The third afternoon after the match, Razo, Enna, and Finn rambled through the palace gardens, speaking longingly of Bayern potatoes, almond cakes, and venison stew and feeling caged inside the iron fence like animals in a traveling menagerie. They had been in Ingridan for three weeks with little to show for it. And now, only days before the assembly adjourned for the summer, Razo could not help feeling that the mission was failing. But they did not speak about the mission; they talked about potatoes.
When Finn left to take his turn for Megina guard duty, Enna sprinted in the opposite direction, mumbling a quick farewell.
“Slippery girl,” said Razo, racing after her. He thought he saw her black hair entering the Bayern stable, so he made his way around the far side. A row of potted trees lined one wall, and he walked inside them, listening through the stable windows for anything out of the ordinary among the wheeze, nicker, and whuffle of horses.
He had come to the end when he saw that girl again, the Tiran ambassador’s daughter, pressing her back to the stable as if she did not want to be seen. She brought her cupped palm to her mouth and drank from it. There was a bucket of water on the ground, and Razo supposed she had dipped her hand in it, though he had not seen her do it. She turned and startled when she saw him.
“Oh, hello,” she said.
“Hello. I bump into you again.” Razo eased out, hoping that he made creeping behind potted trees look as normal as dipping bread in gravy.
She picked a leaf out of his hair. “Yes, that’s because I was… looking for you.”
“Here I am.” He tugged casually on his hair to make sure it stood up properly.
“My name is Dasha.” By way of greeting, she crossed her wrists on her chest and inclined her head.
“Uh, Razo.” He tried to do the nod-and-hands thing, too, though he must have done it awkwardly, for she smiled.
Her smile was peculiar—it made her nose wrinkle, not as though she smelled something unpleasant, but more that she was so amused, her whole face wanted to be a part of the smile. It affected him strangely, and he stared at her longer than was probably polite. Her hair was not so much orange as the color of rust on iron, and her eyes were blue like the tiled fountains in the public squares. Though she was of his height, she was such a skinny thing, he could probably fling her over a shoulder. He was contemplating this appealing notion when he realized she had spoken.
“What was that?”
“I said, I am the liaison to the Bayern at Thousand Years, if you require anything.”
“Ah,” seemed like an appropriate response.
Her mouth twisted in a half smile. “
Do
you require anything?”
“Oh, you’re asking me. No, not really. Well, except the ocean.”
“You want the ocean?”
“Yes, fetch it for me!”
She blinked, and Razo laughed. “No, you nit, I don’t want the ocean. I just want to see it. Everyone was going on about seeing an ocean, and here I’ve been in Ingridan for almost three weeks and not a peep. But I know we’re not supposed to leave the palace, so I guess I’m out of luck.”
She stared at him, as though mentioning the ocean were as insulting as showing his bum to the world.
“What?” he said.
“You called me a nit.”
“Oh. I did! And I hardly know you. I mean, I’m sorry.”
She laughed and tugged on his sleeve. The touch made him want to stand on his toes to be taller.
“You can call me a nit anytime you want, and you can most certainly see the ocean.”
“I can? I mean, I can’t. It’s not safe.”
“I was speaking with Lord Belvan and Lady Megina this morning, and they agreed it’s time Ingridan observes the Bayern presence. I think a visit to the shore will be a perfect first outing. We’ll leave after second bell tomorrow, Lord Razo.”
He was about to protest that second bell was pretty early, just an hour past dawn, and then he thought he had better set her straight about the “Lord” thing. But it did feel rather comfortable just before his name like that, and while he was hesitating, Dasha had turned to go. She bumped into Enna emerging from the stables.
“Oh,” said Dasha, seeing Enna.
“Oh,” said Enna, seeing Razo.
Dasha did not wait to apologize and was gone in her smooth, hurried gait.
“What’re you up to, Enna-girl?” asked Razo.
Enna smiled innocently. “Nothing. Let’s go eat.”
He suspected she was trying to distract him, but eating did sound like a reasonable plan.
The next morning, the second bell rang with a bone-vibrating noise, as though the brass ball were rolling inside Razo’s head. He startled awake, his heart thudding with the reminder that he would be leaving the palace gates today.
At the stables, the Bayern drank cups of tea and mounted their horses. One of the tea girls wore her fluffy yellow hair in two separate bunches, looking like a rabbit with large, drooping ears. When she approached Razo, he recognized her as Pela from the pastry kitchens, one of the glaring girls who seemed to fantasize about cutting out his Bayern heart with her own fingernails.
“Morning, Pela. How’s Cinny?” Trying to be friendly, Razo asked after one of the tray girls who had sprained her ankle two days before.
“Lounging in a chair, doing all the easy jobs, and not nearly as pretty as me.” Pela put a cup of tea in his hand, stroking his fingers a moment longer than was necessary.
Huh,
he thought,
that’s a change.
Her touch made him want to look serious and manly, and he downed the stinging hot tea in one gulp. To hide the pain, he turned to mount his horse and botched his whole image by having to scramble up just to stick his foot in the stirrup. Once in the saddle, he discovered his stirrups were so high, his knees were sticking up level with the saddle rim.
“What the—?” He had to dismount and adjust the length. By then Pela had moved off, serving tea to Tumas. They appeared to be chatting intimately.
“New saddle?” asked Finn, riding up.
“Finn, do you see the lias—whatever, the orange-haired girl?” Razo gestured ahead without looking. “Do you think she’s pretty?”
Finn glanced Dasha’s way, then returned his attention to his horse. “She’s all right.”
“Really? Just all right?”
Finn shrugged.
Razo rolled his eyes and tapped Bee Sting to a walk. “What am I saying? He doesn’t think any girl is pretty but Enna.”
“Are there any girls but Enna?” Finn called back.
“There’d better be.”
A memory of Bettin came unbidden—a night in Bayern’s capital four years ago. Isi had been sitting by the fire, telling a bed tale to all the animal workers. It had been a romantic one, the kind that usually made Razo sniff in boredom, but he’d liked it because Bettin had been sitting beside him. That night, all that stuff about a man and a woman and hearts and vows of forever had seemed as real as the fire in the grate.
“Stupid,” Razo muttered. Saying the word made him feel a touch better.
Bee Sting trotted briefly as they passed the palace gates. Razo gripped the hard rim of the saddle, anticipating an attack from angry Tiran citizens, but the streets of Ingridan were sleepy. The dawning sun polished the stones to a soft gold, making the city feel warm and friendly, and street after street, nothing jumped out at them. Still, Razo could not relax.
“Take a look at that,” said Conrad as they passed a palace a quarter the size of Thousand Years. “A feather bed and private room for every guard and maid, I’d bet, and fancy chairs for the dogs and cats, while they’re at it.”
“But what good’s a fancy house like that for the likes of you, Forest-born?” said Razo. “You’d get lost in the corridors and barely survive by eating leather chair covers.”
“That so, squirrel meat? Well, you’d mistake the kitchen for the privy and scare away the pretty maids.”
Victar rode nearby. “That is Lady Dasha’s home.” He wet his lips as he nodded in her direction.
Conrad wagged his eyebrows. “Lives like a princess, and pretty, too.”
“Yes, she is considered a more than adequate match for any noble bachelor of Ingridan.” Victar’s smile was mischievous. “Her father has extensive holdings.”
“With her father in Bayern,” said Razo, “you’d think she’d have plenty to do managing everything. So why’d she volunteer to stay at Thousand Years with the Bayern?”
Victar shrugged slightly, as if he did not know or care.
The party left the main avenue for narrow streets where the houses crowded on top of one another, and the air changed—it swept over Razo as though it were more river than wind, the smell sharp and so briny that it seized the top of his throat.
Then there was the ocean.
The white buildings of the city stopped just shy of the bay, as if afraid of getting their toes wet. In the distance, he could see the harbor and dozens of ships, some grand and long, their masts a forest of trees smoothed of their branches.
Dasha led them to a slim section of shore, as quiet and clean as the morning streets. Razo left Bee Sting at a post and walked across a field of sand.
He knew the ocean was huge because he had been told so, but he could see only the thin line of it before the horizon clamped down. There was no grandeur, not like seeing a mountain; nothing to surround him and make him feel changed, as when he entered a wood or stood in the midst of a snowstorm. Even so, the sea felt bigger than weather, older than ruins. The sight rustled at his soul.
He stared, and his unease lengthened inside him, as though it stretched after sleeping. Up the waves rolled, back they fell, like breath pushed out and pulled back in. The hushing noise made his bones feel soft, his eyes drowsy. He thought he could lie in the sand and forget who he was, let the water and the sound of water unstitch his soul from his body and send it floating away to see what the dead see.
“Do you like it?” asked Dasha.
The sound of her voice startled him. Something about an ocean made him forget he was not alone.
“I don’t know that it’s up to me to like,” he said. “It’s not really a people thing, is it? Not like a city or a farm. It’s got more wilderness about it than anything I’ve ever seen.”
He thought that was a very apt observation and congratulated himself, waiting for Dasha to agree. She was staring at the water, her lips parted, her eyes losing focus to the crumbling surf, almost as if she were trying to catch a glimpse of someone she knew far out on the waves. He watched her watching the sea and had the peculiar impression that she
knew
the ocean, the way he knew his sister, Rin, or the Forest, or his way around a roasted chicken.
He cleared his throat and spoke again. “It’s pretty, even though it’s so empty.”
She pulled her gaze back to him. “Just under the surface it teems with fish and plants.”
“So, it’s a forest for fish.”
“Exactly! Except, I’ve never seen a forest.”
“Never seen a forest?” Razo shook his head. Now Dasha seemed stranger than a sea. “There was a time I thought my Forest was the world.”
“All those trees. And animals, too, right? Is it beautiful?” She rocked on her feet as though too excited to hold still.
“It’s home, and I guess I think it’s just what it ought to be. Think of it as an ocean of trees, if you want.”
“And what do you eat from a forest instead of fish?”
“Sometimes red deer, but that’s a big quarry and rare to catch. I hunt some birds, but mostly rabbits or squirrel.”
“What is ‘squirrel’?”
“It’s like a chipmunk, but with a long, fat tail.”
Dasha wrinkled her brow, indicating she did not understand.
“Squirrel and chipmunk, they’re about this big, furry, kind of like, I don’t know, like rats that live in trees.”
“Rats? You eat rats?”
“They’re not really rats, I was just trying to think of something that—”
“You eat tree rats. That’s one rumor of Bayern habits I hadn’t heard.”
“They’re not tree rats really, they’re just… ugh, I shouldn’t’ve said
rats,
I meant…Wait, what rumors have you heard?”
“You eat babies,” she said blankly.
“No, you eat babies!”
“I do not!”
“I don’t mean you personally. I mean, that’s what I’ve heard about the Tiran, but I never believed it.”
“And I didn’t believe it about the Bayern.”
“So what are we hollering about?”
“What
are
you hollering about?” asked Enna as she and Finn joined them.
“We weren’t,” said Razo. “Well, maybe, but…Dasha, what was I saying?”
Dasha did not seem to take his question seriously. She turned to the newcomers and introduced herself.
“Finn of Bayern’s Own,” said Finn.
“I’m Enna, waiting woman to Lady Megina.”
Razo caught the barest flinch in Dasha’s expression, a dart of her eyes, a subtle indication that perhaps she did not believe what Enna had just said. But she conversed in a friendly manner with Enna, eagerly even, and did not seem the least aware that she was talking to Tira’s great enemy the fire-witch. He discovered his hand was gripping the hilt of his sword and he slowly let go.
Enna said something Razo did not catch, most likely some disparaging comment about him, and Dasha smiled. The way the sun hit Dasha’s eyes, they were so light in color, they appeared translucent. Razo stared.
“Are you all right?” Dasha asked. “Your face looks pained. Did you bite your lip or something?… No? Well, we should return. It was a pleasure, Enna, Finn, tree rat.”
She walked away.
Enna and Finn looked at Dasha and then at Razo.
“Did she just call you tree rat?” asked Enna.
“Did she?” said Razo.
“I think she just called you tree rat.”
“No.”
Finn nodded. “She did. She called you tree rat.”
“Why would she—” Enna started.
“Because of squirrels, I guess,” said Razo, still watching Dasha walk away. Negotiating the sand, she took small steps, and her hips kind of swayed. He found it curious.
“Squirrels?” asked Enna.
“Rats in trees,” Razo said distractedly. Dasha seemed to find her walking rhythm from the sound of the surf, almost as if she were not a girl but water upon the sand. His soul whistled an easy tune.