Mirror Sight (63 page)

When they paused at midday, and Luke left them to dine in a roadside tavern, Cade went to the kitchen, and returned shortly with meatrolls, a pitcher of water, cups, and bandages. He tended her wounded hand, tearing away the crusted handkerchief, and washed the wound with water from the pitcher. She hissed at the sting. From his pocket, he produced a small tub of salve.

“The headwoman in the kitchen was very helpful,” he said, and he slathered some of the herby smelling ointment on the back of Karigan’s hand. “Luke overreacted.”

“I’m not so sure,” she replied.

Cade raised an eyebrow. “No?”

“We’re in the Capital, Cade, and that makes everything more dangerous. He was right to correct me. Us. We can’t make mistakes like that—too much is riding on our being successful.”

He nodded his acceptance and tied off her bandage. “I didn’t like him hurting you.”

“I didn’t either, and I bet he feels bad about it. We see him acting his part, but he’s got a family back in Mill City that he must worry about, with the uprising and all, and who knows what it’s really like when he goes into those taverns pretending to be someone he is not. It must be exhausting.”

“You’re right,” Cade replied, and he led her to the shade beneath a maple with their meatrolls and water. “But if he ever raises a whip at you again, I will tear it out of his hands and use it on him.”

The fierceness of Cade’s expression made him look hawklike just then, and she did not envy anyone who got in his way.

W
hen Luke stepped into the darkness of the tavern after the bright sunlight outside, he paused a moment to allow his eyes to adjust. The common room was very quiet, almost sleepy, with few patrons eating their meals.

A man approached and introduced himself as the tavern keeper. “You are Mr. Mayforte?”

Luke nodded.

“Ah, then you are invited to our private dining room.”

Luke’s spirits, already wearied by having to play this part and worrying about his family, not to mention feeling despicable after having lashed Karigan with his whip, sank to a new low. His overseer was checking up on him. He had no choice but to follow the tavern keeper into the small dining room with seating for four. Only one man, however, awaited him: an Inquisitor named Mr. Starling. The man sat there with his napkin tucked into his already straining collar as he cut into a hunk of beef.

“Ah, Mr. Mayforte,” the man said. “Please join me.”

Luke sat across the table from him, but did not speak, not even in greeting. A servant brought in a steaming plate of food for him and then left, closing the door to ensure privacy.

“Please, eat,” said Mr. Starling. “The beef is especially fine today.”

Luke did not, but the Inquisitor sawed into his own, unperturbed. He was stout with wobbly rolls of fat beneath his chin, and he wore an expensive, well-cut suit, with a spray of flowers tucked into his lapel. Sweat gleamed on his forehead as he worked on his food. Mr. Starling played the part of a buffoon so others would underestimate him. Luke knew that one should never underestimate an Inquisitor.

Starling, with his talent as a spy and interrogator, had been provided by Webster Silk for his son’s use in Mill City, or so Luke was told. The elder Silk had ultimate authority over the Inquisitors. He trained many of them himself.

Luke first met Mr. Starling the morning after the mill fire. He hadn’t gone into hiding and had been easily found at home. Mr. Starling greeted him by having the bodies of Luke’s stable lads dumped at his feet. Then he was questioned. He closed his eyes, trembling at the memory, a trickle of sweat slithering down his own forehead. There had been no reason to kill the lads, and that was precisely the point. Mr. Starling wanted Luke to understand that if he could easily kill the lads for no particular reason, it was best to cooperate and not give him a reason to do worse.

When Mr. Starling tucked away all that was on his plate, he slurped down a glass of wine and belched. He dabbed his mouth almost daintily with his napkin. His fingers were tiny, round sausages.

“Your journey goes well?” he asked.

“Yes,” Luke replied.

“Good, good. And your companions have not guessed?”

“No. They are bes—” Luke clamped his mouth shut. Starling did not need that particular piece of information.

“Besotted? Is that what you were going to say? They are besotted with one another?”

Luke did not reply. He did not have to. Starling had only managed to get it out of him a couple nights ago that Tam Ryder was not a he. There had been threats, and Starling was well-trained in the detection of lies and evasions. Luke was an ordinary stablehand. What was he compared to an Inquisitor of the empire?

“Well, well,” Mr. Starling said. “That is very interesting, indeed. Could be useful. He is taking care of her in her illness, then? Yes, well, not so uncommon for a frail girl to fall in love with her caretaker, eh?”

Luke cursed himself for his slip. He’d seen the bond growing between Karigan and Cade well before their journey had begun. Allowing them to have a bunkhouse of their own each night had only encouraged them, but what choice had he?

“My master was terribly delighted by the news that your servant boy was really the girl. Very delighted. He just wants you to keep traveling as you have been. We will take care of the rest. Have you found out any new details about the girl?”

“Just what the professor told me. Miss Goodgrave has been too sick to tell me anything. Besides, I thought asking questions was your specialty.”

Mr. Starling quivered, setting his jowls a-jiggle. “Yes, yes, of course it is, and I would not want an amateur to tip them off by asking questions indiscriminately.”

Luke exhaled in relief. He’d managed to not reveal Karigan’s true identity. Let them believe Cade was the catalyst for the rebels, and that Karigan was really the professor’s frail, mad niece. This little he could do. So very little, but it was something.

“My family,” Luke said. “What of my family?”

“Your son still has his other fingers, if that is what worries you. No, I do not have any new ones to show you.” Mr. Starling paused thoughtfully. “Must be hard for a farrier to work without all his fingers. In any case, if you continue to cooperate, he’ll keep what’s left, and he and the rest of your family will remain safe. Can’t say the same for the rest of your associates in Mill City, however.”

Luke bowed his head. He didn’t want to know the particulars. He could guess.

“That’s right,” Mr. Starling continued. “Justice will be meted out. All have been caught, and the feeble rebellion squashed.”

Was it true? Luke wondered. Had everyone been caught?

“Carry on, Mr. Mayforte,” the Inquisitor said.

Luke hesitated. “You will go easy on them—Cade and Miss Goodgrave, won’t you?”

“Go easy on them?” Mr. Starling guffawed, his oversized belly heaving. “Harlowe has fomented rebellion. I can see you are fond of him, but he is a traitor to the empire. There is no way we can go
easy
on him. What a terribly funny notion.”

Mr. Starling’s laughter increased Luke’s misery, but back in Mill City, with the corpses of his lads at his feet, he’d been given an ultimatum: if he did not deliver Cade to Dr. Silk in Gossham, his wife, his daughters, his son, would all be imprisoned, and probably worse. Luke did not care what happened to himself, but when it came to preserving Cade or his family, his family came first. He’d been made to tell Starling about the planned rebellion, but so far his betrayal had kept his family safe. Under house arrest, yes, but safe.

“What about Miss Goodgrave?”

Mr. Starling shrugged. “None of my business. Dr. Silk is interested in her, that’s all I know. You are excused.”

As Luke left, the Inquisitor reached across the table for his cold, uneaten meal.

E
ven though Karigan had to pretend that she was a boy and there was nothing between her and Cade, she enjoyed sitting beneath the maple with him, her back against the tree trunk. He lay on the shady grass with his hands behind his head, gazing at the interwoven branches above, or perhaps daydreaming, or maybe counting leaves. Their silence was comfortable, more comfortable, actually, than it had ever been before.

The stuttered call of a white-throated sparrow rang out from a grove of evergreens across the canal. Bees droned among the summer flowers in the meadow beside the tavern. It was all very pleasant in the Capital. Those who never left it would have a difficult time comprehending grim places like Mill City. Everything was much more vibrant here, perhaps because it wasn’t all paved over and built up with brick, with tall chimneys belching smoke into the sky. There was supposed to be etherea in the Capital, or Gossham, at least. Could that have anything to do with it? Karigan supposed another answer might be that the elite of the Capital did not wish to have to see, on a daily basis, the blight imposed on the lesser classes in other parts of the empire.

Luke stepped out of the doorway of the tavern. As he approached, she noticed his stride lacked some of its usual swagger. She nudged Cade with her foot.

“Luke’s coming.”

Cade sat up, brushing off stray bits of grass.

When Luke reached them, he said in a very low voice, “Tam needs to be sick. Do you understand? Play sick, and you’ll ride in the back of the wagon as before.”

Karigan wondered if Luke saw this as a more effective way of keeping people from speculating about the affection between the two “lads,” but Cade, his voice very low as well, asked, “Spies?”

“We must not forget the emperor’s eyes are everywhere,” Luke replied.

“Is there a specific threat?”

“Only if you do not do as I say.”

Cade nodded, and Karigan pretended weakness and allowed him to help her rise and make her way to the wagon. It was hard not to smile, and she was pleased by his touch, tense though it was in the wake of Luke’s warning. He lifted her into her old spot in the back of the wagon, and Raven whickered his approval. He nosed her over the tailgate.

Karigan settled into the straw as the mules hauled the wagon down the drive. She looked back at the tavern, where on the front step, watching after them, stood a portly gentleman in a dark suit. Eyes of the emperor? No wonder Luke had grown tense about their behavior and appearances earlier—he knew they were likely to be watched.

The villages they passed through remained pastoral, but grew in size and population as they traveled. Each, like the towns and cities outside the Capital, had a statue of Amberhill the emperor gazing over his realm. Often he was depicted in a heroic stance, but there were variations, such as the one the wagon now rolled beneath. It showed him standing tall with his hands placed on the shoulders of a boy and a girl. To show his compassion? Or his ownership of
all
the people? In the next village, his statue held a book. Whether to show he was a scholar, or holding the laws of the empire in his hands, she did not know. The facial expression on each statue, however, looked very much the same—a distant, stern version of the Amberhill she’d once known.

Another detail she noticed as they traveled was the increasing number of irrigation canals snaking through the land. Water flowed over beds of granite blocks, well-made smaller versions of the Imperial Canal. They even meandered through villages. Small bridges allowed traffic to cross in several places. Karigan began to wonder if they were actually for irrigation at all, and if not, what were they for? Riding in the rear of the wagon, she was not able to ask Cade. She would try to remember later.

The Imperial Canal skirted around the villages, but the road always rejoined it. Canal traffic grew steadier the deeper they got into the Capital, and though she saw many Inspectors patrolling the streets with their mechanicals, there were no more checkpoints than before. She sank back into the straw and gazed at the clouds above. As the afternoon wore on, they grew thicker, tinged with gray. She could smell rain in the air. Yes, it would rain tonight, but there was something else, a briny tang mixed with it. They were nearing the coast, and Corsa. No—not Corsa, but Gossham. Her Corsa was gone.

That evening, as the first few drops of an incoming storm plunked down on their heads, they had to try a few different inns before they found one with space, much less an entire bunkhouse that Luke could reserve for the night. Karigan pretended sickness as usual, with Cade supporting her all the way. Once securely in the bunkhouse, they were immediately in one another’s arms, kissing like long lost lovers separated by continents and the passing of years, instead of only by the length of a wagon and the passing of a day.

Cade pulled away.

“What is it?” Karigan asked.

“I just want to check in with Luke for a minute. I’ll be right back.”

Before Karigan could question him, he was gone. She decided then to make use of the bath tub with which this bunkhouse was equipped. Even after she finished, however, Cade had not returned. She paced for a while, sampling spoonfuls of the stew that had been left for them. Hers was lukewarm, and Cade’s would be cold before he returned. She had too much restive energy to sit still, so she occupied herself by working through swordfighting forms. She had no sword or staff, not even a broomstick to work with, but it felt good to go through the motions anyway.

She was in the middle of Aspen Leaf when Cade finally returned. She froze.

“Don’t stop,” he said, closing the door quietly behind him.

She continued the series of forms she had begun, and became more than mildly distracted when he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, his hands resting on her belly.

“Don’t stop,” he murmured into her ear when she hesitated.

Thunder clapped and rain thrummed on the roof. With Cade folded around her, moving through the steps and patterns of the forms with her, the techniques of the swordmaster truly became a dance. His hands roved down her arms, along her waist and hips, and lower, till she could hardly bear it, aching with need.

Using steps all his own, he led her into a different form of the dance, the storm their orchestra.

 • • • 

Karigan lay contentedly in Cade’s arms once again as rain still pattered on the roof. The bunkhouse interior sprang into relief with flashes of lightning, rumbles of thunder delayed by distance. Cade’s thumb rubbed a scar beneath her ribs, an old sword wound given her during Prince Amilton’s attempted coup of King Zachary’s throne.

“What did you and Luke need to talk about?” she asked.

“Hmm?”

“Earlier. You said you had to talk to Luke.”

“Oh.” He shifted position, making their narrow bed creak. “Tomorrow we reach Gossham, and I wanted to go over our approach.”

So soon,
Karigan thought with dismay. She did not feel prepared. What would they be walking into?

“When we reach the inner city, Luke will find us accommodations and send his letter from Mill City’s master ahead to Webster Silk.”

“And then?”

“And then we wait for a response. Hopefully an invitation to the palace.”

An invitation, she hoped, that would allow her to rescue Lhean. And wring Amberhill’s neck in the process.

“We may not have more than another night together, if even that,” Cade said quietly.

Karigan took the hint and, banishing all else from her mind, gave Cade her full attention.

 • • • 

They did not sleep after, but as rainwater dripped from the eaves of the roof in the wake of the storm, they talked into the early morning hours, Cade asking her about her life back home, and she telling him about the Green Riders, her father, and her aunts.

“Your aunts sound fearsome,” he said.

Karigan chuckled. “Individually they can be intimidating. As a group, yes, fearsome is an apt description.”

“Now I know where you get it from,” Cade said. “You are like all four of your aunts in one.”

“Hey!” She poked him in the ribs, and his laughter shook their little bed.

“They’ll love you,” she said.
As I do.
Or, at least, she thought they would. He wasn’t the heir of a major merchant clan they’d been angling for, not even of a minor one, but once they met him, she knew they’d love him before long. In fact, she thought they’d just be relieved she’d finally found someone.

“Tell me about King Zachary,” Cade said. “He must have been a very great man.”

“He
is,”
Karigan said, her voice trembling. She swallowed hard. It did not feel right to speak of Zachary while she lay in Cade’s arms. Made her feel . . . guilty? “He’s a good king. He loves his land and its people.”

“But not all love him back,” Cade prompted.

She bit her lip. The question came so close to—other things. “No.” She had to force herself to speak. “Not Second Empire, nor those who desire no king at all, and there are those who bridle at peace and live just for war. They do not get it under King Zachary.”

“The responsibility cannot be easy. Do you know him personally? You must have some contact . . .”

Karigan didn’t answer immediately. She wanted to get up, pace, pour a glass of water. Anything but talk about this. But if she did not answer his innocent questions about King Zachary, what would he think? “Yes. Occasionally a Rider will receive messages directly from him, or report immediately to him following an errand, depending on the nature of the message.”

Cade must have heard something in her voice, or maybe felt her tense beside him, because, much to her relief, he started asking about the Weapons.

“I really don’t know too much of their ways,” Karigan said. “They are secretive. They receive most of their training at a place called the Forge—it’s a keep on an island that is kind of the home of the Black Shields.” Then she frowned thinking that if Cade pursued being a Weapon in her time, he’d probably be sent off to the Forge to train and prove himself. How long of a separation would that be? The idea of any time apart disturbed her.

When did this happen, she wondered, that she could not imagine her life without Cade? She had done all right on her own for so long. She’d been independent.

But yes, lonely.

Cade, she did not think, was the sort of man to stifle her, to demand she give up her independent ways. He certainly would have no say over her duties as a Green Rider. It was odd to realize, however, that returning home without him was a bleak picture she did not wish to contemplate. Even if it meant the occasional separation as they pursued their individual duties.

Yes, she thought, resting her head on his shoulder, there might be periodic lapses of loneliness, but better that than not having him at all.