The Bridge Kingdom (The Bridge Kingdom #1)(79)
Aren made a noise of commiseration. “So I’ve heard.”
“Ithicana’s new queen has done us no favors. All the gold Silas taxed out of our pockets has been spent on steel, and yet we’ve seen nothing in return.”
“Beautiful women have a way of costing men money,” Aren responded.
Lara bristled, and the harbormaster’s eyes left Aren to land on her. “Don’t much like the way you’re looking at me, lad.”
Aren clapped Lara on the shoulder hard enough to make her stagger. “Don’t mind my cousin. He’s only sour as he spent the entire crossing swabbing the deck rather than lazing about, as he’s wont to do.”
“Family makes for the worst crew.”
“Don’t it just. Was half tempted to chuck him overboard half a dozen times, but to do so would mean I could never go home.”
“More than a few ladies in Vencia would be happy to put you up, I should think.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
A fourth plan, which involved sticking a knife deep into Aren’s guts, began to evolve as Lara followed the two men off the docks.
The harbormaster’s voice dragged her attention back to the conversation. “I’ve heard Amarid spent the calm season showing the Bridge Kingdom exactly what they thought of Ithicana stealing away the business of supplying Maridrina with Harendellian weapons.”
“Ithicana isn’t supplying weapons.”
Lara detected the heat in Aren’s voice, but the harbormaster didn’t seem to notice.
“Same is same. Shipping them for free. Getting them into our hands. Or would be, if Valcotta weren’t risking their fleet to keep us from making port.” The bitterness in his voice was palpable. “King Silas should’ve bargained for cattle.”
“Cows don’t win wars,” Aren replied.
“Neither do half-starved soldiers. Or those dead from plague.” The harbormaster spat on the ground. “The only good our princess’s marriage has done for Maridrina was line the pockets of the beggars the king paid to sit on the street and cheer her name as she passed.”
Aren and the man turned to the details of offloading the ship. It was nothing but a drone in Lara’s ears as what she’d heard sank deep into her soul. What Serin had told her in his letter about the famine and plague was true, yet . . . Yet if what this man said had any verity to it, she’d been much deceived about who was to blame. Sweat rolled in little beads down her back, making her skin itch.
It couldn’t be true. Aren had hired this man to say these things. It was all lies intended to trick her. A band of tension wrapped around Lara’s chest, every breath a struggle as she attempted to reconcile a lifetime of teaching with what she was seeing. What she was hearing.
With what she had done.
“Have your crew offload it first thing in the morning. This storm is going to make it next to impossible to do it now.”
Lara blinked, focusing on Aren as he shook the harbormaster’s hand, waiting until the man was out of earshot before saying, “Proof enough for you?”
Lara didn’t answer, pressing a hand to her aching temple, hating how it shook.
“Are we going back to the ship now?” Her tongue was thick in her mouth, her own voice distant.
“No.”
There was something in his tone that pulled her from her fugue. Water sluiced down the hard angles of Aren’s face, little beads collecting on his dark lashes. His hazel eyes searched hers for a moment, then he scanned the wharf. “We’ll need to wait out the storm in Vencia. Best to do it in a bit of comfort.”
Her pulse thudded like a drum in her skull as she walked through the market, following on Aren’s heels, the Ithicanians casually walking around them. Run. The word repeated in her head, her feet flexing in her boots, desperate to take her away from this situation. She didn’t want to hear any more. She didn’t want to face the fact that she might not be a liberator. She might not be a savior. Not even a martyr.
She wanted to run from these shards of truth telling her she was something else entirely.
Aren climbed the narrow switchback streets, two-story buildings crammed together on both sides, windows shuttered against the storm. He stopped in front of a door with a sign that said The Songbird over top of it. Music, the clink of glasses, and the collective murmur of voices seeped onto the street. He hesitated with one hand on the handle, then pulled open the door with a sigh.
The scent of woodsmoke, cooking food, and spilled ale washed over Lara, and she took in the common room filled with low tables, most of them claimed by merchant class patrons. Jor and Aren sat at a table in the corner, the other guards taking places at the bar. Fighting to control the turbulent emotions shifting through her heart, Lara took a seat at Aren’s right, slouching in the chair and hoping the rain hadn’t washed away the dirt completing her disguise. A female voice caught her attention.
“Well now, look what the cat dragged in.”
A young woman, perhaps in her early-twenties, had approached the table. She had long hair, a lighter and more golden shade of blond than Lara’s, and a good portion of her generous cleavage was revealed by the low-cut bodice of her dress.
Aren picked up one of the small glasses of amber liquid that a serving girl had brought to the table. “How are you, Marisol?”
“How am I?” The woman—Marisol—planted her hands on her hips. “It’s been over a year since you showed your sorry face in Vencia, John, and you ask how I am?”