Echo in Onyx Read online

  “Good health and a good job are all you need to be happy,” Jean replied.

  I didn’t agree, but it was pointless to argue with Jean. We turned the conversation to other topics, and then I was on my way to the flower markets.

  I enjoyed myself as I picked through the wares on display: gladiolas and roses with their long stems tucked into metal pails of water, clusters of hydrangeas and lilacs floating in shallow pans. A good number of the flowers for sale were out of season, so I assumed they had been forced in some hothouse on the outskirts of the city and gathered before dawn that morning. I chose blossoms of every hue, thinking to make Marguerite a colorful headband that she could wear with almost any dress.

  I hadn’t requisitioned the carriage, so I had a rather awkward armload to carry as I walked back, but I didn’t mind. I dawdled a bit on the return trip, taking my favorite route through the city, even though it was somewhat out of my way. It was a narrow road that wound through a wealthy part of town, where grand houses were perched on a hill overlooking both the busy commercial district and the residential neighborhoods that crowded close to the governor’s mansion. I liked seeing the whole city laid out before me, the grays and tans of the buildings brightened by roofs of green and terra-cotta and red. I liked watching the patterns of traffic, the ceaseless movement of people and horses too far away to see clearly, realizing that each one was on a journey I would never know anything about. I liked picking out the roads that led south, to my mother’s posting house, and west, toward the mountains. I liked the idea that, as big as this city seemed to me, there was even more outside its borders. I liked wondering where I might go next.

  I had taken a few steps off the main road and set my bouquets at my feet so I could stand and stare at the vista below. I had been distantly aware of intermittent noises behind me, as carts and carriages and horses carried travelers up and down the hill. But I didn’t pay much attention until I heard someone call out a quiet “Whoa there,” then I caught the sound of boot heels hitting the hard pavement. I turned to find that a man had climbed out of a peddler’s wagon pulled by a pair of horses, and he was heading my way. He looked to be in his middle thirties, solidly built, wearing the coarse-weave clothing of a workingman instead of the finer cloth of a merchant. He was smiling.

  “Hello, pretty lady,” he said as he came to a halt a little closer to me than I liked. “Looks like you’re on your way somewhere. Would you like a ride? How far do you need to go? I could take you anywhere in the city—for a little fee.”

  “Not far,” I replied, taking one discreet step back. “Thank you, but I enjoy walking.”

  He continued smiling and came a pace closer. “But it’s such a warm day! You’ll be faint with heat before you go another quarter mile.”

  “Not me,” I said. “I’m not the kind of girl who melts in the sun.”

  His smile faded. “Rich girl, though, aren’t you? All those buds and blossoms cost you something, I bet.”

  He was right about that. I could see his eyes wandering over my silhouette, but he didn’t appear to be interested in my body so much as the quality of my clothes. At a guess, he’d hoped to cajole me into his wagon and then rob me when he got me to some isolated spot. Now his plan might be simply to rob me on the side of the road.

  I bent down to scoop up the flowers and managed to withdraw another couple of steps when I straightened. “Cost my employer something,” I corrected. “I have hardly a cent to my name.”

  “I don’t believe you,” he said, grabbing my arm.

  The flowers spilled from my fingers as he jerked me toward him and I flung up my other arm to try to keep him at bay. With his free hand, he raked at the side of my dress, trying to rip open my pockets and spill out the contents. When that yielded him nothing, he clawed at my neckline to see if I had tucked a purse down the front of my dress.

  I stomped on one of his feet, and when he staggered back I shoved my knee, hard, between his legs. That made him howl and back off even more. The minute I had enough room to swing, I punched his nose with all the power I could muster. At that, he cried out and backed away, one hand over his genitals and the other over his bloody face.

  “You bitch!” he exclaimed. For a moment I thought he was so angry that he would attack me, knock me to the ground, and beat me senseless. Then I heard the sound of laughter and light applause coming from the direction of the road.

  We both spun to look that way and saw an elegant man sitting astride a gorgeous satin-black horse. I didn’t have time to study him, but both his animal and his attire indicated a comfortable level of income.

  “Well done!” the stranger called. “I was prepared to be gallant and intervene, but I see the young woman can take care of herself.”

  My erstwhile assailant spat out a mouthful of blood and growled at the newcomer. “Get along with you. This is none of your business.”

  The well-dressed man slipped easily from the saddle and strolled over. It was not the fashion in Oberton for men to be armed, but I saw a sheathed dagger hanging from his belt, its hilt positioned in such a way that he could grab it with one quick swipe of his hand. “I’d wager that this woman is none of your business, either,” he said in a steely voice. “Best for you to be moving on.”

  For a moment, the rough peddler stared back at the elegant stranger, but he apparently realized that it was going to be difficult to steal from me when I was so combative and this onlooker was prepared to meddle. He made another growling sound, then backed up toward his wagon, cursing under his breath the whole way. The stranger and I stood in silence until he had goaded his team into motion and clattered down the road out of sight.

  Then the stranger turned to give me a critical inspection. “You don’t look much worse for the mauling,” he said. “I’m impressed by your fighting skills.”

  All my senses remained on high alert. Just because a man had come to my aid didn’t mean he wished me well. “I’ve had some experience dealing with men who think they can take whatever they want,” I said. “I’ve learned some things.”

  He smiled. Despite my wariness, I found his expression attractive. Well, I found the man attractive. He was of medium height and medium build, though I suspected muscles under the tailored clothing. He had curly dark hair, which gave him a friendly aspect, and the confidence that I usually associated with money. But I couldn’t quite place him in one of the five levels of the social hierarchy. He didn’t have the arrogance of a high noble, the belligerence of a low noble, the calculation of a merchant, the purposefulness of a workingman, or the desperation of the poor.

  “Many men try to take whatever they want,” he observed. “No doubt your experience is broad and varied.”

  “Thank you for your help,” I said.

  His smile widened. “Now you’re wondering if I offer even more of a threat.”

  “Well,” I said candidly, “you seem smarter than he did—which instantly makes you more dangerous.”

  He laughed. “Not a bad assessment,” he agreed, “but I swear I mean you no harm.” He glanced back to where his horse waited with more patience than I would have expected. A very well-trained horse, then, possibly even military. More intrigue. “Unfortunately, I don’t think I can provide you much assistance, either, since I don’t have a carriage and something tells me—” He brought his attention back to me. “You would not agree to ride pillion with me even if I offered to take you wherever you’re going.”

  “I wouldn’t,” I said. I bent over to pick up my scattered flowers and was surprised and pleased when he crouched down to help.

  “I’m afraid some of these blossoms are beyond rescue,” he said, showing me a few stalks that had been hopelessly trampled in the struggle. “Do you still want them or shall we leave them behind?”

  “Leave them,” I said. “I can buy more another day.”

  In a few moments we had gathered all the flowers that were still intact and had taken the few steps back to the road. As he reached for his hor
se’s reins, I said, “Thank you again for your assistance.”

  “You can thank me once we arrive at your destination,” he said. “I’ll walk you there.”

  I should have politely refused, but in truth, I was pleased. Opportunities for flirting had been few and far between in Oberton, since Constance discouraged relations between the servants and I scarcely knew anyone else in the city. I still meant to be cautious, since I didn’t know a single thing about the man, but I could enjoy myself anyway.

  “That’s kind of you,” I said, setting out at a gentle pace. He fell in step beside me, leading his horse. “But if we’re going to walk so far together, I probably ought to know your name.”

  “Nico. And yours?”

  “Brianna.”

  “What do you do here in the city, Brianna?”

  I glanced over at him. “If you ask me questions and I answer them, I get to ask you questions and have you answer them.”

  He looked amused. “A very good bargain. I wonder what prompted you to want to make it?”

  “There’s something about you that seems mysterious,” I said honestly.

  His amusement intensified. “It is true I am a man who knows how to keep secrets,” he said, “but I can’t think you’ll be asking me about any of them today.”

  “Then what do you do in the city?” I asked, wondering if he would notice that I hadn’t actually answered the question that he had posed first.

  “I’m visiting,” he said. When my silence indicated that I felt that was an incomplete response, he burst out laughing. “I’m visiting in advance of Prince Cormac,” he elaborated. “He will be arriving in a few days and I’m here just to—” He waved his free hand. “Get a sense of the place. Make sure all is secure.”

  “So you’re in service to the king!” I exclaimed. That explained both his expensive clothing and his confident attitude, though he hadn’t said exactly what role he played in the royal household. “That must be exciting.”

  “Ah, my own position is insignificant,” he said, though I had the sense he didn’t actually believe that. “I work for my uncle, who works for the king. But I do like the excitement and the pace of the royal city.”

  “So you haven’t always lived there?”

  He shook his head. “I grew up in Empara, but I moved to Camarria to apprentice with my uncle.”

  “I’ve only been in Oberton for about a month,” I confessed. “But I love it, too. All the people. All the motion. Even when nothing is happening, it seems like something could at any minute.”

  “Where were you before?”

  I gestured in a generally southern direction. We had been traveling steadily downhill as we talked, so we could no longer see the city’s layout and I couldn’t point out a specific road. “In a village some miles south of here. My family owns a posting house on the Charamon Road.”

  “I may have stopped there on the way into Oberton,” he said. “Was it called the Barking Dog? I thought it was very well run.”

  “Yes! That’s it!”

  He turned his head to give me another close inspection. “I would have said the woman who ran the place was too young to be your mother,” he said. “She had a baby in her arms that she managed to keep quiet the whole time she was registering me and showing me to my room.”

  I laughed. “That’s her! And if you tripped over any other children during your stay, those were my brothers and sisters.”

  “So you worked at a posting house,” he said. “That must be where you learned to deal with rude men.”

  “Learned to deal with all kinds of people,” I said. “As a rule, travelers are irritable and hungry and tired and in a hurry. A lot of them are expecting trouble at the end of the journey, so it’s common to find them in dour moods. My mother would sometimes make a game of it—try to take the angriest, crabbiest, most unpleasant traveler and see if she could make that person smile. More often than not, she could.”

  “Now there’s a skill,” Nico said. “Do you have it, too?”

  I wrinkled my nose. “I usually don’t bother to try,” I confessed. “But I did learn how to size people up quickly. To figure out if they were honest, if they were truly mean or just exhausted, if they could afford to pay or if I had to watch to make sure they didn’t sneak off in the morning. And I learned how to get along with almost anybody.”

  “More useful skills,” Nico said. We heard the sound of wagon wheels behind us, so we moved over to the side of the road. The action brought him close enough to me that I could feel the silk of his shirt against my bare arm. His horse snorted and tossed his head, and Nico’s shoulder pressed briefly against mine. I had been right about the muscles.

  The carriage passed and Nico pulled back to a more polite distance, picking up the conversation where we had left off. “So how do you employ those skills here in the city?”

  “I’m maid to the governor’s daughter. Lady Marguerite.”

  His eyebrows rose as if he was surprised or impressed. “Do you like the job?” he asked.

  “I love it,” I confessed. “I love all the activity. I love the feeling that I’m doing something important—that everything that happens in the mansion matters to the people of the city, and I’m somehow a part of that.”

  “Do you like the lady herself? I don’t know much about her.”

  “She’s wonderful.”

  “Oh, now, surely you can be more specific than that.”

  I laughed at him. “Maybe I’m not as mysterious as you are, but I know enough not to gossip about my mistress! With a complete stranger!”

  He grinned in response. “But I’m the king’s man! Anything you share with me could be valuable information for the kingdom itself.”

  “I suppose you would tell me all about Prince Cormac,” I scoffed.

  “Ah, he’s a handsome young man—and wealthy, too,” Nico said. “Isn’t that all a young lady really cares about?”

  “I assure you, we’re not all so shallow. There are plenty of rich, handsome men who are quite despicable.”

  He glanced over with a grin. It was the first time I noticed the color of his eyes. Not brown, as you’d expect from someone with hair so dark, but a complicated blue-green that probably changed color depending on what he was wearing. “I’ve met my share of those,” he agreed, “but I wouldn’t put Cormac in that category. At any rate, all the ladies I’ve ever seen in his company have appeared to find him entirely satisfactory.”

  “Is the same true of his brother?”

  “Which one?”

  I had to think a minute to realize what he meant. The king and his first queen had had two sons, Cormac and Jordan—but before he was ever married, the king had sired a bastard child named Jamison. Jamison was never going to be in line for the throne, especially not since the king had three legitimate heirs, so people didn’t tend to talk about him much, though I’d heard he was very wild.

  “I meant Prince Jordan.”

  “If possible, Jordan is even better liked than his brother. He seems to feel the weight of the world a bit less than Cormac, who is generally quite serious.”

  “And Jamison?”

  Nico grinned again. “What’s the phrase people use? ‘The less said about him, the better.’ You’ll have a chance to judge for yourself, however, since Jamison will be accompanying Cormac to Oberton.”

  I tried to think of a tactful way to phrase it. “So Jamison is freely included in court life.”

  Nico laughed. “Well, Queen Tabitha is none too fond of him, and I think Cormac and Jordan are embarrassed by some of his behavior—but yes, he’s an accepted part of the family. He has his foes and his detractors, but he has his champions as well.”

  “I look forward to getting a glimpse of him,” I said. “I know Prince Cormac has three echoes. What about his brothers and his sister?”

  “Jordan has three and the princess two, but Jamison has none, I’m afraid.”

  “I confess I’m still getting used to the echoes,” I
said. “It seems like an odd way to live—trailed all the time by these living, breathing creatures that are so much a part of you and yet—separate.” I cut a quick glance at him. “Not that I mean to give offense if you have echoes of your own,” I added hastily.

  He laughed at that. “None,” he assured me. “The story goes that my great-grandfather was a noble of some standing, but a creature of extreme secrecy. He was born with two echoes, though some of the family tales say he had three. He took on a commission for the queen that was so delicate he put all his echoes to death so that there would be no witnesses to his deeds. Buried all their corpses in the family plot. Since that day, there has never been an echo born to any of his descendants.”

  I couldn’t hide my shock. “That’s awful!”

  Nico shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s just like amputating your own toe. It’s yours. You can do with it what you want.”

  I had a feeling that Nico’s great-grandfather hadn’t given his shadows names like Prudence and Patience, or he would have been less inclined to murder. Or, who knows? Maybe more inclined. “I still don’t really know how the echoes came to be,” I admitted. “They’re lovely and strange, but what good are they? I haven’t had the nerve to ask Lady Marguerite.”

  Nico didn’t answer until two horsemen riding up from town passed us at a loud gallop and the sound of their hoofbeats faded behind us. “From what I understand, the echoes first came about more than five hundred years ago, long before the Seven Jewels were united as one country. All the provinces were constantly at war with each other. There were skirmishes on the roads and assassinations in the cities. Every time a new prince or lordling would be raised up, someone would kill him.”

  “I wouldn’t think people would be so interested in being the next prince, then,” I said.

  “People are always interested in taking up the mantle of power,” Nico answered. “But it’s true they were not eager to die. The high nobles began praying to the triple goddess to protect them from this ever-present threat of death. And because she herself is one being split into multiple parts, she gave the same gift to the lords and princes. That is, she caused the next generation of heirs to be blessed with echoes. These echoes looked and acted just like the originals, so that, from a distance, you couldn’t tell them apart. Eventually, when a noble needed to travel from one city to another, he would bring all his echoes along, and no hired killer would be able to guess which one was the lord and which was the imposter. It greatly cut down on the murder attempts.”