“By all the fortunes, Jov,” he said, weary. “We took them out of a sealed jar. Marco had two already.”
Glancing at Eliska, who was studiously concentrating on the model bridge and pretending she couldn’t see us, I sighed. It was only a matter of time anyway. “I don’t care.” I meant it in two ways. “You think poison can’t be sealed in a jar?” I examined the dark brown and purple shades and took a deliberate and careful bite. They had been preserved with sugar and citrus, and caused a normal drying sensation on my tongue.
Eliska stopped chewing as I ate. She looked panicked, as if torn between spitting out the fig and risking poison to avoid the rudeness. Tain, on the other hand, set his jaw and met my gaze.
“You can’t be here all the time, Jov,” he said. “And we have more pressing things to worry about. Now, enjoy your fig, and tell us about the food stores.” He took a bite of the fruit and chewed deliberately. My heart beat faster, fury rising within me. I pressed my hands hard on the table to fight the urge to gouge it out of his mouth. Poor Eliska sat there, staring at the model with her mouth half open, her skin darkening with embarrassment.
I was saved from making things even worse by a knock at the chamber door. Credo Javesto came in, hands woven together and brow a mass of tight lines. “Honored Chancellor,” he said. “I’m sorry to interrupt. Fighting’s broken out in the south block food station, between some of the city Darfri and some Credolen. You’d better come.”
We all stood and followed, but as we did, Tain gave me a sidelong glance and dropped the remaining fig on his papers on the table like a tiny apology. I nodded stiffly, trying to swallow both my instinctual anger and the sting of guilt, and couldn’t help but remember what Hadrea had said last night.
* * *
“Please take a break, Credola,” the fletcher told my sister when I stuck my head in the door. Kalina looked up from her perch, balanced on the end of a stone bench with a bucket of feathers, down stuck to her hair like a little wonky crown. I smiled at the sight.
She unwound herself and left her half-sorted work with the fletcher and came with me out into the open. “Did you hear about the riot?”
“I heard it,” she said. “Budua was here and she shut the doors and told everyone to stay put. It was frustrating not knowing what was happening but it was probably for the best.”
With the city as tense as a badly strung instrument, allowing onlookers to gawk at a riot would only encourage the violence to spread. “We’re still trying to sort out how it started, but we think some Credolen went into the protected area and started causing trouble. They’re claiming the Darfri cast curses on them and made water spirits rise from the canals to drown their children. Or some such nonsense.” I couldn’t be sure the idea of water spirits was entirely nonsense, not after some of the strangeness witnessed recently, but I was confident there weren’t people conjuring up attacks on children out of spite.
We’d contained this one to a few dozen people, fortunately, thanks to Ectar and Javesto’s quick actions. Ectar was living in the protected sector with the Darfri and foreigners, including Talafan, Doranites, and wetlanders, and had become something of a guard and community leader there. Javesto, too, was proving helpful dealing with the segregated section. Tain’s support of the city Darfri had made a useful ally of him, and we hoped having some openly sympathetic Councilors, one of them the Chancellor, would discourage violence and reassure the people in the sector. They needed to know we were going to change if we got through this. If we couldn’t convince a captive audience under our protection, how could we expect to convince a hostile force who had already been betrayed before?
“What did you need me for?” Kalina asked, once she’d listened to my recounting of the scuffle (some bruises and scrapes, some minor damage to a few buildings, and twenty-eight people feeling sorry for themselves in the jail cells; all in all, much better than it could have been).
“Tain, actually,” I said.
“Has he rethought my idea about the river?” Her pace increased a fraction as she started, with enthusiasm, “If they went at night, they could make it. The rebels have people watching from the wall on the west side, but there’s no lights on the water itself—”
“No,” I stopped her. “You know he won’t send anyone, not after what happened last time.” She deflated, and I hastened on. “He’s planning what to say if he can somehow force the people across the lake to listen. He’s going to have another go with the speaking trumpet—now that they’re closer it’ll be harder for them to ignore him. Only, speech writing isn’t his strength.”
A faint smile passed over her face. “He wants me to write it?”
“Well, to help.” Tain could be a persuasive speaker, but something this important couldn’t be left to instinct. Planned words were never something he’d enjoyed. My sister, on the other hand, had excelled at written argument at school and in her work.
“Of course I’ll help,” she said. “I’ve been jotting down ideas for days, actually. We’re not going to fix what’s happened with a few pretty words, but we need to say enough to convince them that we will listen. That has to be a start, at least.”
“Do you think you could work with Salvea and Hadrea? I’m hoping they’ll have some ideas about ways we could convey trustworthiness, especially to the Darfri. Some gesture that shows we will respect their beliefs.”
Her brown eyes widened at my slipup. “Hadrea?” she asked, mildly.
I tried to keep my face smooth and my voice relaxed. “Yes, apparently I’m no longer so repellent.”
She smiled, the first real smile I’d seen on her in weeks. “Oh, quite,” she said. She didn’t add anything, but I knew immediately it wasn’t going to be possible to keep my relationship, whatever it was, with Hadrea secret from my sister.
As though I’d conjured her with my thoughts, Hadrea slipped out from between two fair lady bushes in front of us. I blinked at the sight of her. Instead of the increasingly raggedy layered skirts and embroidered blouse she had always worn, Hadrea was dressed in Silastian style, in sandals and a one-shouldered white dress gathered with red cording. Only the bright scarf over her hair remained. Arms folded across her ribs, she regarded us with a mix of embarrassment and defiant bravado as we both stared.
“I tried to find catacombs on this side of the lake,” she said, chin high, her gaze fixed somewhere between us. “I slipped. I had no other clothes, so Argo’s sister lent me this thing.”
“You look lovely, An-Hadrea,” Kalina said, studiously not looking at me. “I know it must feel odd, but I’m sure we can get your clothes clean quickly if you’d like.”
I stole a glance at the brush of her warm brown hair over the line of her bare shoulder, and suppressed an urge to correct my sister to say there was no spare water for washing clothes.
Hadrea smiled at Kalina, her gaze avoiding me with precision. “Thank you. You may call me Hadrea, if you would like,” she added, glancing at me for the smallest moment.
Kalina, to her credit, carried on as if oblivious. “I’d be honored.”
“I’ll take you both to Tain,” I said, trying to sound casual.