“I am always happy to entertain royalty,” he said. “And to have extra hands to do the work. We got a shipment from Dhonsho last night. You can unpack it while you wait.”
It sounded like a brusque order, but Leah recognized it as a gift. Dhonsho’s primary exports were bright fabrics dyed in luscious colors that reminded her of fruit—plum and lemon and mango and berry—and she loved them. She had been so enamored of a nubby cherry-red shawl that Chandran had actually commanded her to take it as part of her salary for the nineday. Here in mid-Quinnatorz, the mornings were almost cool enough that she could pretend she needed the shawl for warmth, at least before the sun rose too high. She had worn it every day.
The four crates that had arrived yesterday were filled with similar delights—more of that fine, loosely woven material in wide strips of fabric big enough to wrap twice around your body. This time the colors made Leah think of landscapes—grass green, river blue, sunset orange. Each one was finished with a knotted fringe hung with beads that matched the dye. As she lifted the fabrics from the crate, shook out the wrinkles, and folded them back up, the beads of each shawl made small, cheerful clinking sounds.
She really wished she wouldn’t have to sell a single one. She would prefer to keep them all for herself.
Nonetheless, under Chandran’s watchful eyes, she dutifully put the Dhonsho items on display and made sure that any serious shopper who stopped by had a chance to look them over. By noon, half were gone.
“I don’t know how good you are at spying,” Chandran observed as they grabbed a quick bite to eat during a noontime lull, “but you have a gift for selling. You have a fine eye for merchandise and the rare ability to make your customers fall in love with whatever you love. You could open up your own booth here on Great Four and be rich within a quintile.”
She sipped at her keerza—which, she could hardly believe, she had actually begun to like—and thought that over. “If I became a merchant, I don’t think I’d stay in Malinqua,” she said. “I’d go back to Welce and open a place in the shop district of Chialto.”
His voice was mild but his eyes were keen. “I had formed the opinion you were not eager to return to Welce. Whether or not you had an occupation suitable to your talents.”
She shrugged slightly; he was right about that. “Well, one of the reasons I haven’t wanted to go back is I haven’t had any idea what I might do when I returned,” she said. “I certainly don’t want to go back to my old life.”
“Often one’s old life is not an option even if one wished it were.”
She poured herself another cup of keerza just so she could ask the question casually while her hands were occupied with something else. “How about you? Would you return to Cozique?”
“No.”
That was unvarnished enough that she couldn’t help sending him a quick, quizzical look. “Wouldn’t, or wouldn’t be allowed to?” she asked.
“Wouldn’t be allowed to.”
Now she straightened up, blowing on her hot drink, and making no more attempt to hide her curiosity. “A crime or a scandal?” she asked.
“Some people would call it a crime.”
“And would you take the same actions again if the same situation were to arise?” she asked.
“I would.”
She refused to ask another question; he would either tell her or he wouldn’t. So she just sipped from her cup and watched him. He returned her gaze for a moment before allowing a small smile to touch his lips and then looking away. “Perhaps it is the fact that I have operated outside the law that makes me appreciate its parameters so deeply,” he said.
“That’s funny,” she said. “Being judged by the inflexible standards of society is what has made me want to live outside it.”
“But then, we are different in so many ways,” he said. “If you could, you would go back and change your actions. I wouldn’t. I would change the situation that led me to act, but I don’t regret what I myself have done. You do.”
It was annoying how well he read her. During the past five years, Leah had grown fond of the idea that she was mysterious. She wondered if everyone else found her as transparent as Chandran did.
“For good or for ill, neither of us can revisit the past,” she said. She gulped the last of her keerza and set down the cup; she’d spotted a trio of wealthy-looking women headed straight for their booth. “And so here we are in Malinqua for the foreseeable future.”
“I am, perhaps,” Chandran said. “You’ll be back in Chialto within a quintile.”
She barely had time to give him a glance of surprise before the customers descended, and she was showing them music boxes and scarves and delicate trinkets. He was wrong, of course—if she ever returned to Welce, it would be when she was old and tired, empty of both sorrow and rage. But what spooked her was that Chandran had an eerie way of being right about things. Why would he think she was on the verge of going home?
The bright afternoon was so late that it had almost changed into its sober evening attire by the time a delegation from the palace arrived. Leah spotted Corene’s distinctive red hair the minute her group rounded the corner and began a slow promenade down the row of stalls. There were only a handful in the royal party this time—Corene, a diminutive Coziquela girl, the sturdy-looking boy who must be Filomara’s miraculous grandson, and the guard named Foley. With an airy wave of her hand, Corene directed the other two to some wonder at a nearby booth, then she and Foley came directly to Chandran’s.
“We don’t have much time,” Corene said without preamble as soon as Leah stepped over to greet her. She spoke in Welchin and very quietly. “Melissande won’t be distracted for long.”
“What’s happened?”
Corene gave her a swift look. “I suppose you’ve heard the news from the palace.”
It was one of the things Leah liked about the princess; she wasn’t shocked or offended by the notion that people gossiped about royalty. She actually seemed to count on the idea that information would precede her.
“The body of a young lady was found in some underground passage. I heard about it right after I got your note.”
“I want to know what people are saying.”
“Some think she was killed by a royal lover—most likely Greggorio,” Leah answered. “Others think the empress did away with her because her nephew was too fond of the girl and Filomara wanted him to marry elsewhere. That theory isn’t as popular, though, because most people idolize Filomara.”
“What else?”
Leah glanced around, but the Coziquela girl was still out of hearing distance, trying on bracelets at another stall. “A jealous rival disposed of her to clear the field.”
Corene nodded. “So far, all of these are ideas that have crossed my mind as well—and, I have to think, Filomara’s. But none of them feels exactly right to me.”
“Other people are saying she probably killed herself,” Leah added.
Corene nodded again. “That’s what everyone at the palace is hoping happened. Filomara has called in some of her—her—biological experts, and they’re supposed to be studying the body, trying to figure out how she died. And if it wasn’t by suicide—”
“She was murdered,” Leah finished up. “And you’d better get out of Malinqua as fast as you can. The minute your father hears of this—”
“He’ll send the Welchin navy to bring me home,” Corene said. “I know.”
“If you’re ready to go, I can get you to a ship this afternoon,” Leah said. “You can walk out of the Great Market and straight to the harbor and sail out tonight.”
“I’m not so sure,” Corene answered. “A handful of the empress’s men accompanied us here and they’re waiting at the main entrance. I don’t think they’d let me sail off without a goodbye.”
“Then give me a day or two to plan, and we can outmaneuver them.”
Corene was silent a moment. “It might not be necessary,” she said. “If Sarona killed herself, it’s still really awful, but I’m not in danger.”
Leah scanned her face. “You don’t want to leave,” she said.
“I’m torn,” Corene said. “I realize that things have become very strange at the Malinquese court, which makes me think I should walk away right now. But I also have the feeling that I haven’t come to the end of the adventure yet, which makes me want to stay.” She laughed ruefully. “Or maybe I’m just not ready to go back to Welce.”
Leah could certainly understand that. “Well, just let me know. I’ll find a way to get you out of here—whether or not the empress wants you to leave.”
“That’s good to know,” Corene said.
There was no more time to talk, because Filomara’s grandson and the Coziquela girl had arrived at the booth, bickering in a friendly way. “This Steff, he has no taste at all,” the Coziquela princess complained to Corene. “If the situation ever arises in which he needs to purchase a gift for me, you must be on hand to advise him, or it will be utterly hideous.”
Steff was grinning. “I don’t know why you’d think I ever would need to buy you a present,” he said.
“Because women love gifts. It is so obvious it does not need to be stated.”
“They do,” Corene agreed. “Melissande, did you see these beautiful shawls? Do you think we should buy one for Liramelli? She was so sad.”
“These arrived just yesterday from Dhonsho,” Leah said, deftly unfolding a blue one and holding it up to Melissande’s face. “They’re exquisite. I own one myself and have thought about purchasing another one. Perhaps two or three.”
Melissande turned toward the little mirror on the counter and admired the way the fabric perfectly matched the color of her eyes. “From Dhonsho? Then we must get one for Alette as well.”
“There’s a good idea. And one for each of us, too.”
“But of course.”
“That blue looks very good on you,” Leah said to Melissande. “These friends of yours—what would be their best colors?”
“Liramelli always wears black or white but she is so pale she could hardly choose worse shades,” Melissande said frankly. “This green, perhaps? I think she needs something vivid.”
Corene had wrapped a purple scarf around her head and was studying herself in the mirror. Leah wouldn’t have thought the color would suit her, but, in fact, it was stunning against her flaming hair. “Yes, and maybe that bright yellow for Alette? She’s from Dhonsho,” she explained to Leah. “Her skin is dark brown and she looks best in warm colors.”
“Good, now that’s settled,” Steff said in a voice of utter boredom. “Can we go look at something else? Anything else?”
Corene made shooing motions with her hands. “Leave. We’ll catch up with you. You’re too annoying.”
It took another few minutes for the royal party to sort through the rest of the merchandise, pay for their purchases, and move on. They had hardly taken three steps away when another group of expensively dressed women descended on the booth, and Leah was kept busy until the market shut down at sunset.
“A good day,” she observed to Chandran, when they finally had time to count the money and lock up the cabinets for the evening. “You might want to order more of those shawls.”
“Dhonsho products always sell well. I think because they are so colorful,” he said. “Despite the fact that the Malinquese seem to strictly curtail color in their own fashions. Or maybe for that very reason.”
“I never saw much Dhonshon merchandise in the Plazas in Chialto,” Leah said. “When I open my shop back home, I’m going to import half my items from Dhonsho.”
“Will you be back here again tomorrow?” he asked.
“I don’t think so. I have to keep a couple of appointments. The day after, though.”
“I’ll look for you then.”
• • •
When the next morning dawned sullen and damp, Leah almost changed her mind and headed to the Great Market because it was more pleasant to spend a wet day under a roof than walking the streets of the city. But she’d been lax lately; she needed to check in with her usual contacts just to remind them of her existence.
So she headed to the Little Islands to visit the friends she had carefully cultivated during the last few years. Her first stop was a small, aromatic shop filled with imports from Dhonsho. The windows were always covered with swooping swaths of jewel-toned fabrics so that the air seemed full of colorful shadows. The place was a maze of tables and shelving units holding baskets of merchandise—jewelry, scarves, buttons, children’s toys, figurines, goblets, wrapped baked goods, dried fruit, and bottles of liqueur. Hundreds of items hung from the ceiling on long red ribbons—big glass globes, bunches of dried flowers, complex pieces woven of sticks and yarn in fantastical patterns. It was impossible to wander through the narrow aisles without feeling like you were going to knock something over or hit something with your head, but Leah was fascinated by all the exotic items available and usually managed to visit every display rack before she left.
The owners were a wrinkled old woman, her daughter, and her two granddaughters—and possibly assorted husbands and sons, though Leah had never seen any men working at the place. They were part of a sizable Dhonshon community that resided here in the international district and kept some of their native traditions alive, though many of them had never set foot in their home country. Some time ago, Leah had learned that the old woman had emigrated here more than thirty years ago, when her daughter was fifteen; the two younger women had never left Malinqua.
“You’ll have to take them to visit sometime,” Leah had said when she discovered this, but the old woman had given her head an emphatic shake.
“It is a bad place for women,” she said. “We will not be going back.”
Leah was popular with all four of the shopkeepers, mostly because she’d performed a kind act three years ago. Their landlord was a miserly Malinquese bachelor who hated all foreigners, despite the fact that most of his tenants fell into that category. He had never bothered to learn Dhonshon or even Coziquela, so most of his attempts to communicate with his renters consisted of shouts and pantomimes. On this particular day, he was yelling at the four women to tell them he was raising their rent because they always turned it in a nineday too late. Naturally they didn’t understand him, but he was so angry that they feared he was about to evict them. Leah had stepped in to act as both translator and mediator—If they pay their money on time, will you forgo the raise?—and the women had been grateful ever since.
Today only the youngest girl, Teyta, was on hand, yawning through a slow wet workday. “It is so boring here,” she complained to Leah.
“Do you mean in your shop or in all of Malinqua?”
“Both!” Teyta said with a laugh. “I want to sail to Cozique and open a shop in the famous jewel district. They say you can get rich in one day.”
“What they say and what is true might be two different things.”
Teyta sighed. “Well, even if I didn’t get rich, at least I would be living in Cozique.”
They only chatted a few minutes before another customer came in, this one Dhonshon and looking like she was ready to buy. “I’ll be back some other day,” Leah said with a friendly wave, and slipped out into the rain.
She made a few more stops before she ended up at the Welchin café where she liked to spend the most time. The scents and the foods were pleasingly familiar, and the gentle sound of spoken Welchin washed over her like a benediction. She used to get homesick whenever she dropped in on this place, but now she found its familiarity to be comforting instead of distressing.
It was no more crowded here than it had been at the Dhonshon shop, so the owner poured fruited water for both of them, then sat down with Leah for some gossip. They discuss
ed recent news out of Chialto, then shared complaints about the horrible food the people of Malinqua seemed to consider delicacies. “That zeezin, I thought it would burn my tongue clean out of my head,” the woman grumbled. “Who ruins good meat with something like that?”
The owner didn’t have any useful tidbits to relay, though she did mention that one of her promised shipments was late. “Probably time to change my supplier—he’s coru, you know, and has never been reliable—but you’d be surprised at how few torz farmers you can find who want to ship overseas.”
“Maybe he just wants more money.”
The café owner laughed. “That would be true of a sweela man, but coru? He probably just got distracted.”
About an hour later, Leah had reason to think it wasn’t the supplier’s fault at all.
• • •
The rain had started to fall steadily enough to be miserable, so she’d wrapped herself in her red shawl and then layered on a hooded cape that was more or less waterproof. Still, she was both wet and irritable as she made her way down to the wharf, keeping her eyes on her feet as she sloshed through puddles and rivulets that made the uneven avenue no better than a streambed. She wasn’t the first patron to track mud and water inside Billini’s bar; the floor was almost as wet as the street outside.
Still, the place was mostly empty since bad weather had kept many regular customers home. Leah sat on a stool up at the front counter, nursed a beer, and commiserated with Billini on the day’s lost profits.
“Maybe tomorrow will be better,” she said. “Sun and a fair wind.”
“It hardly matters,” he groused. “In a nineday, I’ll be almost out of supplies and fighting with all the other taverns for the few shipments that get through. Maybe I’ll just close the place down for a half a quintile and head to the mainland to visit family.”
“Wait, I’m confused. Why will you be out of supplies?”
Billini snorted. “Didn’t you notice the wharf this afternoon?”