The Winner's Crime (51 page)

“I thought Prince Verex should decide.” If the choice

were left to the prince, the wedding date would be never.

“Why don’t
we
decide?”

“Without him?”

“My dear girl, if the prince’s slippery mind cannot re-

member something so simple as the day and time of a din-

ner with his father and lady, how can we expect him to

plan any part of the most important state event in de cades?”

Kestrel said nothing.

“You’re not eating,” he said.

She sank the clear fork into the cream and lifted it to

her mouth. The fork’s tines dissolved against her tongue.

“Sugar,” she said with surprise. “The fork is made of hard-

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ened sugar.”

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“Do you like the dessert?”

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“Yes.”

“Then you must eat it all.”

But how to fi nish the cream if the fork continued to dis-

solve each time she took a mouthful? Most of the fork re-

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mained in her hand, but it wouldn’t last.

A game. The dessert was a game, the conversation a

game. The emperor wanted to see how she would play.

He said, “I think the end of this month would be ideal

for a wedding.”

Kestrel ate more of the cream. The tines completely

vanished, leaving something that resembled an aborted

spoon. “A winter wedding? There will be no fl owers.”

“You don’t need fl owers.”

“If you know that young ladies like dessert, you must

also know that they like fl owers.”

“I suppose you’d prefer a spring wedding, then.”

Kestrel lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Summer would

be best.”

“Luckily my palace has hot houses. Even in winter, we

could carpet the great hall with petals.”

Kestrel silently ate more of the dessert. Her fork turned

into a fl at stick.

“Unless you want to postpone the wedding,” said the

emperor.

“I’m thinking of our guests. The empire is vast. People

will come from every province. Winter is a terrible time to

travel and spring little better. It rains. The roads become

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muddy.”

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The emperor leaned back in his chair, studying her

with an amused expression.

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“Also,” she said, “I’d hate to waste an opportunity. You

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know that the nobles and governors will give you what

they can— favors, information, gold— for the best seats at

the wedding. The mystery of what I’ll wear and what music

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will be played will distract the empire. No one would notice

if you made a po liti cal decision that would otherwise out-

rage thousands. If I were you, I would enjoy my long en-

gagement. Use it for all it’s worth.”

He laughed. “Oh, Kestrel. What an empress you will

be.” He raised his glass. “To your happy union, on the day

of Firstsummer.”

She would have had to drink to that, had not Prince

Verex entered the dining room and stopped short, his large

eyes showing every shift of emotion: surprise, hurt, anger.

“You’re late,” his father said.

“I am not.” Verex’s hands clenched.

“Kestrel managed to be here on time. Why couldn’t

you?”

“Because you told me the wrong hour.”

The emperor tsked. “You misremember.”

“You’re making me look the fool!”

“
I
am making you look nothing of the kind.”

Verex’s mouth snapped shut. His head bobbed on his

thin neck like something caught in a current.

“Come,” Kestrel said gently. “Have dessert with us.”

The look he shot her told Kestrel that he might hate his

father’s games, but he hated her pity more. He fl ed the room.

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Kestrel toyed with her stub of a sugar fork. Even after

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the prince’s noisy course down the hall had dwindled into

silence, she knew better than to speak.

“Look at me,” the emperor said.

She raised her eyes.

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“You don’t want a summer wedding for the sake of fl ow-

ers, or guests, or po liti cal purchase,” he said. “You want to

postpone it for as long as possible.”

Kestrel held the fork tightly.

“I’ll give you what you want, within reason,” he said,

“and I will tell you why. Because I don’t blame you, given

your bridegroom. Because you don’t whine for what you

want, but seek to win it. Like I would. When you look at

me, you see who you will become. A ruler. I have chosen

you, Kestrel, and will make you into everything my son

cannot be. Someone fi t to take my place.”

Kestrel looked, and her look became a stare that searched

for her future in an old man capable of cruelty to his own

child.

He smiled. “Tomorrow I’d like for you to meet with

the captain of the imperial guard.”

She had never met the captain before, but was familiar

enough with his role. Offi

cially, he was responsible for the

emperor’s personal safety. Unoffi

cially, this duty spread to

others that no one discussed. Surveillance. Assassinations.

The captain was good at making people vanish.

“He has something to show you,” the emperor said.

“What is it?”

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“A surprise. Now look happy, Kestrel. I’m giving you

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everything that you could want.”

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Sometimes the emperor
was
generous. She’d seen audi-

ences with him where he’d given senators private land in

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new colonies, or powerful seats in the Quorum. But she’d

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also seen how his generosity tempted others to ask for just a

little more. Then his eyes went heavy- lidded, like a cat’s, and

she would see how his gifts made people reveal what they

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really wanted.

Nonetheless, she couldn’t help hoping that the wed-

ding could be put off for longer than a few months. First-

summer was better than next week, of course, but still too

soon. Much too soon. Would the emperor agree to a year?

More? She said, “Firstsummer—”

“Is the perfect date.”

Kestrel’s gaze fell to her closed hand. It opened with a

sweet scent and rested empty on the table.

The sugar fork had vanished against the heat of her

palm.

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2

ARIN WAS IN HIS FATHER’S STUDY, WHICH HE

probably would never be able to think of as his own, no

matter how old the ghosts of his dead family grew.

It was a clear day. The view from the study window

showed the city in detail, with its ruined patches left by the

rebellion. The pale wafer of a winter sun gave Herran’s har-

bor a blurry glow.

Arin wasn’t thinking of her. He wasn’t. He was think-

ing of how slowly the city walls were being rebuilt. Of the

hearthnut harvest soon to come in the southern countryside,

and how it would bring much- needed food and trade to

Herran. He wasn’t thinking of Kestrel, or of the past month

and a week of not thinking of her. But not thinking was

like lifting slabs of rock, and he was so distracted by the

strain of it that he didn’t hear Sarsine enter the room, or

notice his cousin at all until she had shoved an opened let-

ter at him.

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The broken seal showed the sigil of crossed swords. A

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letter from the Valorian emperor. Sarsine’s face told Arin

that he wouldn’t like what he was about to read.

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“What is it?” he asked. “Another tax?” He rubbed his

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eyes. “The emperor must know we can’t pay, not again, not

so soon after the last levy. This is ruinous.”

“Well, now we see why the emperor so kindly returned

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Herran to the Herrani.”

They had discussed this before. It seemed the only ex-

planation to such an unexpected decision. Revenues from

Herran used to go into the pockets of the Valorian aristo-

crats who had colonized it. Then came the Firstwinter Re-

bellion and the emperor’s decree, and those aristocrats had

returned to the capital, the loss of their land named as a

cost of war. Now the emperor was able to bleed Herran dry

through taxes its people were unable to protest. The terri-

tory’s wealth fl owed directly into imperial coff ers.

A devious move. But what worried Arin most was the

nagging sense that he was missing something. It had been

hard to think that day when Kestrel had handed him the

emperor’s off er and demands. It had been hard to see any-

thing but the gold line that had marked her brow.

“Just tell me how much it’ll cost this time,” he said to

Sarsine.

Her mouth screwed into a knot. “Not a tax. An invita-

tion.” She left the room.

Arin unfolded the paper. His hands went still.

As governor of Herran, Arin was requested to attend a

ball in the Valorian capital.
In honor of the engagement of

Lady Kestrel to Crown Prince Verex
, read the letter.

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Sarsine had called it an invitation, but Arin recognized

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it for what it was: an order, one that he had no power to

disobey, even though he was supposedly no longer a slave.

Arin’s eyes lifted from the page and gazed upon the

harbor. When Arin had worked on the docks, one of the

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other slaves was known as the Favor- Keeper.

Slaves had no possessions, or at least nothing that their

Valorian conquerors would recognize as such. Even if Arin

had
had something of his own, he had no pockets to hold

it. Clothes with pockets went to house slaves only. This

was the mea sure of life under the Valorians: that the Her-

rani people knew their place according to whether they

had pockets and the illusion of being able to keep some-

thing private within them.

Yet slaves still had a currency. They traded favors. Extra

food. A thicker pallet. The luxury of a few minutes of rest

while someone else worked. If a slave on the docks wanted

something, he asked the Favor- Keeper, the oldest Herrani

among them.

The Favor- Keeper kept a ball of thread with a diff erent-

colored string for each man. If Arin had had a request, his

string would have been spooled and looped and spindled

around another one, perhaps yellow, and that yellow string

might have wound its way about a green one, depending on

who owed what. The Favor- Keeper’s knot recorded it all.

But Arin had had no string. He had asked for nothing.

He gave nothing. Already a young man then, he had de-

spised the thought of being in debt to anyone.

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Now he studied the Valorian emperor’s letter. It was

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beautifully inked. Artfully phrased. It fi t well with Arin’s

surroundings, with the liquid- like varnish of his father’s desk

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and the leaded glass windows that shot winter light into

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the study.

The light made the emperor’s words all too easy to read.

Arin crushed the paper into his fi st and squeezed hard.

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He wished for a Favor- Keeper. He would forsake his pride

to become a simple string, if only he could have what he

wanted.

Arin would trade his heart for a snarled knot of thread

if it meant he would never have to see Kestrel again.

He consulted with Tensen. The el der ly man studied the

uncrumpled and fl attened invitation, his pale green eyes

gleaming. He set the thick, wrinkled page on Arin’s desk

and tapped the fi rst line of writing with one dry fi nger.

“This,” he said, “is an excellent opportunity.”

“Then you’ll go,” said Arin.

“Of course.”

“Without me.”

Tensen pursed his lips. He gave Arin that schoolmas-

ter’s look that had served him well as a tutor to Valorian

children. “Arin. Let’s not be proud.”

“It’s not pride. I’m too busy. You’ll represent Herran at

the ball.”

“I don’t think that the emperor will be satisfi ed with a