Troubled Waters (57 page)

He paused long enough to throw her a humorous look. “Hard to be certain,” he said. “Since there have been very few other women in whom I have shown an interest.”

Zoe did not bother mentioning her own wardrobe, slashed to ribbons by the malicious queen. “So what made you fall out of love with her?”

“What could it have been?” he said in a mocking voice. “The fact that she entertained other lovers and told me about them? The fact that she offered love or withheld love in order to control me? The fact that she was endlessly and inventively cruel? Pick your reason. There were many.”

“If she had a lot of lovers, how could she be sure who Corene’s father was?”

He shook his head. “She couldn’t be, of course—and neither could I. She pretended to be certain that Corene was mine, but my guess is that she pretended to be certain with Wald Dochenza as well. And maybe others—who knows? But I have always known Corene
could
be my daughter. It has given me a tenderness for her, even though I have tried not to show it. I have showered her with many a small gift, pretending it was from the king, saying only that it came from her father. I figured that, at least on some level, what I said was true.”

“She is a sharp and difficult girl, but she was very glad to be saved from the viceroy’s wedding bed,” Zoe said. “I don’t think Alys has entirely ruined her. It might require some very public battles, but you could claim her as your own and do what you can to change her life.”

Darien came to a halt only a few feet from Zoe and nodded gravely. “I would like that,” he said.

“Of course, that would mean revealing a terrible truth about her. About
all
the king’s daughters.”

His face showed a ghost of a smile. “You are behind on the gossip, then,” he said. “Shortly after Romelle revealed she was pregnant, the four primes still in the city announced that they were ready to ratify her unborn child as the next successor to the throne. That was when they also announced that none of his other three daughters were actually heirs of Vernon’s body.”

“That must have created pandemonium!”

“It would have, I think, if everyone wasn’t already so numb from all the other shocks. And then a few people stepped forward to say they had known it all along—the blind sisters had told them so—or they had always suspected such a thing was true.” Darien shrugged. “It has gone very quickly from being the greatest secret of my life to commonly accepted fact. Under no other circumstances do I think that would have been the case.”

“When the primes revealed that the princesses were not sired by Vernon,” she asked, “did they also reveal the various fathers?”

“Not yet,” Darien said. “I suppose they will convene to discuss that at some point, perhaps debating how much damage the revelations might do to the reputations of the men.”

“Well, my father’s reputation could hardly suffer more,” Zoe said cheerfully, “and I am eager to claim Josetta. So, I hope it is time to tell these truths very soon. Of course, we have to make sure Josetta and Corene hear the news first—they might be devastated to learn how their stations have changed.”

Darien glanced around, as if expecting to find the princesses suddenly materializing from the corners of the
kierten
. “I have been authorized to let them know how the situation currently stands at court,” he said. “And to bring them back with all speed. So, if you send for them now, I can begin to tell them their own stories.”

“Unfortunately,” Zoe said, “they’re not here.”

“Not here?” he repeated.

She shrugged. “I didn’t know how the situation would unfold at the palace. I didn’t know if madness or reason would prevail. I didn’t know who would be the first person to show up at my door, demanding I return the girls. So they’re not here.”

He nodded. “It makes a sort of convoluted
coru
sense,” he said, almost smiling. “So where are they? In the village where I first found you more than a year ago?”

“I considered that as a hiding place,” she admitted. “But I decided it would be the second place you looked, after you came to this house.”

“The third place,” he said. “I first searched for you among the river folk.”

“So I gave them over to the care of friends, who will bring them to me when their travel takes them this way.”

He stood very still, watching her, clearly torn between disapproval and worry and a hard-won trust. “I told Seterre and Alys they were in your hands,” he said at last. “It was the only thing that allayed their fears. I told them the princesses were safe.”

“They are.”

He bowed his head. “Then I believe you. Please bring them to Chialto as soon as you can once they are back in your care.”

“I will,” she said. She paused and then went on in a tentative voice, “Unless you wish to wait here for their arrival.”

He smiled briefly. “I do wish it—very much. But I am greatly in demand at the palace, as you might imagine, for it is still in utter turmoil and I have, for the most part, a steady hand. I am not even sure how well the many factions will survive my absence for as long as it will take me to complete my journey here and back.”

“Then I will feed you and send you on your way again,” Zoe said, trying to conceal her sudden sharp disappointment.

Darien blinked in surprise and then smiled with so warm an expression that for a moment he looked like a
sweela
man. “I hoped to be allowed to stay a little longer than that,” he said. “I hoped to be invited to remain overnight, at least, so that we have the opportunity to talk of things that truly matter.”

Zoe made a sweeping gesture. “What could matter more than the subjects we have already discussed? The fate of the realm and the safety of the two girls we care about most—my sister and your daughter?”

“Talk of
additional
things that matter a great deal,” he amended. “Things important only to you and me.”

“There can only be one or two subjects with such a narrow focus,” she said.

Now he was on the move again while she stood still, but this time he was narrowing the distance between them. He came very close, he was near enough to lift a hand and lay his palm against her cheek. She felt the unyielding bones wrapped in the calloused flesh of his hand; she felt her own wayward blood leap in response to his touch.

“One subject, in fact,” he said. “The affection that lies between us—the fascination that holds us both in thrall.”

“There is nothing but heartache for a
coru
woman and a
hunti
man,” she said, deliberately contrary. “He cannot control her and she cannot change him.”

“He never fails her and she always moves him,” Darien corrected. “She can trust his strength, and he can be lifted by her joy.”

“I have been forced to move on from too many things,” Zoe said. “I would be happy to flow from shallow rapids into deep, still waters.”

“I have had to stand so firm,” he said. “I have had to be unbreakable for so long, immobile in darkness and silence. I look forward to bending just a little—to moving into sunlight—to remembering what it is like to unclench my hands and give in to emotion.”

She laughed at him. “This is a most peculiar proposal—if that’s what it is.”

He laughed back, moving closer, wrapping his arms loosely around her waist. She felt sheltered but not trapped, protected but not oppressed. “The first time I met you,” he said, “during that long trek to Chialto, I fell in love with you. I told you I was bringing you to my king so that you would marry him, but I wanted you as my own bride.”

“That time? That trip?” she said derisively. “I scarcely spoke!
I
scarcely knew who I was!
You
could not have learned me well enough to fall in love with me then!”

“I knew you wouldn’t believe me,” he said. Keeping one hand at her waist, he used the other to rummage in a pocket of his long tunic. When he pulled out a scroll, he presented it to her, shifting his body away just enough so that she could hold it in her hands. “Note the seal,” he said.

An irregular circle of wax had been imprinted with the glyph for certainty, the official motto of the
hunti
family that ran the booth of promises in the Plaza of Men. “Most impressive.”

“Note the date.”

It was a day from Quinncoru of the previous year. “This is just about when we arrived in Chialto,” she admitted.

“If you open it, you will see,” Darien said. “I made my way to the Plaza of Men shortly after you disappeared. I went to the promise booth and recorded my vow that I would find you, and I would marry you. A copy of this oath is permanently written in their books.”

She looked doubtfully from the scroll to his face. “Open it,” he urged.

Carefully, to avoid splitting the wax, she slipped her finger under the seal and unrolled the parchment. The words were printed in a professional scribe’s clean lettering:
I, Darien Serlast, do vow and attest that I will marry Zoe Ardelay or I will marry no one. In this I shall not alter.
It was signed with a messy scrawl in which only the
D
, the
S
, and a boldly crossed
t
could be discerned, though the word
Hunti
was very legible beneath the name.

Darien had crowded closer to read it along with her; he still had one arm around her waist. “You see—this was before you had taken your grandmother’s name,” he said, tapping the scroll. “It was before everything had happened. But I still knew.”

She could not resist leaning into him just a little, just to feel his reassuring strength against her shoulder. “But that is my point exactly,” she said. “Who I am now and who I seemed to be then are two very different people.”

“Not so different that I cannot recognize you,” he said. “No matter how much you change, you will always be familiar to me.”

She let the scroll flutter to the floor and drew him closer with her own urgent embrace. “And I will change,” she said, peering up at him anxiously. “But not so much that I will ever forget how secure I feel when you are beside me, tethering me to the world. In all the madness of this past year, you are the only thing I have relied on, the only thing I believed in, the only thing I trusted to keep me safe.” She stretched up to press her mouth against his. “The only one I loved.”

His arms tightened around her, and he kissed her. For a moment, she was air and fire, breathless and passionate; she was earth, tingling along every inch of flesh. She was water, she was wood; she was herself and her lover both. She understood the weighted balance of the world, the completed elemental circle. She was whole.

“I love you,” she whispered against his mouth. “No matter what changes, that will always be true. Spoken from the heart of a
coru
woman.”

“I love you,” he answered. “And that will not change though the rest of the world is made over. Word of a
hunti
man.”

QUINTILES & CHANGEDAYS

The calendar of Welce is divided into five quintiles. A quintile consists of eight “weeks,” each nine days long. Most shops and other businesses are closed on the firstday of each nineday.

The first quintile of the year, Quinnelay, stretches from early to deep winter. It is followed by Quinncoru, which encompasses late winter to midspring; Quinnahunti, late spring to midsummer; Quinnatorz, late summer to fall; and Quinnasweela, fall to early winter.

The quintiles are separated by changedays, generally celebrated as holidays. Quinnelay changeday is the first day of every new year. Since there are five changedays, and five seventy-two-day quintiles, the Welce year is 365 days long.

MONEY

5 quint-coppers make one copper (5 cents → 25 cents)

8 coppers make one quint-silver ($2)

5 quint-silvers make one silver ($10)

8 silvers make one quint-gold ($80)

5 quint-golds make one gold ($400)