Troubled Waters (45 page)

“Kayle?”

“Not him. Two of his sons and one of his nephews, I believe.”

That caught Zoe’s attention as much as the twisting green ribbon—maybe twenty feet wide—that coiled and curled along the turrets before dissipating into the velvet dark. “Is one of them Wald? I’d like to meet him.”

Darien’s arm tightened warningly around her waist. “Don’t look for ways to cause trouble.”

“I’m not,” she said, breathless. “I’m just curious about him.”

“Watch the show,” he whispered against her cheek. In the cool night, his breath was warm against her skin. He loosened his hold, but just a little. She made no protest.

The coiling ribbon was followed by sheets of color, one laid over the other so that scarlet melted into saffron and dripped ochre along all of the palace bricks. An emerald wave washed the whole surface clean, and then suddenly was pierced with random dots of color like wildflowers in a summer meadow. Some of the dots puffed up into great floating bubbles of fuchsia and melon; the rest fizzed in place and disappeared.

Zoe leaned back a little and turned her head toward Darien’s. “Down on the river flats,” she murmured, “all the squatters are sitting outside their tents, watching the show. Did you know that?”

“Not tonight,” he said.

“Why not?” she asked, and then she remembered. “Oh. Important guests in the city. The squatters have been relocated. Well, when people are allowed to live on the river, and the king throws a party like this, they can see the whole display. It’s like watching magic.”

“This is better,” he whispered back, and he kissed her.

She closed her eyes and felt color painted across her skin while his mouth pressed against hers. Everything was in motion—the boat drifting gently with the current, the sky swirling around them, the blood speeding through her veins. She felt his pulse, as rapid and disordered as her own. He kissed her harder, tightening his arms around her. For a moment she wrapped her hands around his wrists, clinging, and then she pulled away, struggling for air.

“And was
that
a lie?” he asked in a quiet voice. What she could see of his face shifted from purple to violet to a ruddy red as the colors flamed against the palace and reflected off his skin.

“I don’t know yet,” she gasped.

“You do know,” he said.

“Maybe I do,” she said. Not speaking another word, she faced forward again, setting her backbone against his ribs. She could still feel his heartbeat, faster than usual, but so strong. So reliable. Ruffled just a little by emotion, maybe, but steady enough to withstand any punishment, any reversal, and too stubborn to fail.

All men failed eventually, of course; every pulse faltered to a halt. But Zoe leaned into Darien Serlast’s heartbeat and felt as if she had found the source of the engine that powered the world.

I
t was easy to slip away into the crowd that slowly disembarked from the fleet of boats with the aid of the waiting servants. All the torches had been relit and the path back to the palace was clearly delineated. Darien had made no move to stop Zoe as she climbed out of the boat; neither of them had attempted much conversation during the rest of the exhibition, which was over in another ten minutes. She wanted to get inside. In that short span of time she had grown cold enough to start shivering—though that might have been from excitement, from fear, from uncertainty. She wanted to return to her room and burrow under her covers and remember the colors and think about Darien Serlast.

The minute she stepped into her rooms, she knew she would have little chance to carry out that excellent plan.

The suite smelled harsh, unpleasant, wrong. All the lights, doused for the festival, were still off, except for one dimly spilling out through the door to the servants’ room. The foul odor emanated from the same direction.

Tense with misgiving, Zoe strode to the source of light. “Annova? Calvin? Is something wrong?”

She found Calvin on the bed, deep asleep, and Annova lying on the cool tiles in front of the circulating sink. The stink of vomit was stronger here, and streaks of it clotted the floor and the front of Annova’s tunic.

“Annova,” Zoe said sharply, dropping to her knees. “Are you all right? Do you need me to send for help?”

Annova shook her head weakly. Even her dark skin looked pale, leached of color by pain or purging. “I’m better now. I think it’s all—out of my stomach finally.”

“How long have you been throwing up?” Zoe asked. She laid her hands on Annova’s cheeks and forehead and was relieved to find no trace of fever. From what she could tell just by touch, the blood was clean of infection.

“About an hour.”

“You must have caught whatever it was that hit Calvin this morning—is
he
all right? Should I fetch the king’s apothecary?”

With Zoe’s help, Annova struggled to a sitting position. “I think both of us will recover on our own. Can you bring me some water? I think I can keep it down.”

Zoe filled a glass from the spigot, then wet a towel, and she began wiping Annova’s face while the other woman took careful sips. “You need to get out of these clothes. Can you stand enough to strip down and wash yourself off? I’ll clean everything up.”

Annova didn’t make any protests about Lalindar primes looking after lowly servants. But she didn’t answer the question, either. “Zoe,” she said, her voice faint but threaded with urgency, “I think it was poison.”

Zoe’s hands froze in place. “Poison? Someone was trying to
kill
you?”

“You.”

After a moment of absolute silence, Annova continued. “Though not trying to kill you, I think. Just make you too sick to attend important events.”

Zoe’s hands had cramped around the wet towel. She felt a murderous rage turn her blood to acid. “You think you ate something someone intended for me. You and Calvin both.”

Annova nodded. “The chocolate drops. He only had one. I had four. And about fifteen minutes after I had the last one—”

“Alys,” Zoe said, her voice glacial.

Annova gave an exhausted cough, then sucked down a little more water. “It probably didn’t occur to her that your
servants
might eat something that had been given to you. Her own wouldn’t.”

“And she knows I like chocolate.”

“She must have thought that if you ate one before the shopping expedition—or before the exhibition tonight—”

“Or before the luncheon tomorrow, or the dinner tomorrow, or any of the other activities that have been lined up
endlessly
for the rest of the nineday—”

“That you would get sick. You wouldn’t be able to make an appearance.”

“Which would insult the king’s guests and displease the king and embarrass
me
.”

Impossibly, Annova was able to conjure a smile. “Good thing for you that you have such greedy servants.”

Zoe sent the damp cloth in one last pass across Annova’s face. “Good thing for me I have such dependable friends.”

I
t took another hour for Zoe to wash Annova and scrub down the tiled room. The sharp, clean smell of disinfectant chased away the acrid stench of vomit and made all of them feel better. Then Zoe spent a few minutes hovering over Annova and Calvin, making sure they had water at their bedsides, making certain no fever had made an unexpected appearance. But both of them breathed easily, their skin cool against their pillows, their dreams seemingly untroubled. Zoe decided that if they were well by morning, she would allow her concern to seep away.

Finally she slipped into her own room, stripped away her own clothes, and bathed herself in water as hot as she could stand. It should have been cold water—to bank her rage—but instead she wanted steam. She wanted heat. She wanted to burn away the rot that she was sure clung to anything that had passed through Alys’s hands.

TWENTY-SEVEN

I
n the morning, Zoe arrived late to the daily breakfast in Elidon’s suite. The first wife gave her a reproving glance, but forbore to make any pointed observations. Mirti was the only guest present besides Zoe and the queens, and everyone showed marks of a late night. Seterre and Alys were yawning, Elidon and Mirti both looked tired, and Romelle leaned her chin on her hand and appeared to be dozing at the table.

“I suppose everyone has already talked about how wonderful the display was last night,” Zoe said, helping herself to a generous slice of bread and spreading it with honey. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

“Yes, Kayle says sometimes he thinks he could make a fortune from festival exhibitions if he’d give them as much attention as he gives his cars,” Mirti said, her dry voice amused. “I can imagine many a rich family willing to pay for such a display at a wedding, for instance.”

“Weren’t the Soechins funny last night?” Alys said with a trilling laugh. “I think Qeesia was actually afraid that something would catch on fire and the whole palace would burn down.” She glanced at Zoe and instantly looked stricken. “Oh—I forgot—you weren’t in the boat with the rest of us. Sorry.”

It was such a halfhearted dig that no one bothered to respond. Zoe took a big bite of her bread and served herself a healthy portion of an egg-and-cheese dish. “No, I went out in one of the smaller boats,” she said. “At first I thought I would regret it, because the motion of the water upset my stomach, but then I was fine.”

Her eyes still closed, Romelle spoke up. “I hope you don’t get sick with whatever’s been bothering me.”

“We
all
hope we don’t catch that,” Seterre said.

“I don’t think I will,” Zoe said brightly. “I feel fine this morning.” She consumed the eggs with relish. “But I wondered if all of you would do me a favor.”

Mirti was watching her with narrowed eyes; this early-morning buoyancy was not in Zoe’s usual style. Elidon appeared to be on the edge of annoyance. “What kind of favor would that be?” the first wife asked, her voice far from encouraging.

Zoe had brought a small basket with her, and now she opened it to pull out the chocolate drops, still wrapped in their pretty confectioner’s bag. “Alys sent these to my room yesterday, which was so kind of her, because she knows that I love chocolate. But I had one and I just thought it tasted—a little off. Like it had been overcooked or undercooked or something. I hate to throw the whole bag away, because I really do love these chocolates, but I won’t keep them if there’s something wrong.”

She picked up an empty bowl and poured about a dozen candies into it. They made a small, cheery clinking against the porcelain. Smiling, Zoe held it out in a general invitation. “Anybody?”

Nobody moved. Everyone was staring at Zoe, even Romelle, who had opened her eyes without lifting her chin from her hands.

“Both of my servants were quite sick last night,” Zoe went on in a chatty voice, keeping her arm extended. “Vomiting all over the place—! Take my word for it, the smell was overpowering. Of course, I’m
sure
they wouldn’t have eaten my candy without my permission, so it must have been something else that made them sick.”

Now the silence in the room was thick, heavy, exerting an actual pressure on everyone around the table. Mirti’s mouth had pressed into a grim line, and she was still staring at Zoe, but everyone else had shifted their attention to the redheaded queen.

“Alys?” Zoe said, offering the bowl and shaking it just enough to make the contents rattle. “Would you like to try one? Tell me what you think?”

Alys tossed her hair over one shoulder, clearly deciding to brazen it out. “No, thank you,” she said. “Breakfast isn’t the time for chocolate.”

Zoe put the dish down, widening her eyes as if a thought had just occurred to her. “I don’t suppose—Romelle, did Alys give
you
chocolates, too? Is that why you’re sick? Could there have been a whole
batch
of them that were bad?”

Romelle had finally lifted her head and pulled herself upright, striving for a look of dignity. “Not chocolates,” she said. “Alys gave me some glazed fruit the other day, but—but—she ate some, too, and she seems to be fine.”

“This is ridiculous!” Alys exclaimed, allowing anger and indignation to roughen her voice and flush her cheeks. “What are you implying, Zoe Lalindar? What terrible things are you saying about me?”

Zoe dropped her cheery manner; her voice became quiet, intense. “I’m saying that I think that you don’t like me. You want to discredit me, make me look foolish, keep me from the responsibilities I am expected to carry out while I am a guest under your husband’s roof.”

“I don’t know why you think—”

“I’m
saying
,” Zoe went on, raising her voice to drown Alys’s out, “that someone came to my rooms three days ago and destroyed every piece of clothing I own, hoping to keep me from attending the banquet to honor our Soechin visitors.”

“Well, you can’t suppose—”

“And that was petty and pointless, but then yesterday someone brought doctored candy to my room, hoping to make me sick.” She gestured at Romelle. “And someone could very easily have poisoned Romelle using the same method.”

“Zoe,” said Elidon in a warning voice. “These are serious accusations, and you don’t have any proof. Calm down. Think things over.”

Instead, Zoe stood up. She could feel rage running through her veins like a spring flood down a canyon, too wild to pen up. “I have a little proof,” she said. “I know that Alys brought the candy to my room. I know that my servants grew sick on it. I know it was intended for me. Therefore, I think I can be forgiven for assuming that Alys wishes me ill.”

“I will talk to her,” Elidon said, earning a burning glare from Alys.

“Oh,
I’ll
talk to her,” Zoe said. “I’ll ask her questions. Why did you just try to make me sick? Why didn’t you try to murder me? It’s clear you won’t balk at killing if you want to get someone out of your way. Look at Princess Josetta.
Someone
paid off her escort so that the girl would go over the falls. Am I wrong in thinking that was you?”