Troubled Waters

by Sharon Shinn

  Calvin waved his hand in the general direction of the palace. The deepening twilight was thick enough to obscure the building from view, but not yet dark enough for the candlelight in the windows to shine brightly against the black. “The king—or rather, his guards,” he said. “Whenever some important visitor comes to the city, we’re always rounded up and shoved out of the flats. We’re too unsightly, camping out here like a troop of vagabonds.”

  “You can see the flats from the palace windows,” Annova said. “And whenever ambassadors come from other countries, we’re hidden away. But it’s not so bad. There’s usually a place set up for us on the western edge of town, just outside the canal, with water and shelter made available.”

  “It’s almost like a festival,” Calvin added.

  “And we’re always allowed back here as soon as the rich visitors are gone.”

  “I like the sound of that,” Zoe said with a smile. “Maybe we’ll have some dignitaries come to the city while I’m living here.”

  They finished off the bag of candy while night rolled slowly down out of the mountains. Small lights sprang up all around them—campfires, mostly, with the occasional lamplight turning a whole tent into a softly glowing mound of color. The air was rich with scent—smoke, onions, meat, wine—all overlaid with the heavy damp odor of the Marisi itself. Zoe watched the river turn from red to silver to murmuring black, and surrendered herself to a feeling of remarkable contentment.

  FIVE

  Zoe spent the next three ninedays merely existing.

  She slept late, ate any food left over from the day before, washed her dirty clothes and pegged them out to dry beside her sleeping mat. She usually paused to speak to Calvin and Annova, sometimes meeting other river folk at their tent, and then she would set out to wander through the city again. Often she strolled through the shop district, studying the storefronts with more interest, wondering where she would like to work if she could have her pick. Sometimes she returned to the Plaza of Men just because she liked the energy of the place; mostly she spent her time at the Plaza of Women, where she listened to gossip and sorted through clothing and bought food for the rest of the day.

  Every afternoon she paused for a few moments to watch the three blind sisters share information with their clients, and every day she turned away without posing any questions of her own.

  Twice she stopped at temples, paid the tithes, and pulled blessings from the center barrels. Each time, coru traits came up in her hand: first change and then resilience. She figured she had already encountered plenty of the first, but she was happy to see the second. Her new life was still so amorphous, so unsettled, that she would need to muster all her resilience to successfully adapt and thrive.

  About midway through Quinncoru she realized she was running low on funds. She had been careless with her money, not just purchasing necessary items like food and clothing, but buying another pair of shoes in the Plaza and indulging herself in sweets whenever she wanted them. So she cut another gold piece from the shawl and returned to the Plaza of Men to swap it for more manageable denominations. Although she was positive that he recognized her, the rumpled old moneychanger gave no sign that he had done business with her before, which she supposed was the way most of his clients preferred to operate. She slipped the change into her leather purse and turned away.

  She had not made it three steps from his booth when a great commotion started building up from the northern edge of the Plaza and spread through the crowd like ripples speeding through water from the impact of a boulder. Like everyone else, she pulled back toward the perimeter, curious but cautious. She half lifted her bright shawl to shadow her face, then changed her mind and tied it around her waist, where no one wandering by would be likely to see it. Instead, she wrapped her head with a cheap blue scarf she had just bought because she liked how closely it matched her tunic.

  The crowd pressed back even farther toward the outer edge of the Plaza, obviously clearing the way for some procession. It did not take much intuition to guess that a royal party had descended from the mountain to make an expedition through the city. Zoe wondered if she would see the king, whom she remembered only hazily from her few encounters with him more than ten years ago.

  At first it was hard to tell who rode at the heart of the convoy that moved slowly into view. It was ringed by marching guards all wearing shoulder patches featuring the king’s rosette—the five intertwined colors of the five elementals. At the center of the procession was a vehicle about the size of a horse cart, though much plusher and completely devoid of horses. Another one of those smoker coaches, thought Zoe, standing on tiptoe to see over the shoulders of the men in front of her. And sitting inside it, on what appeared to be velvet cushions, were one man and three gorgeously dressed women.

  Zoe caught her breath. These had to be three of the king’s wives. Which three? Where was the fourth wife and why had she been excluded? What would they say if they knew that lurking in this crowd was the woman who had been chosen to be the king’s fifth bride?

  The smoker coach came to a halt and the man vaulted out so he could help the women disembark. Zoe could hear the whispers of the other fascinated watchers in the crowd.

  Is that Alys?

  Yes, and Seterre and Romelle.

  Where’s Elidon?

  They say she won’t go anywhere if Alys is included.

  She’s beautiful, don’t you think?

  Alys? Yes, but don’t you think she looks cruel?

  She’s all sweela. All ambition and fire.

  Zoe could only guess which one was Alys, but the choice seemed fairly obvious. One of the women was small-boned and elegant, with dark red hair that curved perfectly around her heart-shaped face. She wore loose scarlet trousers that fit tightly at the waist and ankles, so that she seemed to swirl when she walked, and a white overrobe so short it showed off the thinness of her waist. Even from a distance, it was possible to see the darkness of her eyes, the redness of her lips, and the perfection of her complexion.

  Zoe didn’t get much more than an impression of the other two wives, both of them fair-haired and smiling. Alys, even with her small frame, seemed to block both of them from view. Alys said something to them over her shoulder and then laid her hand possessively on the arm of the man who had helped them from the car. The whole procession began to move in a leisurely fashion toward the booth of promises.

  Zoe stopped paying attention to Alys once she realized that the queens’ escort was Darien Serlast.

  His face offered no expression at all as he strode beside Alys through the Plaza, though his head was tilted slightly in her direction as if he was listening to her conversation. Indeed, Zoe could see Alys’s red lips moving in what appeared to be a constant stream of observations. Her beauty, her graceful motions, and what Zoe supposed was witty conversation all appeared to be wasted on Darien Serlast. He did not look bored, precisely, but neither did he look as if the king’s wife had engaged all his attention. His stern face did not relax into a smile; his restless eyes flicked ceaselessly over the crowd. Zoe drew back even farther as the group grew even with her and then passed by.

  She knew she should slip away before there was the remotest chance Darien Serlast would see her, but an ungovernable curiosity kept her in place another five minutes. They were indeed headed to the booth of promises—all three queens, Darien Serlast, and their cadre of guards. Zoe amused herself by wondering what possible vow Darien was planning to wring from the king’s wives—or they from him—what promise was so critical that all of them felt it had to be sworn and recorded in front of witnesses.

  Then she wondered what kind of pledge she would require of Darien Serlast, should she ever see him again. Promise you will never again threaten to make me marry the king.

  She stood there a moment, so amazed by her own revelation that for a moment she forgot she was spying on members of the royal court. It turned out she did not want to become one of the king’s wives. It turned out she did
have some notion of what would make her happy and what would make her miserable—and she cared enough to pay attention to the difference.

  Two days later, when Zoe browsed through the Plaza of Women, she stood for a long time before the low dais that held the blind sisters. At that moment, all three of them were in consultation with visitors, but soon, one client rose to his feet and descended, so deep in thought that he almost bumped into Zoe. She hesitated only an instant before climbing the shallow steps and settling herself onto the serviceable brown mat laid in front of the seer. It was the kind of day that Zoe had always thought of as blond and blue-eyed—the sun was so yellow it gave the whole world a golden cast, while the clear sky could not have been a deeper shade of cyan. Here in the fifth nineday of Quinncoru, the air was deliciously warm; the sunlight on Zoe’s back felt like a hand resting between her shoulder blades.

  “Sister,” she said, “I have a question.”

  The woman tilted her head slightly, listening to the cadence of her voice. “Have you consulted with any of us before?”

  “My father did, some years ago, but I never have.”

  “Then I will tell you how we proceed. You give me a coin and state your question. If the coin is not large enough to pay for the answer, I will keep my hand extended. You may also pay for the answer with information of your own.”

  “I don’t think I know anything of value.”

  The seer smiled a little. Her face was doughy and pale, though she spent so much time outside she should be tanned dark as leather. It was almost as if the fact that she could not actually see the sun meant its light did not fall on her; it was as if she curled in a dark burrow, restful and relaxed. The notion was enhanced by the serenity of her expression. For someone who must know some truly horrifying secrets, Zoe thought, this was a woman who seemed deeply at peace.

  “You might be surprised to learn what information is valuable and what is not,” the seer replied. “Everyone knows something that is worth paying for.”

  “Some other day I might realize what that is,” Zoe said, handing over a silver coin.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “I have been gone from Chialto a long time. But when I was here last, Navarr Ardelay was an advisor to the king and the rest of his family was highly respected. I know he was disgraced some time ago, but has that trouble extended to all his relatives? If I had business to transact with the Five Families, should I avoid the Ardelays?”

  “The Ardelays have been absent from court, but they have not lost all their connections. Nelson Ardelay is still prime—the head of the family—and he still maintains friendships with the Serlasts,” the seer said. “You would suffer no taint by trading with the Ardelays, but you would win no favor with the king, either.”

  “And what about Navarr Ardelay? What happened to him?”

  The seer extended her hand again and Zoe laid a quint-silver in the palm. She wasn’t willing to pay more than that for an answer she already knew, but she was curious to learn how her father’s exile had been viewed in the city.

  The seer weighed the coin and seemed to decide, reluctantly, that it was good enough. “He quarreled with the king ten years ago and left in disgrace. He disappeared with his daughter and was not heard from again. I have heard it said he recently died in exile.”

  “What did they argue about?”

  “Navarr Ardelay had counseled the king against making a treaty with the Soeche-Tas nation across the mountains. Other advisors considered them valuable potential allies, and there was even some thought that King Vernon would take one of the viceroy’s daughters as his fourth wife. But Navarr Ardelay did not trust the viceroy and resisted the notion of another wedding. The arguments grew so heated that Navarr Ardelay was barred from court. Even so, no alliance was ever finalized—and no wedding, either.”

  Zoe was almost disappointed. It did not seem like the sort of disagreement that should have cost her father so much, but perhaps she simply didn’t understand politics. “But the king has four wives now,” Zoe said.

  “Yes, he married Romelle three years ago. A torz girl.”

  “Tell me about his wives and his children,” Zoe said, preparing to hand over another quint-silver.

  But the sister waved off the money. Zoe supposed this was such common knowledge that the seer couldn’t justify being paid for the information.

  “Elidon is the king’s first and most beloved wife,” the seer said. “She is all elay, gracious and kind, and the king loves her greatly. But she was never able to bear him an heir. Seterre is the second wife—a hunti girl—and she has one daughter, who is now fourteen. But there was no second child, so the king married Alys with the hope of producing more heirs. She, too, has one daughter, who is eleven years old. Romelle was delivered of a baby girl in Quinnelay, but she is fussy and not very strong, and Romelle has not conceived another child.”

  Zoe’s attention had been caught by one salient fact that Darien Serlast had never bothered to mention. Elay, torz, hunti . . . and she would bet she knew the answer to this question. “Is Alys sweela? I glimpsed her in the market and thought she looked to be all fire and mind.”

  “She is, and her daughter as well.”

  And I am not only Ardelay, I am coru, Zoe thought. No wonder the king had been so eager to bring her to the marriage bed. His house would be in balance indeed. “If Romelle is torz, perhaps she will prove more fertile,” Zoe said.

  “Yes, and she is quite young,” the seer replied. “Elidon is past the age of bearing children, and Seterre nearing it. But both Alys and Romelle could yet produce many more heirs for the king.”

  There was a moment of silence while Zoe reviewed what she had learned and how much more she needed to ask. But not today; there were some answers she wasn’t yet prepared to learn. “I do have one more question,” she said slowly. “Yesterday, three of the king’s wives strolled through the Plaza of Men to the promise booth. They were accompanied by a man I did not know. What kind of vow were they making—to each other or to their escort?”

  The seer promptly put her hand out again, and when she accepted two coppers for the answer, Zoe figured she was not the first person who had asked this question. Indeed, half the people who had witnessed the procession through the Plaza of Men had probably hurried to the Plaza of Women the very next day—and the vendor who recorded vows had probably sped through the crowds to the seers’ stage the instant his transaction was completed. In a city that thrived on gossip, that particular bit of news was so useful the seer might have paid him to relate it.

  “They were exacting a promise from the king that he would not bring a fifth wife into the household without their approval and consent.”

  That was so funny Zoe felt her ribs expand with laughter. The laughter felt so odd inside her constricted chest, as if it was a cough that had been surprised into something else. Had the queens gotten wind of Darien Serlast’s expedition? Or did a disappointed king make such a fuss over Zoe’s escape that eventually everyone in the palace knew what Darien’s commission had been?

  “A promise from the king!” Zoe exclaimed ingenuously. “Was that the man who traveled with them? I wish I had taken a better look.”

  “They were accompanied by Darien Serlast, who frequently acts as the king’s agent. He signed the note in proxy for the king.”

  And who is Darien Serlast? How much influence does he have with the king? Is he a good man? A wise man? A dangerous man? A reformer, a schemer, a cipher? Instead of asking the questions, Zoe rose to her feet, brushing the dust from the back of her trousers.

  “Thank you,” she said. “You have been most informative.”

  “Come back someday when you have more questions.”

  “Oh, I will. I have so many questions that I will have to think hard about which ones I want answered first.”

  During the next nineday, Zoe returned three times to the trio of sisters on the seers’ pavilion. She was trying to get a better idea of the politics of the
city and the Five Families who were such a crucial part of the city government—something she had only dimly grasped when she lived there before.

  The Dochenzas, all elay, were currently the richest of the Families, mostly because their gas-powered smoker coaches were in such high demand. But Kayle Dochenza, prime of the clan, was an odd and reclusive man who spent little time at court. His nephew often served as his emissary instead, though he was just as odd as his uncle, if somewhat more social.

  The Frothens—mostly torz, though a few had produced coru offspring who were unreliable and interesting—were also enjoying a time of ascendance, due in large part to the fact that Romelle had just given birth to the king’s third daughter. On the other hand, the Lalindars, who had been so powerful while Christara was alive, had slipped somewhat in power and influence.

  “Her death left them disorganized, and it seems that neither her son nor her daughter will take on the responsibilities of the prime,” the seer said.

  Of course, Christara had produced two daughters. Alieta, the oldest, had been willful, unpredictable, headstrong, and capricious; and she had married Navarr Ardelay even though her mother expressly forbade it. After Alieta had died—after her body had been sent down the Marisi River, as befit a coru woman—Zoe had never seen any of her Lalindar relatives again. Navarr had told her they didn’t care enough about her to come and visit her in exile, so it was hard for her to feel any sympathy for them now.

  “Well, I don’t suppose it matters to anyone except the Lalindars that they do not have their affairs in order,” Zoe said.

  “It is never good when any of the Five Families are out of balance,” the seer said. “The rest of the world falls out of balance as well. Some people even believe the country has seen such drought over the past two years because the Lalindars still have not recovered from Christara’s death.”

  Zoe widened her eyes. “Surely no coru family, even the Lalindars, has that kind of power.”