Inolah received word that breakfast would be served on the stern deck of the Seffynaw. She arrived with Vallah and found only three ladies eating: Miss Onika, Sârah Hrettah, and Miss Amala. Around the table, four times as many male guardsmen stood sentry, Kal among them. No sign of her cousin, Oli Agoros, who had promised to meet her here. How vexing.
“Hrettah, how fares Rosârah Valena?” Inolah asked.
“My mother is unchanged,” Hrettah said. “She fears the hard little fruits from the island made her sick.”
“I ate the fruit and do not feel ill,” Miss Onika said.
“Nor I,” Inolah said.
“Janek believes some of the commoners brought several illnesses aboard,” Hrettah said. “He and his Order are investigating the matter.”
“What qualifications does Sâr Janek have to make such inquiries?” Kal asked. “He is not a physician.”
This comment steered the conversation toward another concern with the Order of the Sandvine, Sâr Janek’s supposed contribution to maintaining safety on board the ship. Apparently they had searched Miss Onika’s cabin for evenroot, much to Kal’s displeasure. Miss Amala further annoyed Kal by praising Sâr Janek’s new order. Inolah would have enjoyed the debate between Kal and his ward if she weren’t growing ever more concerned about the Duke of Canden’s absence. The moment breakfast ended, she left Vallah with Rashah in Rosârah Valena’s cabin, then set out with her guardsmen to find her cousin.
Oli Agoros had a master’s cabin on the main deck. She knocked on his door. When no answer came, she tried the handle and found it unlocked.
“Please wait here,” she told her guards, then went inside and closed the door behind her. The room was dark and smelled of dirty laundry, tobacco, and wine. Discarded clothing covered the floor—all male, thankfully. It only now occurred to her that her cousin might not have been alone.
But alone he was. She found him sitting on the floor under his hanging cot, leaning back against the bulkhead. The cot swung just over his head with the rocking of the ship. He was asleep, shirtless, gripped a sword in his left hand, and held a bronze canister pinched between his side and what remained of his right arm.
What in all the Northsea had he been doing?
Though she felt like an ogler, she studied his severed arm. Oli was a fit young man. His chest, shoulders, abdomen, and left arm were muscular. But what remained of his right arm was much thinner than the left. Surprisingly she saw no evidence of stitches or even scarring. The entire nub was smooth skin, as if he’d been born that way. A brand had been burned onto the upper arm in the shape of a rune. Strange. As was the way he’d fallen asleep holding the canister.
His wooden arm lay on the floor by his legs. She picked it up, intrigued. Someone had carved a hand and arm of dark brown wood. It turned at the elbow, permanently bent, and ended where a muslin sleeve had been glued to the wood. This Oli normally wore on what remained of his arm. There were ties at the top to secure it around the upper arm and neck. These were sweat-stained and creased from heavy use.
Inolah set the arm on the sideboard, then turned back to her charge. She found two full bottles of wine on his desk and a third on his sideboard, all unopened. She saw no signs that he had been drinking, nor did she find a pipe or any tobacco, despite its lingering smell.
Though she hated to wake him, she decided she must. No grown man should be sleeping well into the morning like this. But with that sword in his hand, she must be careful.
“Oh, Duke? Oli? Wake up, please.” When he didn’t move, she gripped the wall for balance and squatted slowly, which was becoming harder to do with each passing day of her pregnancy. She picked up two tunics and threw them at his face, one at a time, while slapping her palm on the wall and yelling, “Wake up, Oli. Right now!”
He gasped, his eyes flashed open, and he lifted his sword. It wobbled in his hand, and she pressed back against the door, uncertain whether he lacked the strength, stamina, or skill with his left hand to use it well. His eyes rolled in his head as if he were trying to see her but couldn’t. The whites were red and his pupils very large. Her heart sank. He’d consumed something. But what?
Time to disarm him. She slipped past his legs and easily took the sword right out of his hand.
“Hey!” he yelled. “Give that back!” Yet he did no more to retrieve it but move his eyes.
She dropped the sword into his hanging cot, then stepped over his legs to his right side and took the canister.
This made him howl. “Nooo! That’s mine! I need it. Give it back.” He reached with his good arm and looked for her with eyes that could not seem to find her, though she stood but three paces away.
She fought back a groan. She had seen this before. Not the whining, but the rolling eyes and the lethargy.
A knock on the door and one of her guardsmen called out, “Are you well, lady?”
“I am fine,” she said, setting the bronze canister on the sideboard. She prised up the lid and sighed again. As she suspected, it was over half full of white powder.
Evenroot.
Where had Oli gotten this root powder? How much had he taken to put himself into such a haze? And had he purged the poison to a shadir or was he dying?
Since she could do nothing about that, she replaced the lid on the canister and sent one of her guardsmen for a servant. Then she kept busy by gathering all his clothing into a pile beside the door, which she opened to get some air circulation.
The servant arrived. Inolah bade the man take the duke’s clothing to be washed, then return with a tub and water for a bath. By the time he had gone, Oli’s eyes had cleared some.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
That he could see her eased her fear for his life. “You ignored my summons to breakfast.”
He stretched his good arm. “I was not in a mental state to attend a public meal.”
“I realized as much when I found you.”
He sat forward and hit his head on the bottom of his hanging cot. Wincing, he rubbed his forehead, then crawled out. “What did you do to my cabin?”
“Tidied up a little.” She walked to the sideboard and picked up the canister.
He pushed to standing. “Put that down.”
Inolah’s guards stepped into the doorway. She shook her head at them. “First you must confess where you got it and why you ingest what’s inside.”
He glared at her. “Why are you here? You don’t even know me.”
“My brother does. And he cares about you. Asked me to check on you.”
“If he cared, he’d check on me himself.”
“You think no one cares about you? Is that why you tried to kill yourself?”
“Kill myself?” His stump moved toward his face. He scowled at it, then rubbed his face with his left hand. “Fine,” he said. “If you must know, I have an addiction that wine will not satisfy.”
“To evenroot.”
He nodded. “When I heard about the mantic and that she had fled, it occurred to me that she might have left behind her supply. I went instantly to Lady Zeroah’s cabin. Rosârah Brelenah had just moved the girl so that servants could clean and air the room. I volunteered to supervise the refurbishment, and once the rosârah and her staff had gone, I searched until I found what I was looking for.”
“You are a duke and a royal cousin. You should know better than to search someone’s room without permission or take what is not yours.”
Oli hung his head, ashamed, it seemed, by her words.
Interesting. Praise and disapproval had an immediate effect. “You are a fine young man,” she added, wanting to balance her words. “Well respected and greatly admired by my brother the Heir. He tells me you saved his life. He has not forgotten your sacrifice.”
A shrug. “Anyone would have done the same.”
“You were training to be a general in the King’s Guard. I suspect you know more of men than to believe that a true statement. There are too many cowards in the world. Too many idlers. Too many egoists who think themselves better than everyone else. You are none of those things. You are a fighter, Oli Agoros, and there is no reason you should stop fighting now.”
The servant returned with a washtub and two more servants, each carrying a bucket of water.
“Your bath has arrived. You will clean yourself up, shave—unless you’ve decided to grow a beard—get dressed, then come to my cabin. This,” she patted the bronze canister, “comes with me. We will discuss it over lunch. Is that clear?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Oh, Inolah did like the sound of that. Obedience from a young man such as Oli Agoros exuded potential. He was a soldier who obeyed commands, unlike her own son who’d been trained to have everyone fall at his feet. Inolah felt certain that, in time, she could help Oli Agoros overcome his enslavement to evenroot to become an asset to himself and Armania.