0425277054 (F) (17 page)

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S
ince she was sure this was news the empress wanted to announce herself, Corene lied to Melissande when she found the Coziquela girl in her room, already dressed for dinner.

“Filomara wouldn’t let me stay,” she said. “So I don’t know what the blood tests showed.”

Melissande sat up very straight on the settee where she had settled in to wait. She’d brought a book and letter-writing materials with her in case that wait took hours. This was a woman who liked to stay informed. “But you yourself are convinced of the veracity of his claim?”

“Completely.”

“Explain to me again why that is?”

It was so hard to put into words things that Corene had always considered to be foundational truths. “In Welce, we are all affiliated with one of the five elements. And for every element, there is a prime—someone who can practically bend that element to his or her will. My father’s wife is the coru prime. She has power over water and an affinity with blood. She can lay her hand on a man’s arm and tell him who his relatives are, who he belongs to. She knows that Steff is Filomara’s grandson.”

“But even if you are right, that does not mean Filomara’s experts will interpret his blood correctly,” Melissande pointed out. “They might not be as good as she thinks—or they might have an incentive to lie.” She clapped her hands together. “Someone might pay them to say Steff is not at all who he says he is!”

Not for the first time, Corene thought that behind her flighty exterior, Melissande possessed a quick brilliance. She was most certainly sweela. “That occurred to me,” Corene said, as if worried about the possibility. “One of her nephews—”

“Or the prefect, or the mayor or someone else who has a stake in
the game,” Melissande agreed. “But if you and I thought of that, surely Filomara did as well.”

“And fifty more things that never crossed our minds,” Corene said.

“Then I think dinner tonight will be very interesting.”

To nerve herself for the occasion, Corene chose one of the more formal tunics Zoe had sent and kept her hair in place with one of the jeweled pins she’d bought at the Great Market.
Was that just this afternoon?
Corene thought.
This has been the longest day of my life.

The usual contingent of palace residents had gathered outside the small dining room, awaiting Filomara’s appearance—the empress’s nephews, the mayor and the prefect and their own family members, the aloof Alette. Corene lied to all of them when they sidled up to ask what Filomara had learned.
I don’t know anything. It’s very unsettling.

“If he’s an imposter,” Greggorio asked, “what will happen to him? Will she have him executed?”

“What?”
Corene exclaimed.

“Well, it’s treason,” he argued. “Isn’t it? Lying to the empress?”

“I think she’d merely send him packing,” Jiramondi said, but he sounded uncertain.

“It would be an act of war, would it not, to execute a foreign national?” Melissande asked, her voice sweetly puzzled. But of course she knew—they all knew—that such an action would be tantamount to a declaration of hostilities.

“He would be banished, nothing more,” said the mayor. She looked pointedly at Corene. “And diplomatic relations with Welce would most certainly deteriorate.”

Corene offered the woman her brightest smile. “Oh, but you do not know my father. He would never be so clumsy as to send an imposter to Malinqua if there was any chance the ruse would be uncovered.”

That brought everyone to a brief halt as they tried to parse her words. Would Darien Serlast ship a pretender off to Palminera if he thought he could get away with it? The mayor’s face gathered in a scowl.

“I have complete faith in our researchers,” the mayor said. “Whatever the truth is, they will discover it.”

Remember you said that,
Corene thought as she heard footsteps
approaching. Moments later, Filomara and Steff stepped into the anteroom where everyone waited. Steff pulled up short, uneasy at being the center of so much concentrated attention, but Filomara just nodded, not at all discomposed.

“I suppose you’ve all guessed that I’ve received the results of the tests conducted to verify Steffanolo’s heritage,” she said without preamble. “And he is Subriella’s son. My grandson. And potentially my heir.”

A single cry of
“Wonderful!”
came from Melissande, who also clapped her hands together. Everyone else seemed stunned. Corene glanced quickly from face to face, thinking that anyone who showed anger or disbelief would have been involved in trying to compromise the results. But in fact, everyone seemed equally surprised. Had they all thought Steff to be a fraud? Or had the whole roomful colluded to try to skew the results?

“Naturally, I will want to celebrate this momentous news in some suitable fashion,” Filomara went on. Corene thought she detected a faint quaver in the empress’s voice. “We must plan a gala event to welcome my grandson.”

She paused, as if waiting for congratulations that did not come, and then held her arm out to Steff. “You may escort me in to dinner.”

Steff’s face was so serious and self-conscious that Corene wanted to laugh, but no one else seemed remotely amused as they followed the empress and Steff into the dining room. Corene found herself sitting beside Jiramondi, who seemed to have chosen a chair as far from his aunt as the table would allow.

“Everyone seems so astonished,” she observed in a low voice once the others began stilted general conversation. “Did
none
of you believe he was telling the truth?”

“You must admit the story is farfetched,” Jiramondi said. “A daughter who did not die when we all thought she did and a lost grandson who is miraculously alive. I don’t know who my aunt entrusted to deliver her news, but I’m afraid she has been lied to by someone who thought to profit by giving her the results she most desired.”

Now, that was a version of the story that hadn’t occurred to Corene—that
Renalto
would falsify the tests, while the eminent scientists told the truth. “I would find that supposition more alarming if I
didn’t have complete faith in the woman who first discovered Steff’s identity,” Corene said. “As it is, I never had a moment’s doubt that he is who he says he is.”

Jiramondi gave her a shrewd look. “Yet a cynical man might say you have some incentive to lie as well,” he said. “I don’t mean to give offense.”

She laughed. “And you don’t. I understand how these court games work.”

“Yes,” Jiramondi said on a sigh. “And so the game continues, though with an entirely different set of rules.”

“So what will your strategy be, now that there are four heirs instead of three?” she asked, teasing a little. “Will you spend more time flattering the empress or will you try instead to make Steff your friend?”

“I shall flirt with the foreign princesses in hopes of making a quick match and winning my aunt’s favor that way.” He saluted her with his wineglass before sipping from it. “I shall start by saying how beautiful you look. I admire that jeweled clip in your hair.”

She patted the hairpin and batted her eyes. “I shall be happy to flirt with you, if it will do you any good,” she said. “But would it really influence Filomara if you made an alliance with one of us?”

He smiled, but she thought she saw a shadow flit behind his eyes. “Of course it would!” he said. “Isn’t that why she brought you here, after all?”

“Well, so far I like you best of Filomara’s nephews, but that could change any day,” she said. “You’ll have to be
very
nice to me if you want to keep my favor.”

They continued to banter throughout the meal, a pastime Corene found highly enjoyable—more so because it earned them speculative and disapproving looks from half the other people at the table. But while she laughed and flirted, she couldn’t help wondering about the shadow that had crossed Jiramondi’s face. Was it possible his aunt had imported a raftload of foreign women for some other reason than to marry them off to her nephews? Was there a whole different kind of danger here in Malinqua that Corene hadn’t even considered yet? She didn’t show her sudden uneasiness. She merely took another sip of her wine and smiled.

•   •   •

T
he next day, of course, all the talk was about Steff and his certification as heir. He wasn’t around to hear the endless speculation, since Lorian had fetched him from the breakfast table and he seemed set to spend every hour with Filomara.

“I don’t envy him,” Garameno said lightly when he unexpectedly joined Jiramondi and Corene for her language lessons. “I can generally only take a few hours of uninterrupted time with my aunt before I want to roll myself straight out of the palace, down to the harbor, and into the ocean to drown.”

Corene was only too glad to give up grammar in favor of gossip. “He has a lot to absorb,” she said. “When I was growing up, my sisters and I had lessons every day on everything from past history to current politics.”

“It can take a lifetime to master it all,” Jiramondi agreed.

Garameno brooded a moment in silence, and then shook his head as if shaking off a mood. “Well, it is not like Steffanolo needs to learn everything in a single quintile,” he said. “Since Filomara clearly intends to retain the crown at least another decade. She has
years
to teach him all her secrets.”

“Will she trust him, do you think?” Corene asked curiously. “Merely because he is her grandson? People betray their parents and grandparents all the time.”

“And their siblings,” Jiramondi added. When Garameno gave him a sharp look, Jiramondi merely shrugged. “Well, it’s true.”

Finally, an opening to ask about Filomara’s missing family members. “Are you talking about the empress’s brothers? I know two are dead and two are banished, but I don’t know any details.”

The cousins exchanged glances again; this time Garameno shrugged and looked away. Jiramondi answered. “They were always arguing over the throne. They were constantly making alliances with each other, and then breaking them off. Garameno’s father was the youngest, but the first to produce a son, so he felt that
he
should be Filomara’s heir. Then my father had me and claimed he had just as much right to the throne. But Morli and Donato—the two oldest brothers—said they shouldn’t be
left out of the calculations just because they were childless. In fact, Morli married three times until he found a woman who could bear him a son. Then he went on and on about how he was the oldest, so he should be heir and Greggorio after him.”

“An argument with which many at court were in full agreement,” Garameno put in.

“So what happened?”

“There was a dinner party that all four brothers attended,” Jiramondi said. “Probably to talk, as always, about who deserved to be emperor. Morli and Donato ended up dead.”

“Poisoned, in the grand tradition of Malinquese courts,” Garameno said. “Have you gotten that far in your history lessons yet? At least twenty-five suspicious deaths over the past two hundred years have been attributed to that single cause.”

So Foley had been right in some of his speculations. Corene tried not to show her dismay. “Who killed them?”

“Who knows?” Jiramondi said. “My father or Garameno’s father were the obvious suspects. Which is why they’ve been banned from court for life.”

“But it could have been a servant in someone else’s employ,” Garameno put in. “One popular theory was that they poisoned each other. No one can be certain—which is why our esteemed parents were merely banished and not executed for murder.”

The way he said “our esteemed parents” made her wonder what kinds of relationships the two men had with their fathers, but there were so many other questions to ask and she didn’t want to get distracted.

“But none of this makes any sense to me,” she said. “Did they do all this maneuvering for the throne even when Filomara’s daughters were alive?”

“Oh, yes,” Jiramondi said. “But Morli really stepped up his efforts when Greggorio was born. And by then, of course, we thought Subriella was already dead.”

“But Aravani was alive
and
she had children of her own,” Corene pointed out. “So why didn’t everyone expect
them
to be the natural successors?”

Jiramondi assumed an exaggerated expression of shock. “Another woman on the throne? Are you mad?”

“You can’t be serious,” Corene answered.

Garameno nodded. “Filomara was not a popular choice. Not with the council, at any rate—though the people love her. Even she knew it would be risky to name Aravani her heir. And once Aravani died, everyone assumed she would have no choice but to pass the crown to a man.”

“A strong, virile man,” Jiramondi said.

“A whole one,” Garameno added.

They didn’t have to list their defects to make it obvious why they, too, might seem like risky choices as Filomara’s successors. “So Greggorio has become the favorite,” she said. “But you two still consider yourselves in the running. How do you win Filomara’s favor? Or the favor of the council?”

“As I said last night—by marrying well,” Jiramondi said promptly. “And producing heirs of our own.”

The mood had lightened just a little; Corene felt it was safe to smile. “So why haven’t you all rushed into matrimony?”

Jiramondi laughed. “Because we can’t tell who the best bride would be! If we were to pick from among our foreign visitors, Melissande would be the obvious choice, because Cozique is the most powerful nation in the southern seas.”

“And yet we have excellent relations with Cozique,” Garameno interrupted. “Whereas many times we have been on the brink of war with Dhonsho. In which case, would it be better to marry Alette?”

“Though you could hardly find a less congenial woman to take as your bride,” Jiramondi said frankly. “And I am not convinced her father didn’t send her here to marry one of us and then stab him in the heart some night when he was sleeping.”

“A very expensive way to harm your enemy,” Corene said.

Garameno shrugged. “He has something like fifteen children. I’m sure he could spare one or two if it meant making Malinqua suffer.”