“Now that we are all here, we can begin,” Chauncey said, shuffling his papers in front of him. “This is the oral examination for Rafe Fenton, who wishes to be considered a Master of Natural Science. Doctor Theodorick de Bertel, who was originally scheduled to take part in this examination, has been taken ill. Normally we would await his recovery, but the University board has insisted that we find a replacement, and we are grateful to Doctor Lyttle for stepping in.”
Chauncey’s explanation made Rafe suspicious. It was all a little too facile, and Rafe wondered if the Duke Tremontaine had had something to do with this. Will had been unusually ebullient when they had last parted, assuring Rafe with a curious degree of certainty that the exam would go very well. At the time, Rafe had allowed himself to believe that Will simply was confident in Rafe’s intellect, but now a worm of doubt began to worry its way into Rafe’s already queasy belly.
Chauncey squinted through the Badrick Hall gloom at Rafe. “Do you, Rafe Fenton, hereby declare your fitness to be examined as to your knowledge of the natural philosophy, so that you may represent the University as a Master of your field?”
Here was his chance to call Lyttle’s presence into question, but Rafe couldn’t bring himself to do it. He had waited too long, struggled against too many obstacles—his parents, who never supported his scholarly pursuits; de Bertel and all those other pompous magisters who comforted themselves with lies; even the Duchess Tremontaine, who took every opportunity to insult him. No, whether Will had orchestrated this committee or not, this was Rafe’s one chance to attain his Mastership. Once this was behind him, the way would be open for him to found his school. He sat up straighter in the hard-backed chair and replied, “Yes, sir.”
“Very well. We shall begin with a general overview,” said Chauncey. “Please explain the intellectual history of the natural sciences, beginning with the earliest theories put forth at this University, and proceeding through their various and sundry arguments, rebuttals, and the like, to our present-day status.”
Rafe knew the answer to this question inside out; it was simply a basic reiteration of the standard scholarship from Rastin through Chickering. He launched into his response with no hesitation, ignoring the growing discomfort in his stomach. He shouldn’t have drunk that amandyne Joshua had thrust upon him; it was certainly no substitute for chocolate. He didn’t feel any more awake; he only felt increasingly ill.
The follow-up questions posed by the committee were suspiciously simple, though toward midmorning Chauncey did begin to veer into disputed territory. He asked Rafe to explain the central thesis of Chesney’s Observations on the Nature of Heaviness and Lightness and the influence of the work on current theories. This led to a lengthy exegesis on the part of Lyttle about the orbit of the moon, which had nothing to do with anything but allowed him to espouse his ridiculous theory of eclipses yet again.
As Lyttle prattled on, a clammy sweat broke out on Rafe’s back that he was certain was due to the amandyne rather than the exam. What was in that drink, anyway? He had purchased it near the University square at Olivey’s Chocolate House, which had run out of chocolate two days ago. There had been a sour edge to the drink that reminded him slightly of the way the Balams had served their chocolate at the banquet for Kaab, but the Balam chocolate (the thought of it alone shot a pang of yearning straight through him, despite his upset stomach) had not had this effect.
“Fenton, what is your opinion on this?” Chauncey barked.
Rafe blinked; he had fallen into a sweaty stupor as Lyttle and Chauncey argued over some notion about tides. He was forced to say, “I’m sorry, sir, can you repeat the question?”
Chauncey looked grim. “What is your opinion of Chickering’s theory that the earth is not fixed in place?”
Rafe felt excessively hot all over, and he had to resist the urge to clutch his stomach. This question could surely end his academic dreams if he didn’t answer it correctly. Chauncey was probably the only magister in the College of Natural Science to secretly support Rafe’s view of experimental science, but would he support Rafe in public? You tend to ruin things for yourself, Joshua had told him. Rafe took a deep breath and swallowed the acidic dregs of amandyne that had risen ominously in his throat, determined for once not to ruin things.
* * *
Jeremiah Clarkson arrived at Olivey’s Chocolate House to find a sign had been tacked over the front door. It read:
now serving amandyne!
better than chocolate
Inside, the usually bustling chocolate house was nearly empty; only a few University students were slouched over books by the front window, cups of chalky liquid at their elbows. Duncan Olivey himself presided gloomily over the bar at the rear of the shop, where on happier days he would have been serving hot chocolate mixed with cream and sugar to eager patrons. Today the chocolate pots were empty, and the shop had a sour smell.
Clarkson walked through the quiet room toward the bar. “Duncan, what’s this amandyne business?” he asked.
Duncan, who had stopped drinking the amandyne himself because it disagreed with his stomach, said, “Have you come here to steal what tiny bit of business I have left?”
“Is it that bad?”
“You made your chocolate last two days longer than I did.”
Clarkson sighed. “Well, at least you’ve got this stuff here.” He gestured to the pitcher of amandyne on the bar. “Can I try it?”
Duncan poured a small sample into a cup and slid it over. Clarkson raised the liquid to his nose and took a sniff. He realized that the sour odor that permeated Olivey’s establishment came from this amandyne. Clarkson took a reluctant sip. The drink’s color resembled milk, but it tasted nothing like it. It was faintly nutty, lukewarm, and had been sweetened with honey. It had the same slightly grainy texture as chocolate, but that was where the comparison ended.
“What do you think?” Duncan asked.
“Well, it’s not very good, is it?” Clarkson said.
Duncan sighed. “It’s the best I can do. The stuff is horrible.” He eyed the University students, who were paying no attention to the two older men at the rear of the shop. “And between you and me, it makes people sick if they drink too much. I don’t think it’s going to save us.”
Clarkson set down the cup of amandyne and frowned. “I was hoping this might be an option.”
Duncan leaned closer to Clarkson and said in a low voice, “I’ve heard that this whole chocolate shortage is a lie.”
“What?”
“Someone—I can’t say who—informed me that the Kinwiinik have plenty in stock, but aren’t selling it to our dealers.”
“Why not? This is a disaster!”
“Hill politics,” Duncan said cryptically.
“Who told you this?” Clarkson pressed. Duncan was a friend, but he also had a tendency to dramatize.
“If you want the information, you’ll support our petition to the Dragon Chancellor,” Duncan said. “The Council’s hiding something. We want him to tell us the truth about the chocolate supply.”
Clarkson had been a member of the Merchants’ Confederation ever since he opened his chocolate house a dozen years ago, but he had never involved himself in the Confederation’s backroom dealings with the Council. Perhaps now was the time. He extended his hand to Duncan. “All right, I’m in. Now tell me what’s going on.”
Duncan leaned forward and muttered, “The Confederation has a contact who saw a Kinwiinik warehouse that’s completely full of chocolate.”
* * *
Accounting had never been one of Kaab’s favorite aspects of a life in the Traders’ service, but checking shipping records was less arduous when accomplished outside in the courtyard beneath a blue sky. The steady burbling of the waterfall accompanied by the occasional twittering of the green-and-yellow-feathered birds that had alighted in the gum trees made the courtyard especially beautiful at this time of year. If Kaab closed her eyes while the sun warmed her dark hair, she could eas
ily believe that she had been transported back home. She had done that often when she first arrived in the City, but as the weeks passed, she had grown to develop a surprising fondness for this backwater trading post . . . and the people who lived here.
Her thoughts flew to Tess (as they did more and more lately), ink brush in hand as she bent over her work, a few stray locks of fiery hair curling down her neck. It was only a couple of days since Kaab had last called on Tess, but it already felt like too long. The memory of her last visit brought a smile to Kaab’s lips and a warm flush to her skin. She would return to Riverside today, Kaab decided, and she would bring Tess a special gift.
“Ixkaab, the next statement?” Uncle Chuleb said.
“I’m sorry, Uncle,” Kaab said, wrenching herself back to the present. Her uncle had spread out the most recent shipping manifests on the reed mat, and it was Kaab’s task to read the appropriate quantities out loud so he could note them down in the accounting book, where he would total everything they had in stock. Currently they were dealing with an excess of supply due to their agreement with the Duchess Tremontaine. They had learned that morning that some Local merchants suspected the Balam were holding back chocolate, which meant that Kaab’s next duty would be to make sure the warehouse was secure against theft and gossip. Their warehouse manager was a loyal Kinwiinik and would not betray any Balam secrets, but that didn’t mean other workers, particularly the Xanamwiinik hired on locally, might not talk. And there was a lot of chocolate to hide.
A servant emerged from the arcade near the front of the house and crossed the sun-drenched courtyard, bearing a plain white letter that he presented, with a bow, to Chuleb. He glanced at it absently and then again more sharply. “Who brought this?” he asked the servant.
“A boy, sir, likely hired on the street by someone else.”
“Is he still here?”
“We paid him and he left, sir. Should I send someone after him?”
“No, that’s all right.” Uncle Chuleb set his brush down upon the tray at his elbow and unsealed the letter. Kaab watched as he scanned the words, eyebrows furrowing.
“What is it, Uncle?” she asked.
He handed it to her without explanation, and while she began to read the fine handwriting, he asked the servant to find Aunt Saabim. There was no signature at the end of the letter, but clearly it was from the Duchess Tremontaine.
Aunt Saabim arrived shortly, walking a bit more slowly now that she was approaching the middle of her pregnancy. “What is it, my love?” she asked with concern. Uncle Chuleb acquired a stool for her, and she sat down beside Kaab near the accounting books.
Kaab handed the letter to her aunt. “News from the Hill,” Kaab explained.
After reading, Saabim said, “The duchess is a bold woman. If this letter had fallen into the wrong hands . . .”
Kaab nodded. “She is quite confident that it would not.”
Aunt Saabim scrutinized the letter again. “The way she drops in the revelation that she is behind the rumors circulating among the merchants is artful. That was certainly not in our original agreement.”
“The woman is a serpent,” Uncle Chuleb declared. “Why are we trusting her?”
Aunt Saabim said thoughtfully, “She is making a statement to us. She is telling us that the matter is under her control. That the City is under her control. She is trying to show that she has the upper hand.”
Kaab said nothing, but she privately thought it showed the duchess’s weakness: a need to be perceived as powerful. In truth, the upper hand belonged to the Balam. They controlled the chocolate; the duchess did not. And their generosity in the past in agreeing to pay the tariff had been a display of their strength as well as a gesture of goodwill to the City, one of their newest trading ports. The most recent news from home, though, made it advisable for them to increase their profits. The duchess’s plan, if it worked, would benefit the Balam in more ways than one.
“She had better deliver on her promises soon, because we’re losing money every day we keep our goods locked up,” Chuleb said. “Thanks be to Chaacmul that at least we can sell a little more vanilla during this charade.”
“Do you believe she’ll manage to get the tariff adjustments through?” Kaab asked. “She seems quite cocky in that letter, especially considering the debacle at her ball.”
“The ball fell apart, but it wasn’t her fault,” Aunt Saabim pointed out.
“No, it was the fault of that stinking calabash of a man, Kar . . . Kar . . . whatever his name was,” Uncle Chuleb muttered.
“The Duke of Karleigh,” Kaab said, smothering a grin.
“What does your friend Rafe think?” Aunt Saabim asked. “He must know her better now that he is working for the duke.”
Kaab thought back to the last time she had seen Rafe. He had been frantically preparing for his examination and hadn’t seemed to have much time or inclination to consider the duchess. “I know he does not like her, but his dislike stems from . . . personal reasons.” Kaab had never told her aunt and uncle about Rafe’s affair with the Duke Tremontaine because she wasn’t the kind of person to gossip, and it didn’t seem particularly relevant. “Rafe probably has little opinion of her at all. He’s not so attuned to, well, women in general.”
Aunt Saabim smiled a sly smile that made Kaab wonder if she already knew about Rafe and the duke. Her aunt said, “But you are, my little bee?”
Kaab reddened. “No more than any Balam who has dedicated her life to the service of the family.”
Uncle Chuleb snorted but did not mention her affair in Tultenco.
Aunt Saabim said, “I can see that you have many unspoken thoughts about the duchess. Why do you question her ability to deliver on her promise?”
“It’s not that I don’t believe she can do it. It’s that there’s something about her that I can’t quite understand. It’s as if she wears a shell around her all the time, hiding something beneath.”
“She’s hiding the crumbling Tremontaine fortune,” Uncle Chuleb said. “And doing quite well, I might add.”
“Yes, but it’s more than that. She’s hiding something personal, something that is dangerous to herself and possibly to Tremontaine.” Kaab hadn’t yet told her aunt and uncle about Ben Hawke’s death, but now she explained that at the ball she had glimpsed a locket on the duchess’s wrist—a locket that had likely been the cause of a man’s death.
“How do you know this man Ben?” Aunt Saabim asked. “What are you getting yourself involved in?”
“It’s nothing, Auntie,” Kaab assured her hastily. “Vincent Applethorpe knew him.” Her aunt and uncle had approved of her training with Applethorpe because it expanded the repertoire of skills she might use in the service.
“How is Applethorpe involved in this?” The tone of Aunt Saabim’s voice suggested that she was aware that Kaab was not telling the whole truth.
“Applethorpe is the designated protector of Tess Hocking, a woman in Riverside. Ben used to be her protector, so Applethorpe is naturally concerned with how Ben died.”
“And who is Tess Hocking?” Aunt Saabim pressed.
“She is . . . an artist,” Kaab hedged. Aunt Saabim looked suspicious and opened her mouth to ask yet another question. Rather than allow herself to be cornered into revealing Tess’s counterfeiting skills, which would open the door to the issue of why Kaab had developed this acquaintance with a forger, Kaab blurted out, “I am in love with her!”
Aunt Saabim raised a hand to her heart and her eyes to the sky. “Ixchel help us—it has happened again!”
“It’s not like that. It’s different this time,” Kaab insisted, feeling her face grow warm.
Uncle Chuleb broke into a rolling laugh. “This time! This time!”
Aunt Saabim shook her head at Kaab, but she was smiling. “Now it all begins to make sense—this sword-fighting business and your trips to Riverside—they’re all for this woman? Tell me more about this artist who has stolen your heart, little bee.”
Somehow when Aunt Saabim spoke of these things it made Kaab feel like an inexperienced child rather than the grown woman she was. “Tess is very talented,” Kaab said stiffly.
“Talented!” Uncle Chuleb chortled.
Kaab gave him a dark look, which only sent him into a fresh spasm.
Aunt Saabim patted him on the thigh. “There, there, my love, we mustn’t tease our little bee so much. We are embarrassing her.”
Kaab turned her attention back to the shipping manifests, lining up their edges as neatly as Tess would arrange a stack of fine paper on her desk. “Shall we get back to work?” Kaab said.
Uncle Chuleb choked down another guffaw but obliged her by picking up his brush.
Aunt Saabim set the letter from the Duchess Tremontaine on the reed mat. “All right, Ixkaab, we will stop pestering you about this young woman. But have we concluded our discussion about the duchess?”
“As much as I don’t want to trust her, I think we should continue with the plan,” Uncle Chuleb said. “We’ll know soon enough if she is able to fulfill her promises to us.”
“Agreed,” Kaab said.
“Perhaps that piece of jewelry you saw, the locket she wore at the ball, is tied up with the Tremontaine fortune, little bee,” Aunt Saabim mused. “She may have been pawning her jewels to pay a debt, as her financial situation is insecure, and that man Ben charged her more interest than she could afford.”
Kaab did not tell her aunt that Ben had not been a pawnbroker, or that she had spent the past few weeks combing the City in search of his former clients in an altogether different business, hoping to find something that linked him to Tremontaine. Nor did she tell her aunt that all she had found were dead ends. Ben had entered the bedrooms of a few select noblemen’s houses on the Hill, but none of them had anything to do with the duchess. Kaab had concluded that the next logical step was to abandon her investigation into Ben’s life and to begin looking into the woman who wore the locket that may have caused his death.
Kaab did not reveal any of these plans to her aunt and uncle. Instead she said demurely, “You are probably right, Aunt Saabim. It’s always about money.”
Tremontaine Season 1 Saga Omnibus Page 34
