The Winner's Crime(26)

“The plainspeople rely on horses,” Kestrel said. “For their milk, their hides, their meat, to ride for hunting … Kill the horses, and the tribes won’t be able to live without them. They’ll trek south to take refuge in the delta. The plains will be yours. You’ll mow the grasses and send it to feed our own horses. You can plant the earth as soon as you like.”

“And how do you propose to poison the horses?”

“Water supply,” suggested the military senator.

That might poison people as well. Kestrel shook her head. “The river is wide and rapid. Any poison would be diluted. Instead, have my father send scouts to determine where the horses graze. Spray those grasses with the poison.”


The emperor leaned back in his seat. His cup of chocolate steamed, veiling his face as he tipped his chin and studied Kestrel with a slanting gaze. “Very neat of you, Lady Kestrel. You solve all my worries. You hand me the unravaged plains for the low price of poison. How nice that you minimize our enemy’s civilian casualties at the same time.”

Kestrel said nothing.

He sipped his chocolate. “Have you ever witnessed your father in battle? You should. I’d like to see you fight under a black flag, just once. I’d like to see you truly at war.”

Kestrel couldn’t quite return the emperor’s stare. She lifted her eyes and noticed the prince and Risha leave their gaming table. They disappeared into the hedge maze. Kestrel understood now why Verex seemed so happy. She wondered if the whole court knew about him and the princess. She suspected it must.

“Oh,” the emperor drawled, “the Herrani wish to speak with you, Kestrel. They’ve made a formal request.”

His words seemed to linger in the air longer than possible. Kestrel had the odd impression of the emperor playing a piano, and striking a dissonant chord that caught the fascination of everyone listening.

“Hardly surprising,” she said coolly. “The Herrani are bound to want to speak with me from time to time. I was named their emissary.”

“Yes, we should correct that. You’re too busy for such a dull job. They’ll be notified that you have given up the position. There’s no need for you to meet with either of the Herrani representatives again.”

*

When Kestrel returned to her suite, the bed was empty and made. Jess’s trunk was gone.

But Jess had promised. Her visit was supposed to last longer than this. They’d barely seen each other, and for Jess to leave, to leave now, so soon …

Kestrel tugged on a silken bellpull. When her ladies-in-waiting arrived in her sitting room, she asked, “Where’s my letter?”

The maids looked quizzical.

“From my friend,” Kestrel said. “For me. It’s not like her to leave. Not without saying something.”

There was a silence. Then one of the maids offered, “The lady had her trunk sent to her townhome in the city.”

“But why?”

A silence made clear that no one knew why. Kestrel pressed her lips shut.

“It’s late,” a maid said. “Shouldn’t you change into a new dress for the afternoon? What will you wear?”

Kestrel waved a hand in a gesture very much like one she’d often seen the emperor make. She hadn’t meant to do that. It upset her. “I don’t care,” she said curtly. “You choose.”

Her ladies-in-waiting bustled into action, putting away her furs and parading gowns. While the maids tutted over some fabrics and fingered others approvingly, Kestrel wondered what Jess would have chosen. She shoved that thought away.

But this was like discarding a Bite and Sting tile only to draw a series of worse ones. Because there was Arin, in the velvet balcony of her mind, and there was the Winter Garden, cold with his absence, and there were the pink and red berries and her awful advice to the emperor.

Kestrel knew what would happen after the eastern horses died.

She imagined the yellow-green waves of grass. The ticking zizz of grasshoppers. Horse carcasses rotting in the sun.

The plainspeople would starve. Their children would grow hollow. They would cry for horse milk. The plainspeople would move south on foot to their queen’s city in the delta. Many would fall in their tracks. Some would not get up.

This would happen. It would happen because of Kestrel. She had done this.

But wasn’t this better? Hadn’t the alternative been worse?

The alternative almost didn’t matter. It didn’t keep Kestrel from feeling a sick horror at what she’d done.

One of the maids shrieked.

The maid had opened another wardrobe. Masker moths were flying out. They beat against the lamps and spun up in panicked, gray spirals. Their dusty wings began to wink orange and rose as they blended into the tapestries.

“They’ve ruined the clothes!” A maid slapped moths out of the air. One hit the carpet and lay still. Its wings went red, tipped with white to match the carpet’s design exactly. Masker moths had the property of camouflage even in death.

Kestrel stooped and picked it up. The furred, lifeless legs clung to her. The red wings changed to match her skin.

The maids hunted the moths ferociously. Masker moths were a common household pest in the capital, and this wasn’t the first time they’d eaten into a wardrobe of expensive clothes. Judging by the number of moths, the larvae must have been fattening themselves on Kestrel’s silks for at least a week. The maids killed every last moth, crushing them against the walls. Masker moths left behind smears of no discernible color. Damaged wings lost their camouflage.