River Secrets (16 page)

“Yes, a rather ham-fisted thing to do,” he said, staring right back, daring himself not to smile.

The merchant glanced between them. “Well, my barrel is ashes now, and I—”

Dasha handed the lady a coin. The crowd lost interest, conversation renewed, music breathed merriment back into the night.

“Well done,” he said.

“Did Enna…?”

He nodded. “Stopped it cold. Now at least we know this isn’t some lunatic sticking people in his kitchen hearth. We’ve got a genuine fire-speaker on the loose.”

He examined the crowd. Most of Ledel’s men were interspersed with the Bayern, including Victar. Tumas stood on the fringes, glowering, his horde of hulking friends on hand. Ledel himself was no longer in sight. Searching for Ledel, Razo caught sight of a man watching a troupe of actors. He was thirty or so years old, his hand was drumming the cloth at his waist, and his hair was cropped short. On one finger, Razo thought there was a band of green skin, like the stain a copper ring would leave behind.

“Enna, see that fellow over…” He started to point when the man began to walk forward, all the while keeping his eyes on the actors. “Shh, pretend not to see him.”

The man shouldered his way through Ledel’s men. He was steadily approaching Megina.

“It’s one of them, I’m sure,” Razo whispered. “If we stop him before he attacks, it’ll look like we’re just attacking random Tiran, but if we don’t, he could hurt Megina.”

Enna nodded. “I can do this. Finn, be ready, so I don’t have to go all the way. Please.”

The man edged in, his eyes averted, his expression casual, but Razo noted that his whole body was tense. Then, like a snake, he sprang.

“Manifest Tira!” The man pulled a very long dagger from his belt.

Razo felt a
whoosh
of heat at his side. The man yelped and dropped the dagger. Finn kicked him in the chest, sending him to the ground, his sword at the man’s throat. The Bayern made a tight circle around Megina, Talone shouting instructions.

Razo was watching Enna. Despite the attempted assassin at her feet and the crowd simmering around them, she leaned back her head and smiled right up at the stars.

Megina sighed. “And I guess that’s the bell for bed.” She waved at the crowd and shouted, “We’re all fine! Thank you. Enjoy your festival!”

Patrol guards removed the dagger-happy fellow from beneath Finn’s boot, tied and took him off, and the crowd jeered and threw grapes and melon rinds. Razo wondered if they despised him for attempting to kill the ambassador or for failing.

Dasha returned to Thousand Years with the Bayern, yawning behind Razo’s nicked lummas. “I could be banished from Ingridan for getting sleepy at a midnight festival.”

“Really?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes as though imitating his own oft-used expression.

“Well, you never know, my lady, different cultures and such, and what with the baby eating…”

They did not talk again as they walked home, the surging crowds of the streets conversing for them. He did not feel tired. A fire-speaker among them. Burning barrels in a crowd. Willing to kill Tiran citizens in order to make the Bayern look guilty. And another assassin.

Were Manifest Tira and the body burner connected? He considered how Manifest Tira always went right for the ambassador, whereas the fire-speaker had targeted items near the Bayern. Manifest Tira fanatics were bold, throwing their own lives in peril just to get a swipe at Megina; but the fire-speaker struck from the shadows. It seemed Talone’s guess had been right—the two groups must be separate. So who was the fire-speaker?

Razo listened to the muttering roar of the crowd and heard no answers.

23
From the Spying Tree

Razo could not sleep. Festivity rattled and clanked in the city, vibrations of merriment running under his cot, up into his bones. He stuck his head under his pillow but could not stifle the jangle of music as it staggered on with punchy energy.

His cot began to feel like an enemy holding him captive but refusing him sleep.
Four days left,
he kept thinking. So he left the sputtering snores behind and climbed his spying perch in the tree outside Ledel’s barracks. He leaned his spine against a branch, holding himself steady with his feet against the trunk, and stared at the shredded blackness the leaves made of the night sky. The bells tolled the time: two hours before dawn.

Razo was in the blissful inebriation of half-sleep when a grating whoop shocked him awake. Three of Ledel’s men slurred and shouted their whispers, lurching into their barracks. Razo’s skin was clammy with dew, and he thought he had best get down in a hurry. He did not want to risk waking in the tree after sunrise, Tumas at sword practice under the branches.

He was rubbing his arms and warming himself enough to move when a creak made his skin feel alert. Someone was emerging from the back of the barracks, pushing a small cart like the ones the gardeners used. The wheels groaned, speaking of too much weight, then stopped cold with a screech of metal. The cart apparently would not budge. The someone lifted the cargo out of the cart and threw it over his shoulder.

Razo struggled to see in the gray rind of moonlight. Hanging from under the canvas was a shadow the shape of a limp hand. He could not see color in that muted light, but the raised hairs on his arms told him it was most likely burned black.

This is it, this is it,
he chanted to himself. He had caught the murderer in the midst of the dirty deed.

The someone steadied the weight on his shoulder and started toward the Bayern barracks. Razo sat up, straining for more detail to identify the man. He held another branch to catch his balance and leaned forward. And heard the branch whine.

The someone stopped. He threw the body back in the cart and came toward the tree.

“Something up there,” he said in the singsong way a father talks to little children. It made Razo’s stomach try to flee up his throat. There was a rasp to his voice Razo knew. There was the outline of those bulky shoulders against the thin moon peering. That hair that Razo remembered was a dirty yellow was loose and hanging over his shoulders, looking strangely feminine on the warrior.

Ledel moved closer to the tree, his steps making no sound.

“I can see you up there. You don’t look like a branch, and you make too big a bird. If you are one of mine, I promise not to bite.” He snapped his jaw twice.

There was no room up the tree to swing a sling, and Razo guessed the captain could burn him out of it at any moment. His only option was to run.

Razo scampered through the branches and dove onto the barracks roof. He bounded across the apex until his foot slammed down and his leg disappeared into splinters up to his knee. He pulled it out, leaped off the far side of the roof, and, ignoring a twisting pain in his ankle, ran like a squirrel from an errant sling stone.

He did not dare stop at the Bayern barracks and instead tried to lose Ledel by weaving between buildings, behind trees, never giving the pursuing murderer a chance to get a good look. He hoped.

His frantic heart pounded vigor into his body; his terror gave him an eerie thrill. He could not escape into the palace without the sentries stopping him for questions. The palace gate with its many guards was uncomfortably near now, so he zigzagged and crisscrossed and finally ducked into the stables. Bee Sting would whine if she saw him, but he knew Enna’s horse, Merry, was peculiarly calm, considering her rider, and slept like a buried stone. He dove into her stall, covering himself with straw.

His breath would not slow and made him wish he were still running.
Stupid choice, Razo,
he thought. Hiding meant staying in one place where big brothers or burning men could eventually come.

And then, a heavy breath and footsteps. A pause. The steps resumed and paused again, as though examining every stall. And kept coming nearer. Razo tried to hold his breath, but his lungs heaved as his heart raged. His panting rustled the straw, sounding like the crackling of a fire. He stuffed his mouth into his elbow and tried to time his breathing with the horse’s gusty inhales.

The footfalls stopped for a longer moment, and a horse grumbled for a treat. That would be his own Bee Sting. He heard a pat as if Ledel stroked her neck, and then the steps passed by. After several moments of silence, Razo allowed himself to scratch his nose.

Slowly, he started to ease upright. A crunching sound set his heart pounding even harder, and he hesitated. Silence. He had to get out and hide that body before others found it. Again, he began to rise from the straw. A twitter, a growl, a hush. Silence. Razo pressed a fingernail into the skin of his forehead to keep himself sane. He had to go, now.
Go!
He heard a squeak and eased himself back under the straw.

I’m in a cursed stable,
he thought.
It’s never going to be totally
quiet. Just go.

Silent as a cat (or so he hoped), Razo ascended from the straw, crept from the stall, and slammed right into someone. And squealed. A shrill cry of surprise answered his squeal. It was not Ledel.

“What’re you doing?” asked Razo. “You likely stopped my heart, sneaking around like that.”

“I work the stables,” said the Tiran boy, his eyes still wide. “I should call a sentry, you know. What were
you
doing in that stall?”

“I was…I…” He sneezed, and a flake of straw flew out of his nose. “Uh, the festival. Didn’t quite make it back to my cot, I guess.”

The boy squinted. “You’re Bayern. You the one who goes around with the prince? I heard someone tried to kill you right in front of him.”

“Nothing happens in Ingridan but everyone knows,” said Razo. He stared out the door, wondering if the body would still be there. “Sorry about the startle. I’ll go now, if that’s all right.”

“Go ahead. I’m not going to rat on the prince’s friend. Um, did you know you have hay in your hair?”

“Of course I do. It’s fashion.”

Razo plucked the straw from his hair when he was well out of sight, removing an impressive handful.

Sneaking back to the barracks took a painfully long time, hiding from workers and sentries and from the sun as it shuffled over the horizon. There was no need for stealth by the time he reached the Bayern barracks. The soldiers were up and outside, milling around, tension humming in the air. A few of Ledel’s men stood off, whispering to each other, as if trying to figure out what was going on. Razo found Talone under his spying tree.

“A body,” Talone whispered. “A sentry found it beside a gardener’s cart, covered it up, and sent for Lord Belvan. Ledel showed up soon after, helped Belvan’s men get it out of sight. You look surprised.”

“Just about Ledel helping to hide it.”

“You think he’s involved?”

“He’s our man, Captain. I’ve nothing to prove it but the eyewitness of a Bayern, and I doubt any court in Tira will accept that evidence.”

“Hm. I trust Belvan to keep this quiet, but Ledel’s bound to let rumors of this body trickle out. Lady Megina should take Belvan’s advice and we should leave before—”

“We’ve still got four days, Captain. Release me from other duties. Let me keep trying.”

“The risk is too great,” said Talone. “If we’re here when they vote for war—”

“And if we leave now, there’ll be no chance at all. We’ve got to keep trying. I can do it, Captain, please …”

Talone nodded. “Good luck, soldier.”

Razo watched Talone leave, and only two things stopped him from racing after him and taking it all back—Talone had responded as though he trusted Razo, and Razo was beginning to have a plan.

He took to his heels again, first collecting Dasha from her chamber, where she was already dressed and up, and then off for Enna, who left Megina with Finn and other guards. Razo explained what he needed from them as they jogged across the grounds, Enna always slightly in the lead.

“Proof that Ledel’s the fire-speaker. And in a hurry, before he burns someone else.” Razo did not mention what he’d seen from his tree perch, or he would also have to tell the part where he ran and hid. “He’s rotten with motive, and Victar mentioned he disappears sometimes for whole days. You’ve both been around him before, and you didn’t notice anything?”

“I can never be sure,” said Enna. “It’s the wind that tells me that sort of stuff, and I’m not as good as…” She glanced sideways at Dasha. “I’m not so good at wind. I’d have to consciously beckon the wind that’s touched a person and listen to hear if it talks of heat and strange fire on the skin … but even then it’s not always clear.”

“That is fascinating,” said Dasha, putting on a respectful smile. “The water is touching me constantly, but I have to be really close to someone, touch them even, to tell if there isn’t as much water hanging in the air around a person, as though more heat than normal is burning the water away. I never noticed anything unusual about Ledel, but I guess I was only looking for a Bayern fire-witch.” She flinched after speaking the phrase and looked aside at Enna.

“So, Dasha, do you ever feel
compelled
to use water?” Enna asked.

Dasha opened her mouth, but for a moment she did not speak. “Sometimes I feel … pressure all around me. When I do something small, like fill my hand with water, the pressure lifts for a time. A day, a few hours. But that’s all I do, just small things.”

Dasha looked at Enna, eyes wide, hoping for approval. “Hmm,” was all Enna said.

When they drew near, Enna stopped. “You don’t think you’re coming with us, do you, Forest-born?” she asked with a laugh.

Razo glanced at Dasha, wondering if she knew what it meant to be Forest-born. “Why can’t I?”

“Because, sheep boy, your face is—”

“Is a signpost for all to read, I know. I’ll wait here.”

Enna grabbed Dasha’s wrist and muttered to her as they hurried away.

Razo sat in the petite shade of a flowering bush, flaking the bark off a twig until it was smooth as water wood. He watched Dasha and Enna amble around the barracks, look at Dasha’s sling, pretend to practice on Ledel’s training circle. Several soldiers came and went. Tumas passed by with painful slowness, and Razo kept his hand on his own sling until the man left Enna and Dasha alone. Then Ledel emerged. Razo slapped his neck, a sudden crawling sensation making him think he was besieged by spiders.

Dasha, her gait a happy skip, went to Ledel, apparently asking him some innocent question. Enna sidled up. They waited a bit after Ledel left to return to Razo.

“And, and?” he asked as the girls approached. “Ledel’s the fire-speaker?”

Both shook their heads.

Razo felt his mouth gape. “Are you … are you sure?”

“Ask her,” said Enna.

Dasha smiled meekly. “We … it was Enna’s idea … we combined talents. Enna moved the wind around Ledel and straight to me so I didn’t have to touch him. His heat seemed normal to both of us. We tested everyone who passed by, and that other soldier—”

“Ah-ha! I knew it was Tumas, that nose-breaking, mossy-breathed, rotting hunk of—”

“No, not him,” said Enna, “but his friend, the young one.”

“Yes, he had something,” Dasha agreed.

“Yes, something.” Enna nodded, thoughtful. “Not like…”

“Not like you, Enna,” said Dasha.

“No,” Enna agreed. “Maybe he’s just new to it, but I wouldn’t even’ve sensed a scrap of fire-speaking in him if it hadn’t been for Dasha. Razo, I don’t think he could be the burner from the grape harvest festival.”

“Come on, you two, if he’s got the fire-speaking, then that’s it. Tumas’s friend is our man, and Ledel’s helping him.”

“Maybe…,” said Dasha. Enna nodded as if anticipating what she was going to say next. “Maybe there’s more than one.”

“Hello!” Victar stalked up, trailing his group of friends. “What a stale air in the city. We need a brisk sea wind, this autumn heat is beginning to ferment.”

“Hello, Victar,” Razo said, trying to sound casual. “Yes, it’s pretty stale.”

Razo was not in the mood to keep up with Victar’s chatting. The mystery still bound his hands; his mind was limping and no closer to a conclusion. After a few moments of inept silence, Dasha stepped in. Razo watched them chat and dug the tip of a sandal between two paving stones.

“Come here a moment,” Enna said in her carefully even tone. Razo tensed, anticipating some rebuke. Instead of scolding, Enna drew inward a bit, as though some buried sadness wrapped a string around her attention and tugged.

“Razo,” she whispered, “I’ve got a thought, and I’m hoping I’m wrong. Tell me what the bodies looked like.”

Razo sniffed with one nostril. “Couldn’t you ask me something pleasanter? Like, say, what I’d like for lunch?… No? Well, they’re black. Stiff, charred, unrecognizable.”

She closed her eyes. “I don’t think they were actually murdered, Razo. Not
set
on fire, as such.”

“Believe me, they were burned, sometimes still smoking.”

“But it sounds like … like Leifer.” Her eyes flashed to his briefly. She meant her brother, who had used his talent with fire-speaking in the first battle of the war and grew so hot with it that he had burned to death. “When the skin’s how you described it … it’s not like someone set on fire, more like someone who burned from the
inside.
”

“They burned themselves up?” Razo tugged on his hair. “I’m stumped. I’d been so sure it was Ledel, but now… Great crows, Enna-girl, what a hornets’ nest. Anyone could be involved.”

“Including her,” Enna whispered, nodding toward the sound of Dasha laughing with Victar. “She knows I’ve got fire-speaking. I don’t mind telling you, I’m feeling as vulnerable as a goose in the cook’s fist, and I don’t like being scared.”

He inhaled deeply. “I promised during the war I’d watch your back. I’m still keeping that promise, Enna-girl. I swear.”