Inysh. That tongue was one he had not heard in some time.
“That,” Niclays answered in it, “was not Seiikinese. That was Mentish. I assumed you were, too.”
“No, sir. I am from Ascalon,”came the meek reply. “May I ask your name, since I have you to thank for sheltering me?”
Typical Inysh. Courtesy first. “Roos,” Niclays bit out. “Doctor Niclays Roos. Master surgeon. The person whose life you are currently endangering with your presence.”
The young man stared at him.
“Doctor—” He swallowed. “Doctor Niclays Roos?”
“Congratulations, boy. The seawater has not impaired your ears.”
His guest drew a shuddering breath. “Doctor Roos,” he said, “this is divine providence. The fact that the Knight of Fellowship has brought me to you, of all people—”
“Me.” Niclays frowned. “Have we met?”
He strained his memory to his time in Inys, but he was sure he had never clapped eyes on this person. Unless he had been drunk at the time, of course. He had often been drunk in Inys.
“No, sir, but a friend told me your name.” The man dabbed his face with his sleeve. “I was sure I would perish at sea, but seeing you has brought me back to life. Thank the Saint.”
“Your saint has no power here,” Niclays muttered. “Now, what name do you go by?”
“Sulyard. Master Triam Sulyard, sir, at your service. I was a squire in the household of Her Majesty, Sabran Berethnet, Queen of Inys.”
Niclays gritted his jaw. That name stoked a white-hot wrath in his gut.
“A squire.” He sat down. “Did Sabran tire of you, as she tires of all her subjects?”
Sulyard bristled. “If you insult my queen, I will—”
“What will you do?” Niclays looked at him over the rims of his eyeglasses. “Perhaps I should call you Triam Dullard. Do you have any notion of what they do to outsiders here? Did Sabran send you to die a particularly drawn-out death?”
“Her Majesty does not know I am here.”
Interesting. Niclays poured him a cup of wine. “Here,” he said grudgingly. “All of it.”
Sulyard drank it down.
“Now, Master Sulyard, this is important,” Niclays continued. “How many people have seen you?”
“They made me swim to the shore. I came to a cove first. The sand was black.” Sulyard was shivering. “A woman found me and led me into this city at knifepoint. She left me alone in a stable … then a different woman arrived and bid me follow her. She took me to the sea, and we swam together until we came to a jetty. There was a gate at the end.”
“And it was open?”
“Yes.”
The woman must know one of the sentinels. Must have asked them to leave the landing gate open.
Sulyard rubbed his eyes. His time at sea had weathered him, but Niclays could see now that he was only young, perhaps not even twenty.
“Doctor Roos,” he said, “I have come here on a mission of the utmost importance. I must speak to the—”
“I will have to stop you there, Master Sulyard,” Niclays cut in. “I have no interest in why you are here.”
“But—”
“Whatever your reasons, you came here to do it without permission from any authority, which is folly. If the Chief Officer finds you and they drag you away for interrogation, I wish to be able to say in all honesty that I have not the faintest idea why you turned up on my doorstep in the middle of the night, thinking you would be welcome in Seiiki.”
Sulyard blinked. “Chief Officer?”
“The Seiikinese official in charge of this floating scrapyard, though he seems to think of himself as a minor god. Do you know what this place is, at least?”
“Orisima, the last Western trading post in the East. Its existence was what gave me the hope that the Warlord might see me.”
“I assure you,” Niclays said, “that under no circumstances will Pitosu Nadama receive a trespasser at his court. What he will do, should he get wind of you, is execute you.”
Sulyard said nothing.
Niclays briefly considered telling his guest that his rescuer planned to come back for him, perhaps to alert the authorities to his presence. He decided against it. Sulyard might panic and try to flee, and there was nowhere for him to run.
Tomorrow. He would be gone tomorrow.
Just then, Niclays heard voices outside. Footsteps clattered on the wooden steps of the other dwellings. He felt a quiver in his belly.
“Hide,” he said, and grasped his cane.
Sulyard ducked behind a folding screen. Niclays opened the door with shaking hands.
Centuries ago, the First Warlord of Seiiki had signed the Great Edict and closed the island to all but the Lacustrine and the Mentish, to protect its people from the Draconic plague. Even after the plague abated, the separation had endured. Any outsider who arrived without permission would be put to death. As would anyone who abetted them.
In the street, there was no sign of the sentinels, but several of his neighbors had gathered. Niclays joined them.
“What in the name of Galian is happening?” he asked the cook, who was staring at a point above their heads, mouth wide enough to catch butterflies in it. “I recommend not using that particular facial expression in the future, Harolt. People might think you a halfwit.”
“Look, Roos,” the cook breathed. “Look!”
“This had better be—”
He trailed off when he saw it.
An enormous head towered over the fence of Orisima. It belonged to a creature born of jewel and sea.
Cloud steamed from its scales—scales of moonstone, so bright they seemed to glow from within. A crust of gemlike droplets glistened on each one. Each eye was a burning star, and each horn was quicksilver, agleam under the pallid moon. The creature flowed with the grace of a ribbon past the bridge and took to the skies, light and quiet as a paper kite.
A dragon. Even as it rose over Cape Hisan, others were ascending from the water, leaving a chill mist in their wake. Niclays pressed a hand to the drumbeat in his chest.
“Now, what,” he murmured, “are they doing here?”
2
West
He was masked, of course. They always were. Only a fool would trespass in the Queen Tower without ensuring his anonymity, and if he had gained access to the Privy Chamber, then this cutthroat was certainly no fool.
In the Great Bedchamber beyond, Sabran lay sound asleep. With her hair unbound and her lashes dark against her cheeks, the Queen of Inys would be a picture of repose. Tonight it was Roslain Crest who slept beside her.
Both were unaware that a shadow bent on slaughter moved closer by the moment.
When Sabran retired, the key to her most private space was left in the possession of one of her Ladies of the Bedchamber. Katryen Withy had it now, and she was in the Horn Gallery. The royal apartments were guarded by the Knights of the Body, but the door to the Great Bedchamber was not always watched. After all, there was only one key.
No risk of intrusion.
In the Privy Chamber—the last rampart between the royal bed and the outside world—the cutthroat looked over his shoulder. Sir Gules Heath had returned to his post outside, unaware of the threat that had stolen in while he was elsewhere. Unaware of Ead, concealed in the rafters, watching the cutthroat touch the door that would lead him to the queen. In silence, the intruder removed a key from his cloak and slid it into the lock.
It turned.
For a long time, he was still. Waiting for his chance.
This one was far more careful than the others. When Heath gave way to one of his coughing fits, the intruder cracked open the door to the Great Bedchamber. With the other hand, he unsheathed a blade. The same make of blade the others had used.
When he moved, so did Ead. She dropped in silence from the beam above him.
Her bare feet lit upon the marble. As the cutthroat stepped into the Great Bedchamber, dagger aloft, she covered his mouth and drove her blade between his ribs.
The cutthroat bucked. Ead held fast, careful not to let a drop of blood spill on to her. When the body stilled, she lowered it to the floor and lifted his silk-lined visard, the same as all the others had worn.
The face beneath was all too young, not quite out of boyhood. Eyes like pondwater stared at the ceiling.
He was nobody she recognized. Ead kissed his brow and left him on the marble floor.
Almost the moment she moved back into the shadows, she heard a shout for help.
Daybreak found her in the palace grounds. Her hair was held in a web of gold thread, studded with emerald.