Troubled Waters (54 page)

“Zoe,” Josetta interrupted. “There’s somebody coming down the river.”

Zoe whirled around and, sure enough, there was a body tumbling through the currents, not being treated nearly as gently as Zoe and the princesses had been. She spread her fingers and imagined caressing the tempestuous surface of the unbound river, smoothing its choppy waters, slowing its tumultuous descent. The man shouted at her, waving his arm as if hoping she would throw him a rope, but she could do better than that. She directed the Marisi to deliver him to the shore, and he came splashing and sputtering out. He climbed up beside them, then fell to all fours, wheezing and panting.

She didn’t recognize him, but he wore what had started out as finery, so he was no doubt a wealthy man. “Do you need help?” she asked him a little fearfully, but he mouthed the word
no
.

“I just need—to catch my breath,” he gasped. He shook his head and sat back on his heels. His eyes were glazed with exhaustion and disbelief. “Never—I have lived in Chialto my entire life—and
never
have I witnessed something like that. I can’t even understand what happened.”

Josetta, her arms wrapped around Corene for warmth, just looked at Zoe, who shook her head slightly. This didn’t seem to be the time and place to claim to be the Lalindar prime, who could make rivers and fountains overflow at her command. “You’d best go find shelter and dry clothing,” Zoe said.

He didn’t seem to be thinking clearly enough to respond with the logical,
And so should you.
He merely nodded, sat there another moment gathering his strength, and then pushed himself to his feet. He loped toward the curiously empty back streets that tangled around shacks and small businesses this close to the flats.

Deserted, Zoe realized. People had evacuated as soon as the river started rising. A few hardy and curious souls peered out of second-story windows or clustered several yards upriver, watching the water race past, but most everyone else had run away.

“Zoe!” Josetta called again.

She turned back to the river, where two more bodies were spinning in the water. Again, she guided them to the bank; again, they showed no disposition to linger. Servants this time, she thought, and even more speechless about their adventure than the first man.

The fourth person she pulled out of the water was Foley.

He scarcely required her aid, swimming strongly to shore and swinging himself up to the overhang with swift, economical motions. Zoe felt her whole body loosen with relief. He would take care of the princesses, leaving her free to control the river.

“Foley!” Josetta cried when she saw him. She didn’t go so far as to fling her arms around his wet uniform, but she might as well have; she looked that glad to see him. “I knew you would come for me—I knew it.”

He nodded at Zoe, which she took as a mark of approval for the havoc she had wrought in pursuit of one desperate goal. “Saw you go into the river and thought you would end up here,” he said. “We need to get you warm and dry. All three of you.”

Zoe pointed toward the nearest buildings, which appeared to be a couple of storehouses and one dilapidated repair shop. “I think everything’s been abandoned. You might be able to break in and take clothes or blankets. Maybe build a fire.”

“How long do we have to stay here?” Corene asked. “You said you’d take us someplace.”

Zoe nodded. “I will. But not just yet. I have to—I have to make sure the river doesn’t do any more damage.”

“A foot higher and it’ll breach the banks all up and down its length,” Foley said. “Flood the whole town.”

“I know,” she said. “But I can stop it.”

“We’ll wait here with you,” Josetta said.

Zoe glanced at Foley, wondering if he would argue, but he was merely nodding. Not his place to question a princess, Zoe supposed; his job was to make sure she lived through whatever she decided to do. “I’ll see what I can find,” he said and headed off toward the deserted buildings.

Zoe turned back toward the river, bubbling higher in its channel, only inches now from the top of the overhang. Upstream, she knew, there were a few places where the river might already have gone spilling out of its course, sending wet destruction through the streets. Well, she had called the river; now she needed to control it. She needed to stuff it back into its underground cisterns and passageways, send it sinking back into the soil.

Zoe knelt on the edge of the overhang and poured her heart into the Marisi.

She rocked it like a crying baby; she stroked it like a hissing cat.
There, there,
she crooned wordlessly, patting its indignant cheeks, smoothing its disordered hair.
All better now. Lie quiet now. Be still. Be peaceful.

At first the water resisted, petulant as a willful child, but she continued to murmur, continued to soothe, continued to coax. And slowly, slowly, the water began to sigh and simmer in its banks. Its high boil shrank down; its gushing pulse grew tame. The agitated gallons summoned from underwater reservoirs went chattering down the southern miles toward the sea. The ordinary flow of everyday water resettled in its banks, churning up an occasional feisty spray, but otherwise resuming its ordinary volume.
All better now. Calm, peaceful.

“Zoe.”

Her own name snapped her from a deep reverie. She drew a swift breath—and then another one, surprised to learn that full dark had fallen while she had been communing with the river. A little disoriented, she pivoted away from the Marisi, trying to regather her thoughts. She found Josetta, Corene, and Foley sitting around a busy little fire, all of them wrapped in blankets that looked none too clean. Corene lay with her head on Josetta’s lap; it appeared that she might actually be sleeping. Zoe realized that she was absolutely freezing. Her hands and feet were completely numb, though someone had draped a blanket over her shoulders while she hadn’t been paying attention. How long had she been standing here, cajoling the river back inside its banks?

“Zoe,” Josetta said again. “Is it time to go yet? Foley’s hired a man with a cart if you have someplace to take us.”

“I do,” she said.
I think I do.
“You’re right. It’s time to go.”

Foley rose and began stamping out the fire, while Josetta woke Corene up and shepherded her toward a bulky shadow squatted on the nearest street. Zoe could just make out the shape of a horse and driver. She turned to follow the others, but paused to take one quick look up at the mountain, where tiny lights always outlined the palace against the night.

There was nothing to be seen. The palace—or at least every candle, every lamp, every flame in the building—had been washed away.

J
aker opened the door on Zoe’s first knock, and then stared mutely at her entourage. She had never before seen his blue eyes so blank.

“Good, I was afraid you might have left town already,” she said. “Can we come in?”

He nodded and stepped aside, still staring. Barlow’s voice sounded from the other room. “Is someone here? Jaker?”

Zoe motioned the others inside, and then shut the door under Jaker’s hand. “You might have heard there was an incident at the palace this afternoon,” she began.

Barlow wandered into the common room, dressed only in a towel. “Is—Zoe! And—oh! Who are all these—I’m sorry, let me get dressed.” He disappeared again.

Corene had instantly collapsed onto the well-worn sofa, but Josetta was looking around with interest at the boxes and books and oddments. Foley stood stiffly by the door, his face showing the first signs of disapproval Zoe had noticed all night.
He doesn’t mind if I bring the palace down to save a princess from a disastrous marriage, but he doesn’t like the girls to be brought too close to common men,
she thought. It was hard to restrain a somewhat hysterical giggle.

“Zoe,” Jaker said, his voice quiet. “Am I mistaken, or are these two of the king’s daughters?”

“Josetta and Corene,” she said, pointing. Just then Barlow hurried back into the room, so she repeated the girls’ names, and then identified everyone else. “Foley, their guard. Jaker, Barlow. Two traders who are friends of mine.”

“It’s very nice to meet you,” Josetta said politely.

Jaker cut Zoe a look from his blue eyes. His face was beginning to thaw from disbelief to amusement. “This is even more astounding than learning you are the Lalindar prime.”

“Does anyone want anything to eat or drink?” Barlow asked, heading toward the kitchen.

“I’m starving,” Zoe said.

“There’s not much in the house because we’re leaving in the morning, but you can have anything we have,” Barlow said. “Then everyone sit down! And tell us just what’s going on.”

Even Foley consented to taking a seat—though not until Josetta told him to. They all shared a meal of stale bread, withered fruit, and some of the dried rations the men had prepared as provisions for their journey. Regretfully, Zoe turned down Barlow’s offer of that delightfully sparkling wine; she was feeling fuzzy enough already. But Jaker took a small glass and drank it down in two swallows.

“We learned today that the king planned to marry Corene to the viceroy of Soeche-Tas,” Zoe said, making the story as concise as she could. “He’s a man so loathsome even my father despised him, and I couldn’t countenance the notion of a girl her age going to his bed. I called up the river. The palace started flooding. I grabbed the princesses and jumped into the Marisi, and a few other people got swept away. Now the river’s back in its banks, though I imagine there has been some damage. I am
not
returning the girls to the palace until I’m certain there is no more talk of such catastrophic weddings, so I thought you could take them with you. No one will know where to look for them if they’re with you.”

Jaker started laughing. “Oh, Zoe,” he said. “It was a grand day when the elements swept you into our lives!”

“We’ll be happy to take them,” Barlow said. “If you don’t think we’ll get hanged for treason if the girls are found with us.”

“Treason or worse!” Jaker exclaimed. “Two grown men making off with two young girls!”

Foley spoke up for the first time. “I am concerned about that as well,” he said in a mulish voice. “You say these men are friends of yours, but can you be certain you have not delivered them into a fate even worse than the one that awaited Princess Corene in Soeche-Tas?”

Barlow looked mildly offended, but Jaker nodded. “Exactly.”

Josetta stirred. She was sitting very straight on the sofa, Corene asleep against her shoulder. “We will write letters and have them delivered to the palace, explaining that we are safe and in Zoe’s care,” she said. “No one will worry.”

“People will still worry,” Jaker began, but Foley interrupted.

“But you won’t be in Zoe’s care, and you can’t know if you’ll be safe with these—these men,” he finished up.

“Zoe? You’re not coming with us?” Josetta asked.

“That’s assuming we take you with us to begin with,” Jaker said under his breath.

Zoe shook her head. “I have to stay here at least a few days. I have to see what damage my hasty action has caused—and mend it, if I can. I have to—well, I have to learn what will happen next. To me, to you, to your father, to everyone.”

“You can stay here while we’re gone,” Barlow offered.

“I hoped you’d say that. I must assume people will be searching for me, but no one will know to look for me here. How long will you be away from Chialto?”

Jaker shrugged. “You know how we travel. Maybe four ninedays, maybe more.”

Josetta looked intrigued. “Where are you going? Where are
we
going?”

“South, then west, then north, unless we pick up a load of goods that takes us south again,” Barlow said with a laugh. “But we’re aiming for Lalindar country by early Quinncoru.”

“Good,” Zoe said. “I’ll be sure to be at my grandmother’s house by changeday, and you can bring them to me there. Maybe the world will be sane by then.”

“I’ve never been out of the city,” Josetta said.

“You’ll enjoy the trip, then,” Barlow told her.

“But two grown men and two young girls—it’s not right,” Foley said urgently.

Zoe laid her hand on his arm, conveying as much reassurance as she could. “They are not interested in girls,” she said gently. “And you will be along to keep them safe from whatever other hazards arise.”

Foley’s face had sharpened at her first words, and relaxed at her last ones. “I
will
accompany them,” he said. “No matter what anyone says.”

“Oh, we want you along, believe me,” Jaker said. He shook his head, sighed, and then laughed. “I suppose we will really do this. I’d better have some more of that wine, then, while we figure out the details.”

T
he next four days were among the strangest of Zoe’s existence, and she had thought parts of her life were pretty strange up to this point.

Jaker, Barlow, Josetta, Corene, and Foley left very early the next morning. Barlow had shown her where they kept an impressive cache of spare coins—“Take what you need”—and Jaker had told her she could wear anything she found in the closets, though he couldn’t promise her a fashionable or even attractive wardrobe. She had repeatedly kissed the girls goodbye, but she was relieved when they were finally gone, off on a journey so unplanned and meandering that no one would be able to find them unless by sheer, astonishing luck.