Troubled Waters (49 page)

“So what did you do?” Zoe asked. “Bribe him to tell you what the king’s man had bought?”

“I pretended he’d sent me,” Calvin said, clearly proud of himself for having come up with this subterfuge. “I said, ‘My master says I’m to buy another half order of the prescription, if you’ve got more on hand. We’ll have a need for it.’”

“That was smart,” Zoe said.

“Yes, and it didn’t make him suspicious, like he would have been if I’d started asking questions,” Calvin said. “He just shook out something that looked like dried dirt and rolled it up in paper and said, ‘Three gold pieces.’”

“Three
golds
?” Zoe demanded. “
I
don’t even carry that much with me most of the time!”

“Well, I’d thought to shop at the Plaza of Men, so I had a pocket full of coins,” Calvin said. “Even so, I was astounded. What could cost that much?”

“Well? What could?” Annova said.

Calvin threw his hands in the air. “I don’t know! I could hardly ask him after I’d bought it pretending I knew what it was.”

“Of course I’ll repay you,” Zoe said. “But let’s see this expensive medicinal! Maybe one of us will recognize it.”

Calvin perched on the bed beside them and carefully undid the twist of paper. Indeed, the finely ground dried leaves resembled nothing so much as dirt, except for their pungent, unpleasant smell. As of rotted fungus sprinkled with urine, Zoe thought, wrinkling her nose. Gingerly, she poked at the brown dust, but she was too leery to touch her tongue to her fingertip and take a taste.

“Can I borrow this?” she asked Calvin.

“It’s yours,” he said.

“I know someone who might be able to tell me what it is.”

D
inner at Melvin and Ilene’s cluttered, well-stocked apartment was a happy affair. Barlow greeted Zoe with an exclamation of surprise and a hug, demanding to hear what had happened to her once she had left his company. Ilene rarely sat still for more than five minutes, constantly jumping up to fetch another tray of food or to bring Barlow something she was certain he would enjoy, whether it was a book or an item of clothing or a glass of wine. Melvin, as usual, sat quietly and said little, but beamed contentedly at the people gathered around his table.

Zoe lightly told the more respectable parts of her recent past, then asked after Barlow’s business ventures. “I assume you’re still partnering with Jaker?” she asked. At Barlow’s grin and nod, she said, “Tell him I asked after him. What are you two trading in these days?”

“Oh, as always, whatever looks unusual enough to command a good price,” he said. “We took some seeds from the southern coasts all the way to the northern mountains and sold them to a few of the farmers who live near Lalindar property. Shipped in from lands a thousand miles from here—kind of thing that only grows in a wet, cool climate. Ought to do really well up by the river.”

“How long are you in the city? Where are you going next?”

“We’re waiting for one more shipment to arrive—ought to be four or five days from now, and then we’re off again. Probably going straight west this time.” He smiled. “Well, with detours now and then. You know how it goes.”

She smiled back. “I remember.”

The dinner was delicious, the dessert was sinful, and Zoe expressed the belief that she might not be able to waddle home on her own. “Barlow will drive you,” Ilene said. “He’s been using our smoker car while he’s in the city.”

Zoe was amused. “You have your own
elaymotive
? I’m impressed!”

“Bought it a quintile ago,” Melvin said with satisfaction.

“Of course, it was ridiculously expensive,” Ilene said. Her voice conveyed disapproval, but Zoe could read the truth in her eyes. She was delighted to have achieved the level of wealth that would enable her to own such a thing. “Such a waste of money.”

Zoe started gathering her things. “I hate to leave, but it’s gotten so late! Barlow, if you don’t mind taking me home, I would love your escort.”

Once they were in the car and Barlow was carefully navigating the narrow streets of the shop district, Zoe said, “I’m glad to have a few minutes with you alone. I had a question I didn’t want to ask in front of your parents.”

He cut her a sideways look, halfway between amusement and alarm. “Something personal?”

“Not really. I wondered if you could identify a—a drug that came my way under mysterious circumstances.”

Now he looked alarmed and intrigued. “Probably not, but Jaker could. He’s the one who deals in produce and spices and herbs. And drugs.”

“Could I ask him? Now?”

“He’d be glad to see you.”

In another twenty minutes, Barlow was showing her into a squat, unfashionable building in a crowded neighborhood on the western edge of the city. The district seemed safe enough, just unkempt. “Bachelor’s quarters,” Barlow told her with a grin. “Mostly single men. And men who live with other men. No one spends much effort on upkeep.”

The door opened onto cramped rooms that were cluttered with boxes of merchandise and stacks of paper—receipts, maps, banker’s notes—but the living surfaces were clean and orderly. Jaker exclaimed with pleasure to see Zoe and he came over to take her in a big hug. She remembered with a rush of fondness how much she liked his tanned face, his relaxed friendliness.

“Things have certainly changed for you since we left you up by the mountains,” he said, crinkles springing up around his blue eyes as he smiled. “Every time I hear
Zoe Lalindar
, I think, ‘Is that really our Zoe? She seemed so quiet when we knew her.’”

“Surely you can’t have heard my name that often.”

Jaker and Zoe settled on comfortable chairs around a scarred old wooden table while Barlow fetched drinks from a tiny kitchen. “There was some story about the king’s regatta,” Jaker said. “It sounded pretty exciting.”

“Oh. Yes, I suppose
that
tale was repeated often.”

Barlow joined them, handing drinks all around. “You’ll like this,” he said. “Cost a fortune if you were to buy it in some tavern.”

It was both sweet and strong, with a light fizz and a powerful kick. Zoe wanted to guzzle the whole thing down but, watching how slowly Jaker sipped his, she thought it wise to follow suit. “You ought to sell this up at the palace,” she said.

“We’re already working on that,” Jaker said with a laugh. “But I think there’s a bigger market among the Five Families. They like to outdo each other when they entertain.”

“So how’s business been?” Zoe asked, and they spent another fifteen minutes talking trade in a little more depth than they had with Ilene and Melvin.

“All of that is very interesting,” Zoe said, and she meant it sincerely. “But I had a question that Barlow said you might be able to answer.” She pulled out the twist of paper and slowly unwound it, flattening it on the table. “Do you have any idea what this is? And what it’s for?”

Both men leaned forward, Barlow merely curious but Jaker appraising. Like Zoe had, Jaker prodded the loose, dried leaves, taking a pinch between his fingers and rubbing it to dust. He sniffed at the residue and then cautiously tasted the end of his finger. When he straightened up to look over at her, his face was very serious.

“Are you dying?” he asked.

Zoe stared at him. “Am I—no. No, I’m fine—this isn’t for me. But you’re saying—” She couldn’t absorb the implications. “Whoever would take this drug is sick?
Really
sick?”

Jaker nodded. He hadn’t lifted his gaze from her face; he seemed to be trying to reassure himself that she wasn’t lying. “This is a pretty high-quality batch,” he said. “Not cut too many times with sugar or garbage herbs. Very potent. Risky, though. If you
are
taking it, Zoe, I can find you something a little safer.”

“I’m not. Jaker, I swear I’m not. If I seem stunned, it’s because—the person who is using the drug—it’s a little shocking.”

Jaker nodded and didn’t press for more details. “Where’d you get it?”

“A shop down by the canal shanties.”

“I hope
you
weren’t the one buying it, then,” Barlow put in. “That’s a bad place to wander.”

She shook her head. “No, a friend of mine saw—someone—entering the shop. He got curious and followed, and then bought a sample for himself. But we didn’t know what it was.”

“It’s called renaissance,” Jaker said. “New life.”

“And someone would only take it if he was—if he was
dying
?”

Jaker nodded again. “That’s its primary usage. It slows down the progress of a couple of the worst diseases. Adds maybe a year to your life. Maybe two. And takes away a lot of the pain, so they say.”

“Sounds like a pretty good drug, then! I’ll keep it in mind if I’m ever stricken with something fatal.”

“But it’s got consequences,” Jaker warned. “Sometimes it eliminates your symptoms so completely that you forget you’re sick. You show fresh energy—you think you can do what you want. You push yourself too hard and—” He cocked his head to one side, eyes shut, tongue protruding, mimicking a dead man. Straightening up, he said, “You can die just like that.”

“What other side effects?”

Jaker tapped the side of his head. “You start to lose some mental ability. You forget things. Some people turn childlike. They say if you take it too long, you can actually become senile or demented. I saw an addict once, raving like a lunatic. Not a pretty sight.”

Everything he said made Zoe turn colder and more afraid, though fear had clamped hard on her heart with his very first reaction to the drug. King Vernon was dying. There was no other explanation. Dying, and Darien Serlast knew it. And Darien was using the riskiest imaginable method to keep him alive another season, another year. And lying to everyone else in the palace while he did it.

Who else knew about the precarious state of the king’s health?

Zoe was also puzzling over something Jaker had just said. “If people take it too long, they get senile,” she repeated slowly. “Take it too
long
.”

He nodded. “Years. I’ve seen it.”

“But if the only people who take it are dying—does it really keep them alive for years?”

“Oh, it has another use,” Jaker said. “Not one
you
would be interested in.”

Now Barlow was grinning. “Renaissance,” he said. “Gives a man new life.”

At Zoe’s look of bewilderment, Jaker added, “Improved virility. Enhances his ability to perform. There’s a certain kind of professional man who needs renaissance just to do his job.”

Barlow burst out laughing at that, but Zoe was just in a deeper state of shock.

She knew now who had fathered Romelle’s baby.

THIRTY

Z
oe’s tendency was to share everything with Annova and Calvin, but even she realized that this information was too dangerous to repeat. Begging them to forgive her, she asked if they would leave her alone to meet with Darien Serlast, whenever he deigned to respond to her urgent summons. She had gotten home from Barlow’s place at midnight; the message went out at dawn. In reply she had gotten only
As soon as I can.
But he would come. She knew he would.

“I’m so sorry,” she said to Annova for the hundredth time. “But you’ll have to leave as soon as he gets here.”

“Stop apologizing,” Annova said. “Do you think I tell
you
everything? Everyone has secrets.”

“You’ll find it out soon enough, I suppose,” Zoe said. “But it shouldn’t be from me.”

True sunset was just streaking through the false sunset of Annova’s gauze curtains when Darien presented himself at Zoe’s door. They had laid out a light repast, not sure when he would arrive or if he would be looking for a meal. Zoe had been nibbling all afternoon, but it wasn’t as if she was hungry. Her stomach was still a knot of worry and consternation. How could the king be dying?

Annova ushered Darien inside, then took Calvin’s hand and hurried out, closing the door behind her. Darien waited in the middle of the room, watching Zoe as she stood near the window. She had a sudden need for sunshine, for as long as it lasted before the onrushing night.

“Every instinct tells me I’m not going to like what you have to say,” Darien observed in a quiet voice. “Has there been an attempt on your life? Have you discovered another half sister? Have you decided to leave the city despite all my entreaties?”

“I have learned one of your secrets—the worst one, I hope,” she said.

His expression shifted instantly from an open look of concern to a closed mask of neutrality. “It’s true I have secrets,” he said. “I’m not certain which one you would consider the worst.”

“Which fills me with deep disquiet,” she said, “that you could think you have more than one that is as bad as this.”

He came across the room, his face troubled. As was the case so often, he was dressed all in black; his wool overrobe swirled almost to his ankles as he walked. He was a dark, steady presence, a wedge of mountain, a massive oak that could not be brought down by any storm. She would have trusted him, too, if she had been dying, if she had needed some bulwark against that greatest of all terrors.

She almost whispered her question. “How much longer do you expect Vernon to live?”

He closed his eyes and swayed backward, for just a moment trembling against a high wind. Then his lids snapped open and he braced himself, planting his feet more firmly on the floor as if determined not to lose his balance.

He didn’t deny it, which she considered a great gift. Instead, he said merely, “How much do you know?”

“He is taking a restorative drug known as renaissance. It will extend his life by a year or two, though it will slowly sap his mental acuity. I am only guessing, but I think he has been taking it for a year at least. Which means he can’t have much more than another year to live.”

He nodded and said, “And how did you discover this?”

“My friend Calvin followed the king’s valet into a south city apothecary’s shop and ordered the same drug, just for curiosity’s sake. Someone else I know—a trader—told me what it was for.”