“Oh, no, no. I couldn’t be expected to stand around with all those Councilors and important people. Not at my age, Jovan. My constitution, you know.” She fanned herself once or twice more, for good measure.
“Yeah, mine too,” I muttered, and she winked.
I would have skipped the event if I could, but Tain and Merenda, his cousin and heir, would both be there. His blackstripes would be on high alert, access to the marquee would be carefully restricted, and no one with a weapon would be anywhere near the Chancellor. And Tain’s ongoing health issues meant everyone had grown accustomed to him rarely eating in public, so my actual proofing duties were limited. But given our mysterious enemy was armed with quiet and lethal substances like rucho darts, I wouldn’t take any chances.
A servant ushered Dija, Lini, and me inside the grandest of the marquees. He was dressed the same as the others, but with muscular arms straining the seams of the tunic and the posture of a swordsman, not a butler, I’d have known him as a blackstripe even if I didn’t recognize his face. “The staff first, then Merenda,” I murmured to Dija. My apprentice nodded and slipped away from us into the milling crowd, a convincing look of wonder on her round face, as if she were a small child being given a treat.
Probably half the Council was here already, as well as many of our international guests. An explosion of gold and glimmering jewels visible through a gap identified the Crown Prince of Talafar, Prince Hiukipi, flanked by Imperial soldiers with hard, attentive faces and stiff uniforms bearing the Emperor’s symbol: a crenelated crown. Kalina made a small noise of satisfaction. She’d been trying to get a meeting with the Prince since his arrival, and the strange accident that had befallen the priest had only increased her interest. “Go work some charm,” I encouraged her. “See what you can find out.”
Kalina headed determinedly in that direction and I accepted a cup of warm and sweet-smelling kavcha from a servant and sipped, my gaze roaming as I mentally cataloged the spices. I marked out the blackstripes in the crowd and watched Dija speaking earnestly to a servant bearing a heavy tray. I’d taught her to first count the number of servants in the room, to note their faces and their manner, and report back to me what each was carrying. Then she was to stick close to Merenda and observe anything out of the ordinary. Everyone was used to seeing her publicly attached to the Heir, and I knew they whispered that warm, gentle Merenda was a better influence than Dija’s odd uncle.
“Isn’t the tent interesting?” Dija asked breathlessly, returning to my side. She had tucked a yellow flower into the side of her glasses and her fingers fluttered; she looked for all the world like a girl at her first party, overwhelmed with the glamour. She recited the food available in the same excited tone. “There’s fried fishballs and honey figs, and those little nut pastries with corin that Auntie Kalina likes, and bread with orange paste, and sugar crisps … can I eat anything I like, Uncle Jovan?” Several passing Councilors exchanged indulgent smiles with me. Where Etan and I had both cultivated an air of dull ordinariness, my apprentice’s cover was something different.
“Let’s try some of everything,” I agreed, and let her lead me around until we had sampled everything being offered to guests. I kept an eye on Tain, who was with Kalina in conversation with the Talafan, and Dija relayed a detailed story about what had happened in the previous rowing heat one of our cousins had been in, providing her observations about the food and assessment of the ingredients in between commentary about the various teams.
“Oh, look, they’re getting ready to start!” she said, taking a delicate nibble of a fishball on a stick. Then, as if as an aside, “The Honored Heir wouldn’t like these, you know, she told me the other day how she gets a headache from too much pepper. I should tell her.”
“It wouldn’t do to have a headache during the race,” I agreed, keeping my tone neutral, but giving an approving smile at her subtle signal about the masking flavor that made the fishballs a risk. “Go on, then.”
When I checked on Tain again he had left the Talafan and was chatting with one of the Doranite Chieftains. His face brightened and he beckoned me over. I wove through the fray, keeping my senses attuned for anything out of the ordinary. There were so many people here. The tense, suffocating feeling of dread I’d felt in the theater returned, and the urge to start pacing twitched in my feet.
“The elusive Credo Jovan at last.” A Doranite servant translated in heavily accented Sjon the booming greeting of one of the Chieftains as I approached. I had met and briefly conversed with the King of Doran on his arrival several weeks before, but had exchanged only bare greetings with the half dozen Chieftains accompanying him. The Chieftain who had hailed me was a good head taller than I, with spiked hair and decorative colored-glass fragments glued across one of her cheekbones. She wore a glossy brown fur across her shoulders in defiance of the warm spring weather. “We heard much about you across the border.” The servant paused, gave a sidelong, uncomfortable glance at the grinning Chieftain, and shifted weight between his feet before translating the last, his head lowered. “The … uh, the Chancellor’s little attack pet, yes?”
Tain stiffened. “Credo Jovan is my most trusted adviser and dear friend,” he said, drawing me to his side with a hard hand on my shoulder. “And one of our most esteemed members of the Council. You have heard his name because he was instrumental both in defending our city and securing ongoing peace. None of us would be enjoying these festivities if not for him.”
Rather than being cowed, the Chieftain laughed, clapped her own enormous hand on my other shoulder, and said something in a jovial tone. “Oh yes, a very useful pet!” the servant clarified reluctantly, his creamy brown face flushing. “We attended your most excellent play last night, you know. We do not have such things at home. We are too busy training to beat you at rowing!”
I had already followed the line of the Chieftain’s gaze down to the lake before the servant finished translating. Enormous-shouldered Doranites were swinging their arms in powerful circles, warming up beside the water. The course was marked out as a set of arches and bobbing buoys, bright little jewels on the shining surface. The nearby Sjon team, and the pale-skinned Talafan, looked like children by comparison.
“The race is about to start,” Tain said to the Chieftain, his tone still stiff. “Please, why don’t you have a seat.”
Apparently unoffended by being brushed off, the Chieftain grinned and nodded. “I would not miss this! It will be over quickly. Like the climbing! Why do you have so many climbing sports when your country is so flat? You cannot compete with true mountaineers.” She shook her head and slapped her thigh as if it were a great joke.
Tain steered me away. “Sorry,” he sighed, once we were out of earshot. “I know we need to keep things smooth with the other countries, but honor-down, they make it hard sometimes. The Talafan Prince was bloody rude to Lini, and I’ve no idea what passes for manners in Doran, but I think it’s lost in translation.”
I shrugged. “What was it the Ambassador told us the other week? ‘Good manners in Doran is waiting until the other person takes off their best cloak before trying to take their head off’?” I gave Tain a wan smile. “Anyway, I prefer it when they’re open about it. I’ll take insults over assassins any day.”