I must stay at the University until I finish the calculations for Rafe. It is Very Important. I miss you all very much and will come home as soon as I can but if I am not home before Bessie has her next calf do not forget to check that she is in the barn at night and give her lots of wheat until the calf is ready to come out. It is my turn to pick a name and I have picked the name Trigonometry because it is a very pretty word. Please please do not forget or let Cousin Seth pick the name because he named the last calf. Love, Micah.
Kaab was on her way home to Uncle Chuleb and Aunt Saabim. It wasn’t a terribly long walk from Riverside to the Kinwiinik Traders’ quarter, but her thighs were aching, her arms were sore, and her head was filled with everything she didn’t yet know: about fighting, about this city and the many smaller cities it contained, and about whoever had killed Ben. Her arms felt like ship’s ballast weighing down her shoulders, and when she raised a hand to wipe the sweat from her face, sharp pain shot through her muscles.
If she were to be set upon right now, she wasn’t sure she’d even be able to draw her sword. Its weight on her hip was normally reassuring, but today it was a burden, another reminder of everything she didn’t know and everything she hadn’t yet achieved.
Applethorpe had worked her past the point of exhaustion over the last few days, saying that it was not how well she fought at her best but how well she fought at her worst that would keep her alive. Kaab had woken before dawn day after day to join him down in Riverside. He then worked her well into the night, insisting that she practice despite the bruises from missed parries, the burn of overexerted muscles, and the lack of sleep. She did have to admit that eventually the aches and pains had transformed into a new stamina and rock-hard muscles, but it was difficult to be grateful when she was still burningly aware of how much Applethorpe’s skill exceeded her own: Despite all the training and all of her own knowledge, she hadn’t been able to best him once.
Her mood wasn’t helped by a nagging sense that whatever her aunt Ixsaabim and uncle Chuleb would say about her scarcity around the family compound would not be laced with wild enthusiasm. Although Kaab felt certain that her efforts to improve her skills and understand more about the workings of this strange city were worthwhile, she wasn’t at all sure that Saabim and Chuleb would see matters that way; she worried they would accuse her of shirking her duties. So as much as she hated to do so, Kaab was prepared to be contrite. Or, well, she was prepared to seem contrite. Actual contrition was another matter entirely.
As she entered the Kinwiinik enclave, the foreignness of the City gave way to familiar sights and sounds. The roof of the Balam family compound rose like a temple above the buildings that surrounded it, towering over them physically the way the Balam towered over the other Traders in status and importance, but there were enough other Kinwiinik families to have created a little piece of home in this foreign territory.
Even those who spoke the Local language here did so with Kinwiinik rhythms and accents, making that tongue their own. Kaab passed compounds whose outer walls were decorated with murals in the bright colors and angular style of home, a heartwarming sight after the muted shades of Local houses. She caught a brief whiff of steamed corn and smoked chiles, and felt her belly growl. She closed her eyes to take a deeper breath, but just then someone shouted her name, and she spun on her heel to see a ball bouncing toward her from a gang of children. Normally she would have kicked it back—well, perhaps after showing off a bit by bouncing it from knee to hip—but today she was too tired and merely stepped aside. Little Ahjuub groaned in disappointment, then raced past her after the ball.
Across the street, the elder auntie Ixnoom greeted her with a wry smile at the children’s antics. She had run one of the Balam family’s warehouses before retiring and now dedicated most of her time to gardening. There was a potted plant on her doorstep that Kaab recognized as passion fruit, a plant she hadn’t seen since leaving Binkiinha.
“Isn’t it too cold to grow passion fruit here?” she asked, keeping her voice respectful as she questioned an elder. It was good to speak Kindaan again, after days spent among people who didn’t understand it. Kaab was fluent in the Locals’ language, but there was no language like her own, the language of her childhood games, of her mother’s prayers, of her first awkward flirtations, the language that required no thought or hesitation, whose every shade of meaning and poetic allusion and piece of slang was as obvious and clear to her as the water in a mountain lake.
Ixnoom nodded and gently stroked a leaf with one wrinkled finger. “It’s never produced a fruit, not one, and even its flowers are few and far between.” Then she looked up at Kaab, a twinkle of amusement in her dark eyes. “But it hasn’t died yet either! May we all do so well here.”
Kaab passed on with a polite smile, stepping around the decrepit donkey and matching decrepit cart belonging to Ahaak. A cat sunned itself on top of the low wall surrounding the family’s compound. Cats were rare in their homeland, and this one in particular held herself like the goddess Ixchel, beautiful and queenly; it seemed out of place adorning the household of one of the lesser Traders.
Kaab felt at home here. But then, she was beginning to feel the same thing about Riverside. The two neighborhoods, though so different, shared a similar vibrancy, an inescapable energy. Neither of them were truly where she belonged, but they were beginning to feel like places she could be happy.
She was glad to reach the Balam family compound after the bustle of the streets. But once she had passed through the doors, she found the house startlingly still. There were no women in the courtyard chatting as they ground corn into flour or wove on their small looms, nor any men guarding the door or tending to the family’s animals. No children shrieked and ran from spot to spot. The quiet was unnatural. Kaab drew her sword—surprised at the new instinct that made her go for it over her dagger even with her aching shoulders—but kept it low as she crept down the first passageway and past the now-empty banquet hall.
She reached her uncle’s office without breaking the silence and found most of the household there, gathered in a tight circle around Ixsaabim and Chuleb. Their two heads were bent together, studying something Chuleb held in his hands, while the cousins and elders and a few of the bolder servants tried to peer over their shoulders.
Kaab let her sword fall to her side, but didn’t sheathe it. “What’s going on?”
The murmur of worried and excited conversation broke off at the sound of her voice. People turned toward her, and she saw several pairs of eyes drop down to her weapon and widen in surprise. Someone giggled nervously.
At least her aunt Ixsaabim smiled kindly on seeing her. “We could ask you the same thing. Breaking and entering, little bee?”
Kaab hastily sheathed her sword and unbuckled the belt, her motions clumsy from embarrassment. “I do live here.”
“Do you? We haven’t been sure lately,” Saabim said good-naturedly, but Kaab didn’t miss the mild scolding.
She quickly changed the topic, jerking her chin toward the paper Chuleb had passed to a widowed aunt. “What have I missed?”
Chuleb was silent, as though he were considering not sharing the news with her. That hesitation was worse than any yelling, any punishment; being shut out from the work of her family even for a few seconds made her fiercely regret having toiled so hard to avoid them for days. She had neglected her vow to prove herself a first daughter, loyal and industrious, when she had already been given a second chance.
Thankfully, Chuleb did not force her to ask again. After a pause long enough to make his point, he answered, “It seems we have been invited to the Duchess Tremontaine’s ball.”
Kaab blinked wordlessly, as she struggled to switch gears to focus on her family’s concerns after all the intrigue and exhaustion of Riverside. Realizing that she had been silent too long, Kaab blurted, “Why would she invite us?”
“I believe she wishes to do business with us.”
Kaab remembered the duchess’s odd
visit to Chuleb’s study, the half-spoken questions and evasive answers cloaked in elaborate politeness. So this was what had come of it! Still: “That explains nothing,” she said. “Does the Batab invite the farmers in his fields to his banquets, or his wife let the gardeners place flowers in her hair? What is the real reason the duchess invited us?”
“That,” Chuleb chided, “is what we were discussing when you came stalking in here flaunting that sword. It is not the way of the Balam to rush in with weapons drawn.” He looked at her more closely, and she saw sympathy displace the disappointment in his expression. She must look terrible, Kaab thought wryly, to make his eyes soften in that way. “Has something happened, Niece? Did you have a reason to fear this house was in danger?”
She didn’t, of course. True, the silent, empty house had spooked her. In Riverside she had seen the marks of an expert stabbing on a man’s corpse, and she was besotted with a girl who was being stalked by an unknown danger. But there was no reason to suspect those matters had anything to do with the Balam.
“Maybe I could find out,” she said, hoping to distract from her preoccupation, “why the duchess invited her potential business partners to her exclusive party on the Hill.”
Chuleb frowned, wary but intrigued. “How?”
She wasn’t actually sure. But better to try something and see if it worked than admit to ignorance. “Let me see the invitation,” she said, pleased at the cool confidence of her voice.
It had been slowly making its way from hand to hand throughout the family. Aunt Saabim handed it over with a teasing, “Expecting a secret message? Invisible ink, perhaps? Or a code that escaped the notice of the rest of us?”
Kaab frowned and made a show of turning the invitation over carefully in her hands, examining the phrasing and the loops of the oddly sparse Xanamwiinik letters. Was this the duchess’s own hand? Kinwiinik nobles never did their own writing; they employed scribes for that.
“Do they have scribes here?” she asked suddenly.
“They call them secretaries,” piped up one of her young male cousins. The Local word snagged on a memory.
“I know the Tremontaine duke’s secretary. I’ve already won his trust,” she said proudly, if not entirely accurately. She had no idea if this handwriting belonged to Rafe, but even if the Tremontaines had multiple secretaries to write their invitations, surely Rafe would know about it. “The oldest son of the Fenton family, the one I have been following because of—” She broke off, aware of the eyes on her. She couldn’t say because of his interest in the mysteries of moving across the sea; that was a situation she wanted to keep closely guarded, hoping it would come to nothing. She shrugged sheepishly and looked embarrassed. “Because of his lovely hair. And his eyes . . .” Had they been blue? Green? Chee, she couldn’t remember. “Like jewels!” she finished, figuring that was a safe enough comparison.
One of her distant uncles laughed. “I had heard you preferred women, little bee! If you have changed your tastes, be careful. Do not let a son of this land besmirch your honor.”
Kaab managed to maintain her smile by force of will. “Of course, Great Uncle.”
“Yes,” said Saabim slowly, exchanging a look with her husband. “The oldest son of the Fenton family. His mother’s been bragging to everyone about her son’s new place in the duke’s household. Information from him could be very useful.”
Chuleb nodded stiffly. He was still frowning, but Kaab suspected he was actually pleased. “You have our permission to see what he knows. But be subtle, Niece. Bring no drawn swords into this matter.”
Kaab grinned. “Rafe wouldn’t know subtle if it hit him over the head. This will be an easy task.” She schooled her voice to formality and put her hand over her heart. Like a good first daughter, she said, “Thank you, Uncle, Aunt. I will solve this mystery for you.”
The Inkpot was not the best place to work on her calculations, but then neither were Rafe’s rooms. Although Rafe had told Micah that his rooms at the University were private, there were always people coming and going, insisting on talking about things that were very important to them but weren’t very important to Micah; she suspected they might not have been very important at all. Even Rafe did that sometimes. He was insistent on how the world should be, and when it didn’t match his ideas, it made him upset. Which just meant that he talked even more.
Worse than having extra people in Rafe’s rooms talking at her while she was working was when the extra people wanted to sleep there. It made sense because that’s what students’ rooms were for, but Micah wished they wouldn’t. After all, they weren’t their rooms, and they tended to snore and drool and sometimes fall asleep right on top of Micah’s few belongings. Of course, they weren’t Micah’s rooms either. And Rafe’s friends were like her: They had nowhere else to go.
So when she was very, very annoyed by Rafe’s friends and couldn’t be polite any longer, she went to the Inkpot. Sometimes when she was writing letters home she got tomato pie smeared on the paper, but at least her family would know that she was eating well.
Her table was jostled, and Micah looked up with a frown. But it wasn’t a stranger who had pulled out the seat across from her—it was Kaab, the nice foreign lady.
“Do you have the charts for me?” Micah asked, then remembered to say hello.
Kaab sank into the chair stiffly, like Uncle Amos when his joints were bothering him. “No, not yet. My family is concerned, because they’re very useful to us. What if you took them home, and then we needed to check on some detail about the stars in their courses? But don’t worry, we’re making you a copy of your own. As soon as it’s done, I’ll bring it to you.” She leaned forward to look at Micah’s papers. “What are these notes?”
“It’s mathematics.”
“Yes, I see.” Kaab peered at Micah’s work, though it was upside down to her. “And how are your calculations today?”
Micah blinked at her. Kaab always asked about that, though she didn’t really listen to the answer. Kaab really didn’t like numbers, even though she liked the things numbers were for. Micah thought that most people were like that a little, but Kaab was like that a lot.
“They’re numbers,” Micah said. “They don’t change.”
Kaab smiled. “Do you know where Rafe is?”
Micah shook her head. “No, I don’t. If he were nearby, we would be able to hear him.”
The smile turned to a grin.
“I’m going to keep calculating,” Micah said, turning her attention back to her papers. “Rafe will show up eventually.”
Rafe did. He came through the door of the Inkpot in midsentence, gesticulating wildly and walking backward to keep his attention on the friends following him rather than where he was going. He bumped into another student and briefly interrupted himself to apologize before picking up where he’d left off. Micah knew that meant he wasn’t talking about his Big Ideas. If he was talking about the Big Ideas, he wouldn’t have even noticed the collision. The people following him—Joshua and another student—weren’t entirely listening, but Rafe didn’t realize it, or perhaps he didn’t care. Micah wasn’t sure. Being Rafe was apparently very different from being her.
Kaab raised a hand to catch Rafe’s attention, but Rafe had already noticed Micah and was pointing at her. “And this, Henry, is Micah. I discovered him, and he has been invaluable to my project; he has a facility for numbers and a dedication to his labors that we should all strive to emulate. Also, he made Volney furious, which is a reward all its own.”
“Doctor Volney was wrong,” Micah pointed out, not for the first time. She was sick of people talking about it. Anyone could have seen Volney’s mistake, if only they’d looked closely enough.
“Do we have to get into this again?” Kaab asked, and Micah was glad that she wasn’t the only one who was bored with Volney.
“Ah, Kaab! I’m so glad to see you. Allow me to introduce you to my friends.” Rafe turned to Joshua and Henry. “This is Ixkaab Balam. She’s a Ki
nwiinik princess,” he said in a manner that even Micah could tell meant he was showing off. She was about to ask Kaab if she really was a princess, because Micah had heard that kings and queens were evil and so maybe their daughters were too, but before she could, Rafe sat in the chair next to Kaab and leaned toward her.
“Have you decided you want to study at the University too? I’d be happy to show you around. Don’t trust these two.” He pointed at Joshua and Henry with his thumb as they found chairs of their own. “They’d only want to get you alone so they could try to seduce a woman of your beauty and sophistication.”
Joshua rolled his eyes and Henry blushed, but Kaab just shook her head. “I don’t have enough time.”
Rafe scoffed. “All you have is time! Whenever I see you, you’re exploring here or in Riverside or the gods know where else, while I’m stuck doing petty secretarial work and desperately trying to get some of the antiquated bats who run this place to examine me so I can finally call myself a Master of Natural Science.”
Kaab tilted her head to one side, amused by Rafe’s rant. “I’m learning. I thought you would encourage that.”
“I do, I do, but what are you learning? Street names? Where to find the best shopping? There’s more to the world than that, Kaab!” Rafe pounded his fist on the table, making Micah’s chocolate cup wobble. “You could be helping Micah here with his calculations! No one in this whole city knows as much about navigation as you do, and instead of teaching us you’re off prancing about the town!”
Micah’s eyes darted back and forth between them. Kaab had pursed her lips and would probably laugh at Rafe soon. But Micah didn’t think Rafe would mind, because Kaab laughed at him often. Micah liked to watch them, although she didn’t quite understand their friendship.
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