Kismet's Kiss: A Fantasy Romance (Alaia Chronicles) (14 page)

“You’re now dressing in Kaddite clothing, Healer?” Sohad asked as they left the infirmary.

“Only the outermost layer. Priya thought I should cover my gown and hair. For propriety.” Varene nearly grinned. At least propriety was one thing those two had in common.

“An excellent decision,” Sohad said, and nodded at Priya, whose gaze danced away just in time. “In the same vein, Healer, I suggest you let me know which items you wish to purchase and let me bargain for them. You aren’t familiar with Kaddite bargaining customs, and there’s no sense in calling attention to you or your accent. And sugarwort is known to be a Tegannese herb.”

“I most certainly do not have an accent,” she replied, tongue-in-cheek. “Even though you Kaddites do. But yes, Sohad,” she added when he looked ready to warn her again. “I promise to keep my mouth shut.”

Sohad led the way, as men seemed wont to do in Kad, through the marbled palace corridors to double doors flanked by impassive guards with watchful eyes. Outside at last in the late afternoon sun, the three made their way toward the noise and crowd of the marketplace a short walk away.

The smells enticed Varene first. Cookfires heated fried dough and spiced meats, and tidbits of sugared fruit delights hung from lines strung across the merchant stalls. Her mouth watered instantly, and she tried to remember when she had last eaten. She hadn’t yet had a meal in Kad, which meant her last food had been breakfast before she’d entered her storeroom in Teganne, a very long time ago.

Priya seemed to note Varene’s distraction. “My lady, you had me feed your patients, but you haven’t been fed, yourself.” Varene could almost hear Priya’s silent clucks of disapproval.

A-ha, the handmaiden had a backbone under her meek exterior! And Varene would wager that some of Priya’s attitude was meant to impress a certain physician’s assistant.

Sohad took the cue. “May I purchase zoolbiah for you both?” His gaze shifted to Priya, whose own gaze flicked away again.

“What’s zoolbiah?” Varene whispered.

“Fried dough soaked in syrup,” he said. “One of my favorite treats from the market.”

“They’re wonderful, Healer,” said Priya. “They’re my favorite, too. And it would only take a moment.” She smiled fleetingly at Sohad.

“Well, if you both agree, and it’s quick,” said Varene, amused. “I suppose I could use something in my stomach. It may be a long night.”

Sohad strode to the merchant. After a few moments of haggling, he walked back with three zoolbiah, three meatpies, and a grin. “They’re fresh—still hot from the fryer.”

“Thank you,” said Varene, taking her portion as they walked. “Much appreciated.”

“How much did you end up paying?” Priya asked, a hint of friendly challenge in her voice.

“Twenty khedas.”

“Ah.”

“Why?” Sohad asked. Varene could tell he was glad for the excuse to look at Priya at last.

“You bargained well.” Priya smiled. “Better than most. But you could have gotten him down to seventeen.”

“Truly? I bargained as low as I thought he’d go.”

Priya’s lashes lowered modestly. “My mother owned a stall here. I learned to bargain as soon as I could talk.”

“Well, then.” He smiled down at her. “The next time I won’t let my khedas leave my palm so easily.”

Thoroughly entertained by the show, Varene bit into the zoolbiah. “Mmmmm,” she said, closing her eyes to savor it.

Priya laughed. “I told you! And the meatpie is even better.”

They passed fruit mongers with geometric piles of juicy citrus and lirrfruit, cheese merchants displaying wheels and balls in every shade of yellow and white, jewelers with massive guards posted at each corner of the stalls, and clothiers’ racks of veils and skirts, trousers and tunics in hues ranging from desert sands and garden flowers to the sky, moon, and sun.

Seeing the clothiers’ stalls reminded Varene of Alvarr and Jilian’s daughter, Qiara. Kuramos had wanted to force the princess to marry him, securing the rulership of three realms for his progeny, but the wily Qiara had escaped. The daredevil redhead had hidden from Kuramos in this very marketplace. Varene knew the sultan had fallen hard for Qiara. Now she wondered what feelings Kuramos might still hold for the princess, five years after they had parted.

For Fate’s sake, that’s none of your concern
, Varene scolded herself.
Why should you care what goes on in his head?

She listened to the conversations around them as they walked. Mostly, she overheard the various stages of bargaining, from loud bickering and dramatic gestures down to murmured protestations between close-pressed heads. Two women spied each other across a dusty aisle and gave joyful shouts as if meeting for the first time in decades.

Sohad led the way through the packed aisles as if he were the captain of a sailing ship, proud and authoritative, with the two ladies behind him his esteemed passengers. When they had both finished their savory food, Varene linked arms with Priya and grinned. After a blinking moment of surprise, Priya smiled back.

Finally, Sohad slowed. The scents of herbs suffused the air, and Varene inhaled deeply. This was the aroma of home, of the hours spent among the supplies of her craft, studying plants, learning the name of each and the uses of the stems, the bulbs, the flowers, the roots. Hours of sorting in the Healing Rooms in Teganne, where if she just looked out the window, she could see the hill where Findar’s pyre…

Suddenly the sun shed no heat and even the herb scents turned stale, like old bread and moldy dreams. Grief tightened knots around Varene’s heart, and she slowed. Priya, sensing the shift in pace and mood, peered at her in concern. Varene unlinked their arms and waved a hand to forestall any questions. She forced her mind back to business.

The first stall held exotic herbs and dried flowers, some she’d never heard of. But though the herbs were plentiful, they didn’t look fresh. Many were brittle and too pale. Even the stall looked dingy.

She bypassed it without fingering any of the wares and moved across the aisle to one more promising, with stems of better color and stronger fragrances. Sohad took the cue. “Have you any sugarwort?” he asked the ample proprietress wearing silks the color of oasis grass.

The shopmistress eyed him curiously and spoke in a gravelly voice. “We don’t get many requests for that around here.”

Sohad held her shrewd gaze and shrugged. She gave Priya a cursory glance, and Varene’s pale face a longer one. “I might have some. Let me look.” She disappeared behind the curtain dividing the shopfront from the private area in the back.

Soon the curtains rustled. A pair of eyes a foot higher than the shopmistress’s peered out from between a slit in the panels.
Her husband?
Varene wondered. A hushed but heated conversation began behind the curtain.

Varene turned away as if staring indifferently across the aisle, letting the veil hide half her face. Sohad held up a vial of crushed starfoil and gave it a careful sniff. He pursed his lips with satisfaction and placed it in front of him on the white cloth of the counter as if he planned to purchase it.

Priya was eyeing scarves in the neighboring stall, seemingly lost in the interplay of colors.

At last the woman re-emerged, holding a darkened jar between her hands and a cotton bag draped over her arm. She placed them on the counter in front of Varene, instead of Sohad.

Varene looked up in surprise.

The woman merely gave a sharp, knowing nod and a wordless grunt. She twisted the stopper off the jar so Varene could inspect the contents.

The Healer pulled the twigs out. Though dry, the raisin color remained, and the ends were cleanly clipped, not pulled. The healing properties of sugarwort could be diminished through rough handling, but Varene was sure these would yield a strong decoction. Sohad, too, came closer and nodded his approval.

“You need it all?” asked the proprietress.

Varene only permitted herself a nod. This jarful, along with what she’d brought and a doubled decoction of the weak herbs from the palace, should be just enough.

The proprietress scooped twigs into the cotton bag. “That’ll be three hundred khedas for the lot.”

“Three hundred!” blustered Sohad, warming up for the bargaining. “Why, that’s—”

“A fair price,” boomed a new voice to Varene’s left, “especially for a
Tegannese
plant, and in such good shape.”

They all whipped their heads around, ready to shush the loud voice that had mentioned Teganne. Instead, a pregnant silence ensued. The boomer was the hulking shopkeeper across the way, the one Varene had bypassed.

“Tegannese? Did he say Tegannese?” came whispers all around them.

The shopkeeper sneered at the three of them. “Are you trying to pay less than the fair value? There must be a Teg among you, looking to cheat an honest Kaddite out of hard-earned khedas. Just like that Tegannese prince, when he cheated our sultan out of Qali Province. A prince of thieves.”

Varene balled her fists into stiff knots hidden only by the long sleeves of her cloak.
Is THAT what the Kaddites think happened to Qali? If so, Kuramos, you lying sack of sh—

“Bafar,” the shopmistress said, “hold your fat tongue!” She raised an irate hand and leaned over her counter toward her belligerent neighbor. “If I want your stupid help, I’ll ask for it. Go tend to your own customers. If you have any left.”

“I was merely trying to help you get a fair return.” Bafar’s mouth split into a sarcastic sneer. “After all, Rupal, Tegs are known swindlers. But maybe you don’t mind. Maybe you like doing business with their kind—even with a filthy Teg sorceress.” He spat into the aisle.

How had he guessed? But Varene’s indignation at the insults to her realm sank under a growing apprehension. Clearly, rumors of the illness in the palace were now raging outside its walls.

She herself had spurred those rumors into existence when she’d lost her temper and shouted her furious taunts at the sultan, witnessed by a room of nobles. Some of whom, as Priya had mentioned, were likely seeking his very throne.

In the hot and dusty market, a crowd began to gather. Suspicious gazes seemed to bounce off Sohad and Priya and stick to Varene, measuring, sizing up.

Unease snaked through her limbs.

Sohad took a step toward the belligerent Bafar. “I’m purchasing what I like. I’m as Kaddite as you. Born and raised in Gida Province. What I buy here is no concern of yours.”

“Pah. You’re only a cover for the sorceress. Buying Teg plants to use on the ill in the palace.” He jerked his head north toward the palace’s domes and spires. “And how do we know,” the merchant said, taking his own step forward, eyes menacingly locked with Varene’s, “that she didn’t blight them with the sickness herself?” A growl rose from multiple throats among the crowd. “A Teg sorceress—an assassin, more like! Here to take Kad for her own prince. To conquer Kad and make us bow to an overlord from Teganne, just like happened in Qali. And Fallorm.” He lobbed another globule of spit into the dust between them.

Fallorm.
Never had she thought that place would be an issue here in Kad, so many hundreds of miles away…

The crowd growled again and jostled to take a closer look at her. Priya clutched Varene’s sleeve.

“Bafar,” shrieked Rupal the proprietress, “stuff your filthy talk up your bulbous nose!” She exited her stall and marched toward Bafar, followed, somewhat reluctantly it seemed, by her much larger husband. “You’re bitter because your wares are brittle and blighted, and no one wants to deal with a man who cheats his customers.” She glared up at him, hands cocked aggressively on her ample hips.

Murmurs spiked among the throng, and soon the shouting Bafar and Rupal were ringed by onlookers who hooted and jeered at each verbal jab.

“We should leave,” whispered Sohad in Varene’s ear. Then he placed a reassuring hand on Priya’s back, something Varene doubted would have happened under normal circumstances. Priya looked up at him with nervous eyes and nodded, seeming to take strength from his presence.

And though Varene was well used to fighting battles for her patients and even for herself, for just a moment she wished someone special would give her that kind of reassurance, too. Findar would have. She was sure of it.

Varene looked back at Bafar, whose face was growing crimson from his shouting match with Rupal. Varene hungered to put the towering bastard in his place, but ten people depended on her for their cure.

She shook her head. “We can’t leave without the sugarwort.” She eyed the cotton bag and the precious contents peeking from it and sidled closer to them. “Take the herbs and leave Rupal the money,” she hissed. “Twice as much as she asked.”

But as soon as Sohad spilled the appropriate coins on the counter and put his fingers on the cotton bag, a meaty hand closed over his own. “Now, now, that’s not yours.”

The three of them looked up at the owner of the fist, another behemoth, one who reeked of drink and ill temper.

“Let go, please,” Sohad said. Tall though he was, he was a stick compared to his adversary. “I’ve made payment, as you can see.” Six silver coins glinted in the reddening light.

The stranger ground out his words, slow and deep. “Rupal didn’t say you could have them yet.” His sodden breath wafted out.

Sohad thrust his chin forward. “She was showing them to us for purchase—at half this price!”