The Winner's Crime (83 page)

curious. She had overheard a word at dinner the night be-

fore, while her father talked with his guest.
Dilution
. It was

a word she didn’t know.

“I dyed our fountain pink because of you,” Kestrel told

the engineer.

“Really?”

“I was trying for red, but I didn’t have enough dye.”

Kestrel pressed her thumb into the pattern cut into her

crystal glass and said, “Why were you in Herran then? Did

you live there?”

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“No, I designed the city acqueducts. The Herrani sys-

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tem of running water was too primitive.”

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“Have you been to Herran recently?”

“No,” said the engineer, but she was looking away.

CRIME

“Why would I?”

’S

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I wish that you had, and

that we could talk about it. Sometimes I’m homesick.”

Elinor frowned. “Herran is a colony.
This
is your home.”

THE WINNER

“Herran
was
a colony. Now it’s an in de pen dent terri-

tory.”

“By the grace of our emperor.”

Quietly, and helplessly, the way one reaches for a lost

thing that had always been there before, Kestrel said, “I

miss the birds that sing there this time of the year. They

carried straw in their beaks and built nests under the eaves.

I miss the fl ickering light of the horse paths.” The engineer

was staring with disapproval. Kestrel didn’t care. The words

were said to Arin, who wasn’t there, and Jess, who wouldn’t

listen, and Ronan, who was leaving, and her father, who

had shared her home. She spoke to the southern isle slave,

who had probably been born and sold and raised in the

capital, and had never known her home, and so had been

robbed, along with everything else, of homesickness. “There

was a hill in the orange grove,” Kestrel said. “When I was

little, I would lie there in summer and look at the fruit

hanging in the trees like party lanterns. Then I was old

enough to go to parties, and my friends and I would stay

up until even the fi refl ies went to sleep.”

“How nice.” Yet the engineer’s voice was cold.

“Herran is beautiful.”

“The problem has never been Herran. It’s the Herrani.”

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Then, as if neither of them noticed the great fault line

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that had opened up with their words to split the ground

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between them, Elinor said, “Do try the berries, my lady.

They are very sweet.”

MARIE RUTK

When the general was well enough to leave his rooms, the

emperor insisted on a celebration. A mock sea battle was

staged at night on the man- made pond in the Spring Gar-

den. Two small boats were painted to look like ships of war

and loaded with courtiers who shot off fi reworks.

“You don’t like it?” the emperor said when General Tra-

jan remained silent during the applause.

“Fireworks are a waste of black powder.”

“Valoria has more than enough. Our enemies will never

be able to compete with our cannons. Our stores of black

powder are vast.”

“Every resource has its limits.”

“He’s always like this in the capital,” the emperor told

Kestrel cheerfully. “He’s never happy unless he’s in the

fi eld.”

Kestrel wanted to say that he had been happy in their

home in Herran. In truth, though, he’d rarely been there,

and she’d never dared to ask after his happiness.

The general shifted in his wrought-

iron chair. The

walk to the garden had exhausted him, Kestrel could tell.

Though the court physicians packed his wound with less

gauze every day, it hadn’t yet closed.

“Where’s Verex?” Kestrel wished he were there.

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The emperor shrugged.

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A fi rework popped into a shower of gold. It illuminated

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the crowd gathered around the pond. Its light glimmered

on Risha’s face, and on Verex, who sat next to her on the

CRIME

other side of the pond.

’S

The emperor saw them, too. Kestrel was coming to un-

derstand that the emperor’s anger tended to coil itself

tightly. It was the kind that could seem to sleep. Inevitably,

THE WINNER

though, it lashed out.

“I hear that you paid a call to my water engineer,” he

said to Kestrel.

Another fi rework went off . It seemed to thud inside

Kestrel’s chest. The emperor was looking at her in the same

way he had looked at his son: as if he didn’t like what he

saw.

Kestrel said, “I thought that maybe I could convince

her to return to the east with my father.”

A fi rework lit the emperor’s face with exploded light.

“That is
my
decision.”

“It was just an idea. In the end, I said nothing about it

to her.”

“She tells me, however, that your conversation was

nonetheless interesting.”

The smell of sulfur was strong. The smoke burned Kes-

trel’s lungs. And she knew, from the threat in the emperor’s

voice, that she
had
been prodding at a secret about the

water engineer.

She looked at her father. He was staring straight ahead,

watching as a drunk gentleman stood in one of the boats,

teetered, and fell into the water. The crowd laughed.

Kestrel held her breath. The fi reworks cracked and

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burst inside her. She waited for the emperor to speak again.

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She worried that her father would say that he had told

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Kestrel not to go to the engineer’s house.

“Perhaps the capital isn’t entertaining enough for you,”

the emperor said to Kestrel. “I hear that you long for Her-

ran.”

MARIE RUTK

“Why wouldn’t she?” General Trajan said curtly. “She

grew up there.”

The sky rained green and red. The two men looked at

each other. Kestrel knew that expression on her father’s

face.

Her fear slowed. She breathed again. Though the spring

night was chilly, she felt suddenly warm. She felt the cloak

of her father’s protection. She pulled it tightly around her.

“Of course,” the emperor said silkily, and turned to

watch as another fuse was lit.

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31

WHEN THE GENERAL’S WOUND FINALLY

closed, the emperor gave him a gold watch.

Kestrel stood with her father and the emperor on the

pale green lawn of the Spring Garden. Archery targets had

been set up, and courtiers took their turns. The sky was

heaped with whipped- cream clouds. The wind blew soft

and warm. Kestrel’s maids had packed away her winter

clothes and brought out dresses of lace and toile.

She thought of Arin in his twinned rooftop garden in

Herran. She wondered what bloomed for him there now.

The watch struck the hour.

General Trajan raised his brows. “It chimes.”

The emperor looked pleased, and Kestrel supposed that

it might have been easy to mistake her father’s expres-

sion for wonder. But she saw the uncomfortable line of his

mouth.

“Don’t be jealous, Kestrel,” said the emperor. “I haven’t

forgotten that your birthday is coming up.”

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She would turn eigh teen. Her birthday was near spring’s

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end: right before the wedding. “It’s more than two months

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from now.”

“Yes, not so far away. Trajan, I insist that you stay in

the capital right through until the wedding.”

The general shut the watch. “We just seized the eastern

MARIE RUTK

plains. If you want to hold them—”

“Your lieutenants can manage. You’re barely healed.

You can’t expect to lead a regiment in battle, and quite

frankly, you’re no good to me dead. You’ll stay here. We’ll

celebrate Kestrel’s birthday together.” With the air of some-

one presenting the best idea in the world, he added, “I

thought that she could perform for the court.”

There was the soft, faraway thump of an arrow hitting

canvas.

The general said nothing. Kestrel watched his mouth

harden.

“She has such a gift for music,” said the emperor, “like

your wife did.”

The general’s hatred of Kestrel’s music had always

been clear. It embarrassed him: her love for an instru-

ment that one bought slaves to play. Sometimes, though,

Kestrel thought that it wasn’t just that. The piano was

his rival. He had wanted her to enlist in the military. She

wouldn’t. He wanted her to stop playing. She wouldn’t.

The piano became her way of refusing him . . . or at least

this was how she had thought he saw it. Only now did it

occur to her that he hated to hear her play because it

hurt.

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“I confess,” the emperor said, “that I want to show Kes-

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trel off . I want everyone to see what talent my future

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daughter has.” With a smile, he excused himself to speak

with the Senate leader.

CRIME

General Trajan’s hand closed around the watch.

’S

What a silly gift to give a man who led nighttime as-

saults where stealth could mean the diff erence between life

and death. “Give it to me,” Kestrel said. “I will fi nd a nice

THE WINNER

con ve nient rock to drop it on.”

The general smiled a little. “When the emperor gives

you a gift, it’s best to wear it.” He glanced at the new dag-

ger at Kestrel’s hip. “Sometimes what he gives is actually a

way of saying what’s his.”

I’m not his,
she wanted to say, but her father was al-

ready gone, walking slowly across the lawn to greet an off -

duty naval offi

cer.

Someone must have struck a target’s center. She heard a

smattering of applause.

“Are you going to shoot?”

It was Verex. He had approached without her noticing.

“Not today.” The wind was tricky and her father was

here. She didn’t want to miss.

Verex off ered her his arm. “Let’s see who wins.”

As they walked together, Kestrel said, “You seem to

know a good deal about medicine.”

He shrugged.

“Would you rather be a doctor than an emperor?”

Verex peered down the low slope. He didn’t say any-

thing. Kestrel wasn’t sure if it was because he had been of-

fended by the question or because he didn’t know how to

answer it. Then he said, “The Herrani minister of agricul-

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ture is looking at you.”

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Kestrel glanced to see Tensen sitting in a chair under

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the trees, folded hands resting on the cane planted into the

grass in front of him.

“No, don’t look back,” said Verex. “Be careful, Kes-

trel.”

MARIE RUTK

Her step faltered. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“You know why my father keeps him at court, don’t

you?”

Slowly, Kestrel said, “To watch him.”

“What will my father think if he watches that minister

watch
you
?”

Kestrel swallowed a bubbling ner vous ness. Her hands,

though lightly gloved, were very cold. But she strove to

sound confi dent and careless. “People look at me all the

time. I can’t help it.”

Verex shook his head and turned to eye the archers.

“I assure you,” she said, “I care nothing for Herran’s

minister.”

He gave her a sidelong, reproachful look. “Kestrel, I

know what you care about.”

She tried for a teasing tone and change of subject.

“Since we’re gossiping about who watches whom, don’t you

think it’s time you told me which of my maids is in your

pay?”

“What would that change? Don’t you realize by now

that
all
of them are watching you? I bribe one, but who

bribes the others?” Verex faced her fully now. “You asked

me whether I would have liked to become a physician. Yes.

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I would have. Once. I even had books on the subject. My