19

I STOOD NEXT TO ANNETTE BY THE RAIL OF THE GYRFALCON, THE ship pointing her nose toward West Serafe as we left Galitha City’s port to open water. She wasn’t a huge vessel, not intended to impress foreign dignitaries or Galatine nobles, but Admiral Merhaven had chosen her himself, praising her “clean lines” and “right rigging,” terms I didn’t understand. Her speed, which he had also extolled, I did comprehend. We’d given ourselves scant extra time to make the journey to Isildi, the capital city of West Serafe, and relied on the Gyrfalcon’s purported ability to, per Merhaven, “carve the waves of even the Midway Sea like a pat of butter.” Theodor’s brother Ballantine, more properly Lieutenant Westland on this ship, tolerated Merhaven’s excessive metaphors with taciturn deference, but I knew that Theodor appreciated his brother’s presence, reliable albeit silent.

“You seem at home on board a ship,” I said to Annette.

“Enough trips accompanying my father, I suppose. But I’ve always liked the water. The possibility in it—once you’re on a ship, you could go anywhere,” she explained with an impish smile. “If I’d been born a boy, I’d have joined the Royal Navy, I think.”

“If you’d been born a boy, you’d have been heir to the throne,” I reminded her, then winced. She’d be king, not heir, and acknowledging that brushed up against the loss of her father, wounds still raw and painful.

Annette was kind enough to let my insensitivity pass without remark. “Even had I been first son, waiting on an inheritance to a crown, a naval career wouldn’t be unheard of. But a girl—that would never do.” She glanced at the sails unfurling over us. “They’d do well to let her out a bit if we’re to take advantage of this wind.”

I laughed. “And a fine sailor you’d make!”

“I used to follow the sailors around and watch them work until my mother caught on. She might not have minded the observing, but I was overhearing language that would have shocked my tutors.” She laughed, then she looked back over the rail. “The city looks so pretty from the water,” she mused.

“I’ve never seen it this way,” I said. “In the midst of it, it doesn’t look so deliberate, somehow. From here it looks like a painting, all the buildings in layers as though someone meant it.”

“And in the middle of Fountain Square, it feels like a maze. Sometimes distance adds an artist’s touch where none was ever intended.”

“And so white and clean,” I added. “You don’t see the horse dung or the dingy alleys and even all that dark gray stone looks paler when the sun is hitting it, from here.”

Annette smiled. “I confess I don’t see much of the dung, myself.”

“Am I interrupting state talks?” Theodor joined us at the rail.

“Yes, very important, height of secrecy,” Annette said. “We’re far too busy for you.”

“Even if I’m here to brief you on agendas and itineraries?”

Annette groaned. “Especially that. Can’t you just enjoy the view and forget that we’re duty bound into a fortnight of obligatory smiling and forced pleasantries?”

“You have today to enjoy the cruise, but we’re docking at Havensport tomorrow to collect Admiral Merhaven’s wife and will have to do a bit of waving and handshaking while we’re there.”

“What exactly does that mean?” I asked. “Waving and handshaking?” I had known we planned a couple of brief stops in Galatine ports on our way—nothing that would slow us down overmuch, but would satisfy everyone’s insistence that we give some attention to our own people as we made our way to Serafe. I was less clear what, exactly, was expected of me.

“For you and Annette, fairly literal meaning. I anticipate that we’ll be greeted at the dock by a fair-size crowd eager to glimpse royalty—yes, I’m sure they’ll be disappointed by me—and you two ladies can disembark, make your way to the waiting carriage, and throw a few smiles into the crowd.”

“Like acrobats and mummers in a parade. Lovely.” Annette beamed a wholly insincere smile.

Theodor cracked a grin but didn’t argue with her. “The carriage takes us to Merhaven’s townhouse, where I will have a brief meeting with local dignitaries. Havensport’s city lord, who’s a Pommerly, for what that’s worth. Unlikely to be productive, just a formality.”

“And we sip tea with their wives?” Annette asked, clearly familiar with this standard protocol.

“Yes,” Theodor said. “I’m sorry, is that going to be too burdensome? Did you have an appointment with your hairdresser?”

“I can rearrange it,” Annette joked, sighing with feigned dismay, as though our close quarters on the little Gyrfalcon could have accommodated a retinue of hairdressers and manicurists. “Then back here and embarking by noon?”

“That’s the idea.” Theodor shrugged. “If they invite us to lunch, I’d suggest we accept—their seafood stews are legendary in Havensport.”

“Hmm, lunch. I skipped breakfast—I’m going to scrounge something up,” Annette said. She headed toward her cabin, and I had a feeling our steward would be the one to do the scrounging.

“Not too overwhelming yet, I take it?” Theodor said, moving closer to my side.

“I think I can handle waving. Smiling, though.” I grimaced.

“Do your best.” Theodor laughed. Galitha City lay behind us now, the imposing stone defensive wall stretching to the south and, no longer visible to us, the north giving way to a sheer cliff face and, high above, dense forests.

“It’s hard to believe that most of Galitha is like this,” I said, gesturing toward the untouched forests. “After living in the city, it’s easy to forget that the city isn’t all that Galitha is.”

“That will be worth remembering for quite some time, going forward,” Theodor said, eyes scanning deep into the forests. “The nobility in the south, in the agrarian regions, are not particularly satisfied at the moment.”

“They don’t like the changes,” I ventured with a wry smile.

“Indeed not, most of the provincial nobles voted against reform.”

“Rules are rules,” I said with a sardonic shrug.

“And their response—you’re not concerned?” he replied.

“Of course I am. They can make things difficult moving forward if they don’t wish to cooperate, I’m sure. But they lost. By a slim margin, perhaps, but the law is the law now, as you keep saying.”

“That it is. Regardless, what little time we spend in ports on this trip south will be smoothing their ruffled feathers. And I’ve a feeling they’ve gone into full-blown molt at this point.”

I wrinkled my nose at that image—nobles shedding clumps of down like overgrown parrots. “And here I’d just discovered that I like sea travel after all. Too bad official business is going to put such a damper on it,” I said.

“We’ll have to take a trip then, for fun, sometime,” he said, with a hollow smile that told me “for fun” was unlikely to happen for him anytime soon, if ever. “Speaking of official business—I brought some books along for you. I’ve left them in our cabin. On the other countries attending the summit, so you have some preparation on their customs, clothing, title nomenclature, the like.”

I forced an even-keeled smile. This was, after all, the duty of a royal consort, even if it sounded utterly overwhelming. “So I have less than a week to memorize the customs of East and West Serafe, Kvyset, the Allied States—I assume their various differences, too?”

“Well, at least a study on Pellia and Fen won’t be necessary.”

“That’s right, they’re not important enough to invite. Or are you suggesting I’m allowed to offend them?”

“You can offend them another time. I’m sure we’ll have some diplomatic visit with Pellia soon enough. Just not this time.”

“Perfect,” I said with forced cheer.

“You may want to give some attention to ports and trade routes,” he said. “The largest point of contention for the summit is an agreement suggested by the East Serafans—the Open Seas Arrangement. You won’t be in the official debates, of course, but they’ll probably discuss them during the social events.”

“The seas seem pretty open already,” I said, glancing around us.

“Looks are deceiving. As it stands, nations can claim waters near them—prohibit shipping, tax merchant vessels, prohibit military vessels even if they’re only en route up to fifty miles from their shores, with some special rules in place for shared waters. This puts East Serafe at a bit of a disadvantage compared to, say, West Serafe when it comes to throwing their weight around over shipping—they’re barely on any oceanic trade routes at all.”

“Compared to us as well,” I said. “We levy a tax on foreign merchant ships utilizing our ports, don’t we?”

“Yes,” he said. “Quite good. The Open Seas Arrangement would prohibit claiming any waters. No prohibiting or taxing anyone passing through, no matter how close they get.”

“It seems to only benefit East Serafe,” I said. “Easy to vote down, no?”

“Except that the Allied States may be on board with it. They benefit from taxes and port fees, but they trade so widely that they lose more to Galitha and West Serafe than they gain. So—it’s rather tied with Kvyset not laying her hand yet.”

“Sounds terribly exciting,” I said blandly.

Theodor clapped my shoulder, like an officer sending a private to do some sort of unpleasant task like digging out a latrine. “I’ll quiz you later.”