The Winner's Crime(38)

Kestrel had plans of her own. That night, she wiped her forehead clean of its engagement mark and tied a scarf over her hair. She pulled on the rough blue-and-white work dress and searched for a pair of comfortable shoes.

When she caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror she hesitated. Her features looked somehow smaller. She was too pale.

You disobeyed me, she heard the emperor say.

“No” doesn’t exist anymore, only “yes,” said her father and the captain of the guard in one voice.

But:

You are better than this, Arin said, and then she heard her own voice, calling out the highest bid to buy him. She heard the calm, cultured tones she had used to persuade the emperor to poison the eastern horses. Guilt swelled inside her.

Kestrel left her suite. She kept her head down and her pace brisk.

No one saw Lady Kestrel. Aristocrats in the halls didn’t even glance at her. Servants did, but saw someone familiar yet unrecognizable, which wasn’t strange in a palace staffed with hundreds of servants and slaves.

She was only a maid. If her step was a little too proud, it went unnoticed. If she occasionally looked lost in the servants’ quarters, it was shrugged off as the problem of a new girl.

The maid tightened her scarf. She found her way out one of the back kitchen yards. She stepped past palace guards, who ignored her. Though women not in the military weren’t supposed to walk alone, few people cared if a maid broke the rules. She was beneath notice.

Kestrel walked into the frozen city.

*

“At last,” Tensen said. “A night with nothing to do.” He turned an appraising eye toward Arin, who lay on a divan near the sitting room fire. “You look better. Almost fit for society.”

“I doubt that.”

“Well, you’re no longer feverish, are you? And the swelling in your face has gone down. You don’t look quite so puffy. One more night of rest, Arin, and then it’s back into the fray. You can’t avoid the court forever. Besides, the reactions could be telling.”

“Yes, stifled gasps and open disgust will be very informative.”

“You’ll cause a stir. Stirs are good. They churn up all kinds of gossip and conjecture … and the occasional truth.”

“I’m surprised you need me. I thought you had the perfect access to information. Where’s your Moth, Tensen?”

The minister said nothing.

Arin stood and went to the fire. He was weak from the fever, his movements disjointed. The heart of the fire was as red as the ruby set in the hilt of the dagger Arin kept in his boot. “Still no word about who arranged for the ambush?”

Tensen shrugged. “The emperor isn’t happy. I can think of a good reason why. You’re alive, and your assailant isn’t.”

“There’s no proof that the emperor’s behind it.”

“The palace guard’s insignia on that dead man isn’t good enough proof for you?”

“If it was the emperor, why does he do nothing? Say nothing?”

“I think,” Tensen said, “that he wouldn’t want to acknowledge a failure.” His green eyes narrowed. “What makes you believe that the emperor wasn’t behind it? Do you have other enemies I don’t know about?”

“No. It was him.”

“So you’re just being difficult.”

“One of my enduring qualities.”

Tensen rose from his chair. “I’m going to visit the art gallery.”

“You go there a lot.”

“I played an art connoisseur once, in the Herrani theater festival fifteen years ago. Old habits die hard.”

“Then you must enjoy looking at all of the emperor’s pretty things.”

Tensen paused with his hand on the doorknob. He glanced back at Arin. “You might not believe me, but certain people will respect you more for how you look now. The emperor is going to regret making his mark on you. Be ready for tomorrow, Arin. It’s time you left this suite. You’re well enough, and there’s no excuse to avoid the world.”

Arin mulled over Tensen’s words long after the minister left. He thought about his fevered dreams, which he couldn’t quite remember, though they had filled him with a nameless urgency. A restlessness.

In Arin’s boot there was a sheath, in his sheath was Kestrel’s dagger, and in the dagger’s groove was his dried blood.

In the capital city was a tavern, in the tavern was a bookkeeper, and in the bookkeeper’s hands was a book of bets.

Arin pulled on his winter coat, made sure he had everything he needed, and set out for the city.





17

The cold was exhilarating. It pinched Kestrel’s cheeks and chased her down sloping streets. She wanted to laugh. The palace was at her back, high on its hill, and she was here, winding through the city’s wealthy quarter with its haughty town houses and blazing oil lamps. The cobblestone streets were marbled sheets of ice. Carriages moved slowly, but Kestrel didn’t. She skidded through this quarter. She wanted no part of it.

She wanted the tight, dirty streets of the Narrows, the fishy smell of the wharf. And she would have it.

I wanted to feel free, Arin had told her once in Herran. She breathed in the cold, and it felt free, so she felt free, and it felt alive, so she felt alive.

Kestrel wondered what would happen if she never went back to the palace.