“YOU’RE TELLING ME, GRANDSON, THAT ARIHI’S child has been laboring in a workhouse? For that horrible Esperanzan?”
“For six years, Mai Mai,” Sam confirmed. “I don’t know the rest.”
It was early. Queen Maga’lahi wore sleeping robes, crimson silk embroidered with gold thread, complementing her light brown skin. Her hair was a curling white mass that fell halfway down her back and smelled of coconut oil. At six feet, she was only inches shorter than Sam. A lean, strongly built woman. Sam’s friends had kindly old grandmothers. Ones who wore flowing, colorful muumuus and taught their grandchildren how to weave baskets and pickle strips of green papaya. Not Sam. He did not have that sort of grandmother.
She was feeding the fish. They were in a garden down the steps from her bedchambers, one bordered by banana trees and dotted with small ponds. Sam stood beside her holding a basket of fish food, little balls of ground leaves and chopped up worm. She scooped a small amount onto her hand, then tossed it into the pond with perhaps more force than was necessary. Frightened by the splash, the fish fled to the opposite end and disappeared from view. Uncle Isko stood nearby, listlessly dropping pebbles into the shallows. He looked as Sam felt, sleep-deprived and surly. Sam had managed an hour’s slumber at the bai, the men’s house, before receiving his grandmother’s summons. His uncle’s marking was unthreatening this morning, a small shark tattooed on his wrist. Fetu was also in tattoo form, a sleeping bat hanging upside down on Sam’s left arm, below his shoulder.
Another ball splashed into the pond. “I’ve thought of a hundred ways to punish Arihi,” his grandmother said. “Painful ways, for doing what any father would have done. What I did myself, placing my child above everyone else. And he died alone, without prayers.”
Uncle Isko said, quietly, “You’re not the villain here, Your Grace.”
“I’m hardly the hero,” the queen responded. “Oliana would not be pleased, I think, to know how I’ve treated this child, the daughter of her heart. Six years in a workhouse. It is sickening.” She looked up at Sam. “Does she look sickly? Frail?”
“No. She looks . . .” Like a dream, Sam thought. With a voice like night music that danced along his arms.
They waited. His grandmother’s eyebrows climbed. “Yes?”
Sam cleared his throat. “Normal. Healthy.”
“How flattering,” Lord Isko commented, “if you’re speaking of cattle.” His expression told Sam he was fooling no one. “She looks like her mother at that age, Your Grace. The likeness is uncanny.”
“Ah. Lovely, then. Where is she now?”
“With Aunt Chesa.” The fish food had clumped together at the bottom of the basket. Sam gave it a few shakes, to loosen them. “Hanalei’s old nurse lives with her. Penina. I thought she could use a familiar face.”
Uncle Isko dropped the rest of the pebbles onto the grass. “She’s hiding something.”
Sam lowered the basket. “You barely spoke to her.”
“It was long enough,” Uncle Isko said. “She was carrying a satchel, Samahti. Do you know what it holds?”
Papa wrote it down. I have it all here. “Her father’s notes, she said. For the dragonfruit.”
“You didn’t see these notes?”
“I did not.” Sam strove for calm. They were both weary. “What is this about, Uncle?”
“Yes,” Queen Maga’lahi said. “What are you saying, Isko?”
“Your Grace. Hanalei has been gone ten years, much of it spent with the Esperanzans. And she shows up on one of their dragoners, out of nowhere. It is concerning.”
Sam said, “You saw her trying to escape that dragoner. We both did.”
“We saw something.” Uncle Isko held up a hand at Sam’s expression. “I’m saying we should take care, that is all. We don’t know her, Samahti. Not anymore.”
The words came before Sam could stop them. “Who is to blame for that?”
“I beg your pardon?”
His grandmother said, “Samahtitamah.”
Sam heard the warning and did not care. The unfairness of it. “You’re lord protector, for all of Tamarind. Isn’t Hanalei a Tamarindi still? Who’s been protecting her? Not me. Not you.” Sam threw up both hands, sending worm balls flying into the air. “She kept herself safe. And when she finds her way home, after ten years, Uncle, this is how you speak of her?”
Uncle Isko had gone very still. It was an unkind thing to say, knowing his uncle blamed himself for his mother’s poisoning. He had been away that day, nursing a broken heart, of all things. He had delegated her watch to another and regretted it ever since.
Sam’s grandmother turned to him. “Whom do you think you speak to in such a way?” she asked, very softly. “In that tone, with those words? Surely not an elder?”
“Mai Mai, you didn’t see her hands—”
“I did not ask about hands.”
On the other side of the pond, a yellow-and-black banana spider appeared between two trees. It was three feet long, legs skittering as it rounded the pond toward them. It raced up to his grandmother, disappearing beneath her robes. A moment later, a marking appeared on her cheek. A small spider now, flat and unmoving, except for its eyes, all eight of them. They were pinned on Sam, blinking at different times.
Sam called her Mai Mai, Grandmother, but she was known by other names. Queen Maga’lahi, Your Grace . . . and Para Rana, Spider, the One That Weaves the Web. The last was never said to her face.
Fetu was no longer asleep, but Sam could feel him squeezing his eyes shut, pretending. He turned to his uncle and bowed. “Apologies.”
“Accepted,” Uncle Isko said without looking away from the pond.
His grandmother eyed them both. “We have guests on the lagoon this morning. Have you both forgotten?”
Sam winced. He had blocked it from memory. “I didn’t forget.”
Uncle Isko stirred. “I won’t be able to attend—”
“I expect both of you there,” the queen interrupted. She twirled a finger at Sam’s plain guardsman clothing. “Make yourself presentable. This is not enough. And do not be late. After, bring Hanalei to me. I wish to see her.”
“Yes, Mai Mai.”
His grandmother’s eyes softened, though her spider’s did not. She reached up and touched his cheek. “You children were so close. We hoped . . .” Her voice trailed off. “Don’t plan your life so carefully, grandson, or the lives of others. The gods will only share a laugh at your expense.”
She left them there and went up to her chambers. Without a word, Uncle Isko strode off in the opposite direction, through the trees. Sam was left alone. He tipped what remained in the basket into the pond, watching as the fish converged on plant and worm, gorging.
Before Sam left the royal pavilion, he went to his mother’s quarters. They were located far away from the public chambers, in a quiet, restful corner. Before her illness, they had lived just the two of them in a nearby pavilion. Now she slept on a bed she had been placed on ten years ago. It rested low to the ground, common on Tamarind. Mosquito netting enclosed white bed coverings. The chamber was cool and shadowy. Leafy ferns grew from pots and trailed from high shelves. A set of doors had been thrown open, and through them came the scent of cinnamon and fragrant tuberose.
Sam pulled aside the netting and looked down at his sleeping mother. Uncle Isko had rooted out the man behind her poisoning. A prince from Wakeo. When Isko had sailed off to seek vengeance, he had taken Sam with him. And at the age of nine, Sam had understood for the first time what it meant to be an enemy of Tamarind. And he had understood a little more of what it meant to be lord protector, a role that would be his someday.
His heart twisted, seeing his mother like this, for he was growing older and she was not. Her face remained unlined. Her hair was long and black, curled like the queen’s. Someone had braided it and tucked plumeria blossoms here and there. Sam pictured himself years from now, a stooped old man, visiting his mother, who never woke, never aged, who never again said his name.
He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Mama, I have news.”
Sam descended the wide stone steps of the queen’s pavilion. His grandmother’s home was a much larger version of the buildings that made up both the palace complex and the city of Tamarind. Built on a foundation of thirty-two latti stones, each twice the height of a man and consisting of a stout pillar with a bowl-shaped stone sitting upon it. The pavilion itself ran along a single level. A steep, downward-swooping roof had been covered in banana leaves to mimic the look of the original ancient settlement. But the buildings were made of stone, not wood, a solid foundation that did not require rebuilding after every typhoon, devastatingly common in these parts.
Also within the palace complex were homes belonging to the original founding families and other members of the nobility. Uncle Isko’s pavilion was here, as was Hanalei’s. Or what had once been her home. It had been returned to the queen after Lord Arihi disappeared and was now used to house important guests.
Sam’s pavilion was built upon sixteen latti stones, second only in size to the queen’s. But being unmarried, he had no real need of it. And if he was being truthful, he did not care for the proximity to his grandmother’s home. It was the next pavilion over. He lived in the bai with other unattached males. There he had the freedom to come and go as he pleased, far away from the watchful eyes of guards and relatives.
His aunt Chesa was a distant relation on his father’s side. Years ago, when she had moved from the country and asked to live in his pavilion temporarily, until she found her own suitable lodgings, he had agreed. Uncle Isko had cautioned him. “She will not want to give it up when you wish to reclaim it, Samahti. Tell her no.”
“I don’t need so much, Uncle.” His aunt had been a widow with two children. A daughter who had since grown and married, and a son, Jejomar. They would make better use of his home.
Uncle Isko had shaken his head. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Sam was remembering his uncle’s words now as he stood before his aunt, trying not to gnash his teeth. “What do you mean, Hanalei’s not here? Where is she?”
“Surely you didn’t expect us to let her stay?” Aunt Chesa wore voluminous green dressing robes. Sam had come early enough in the day that her face was devoid of the heavy layers of paint she normally wore. Her black hair hung loose, puddled on the floor. Penina stood behind her, brushing section by section, her face free of all expression. Hanalei’s former nurse was in her middle years, a short, round woman. She wore a simple white dress with a yellow hibiscus tucked above one ear. “Have you forgotten who her father was?” his aunt continued. “You, of all people? She’s practically a criminal herself, Samahti. We have a child in the house.”
Oke, her new husband, sat beside her, also dressed in green robes. He patted his wife’s knee. “Yes. A traitor’s daughter. I must question your judgment on this matter, nephew.”
The nephew made Sam’s nostrils flare. His aunt was nearing forty years of age. Her husband was fifteen years younger, barely older than Sam and Jejomar. A man with delicate features and hair like fine black thread. Even the bare feet he propped on the table, Sam’s table, were elegant; the soles looked soft as a baby’s cheek.
Sam said, “Hanalei would have stayed in the guest pavilion, which is empty and out of your way. And Jejomar is no longer a child. He is seventeen.”
Just then Sam caught a glimpse of a figure slinking past the door holding a fishing pole.
“Jejomar!” Aunt Chesa called out. “Where are you off to, darling?”
The sigh was audible from where Sam stood. Jejomar kept one hand on the doorframe and leaned in. “I have business, Mama. And then fishing. I’ll bring back supper.” He looked at Sam. Nothing in his expression hinted at their argument only hours before. Sam knew he had not told his mother about the canoe or the cost to replace it. Fine. As long as Jejomar’s “business” meant paying the agreed-upon fee, Sam would also stay quiet. And then Jejomar smirked, and in that smirk there was a hint of spite. “Your Hanalei’s at the menagerie, Sam. The guards took her there this morning.”
“Jejomar!” his stepfather snapped. Jejomar rolled his eyes and hoofed it out of there, and a second later, the front door slammed.
Sam turned disbelieving eyes on his aunt and her husband. “The menagerie?” he echoed. Silence. His aunt fidgeted.
Sam was certain he had heard wrong. “You sent Hanalei to sleep with the animals?”
Oke tipped his head toward his wife, claiming no responsibility. Aunt Chesa said, “Not any animal. With the seadragons. I thought it fitting.” When Sam only stared at her, she added, “There are beds in the menagerie. Or mats. The animal keepers must sleep somewhere. It’s not as if we threw her in a cage. Honestly, Samahti, bringing her to our home was thoughtless. And at so late an hour. I’ve not been able to sleep since.” Behind her, Penina continued to brush his aunt’s hair, slowly, thoroughly. But her left eye had begun to twitch.
Sam could not choose his relatives, so instead he counted to ten. And ten more after that. Finally, he said, “She came a long way. Did you give her something to eat at least?”
Silence.
Sleeplessness and outrage did not mix well. “With respect, Auntie, your time here was to have been temporary. Yet three years have come and gone. Mara is married, and Jejomar can move into the bai if he wishes. It’s time to make other arrangements. Penina.” He looked over his aunt’s head at the older woman. “A word, please.”
Penina dropped the hair and set the brush on a table.
His aunt looked shocked. “Samahtitamah! You can’t just throw us into the street!”
“I’m not. There are pavilions everywhere. I’m sure you’ll find another quickly.”
Oke surged to his bare baby feet. “But those cost squid!”
“Oke,” Aunt Chesa said under her breath.
Sam did not bother to hide his dislike. “Most things do. Your silver isn’t my business.”
Auntie Chesa rose. “All this fuss for that girl. As you wish, she may stay here.”
Spoken as though she were doing Sam a favor. He pictured Hanalei on the outrigger. I have nowhere else to go, she had said. He could tell the words had cost her. He hated that he had sent her here and that she had been turned away.
Sam chose his words carefully. “Hanalei is my guest, and your treatment of her has shamed me. I won’t bring her here since her presence disturbs you. You may remove your belongings to your new home without disruption.”
“Samahti!” Auntie Chesa collapsed onto the chair. The tears fell. “You’re cruel to your auntie! I will go to the queen—” She stopped, seeing Sam’s face, swallowing her words.
“This is my mother’s home,” Sam said. “And it is mine. It does not belong to the queen. But you may do as you wish. Penina?”
Penina followed him out of the chamber and out of the house. They did not speak until they had shut the front doors behind them. Sam snatched up his boots from the row of shoes and slippers lining both sides of the door. He sat on a bench and yanked one on.
Penina said, “I am sorry, Prince Samahti. I did not hear anyone come by last night. If I’d known—”
“I know. Don’t worry.”
A smile trembled on her lips. “She did not die. My Hanalei. How can I help?”
“She needs a place to stay. An inn somewhere, for now. And my grandmother wishes to speak with her . . . She needs clothes—”
“I’ll see to everything.”
Voices rose, carried through an open window. Sam suspected Oke would strip the banana leaves off the roof if no one was here to watch him. He handed Penina the pouch at his belt, full of silver squid. “If it’s not enough, just use my name.”
“You are a leech!” Aunt Chesa cried. Her voice carried through an open window. Oke’s response was unintelligible. A door slammed.
Shaking her head, Penina took the pouch and disappeared indoors. Sam went his own way, thinking his uncle Isko had been right. The man was always right.