The Lyre Thief

by Jennifer Fallon

  “And what if it is?”

  “Then you need to arrest him!”

  “Really? Here? In a crowded tavern? In the Thieves’ Quarter?”

  Cade glanced around at the men and women watching him warily and realized not one of them had leapt to his defense. “Founders. They’re all thieves here.”

  “A good many of them, yes.”

  “And you put up with them being so blatant?”

  That made Starros smile. “I don’t put up with them, Captain, they are my people. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but if that lad has the temple’s missing lyre, we will not be addressing the issue here.”

  “He might get away.”

  “Or he might continue to entertain us and we can have a discussion with him somewhere much quieter than this, once he’s done.”

  Cade slumped back in his seat, not able to understand why Starros wasn’t marching Mica the Marvelous and his lying little hussy of a wife to the nearest dungeon.

  He was still brooding about it when Mica began to sing again. Before long, Cade forgot what he was brooding about, forgot about the little golden lyre, forgot about arresting anyone.

  He didn’t even bat an eyelid when, at the end of the evening, Starros called for some notepaper and a quill and wrote an introduction to the High Prince so Mica could perform for Prince Damin and his family should the lad ever find himself in Greenharbour.

  The minstrel accepted the letter with a bow and then turned to Cade. “I like your jacket, Captain. May I have it?”

  He nodded, stood up, unbuttoned his distinct, red Medalonian officer’s jacket, and handed it to Mica. The minstrel smiled as he slipped it on over his shirt.

  “Excellent,” he said. “This is perfect. Be well, Captain. And don’t worry about losing your coat. By tomorrow you won’t even remember how you lost it.”

  Cade smiled, feeling inordinately glad he had handed over his uniform, although by the time they walked outside and the chill of the evening hit him, he discovered he couldn’t remember if he’d come here without a jacket tonight or not.

  Part Five

  Chapter

  53

  ADRINA SPOKE TO Damin every day.

  Late at night, after the children were asleep and the business of ruling Hythria another day was behind her, she let herself into the room she once shared with Damin, stretched out beside his sleeping body, and told him about her day.

  “I’m completely over this wedding,” she said as she laid her head on his shoulder. He always seemed unnaturally warm, as if his body were battling the infection of death and refusing to give up the fight. “Rakaia’s not the problem. She’s proving almost suspiciously easy to please, but gods, the Branadors are killing me.”

  She moved his arm so she could get closer, draping it over her shoulder and snuggling in closer to his body, the way they always lay in the dark and talked about their day. “I know they’re your family, darling, but surely the relationship is distant enough that we don’t have to keep pandering to them?”

  Damin didn’t answer, of course. In fact, Adrina had no idea if he could hear anything at all. Even the Harshini healers hadn’t been able to tell her that. But just in case, she continued to talk to him every single day. It would save so much catching up when he came back.

  “Frederak is due tomorrow, the wedding is in a fortnight, and I still haven’t worked out how I’m going to explain away your absence. I thought I had everything under control there for a while.” She sighed, wishing she didn’t sound so helpless. “Do you remember how clever I thought I was, spreading the rumor you weren’t really in a coma, but off helping R’shiel on some dire mission to save the world? Well, now it’s come back to bite me. Braun Branador heard the rumor and is expecting you back for the wedding. If you’re not there, walking Rakaia down the aisle, he tells me, the whole Branador clan is going to be offended; so offended, he claims, his father might have to rethink the whole deal. Gods, I wish I thought he was bluffing. But he’s not, I fear. Braun Branador is a fool and quite prepared to derail everything we fought for in this border agreement, every tiny concession we managed to drag out of my father, all for the sake of a perceived slight to his wretched—and, might I suggest, very debatable—family honor.”

  She fell silent. Adrina could feel herself growing angry, and she didn’t want Damin worrying about her losing her temper.

  Then she smiled in the darkness as another thought occurred to her. “You’ll laugh when you hear me say this, but right now, I’m actually missing your mother. She grew up with Braun at Highcastle. Marla could slap him back into place with a withering look, I’m certain.”

  Damin did not answer her, of course, or give any indication he heard a word she said. She could hear his heart beating, however, strong and steady as a metronome, never wavering for an instant.

  Before she could continue her tale of woe, there was a faint knock at the door. A moment later it opened a crack to reveal a sliver of warm yellow light from the room beyond.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, Adrina,” Darvad said, poking his head through. “But you asked me to let you know when Rodja and Selena arrived.”

  “They’re here?”

  “Waiting out here in the anteroom,” he confirmed.

  “I’ll be out in a moment.”

  The door closed, plunging the room back into darkness. Adrina lifted the dead weight of Damin’s arm from around her shoulder and placed it gently by his side. She sat up and studied him in the darkness for a moment. He looked as if a gentle shake would wake him. He’d not changed at all since falling into this coma. He’d needed no sustenance, had expelled no bodily fluids, and he didn’t need a shave. It was as if time had stopped around him.

  “I have to go, my love,” she explained. “Duty calls. I’ll come back tomorrow. Perhaps I’ll be able to share with you the gruesome details of how I disemboweled Braun in front of the whole court with my bare hands.” She smiled and leaned over to kiss his warm dry lips. “I can but dream, you know.”

  There was no response, and in truth, Adrina wasn’t expecting one. She pushed herself off the bed, smoothed down her skirts and her hair, and let herself out of the bedroom.

  “Rodja!” she said with a warm smile as she emerged, blinking a little in the brighter light of the anteroom. “And Selena! Thank you so much for coming at this late hour.”

  Rodja Tirstone was Damin’s stepbrother, the eldest son of Marla’s third husband who had died in the plague that ravaged Greenharbour two decades ago. A serious but competent man, Rodja had inherited his father’s spice trading business and, with the help of another of Damin’s stepsiblings, Luciena Taranger—who owned a goodly portion of all the shipping in and out of Hythria and Fardohnya—had turned his father’s successful business into an empire. It didn’t hurt that on the death of his wife’s father, he had also inherited the entire assets and resources of his main competitor.

  Rodja and Selena owned a trading empire between them that stretched from the depths of southern Denika, across all three of the Trinity Isles, all the way north to the far reaches of Karien. Provided it didn’t conflict with their business interests, they were usually quite happy to put their resources at the disposal of the High Prince.

  It remained to be seen if those resources were available for the High Princess.

  That’s why Adrina had asked for this meeting here, in her private chambers, with Darvad close by. Darvad was married to Rodja’s only sister, Rielle. She had a much better chance of gaining their cooperation, she figured, if Darvad was seen to be supporting her.

  Rodja took her hand, kissing her palm. “Don’t lament the hour, your highness. You know if there is anything we can do . . .”

  Her eyes lit up with mischief. “Would you consider murdering Braun Branador for me?”

  Rodja dropped her palm and smiled. “Gladly. Is he giving you trouble?”

  “Of the worst kind,” she agreed, kissing Selena on the cheek. “Please, have a seat, both of you.
Darvad, I’ll pour the wine. Would you mind fetching Rakaia for me? I don’t think she’ll be in bed yet.”

  “Of course,” he said, with a bow. Darvad let himself out as Adrina sat down and leaned over the low table to pour the wine already laid out for her guests on the table. She poured five goblets, one for herself and her guests, two more for Darvad and Rakaia when they returned. For tonight—and this discussion—Darvad was family, not just a loyal servant of the crown.

  Adrina turned her attention to Selena. “I was sorry to hear about your grandmother, Selena.”

  “Thank you, Adrina, but she was nearly ninety and ready to leave this life,” Selena said. “I think she was getting quite annoyed with Death toward the end, that he was taking so long to come for her.”

  “Perhaps he was otherwise engaged,” Rodja suggested sourly. “Making deals with the demon child.”

  “How is you sister liking Hythria?” Selena asked in the awkward silence that followed her husband’s remark, as she accepted her wine and settled back into the cushions.

  “She seems to like it well enough. But then, life as a visiting princess in the High Prince’s palace in Greenharbour is a world away from being the wife of a border lord in a cold, remote place like Highcastle.”

  “Worth it, though,” Rodja said. “Proper border controls over Highcastle are long overdue.”

  “Those border controls are going to cost the Branadors a large portion of their livelihood,” Selena said, reminding Adrina not to underestimate this woman as being merely Rodja’s wife. She had a sharp mind and an eye for the nuances of a deal her husband sometimes lacked and was an equal partner in his business. Because she was quiet and didn’t say much, people were prone to forgetting that—often to their detriment. “I’m assuming that’s why they demanded one of your sisters to seal the deal?”

  Adrina nodded. “A vast underestimation of my father’s lack of sentiment, that was,” she agreed. “Damin tried to warn Braun at the time, that Hablet would gladly hand over a dozen daughters if he thought he’d profit from it, but Braun was adamant. If he was going to lose the chance to gouge every merchant crossing the border, he wanted the chance for his grandchildren to be royal. I think he believed his demand was a deal breaker, and that Hablet would never agree to marry one of his daughters to a minor Hythrun border lord.”

  “I’m surprised, then, that Braun didn’t insist on your sister marrying his son, rather than his senile old father.”

  “He did,” Adrina said, placing her wine on the table. A sip was enough. She needed her wits about her. “It was my idea that Rakaia marry Frederak.”

  Selena’s eyes widened. “You were the one who arranged for your twenty-year-old sister to marry a senile old man in his eighties?”

  Adrina didn’t flinch from her gaze. “Have you met Olivah Branador?”

  Selena didn’t answer her for a moment, but then she nodded. “Yes. I have.”

  “Then you understand.”

  She nodded. “I understand.”

  “I don’t,” Rodja said.

  “Don’t worry, dear,” Selena told him, winking at Adrina. “I’ll explain it to you when we get home.”

  The door opened and Rakaia entered the room, looking a little uncertain, followed by Darvad. Rodja rose to his feet and kissed Rakaia’s hand as his brother-in-law introduced them, then they settled in on the cushions. Adrina watched Rakaia out of the corner of her eye, constantly amazed at her lack of affectation.

  “I invited Rodja and Selena here to help you, Rakaia,” Adrina explained once they were all settled.

  “Do I need help?”

  “You need your own court’esa,” she explained. “And I’ve been promising you for weeks that I would replace Brinnie.”

  “Who is Brinnie?” Rodja asked.

  “A kitchen wench, best I can tell,” Adrina explained, “that Braun sent along to serve as Rakaia’s handmaiden.”

  “She does her best,” Rakaia said, for some reason feeling the need to defend the girl. Adrina marveled at her younger sister, a little. She couldn’t remember any of her sisters ever emerging from the Talabar harem without its taint sticking to them in some way.

  “She’s useless,” Adrina said. “And Braun sent her here deliberately, to show us it doesn’t matter who you are, or how much control he’s lost over the border, he’s still calling the shots in his own home. She is also reporting your every movement back to Braun, you can count on it.”

  “Why haven’t you replaced her?” Rodja asked.

  “Because Braun will see a replacement for exactly what it is,” Darvad explained. “And even if he doesn’t, he’ll assume any personal servants assigned to Rakaia by her sister are there to spy on him. If he doesn’t kill them outright as soon as they get to Highcastle, he’ll find some other way of neutralizing them.”

  “But a wedding gift from the Tirstones is a different matter,” Selena said, nodding. She got where this was going much faster than her husband.

  A fraction of a second after his wife, Rodja got it, too. “Ah . . . You think if we gift your sister with the slaves she needs, he won’t object.”

  “Braun needs you to keep your spices moving through the border at Highcastle. Even with his quota now a set percentage rather than the thinly disguised extortion racket he was running at the border before we did this deal, he still needs the revenue your caravans bring his estate. He won’t risk offending you, whereas he’s more than happy to thumb his nose at me, particularly with Damin not around to challenge him.”

  “I know this is slightly off topic,” Selena said, “But that brings up an interesting point. How are you going to explain Damin’s absence at the wedding, Adrina? I mean, Narvell Hawksword might do at a pinch. He’s a Warlord and Damin’s half-brother, but a royal wedding without the High Prince? That’s a slight that won’t go unremarked.”

  “We should have a Fardohnyan wedding,” Rakaia said, so softly Adrina almost didn’t hear her.

  “What did you say?”

  “I’m sorry . . . I shouldn’t have . . .”

  “No, please, say it.”

  “I was just wondering why we don’t have a Fardohnyan wedding, rather than a Hythrun one.”

  “What difference would that make?” Darvad asked.

  “Because the bride’s family give the bride away in a Fardohnyan wedding,” Adrina said, a little stunned the idea hadn’t occurred to her before now.

  “I thought Fardohnyan weddings were thinly disguised drunken orgies that go on for days,” Selena said.

  Rodja laughed. “You say that like it’s a bad thing, Selly.”

  Adrina smiled, and not just because of Rodja’s joke. He’d just referred to his wife by the name he obviously only called her in private. It was a good sign he was comfortable enough to do that here in front of the High Princess. “You’re not entirely wrong, Selena. Fardohnyans worship the Goddess of Fertility above all else. Our weddings are a celebration of that, often taken to excess.” She turned to Darvad. “Could we organize it in time?”

  “Depends on what you want to organize.”

  “The ceremony would still be in the Temple of the Gods, but traditionally, there is a carnival held in the palace grounds afterward, during which the bride and groom hand out gold coins to anyone who takes their fancy, to please Jelanna and show the goddess how worthy they are of her bounty.”

  Darvad seemed a little aghast at the idea. “Seriously? Free food and wine laid on for anyone who can get through the gates. And gold?”

  Adrina nodded. “It lasts for five days.”

  “And who is going to pay for this largesse to the common folk?”

  “Traditionally,” Adrina said, with an even wider smile. “The groom.”

  There was a moment of silence and then everyone else smiled, too. “Sounds like an excellent idea to me,” Rodja said. He turned to Selena. “What do you think?”

  She nodded, but her smile had faded. “I think our gift to Rakaia should be servants, but our gif
t to Frederak should be cold hard coin. You don’t want him refusing this idea because he can’t afford it.”

  “And how are you going to get Braun to agree to this, even if Rodja and Selena offset the cost?”

  “I’m not,”Adrina said, looking at her sister. “Rakaia is.”

  “Me?” Rakaia asked. She sounded horrified by the prospect. “How?”

  “By asking a favor of your future husband,” Adrina explained. “Frederak is due tomorrow. He’s a sweet old man, Rakaia, and nothing like his son or his grandson, I promise you. You must make him promise you a Fardohnyan wedding.”

  “Braun will just overrule him,” Rodja warned.

  “He can’t. However much it irks Braun, his father is still the lord of Highcastle. And besides, if she doesn’t get her way, Rakaia is going to throw an epic tantrum, threaten to return to Talabar, and have our father declare war on Highcastle for the insult, aren’t you, Rakaia?”

  “I’m not really the tantrum-throwing kind,” Rakaia said, looking very uncertain.

  “Nonsense. I’ve seen you throw a tantrum, little sister. Remember the time our father tried to send Charisee away after you two pulled that switching identities prank on him? You almost howled the harem down for a week until they gave in and sent her back. I’m sure you remember how it it’s done.”

  Rakaia actually blushed at the memory. “I forgot about that.”

  “I didn’t,” Adrina said, and then she smiled, not wanting to sound too harsh. “In fact when I heard Hablet was sending you, I thought Oh no, the tantrum throwing one!”

  Selena smiled at Rakaia encouragingly. “I’m sure you can manage, my dear, considering the alternative. And I think I have exactly the right court’esa in mind, too. He’s Fardohnyan originally, although you’d not know it to look at him. Adham bought him for us in Calavandra about ten years ago. He was both my daughters’ first court’esa and he’s been with us long enough now that I trust him implicitly. He’ll look after you and not be easily corrupted by whatever Braun tries to promise him, and you’ll be able to speak to him in your native tongue.”