by Sharon Shinn
“He likes country girls,” Malachi said. “He’s never been interested in city women who put on airs and lie to a man’s face.”
Gorsey. “I’ve never been very fancy, I’m afraid,” I said. “But I find I love living in the city more than I ever thought I would.”
“Oberton or Camarria?”
“Both.”
“I spent some time in Oberton when I was younger,” Malachi said. “But I like Banch Harbor and Empara City better. Have you traveled much?”
I shook my head. “No. This is the first time I’ve left Orenza.”
“You should visit Empara City at least. Beautiful place.”
“Maybe Marguerite will go there someday.”
“What’s she like?” the inquisitor asked with casual curiosity.
Though I knew it was anything but casual. This was a man who collected information with the single-minded focus of a fanatic; he would hoard his snippets and confidences like a miser hoards treasure, picking through them to find the perfect jewels.
I knew I had to be careful. If I sounded fawning and overly pleased with my situation, he would think I was lying, perhaps covering up some indiscretion of my own. If I was brief and unhelpful, he would think I was withholding information about Marguerite. I settled for a version of the story I had told in the kitchens.
“She’s a good mistress, but she’s fretful,” I said. “Delicate. Has a lot of headaches and other ailments. The first time I met her, she threw up on my shoes.”
“Yet you still wanted to work for her?”
“Well, I’ve dealt with worse than vomit.”
Malachi made a motion with his head, indicating that he wanted to walk, so I nervously fell in step beside him. Our feet made crunching noises on the gravel of the path, which led us toward the formal gardens behind the palace. Nico came behind us, close enough to hear every word. I wondered what he thought about Malachi’s sudden appearance and gentle (so far) inquisition. Did he think his uncle just wanted to get to know the girl his nephew was spending so much time with? Or did he expect the inquisitor to conduct a subtle interrogation? Had Nico perhaps even arranged this meeting? We will be on the garden bridge the hour before midnight. I will shower her with kisses and talk to her of love, and she will be so dizzy that she will tell you anything you ask.
The moon threw just enough light to show me the shapes of trees and hedges that lined our path; I couldn’t see the colors of the flowers in their tended beds, but their sweet, heavy perfume drifted around us as we walked. Behind us, the palace loomed as a massive shape of darkness, lights showing in only a few scattered rooms. It must have been later than I had realized if most of the world was asleep.
It seemed like forever before Malachi spoke again. “They say that if you want to know the true measure of a man—or a woman—watch how that individual treats those who are in a lower station,” he said. “If he cheats the tradesman or she berates the maid, well then. You know all you need to know.”
“Oh, I’ve never seen Marguerite be rude to anyone.”
“How does she treat her echoes?”
Obviously, not an idle question. I had to assume he had been present—or had had a man present—at the card game the other night. He already knew Marguerite’s echoes had some volition of their own, so it would be safe to make that admission.
“Differently than a lot of the other nobles, from what I’ve observed,” I said. “She gives them a little more freedom. I can’t exactly describe it.”
“That’s interesting,” Malachi said. “Can she tell them apart, one from the other?”
I hesitated a moment—and when my hesitation grew noticeable, I faked a laugh. “I’m afraid you’ll think her very strange,” I said.
“I assure you, I will not.”
“She has named them. And she says she knows which one is which.”
He glanced down at me, and I was pretty sure I could feel astonishment emanating from him, though he kept his voice satin-smooth. “Named them,” he repeated. “I have not heard of that before.”
“I thought it must be unusual.”
“Can you tell them apart?”
Yes. “No.”
“Would I be able to?”
I turned my head as if to give him a critical appraisal. What could I discern in the moonlit darkness? He was about Nico’s height and a little heavier, though his black clothing hid his frame. He was bald and clean-shaven, as if he had long ago dispensed with any of the softening effects hair and a beard might provide. I couldn’t clearly make out his features, though his nose was prominent and his eyes seemed deep-set and dark. “Maybe,” I said candidly. “You seem like the kind of person who can do anything he wants.”
That made him laugh; even Nico chuckled behind us. “I have been around echoes, one way or another, my whole life,” Malachi said. “And I have never once thought I might want one of my own.”
“I’ve come to the same conclusion,” I replied. “There is a whole additional level of calculation you must make, from what clothing you should wear to how much food you need to whether there’s enough room in the carriage.”
“Although I suppose, if you have been attended by echoes since birth, these calculations become habitual,” Malachi speculated.
“It seems to be that way with Marguerite,” I agreed. “But I still think that if I had shadows behind me all the time, I would find it tedious—when it wasn’t downright inconvenient.”
“Well, yes,” Malachi purred, “I can think of several situations in which having an audience would be inconvenient indeed.”
Of course I could only call one such situation to mind, and my face flamed again. I decided to take a saucy tone. “Well, you’re the inquisitor,” I said. “I’m sure you usually don’t want an audience.”
“Very true,” he said, sounding amused. “I often think I would have chosen a much different profession if I had been a man with echoes.”
I remembered the story Nico had told me the very first time I met him—about an ancestor who killed off his own echoes so he could take a dangerous job for the crown. Nico had said the story was about his great-grandfather, but I wondered now if he might have been describing Malachi. Just five minutes in his company convinced me he would be capable of such a thing.
“I would have had a different life myself,” I said. “Because I would have been a rich lady living in a fancy house!”
“I hear stories now and then,” said Malachi, “of a gardener or a milliner or some workingman who’s got an echo trailing behind.”
I was genuinely surprised. “I always thought they only appeared to high nobles.”
“Or those who have dallied with them.”
My third blush of the night. “Oh! Of course!”
“But I myself have only met echoes within the walls of the very best homes,” Malachi finished up. “So maybe the tales are fabricated.”
As he spoke, we followed the gravel path around a sweeping turn, and now we were facing the back of the palace. Over the uneven horizon of trees, trellises, and statuary, I could see its entire silhouette, a thick rectangle topped with a whimsical skyline of turrets and towers. Now there were even fewer windows showing light from within. The windows at the very top, the servants’ quarters, were all dark. Maids and valets always went to bed at the earliest opportunity, since their days usually started well before dawn.
“Funny when you think about it,” Malachi went on. “How comparatively few people in the kingdom have echoes—and how many of them are here right now. If you wanted to ask all of them a single question, you could get a good start on your work in one place.”
I tried not to shiver in the warm night air, since I was sure he would notice. He probably noticed that I was making the effort. Boldness seemed my only course. “What would you ask them all?” I said.
I felt him glance down at me, but I kept my eyes fixed on the palace walls. He spoke in the softest voice he had yet used. “What would you do if you lost an echo
?”
Ten minutes later, I was safely in my room, wondering if anyone else was in the back garden to notice the faint light coming from my window. I thought the only other people awake at this hour were probably guards and inquisitors, and my guess was that they would be looking for trouble in much different places than the servants’ quarters.
I hadn’t known what to reply to the inquisitor’s final question, but he hadn’t had much else to say to me, either. Almost as soon as he spoke the words, he turned to Nico and said, “It’s late and I have something I need you to do for me. Let’s see this young lady inside.” So the three of us marched in a straight line for the back of the palace. I didn’t even have a chance to kiss Nico goodbye because as soon as I put my hand on the door, they veered off in another direction. I felt a little resentful and a little bereft—and exceptionally uneasy. What had Malachi wanted from me, and had he obtained it?
I changed into my nightclothes and climbed into bed and opened my eyes as wide as they would go. I was so tired that I knew I would fall asleep within seconds, but I wanted to think for a moment. I had considered swinging past Marguerite’s room on my way to bed, but I hadn’t decided how much to tell her about the interlude with Nico and my conversation with Malachi. She already knew that the inquisitor was looking for missing echoes. Did she need the details about Lady Vivienne? She knew that I was flirting with the inquisitor’s nephew. Would it add to her worry if she thought I was falling in love with him? Would she become afraid that I would choose him over her? Would Malachi’s sudden appearance ratchet up her fear? Would I be kinder to her if I simply withheld much of the truth?
I was lying to Nico about Marguerite. Should I start lying to Marguerite about Nico? Would that make me the most loyal or the most untrustworthy person in the kingdom?
I honestly didn’t know what to do.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The following day unfolded only slightly differently than the previous two.
In the morning, Marguerite and I walked to the temple, flanked by the echoes; once we were seated inside, she whispered with Taeline while I silently prayed to the goddess, asking for guidance. We had planned to head for the flower market, but we unexpectedly encountered the Banchura triplets and their comet’s-tail of echoes, so we joined them for an impromptu tour of one of the historical districts. Our way took us across three famous city bridges, each distinctive.
The first was an ancient passageway of crumbling mortared stones topped with a splintery wooden roof; it stretched over an old, empty arena that used to be a public slaughterhouse, so Letitia told us. We could still see the narrow drains sunk in the slate of the floor. The second was a contraption of ropes and boards slung over a sewage canal. It swayed so alarmingly with every step we took that Marguerite and I were convinced it would collapse with all of us still clinging to the hemp handrails. But the third was a lovely affair of wooden beams and painted plaster that carried us from a rather grim, workaday neighborhood into a charming collection of elegant houses, discreet hotels, and expensive shops.
“We’ve been here ten days now, and I think I’ve only seen a few small corners of the city,” Leonora said. “If Cormac isn’t going to provide us with more entertainment, I’m just going to go out on daily expeditions until I’ve explored every mile of Camarria.”
“Oh, yes, let’s all go,” said Lavinia. “Marguerite, will you join us?”
“As often as I’m able,” Marguerite said. “Unless I have one of my stupid headaches.”
Letitia leaned over and rubbed her forefinger in a circular motion on Marguerite’s temple. “No more headaches,” she said. “I forbid it.”
The evening ended with a subdued dinner, which Cormac attended. Once again, he asked Marguerite to sit beside him and chase away his melancholy. I saw the looks that passed between some of the visiting nobles as she accepted his arm and stepped toward the dining room. Were the rumors true? Was Cormac about to propose? Would he be able to push past his grief long enough to think again about the future of his country?
Marguerite played her part to perfection, but we were barely back in her suite when she said, “I think I’m going to throw up. I can’t stand all this lying to everyone!” Indeed, her hands were cold but her face was damp with perspiration as I helped her out of her clothes and into a silken robe. She tied her sash and began to pace across the room.
Purpose and Patience secured their own robes and fell in step behind her, their own faces set in similar lines of worry and remorse. I settled onto one of the sofas and watched them, tucking my feet up to keep out of their way.
“Is there anything I can do to help you?” I asked quietly.
“No one can help! There’s nothing to do! But things would be much better if I didn’t have to listen to Prince Cormac go on and on and on about his poor brother whose life was tragically cut short! First I want to scream and then I want to beg for mercy.” She shook her head. “And then I want to start sobbing.
“But you handle yourself so beautifully,” I said in admiration. “I am constantly listening for signs of strain in your voice, and I never hear it. You seem relaxed and sympathetic and delightful.”
She threw herself onto a seat across from me, and the echoes dropped onto their own chairs. “Don’t you find it a little horrifying that I am none of those things?” she demanded. “Yet perfectly able to appear as if I am? Do you not wonder if every single person you have ever met in your entire life is showing you a false face?”
“In the past, I didn’t,” I admitted. “But these days—yes, very often.”
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. “Don’t bother wondering,” she said. “Just assume they are.”
“My lady—”
She jumped up again, and Patience and Purpose surged to their feet. “I wish I could outrun my thoughts,” she flung at me over her shoulder. “I wish I could outrun my memories. How far do you think I would have to go?”
“Farther than the world stretches, I’m afraid.”
She groaned and kept pacing. I was beginning to think she would not calm down for some time and I didn’t want to leave her while she was in such a state. If Nico arrived at the bridge, looking for me, he wouldn’t find me.
Maybe that was just as well.
For the next hour, Marguerite alternated between striding through the room, bitterly repeating some of Cormac’s comments, and collapsing on one of the chairs, looking tired and defeated. When I suggested that she would feel better if I cleaned her face and got her ready for bed, she rounded on me in anger.
“Nothing will make me feel better! But you can leave me if you want to! I wouldn’t blame you. I would leave me, if I could find a way to break out of my own skin.” She gestured wildly at the echoes. “They would leave me, if they could. Go ahead! Do it! Abandon me!”
She dashed across the room and flung open the door. When they followed her, running closely behind, she grabbed Patience’s arm and tried to shove her across the threshold. The echo bleated and twisted in Marguerite’s hold, looking frightened and confused.
“Go on! I know you want to!” Marguerite cried, pushing even harder. She grabbed Purpose’s arm with her other hand, and tried to force both of them through the door at the same time.
I was so stunned it took me that long to scramble up from the sofa. “My lady! Stop that! Shut the door! Anyone could be out in the hallway—”
She was still wrestling with the echoes when she started to weep. “I don’t care! I don’t care! It’s better for them if they go—!”
By now I had crossed the room. I reached for her, but she fended me off— first with her elbows, then with her hands—dropping her grip on the echoes to do so. I managed to dodge her flailing arms while inching near enough to the door to shut and lock it. Then I took a deep breath and set my back against it. Was she finally going to succumb to nearly two weeks of stress and uncertainty? How could I calm her down?
But I could see at once that that wasn’t g
oing to be my task. Purpose and Patience had linked arms and made a gentle cage around Marguerite, pressing closer, giving her struggling body no room to maneuver. I could see Patience leaning in, making shh-shh-shh noises of comfort, could see Purpose urging them all to move toward the bedroom in one straining knot. Marguerite was still crying, harder now, uttering phrases like “I can’t” and “Just go,” but her motions were slower, more leaden, as she lost the will to fight. Step by step, the echoes took her to the bedroom; whisper by wordless whisper they soothed her lacerated heart. I followed behind, feeling both helpless and full of wonder, ready to do my part when I got the chance.
The echoes eased Marguerite to the bed and sat beside her on the lace duvet. Patience rubbed her hands and Purpose drew Marguerite’s head down onto her shoulder, then looked at me in a clear directive. I hurried to get a damp cloth and a glass of water, and I drew a stool over so I could sit beside the bed.
“Here, drink this,” I murmured as I wiped her face. “Wouldn’t you like to lie down now? You must be so tired. It’s been so hard. I know. But you’ll feel better in the morning.”
Marguerite sipped the water and nodded her head and tried to say thank you, but she was too exhausted to do more than mouth the words. It took me another twenty minutes to exchange her robe for her nightdress and tuck her under the covers.
“Can you sleep now? Shall I blow out the candles?”
“I want them with me.”
“The echoes? They’re right here.”
“With me.”
“What—”
But the echoes knew. They climbed under the covers next to her, one on either side, shields against despair forged from her own blood and bone. I heard her sigh with something that was almost contentment. Or maybe just relief.
“Should I go to my own room or stay here tonight?”
“Stay, please.”
“Happily.” I didn’t have to manufacture the yawn or the slight laugh that followed. “I’m so tired myself I’m ready for bed right now, too.”
“Tomorrow will come too soon,” she said drowsily. “It always does.”
