Echo in Onyx Read online

  “So how did you find me here at the temple?” I asked abruptly, wondering if he would tell me the truth. Oberton wasn’t that big, but I couldn’t believe random chance led him to the very spot I happened to be.

  “I followed you,” he said promptly. “Speaking of loitering. I was at the mansion quite early this morning, waiting to see if you would emerge.”

  Oh, Marguerite had been right to send her letter through an intermediary! How many eyes must be upon her—and because of her, on me? “Why didn’t you just approach me and ask if you could escort me?”

  He glanced down at me, his expression pained. “What if you were headed off to meet a fine young man and while away the afternoon? I would have been an awkward encumbrance then.”

  “As opposed to what you are now,” I said.

  He came to a halt right there on the street. Once we had stepped away from the temple, the walkways had grown crowded with other pedestrians, and a couple of people glared at him as they had to abruptly veer around him. Around us, as I had stumbled to a stop as well.

  “If you don’t want my company, just say so,” he said. “I’ll be on my way.”

  “What I don’t understand,” I replied, “is why you want my company.”

  He shrugged. “I enjoyed our conversation the other day. You impressed me. You made me laugh. I liked the way you looked at the world.”

  “You liked the fact that I serve Lady Marguerite,” I countered. “You want to learn more about her any way you can.”

  He eyed me for a moment, the smile gone from his face. “You have a low opinion of yourself,” he finally said, “if you think a man would only like you for the job you hold.”

  I felt my face heat, but I refused to be distracted. “Plenty of people like me,” I said. “But none of them are paid to act as informants.”

  “Oh, someone warned you away from me, is that it?” he asked. He started moving again, gesturing to me to keep up, so I fell in step beside him. I supposed we might as well argue while we were in motion, since I still had errands to run.

  “Someone told me you’re the king’s inquisitor, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Not me. My uncle. I am merely his apprentice.”

  “That’s just as bad. That’s probably worse,” I said. “You probably do all the nastier things that your uncle doesn’t want to sully his hands with.”

  He made a slight back-and-forth motion with his head, as if considering and not entirely rejecting my accusation. “I’m still learning the trade,” he said. “But I view it as a nobler one than you seem to.”

  “Intimidating people?”

  “Protecting the kingdom,” he said softly. “Keeping the king and his family safe. I have seen assassins with their confiscated bags of weapons and traitors with their stolen documents—thwarted through my uncle’s vigilance. How is that dishonorable?”

  Put that way, it wasn’t so terrible. But if his uncle was anything like Del Morson, there would be something remorseless and implacable about him, and it would be hard to picture him as heroic rather than sinister. “I suppose it depends on your methods,” I said somewhat stiffly. “It depends on what you do to get your information.”

  “You’d be surprised at how willing ordinary citizens are to gossip about their neighbors,” he said, regaining his good cheer. “I’ve never yet had to resort to torture and threats because people are always eager to tattle on their friends.”

  I was surprised into a laugh. “Well, I’m sure that’s true,” I admitted.

  “You, for instance,” he went on. “You’re a great favorite in the village where you grew up, so everyone is happy to say how little it matters that your mother wasn’t married to your father and how sorry they were when that young man—Bobby? Robbie, that’s it—when he ran off with another girl. They think your stepfather could be a little friendlier, but your mother’s a hardworking, honest woman who always has a kind word for everyone.”

  Now he was the one who was forced to stop as I came to a complete standstill on the crowded walk. “You’re investigating me?” I demanded. “For what possible reason? And how have you had time?”

  His face was surprisingly serious. “I’m not,” he said. “I got every one of those details from Del Morson. Though I do admit to asking him about you.”

  Now I was even more astonished. “Del Morson? But why would he— What would I—”

  “You’ve taken a job inside the governor’s house. His daughter’s life could conceivably be in your hands,” Nico replied quietly. “Of course you had to be investigated. Nobody knew a thing about you.”

  “Constance did!” Then, in case his espionage hadn’t yielded all the names of the governor’s servants, I added, “The housekeeper. She’s second cousin to my aunt. She’s the one who brought me in for an interview.”

  “Distant relatives of the household staff are as unreliable as they come!” he exclaimed.

  It was so absurd that I couldn’t help laughing, but I was still seriously ruffled. He motioned me forward, so I starting walking at his side again; but I wouldn’t look at him. I was going to need some time to think this over. “Well. I never expected to be considered important enough—or dangerous enough—to have someone looking into my life. Which has been very ordinary and dull up till now!”

  “Oh, I don’t know. The failed romance sounds pretty spectacular.”

  I shot him a quick look of exasperation, then refocused my eyes on the path in front of me. “Who doesn’t have one or two broken romances in the past? That’s the most ordinary thing about me.”

  “Nevertheless, I was sorry to hear about it. Though not really sorry,” he added. “Unless it broke your heart.”

  “It felt like it at the time. But then I realize that if I had married Robbie, I never would have come to the city. I never would have met Marguerite. And then I’m glad.”

  “I’m glad, too,” Nico said. “Robbie did me a favor.”

  “You don’t even know me,” I said.

  “No,” he said, “but now I have the chance. Seems like it might be fun.”

  I glanced up at him again, tart words on my tongue. But he was smiling, and I found myself smiling back.

  He was right. It did seem like it might be fun.

  Some of my previous trips to the flower market had been a little tedious, but this one was delightful. True to his word, Nico guided me to the various vendors who were offering sales, keeping up a whispered commentary about who would give me the best prices and who might be trying to palm off yesterday’s roses as today’s fresh-cut flowers. He was shockingly frugal, insisting that an expensive bunch of lilacs wasn’t worth the price even though the mulberry color was not only rare, but a perfect match with the dress Marguerite planned to wear tonight.

  “I pity your poor wife,” I informed him as I paid for the lilacs despite his disapproval. “You’ll only buy her daisies in season, just to save a few coins.”

  “Buy them? I’ll pick them from a roadside ditch!” he exclaimed.

  “I don’t know why you’re so cheap,” I said. “I have to think the king pays you a handsome salary.”

  “He does. I could buy every flower in the market if I wanted to. It’s just hard to overcome early training.”

  I gave him an inquiring look as we moved on to the next stall. Even I wouldn’t pay the prices for the goods on sale there, tall stems of thornless white roses, each petal veined with a complex tracery of pink. I loved them, though, and I bent closer to inhale the delicate scent. Faint but exquisite. “‘Early training’?” I repeated.

  “Those are pretty,” he said. “Are you going to buy any?”

  I shook my head and moved on. “Not right for anything Marguerite will be wearing. And they’re even more expensive than the lilacs. I don’t need another scold from you. So? Your life?”

  “My father died when I was young, and my mother was too proud to ask for money from his family. They were low nobles and she was a merchant’s daughter, and they’d
never thought she was good enough for him,” he explained. “We were never to the point of starvation, but I always knew how to get the best value for any coin I ever spent. To this day, it hurts my soul to see waste and overspending.”

  “Your soul must be in agony, then, living at the king’s palace.”

  “Some truth to that,” he acknowledged. “But I can stand to watch other people spend their money more than I can stand to spend my own.”

  “I repeat my observation about your wife,” I said.

  “Careful,” he warned. “I might start finding reasons to pity whatever chap you take it in your head to marry.”

  I selected a cheerful bunch of fiery red begonias and paid the vendor. Red was not a color that looked good on Marguerite, but it could serve as a fine accent in many arrangements. “I would say you don’t know me well enough to list my faults—but then I remember. Del Morson has told you all about me.”

  “I’m sure he overlooked some of the more interesting bits,” Nico answered. “For instance, he never found out why that Robbie fellow decided to marry someone else.”

  “I never found out, either,” I said. I considered a spray of yellow forsythia but I didn’t think the blooms looked very sturdy. They would wilt too soon for Marguerite to wear them fresh and crumble too soon for me to try to dry them. “Maybe he didn’t like my taste in flowers.”

  “Maybe he just fell in love with another girl.”

  I glanced up at him, feeling unwontedly serious. “Does that happen? If you truly love one person, can someone else just appear in your life and suddenly abduct your heart? Against your will, against your wishes? Don’t you have to be open to such a thing?”

  He looked down at me, his expression as solemn as mine. “I don’t know much about it,” he said. “I don’t know if a heart is ever safe. But I’ve never thought one could be stolen. Just given.”

  I shrugged. “And then taken back if you change your mind.”

  “Well,” he said, “you wouldn’t want to think it was in a prison somewhere. Fearing the jailor and hoping to break free.”

  For some reason, that made me smile. It was an odd conversation to be having with a stranger. Especially with a stranger who probably spent most of his waking hours breaking people’s hearts, one way or another. I handed him a few of my purchases so I could do a better job of arranging the bundles in my straw bag. He stood there stoically, his arms full of flowers, while I shook off droplets of water and carefully sorted the stems.

  “But I do know most of my flaws,” I offered. “Things that might make a man think twice before marrying me.”

  “Such as?”

  “I don’t like to sit around, fretting over what might happen. I prefer to do something to fix the situation, even if what I do might turn out to be wrong. I would be sympathetic if my husband lost his job, for instance, but it wouldn’t be long before I’d be saying, ‘Well, what else can you do? Let’s try that.’”

  He handed me the begonias when I reached for them. “I’m not sure that’s a flaw, exactly.”

  “It is if you’re the kind of person who wants a lot of coddling.”

  “What else?”

  I put the last bundle in place and decided I’d purchased enough for the day. Besides, I might be back tomorrow, if Marguerite sent me to the temple in the morning to look for a reply. No need to overbuy. “I don’t always share everything I’m thinking,” I said, turning in the direction of the mansion and strolling that way. Nico fell in step beside me. “Some people appreciate that. Some people don’t.”

  “Do you want me to carry that for you?” he asked.

  “Thank you, but no. It’s not heavy.”

  “I can keep my own counsel, too,” he said. “Though I don’t know that I like the idea of my wife keeping secrets from me.”

  “Everybody has secrets.”

  He grinned down at me. “Not once Del Morson’s been after them for a while.”

  I lifted my brows, meeting his eyes with a steady gaze. “Even then,” I said softly. “There will always be something that surprises you.”

  “Well, then,” he said. “I look forward to being surprised.”

  We stepped around an untidy group of nursemaids and small children. “What about you?” I asked. “Besides your excessive frugality, what are your flaws?”

  He seemed to think that over. “Sometimes I insist on my own way. I tend to keep arguing even when I’ve already won—or lost. And I ask a lot of questions.” He glanced down at me. “Some people don’t like that.”

  “I don’t mind,” I said. “Some men can’t be bothered to ask a question. They don’t care what anyone else is thinking.”

  “Good. Then I have one for you.”

  “All right.”

  “That pretty ring you’re wearing. Did Robbie give it to you?”

  I couldn’t help laughing. “Well, now,” I said. “You’re getting to know me a little. What do you think?”

  “I think the minute he came back with his new bride, you marched to his house and flung down the ring he gave you, right at his feet.”

  “I would have,” I agreed, “except he never gave me a ring. He couldn’t afford it. It was something we were going to save up for together after we were married.”

  “So where’d you get this one?”

  I transferred the straw basket to my left arm so I could hold up my ring and admire the triskele. “My mother gave it to me before I left. Her mother had given it to her.”

  “Does it make you homesick when you look at it?”

  “Sometimes. Or when I get a letter from home with all the news. But mostly I’m too happy with my new life. What about you? Do you miss the people you left behind?”

  “I didn’t expect to,” he admitted. “But once in a while—” He shrugged.

  “How long have you lived in Camarria?”

  “Two years.”

  “Tell me more about it.”

  “It’s three times as big as Oberton, and easier to navigate. Wider streets, laid out in a much more orderly fashion. But the best part is the bridges that are all over the city. Some of them don’t seem to have any real purpose, they just connect one back alley to another. Some are major thoroughfares that people are crossing at all hours of the day. A few are high over the busiest streets in the city, built to let pedestrians get from one place to another without being trampled by horses or carriages. I’ll find a place on a bridge and stand there half the day, watching the city from above. I learn a lot just by watching.”

  It seemed like exactly the sort of activity that would appeal to an inquisitor, but I didn’t voice the thought. “Do you live at the palace?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me what it’s like.”

  He spent the next ten minutes describing the building and its history. It sounded impossibly grand.

  “Maybe I’ll get to see it someday,” I said a little wistfully when he was done. By this time we had arrived at the main door of the governor’s mansion, with its usual chaos and cacophony. I was eager to get to Marguerite’s room and put the flowers in water—but truly sorry my conversation with Nico was at an end.

  “I hope so,” he answered. “I think you’d like it.”

  “So the prince arrives tomorrow,” I said, though surely Nico was more aware of that fact than I was. “Will you come with him when he visits the governor?”

  “He will have a fair number of people in his train, but yes, I expect I will be one of them.”

  “Then perhaps I’ll see you again from time to time while he’s here.”

  He smiled down at me. “Oh, yes,” he said, “I think you might be seeing quite a bit of me in the days to come.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Prince Cormac was a tall, serious man who seemed so perfectly suited for the part of royal heir that he might have been an actor playing a role. His handsome face had pronounced cheekbones and a rather pointed chin, and it was set off by sleek black hair. On some men, such a sharp look
might have been off-putting, but his earnest smile softened his hard colors and angles.

  He was dressed all in black, with touches of dazzling color. His cloak was lined with red silk; his hat sported a blue feather. Over his pleated black jacket, he wore a chain of linked gold disks, each one holding clusters of gems representing one of the Seven Jewels. It was both an homage to the provinces, I thought, and a reminder that his family ruled them all. Even the ones like Orenza, which might be testing out the idea of independence.

  “What a beautiful man,” breathed the undercook, who happened to be standing beside me when the prince arrived with his impressive retinue. We were among about a dozen servants who had squeezed together in the frames of the doors that overlooked the atrium, trying not to push each other out onto the balconies where Lord Garvin or Lady Dorothea might spot us spying on them. We had been joined by Rory and two of the upstairs maids at one of the fourth-floor doors, and we had an excellent line of sight for the main entrance, though we had to peer through the slats in the railing to get a clear view.

  Rory sniffed. “Men aren’t beautiful.”

  “He is.”

  “All of them are,” added one of the housemaids.

  She gestured at the three echoes who strode in right behind Cormac. They doffed their hats when he did, smiled when he did, stepped forward when he did to accept the governor’s outstretched hand. For a moment my vision blurred as I tried to keep straight which were the real men and which were the two sets of echoes, all clasping hands at the same time. Of course, Cormac had one more echo than the governor, so that creature mimicked the rest of them, appearing to interact with a ghost invisible to the rest of us.

  “That is so strange,” I murmured.

  “Oh, you get used to it,” Rory said.

  “Wonder how you get used to it in bed,” the undercook asked. One of the maids hissed at her, but she went on, defiant, “Well, if they do everything he does, does that mean all four of them have a go at you? Or are there other girls lying in other beds, providing a service to the shadow men?”

  “If Constance heard you talk like that, you’d be sacked in a second!” Rory said.