Shadows of Ivory
Page 34
Rosina’s gaze roamed over the small party, taking in the wagons and equipment. “No servants?”
Eska laughed. “No such luxuries when we’re working, I’m afraid. We’ve come directly from an excavation.” Close enough to the truth to suffice. “We are very capable of fending for ourselves,” she added, seeing Rosina’s brow crease with concern.
The woman nodded as they joined the crewmembers. After Bastien and Cosimo lifted Perrin from the bed of the first wagon, Eska directed Gabriel, Gael, and Nahia to the stable with the wagons and horses. Rosina unlocked the main entrance, a double door made of dark wood and reinforced with iron, and the rest of the party was ushered inside. Eska led the way up the stairs and down the corridor to her parents’ bedchamber. Bastien and Cosimo lay Perrin gently on the stripped bed, then Eska sent them downstairs with instructions for Bastien to return with hot water and broth.
As the door closed behind them, Eska untied Perrin’s boots and pulled them free, then tucked the blankets tighter around him. He had not grown worse in the four days it had taken to travel to the Vachon Valley—at least not in any manner Eska could detect—but neither had he improved. He would sweat without growing hot and toss and turn in a waking sleep, then he would rest so soundly he hardly appeared to be breathing. When he was conscious, he made attempts at humor and insisted he had improved, but always the sweating returned and Eska could see how difficult it was for him to even grasp a flask of water and raise it to his lips. As for Eska, a second dose of the harrow root halfway through the journey was still deep at work inside her veins.
She felt Perrin’s forehead, as she had done countless times in the previous four days, but he was still cool to the touch. Lifting his head, she settled a feather-stuffed pillow beneath it. He moaned at the touch, his hands reaching up through the blankets to claw at his collar. This, too, she had seen before, on the road to the valley. Taking first one hand, then the other, she held them until he grew still.
“Perrin,” she whispered. “It’s all right.”
He went ridged and his eyelids fluttered open. As his back arched away from the bed, his eyes rolled back into his skull. And then he went limp.
Eska let out a sharp exhale, her heart racing. “Perrin?” The weight of his hands in hers suddenly frightened her and she jumped up from the bed. Her hands shook as she took a small mirror from her mother’s dressing table and held it under Perrin’s nose. The glass fogged over ever so slightly.
Still shaken, Eska returned the mirror but it was a long moment before she willed herself to touch him again. This time, as her fingers brushed away a lock of hair that had fallen across his forehead, he remained unmoving. Eska took a deep breath and stood just as Bastien slipped into the room with a tray.
“The broth, my lady, and hot water,” the young man said.
“Thank you. Bastien, will you stay with him? I need to ask Rosina what herbs she has readily available that might help him.” The harrow root spoke the words more than Eska did, imbuing her with steadiness. Its heavy influence, made stronger by the fact that she had ingested it raw, was insisting she could renew Perrin’s health, and she walked slowly down the corridor, trying to piece together the puzzle of his ailment, trying to will herself to greater understanding of healing and what could be done for him. She came to a halt at the top of the stairs, her hand on the balustrade, her mind elsewhere, and so intent was she on her thoughts that she did not notice the figure with one foot on the bottom step.
“Eska?”
The familiar voice broke through and Eska looked down at the face of her uncle.
Valentin de Caraval was still dressed in his traveling clothes, his hair wind-ruffled, dirt on the toes of his boots. It was, Eska realized faintly, not unlike many scenes that had played out in her childhood: him just returned from a far off place, her at the top of the stairs, rushing eagerly into the laughing embrace of the man who had been as much a parent to her as her mother or father. Eska knew he was thinking of the same moments—and his hesitation, which matched hers, told her he was also thinking of the last time they had seen each other.
They met in the middle, Valentin looking her over with concern, Eska smiling a smile given to her by the harrow root. He kissed her cheek, his hand on her elbow.
“I didn’t know you were coming to the valley,” Valentin said quietly.
“I didn’t know myself.”
“I saw Gabriel.” The statement disguised the question. “Rosina said you just arrived.”
“There are nine of us,” Eska said. There were ten, in fact, but Eska was trying to maneuver her way around mentioning that a Barca was sleeping in her parents’ bed. “We needed a place to rest.” The ambiguity of that was laughable.
Valentin’s gaze narrowed. “Are you all right? I would not have expected you to finish at the Bourdillon-Leveque site so quickly.”
“We came from Cancalo, actually,” Eska said, evading once more. Not because she didn’t trust her uncle—she did, with her life if need be. But how to begin when one needs to explain that one is wanted for murder in one of the Seven Cities and been chased out of a second for, well, what her crimes in Cancalo were, she supposed she wasn’t certain. But she suspected she wouldn’t be welcome in the city in the near future.
To her relief, her uncle shifted the subject, taking a slender wooden box from a leather bag slung over one shoulder. It was still tied with a white ribbon, just as it had been that morning in the kitchen in Arconia, though the ribbon was decidedly crumpled.
“I’ve,” Valentin began, his gaze fixed on the object in his hands, “I’ve been carrying this around.”
Afterward, Eska could not have said what words might have come from her lips in that moment. Equal parts of her wished to push the gift away and take comfort in it, in that piece of her childhood. But the decision was taken from her when a scream carved open the silence.
Her chest constricting, Eska whirled and bolted back up the stairs. At the landing, she took the corner and raced back to her parents’ chamber. She flung the door open and was aware of her uncle a few steps behind her, but she had eyes only for the figure on the bed.
Perrin’s body was contorted in a horrible manner, his back arching as before but all his limbs splayed at uncomfortable angles. One hand had caught hold of Bastien’s collar, and the young man was being pulled down onto the bed. Eska rushed forward and tried to disengage Perrin’s hand without hurting him, but his fingers were locked in a claw-like grip. From behind Eska, Valentin hurled himself at Bastien and his weight knocked the younger man free. Both men went crashing to the floorboards.
Perrin panted, his eyes pushing back into his skull once more, but gradually his arms and legs loosened and the hand that had latched onto Bastien dropped to his chest.
“What was that?”
The question came from Valentin, who got to his feet and offered Bastien a hand.
“I don’t know,” Eska said. She looked to Bastien. “Was it violent? His movement, I mean.”
Bastien was already shaking his head. “No. He woke, tried to speak. I leaned over to hear him. And then he screamed and the rest you saw.”
Eska shifted her gaze to Valentin. “He’s been ill since we departed from Cancalo. Sweating without fever. Muscle weakness. Losing consciousness. I was hoping Rosina could help him.”
Valentin was looking at Eska with questions burning behind his eyes, but as he glanced at Bastien and then back to her, she understood he would wait for privacy to ask them. What she could not see in his face was whether he recognized Perrin as the son of his greatest rival.
Only after Rosina had brewed a tea that would help Perrin sleep more soundly, after Eska and Gabriel had settled the Firenzia crewmembers into the guest rooms and the small servant quarters, after Master Pietro had returned from his traps and tramped through the house with his customary cheer and laughter, after Gael and Inevra prepared a root vegetable soup, after Eska refused Pietro’s offer of a fresh-caught doe—which somehow
ended up roasting on a spit in the back garden regardless of the refusal, after the small group had gathered around the enormous rough-hewn oak table under a linen canopy and eaten the soup and venison in the burgeoning twilight, after Eska had helped wash and dry dishes in the kitchen—only after all of that did Eska and her uncle find themselves alone.
Drying her hands on an apron she had found hanging on a nail in the kitchen’s closet, Eska went to stand at the rear door of the house. She looked out over the garden and the dying fire, at the swallows darting from branch to branch, and as she turned her gaze to the path to the stream, she saw him, a tall dark shape standing on the bank of the small river.
It took a moment for Eska to realize Valentin was not watching the water rush by. He was watching her, as though he had known she would appear in the doorframe.
Her hands were steady as she untied the apron and returned it to the closet, and her steps were sure and unhurried as she walked the path to the stream. After all, she did not intend to lie to her uncle. There was, however, one question she hoped he wouldn’t ask.
The effects of the harrow root had faded to nothing over the course of the day. Her mind told her that was for the best. But part of her wondered if she would not rather have the coming conversation with it supporting her, despite knowing that consuming it so close on the heels of her last use was dangerous. She pushed thoughts of the powder away.
They stood shoulder to shoulder for a long moment, the stream gurgling through the rocky bed at their feet. Eska was content to wait.
“What’s going on? Why were you in Cancalo?” Valentin asked at last. Once he would have begun by reassuring her that whatever her troubles were, they could be righted. But the shared memory of their last conversation in Arconia lay like a shadow between them.
“Would you like my version of events or the story no doubt circulating the Seven Cities?” Eska asked. “I’m surprised you haven’t heard it already, actually.”
“I’ve been across the Anerrean Sea,” Valentin said by way of answer. “Making preparations in Anderra for an expedition to Sandalese,” he continued, surprising Eska. The republic of Sandalese lay far to the north and was yet uncharted ground for Firenzia Company. “Part exploratory for Firenzia, of course, but also for the prince of Anderra, who is generously contributing funds and a security escort.” He went silent. “There’s a place for you, of course.” It was a peace offering of sorts and normally Eska would have jumped at the chance to travel to new lands, even if it meant swallowing her differences with her uncle for a time.
“Perhaps I will take it.” She heard herself laugh. A bitter sound. “After all, I’m not likely to be hunted all the way to Sandalese.”
“Hunted?” Valentin’s voice dropped low and he stepped close to Eska.
Eska took a deep breath. “A Chancellor of Toridium is dead and I am accused of poisoning him,” she said. She glanced away from the stream, black now as night gathered, and up at her uncle’s face. The disbelief she saw there would have been comical if the subject was anything other than murder. “That’s the story spreading from Toridium. I didn’t kill anyone.”
She had spoken those exact words five days before to Eden San-Germain. This time she had the chance to explain herself. Eska looked back at the river, wondering if she would ever have that opportunity with the Regatta Master of Lake Delo.
And so she told her uncle of the diplomatic delegation to Toridium, of the negotiations with Chancellors Fiorlieu and Pelle, of Chancellor Fiorlieu’s illness and her attempt to influence the negotiations by suggesting a remedy, of the sudden news of his death and her subsequent detainment in her chambers—and of course of her midnight escape from Toridium.
Valentin de Caraval took in her words in silence, not once interrupting to ask a question or to clarify a point. When she finished, he folded his arms behind his back, one hand clasping the other wrist, and looked out at the pines and the rising hills on the other side of the stream.
“Why Cancalo?” he asked. “Why flee? Or if you felt you had no choice, why not home to Arconia and your father?”
Eska took a breath, trying to order her thoughts. “Amidst all the events in Toridium, I received a letter from Albus Courtenay. You remember Albus, from the Lordican. Untidy librarian. Fluent in sixteen languages.”
Valentin nodded.
“Before I left Arconia, Albus and I were studying an unusual object. He continued to do so after Mama and I departed for Toridium,” Eska continued, speaking as vaguely as she could. “In my absence, he identified the object—or at least he appears to have—and his letter spoke of a second one. In Cancalo.”
Again her uncle was quiet. When he spoke again, his gaze came to rest on Eska’s face. “So you absconded from Toridium, no doubt confirming your guilt in the Vismarch’s eyes, all for something buried in the earth.” His voice was not quite scathing, but closer to it than Eska would have liked—certainly he had never used that tone with her in all her life. It did not seem the time to correct the details of what she had sought in Cancalo.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Eska said, determined to remain calm. “That it was a foolish decision. That I have risked myself and my family’s name without reflecting on the consequences. I would hope, uncle, that you know me well enough and respect me enough to know that if my actions have been rash, I have had a good reason for them.”
Though the night had overtaken them completely, the light emanating from the stone house allowed Eska to see Valentin’s stern expression loosen enough to permit a hint of begrudging acceptance of her argument.
“If I ask what you were looking for, will you tell me?”
“I think that counts as asking,” Eska said, smiling slightly. But she sobered quickly. “But I,” she hesitated, unsure of her answer, “I don’t think I should. Not now anyway.” That the Alescuan reliquary was at that very moment sitting inside her bedchamber, begging to be opened, was a thing not to be thought of. “I don’t mean to be rude or possessive,” she hurried on, not wanting to close up the gap that had opened in the wall between them. “But things happened in Cancalo. And until I know the situation there, the fewer people who know, the better. I intend to stay here, where few might know to look, until I know how things stand in both cities.” She attempted a laugh. “I expect I’ll be writing letters from dawn to dusk tomorrow.”
“Things happened,” Valentin repeated. “First a poisoning and now mysterious events you won’t explain.” To Eska’s relief, the harsh tone did not return to his voice. Her uncle turned away, raised his face to the stars, and sighed deeply. When he turned back to her, he placed a hand on her shoulder. “I won’t demand more explanation. You are brave and bold and probably more clever than you should be. And I trust you to take care of yourself.” He ducked his chin slightly to look her more squarely in the eye. “Just promise me that if you need my help, you will ask for it.”
Eska reached up and took his hand, then threw her other arm around him. “I promise,” she said, though the secrets she was keeping, secrets under the very roof they would both sleep beneath that night, made the words sour in her mouth. Still, it felt good to have him hold her as he had so often done when she was a girl. They both leaned into the embrace for a long moment.
When Valentin straightened, he asked the question, or very near to it, Eska had hoped he had forgotten. “And the man who is ill? Surely he needs more assistance than Rosina or Nahia can give him. He could be a danger to someone.” But before Eska had to answer, her uncle went on. “Then again, I suppose further travel might make his condition worse.” A pause, the darkness keeping his expression from her. “This was his first job with the company?”
Eska made a noncommittal noise that could have passed for confirmation.
“That’s a shame.” And then his mind seemed to shift once more. “Wait here a moment.” Valentin retreated into the house, emerging a moment later with something in hand. As he approached, a silhouette against the windows of the stone
house, Eska saw he once again held the wooden box tied with a ribbon. He held it out. “I had it made after my visit to the island of Lanore last year.”
Eska took the gift and pulled away the ribbon. Lifting the lid of the box, she could just make out the gleam of black pearls amid tiny diamonds, all fastened to an intricate silver hairpin. She touched a pearl with one fingertip.
“I hope you like it,” Valentin said quietly. “Black pearls are a Lanorish specialty.”
Eska smiled. “It’s beautiful,” she said. And her uncle smiled, too.
But all Eska could think about as she closed the box was what ancient artifact he had dismantled to create the pin and what had been discarded, regardless of the story it might tell—if only someone would listen. All for the sake of a pretty thing Eska could wear in her hair.
Eska checked on Perrin before retiring to her chamber. He was sleeping soundly, thanks to Rosina’s tea. Tomorrow, she would have to see that he ate something of greater sustenance. But sleep did not come for Eska that night and in the morning, after waking before the rest of the house, she went out to the stable in an old pair of her father’s slippers and returned to the house with a large canvas feedbag.
This she filled, one by one, with every gift her uncle had given her over the years that had ended up in the house in the Vachon Valley. The cracked, rudimentary spyglass that had belonged to a warrior empress of old Kyoria. A carved amber bear from Novere. A necklace of sapphires and obsidian once worn by a princess of Altidor. Other gifts, great and small, all taken from their place of origin for the sake of the gold and silver they were worth at auction or could conjure from a private buyer’s purse. When she finished, Eska cinched the feedbag shut, aware of a curious sensation filling her chest: relief.