by Rebecca Ross
He began to rub his jaw, mindlessly tracing his scar as he regarded me. “What about Amadine?”
I liked it. But I didn’t know how I was going to train myself to respond not only to the surname of Jourdain, but to Amadine as well. It felt like I was putting on clothes too small for me, trying to stretch the fabric until it fit, until it conformed to my body. I would either have to lose pieces of myself, or let out a few seams.
“You approve?” he prompted.
“Yes, Monsieur.”
“Another thing. You must not call me Monsieur. I am your father.”
“Yes . . . Father.” The word rolled around my mouth like a marble, unfamiliar, uncomfortable.
We rode another half hour in silence; my eyes strayed to the window, watching the green hills gradually begin to flatten into fields of wheat as we traveled west. This was a quiet, pastoral piece of Valenia; we passed only a few simple stone houses, dwellings of solitary farmers and millers.
“Why do you want this?” I asked, the question rising before I could check it for politeness. My eyes returned to Jourdain, who was watching me with a calm, bemused expression. “Why do you want to rebel against a king who would kill you if he discovered your plans?”
“Why do you want this?” he countered.
“I asked first, Father.”
He looked away from me, as if he was weighing the words. And then his eyes returned to mine, darkly gleaming. “I have witnessed enough of Lannon’s cruelties in my lifetime. I want to see him obliterated.”
So he hated King Lannon. But why? That is what I wanted to know. What had Aldéric Jourdain seen, what had he witnessed, to elicit such a strong desire?
Father and daughter we may be now, but that didn’t mean he was going to divulge his secrets.
“Most would say this is not a Valenian’s fight,” I responded carefully, trying to encourage more out of him.
“But isn’t it?” he answered. “Was it not our glorious King Renaud the First who put the Lannons on the throne in 1430?”
I mulled on that, unsure if we were about to argue over Valenia’s past involvement or not. Rather, I shifted our conversation by saying, “So . . . we can obliterate Lannon’s power by the Stone of Eventide?”
“Yes.”
“What about the Queen’s Canon?”
He snorted. “Someone taught you thoroughly.”
“Is the stone enough? Don’t we need the law as well?”
He leaned back, hands resting on his knees. “Of course we need the law as well. Once magic is restored and Lannon has fallen, we will reestablish the Canon.”
“Where do you think the original is?”
He didn’t speak; he merely shook his head, as if he had wondered this so often it wearied him. “Now it is your turn to answer. Why do you want this, mistress of knowledge?”
I glanced down to my fingers laced together on my lap. “I once saw an illustration of Liadan Kavanagh, the first queen.” My gaze met his again. “Ever since then . . . I have wanted to see a queen rise, to take back what is hers.”
Jourdain smiled. “You are Maevan on your father’s side. That northern blood in you desires to bow to a queen.”
I thought of that as we rode a half hour in silence, until another question pulled my voice.
“Do you have a profession?”
Jourdain shifted on the cushion but gave me a sliver of a smile.
“I am a lawyer,” he began. “My home is Beaumont, a little river town that makes some of the finest wine in all of Valenia. I am a widower, but I live with my son.”
“You have a son?”
“Yes. Luc.”
So I was to have a brother as well? My hand rose to my neck, feeling the chain of Cartier’s pendant that hid beneath my dress, as if it were an anchor, or a charm for courage.
“Do not worry,” Jourdain said. “You will like him. He is . . . quite the opposite of me.”
If I had felt more comfortable, I might have teased Jourdain for his wry comment about not liking him. But my patron was still a stranger. And I couldn’t help but wonder how long it would take for me to feel at ease with my new life. But then I dwelled on how this all came about—far from traditional roots of patronage—and I thought, No, I cannot expect to feel the least bit relaxed.
“Now then,” he said, once more breaking the depths of my reflections. “We need to flesh out your background. Because no one can know you come from Magnalia.”
“What do you suggest?”
He sniffed, glanced out the window.
“You passioned in knowledge beneath Mistress Sophia Bellerose, of Augustin House,” he said.
“Augustin House?”
“Have you heard of it?”
I shook my head in decline.
“Good. It’s rural and unknown to minds that would be too interested in you.” He frowned, as if he was still trying to weave together my story. Then he said, “Augustin House is an all-girls’ establishment, hosting all five of the passions, and is a ten-year program. You entered the House at the age of seven, when you were selected out of the Padrig Orphanage, based on your sharp mind.”
“Where is this Augustin House?”
“Eighty miles southwest of Théophile, in the province of Nazaire.”
The silence swelled again, both of us lost in our own thoughts. I began to lose track of time—how long had I been riding with him? How much longer did we have to go?—when he cleared his throat.
“Now it is your turn to come up with a story,” Jourdain said.
I met his gaze, waiting warily.
“You need a viable explanation as to why you lack your cloak. Because, for all our purposes, it is to be known you are my passion daughter, adopted into the Jourdain family, a mistress of knowledge.”
I eased out a breath, rolled my shoulders to feel my back pop. He was right; I needed to have an explanation prepared. But this was going to require some creativity and confidence, because passions never lost their cloaks, never stepped out in public lacking their cloaks, and guarded their cloaks as a mythical dragon guarded her hoard of gold.
“Keep in mind,” he said, watching the lines furrow on my brow, “that lies can easily catch you in their webs. If you can remain close to the truth, then you will have a beacon to help you out of any incriminating conversation.”
Before I could share my ideas, the coach gave a lurch, nearly bucking us from our benches.
I looked at Jourdain, wide-eyed, as he shifted to peer out the window. Whatever he saw made a curse I had never heard before fly from his tongue. It was followed by our coach coming to a rough halt.
“Stay in this coach, Amadine,” he ordered, his hand patting the front of his doublet. He was reaching for the door when it swung open, and we were greeted by a sallow, narrow face, leering at us.
“Out! Both of you,” the man barked.
I let Jourdain take my hand and draw me out behind him. My pulse was skipping as I stood on the muddy road, Jourdain trying to keep me tucked out of sight behind him. Peeking out from behind his great height, I saw our coachman—Jean David—held at knifepoint by another greasy-looking man with hair the color of rotten mutton.
There were three of them. One had Jean David, one was circling about Jourdain and me, and the other was rifling through my cedar chest.
“Saint’s bones, there’s nothing but blithering books in here,” one with a bald head and a jagged scar exclaimed. I winced as he tossed my books, one right after the other, onto the road, the pages protesting all the way down to the mud.
“Keep looking,” the sallow-faced leader said as he walked yet another circuit around me and Jourdain. I tried to remain small and unworthy, but the thief pulled me out anyway, taking hold of my elbow.
“Do not touch her,” Jourdain warned. His voice was cold and smooth as marble. I think it frightened me more than witnessing the thievery unfold.
“She’s a little young for you, don’t you think?” the leader said with a dark chuckle, d
ragging me even farther away. I fought him, trying to slip from his fingers. He merely prodded Jourdain in the stomach with a knife to make me cease. “Quit pulling, Mademoiselle, or else I disembowel your husband.”
“That is my daughter.” Again, Jourdain’s voice and composure were deathly calm. But I saw the fury in his eyes, a spark of a blade whetted along a stone. And he was trying to tell me something with those eyes, something I couldn’t understand. . . .
“I’ll enjoy becoming acquainted with you,” the thief said, his eyes blatantly undressing me until they discovered my necklace. “Ah, what do we have here?” He set the point of his blade to my throat. He pricked me, just enough to make a bead of blood well. I began to tremble, unable to contain my fear as his blade traced down the length of my neck, smearing my blood, drawing forth Cartier’s silver pendant. “Mmm.” He jerked it free; I gasped as the chain cut into the back of my neck, as my pendant left me for this vile scum of the earth. But it was the moment Jourdain was waiting for.
My patron moved like a shadow, a blade suddenly flashing in his hand. I don’t know where the dagger came from, but I stood, frozen, as Jourdain stabbed the thief in the back, right in the kidney and then sliced his neck, blood spewing up into his face as the thief roiled on the ground at my feet.
I tripped backward as Jourdain went for the second one, the one destroying all of my books. I didn’t want to watch, but my eyes were riveted to the bloodshed, watching him effortlessly kill the second thief, taking care to do it away from my books. And then Jean David was scuffling with his captor, grunts and blood spilling onto the road.
It was over so quickly. I don’t think I breathed until Jourdain slipped his dagger back into the inside pocket of his doublet, until he strode to me, freckled in blood. He reached down and plucked my pendant from the thief’s clawlike hand, cooling in death, Jourdain’s thumb wiping away the lingering carnage.
“I shall get you a new chain when we get home,” he said, extending the pendant to me.
Hollowly, I accepted it, but not before I noticed the arch of his brow. He had recognized the carving of the Corogan flower. He knew it was a Maevan symbol.
I didn’t want him to ask me where I got it. But all the same, I didn’t want him suspecting it had come from the Allenachs.
“My master gave this to me,” I said, my voice hoarse. “Because of my heritage.”
Jourdain nodded, and then kicked the closest corpse out of the way. “Amadine, quickly gather your things. Jean David, help me with the bodies.”
I moved like I was ninety years old, sore and feeble. But every time I recovered another book, my shock gave way to anger. A simmering, dangerous anger that made it feel like ash was coating my tongue. I wiped the mud from the pages and set them back inside my chest as Jourdain and Jean David tossed the bodies over the ridge, out of sight from the road.
By the time I had finished, the men had changed their doublets and shirts, and had washed the blood from their faces and hands. I latched my cedar chest and met Jourdain’s gaze. He was waiting for me, the door of the coach open.
I walked to him, scrutinized his clean-shaven face, his perfectly groomed hair that he had plaited back in a noble queue. He looked so refined, so trustworthy. And yet he had not hesitated to kill the thieves; he had moved as if he had done it before, a dagger sprouting from his fingers as if it were part of him.
“Who are you?” I whispered.
“Aldéric Jourdain,” he replied, handing me his handkerchief so I could wipe the blood from my neck.
Of course. Irritated, I took the square of linen and settled back into the coach, my thumb rushing over my pendant. As Jourdain climbed in behind me, shutting the door, I thought of only one thing.
Who, indeed, had I just become the daughter to?
The rest of the day passed uneventfully. We made good time, arriving to a small town just over the Christelle River as the sun sank behind the treetops. While Jean David delivered the horses and coach to the communal stables, I followed Jourdain to his carefully selected inn. The scent of roasting fowl and watery wine met us, permeating my hair and dress as we found a table in the corner of the tavern hall. There were a few clusters of other travelers, most of whom looked windblown and sunburned, most of whom hardly spared us a second glance.
“We shall have to get you some new clothes when we reach home,” Jourdain said after the servant girl had delivered a bottle of wine and two wooden cups.
I watched him pour it, a trickle of red that made me think of blood. “You’ve killed before.”
My statement made him stiffen, like I had tossed a net over him. He purposefully plopped down the bottle of wine, then set down my cup before me and chose not to answer. I watched him drink, the light of the fire casting long shadows over his face.
“Those thieves were vile, yes, but there is a code of justice here in Valenia,” I whispered. “That crimes are to be brought before a magistrate and a court. I should think you would know such, being a lawyer.”
He gave me a warning glance. I knitted my lips together as the servant girl delivered seedy bread, a wheel of cheese, and two bowls of stew to our table.
Only when the girl had returned to the kitchens did Jourdain square up to me, set down his cup with frightening gentleness, and say, “Those men were going to kill us. They would have slain Jean David, then me, and saved you for their pleasure before giving you the blade. If I had merely injured them, they would have pursued us. So tell me again why you are upset that we lived?”
“All I am saying is you dealt a Maevan justice,” I responded. “An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. Death before trial.” Only then did I lift my cup to him and drink.
“Are you likening me to him?” “Him” obviously being King Lannon. And I heard the hatred in Jourdain’s voice, the indignation that I would even string him and Lannon on the same thought.
“No,” I said. “But it makes me wonder . . .”
“Wonder what?”
I tapped my fingers on the tabletop, drawing the moment out. “Perhaps you are not as Valenian as you seem.”
He leaned forward, his tone sharp as he stated, “There is a time and place for such a conversation. This tavern is not it.”
I bristled under his reprimand—I was unaccustomed to it, this fatherly chiding. And I would have rebelliously kept talking had Jean David not entered and joined our table.
I don’t think I had heard the coachman speak one word since I had met him that morning. But he and Jourdain seemed able to communicate with mere glances, gestures. And they did such as they began to eat, holding wordless conversations since I was in their presence.
It bothered me at first, until I realized I could sit and focus on my own mulling without interruption.
Jourdain looked and sounded Valenian.
But then again, so did I.
Was he a dual citizen as well? Or perhaps he was a full-blooded Maevan who had once served beneath Lannon and fled in defiance, weary of serving a cruel, unrighteous monarch? It was only a matter of time before I found him out, I thought as I salvaged the last of my stew.
Jean David unexpectedly rose with a bump to the table, finished with dinner. I watched him leave the hall with his gentle gait, his black hair so oily it looked wet in the rosy light, and realized Jourdain must have silently dismissed him.
“Amadine.”
I turned back around to meet Jourdain’s calm stare. “Yes?”
“I am sorry you had to witness that today. I . . . I realize you have led a very sheltered life.”
Part of this was true; I had never seen a man die. I had never seen that much blood spilled. But in other ways . . . books had prepared me more than he realized. “It’s all right. Thank you for your protection.”
“One thing you should know about me,” he murmured, nudging his empty bowl aside. “If anyone so much as threatens my family, I won’t hesitate to kill them.”
“I am not even of your blood,” I whispered, surprised by h
is steely resolve. I had only been his adopted daughter for one day.
“You are part of my family. And when the thieves tore apart your things, threw your books in the mud, threatened you . . . I reacted.”
I didn’t know what to say, but I let my gaze remain on his face. My embers of defiance and irritation faded into darkness, because the longer I looked upon him, my patron father, I sensed that something in his past had made him this way.
“Again, I am sorry you had to see such of me,” he said. “I do not want you to fear me.”
I reached across the table, offering my hand. If we were going to succeed in whatever plans we authored, we would have to trust each other. Slowly, he set his fingers in mine; his were warm and rough, mine were cold and soft.
“I do not fear you,” I whispered. “Father.”
He squeezed my fingers. “Amadine.”
FOURTEEN
PASSION BROTHER
Town of Beaumont, Province of Angelique
We reached the river town of Beaumont just as the sun was setting on the second day of travel. This was the farthest west I had ever ventured, and I was enchanted by the vast miles of vineyards that graced the land.
Beaumont was a large town, built along the banks of the lazy Cavaret River, and I intently watched as we passed the market square and the atrium of a small cathedral. All the buildings appeared the same to me, built from bricks and marbled stones, tall and three-storied, hugging narrow cobbled roads.
The coach eventually stopped before a brick town house. A pebbled walkway to the front door was choked with moss and flanked by two cranky sweetgum trees, whose branches rattled against the windows.
“Here we are,” Jourdain announced as Jean David opened the coach door.
I took the coachman’s hand and stepped down, and then I accepted Jourdain’s arm when he offered it, surprised by how thankful I was to have his support. We walked in stride along the path, up the stairs to a red door.
“They are all eager to meet you,” he murmured.
“Who?” I asked, but he had no time to respond. He guided me over the threshold and we were met by two waiting faces in the foyer, their eyes latching to me with polite inquisition.
