Chapter Four
the next day was anything but interesting, as heavy rains kept everyone indoors unless they had inflexible commitments. Val had only one thing she had to do, and that was quickly accomplished: write a letter to her estate agent, telling him she would be away for a few ninedays and authorizing him to make day-to-day decisions.
She signed the note with her usual precise flourish. Valentina Serlast, the V cut in half by a sweeping horizontal line that crossed the t in tina. It was a signature she had perfected when she was ten, having spent hours getting the decorative line perfectly placed. As an adult, she knew it was an overdramatic affectation, and yet she couldn’t force herself to abandon it. She even retained the ornamentation when she was simply using her initials—the V bisected by the curving line, the S tucked against the severe slant. This is me. This is who I was as a child and this is who I am today.
But once the letter was finished, there wasn’t much else on her agenda to absorb her time. Darien was closeted all day with advisors and visitors, so Val only saw him at breakfast and dinner, and even then he was preoccupied. She spent a couple of hours trying to get to know her youngest niece, but Val had never been particularly good with children and Celia’s inexhaustible energy quickly wore her out. She thought hopefully that the little girl might get more interesting when she was older. Most people did.
The following day was still overcast and gloomy, but at least the rain had stopped. Val took refuge in the conservatory, a large, humid room of high glass walls and overbearing greenery, and hid behind a tall, thick-stemmed plant. She’d brought a book and a handful of snacks, and the gardeners left her alone, so all in all she passed a pleasant few hours between late morning and early afternoon.
Which was when Corene found her.
“Look, the sun’s coming out” was Corene’s greeting. “Put on some comfortable shoes. We’re going to have an adventure.”
Val couldn’t restrain a frown. “I don’t think I want an adventure.”
“Of course you do. You can’t ***ust sit here all day.” As Val opened her mouth to say that, in fact, that was exactly what she wanted to do, Corene went on. “And if you don’t come with me, I’ll ***ust stay here and keep talking to you anyway, so you might as well agree now. Come on. Let’s go.”
It was all too easy to imagine Corene carrying out this threat. Unexpectedly, Val felt a surge of restlessness. She’d been cooped up in the palace too long. And the sun was shining.
“All right,” she said, closing her book. “What do you want to do?”
Corene’s eyes gleamed with mischief. “We’re going to find some sirix.”
***
When Val and Corene stepped out of the grand front doors, they found a compact elaymotive idling at one end of the broad stone courtyard. Years ago, when Val had been a child living at the palace, the easiest way to get from the royal court to the city below was on one of the public omnibuses that continually traveled the route back and forth. Then, all the conveyances had been horse-drawn, smelly, and slow. She had noticed that many of the current omnibuses were elaymotives, which was probably a decided improvement.
“Darien lets me borrow one of his smoker cars whenever I want to,” Corene explained as they headed to the vehicle.
“Are you planning to drive it?”
“I can drive, but I’m not very good at it. Foley will take us.”
Foley turned out to be a strongly built young man with light brown hair, an open face, and a watchful attitude. He ***ust nodded when Corene made careless introductions as she and Val climbed into the back seat. Val studied his profile and wondered what had drawn the vivacious princess to the taciturn soldier. He looked most ordinary.
“So how do you think we’re going to find sirix?” Val said as Foley eased the car forward and headed down the steep road.
“Mmm, well, it’s not illegal to sell it—if a bar owner has purchased it from a Soechin trader,” Corene said. “So I would think it would be available at any of the upscale places around the plazas.”
“So we’re staying in the nicer parts of town,” Val said with some relief.
The mischief was back on Corene’s face. “No! We want to try smuggled sirix. So we’re going southside.”
Val groaned, but Foley turned his head to glance back at them. “No, we’re not,” he said. “I’m not taking one of your father’s cars across the canal.”
“So we’ll park it somewhere safe and cross on foot.”
“No, we won’t,” he answered. He didn’t say it, but the corollary hung in the air. I’m not taking you across the canal, either.
Corene hunched a shoulder but didn’t argue. It was the first thing that made Val actually like her. She was a headlong sweela girl, but she wasn’t foolhardy. She would listen to reason. Or at least she would listen to Foley.
“Then let’s go to the bachelor district,” she said. “There must be all kinds of questionable venues there.”
Foley’s silence seemed to indicate assent. They continued down the mountain until he turned onto the Cinque, the five-sided boulevard that made a loop around the outer perimeter of the city. Val gazed out the windows, intrigued. Foley immediately headed east and south so their route was bordered by the tumbling Marisi River. This was not a direction that was familiar to Val—she had spent most of her time in the northwest quadrant of the city where the rich families had their homes and the most exclusive merchants set up their shops. But in this part of town, there was a ***umble of different styles and neighborhoods, changing almost block by block. On one street were what appeared to be small individual homes for prosperous tradesmen; on another, rows of somewhat dreary apartments where laborers and working-class families might live. Farther down were clusters of well-kept buildings of varying sizes and styles, not opulent but not cheap, either. Some appeared to be residences, while others were storefronts for shops or clubs. Foley slowed and turned off the Cinque into one of the side roads lined with commercial establishments.
“This is the bachelor’s district?” Val asked. “I’ve never been here before.”
“I haven’t been here often,” Corene said. “Rafe says—”
“Who’s Rafe?”
“***osetta’s husband. He used to be a gambler across the canal. He says this part of town is like a more respectable version of the southside. You can get in trouble here, but only if you’re looking for it. You’re not likely to get assaulted in the streets, but you can indulge your vices if you want.”
Val looked out a little fearfully. In the afternoon sunshine, the brick and wood and plaster buildings looked perfectly ordinary, even welcoming. Not dangerous at all. “I don’t have any vices I want to indulge.”
“Well, you can pretend, can’t you?”
Foley found a place to park the elaymotive, a lot watched over by a bored young man who charged them a quint-silver. Corene stood on the street corner, hands on her hips, critically eying the options. “Those two look like restaurants—those two look like bars—which one would be most likely to have contraband sirix?”
“The seedy one,” Val said, pointing.
“Maybe,” Corene said. “But I think the fancy restaurant is a better bet. Because sirix is expensive and if you can’t afford a pricey meal, you probably can’t afford imported wine.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Val said.
“Then let’s go.”
Foley followed them to the building, a well-maintained two-story structure of white stone softened by climbing ivy. The front door and the window shutters were all made of wide slabs of dark wood, and they were all tightly shut, but appealing odors of onions and spices scented the air just outside.
“I won’t come in,” Foley said. “But I’ll be right here. Shout if you need me.”
Corene stepped inside, Val on her heels. Despite the shuttered windows, the place projected a warm and cozy air. The floor and lower half of the walls were covered with the same dark polished wood, brightened by a cheerful fire in a large pit in the center of the room, candles on every table, and discreet gaslight that illuminated the whitewashed ceiling. At this time of day, the place had a somewhat somnolent feel. Only a few of the high-backed booths were occupied and no one sat at the freestanding tables surrounding the fire pit.
“Should we sit at a booth?” asked Val, who liked her privacy.
But Corene shook her head and made straight for the table closest to the door. “Too easy for someone to trap you in booth,” she said. “And Foley could hear us better from here if we started screaming for help.”
They took their seats across from each other. Val moved the candles from the center of the table so she could study Corene’s face without anything getting in her way. “Those aren’t things I’ve ever considered before.”
Corene grimaced. “I’ve had reason to run away from someone more than once. I start looking for escape routes the minute I walk into someplace new. It’s become a habit.”
Val felt her eyebrows rise. “You’ve had to run away from people? While you were in Malinqua?”
“Yes, and even when I was in Welce.” She grinned. “I’ve had a rather adventurous life.”
“Now I want to hear some of those stories.”
A smiling man approached the table. He wore neat black clothing designed to draw no attention, and kept his long hair tied back in a ponytail. He wasn’t particularly young, and the wrinkles around his eyes and the scar on his right cheek hinted at a life even more adventurous than Corene’s. Val thought he might be the owner instead of a mere employee; he had a clever aspect and an air of authority. He had recognized rich young women when they came through his door, and he wanted to make sure they received the proper attention.
“Good afternoon,” he greeted them. “I’m Geoffrey. Welcome to my establishment. Is there something I can get you? Are you hungry or thirsty?”
“Both, I think,” Corene said. “But could we start with food? What would you recommend?”
“What does the princess like?” he countered.
So he had, indeed, recognized them, or at least one of them. Corene laughed, and Val was relieved. It seemed even less likely that they would come to harm if the proprietor knew he was dealing with Darien’s daughter. “It is very hard for me to be incognito in this city,” she said, faking a pout. “I’m so disappointed! I never get a chance to behave badly and have no one be the wiser.”
“I can pretend you are just another rich girl testing the limits of her father’s patience,” Geoffrey replied with a grin. Val thought with indignation that they were actually flirting with each other. “In what small way can I contribute to your afternoon of mild debauchery?”
Now Corene glanced at Val, a smile spreading across her face. “I do like a sweela rogue, don’t you?” she said.
Val couldn’t emulate Corene’s reckless insouciance, but she tried to make her own contribution to the charade. She puckered her forehead and infused worry into her voice. “Oh, I hope we won’t get into trouble,” she said.
Geoffrey gave her a quick, polite glance, but clearly the king’s sister was a stranger to him. Val was both piqued and relieved. “No trouble,” he said. “Just—a taste of life that might not normally come your way.”
Corene leaned toward him in a conspiratorial fashion, clearly ready to share secrets, and he returned all his attention to her. “I wondered—do you have—I have been hearing about this marvelous new drink from Soeche-Tas. But nobody has it, or nobody is supposed to have it, and I don’t know what all the fuss is about. And I want to know.”
The bar owner was smiling. “Perhaps you mean sirix?”
“Corene,” Val hissed. “Your father said people could be arrested for drinking that.”
“He’s not going to arrest me.”
“I don’t think we should stay here.”
“Nobody is going to arrest anybody,” Geoffrey said smoothly. “It is true sirix is not widely available, but it’s delightful, and I think you should try it if you like. But it is quite strong, and if you’re not used to it, you should make sure you have a little food in your stomach before you take the first sip.”
Corene was practically bouncing in her seat. “But you have some? You aren’t just saying you have some so we’ll order an expensive meal?”
He laughed at that. “The devious sweela mind,” he said. “You’re as much a rogue as I am.”
“I doubt that,” she said, but she was grinning. Val was starting to lose track of whether Corene was playing a part or showing her true self.
“I swear I will bring you the sirix once you’ve had a bite to eat,” he said.
“And you won’t send someone off to the palace to tell my father where I am?”
He laughed again. “Princess, your father is the last man I want to notice me.”
“Then yes. Bring us a meal. Something tasty.”
He glanced at Val to see if she had anything more specific to add, but she just shrugged and nodded. He smiled again and headed back toward the kitchen.
“That was well done!” Corene whispered as soon as he was too far away to hear. “That made him want to give us the sirix.”
“He still might send a courier to Darien.”
“He might,” Corene said. “But I don’t think so. I think he wants to impress us with his smuggled goods. Show off to a couple of Five Family girls.”
“I’m beginning to see why you’ve had to run away from so much trouble in the past. Because you ran toward so much trouble to begin with.”
“Well, some of it was my fault,” Corene admitted. “But not all of it.”
“So tell me some stories.”
Val spent the next hour listening to heart-stopping tales and eating one of the best meals of her life. Corene would interrupt her own dramatic recitations to exclaim over an unexpected flavor or a particularly delicious garnish. “That’s a spice from Berringuey but I’ve never had that other seasoning before,” she would say, or “Oh! I had that in Cozique, but I didn’t know they imported it to Welce.”
As they finished the meal, she said, “I think Geoffrey is smuggling more than sirix. But he certainly has an exquisite sense of taste.”
“Too bad we can’t recommend this place to any of our friends,” Val said, taking the last bite. “Because we can’t ever admit we were here.”
Corene was grinning. “Speak for yourself. I have friends who would come here, no questions asked.”
Val couldn’t help smiling in response. “Maybe Darien is the only one we can’t tell.”
Geoffrey was approaching the table again, carrying a tray with three cut-glass tumblers, each one about a quarter full of amber liquid. He set the glasses on the table with the air of someone producing magic and then pulled up a chair. “Sirix,” he said grandly. “Let the first sip sit on your tongue for a bit, just until it starts to burn. Drink the rest of it slowly. It will go to your head fast.”
Val was shocked that Geoffrey considered himself welcome to join them, but Corene appeared delighted. Corene lifted her glass to clink against his, and Val felt compelled to do the same. Then she took a cautious sip and, as instructed, let the wine linger in her mouth. It had a sweet, heady flavor that made her think of tangled patches of wildflowers too thorny to harvest. When she swallowed, she could feel the fire trail down her throat. She took another sip, and then another.
“I can actually taste the color,” she said.
Geoffrey turned his smile on her, and it was as warm as the sirix. “Now, that’s interesting,” he said. “What color do you think it is?”
“Red and amber and really dark green. Like it’s made from blooms that grow near a hidden waterfall under a pile of boulders that are always in shadow.”
Geoffrey and Corene both burst out laughing. “Oh, that’s perfect,” Corene exclaimed. “Don’t tell us if she’s wrong. That’s how I want to picture it from now on.”
“I won’t correct her, then—but she’s not far off. Well done.”
Corene turned wide eyes in Val’s direction. “But I wouldn’t have expected you to start spouting poetry over a glass of booze.”
Val was a little embarrassed, but that didn’t keep her from drinking a little more sirix. “I just had the thought.”
“I told you it would go quickly to your head,” Geoffrey warned.
Now Val eyed her glass with doubt. Maybe half of the liquid remained. She felt like she had hardly had any and she wanted to finish the rest. But maybe that was a bad idea. “Am I drunk?”
“Have you ever been drunk before?” Corene asked.
“Not really.”
Corene shared a glance with Geoffrey and he reached over to take Val’s glass away. “That might be enough for you. It’s very potent.”
Val couldn’t help a frown of disappointment. “Maybe I could take the rest of it home with me.”
“Not if you’re going to the palace, you can’t.”
Corene smiled at him. “Maybe we’ll just have to come back some other day.”
“That would be most acceptable to me.”
“Just one more sip,” Val said.
Geoffrey returned the glass. Val considered downing the rest of the liquid in one quick gulp, but she had always heard such repulsive things about people who became inebriated. She didn’t want to lose her stern self-control and begin doing irrational things. So she took one more small taste and held it on her tongue until her whole mouth was tingling.
“I really do like that,” she said.
“You are not alone,” Geoffrey replied.
Sunlight made a harsh bright arc at the front of the room as the door opened and Foley stuck his head inside. He didn’t say anything or even cross the threshold, but it was plain he thought it was time for them to leave. Corene nodded at him and finished off her own sirix.
“This has been most enjoyable, but it’s time for us to be getting back,” she said. “We’ll settle up the bill and be on our way.”
Geoffrey named a sum and Corene handed over a couple of quint-gold coins. More expensive than Val would have thought, but the princess hadn’t even blinked. “I owe you a little change,” Geoffrey said, and headed back to the kitchen.
“Do you feel dizzy? Or just a little giddy?” Corene asked. “I can’t believe I got you drunk the very first time I took you outside of the palace.”
“I think I’m fine,” Val said uncertainly. “But I wouldn’t want to have to think too hard about anything.”
“I can certainly see why people want to be smuggling sirix all over the world,” Corene said. “I’ll have to tell Zoe to buy some for the next state dinner. Buy it from a respectable merchant, of course.”
“Zoe doesn’t seem like she would care that much about what’s legal and what isn’t,” Val remarked.
Corene laughed. “Generally that’s true! But if it’s something that matters to Darien, she’s very strict about observing the rules.”
It was an opportunity to ask something that had been on Val’s mind for the past few days. “I was surprised Zoe wasn’t crowned queen when Darien became king,” she said.
“Oh, that’s because of some old rule of law.” Corene waved a vague hand. “Whoever marries the monarch has to forfeit other lands and titles. But Zoe can hardly stop being prime. So it was decided that she could keep her property and status as long as she was never named queen.”
Geoffrey returned, jingling a pile of coins in his hand. “Your change,” he said, setting a stack of coppers in front of Corene. “And a little bit of whimsy. My cook keeps a cauldron of blessings in the back, and he likes to pull some for every customer.”
“That’s charming!” Corene exclaimed. “What did he draw for me?”
Geoffrey dribbled three coins onto the table. They looked thin and cheap, not temple-quality, and they made a cheerful tinny sound as they landed.
“Courage,” Corene said, picking up the first one. “Oh, he cheated! Everyone knows that’s one of my random blessings!”
Geoffrey maintained a serious expression, but his eyes were merry. “He would never do such a thing.”
She checked the other two. “And, let’s see—grace and charm. Oh, I think you must have picked these out for me!”
Geoffrey placed a hand to his heart. “The blessings seem most apt for the sweela princess.”
If Geoffrey was sorting through the glyphs to find the ones he thought would please his customers, Val was a little nervous to discover what he thought she deserved. It was probably her imagination that he watched her with a barely suppressed look of amusement as he dropped three more disks in front of her.
She turned over the first one. “Loyalty.”
“A fine hunti trait,” Corene pronounced.
It also happened to be one of the random blessings that had been bestowed upon Val at birth, but there seemed to be no way Geoffrey could have known that. She picked up the second one and made a face. “Surprise.”
“Oh, I love surprise,” Corene said.
“Of course you do,” Val said. “I hate it.”
“Of course you do.”
Someone from the kitchen called Geoffrey’s name. “I’ve got a crisis to attend to in the back,” he said. “I have thoroughly enjoyed your patronage this afternoon, and I hope you return often.” He bowed and hurried off.
“What’s the third blessing?” Corene asked.
Val lifted it up to study the glyph in the poor light—and felt everything else fall away. Noise disappeared, the edges of her vision blurred. Even her breathing stopped.
Etched into the smooth tin surface was a set of initials nestled together. V and S, with a swooping arc cutting through the V.
Slowly, carefully, barely feeling the edges of the metal against her fingers, she rotated the coin so the glyph was upside down. And now she was looking at an S and an A.
Sebastian Ardelay.
“Well? Don’t you recognize it? I have to admit, there are some of the symbols that I simply can’t remember.”
“It’s a ghost coin,” Val managed to say. “Nothing on it.”
“Ooooh, I like that even better than surprise!” Corene said. “You’re a woman of mystery!”
Val summoned a wan smile. “Do you think we’re supposed to keep these or give them back?” she asked.
“Keep them, of course. They’re so inexpensive Geoffrey must commission them by the hundreds. I’m surprised he doesn’t have the name of the restaurant embossed on the back. Think what a great marketing tool that would be!”
“I suppose if you sell contraband sirix, you don’t need to do any other marketing.” Despite her shaking hands, Val managed to slip the coins in her pocket without dropping any on the floor.
She glanced around casually, trying to get a better look at the other diners. Sebastian must be here somewhere. But he wasn’t one of the three men arguing in a corner booth and he wasn’t at the table on the other side of the fire pit. Maybe he was working in the kitchen. Maybe he was the cook who liked to draw blessings for special customers. He had peered out when Geoffrey relayed the order for sirix, and he had recognized Val, and he had quickly snatched up some sharp, pointed kitchen tool and gouged their mirrored initials into the metal . . .
The coincidence was too fantastical. Hundreds of restaurants scattered across Chialto, and Val happened to wander into the place where Sebastian worked? Not possible.
More likely—she didn’t want to think it—but more likely he had been aware of her presence in the city ever since she arrived. Maybe he’d been loitering around the palace, waiting for the day she left on an excursion, hoping to approach her casually in some public spot. He’d followed their elaymotive to the bachelor’s district, and slipped around back, and wheedled his way into Geoffrey’s good graces. One sweela rogue would recognize another, after all.
Val’s thoughts stuttered to a halt. Or maybe Sebastian had been on the premises, delivering a contraband cargo, when he happened to spot Val sharing a meal with the sweela princess.
I’d be risking my life if one of Darien’s soldiers apprehended me, Sebastian had written.
I am not sure yet how ruthless I will have to be, Darien had said.
Was it possible Sebastian was smuggling sirix into and out of Chialto?
What would happen when Darien found out?