by T L Greylock
“What is the meaning of this? I answered correctly! Every question! You promised our freedom.” Albus strained against Ichero’s muscled form, a dry husk of wheat battering uselessly against the indomitable north wind.
“I made no such promise, scholar.” Keleut stepped close, her dark eyes no more than a hand’s width from Albus’s, and spoke in her native tongue. “That answer earned your comrades their freedom. I never said a word about you.”
Chapter Seventeen
“I don’t threaten people, my dear, I kill them.”
“Wine?”
Manon stood within the Archduke of Arconia’s garden—one of a multitude, no doubt. And though the garden had the semblance of a private, personal space, made cozy by stone benches tucked into nooks within the hedges, statues serving as whimsical sentinels, and even a small plot of vegetables as though the Archduke himself might kneel in the dirt and tend squash, carrots, and curling tendrils of peas—not likely—it was, Manon was quite certain, all constructed to appear just so.
The appearance of it all, in fact, was one reason she was having difficulty adjusting to the fact that she was alone with the Archduke of Arconia and that he had begun what was likely the most important conversation of her life by offering her wine.
The other reason was that the journey to that garden within the walls of the Varadome had been both a whirlwind and a lesson in patience. The stop at the island city of Parnaxes, the most northwestern of the Seven Cities of Bellara, had been as brief as Arch-Commander de Minos had promised. Her visit had been confined to a view of the Parnaxes port taken in while she was given leave to walk the deck. They had arrived at dusk and were gone before dawn—and all Manon knew of the visit was the unknown commotion in the dark, deep black of night. The noise had woken her, loud voices and heavy footsteps on the main deck, perhaps even a crashing object, Manon couldn’t be sure, and it was some minutes before silence reestablished itself. Naturally, when Manon was allowed out of her cabin in the morning, there was no sign of what had been brought on board, or what had caused the disturbance.
She had tried fishing for information, more out of habit than anything else. Jourdain was speaking to her by then, less of a shadow and more of a companion. Not that she ever thought she might somehow win his loyalty. That was clearly out of the question where the Arch-Commander was concerned. After unexpectedly discovering a shared appreciation for a particular breed of hunting dog, they had spoken here and there of safe things, harmless things.
But that morning, with the port of Parnaxes behind them, in response to her casual comment about not sleeping well and the headache she was sure to get as a result—nothing wrong with the sympathy play—Jourdain said he had slept as soundly as a dead man.
She didn’t think it was a threat, not really. But it soured her on making further attempts at conversation, which, she realized, was likely the point.
They’d arrived in Arconia’s harbor a day early, a boon from favorable winds the Arch-Commander had told her in that not-quite-conversational way of his as the Horatio was moored some distance away from the wharfs due to the vessel’s immense size.
They had traveled to the Varadome together, Manon and the Arch-Commander, first by rowboat, then by carriage, but the man said nothing further, apparently his capacity for warnings, threats, and advice fully depleted. At another time, his obvious preoccupation would have sparked Manon’s curiosity. As it was, every turn of the carriage wheel that would bring her face to face with the Archduke was all she could think about.
She had been escorted by a herald to the stone arch—carefully and artfully ruined—that led to the paths within the garden’s walls. The herald had gestured for her to enter on her own and Manon had crossed the threshold and wound her way within the shrubbery and past a fountain before she saw evidence of another person. A gardener was at work wielding a large pair of shears, trimming the tail on a lion-shaped bush. And yet, as Manon approached and passed by, he snapped his shears repeatedly at the same branch that was decidedly not in need of further trimming. Not a gardener, then. Manon wondered if he had a knife tucked in his boot and then decided the shears were probably deadly enough. The Archduke’s elite guards were known to be efficient and proficient.
And now she stood in a grove of lemon trees as the Archduke of Arconia offered her a glass of wine.
“I have a strong red from Deios. Full-bodied. Smoky.” The Archduke studied Manon as he spoke. “The white is Sarentian. Sweet but not sickly. Very crisp. Or if you prefer, I have a rosé. Silky, and just enough mineral quality to make it interesting. Quite elegant, really.”
Manon had the distinct impression that her choice would matter a great deal to the Archduke’s opinion of her.
She had met Valexi Arcturos de Vauquelin-Preux, Archduke of Arconia, face to face once before, had knelt before him and pleaded for mercy for her father, had begged him to consider Julian Barca’s contributions to Arconia’s coffers and prestige and find in his heart the clemency to grant a lighter sentence. He looked much the same as he had that day, though the guards were now replaced by lemon trees and he was offering her wine instead of tears. Dark eyes, dark hair, an elegant touch of silver at his temple. Black coat suggesting a plainness countered by the staggering size of the emerald on his left hand. He had worn a sapphire, Manon remembered. She had grasped that hand, nearly blind with tears, his fingers smooth and firm and cool beneath her desperate, hot touch. And he had not withdrawn his hand. He bore the discourtesy with silence and dignity and then he spoke words that seemed to shatter like cold crystal in Manon’s chest. Manon had no doubt that he remembered that day as clearly as she did, that it was playing through his mind even as it flashed through Manon’s. But in that moment he gave no indication he cared about anything other than her choice of crushed grapes.
“I am satisfied to have you choose for me, Commendatore.”
The Archduke seemed disappointed with this answer, but he turned and beckoned to a serving girl who had been waiting at the foot of the nearest statue. She trotted forward and gave a quick curtsey.
“The Taracini rosé. Two glasses.”
The girl raced off and the Archduke turned back to Manon, his arms folding in front of him, his hands clasping each other lightly. He proceeded to gaze at her with a disconcerting lack of calculation, intensity, or even apparent concentration. But not once did he look away—nor did he speak—until the girl returned, decanter and glasses set upon a gilded porcelain tray. By then, Manon, despite her best intentions, felt entirely undone and depleted.
“It took me more years than I care to admit to learn to appreciate wine.” Valexi Arcturos de Vauquelin-Preux handed Manon a glass, then raised his own. “To your health.”
Manon managed to utter the expected reply. “To yours and to Arconia’s, Commendatore.”
They both drank. The rosé was exquisite. But, then, of course it was.
“As I was saying,” the Archduke went on, “my intolerance for fermented grapes was amusing at first, but beyond the age of sixteen, my parents found it embarrassing. They made excuses for me not to attend dinners with ambassadors, preferring to parade me about on the hunting grounds or in the music hall instead—anything but the dining hall where I might make a face over my goblet.”
He was smiling. Manon swallowed.
“I remember traveling to our sister city of Cancalo. My first visit. I longed to see the waterfalls and take part in the regatta on Lake Delo. But our first night there, I attended the formal dinner. It would have been exceedingly rude not to. As it happens, it was ruder still to surreptitiously pour my wine on the floor under the table, especially when the puddle grows large enough to stain the silk slippers of your dining companion.” The smile grew, crinkling the corners of his dark grey eyes. “I was sent home the next day under the pretext of a sudden and highly contagious case of vine fever.”
The Archduke watched Manon expectantly. When she failed to find the response he was looking for, he sighed, the sm
ile disappearing. “Vine fever. Ironic, yes?”
Manon nodded, understanding that she was proving to be a great disappointment. “Yes, Commendatore.” Unbidden, the image of Eska de Caraval materialized in Manon’s mind. No doubt the de Caraval woman would be comfortable drinking wine in the Archduke’s garden. No doubt she would know what to say, when to say it, and what artful gesture ought to accompany it. She belonged amid these vipers of the Varadome. The sudden spiteful thought must have shown on Manon’s face for the Archduke’s eyes showed the first flash of something that wasn’t mundane. Manon rearranged her features as quickly as she could, determined to play the game—whatever it was—to the best of her ability.
“Do you like it?” The Archduke nodded his head at the glass in her hand.
“I’ve never tasted anything quite like it.”
“It’s a particularly good vintage. Taracini rosés are pleasant enough, but this one is special. Would you like to know why?”
Manon was ready with her answer this time. “I’d be delighted.”
The Archduke took a sip. “Lightning storm. As though every god ever invented by the minds of men was casting thunderbolts down to the island. Or so the story goes. Only a few residents of the island are old enough to recall it. But there can be no doubting the superiority of the wine that year. I bought all of it.” Another sip. “Perhaps a bit of lightning is the answer to everything.”
This was, Manon was certain, intended to have a double meaning. Or perhaps she was only meant to think it did.
“Please forgive me, Commendatore, may I ask why you have summoned me?”
The Archduke drained his glass but said nothing until Manon did the same. He refilled both before answering.
“I hear you recently made a journey to our sister-city of Toridium.”
“You are well informed, Commendatore.” A foolish thing to say. If there was someone in Arconia better informed than Valexi Arcturos de Vauquelin-Preux, Manon did not know it.
“I also heard Eska de Caraval was there.”
Manon managed a nod. The smile was returning to the Archduke’s face. She desperately wished it to be a cold smile, or a smile meant to signal his superiority, but it was the same smile as before.
“Do you have any plans for the next season?”
The question was entirely unexpected. Manon attempted to hide her surprise by taking a drink of wine, but she did not believe the Archduke was fooled.
“I prefer not to say, Commendatore.” A bold answer, at last. Manon plowed ahead. “These things have a way of getting out. You know as well as I that secrecy is important in my profession.”
The smile didn’t waver. “Indeed. I won’t insist, then. But you know what else has a habit of getting out?” He waited. “Financial,” he paused, letting the next word escape his lips as though he truly enjoyed the taste of it, “difficulties.”
Manon did not want to think about the state of her facial expression.
“Come now, it’s not something to be ashamed of.” The Archduke’s voice suggested precisely the opposite. “It happens, even to those who deserve better.” Manon had the distinct impression that he did not count the Barcas in that category. “Besides, you can hardly be surprised that I might know a thing or two about it.”
No, no, she certainly was not, but it was the closest the Archduke had touched on the subject of her father and it made her heart beat all the faster.
He switched tacks again, just when she thought she knew what might be coming next.
“How long have you known you were a Carrier?”
Manon took a sip of wine, but there was no composure to be fished out of the bottom of her glass. If anything the rosé was working against her, feeding off the too small meal she had eaten that morning aboard the Horatio.
“I don’t remember a time when I did not know it, Commendatore.”
“Fire, is it?” He knew even more than Manon could have imagined. As though sensing her deep discomfort, he adopted a conspiratorial air and winked. “Though I don’t pretend to understand why you Carriers guard the particulars of your abilities so closely, never fear, your secret is safe with me.” A preposterous thing to say. Carriers had been distrusted and feared and ostracized ever since the overthrow of the Alescus. The persecution had lessened over time, and the harbor officer in Toridium was but one example of many of Carriers earning respected, honored roles in society. But just as Manon did not remember a time when she didn’t know she Carried, so too did she not remember a time when she did not understand her gift was to be kept secret. But the Archduke was not one to fling words about without thought or care. He took a swallow of wine, his eyes never leaving Manon. “And your brother? The remaining one, I mean.”
Manon felt the jab at Victor, as she was meant to, but the deeper pain was the memory of Perrin’s face in the courtyard at the Vismarch’s palace. “Perrin does not Carry.”
“Odd, don’t you think, that it was the male Carriers who were so feared during the revolutionary years. The strongest Carriers I’ve ever met were women. But it was the men the censors tied anchors to and sank to the sea floor.” Still he watched Manon, unblinking. “Or, if they had an affinity for water, well, those they pressed beneath stones. Suffocation, either way.”
“No need to threaten me, Commendatore. I have no desire to be suffocated.” It was the most unruffled Manon had managed to sound all morning and she found she could meet his gaze fully and without hesitation. She took the spark of pride this gave her and let it warm the fire in her ribs—ever so slightly, not to be used, no, for that would mean certain death, but to bear up her spine.
“I don’t threaten people, my dear, I kill them.”
The spark fled. “Is that why I am here?”
The Archduke studied her for a long moment. “I see the question you won’t ask and, as I am enjoying an exquisite wine on a fine summer’s day, I’m of the mind to put you out of your misery.” He paused just long enough for sweat to bead on the back of Manon’s neck. “Your brother has been given his freedom.”
Her face gave her away, she knew, showed far too much relief. But that was a price she was willing to pay for the certainty that Perrin was safe. She bowed her head into her glass.
“Do you love your father?”
His ability to turn the conversation, to throw her off balance, was truly remarkable.
“I do not know.” She had no more defenses, no more ability to tell half-truths.
He nodded. “A complicated thing, when a parent, who ought to be the source of safety, certainty, and love, chooses instead to bring ruin to it all. Should you love him for who he was? The great treasure-hunter who brought fame to his family and wealth—however fleeting? The father who brought home shells from the seashore and told you stories at night? Or should you hate him for leaving you here in this lonely, punishing world? For tearing the seams of your family into shreds bound for oblivion?” The Archduke watched Manon, no doubt hearing her pounding heart as he gave voice to the two sides of her soul and the endless, silent battle they waged. “You don’t need to answer that. Perhaps ever. But I do require an answer for my next question. A prompt answer, if you please.”
The silence that followed seemed to demand something of Manon, so she nodded.
“I wish to acquire your services for a series of tasks. The only recompense I am willing to offer you is a reduction of your father’s sentence—if, upon completion, you should wish it. The first task I’ll ask of you is that you pay your father a visit at the Hibarium. There’s a question I’d like you to put to him. Do you accept?”
Interlude 9
The Court Beneath the Sun
Case No. 476001
Presiding Justice: Sarmide de Evonnesque, Ninth Celestial Rank
In the matter of Julian Barca against the City, the Court rules on the following charges:
One (1) count of impersonating a government official ----- GUILTY
One (1) count of sedition ----- GUILTY
&nbs
p; One (1) count of inciting violence ----- GUILTY
Three (3) counts of theft ----- GUILTY
Nine (9) counts of bribery ----- GUILTY
Sixteen (16) counts of tax violations ----- GUILTY
Seventy-two (72) counts of harbor quarantine violations ----- GUILTY
One hundred and seven (107) counts of trade law violations ----- GUILTY
One (1) count of murder ----- NOT GUILTY
Sentencing:
Justice de Helore, Second Celestial Rank ----- Life imprisonment
Justice Sici, Third Celestial Rank ----- Life imprisonment
Justice Carvaille, Third Celestial Rank ----- Death by hanging
Justice Davincinni, Fifth Celestial Rank ----- Death by hanging
Justice de Arane, Fifth Celestial Rank ----- Life imprisonment
Justice Theono, Seventh Celestial Rank ----- Death by hanging
Justice de Evonnesque, Ninth Celestial Rank ----- Life imprisonment
Julian Barca is sentenced to life in prison, to be undertaken at the Hibarium.
Chapter Eighteen
“Blind batriks, what a polished turd of an idea.”
“Just like the Pialla Gorge, right?”
Eska watched her engineer as Gabriel stared down at the waters of Lake Delo. Across the lake, the city of Cancalo shone in the storm-crossed sun, vast rays of light streaming onto the rooftops as the retreating thunder rumbled its way into the green hills and rocky, snow-capped mountains behind, taking the darker clouds with it.
The storm had formed and lashed out with devastating speed, forked lightning splitting the sky over the choppy waters of Lake Delo, winds making any attempt of setting up camp impossible, forcing them to wait out the downpour huddled near the wagons. Though they were soaked and it would take a good deal of time to dry everything out, they had arrived, completing the journey to Cancalo faster than Eska had predicted, and the storm had done them the favor of cooling the air.
