Sword Catcher (Sword Catcher, #1)

She did not understand it. And she was still without the one thing that might help her understand it: Qasmuna’s book.

In the past fortnight Lin had been all over Castellane in search of it. She had met with several unsavory charlatans who had promised they had the book, or something like it, but they had never had the real thing—only silly, pasted-together “spell books,” filled with chants and rhymes meant to “bestir love” and “enhance beauty” and no mention at all of any way to actually access magic, to draw it up out of oneself and save it, so that it could be used without killing the practitioner.

This morning, she had taken time away from her search out of necessity: The Etse Kebeth was full of girls and women preparing for the Tevath, and it had been impossible to use the kitchen there to mix up her cures and remedies. So she had come to the Black Mansion, where Merren had seemed only too pleased to have company in his workroom. He looked up as the noise of a dull cheer came from outside, wrinkling up his nose in momentary puzzlement. “Something’s happening now, isn’t it?” he asked. “Is the Prince getting married?”

“Not married,” Lin said, gently. She had come to regard Merren as something of an innocent savant. He loved his potions and poisons, yet seemed to regard the rest of the world through a gauzy, fond bemusement. “The Princess from Sarthe, whom he’s meant to marry, is arriving today. They’re welcoming her in Valerian Square.”

“Oh,” Merren said brightly, and went back to stirring his black-brown concoction.

Lin had passed through the crowds on her way to the Black Mansion that afternoon; they thickened like cream at the top as she neared the center of the city and Valerian Square, where the Crown Prince would today be welcoming his Sarthian bride.

It ought to have been a festive day. Lin still recalled her mother telling her about the arrival of the young Princess Lilibet in the city, thirty years ago. Crowds had lined the Ruta Magna, cheering as an open chariot carried her into the city. Now that she had met Queen Lilibet, Lin could more easily picture her as her mother had described her: black hair flying, her lips painted red as lacquer, a green silk cloak fastened at her bare shoulders with emeralds, green fire blazing in their hearts. More emeralds burning in her crown; the citizens of Castellane had thrown red pomegranate flowers and dark-purple tulips, the flowers of Marakand, in her path and shouted, “Mei bèra, the most beautiful!”

They had been proud then, of the woman who was to be their new queen, of the beauty and fire she would bring to their city. But there was none of that pride now. A few balconies bore sprigs of white lily, the flower of Sarthe, but the general mood seemed—well, bemused seemed the best word for it.

The news of the betrothal had broken over the city like a storm. Lin heard little about it in the Sault, where the activities of the Aurelian family were only considered interesting if they affected the Ashkar. Prince Conor was not their prince; he was merely an important personage in Castellane. Their prince was Amon Benjudah, the Exilarch, currently traveling the Gold Roads with the Sanhedrin.

Lin, however, had gotten an earful from her patients, especially Zofia, who seemed to have a personal dislike of Sarthe. “Such a disappointment,” she had grumbled, waving an old cutlass in the air. “What a waste. Such an attractive Prince, and such a dull person to marry.”

“You don’t know that,” Lin had said. “She might be interesting, the Princess.”

“She’s from Sarthe. They’re all dull, or dishonest, or both,” Zofia had said firmly, and her opinion seemed shared by the general populace. Some of Lin’s patients had complained that the marriage would give Sarthe too firm a toehold in Castellane; that they would take advantage of access to the harbor, that they would insist everyone take up their fashions and wear uncomfortable hats.

Lin had listened, and nodded absently, and thought of the Prince. You should not feel sorry for me, you know. Feel sorry for the one who has to marry me.

And she did feel sorry, a little, for Princess Aimada d’Eon. But she felt more sorry for Conor Aurelian, which was uncomfortable, to say the least. She had always thought she would not feel sorry for him if he fell down a well and got stuck there, and now, here she was, feeling a regretful twinge every time she thought of him, which was too often.

She had heard not a word from the Palace since the morning when Kel had woken her and they had both seen Prince Conor whole and unscarred. Kel had sent a note a few days later thanking her, and a book about Sunderglass that she was reading now. He had told her that Queen Lilibet had been pleased with her handiwork and that Prince Conor was healing as might be expected.

This, she knew, was a bit of code. Lin had waited anxiously to see if either Mayesh or Andreyen would mention Conor’s miraculous healing to her. When neither did, she had been forced to admit that it seemed their plan had worked: The few who knew the Prince had been whipped at all did not know he had recovered from the effects overnight. And as the days went by since that strangest of events, she began to feel more and more as if that night had been cut out of the unbroken line of the rest of her days. It lay somehow beside or athwart them, as if they were memories from someone else’s life that she was somehow able to examine.

It seemed almost impossible to her that she now shared a secret with the Crown Prince and his Sword Catcher that no one but the three of them knew. Mari was aware Lin had been summoned to the Palace, of course, as was Chana, but Lin had said that it was only to treat a servant’s burned hand, and if Mariam did not believe her, she did not show it. She had not told a soul of the whipping, of the strangeness of that whole night. Listening to the Prince talk, telling him secrets of her own, even touching him—as a healer, of course, but still, with gestures of startling intimacy—that she had brushed her thumb across his mouth . . .

She caught her breath at the memory, just as Merren looked up: The Ragpicker King had come into the room. He really did move with a catlike silence, as if the soles of his shoes were padded. Lin had begun to get used to him gliding about the Black Mansion, often coming in and out of the workroom to see what she and Merren were doing. He never badgered them about it—he seemed more interested in simply satisfying his curiosity than seeking results of any particular sort.

He looked rather haggard today, however, his face white and strained between his black curtain of hair and the starker blackness of his jacket. (As always, the same: black frock coat, narrow black trousers, gleaming onyx boots.) He was followed by Ji-An, who was tugging on a pale flower petal that had become snagged in her hair. She hopped up on the stool beside Lin’s. “I saw our mutual friend in the square today.”