42
Kestrel watched the gate heave open. Arin stepped through, and it slammed behind him so that the closed wall was to his back as the sea was to hers. He started toward her. Then his eyes flashed, as her father’s had when she’d met him moments before, to her forehead. Arin’s face whitened.
Across her brows was a glittering line of gold dust and myrrh oil. It was the Valorian sign of an engaged woman.
She forced herself to smile. “You don’t trust me enough to let me inside the city, Arin? Well, I understand.”
“What did you do?”
The brokenness of his voice broke Kestrel. Yet she held the pieces of herself together.
“But Ronan…” Arin trailed off. “How, Kestrel? Who?”
“Congratulate me. I am to marry the heir to the empire.”
She saw him believe it. She saw betrayal wash across his features, then understanding. She saw his thoughts.
Hadn’t she pulled away from his embrace, escaped across his roof, and nearly drawn a weapon on him?
Who was he, to her?
And Kestrel liked to win. Wasn’t the someday role of empress a tempting stake? Power might persuade where Ronan hadn’t.
Arin’s belief was cruel. Yet she said nothing to change it. If he knew the true conditions of the emperor’s offer, he would never accept it.
“As pleasant as it would be to discuss the details of my upcoming wedding,” she said, “more important matters are at hand. The emperor has a message for you.”
Arin’s eyes had darkened. His tone was biting. “Message?”
“Freedom, for you and your people. He appoints you governor. You are, of course, to swear loyalty to the emperor, receive his emissaries, and answer to him. But unless a matter doesn’t directly concern the empire, you may govern your people as you see fit.” Kestrel handed him a sheet of paper. “A list of Herran’s expected taxes and tributes, to be paid for the honor of being part of the empire.”
Arin crumpled it in his fist. “This is a trick.”
“Surrender now, and accept his generous proposal, or surrender soon, when my father breaks down your wall, and see the end of the Herrani people. It could be a trick, but you will choose it.”
“Why would the emperor do this?”
Kestrel hesitated. “Why?”
“If real, it is a generous offer. And it makes no sense.”
“I advise you not to question the emperor’s wisdom. If you see a good opportunity, take it.” Kestrel swept a hand to indicate her finery: the white furs, the gold, the jewels. “I certainly did.”
There was an awful tension in Arin, one that reminded Kestrel of his childhood violin. He had been strung too hard for far too long. When he finally spoke, his reply came in a low growl. “I agree.”
“Then give orders to open the gate. My father will enter and escort all Valorians in your city back to the capital.”
“I agree,” Arin said, “under one condition. You mentioned emissaries. There will be one emissary from the empire. It will be you.”
“Me?”
“You, I understand. You, I know how to read.”
Kestrel wasn’t so sure of that. “I think that will be acceptable,” she said, and wanted to turn away from how much she wanted this condition. How she would seize any chance to see him, even with the purpose of enforcing the emperor’s will.
Since she could not turn away from her own wanting, she turned away from him.
“Please don’t do this,” he said. “Kestrel, you don’t know. You don’t understand.”
“I see things quite clearly.” She began to walk to meet her father, in whose eyes she had, at last, done something to make him proud.
“You don’t,” Arin said.
She pretended not to hear him. She watched the white sky dissolve into snow and shiver apart over the leaden sea. She felt icy sparks on her skin. The snow fell on her, it fell on him, but Kestrel knew that no single flake could ever touch them both.
She didn’t look back when he spoke again.
“You don’t, Kestrel, even though the god of lies loves you.”
Author’s Note
The idea for this novel came to me while sitting with my friend Vasiliki Skreta on a dark blue gym mat in the children’s playroom of our apartment building. Vasiliki is an economist, and we were discussing auctions. She mentioned the concept of the “winner’s curse.” Quite simply, it describes how the winner of an auction has also lost, because he or she has won by paying more than what the majority of bidders have decided the item is worth. Of course, no one knows what something might be worth in the future. The winner’s curse (at least, in economic theory) is about the very moment of winning, not its aftermath.
I was fascinated by this version of a Pyrrhic victory—to win and lose at the same time. I was tempted by the beauty of the term “winner’s curse,” which was first presented in a 1971 paper called “Competitive Bidding in High-Risk Situations,” by E. C. Capen, R. V. Clapp, and W. M. Campbell. I tried to think of a novel in which someone would win an auction that exacts a steep emotional price. It occurred to me: What if the item at auction were not a thing but a person? What might winning cost then?
My first thanks for The Winner’s Curse goes to Vasiliki. I must also acknowledge several texts that kept me company while writing. Although the world I’ve presented in these pages is my own and has no concrete connection to the real world, I was inspired by antiquity, in particular the Greco-Roman period after Rome had conquered Greece and enslaved its population in the expected way of the time; slavery was a common consequence of war. Two books helped me think about the mentality of that period: Marguerite Yourcenar’s novel Memoirs of Hadrian and Thucydides’ The History of the Peloponnesian War (which I paraphrase at one point). The poem that Kestrel reads in her library is very close to Ezra Pound’s opening of Canto I (which in turn echoes Homer’s The Odyssey): “And then went down to the ship, / Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea.”
So I give thanks to my reading … and to my readers. Many friends read and commented on The Winner’s Curse. Some read a chapter, others whole sections, and others multiple drafts. Thank you: Genn Albin, Marianna Baer, Betsy Bird, Elise Broach, Donna Freitas, Daphne Grab, Mordicai Knode, Kekla Magoon, Caragh O’Brien, Jill Santopolo, Eliot Schrefer, Natalie Van Unen, and Robin Wasserman. Your advice has been indispensable.
Thanks also to those who have discussed this project with me, and offered ideas or moral support (often both!): Kristin Cashore, Jenny Knode, Thomas Philippon, and Robert Rutkoski (who came up with the phrase “the code of the call”). Nicole Cliffe, Denise Klein, Kate Moncrief, and Ivan Werning had really useful things to say about horses. David Verchere, as usual, was my go-to expert on ships and sailing. Tiffany Werth, Georgi McCarthy, and many Facebook friends chimed in on questions about language.
I have two small, sweet sons, and couldn’t have written this book without help taking care of them. Thanks to my parents, in-laws, and babysitters: Monica Ciucurel, Shaida Khan, Georgi McCarthy, Nora Meguetaoui, Christiane and Jean-Claude Philippon, and Marilyn and Robert Rutkoski.
I’m very grateful to those who look out for me. My wise and warm agent, Charlotte Sheedy, and her team: Mackenzie Brady, Carly Croll, and Joan Rosen. My insightful editor, Janine O’Malley, who makes every book so much better. Simon Boughton, for valuing details. Joy Peskin, for being such a wonderful advocate. Everybody else at FSG and Macmillan, for their verve and delight in bringing books into this world, especially Elizabeth Clark, Gina Gagliano, Angus Killick, Kate Leid, Kathryn Little, Karen Ninnis, Karla Reganold, Caitlin Sweeny, Allison Verost, Ksenia Winnicki, and Jon Yaged. Thank you.