she choose to do it in such a way that suspicion fell squarely on her?’

  Leo shrugged. ‘Madness. That’s what they say.’ Then, perhaps reading the doubt on Zander’s face, he added, ‘Her brother ripped their father’s throat out, Zander. Hardly a stable family background.’

  A chill danced over Zander’s skin. He didn’t know Ayla. He’d seen her once or twice, that was all. But he knew Caraway, who loved her. And he knew Ree, who had become her friend. Surely both of them couldn’t be mistaken in their regard?

  ‘Changers have always been dangerous,’ Leo said. ‘By their very nature, they are just as much animal as man. And while you might make use of a wild animal, should the occasion arise, you can never trust it. How can you? Its motivations would be as alien to you as yours to it.’

  ‘She’s not –’ Zander began, before realising he didn’t know how to finish the sentence. Not dangerous? That wasn’t true. Not wild? Hard to say. Unless you were a Helmsman, or another member of Darkhaven, there was little to go on beyond rumour. Most citizens of Arkannen had only ever seen their overlord as a swift golden flash of wings overhead, nearer than the sun but just as distantly involved in their lives – and he was no exception.

  Instead, he said, ‘I have friends here, you know that. Good people, whatever you may think of Ayla. It would be a hard choice to leave them.’

  ‘Take a little time to consider it,’ Leo said. ‘But only a little. Your father expects me to depart from Mirrorvale again tomorrow, and he expects you to accompany me.’

  A day? I can’t decide in a day! I can’t say goodbye to Ree and Penn, leave my job – Swallowing his protests, Zander gave a stiff, formal bow.

  ‘All right, Leo. I will inform you of my decision in the morning.’

  By the time he arrived at Ree’s apartment that night, his head ached with conflicting worries. The Helm didn’t have long to prove Ayla’s innocence – and from what Leo had said, they were unlikely to succeed. That would lead inexorably to the war he’d feared since he first heard of Tolino’s death. It seemed stupid to become utterly estranged from his father for the sake of staying in a country that would soon no longer want him.

  And yet, if he left, he’d be leaving forever. Submit to his father’s will this once, and he knew quite well he’d never find a way to defy it again. Was it really worth losing everything he loved in Arkannen out of fear of a conflict that might never come?

  If Ayla was guilty, he’d be foolish to stay. But if Ayla was innocent, leaving Mirrorvale would mean abandoning his friends for a lie.

  He thought he was concealing his turmoil as well as he ever did, using a smile as disguise. In fact, for a while, he was able to put it right to the back of his mind. As he and Ree cooked a late meal over a single gas burner in the shared kitchen, and he listened carefully to her account of her parents’ unreasonable behaviour and her own predicament, he was conscious of no more than the desire to help her in whatever way he could. As they ate, huddled together on her saggy old armchair, he produced several suggestions of things she could do to put Lewis Tarran off marrying her – each more outlandish than the last – until he had her laughing once more. And as they tumbled into bed together, he forgot everything else in the world except the feel and the scent of her. Yet afterwards, she rested her head on his shoulder and murmured, ‘Now maybe you’ll tell me what’s wrong with you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You keep looking at me like you’re saying goodbye.’

  He couldn’t hide from her. She had always seen through him, right from the start. He sighed, staring up at the shadowed ceiling.

  ‘Ree … you know Ayla quite well, don’t you?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘How likely is it that she’s telling the truth, do you think?’

  He half expected her to rise up in fury. You’ve been listening to your father. You think she’s a murderer. You hate Mirrorvale. But instead, she wriggled round until her legs were tangled with his and her upper body was far enough away that she could focus on his face. He turned his head; she wore a small frown.

  ‘Do you want me to answer that question as a Helmsman, or as a woman?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘All right. Well, as a Helmsman, I say of course Ayla is innocent. I’ve sworn my
life to her service. I believe she is worth fighting for. But in the back of my mind, there’s a little squirm of doubt. Because so far, we haven’t found much evidence that points to anyone else. Because if there is another explanation, it’s far more convoluted than the very simple one that’s staring us in the face. And because she’s not human. Not really. We tend to forget that, but it’s true.’

  ‘And as a woman?’

  ‘As a woman … I just can’t believe she did it. I’ve seen her kill someone before, remember. She took her other form to do it. And I think … I think, if she was going to kill someone again, it would be like that. Fierce and bloody. Not with poison.’

  Zander opened his mouth to say something, but she put a finger to his lips.

  ‘I’ve heard what some people are whispering,’ she said earnestly. ‘That there’s darkness in the Nightshade line. That her brother was mad and so is she. But poison isn’t the weapon of a madwoman, Zander! Poison is premeditated.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me she was alone with Tolino when he consumed the poison.’

  ‘No,’ Ree admitted. ‘I didn’t think it mattered.’

  ‘Of course it matters! If she had a clear opportunity to administer it, then –’

  ‘But that’s just it. Everything points to her. Everything. Which would have to mean she’s either too stupid to have covered her tracks or too crazy to care, and I don’t think she’s either. Given that, it doesn’t matter what evidence there is against her. The more damning it becomes, the less I believe it. What matters is finding out the truth. And after what we learned today at the distillery, I think it’s at least possible that Penn and I are starting to do that.’

  Doubtful, Zander said nothing. Ree grabbed his hand, gazing intently into his face.

  ‘Think of it this way. I know Ayla a little, but I know Captain Caraway a lot better. You know him a lot better. So you must have seen how much he loves her, and how much he believes in her. If you trust his judgement, that should be enough.’