Hoping for a distraction, she pushed aside a gauzy drape and peered outside. Her brother Jonathan’s riding okapi plodded alongside the palanquin, close enough for her to reach out and touch.
“A beautiful day for a ride, eh, Em?” Jonathan called down with a grin, his teeth flashing white against his brown skin.
She turned her head to hide her face from the other occupants of the palanquin and stuck her tongue out at her brother. With a laugh, Jon urged his okapi forward, giving her a nice view of the animal’s broad striped hindquarters.
While she couldn’t see him, she knew her oldest brother Gregory was also out riding and enjoying the sunshine. If only she could ride an okapi like her brothers instead of smothering in here with her father. Unfortunately, she was a Lady of the Realm. Proper Ladies wore saris and rode in palanquins, at least when headed to the Trimble market in the company of a Trilord.
Em suppressed a sigh. Sometimes she liked her role as Lady even less than her work as a thief.
Mistress Isabel, Gregory’s wife, touched Em’s elbow. Though Isabel wouldn’t gain the rank of Lady until Gregory inherited their father’s titles, she already had grace and poise to spare, along with a keen sense of fashion due to her Verisian heritage. “I do hope the latest shipment of fabrics are as impressive as I’ve been told. The new Verisian dyes are supposed to be very vivid.”
Em dropped the curtain into place and settled against the pillows. While she tried to pretend interest, she doubted her attentive face fooled her sister by marriage. She offered a finger to the baby cooing and gurgling on Isabel’s lap.
Isabel’s dark eyes crinkled at the corners in a smile. “I’d like to buy some nice red linen for you. It will bring out the striking color in your hair.”
“I don’t know if I want Emmie wearing red.” Lord Harold, Em’s father, occupied the opposite side of the palanquin. Lounging on pillows, the Trilord puffed on a hookah. Sweet steam clouded the air around his head. The bejeweled rings on his fingers sparkled as he waved at Em. “I won’t have my daughter looking garish.”
Em bounced the tiny fist clutched around her finger and shared a smile with her infant nephew. “Why do I need a new sari?” she asked. “I’ve got two I’ve barely worn.”
“Red is vibrant, not garish.” Isabel smoothed the edge of her yellow sari on her shoulder. “As long as we wrap it properly, Em won’t be provocative.”
“Of course, you need new clothes.” Lord Harold drummed his fingers against the bowl of the hookah. “The Reeve of Trimble bestowed a great honor on us by selecting Merdale to host the Allgoday celebration this year. We must honor him in return.”
“If it’s for Allgoday, then I should wear white or lavender.” Em pulled her attention away from the babe. “I am a Lady of Air, after all.”
“That’s what your mother would always say,” Lord Harold muttered with a frown.
She glowered at him. Her mother probably always used to say it because it was true.
“Lavender cloth is too expensive.” Isabel brushed a lock of Em’s hair off her shoulder. “Besides, purple will do nothing for your hair, which is your best feature.”
Em twitched away from Isabel’s fussing hands. “I like white.”
“All your saris are white.” The bangles on Isabel’s arm chimed as she dropped her hand. “It makes you look insipid. You’ll never catch a man’s eye wearing white.”
“I don’t want to catch a man’s eye.”
“Perhaps red isn’t a bad idea,” Lord Harold mused, taking a pull on the hookah.
“Papa!” She gaped at her father.
He raised his bushy black eyebrows and blew steam at her. “Do you want to pay for it? If you buy the fabric, you can pick the color.”
She leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms. “I don’t want a new sari at all.”
“You’ll be beautiful in red, you’ll see.” Isabel clapped her hands in front of the baby. He laughed and grabbed at her shiny silver bangles. “Your father is a Lord of Earth so there is nothing remarkable about you wearing earth colors. We should all strive to make Merdale proud at the Allgoday Feast.”
Em sighed and held her tongue. In the three years since Gregory and Isabel had wed, Isabel had schemed and maneuvered to secure the honor of the Reeve’s attendance at the annual holiday. Once the Reeve of Trimble selected Merdale, the Councilors and everyone of note in and around Trimble clamored for invitations. Heady with success, Isabel sent invitations as far away as the capitol. Even Isabel’s parents planned to make the journey from the neighboring country of Verice for the first time since her wedding.
Though Em didn’t understand the fuss of the holiday, she would do her best not to ruin Isabel’s shining moment. Which apparently meant wearing red.
With a shouted command from the captain of Merdale’s guards, the palanquin stopped outside the city wall. The conveyance swayed as the carriers maneuvered it off the trade road and out of a steady stream of encumbered merchants and braying beasts of burden. Since the day was cool, her family would enter Trimble on foot rather than pay the fee for bringing okapis and a spacious palanquin into the city.
Lord Harold took one last drag on the hookah before cupping the bowl in his hands. The steam dissipated as the bowl cooled.
Isabel wrapped her arms around the babe. Em braced herself. The captain shouted another command and the carriers lowered the palanquin to the ground in unison.
Lord Harold tucked his hookah between a pair of pillows while Isabel gathered up her child. They emerged in a shady spot under a canopy tree. Sparse trees populated the area next to the perimeter wall between the trade road and the river, leaving plenty of space for animals and palanquins. An unofficial track off the road ran down to the river for those who wished to pay water tariffs rather than the trade road fees.
The port town of Trimble had sprouted up around a bend in the river where the trade road veered close to the waterway. When the city had grown large enough to support a garrison and its attending Reeve, two perimeter walls had been built to give Trimble a lucky triangular shape, with the river forming the third side. The Reeve himself lived at the point of the triangle, far from the bustle of the riverfront and the sprawling market dominating the center of town.
While the Merdale captain organized their entourage, Em shook out her sari, careful to keep the pale fabric away from the dirt. Gregory climbed off his okapi to help Isabel load their infant son into a yellow linen sling matching her sari. Once the babe was secure on her back, two triads of guards fanned out around the family. The other half of the guards settled themselves in the shade with the okapis and palanquin.
With polished dirks strapped to their chests and feather headdresses making them appear taller, the guards easily cleared a path across the line of laden beasts and their handlers awaiting entrance at the main gate. Once on the other side of the road, their party joined the stream of humanity walking into Trimble through the tunnel in the wall.
Though the guards tried to keep the riffraff at bay, Em was jostled on all sides in the narrow tunnel. Voices echoed off the stones, assaulting her ears. While it was the same path, the teeming passageway had little in common with the deserted tunnel of the night before.
As they entered the city, the swaggering captain ushered them away from the crowded thoroughfare and onto the quieter streets of the Temple district. They would loop around and approach the market from the side near the Troika Hall.
When the street widened enough for them to walk two abreast, the captain fell back to consult with Lord Harold. Gregory slowed his steps to walk next to his wife, their dark heads canted together. She rested the fingers of one hand on his elbow while punctuating her speech with gestures from the other. The babe on her back waved a pudgy brown arm and gurgled.
Jonathan fell into step with Em and offered her his arm.
She took his elbow with a polite smile though she struggled to match his long strides. Her sari brushed the toes of her sandals, threatening to trip her at every step. The awkwardness of walking with her brother awakened the memory of how her body had moved in natural harmony with Quintin’s the night before.
Loneliness stabbed her, even in the midst of her family.
“Why the dour face, Em?” Jonathan asked.
She pushed thoughts of the sweet auditor aside. “I’ve better things to do than dawdle at the market.”
“Already spent your allowance, eh?”
She pursed her lips but did not reply. She purchased necessities for Aerynet with her allowance and had no use for the curiosities of the marketplace. The cacao their father gave her never went far, which was why she risked arrest for her Taricday earnings. Her belly twisted in apprehension. Simon hadn’t shown at their rendezvous after the job last night. His absence wasn’t unusual, though it was unfortunate. She sent up a silent prayer, hoping he had delivered her beans directly to the temple as planned. Otherwise Aerynet would be in dire straits.
Jon nudged her side. “If you see anything you like, whisper a word in my ear. The bones have been good to me this week.”
Despite her worries, she managed to smile at her brother. “Thank you, Jon.”
Her family bunched closer together as they approached the market square. The busy marketplace bombarded the senses. A cacophony of voices hawked everything from vegetables to furniture, while the smell of cooking food clashed with perfumes and spices. A tangle of colorful stalls filled the square, ranging in size from layered tents as big as a house to little more than a mat covered in goods.
Flags and banners in red, brown, and orange draped every awning. The colors honored the Earth Daemon Tarel, hoping to attract followers on their day of rest.
At a whistled command from the captain, the other guards in the party surrounded the family and managed the crowd so they could enter the busy square. Their steps slowed as they edged along in front of the Troika Hall. Three stories high and built of the same imported stone as the city wall, the impressive building stood as a testament to the rule of Destinese law in Trimble. Raised wooden platforms flanked it on both sides.
“Will you look at that?” Jonathan said.
Em tracked his pointing finger without thinking. Her breath caught, squeezing all the air out of her lungs.
“The stocks are full,” Jon continued, his voice tinny and distant to her ears.
The nearest captive was a young man, nearly a boy. Dirty, thin, hopeless. The crude boards pinned him in a kneeling position. Trapped. Humiliated. Unable to move so much as an inch.
Cold sweat beaded on her forehead.
But for the grace of the gods, she could be the one imprisoned.
Jon bent to peer in her face, confusion and concern chasing across his features. “You feeling well, Em? You look like you’re going to faint.”
She dragged a breath into her lungs, calling on Fermena, the Goddess of Air and Serenity, to steady her mind. She had to stay calm in front of her family. No guard would arrest a Lady in the middle of market day.
“The stocks are horrible,” she spat, hoping to wipe the solicitous look off Jon’s face. “I hate to look at them.”
Lord Harold snorted. “A little humiliation and thirst is no less than these cutpurses and trespassers deserve. Trimble is far too lax in my opinion. Thieves are branded in other towns.”
Isabel shivered. “I’m so grateful we live at Merdale, safe from the treachery of outlaws.”
Gregory tugged her forward. “Let’s find the fabric merchant you’re so excited about.”
Jon patted Em’s hand as they followed the others. “Well, a paragon of virtue like you needn’t ever look at or think about the stocks if you don’t wish to.”
Em grunted in response. If her brother only knew. She lived with the danger of getting more than a look at the stocks every week. Worse yet, she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the poor trapped souls she walked past.
She watched in horrified fascination as a devotee of Marana held a bowl of water out to a prisoner. The man bowed his head to lap up the water. Em repressed a shudder. To drink like a dog and be grateful for it—
As the devotee moved away, the prisoner raised his head.
Em’s feet stopped.
Jonathan tripped as she pulled on his arm. “Watch it, Em. You’re so clumsy.”
“Sorry,” she murmured. She forced her legs to move. The panic blooming in her heart was not so easily vanquished.
Simon was in the stocks.
Chapter 5
“Fermena’s farts,” Em muttered a few hours later as her family shuffled to a stop before a familiar two-story abode at the edge of the Reeve’s district. Her father must want them to dine with her mother’s family. It was only practical to take their aestivation in town rather than ask the guards to carry the palanquin home during the heat of the day.
“Em, such language,” Jonathan scolded with a laugh.
A guard trotted up the wide stone steps and sounded a gong next to a pair of intricately carved double doors set in the colorful mosaic facade.
Dismay filling her heart, Em hurried to her father’s side. “Father,” she began, her words lost as the doors opened.
The Merdale captain ushered their party into the house. As she stepped over the threshold, she felt crushed by more than the press of bodies in the vestibule. She couldn’t sit eating dainties and admiring Isabel’s purchases for hours on end. Not with Simon in the stocks and her payment for last night’s work locked up with him.
Itching to escape, Em squeezed through the crowd until she stood next to her father.
Aunt Florence crouched in the position of welcome before Lord Harold, not an easy task for a woman of her advanced years, but she was a stickler for the proprieties. Though not a lady herself, Florence had been raised by a Lady of the Realm with exacting standards. Holding a platter of cut fruit over her head at an inviting angle, she intoned the hospitality greeting.
Em waited until her father had selected an avocado dumpling to complete the ceremony, before tugging on his sleeve. “Father, I’d like to take my aestivation at Aerynet if I may.”
Her aunt rose smoothly to her feet. “How is your temple?”
“Very well, thank you,” Em replied by rote. She bit her lip, unsure what else to say.
When her noble grandmother had turned to ash, her father had petitioned the Novenary to pass Aerynet and its attendant title to Em’s mother instead of Aunt Florence. While her aunt never breathed a word of resentment, and welcomed them into her home, Em knew her temple and title could have been her aunt’s instead.
Lord Harold sniffed. “Aerynet is far too small for a party of our size and importance.”
“I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable,” she agreed. Her father had refused to set foot in the temple since her mother’s death. Ordinarily, the snub would open old wounds. Today all she felt was relief. She expected Acolyte Lucy to be in a tizzy over the missing payment and didn’t wish to expose Aerynet’s troubles to the scrutiny of her family. “I can go on my own.”
“Oh, Emmie,” her aunt said, “this is only a sample of the fruits and dainties waiting in the courtyard.”
“You are so kind,” Em said with a polite smile. “I’m afraid I won’t do your generous hospitality justice. I have a headache and need to rest in a cool quiet place.”
“Well, an air temple is just the thing for a headache.” Her aunt held out the platter. “At least take a couple pieces with you. I chilled them myself.”
“Thank you, Aunt Florence. You are the most tolerant of hostesses.” Her smile turned genuine as she chose a slice of icy mango. Since her aunt approved of her defection, her father wou
ld only look churlish if he forced her to stay.
“Take two guards with you,” Lord Harold said as he followed Florence through an arched doorway.
“Yes, Papa.” Elated by her reprieve, she stood against one wall and let the rest of her family leave the vestibule.
Violet, her only cousin on her mother’s side, brought up the rear of the procession, bearing a second platter of fruit. “Aren’t you coming, Emmie?”
She shook her head. “I’m going to Aerynet.”
“Why? Isn’t our repast fancy enough for a Lady of the Realm?”
Was Violet trying to make a joke? While they were of an age and looked enough alike to be mistaken for sisters, Em never understood her cousin. Their distinctive, auburn-tinted black hair was all they had in common.
Violet gestured at the icy mango in Em’s hand. “You should eat it before it melts. You’ll get mango juice on your lovely sari, and then won’t your father be upset when he has to buy you a new one.”
“I have a headache,” Em said, too impatient to unravel her cousin’s comments. She curled her fingers over the fruit. Her lips moved as she asked the goddesses to extract heat and energy from the juicy slice. Her hand might be numb before she reached the temple, but the orphan who lived at Aerynet would enjoy the frozen treat more than she would.
“A headache. Really?” Violet laughed. “Well, that’s one thing your temple is good for.” She turned and sashayed through the archway, her sari swishing with every step.
Shaking her head, Em collected a pair of guards and returned to the street. She focused on keeping the mango frozen as she traversed the brick lined roads of Trimble.
Taxing Courtship Page 3
