Ally of the Crown

by Melissa McShane

  They rounded a curve in the road and the roadside stand Fiona had smelled became visible. It was little more than three wooden walls holding up a shingled roof that sloped to the rear. A woman dressed in Veriboldan laborer’s clothes, wide-legged trousers of a coarse weave and a wraparound shirt, came forward to watch them approach. Sebastian waved at her politely but dismissively, and she took a few steps back.

  “You said they’d be watching you,” he said. “It’s safer if you look confident. Not too confident, but not needing too much attention.”

  “I think if they’re watching me, they won’t be watching you.”

  “The priestesses at the Irantzen Temple won’t be watching me at all. They don’t care about the attendants. To my knowledge.”

  “Then we don’t have anything to worry about.”

  They left the woman behind and began ascending a gentle slope. Mittens veered toward the long grass of the verge, and Fiona pulled her up sharply. Sebastian said, “I wouldn’t say that. We don’t know exactly where the blackmail evidence is kept. And attempting to steal from the Jaixante is dangerous. Veriboldans aren’t gentle with foreigners caught committing crimes against Veriboldans.”

  “That almost sounds like nerves. Isn’t it a little late for you to be worried?”

  He laughed. “Miss Cooper, it’s hard for me to feel nervous when you’re around to needle me. I’m not nervous. But I am feeling cautious, which I think is a safe feeling. And I think it’s reasonable to consider possible disasters and plan a response to them.”

  “And what disasters are those?”

  “Being unable to move freely within the Jaixante. The evidence being held somewhere inaccessible, or worse, not in Haizea at all. Being identified as a—member of my family. Those are the ones that would keep me up at night if I were at all nervous, which we’ve established I’m not.”

  “How—” Fiona stopped herself from saying How can I help? just in time. She’d gotten them all past the border, she would get them into the Jaixante; Sebastian didn’t need any more help than that. “How would being identified as a member of the family whose name you won’t give me be a problem?” she asked instead.

  Sebastian grinned at her. “The blackmailer, Gizane, would definitely be suspicious if someone with that surname, which you don’t need to know, showed up in Haizea.”

  “Is she here?”

  “I don’t know. She was in Aurilien—isn’t that right, Holt?”

  “She met directly with men and women in positions of power in Aurilien, several times,” Holt said. “But it is certainly possible she might have returned to the Jaixante. She is the trade liaison between Tremontane and the royal city.”

  “What if she recognizes Holt?”

  “I did not make myself known to her,” Holt said, “and I believe she is the sort of woman to whom servants are furniture.”

  “At any rate, if she is here, I’m not worried about her recognizing me,” Sebastian said, “and I’ll keep my name to myself.”

  “It’s not as if I care who your parents are, Sebastian.”

  “You might if you knew who they were.”

  “Meaning they’re well-known enough that even someone like me would recognize the name. Are you noble?”

  “Miss Nosy, you are in fine form today. I can’t wait for us to reach Haizea.” He smiled, though, and looked amused rather than offended.

  At that moment, they reached the top of the rise, and looked down into a valley that spread in ripples of terraced hills all the way to the river. And there, laid out like glimmering patchwork, lay Haizea. Delicate fairy spires, white or silver, rose here and there over the indistinct masses of colored roofs that were the smaller buildings, purple or blue or green or gray. The Kepa River cut through the city like a murky green ribbon lazily unfurling across the patchwork, with tiny barges zigzagging upstream, leaving trails like broken threads behind. On the near side of the river, a spongy-looking mass marked Haizea’s Dusktown, poor and dangerous to intruders. It had been too long for Fiona to judge if it was bigger or smaller than when she’d seen it last.

  In the center of the Kepa, breasting its waters like the world’s biggest dolphin, lay an island linked to the shores by five broad, white bridges. White and gold buildings, with tapering towers and flying buttresses and aqueducts from which thin, lacy waterfalls fell, covered the island all the way to the blindingly white wall that surrounded it. The Jaixante. By night, Fiona remembered, it would glow with Devices the way Aurilien did, but Veriboldans preferred colors to white lights, and the Jaixante by night looked like a dowager Countess’s jewelry box. Even by day, it was stunning.

  Fiona looked at the highest spire, a tower surmounting the royal residence near the top of the Jaixante’s artificial hill, and thought of Willow North’s crumbling black tower, symbol of Tremontane’s power, with a sense of guilty disloyalty.

  A flight of birds swept low over the river, then rose into the sky, and the dim noise of their chatter reached Fiona’s ears, breaking her out of her daze. “We should go,” she said.

  “Oh. Yes,” Sebastian said. He sounded as dazed as she felt. Was it a bad omen for their journey, that they were so overwhelmed by this foreign city? Fiona once again focused on Mittens’ ears and vowed not to let it get to her. She was Tremontanan, no matter how beautiful the Veriboldan capital was, and Aurilien had a beauty of its own.

  Traffic on the road increased as they wound through the terraced hills into the valley of Haizea, but most of it was leaving the great city. Most of the men and women they passed were ordinary Veriboldans who glanced at them with a lack of interest, which surprised Fiona. Veriboldan commoners weren’t as xenophobic and bigoted as Veriboldan landholders—the equivalent of Tremontanan nobles—but usually they were at least curious about strangers dressed in Tremontanan clothing. Holt was dark enough to pass for Veriboldan, and there were Veriboldans with skin as light as hers and Sebastian’s, but they were still clearly Tremontanans, and therefore suspect. Or so she’d expected.

  “I hope your plan doesn’t call for you to pretend to be Veriboldan,” she murmured to Sebastian after they’d passed a small group of travelers who in different clothes might have been Tremontanan natives.

  “Only as a last resort,” Sebastian said. “I don’t speak Veriboldan.”

  “I do,” Fiona said, “and I wouldn’t want to try it either.” She wouldn’t have wanted to impersonate a Veriboldan even if she’d been perfectly confident about it. It was too difficult to mimic all the subtleties of culture and behavior outsiders hardly even perceived.

  It took nearly an hour for them to reach the outskirts of Haizea, and another half-hour to cross the city to the Kepa and the first of the white bridges leading to the Jaixante. They had to push their way through the crowds filling the streets, people laughing and talking and bargaining at top volume. Canvas booths, their striped sides pressed closely against their neighbors’, lined both sides of the street, their wares as varied as their customers. Fiona observed two women haggling over a pottery vase next to a man selling roast tubers on skewers, whose neighbor on the other side sold diaphanous scarves threaded with gold and silver. Maybe they could come back this way when it was all over. Assuming they didn’t leave the Jaixante at a run, pursued by the blackmailer Gizane’s guards.

  The long market ended fifty feet from a boulevard that followed the curve of the Kepa’s banks. Beyond the boulevard, a gate of lacy white ironwork framed the entrance to the first of the bridges crossing to the Jaixante. It had no doors and no one stood guard there, but there was a sign posted. Fiona dismounted and led Mittens closer. “It says no horses or wheeled vehicles,” she said. “I gather the guards are on the far side.”

  “We need to hurry,” Sebastian said. “It’s only an hour to sunset.”

  It took almost all of that time to find someone who would stable their horses for the week of the festival, and Sebastian was almost jogging with impatience by the time he slapped hands with the stable master i
n agreement and shouldered his bag. They ran through the streets to the bridge, then across, Fiona breathing heavily with the unaccustomed exertion. She’d forgotten how it felt to run.

  It was a shame they had to run so fast, she thought, because the Kepa from the bridge was an incredible sight she’d like to have time to admire. Green-glass water flowed unhurriedly downstream, passing beneath the arches holding the bridges up. Fiona saw a barge pass beneath one of those arches; its captain waved, and she did her best to wave back.

  Overhead, birds squawked and dove at the water, then came to rest on the white iron pillars lining the bridge. More lacy ironwork spanned the gaps between them. Do people ever jump from here? she wondered, and felt disgusted with herself for having that thought when the place was so beautiful. Still, you have to wonder, her inner voice said, and she gritted her teeth and focused on running.

  There was a gate at the far end, and two guards who came to attention as the three came charging toward them. “Stop!” one said in Veriboldan. “State your purpose.”

  “We’re here…for the Irantzen…Festival,” Sebastian panted, as if he’d understood their words. “Please…let us pass.”

  “You will not reach it in time,” the first guard said, switching to Tremontanese. “It is almost sunset.”

  “Please,” Fiona said, “help us.”

  The second guard appraised her, and Fiona was surprised to see a definite light of admiration in his eyes. She wasn’t used to being looked at that way. “Papers,” he said.

  Sebastian already had the portfolio out and the papers spread in his hand. The first guard took them and examined them closely. “Fiona Cooper?” he said. He pronounced her surname with the emphasis on the second syllable.

  “Yes,” Fiona said. “I’m Fiona Cooper.”

  The guard scrawled something on one of the pages with the stub of a pencil, then handed the papers back to Sebastian. “Take the second right, then follow the ramp to the top,” he said. “If you run, you may not be late.”

  “Thank you,” Sebastian said, and the three of them ran faster than before. Fiona glanced once back over her shoulder; the two men were staring after them—no, after her. It sounded like they had recognized her name. Maybe the customs officials had sent word about her, after all. She hadn’t seen what he had written on the paper. Some warning to the priestesses at the Irantzen Temple? Let’s just hope it’s not a warrant for our execution.

  The ramp was steep, and curved as if following the contours of the island. Fiona’s legs and chest ached, and her shoulder hurt from where her bag balanced on it. She made herself keep running. The sun was nearly below the horizon, outlining it with yellow gold like metal in a forge. What if they were too late? Well, Sebastian would think of a different plan, and she’d go on to Umberan. It might not be too late to join that group going to Dineh-Karit. Or you might go on helping Sebastian, she thought. The idea surprised her.

  They stumbled off the ramp and kept running down a long colonnade, its pillars bulging near the bottom as if they were wax that had melted in the summer sun. Ahead was one of those fairy structures, towering a hundred feet above them with spires that doubled that height. A flight of shallow steps led up to its base, and two white doors, arched at the top, stood at the top of the steps. They were closing.

  “Wait!” Fiona shouted, pushing herself harder, and then all three of them were shouting and waving their free arms. The doors’ movement paused, then resumed. Fiona pelted up the stairs with Sebastian and slid between the doors, forcing them to stop again. It was black inside, and Fiona came to a halt only to be shoved forward by Sebastian, entering behind her. Holt followed close after.

  “The Irantzen is closed,” said a female voice in Tremontanese. “You are too late.”

  “No,” Fiona gasped, “it’s just barely sunset. We’re not too late. Besides, the guard wrote something—it’s on that paper—” She waved desperately at Sebastian, who dug through the portfolio, squinting at its contents. Finally, he handed a sheet to the now dimly visible woman, who seemed to have no trouble reading it. The woman glanced up at the three of them, then settled on Fiona.

  “I think you are Fiona Cooper, yes?” she said.

  “I am.”

  The woman read the paper again. “These are your bodyguards?”

  Fiona hadn’t seen the contents of the papers. “My attendants, yes.”

  The woman handed the paper back to Sebastian. “Come with me.”

  The doors slammed shut. Fiona blinked, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, but then she heard the scratch of a match striking stone, and light flared. The woman took an extremely old-fashioned torch off the wall. It stank of creosote and sulfur and left afterimages of itself when Fiona incautiously looked at it. The woman walked away without glancing back. Fiona looked around quickly. She saw another woman standing nearby, her hand resting on the door, who widened her eyes at Fiona as if urging her on. Fiona didn’t need a second reminder.

  8

  The yellow light of the torch made a puddle of light Fiona tried to stay within. Behind her, Sebastian and Holt shuffled along, Sebastian bumping into Fiona once and apologizing under his breath. There were no windows in the white walls, turned gold by the torch’s fire, and the floor was of a rough stone that matched the walls in color. It was like being inside a man-made cave, angular and cool and dry, with a ceiling that rose beyond the extent of the light and walls close enough to touch at the same time. Fiona tried not to hunch in on herself. She wasn’t afraid of small spaces; she just didn’t like not being able to see where she was going. That was it.

  The corridor turned frequently at odd angles, and after a few turns Fiona lost track of what direction she was facing. Not that it mattered much, here in this narrow, twisting space…she made herself breathe calmly. It wasn’t all that narrow, and it had to open up somewhere.

  The woman never turned to see if they were following her. She wore her hair cut short enough to brush her chin, and it bobbed as she walked, making interesting shadows on the walls. She was, strangely, dressed in the clothes of a Veriboldan commoner, the wide-legged trousers and wraparound shirt they’d seen so often in the last two days. Both looked ivory in the torchlight. Fiona had expected more formal garb on someone belonging to the most important temple in Veribold. It was probably a bad idea to make assumptions when she knew practically nothing.

  Just as Fiona was about to break the silence by asking where they were going, the narrow corridor opened up into a room shaped like the inside of a pyramid, lit by a dozen more torches. Two more women were in the process of sorting papers into a portfolio like Sebastian’s own and looked up when Fiona entered. Their guide carried her torch to a wrought iron stand in the far corner and wedged it securely into the top. Then she went to join the women, who’d stopped sorting, and said in Veriboldan, “This is the last one for the festival.”

  “It’s too late. Past sunset,” one of the women said. Both women were dressed like the torch bearer, down to the short haircut, though one’s clothing was pale green rather than ivory.

  “The border sent word about this one. She’s to be watched,” said the torch bearer.

  All three women looked at Fiona. She did her best impression of someone who had no idea what was being said. “Did they say why?”

  “Government officials never say why,” the torch bearer said sourly. “Just that she was suspicious. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “She looks clever.”

  “Cleverness isn’t a crime.”

  The woman in the green clothing came forward with her hand outstretched. “Papers,” she said, and Sebastian pulled them out of the portfolio. She examined them, nodded, and handed them to her partner. “We will take you to your lodgings,” she said. “You will of course be housed separately, so as to preserve the purity of the festival.”

  “Of course,” Fiona said. “We understand.” That had been part of Sebastian’s instructions; she was to have her ow
n “cell,” a term which unsettled her somewhat but was, Sebastian assured her, temple terminology for a private room. “What if we need to communicate?” she’d asked the night before.

  “You’ll have to come to us,” Sebastian had said. “Men aren’t allowed within the temple proper. I think you’re allowed to visit but not stay, but I’m sure you’ll be able to figure something out if you have to, Miss Cooper.”

  The woman in green made a complicated salute which, thank heaven, she didn’t seem to expect Fiona to answer. Taking another of the smelly torches, she indicated that they should follow her.

  A second doorway opened off the pyramidal room onto a corridor much wider than the first, and Fiona felt tension drain out of her shoulders. Even so, with Sebastian and Holt at her back Fiona felt like someone being escorted to prison, an illusion not helped by the mysterious shadows the torch cast on the walls and the slightly limping gait of the woman in green. Fiona gritted her teeth. She was letting her imagination rule her, and that was unacceptable.

  Soon, they came to an even wider passage, a long one lined with doors on both sides that Fiona sternly told herself did not look like a prison corridor. The woman went to a door about halfway down the hall and opened it. “For your attendants,” she said. “They will care for your belongings while you are in meditation and prayer. Leave your bag and follow me.”

  Fiona and Sebastian exchanged glances. She hadn’t anticipated being separated so abruptly. She sent up a silent prayer for his success—maybe being in one of the oldest temples in the world might make heaven inclined to hear her plea—and handed her bag to Holt. To her surprise, Sebastian clasped her hand briefly before she could turn away. His skin was warm and dry and his grip strong, and she squeezed his hand in return. Then she followed the woman back the way they’d come.

  A few minutes later, they came to a steep, narrow staircase going up, blue-tinged with moonlight, and Fiona had just enough time to realize what that meant when she reached the first of the windows and could look out over Haizea. The windows were tall and thin, barely as wide as her two palms outstretched, but there were dozens of them, spaced closely together. It was like looking at the city through a grille.