Authors: Sharon Shinn
Corene froze.
It was a code phrase, one she and Josetta had concocted years ago. It could mean almost anything—
Are you in danger? Have you been hurt? Is the person so casually standing beside you actually holding a knife against your ribs?
—and they had employed it a half dozen times
in the past five years. If this woman knew to ask it, she could only have learned the question from Josetta.
Or from Darien, who had asked Josetta what sentence would make Corene trust a total stranger.
Unless—it was just barely possible—it was a random question a merchant might ask any wealthy customer on her first visit to a famous shopping district.
“No,” Corene answered, trying to keep her tension out of her voice. “But I haven’t been shopping very long.”
The woman had already dropped the obsequious manner of a shopkeeper; her expression now was deadly serious. More natural to her, Corene thought. “I have messages from your father.”
“Who
are
you?”
“My name is Leah. I have been in Malinqua for five years, working for the regent.”
“He sent you to look for me?”
Leah gestured at a pair of stools stacked on top of each other in the corner. “Would you like to sit? We can talk a few minutes before your friends start to worry about you.”
Foley is probably already worried,
Corene thought. But she nodded, and sank to the stool when Leah set it before her.
“I’ve received several letters from your father, informing me you were on your way and asking me to make contact with you,” Leah said briskly. “He was most worried that you might have been brought to Malinqua against your will and he wanted me to ascertain your state of mind and the level of your safety. If you are in any danger at all, we will find a way to remove you from Malinqua and get you home.”
Corene felt a tightness in her ribs, as if her lungs had stopped functioning or her heart had swelled to an uncomfortably large size. Darien hadn’t sent her gifts and letters—oh, no—he had mobilized agents across the southern nations to look out for her. He was efficient, not emotional, but she had the sudden unshakeable conviction that he would rearrange the continents of the world if that was what it took to ensure her well-being.
“No—not in any danger—at least I don’t think so,” she added, thinking about the murdered heirs and missing girl. “And I certainly came of my own free will. I thought I made that clear in the note I left behind.”
“You could have been coerced into writing something. He’s been very worried.”
“Darien doesn’t seem like the type to worry.”
“Maybe you don’t know him as well as you think.”
“Maybe he’s never worried about me before.”
Leah narrowed her eyes and studied Corene for a moment. Corene straightened on her stool, wondering what the other woman saw. “His secret sweela daughter by a ruthless manipulative woman,” Leah finally said. “I would think he’s been worried about you since you were born.”
And didn’t that cast much of her life in a wholly different light? Corene would need to think about that at some more leisurely moment. “You can tell him I’m doing well. Everyone has been very kind.”
No one’s tried to harm me. So far.
“He’ll be glad to hear it. Can you come and go from the palace at will?”
Corene blinked. “I don’t know. I haven’t tried. This is the first day I’ve been out. Naturally, guards accompanied our entire party.”
“Naturally,” Leah echoed, but her voice sounded doubtful.
Corene, who had allowed herself to enjoy the outing without reservation, now found a little tension creeping into her shoulders. It hadn’t occurred to her there might be anything sinister in the fact that so many soldiers had been assigned to their carriages, but maybe the number was excessive. Certainly, she’d been allowed to roam Chialto with only a guard or two at her back, and she hadn’t expected to be guarded by anyone other than Foley while she was in Palminera. So why had so many soldiers come along on this excursion to the Great Market? To keep them all safe—or to keep them all contained?
“You raise an interesting question,” Corene said finally. “Someday soon I’ll try leaving the palace without a royal escort and see what happens.”
“And if you find that your movements are restricted, let me know.”
“That might be hard to do if I can’t get out,” Corene pointed out.
“You have your own guard with you, don’t you? Send him to me with a message.”
“Send him here?”
Leah seemed to debate. “Probably not. Let me give you a different address.” She scribbled information on a scrap of paper and handed it
over. “If I send messages to you at the palace, do you think they’ll get delivered?”
Corene pocketed the paper and thought that over. “I think any messages would be
read
,” she said at last. “So you might have to be careful about what you say.”
Leah smiled briefly. “Of course they’d be read. We need a code.”
“Red gemstones always mean danger.”
Leah nodded. “Then if I think you need to get out of there quickly, I’ll send you a message about rubies or garnets. Come to that address as soon as you can.”
“I will. Thank you.”
“And it’s probably wise to stay in touch regularly.”
“I could send you a note at least once every nineday.”
“And if I don’t receive one I’ll know there’s trouble.”
“All right,” Corene replied. She shook back her hair and defiantly shook off her slight uneasiness. “Though I don’t actually believe I’m in danger. Which you can tell my father. You can also tell him I’m learning a lot about Malinqua and doing my best to charm the heirs to the throne.”
“I’m sure they
do
find you charming,” Leah said in a quiet voice. “But if it turns out you don’t like them as much as you hoped, you can always go home.”
“Is that one of the things my father said in his letters to you?”
Leah appeared to choose her answer carefully. “He seemed to think you might not consider that an option.”
“I’m not sure it
is
an option,” Corene said. “I didn’t care much for the life I was living in Chialto.”
“Sometimes it seems like any other life would be better,” Leah agreed. “But sometimes the old one follows you.”
“Did yours?”
Leah’s face instantly shuttered, leading Corene to feel a sudden surge of curiosity. “Not so far.”
Corene had the feeling the other woman wouldn’t share much more personal information, so she settled for the one question everyone from Welce would answer. “So what are your blessings?”
“Endurance, honor, and time.”
One torz, one elay, and one extraordinary blessing. And none of them exactly comfortable. Someone with blessings like those seemed well-suited to espionage, patiently watching events unfold so she could report them back to her employer. A spy or an executioner, waiting for decades, maybe, before enacting justice.
“I can’t tell your affiliation.”
“Torz.”
“Well, I’m glad to have met you, Leah. And glad to know my father has someone in Malinqua he trusts—that I can trust, too.”
“He’s an interesting man, the regent. Soon to be king now, I understand.”
“Yes—and no doubt one of the best kings Welce has ever had.”
Leah nodded, but she looked puzzled. “What happened to the little girl? King Vernon’s youngest daughter? Odelia, that’s her name. I thought she was the heir.”
“She was,” Corene said. “But it turns out Odelia has a condition—it’s hard to describe. She’s lost in her own mind, and she can’t easily get out.”
Leah looked shocked. “How sad for her.”
“Yes, and quite an upset to the court, since none of us knew there was anything wrong.”
“But surely—she must have been at the palace attending functions and meeting people. I mean, I know she’s only a child, but—”
“She and her mother had been living in the provinces and came to court only rarely,” Corene explained. “Whenever they
did
come to Chialto, her mother brought Mally instead.”
“Mally?”
“A little girl who looked so much like Odelia you couldn’t tell them apart. A decoy princess. It was Darien’s idea, of course.”
“It’s odd to hear you call your father Darien.”
“I was eleven before I knew he was my father. I’d always called him Darien before. It doesn’t seem odd to me.”
Leah watched her a moment. “You’re not close.”
Corene hunched a shoulder. “It’s complicated. Are you close to
your
father?”
Leah’s smile looked painful. “He’s dead now. But it was complicated.”
“Maybe it always is.”
Before Leah could reply, the curtain was swept back, and the large forbidding man looked in. He cast Leah one unreadable look but spoke to Corene. “Your friends are asking after you, Princess.”
She peered around him to see not just Melissande and Steff waiting anxiously on the other side of the counter, but all the other occupants of the royal carriages, who had apparently managed to catch up with them while she and Leah got acquainted. “So sorry,” she said brightly. “I was just enjoying the chance to speak to someone else from Welce! I’m almost ready to leave.”
She offered a quick wave to Melissande, who made an imperious gesture that meant
Come out here right now!
“We didn’t even look at pitchers,” Corene said. “Just pick one and I’ll buy it for Zoe. And the music box, too.”
A few moments later she had made her purchases from the merchant, made her apologies to her companions, and taken a few steps down the broad aisle toward the next set of booths. When she could do it without seeming too obvious, she dropped back to where Foley was trailing behind the others.
“You’ll never guess who the shopkeeper’s assistant was,” she murmured.
“An old friend from Welce? I noticed her accent.”
“From Welce, yes, but not someone I knew. She’s one of my father’s spies.”
He raised his eyebrows, then nodded emphatically. “Good. I knew there must be some in the city, but I didn’t know how to contact them.”
She slipped him Leah’s piece of paper. “This is where you can find her. She wants to hear from me at least once every nineday.” She didn’t bother explaining why. Foley was already on the lookout for constant danger; he would hardly be surprised to learn Leah was equally watchful.
“Good,” he said again.
She nodded at the untidy group preceding them down the aisle. Garameno’s servant was pushing the wheeled chair at an even pace;
Melissande walked beside him, chatting with great animation. “How’d he get up the stairwell? Can he walk that well?”
“His man carried him and a soldier brought the chair.”
“He must hate that. He seems so proud.”
Foley glanced down at her. “He seems like he would hate even more being confined to the palace, left out of events. I think he seems willing to make whatever concessions are necessary.”
“A good trait, I suppose.”
“Or a dangerous one.”
“You see danger everywhere.”
“I imagine it as a possibility, certainly.”
She jerked her head toward Leah’s booth. “So. Back there. I stepped behind the curtain. What did you think when I was gone so long?”
His smile was faint. “As I say, I noticed that you spoke to her in Welchin, so I thought it was most likely that you were exchanging news. But I also considered the possibility that she had somehow rendered you unconscious and carried you through the curtain to the booth that I presume is on the other side.”
Corene was laughing. “I’m not sure she would be strong enough to drag my body very far.”
“No, but she could have had accomplices nearby.”
“I don’t see how you could have saved me if that had actually happened!”
“I would have gotten Steff’s attention, which would have gotten the guards’ attention, and several of us would have raced after you. It would be hard for kidnappers to conceal the fact that they were carrying the lifeless body of a young woman through the Great Market. I don’t think we would have had much difficulty finding you.”
“It sounds exciting,” she said buoyantly. “I’m almost sorry it didn’t happen.”
He glanced down again, no longer smiling. “I’m not.”
She touched his arm. “I’m joking. I wouldn’t want to put you to that kind of trouble.”
He was still watching her. “I wouldn’t mind the
trouble
of rescuing you,” he said. “I wouldn’t want
you
be hurt or afraid.”
“Well, fortunately, nothing of the kind occurred,” she said.
Just then, Melissande turned around to look for her. “Corene! Up here is a booth you
must
visit. Candies with a taste I cannot describe.”
She hurried to catch up with the others and fell in next to Melissande. “I’m starting to think you’ve spent every day here at the market, buying things.”
“Well, perhaps not every day, but many of them.”
“We rely on Melissande’s openhanded purchases to maintain the balance of trade between Cozique and Malinqua,” Garameno said with a grin.
“How unfair! You come here as often as I do!”
“My purpose is different. I am collecting information from the vendors and assessing the level of satisfaction of the buyers.”
“So how is the Great Market regulated?” Corene asked curiously. “How do you choose the merchants? How long are their contracts? Do they pay rents or percentages?”
“Corene!”
Melissande exclaimed in horror. “That is too absolutely boring!”
“It’s not,” she insisted. “I used to listen in all the time when my father and the council would talk about the best ways to tax the shop districts in Chialto. It’s not as simple as it seems.”
“Well, it is just as dull as it seems,” Melissande said. “I am going to find Jiramondi and have a much more enjoyable conversation.”
She flounced off, but Corene stayed behind, accommodating her steps to the slower pace of the wheeled chair. “The Great Market has two models,” Garameno told her. “There are the booths that have been run for generations by the same families and that bring in such a steady stream of revenue it seems reasonable to assess an annual tax. But there are a few booths on every level that are more temporary, changing hands every few years, and these are taxed on a percentage basis.”