“The tailor …!” breathed Kara from behind me. “Tell us about the tailor!”
Princess Lissa pinned Kara with a glare. “I wish to know more about the giants, Saville.”
“I heard their voices, just once,” I said, “because I was right next to the gates. They sounded like humans, only lower. And they moved almost gracefully. They looked slow, but they aren’t. One stride seemed to take several seconds, but then you realize they’ve just moved the length of many men.”
“They had human voices and long strides. How fascinating,” said the princess. “Surely, you can remember more important details.”
What more did she want? A description of their faces? Anything else would betray me.
I shook my head. “I wasn’t as near as the tailor, my lady. That’s all I saw.”
She half smiled, as if acknowledging a hit. “I wouldn’t have Kara die of curiosity. You may tell her about the tailor now.”
I was supposed to describe myself? I paused, trying to think of what everyone else had seen—what the princess had seen.
“He was dirty. He and the giants had been throwing … things.” I didn’t dare say more.
“Do go on,” said the princess.
“But when he was closer to the gates, I could tell that he was … average.” I tried to imagine how I must have looked to the crowd inside the gates. “Average height, brown hair. He seemed confused by the attention. But he had a good face, an honest one—” The words caught in my throat. How could I describe myself as honest after disguising myself for so long? Wasn’t this a disguise, too?
The princess tapped a finger against her mouth. Finally, she said, “Average … honest … a good description, Saville. The champion is also brave, truly. I have seen enough to know that. Though I wonder if perhaps he is a bit naïve, too.” She looked at me. “Time will tell.”
“He is a lucky tailor, Princess, to marry so fine a lady as you!” Kara said.
The door swung open before the princess could answer. Lord Verras stood in the entryway, looking worried. “Lissa, I must speak to you alone.”
Please don’t let it be Will.
The princess’s eyes widened, and she motioned to Nespra and Kara. “Leave us.”
Nespra held her hand out to me. “Come, Saville.”
Lord Verras shook his head, ever so slightly.
“Stay, Saville,” said the princess. “I have an errand for you.”
Once the maids had left, the princess asked, “What is it, Galen? What’s wrong?”
“Is it Will?” I did not care that the princess glared at me for speaking out of turn.
“We may not have hidden Saville as well as I thought.”
I looked at the door, half expecting soldiers to burst through it. Instead, Verras walked to me and touched me lightly behind my ear.
I twisted away. “What are you doing?”
“What is that?” He pointed at the place he had touched.
My hand rose to where his finger had been … on the birthmark behind my right ear, just below the hairline.
“It’s a birthmark,” I said. “Why are you—”
“It’s Fate’s Kiss,” he said.
“What?”
“Fate’s Kiss. It’s what the crowd chanted last night. They didn’t want you to kiss Lissa. They wanted to see Fate’s Kiss.”
“You can’t be serious! They think it means something?”
He shrugged. “I sent a man out into the crowd last night to ask about it. Someone at the gates must have noticed the mark yesterday.”
I sat down on the window seat. “There were so many people when I first reached Will’s side. My hair was tied back and I didn’t have a hat. Anyone could have seen it.”
Lord Verras sighed. “By the time night fell, half of Reggen was convinced you’d been marked by fate to save the city.”
I traced the spot with my fingers. It wasn’t even the size of a small coin. “I hated it when I was little! Mama used to tell me that—”
He raised his eyebrows.
Mama used to tell me that I’d been such a precious baby that she’d kissed me all over when she first held me. And one of her kisses, one just behind my right ear, had stayed. So I shouldn’t mind if other children made fun of it.
But I did mind, every jibe—until Mama died. After that, whenever I needed to remember how much she’d loved me, when the Tailor was especially bitter, I had only to touch the birthmark behind my ear.
Princess Lissa’s sigh brought me back to the present.
“She made me not mind it so much,” I stammered. “Besides, it’s so small.”
“It’s a way to identify you,” said Lord Verras. “Right now the champion is a thin lad about this high”—he held his hand up to his chin—“with brown or blond hair and a face that no one can remember, thanks to the hat I gave you. But they do remember the mark. They’ve named it! You have to take your hair—”
He didn’t have to finish. I tugged the combs from my hair, undoing all of Kara’s work. My hair fell to just above my shoulders, long enough to cover the mark. “I can’t let anyone see it.”
“No, you cannot.” He looked at the princess. “And I can’t risk anyone walking in and hearing me question Saville. I need to take her to my rooms.”
I smiled. No more talking about the tailor while the world outside the palace spun toward war. And Lord Verras wouldn’t expect me to curtsy.
“I’ll help however I can,” I said.
The princess eyed the combs that I’d dropped on the window seat. “I’d say you’ve helped quite enough already, Tailor.”
Chapter 17
What a relief to escape! I would have faced giants again before telling him so, but I was glad to see Lord Verras. He might pepper me with questions, but he’d let me ask my own. I even enjoyed the bewildering path we took to his chambers beneath the castle.
Once inside the dark little room, he motioned me to a seat. Then he sat at his desk and found a pen among the debris. I thought of the tables in the Tailor’s shop, with shears and chalk neatly arranged, and the box of notions with small compartments inside. The Tailor didn’t have to look if he wanted an extra-fine needle or the long pins. They were always in the same place.
Was anything ever in the same place on Lord Verras’s desk? It was covered with piles of papers and books. He opened a drawer and pulled out a new sheet of paper. Then he moved a small pile, retrieved the inkwell underneath, and opened it.
And he did it with complete self-possession. What had Lord Cinnan thought of the disorder? Perhaps he didn’t care as long as Lord Verras could find what was required as quickly as he’d found the inkwell.
Lord Verras shifted in his chair to face me.
“I talked to Will this morning.”
I leaned forward. “How is he? Did he seem better?”
“He was well enough to tell me—” he looked up at the ceiling—“he told me he was bored out of his head and asked for something to play with.”
I smiled. “He’s doing well, then. Give him something that’s broken and a few tools to tinker with.”
“I’ll do that.” Lord Verras handed me a dusty lump of cloth. “He suggested a project for you, too. His tunic.”
I unfolded it and spread it out on my lap, running my finger over an ugly tear in the sleeve. I hadn’t noticed any wound on Will’s arm earlier, but I’d check next time I visited, just to be sure.
“I’ll get you any supplies you need,” said Lord Verras. “You might like sewing while you’re here.”
“I hate sewing.”
“The king swears you’re the best tailor he’s ever had.”
“I never said I wasn’t good. Just that I hate it.”
“But why?”
“Did you know that the only things that make the Tailor smile are his silks and velvets? I do not please him. He doesn’t smile when he sees me. When he watches me sew, I can tell that he wishes he could hold a piece of velvet one last time.”
I drew in a deep breath, hating the way it rattled. “All my life, the Tailor has loved his fabric more than me, more than my mother, I think—at least toward the end.” My voice grew steadier. “That is why I hate sewing. How could I love my rival?”
I silently folded Will’s tunic. This time yesterday, he’d been teasing me about crooked seams. Mending the tunic would be my way of holding him. But my throat was too thick to tell Lord Verras I’d do it.
Perhaps he knew anyway. His voice was kind when he broke the long silence. “Will told me about his father.”
I nodded. “Will waits at the fountain by the gates every day at morning bells. He’s waited three months for his father to return from Kellan.”
Lord Verras’s face was carefully blank.
“What do you know?” I asked.
“Kellan was attacked weeks ago, though we’ve only just learned of it. No one escaped to tell us.”
I hugged Will’s tunic to me. “I can’t tell Will that. I won’t.”
“You shouldn’t. His father may still be alive.”
I took a steadying breath. “You think the duke’s army attacked Kellan. And that it’s marching toward Reggen.”
“I do.” Lord Verras pointed at a map hung on the wall. There were slashes in the plains between the Western Steeps and Reggen—villages that had been razed? I didn’t know there had been so many. “That’s why I need your help. Yesterday, you told me about the giants. Now I need to know about the duke. I need to know who’s leading the army.”
I stared at the table, trying to remember. “I don’t know much about him. I think he told the scouts to kill humans before they could hear us. The young one thought our voices could … do something. Hurt him? He would have crushed me, if not for Oma.”
Lord Verras wrote down every word I said. His pen had a rhythm; the writing and dipping into the inkwell made a scraping sort of music. He wrote as if Reggen’s safety hung on each detail. Every now and then he’d shush me to keep me from talking ahead of him, too engrossed in his task to realize his rudeness.
Finally, he glanced up at me. “Did they say whether the duke was a giant or not?”
“No … I don’t know. They never said. I assumed he was human because Duke of the Western Steeps is a human title.” I sighed and shook my head. “But maybe I heard wrong. I was so focused on keeping Will safe. Maybe the duke didn’t want us killed. Or maybe Oma is a washwoman who tells them they shouldn’t kill humans the same way we tell children not to pull the legs off ants.”
“But what do you think? If you had to say right now?”
I thought back to when the giants first mentioned the duke, and felt the cold, creeping fear once more. “I think the duke wanted the giants to kill humans on sight without talking to us. I think he’s human. And I wonder why the giants would listen to him. I could fool the scouts for a little while, but how could a man make an army of giants follow him across the plains?”
Lord Verras smiled, never looking up from his writing.
“What?” I asked.
“Lord Cinnan used to say that to me after I told him everything I’d learned: What do you think? Right now? Sometimes what came out of my mouth surprised me. It is effective.”
“Do you know what else I think?” I told him. “I think … I hope … the giants might not come back.”
He frowned.
“You don’t believe me.”
“You don’t believe yourself.” He shrugged. “You hope the giants won’t come back, but you think they will.”
He was right, but I wouldn’t admit it. “Why are you so sure, then?” I challenged. “And why do you keep asking about the duke?”
Lord Verras set his pen down, but didn’t answer. He just looked at me, in that way of his that I was beginning to recognize, as if there were something in my face that he could measure or weigh.
“Because I told you everything I knew,” I said. “Mostly, though, because you need someone to think with.”
“What?”
“You know something about the duke. I’d wager velvet on it. And you were wondering if you should tell me.” I sat back in my chair, making myself comfortable. “I was telling you why you should.”
He smiled wryly. “You’re proud of yourself, aren’t you?”
I folded my arms. “What do you know?”
He scrubbed the ink that smudged his right forefinger.
“Four years ago, Tor came back from a counsel, where all the kings of the River Cities had met. He said that the Duke of the Western Steeps had demanded to join them. The duke claimed that all of the kings were descendants of the emperor and that he was also a descendant.”
“But wasn’t the original Duke of the Western Steeps a son of the emperor?” I asked.
Lord Verras shook his head, a gesture that said, hush! as clearly as if he’d spoken it aloud. “The original duke was illegitimate. That was why he was given such a wretched piece of land. No Duke of the Steeps has ever sat in the counsel—or demanded that honor—not in the two centuries since the emperor’s death. It was a ridiculous request.”
“What happened to the duke?”
Lord Verras stopped rubbing at the ink stain. “Tor said he was thrown out, that when the duke was finally dragged beyond the doors, he collapsed and wept like a child. Tor thought it was funny, but …” Lord Verras shrugged. “There were rumors the duke’s people wouldn’t have him afterward, that they pelted him with stones when he rode back to the Steeps. They turned him away from his own castle.”
How horrible. It was foolish for the duke to make his claim in such an outrageous way, to just walk into a meeting and demand a place there. But to be thrown out and then rejected by his people …
“Then what happened?”
“No one knows. It wasn’t as if the Steeps needed a ruler. It’s covered with small towns and villages that look after themselves. They don’t want interference and they’re too poor for bandits to bother with them. Lately, there have been rumors of a newer, stronger duke who claimed the castle. But he’s made no move to communicate with Reggen or any of the other River Cities.”
“A relative of the old duke?”
“No one knows. I was too busy with rumors of giants.… It was only when the rider appeared two days ago that the Duke of the Western Steeps was even connected to the approaching army.”
“What do you think about this duke right now? Is he the same duke your cousin threw out?”
Lord Verras stared at his desk. I’d never seen a man work through a problem like him, as if his thoughts were so real he could hold them in his hand.
“I hope not. He’d have a score to settle. And he’d be crazy enough to use giants to do it.”
“You hope not, but you think he is.”
Lord Verras raised his eyebrows at my impertinence. Then he nodded slowly. “We’ll know soon, one way or another.” He picked up his pen. “Thank you for all you’ve told me. You may go back to Lissa now.”
“Could I stay with the Tailor instead?”
“But you—” Lord Verras didn’t finish the thought. Finally, he ventured, “This is about Lissa, isn’t it?”
“She thinks I’m a pawn,” I told him. “I won’t be anyone’s pawn … certainly not hers.”
He put the pen back down. “How did it feel yesterday in the throne room to know that your life was in King Eldin’s hands? That anything he declared would come to pass, and you were powerless to stop him?”
I didn’t answer.
“Lissa has lived like that for years.”
“He’s only been king two years.”
“It wasn’t only Eldin. There’s always a king.”
I couldn’t imagine being trapped like the princess while her brothers played with her life. But it didn’t give her the right to do the same with others—with me.
And why did Verras defend her? I hated that he was so calm, so sure. Then … Ah, that must be it. Besides, I wanted
to see if I could make him blush.
“You wanted to marry her, didn’t you? That’s why you know so much about her. And that’s why she’s so gentle with you.”
He didn’t blush, but his mouth dropped open and he squinted at me as if I’d spoken another language. He was flustered—truly flustered—and that was as good as a blush.
Maybe better.
“Me? No,” Lord Verras stammered. “No! I am the third son in my family. My father was fortunate to even find a lady whose father would allow a betrothal.” He sobered. “But even after the betrothal was signed, Lady Farriday’s father wouldn’t think of a marriage until I’d made a name for myself. So I was sent here to help my cousin and to work under the respected Lord Cinnan. Now that Lord Cinnan has been sent away, I wonder if Lady Farriday’s father will still find me acceptable.”
“What is she like?”
“The princess or Lady Farriday?”
I wasn’t worried about impertinence. “Both.”
He leaned back in his chair.
“I told you about my father, about why I dressed as an apprentice,” I said. “Besides, the princess is not the only one whose life was decided for her.”
He nodded and then, to my surprise, answered my question. “Lady Farriday is … I’ve seen her only once. She trains falcons, and I like that about her, that she works with such wild creatures. She’s intelligent and”—he held a hand up to stop the question I’d begun to voice—“pretty enough. Prettier than a third son deserves.”
Lord Verras sighed. “As for Lissa … she and I shared the misfortune of having older, powerful brothers used to getting their own way. It creates quite a bond. I’ve known Lissa since our nurses let us wander the gardens while our brothers tore around, beating each other senseless with wooden swords.”
“I can’t see King Eldin tearing around with a sword.”
Lord Verras’s mouth thinned, as if remembering something unpleasant. “No, not poor Eldin. Torren was the one with the sword.”
Lord Verras glanced at me, turning away from whatever memory that had been resurrected. “But go. See the Tailor first. Get what you need for Will’s tunic.” Lord Verras unearthed a piece of paper and scribbled something on it. “Give this to the physicians overseeing your father.”
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