INCIDENT: Mass poisoning at Silverstream village town hall
POISON: Scatterburr
INCIDENT NOTES: Scatterburr plants burned as kindling during town meeting; combination of cold weather and virulent Maiso, poor ventilation and blockage in chimney led to concentration of toxic fumes. Four dead, six treated in hospital. No signs of deliberate sabotage, suggest resources toward education on estates about toxic nature of certain plants.
(from proofing notes of Credo Etan Oromani)
3
Jovan
Closeted in the alcove in my bedroom with a pot of tea, I hovered my pen under Bradomir’s name on my list of confirmed incidents. Long gone were the days when I could spread my work over the table. With extra relatives from the estates staying in the city for karodee, I had retreated from the chaos of the main apartments to spend most of my time in here. I sat among piles of notes on Aven, the mercenaries, the funding trail, every incident that could be connected to the rebellion and every suspicion we held about other countries and potential enemies. And now, an assassination attempt.
Without recovering the dart, and in the absence of a proper examination at the hospital, I could not prove Bradomir’s death was murder, nor even intimate such to the Council. I had made my case to the Warrior-Guilder and the captains of the Order Guards and the blackstripes, respectively, but had made little ground. While no one had said outright that they disbelieved my account, the meetings had felt more like polite indulgence than serious discussions. Tain was already well protected, they had told me. Yes, they would search any premises before he attended in the future, even the rafters of a theater. But a single incident witnessed by no one but me was not proof of a broader plot, and their doubts were palpable.
Fresh from Thendra’s confirmation at the hospital, I’d been barely managing my compulsions that day and had been unable to keep some of my more obvious tics from surfacing during the meeting. Physical signs of anxiety always made others perceive me as less trustworthy, even hysterical. Even among people who trusted my devotion to Tain and to Sjona, that had an impact. The bloody play (despite, or perhaps because of, its dramatic pre-opening) was proving wildly popular, fanning public speculation about me, and even though these men and women had known me for years, its influence crept into our interactions. I wasn’t a joke to them, not quite yet, but the Chancellor’s eccentric friend had become a person to be managed, rather than listened to.
A tap on the doorframe interrupted my train of thought.
“Credo Jovan?” Al-Sjease, our household manager and my secretary, peered around the corner. Tall and slender, with a smooth, androgynous face and wooly braids bursting from a stripe down the middle of their head, Sjease wore an expression somewhere between exasperation and tolerance, one I’d grown to know all too well over the course of the last two years. “You aren’t dressed. The rowing final—I did leave you a reminder. Did you forget the time?”
I sighed and gulped down the last of my tea. “Yes. Sorry. I did see the note, but I got sidetracked.” I rubbed my forehead.
Seeing my expression, Sjease’s own softened. “Are you feeling all right, Credo? You seem … distracted.”
“Just a headache,” I said, waving a hand dismissively, and Sjease accepted the lie without comment. I hadn’t wanted a housekeeper—or indeed a servant of any kind—and had worried that it would risk exposing our family’s secrets. But Kalina and I couldn’t be home with Dija every evening, so I’d had to accept it. Over time, my initial concerns about bringing a stranger into our home had faded. If Sjease was curious about my strange behavior and obsessions then they hid it well enough to fool me.
“I laid out your clothes earlier, but if you need assistance?” They scooped away my cup and pot and their eyes twinkled as I grumbled a negative. Within the first week on the job Sjease had pronounced my clothes chest “utterly devoid of personality” and their quest to clothe me more fashionably had worn me down over time. I knew better than to argue by now. So while Sjease swept out of the room with my tea things I grudgingly changed from my plain clothes into the more colorful outfit on my bed.
Long gone were the days when a gleam of metallic thread in the cording of a plain paluma could pass for formal wear. Now blending in among my peers meant lace and beading and exotic dyes in my clothes, and new cuts and fabrics and fastenings every few months, it seemed. This garment, with its loose sleeves and structured torso, barely resembled a paluma anymore. It was so snug the cording was more decorative than functional, though it still had enough room around my middle to accommodate the belt of pockets Kalina had sewed to fit a useful array of my tools of trade.
“Not bad,” Sjease said when I emerged a short time later. Deft fingers adjusted the scalloped edging around my neck with practiced ease, and added a pendant necklace I’d pretended not to see on the bed.
“Very handsome,” Kalina agreed as she looked me over with a suppressed smile. “Is everyone ready, then?”
We collected our assortment of accompanying relatives—Dija and her mother and grandmother, her two brothers, and two excited third cousins—and the collection of personal guards we were required to ferry around to every official function. I even managed polite small talk with the group on the way down to the lake. The streets were loud and merry, overwhelming my senses with color and noise and competing smells both fair and foul. Massive karodee flags by the lake crackled and flapped in a colorful dance in the heavy spring winds. Glazed pots bursting with riotous flowers and swinging merry ribbons decorated every shop front and doorframe, heralding the arrival of spring and the recovery of our city. Silasta thrived once more, and its residents celebrated that. Well, most of its residents.
“Isn’t it exciting, Uncle Jovan?” one of Dija’s brothers asked, face split into a grin as he swiveled his head around this way and that, eyes shining. His first visit to the capital must have seemed a thrilling change of pace from life in Telasa, the smaller northern border city. He didn’t seem to need an answer; something else took his attention and he grabbed at his older brother’s arm to point it out, sparing me having to fake an appropriate level of excitement.
Once we were on the crowded lower streets approaching the lake, I found an anonymity I’d sorely missed in the constant giddy press of excited bodies, the food carts and street games, and the laughter, whoops of encouragement, and ever-changing wagers. A performer collecting a crowd for their balancing act called out for our attention, a man asked me to “Buy us a drink, mate, go on?,” and a girl with a slick smile tugged at the cording on my clothes with a murmured, “Fancy a game of spots?,” but otherwise our group went largely unnoticed.
Large colorful marquees decorated the grassy east bank of the lake, and the competitors’ boats waited at the start point. Etrika, Dija’s grandmother and Etan’s first cousin once removed, took off her hat and fanned her face with it. “Find me a spot to sit down, would you, loves?” she said to the boys. “An old lady needs a rest after all that walking.”
I sent her a sharp look. Etrika was barely seventy, a hale and formidable woman. She had been happily walking around the city for weeks, refusing a litter, and during the rushuk ball match last week she’d leapt out of her seat, swearing so enthusiastically I’d worried she’d been about to start a fight with the referee. “There’ll be plenty of room in the Council marquee for family—” I began, but she met my look with innocent wide eyes and cut me off.