Episode Nine:
Lies in our Stars

Paul Witcover

 

Micah glanced up in annoyance from the welter of her papers covering the wooden table as the door to the front room of Rafe’s lodgings swung open to admit a trio of laughing young men who immediately blundered into the table. Her inkpot would have spilled across her latest calculations had she not already lifted it clear, well used to such interruptions by now.

“Sorry, Micah.” It was Larry, the scholar who had invited her into the lecture on geometry all those weeks ago. She supposed that, in a way, she owed her presence here to that encounter, for without it she would never have met the man who, in turn, had led her to the Inkpot, and if she had not met that man, she would never have encountered Rafe. It was interesting to consider how far back one might trace a series of such events before reaching the initial cause from which all subsequent effects flowed. In isolation, each seemed random, pure chance, yet when looked at in a certain way, through the clarifying lens of mathematics, they were not random at all, but rather the outcome of probabilities amenable to calculation, at least theoretically. She wondered what it would take to compile a likelies table to cover all such eventualities. First it would be necessary to—

“’Scuse me!”

Micah groaned at the interruption. “Could you be quiet for a moment, please?”

“’Scuse me, but have you seen Rafe?”

“Micah, this is Nick,” said Larry, then nodded to his other companion. “And you remember Tim.”

She did, from numerous card games—the man had a genuine talent for losing, and, as Rafe said happily, never seemed to tire of exercising it.

“Rafe isn’t here,” she said impatiently, eager to get back to work. All morning she’d been experiencing the maddening sense of fizzy excitement that she’d come to associate with a fresh leap in her understanding of a subject. The last time she’d felt this way had been in the lecture hall, listening to Doctor Volney’s lesson on geometric solids; the discomfort had grown until, in a flash, she’d seen that he was wrong, and that knowledge had compelled her to challenge him. Volney hadn’t appreciated it, but Rafe and his friends had been impressed.

“What kind of numbers are those?” Tim was looking at her papers—the scribbled and crossed-out calculations, the Kinwiinik navigational star charts Kaab had loaned her, her corrected and re-corrected and re-re-corrected table of artificial numbers (which, maddeningly, was still not correct!)—with an expression she’d seen often enough on the faces of her family whenever they offered a minnow for her thoughts. One of the things Micah liked best about Rafe and his University friends was that most of them didn’t look baffled—or, worse, sorry to have asked—when she explained what she was thinking. Well, sooner or later they did, even Rafe. But it was still better than back on the farm, where everyone’s eyes glazed over long before she got to the good stuff. Even though she missed her family. And felt guilty about not helping out with the planting. Which reminded her that she owed her uncle another letter; she hadn’t written home for weeks now, since the Swan Ball. . . .

“Oh gods.” Tim glanced over at Larry. “Is this stuff I should know?”

Larry was looking a bit panicky himself. Nick had already made himself scarce, disappearing into Rafe’s room, where a seemingly endless chocolate-and-alcohol-fueled party had been going ever since the miraculous return of chocolate to the City had coincided with the equally if not more miraculous news that Rafe had passed his exams. And what, she wondered, would the likelies have been on that eventuality? Rafe himself had been a rare visitor during this time; his tasks at Tremontaine House were quite demanding, apparently, and his friends had taken advantage of his absence to put his vacant room to what they considered better use.

Micah did not agree. But despite these annoyances, she was gratified by this unexpected interest in her work. “Those are artificial numbers,” she said.

“Artificial?” squeaked Tim. “The real ones are bad enough!”

“Oh, all numbers are artificial, if you think about it! But at the same time, they’re the realest things of all,” she said, warming to the subject. “Even if they don’t exist in the same way as, say”—her eye went to one corner of the room, where a slumbering student whose name she couldn’t recall had made a pillow from the sack of turnips Rafe had purchased from her uncle before the ball, then forgotten to bring to Tremontaine House as he’d promised, even though she’d reminded him fourteen times so far—“turnips, for example—”

“Say, isn’t that Joshua?” Tim’s eyes had taken on a faraway look. “Talk to you later, Micah!” He lunged away from the table.

“And there’s Thaddeus!” said Larry.

Before she could say another word, he was gone, joining Thaddeus, who sat by the room’s one window, engaged in earnest conversation with an Alchemy student called Clarence. With a sigh, Micah set the inkpot back down on the table. Really, would it have even mattered if the ink had spilled? Her new calculations were coming out just as muddled as the previous ones, and the ones before that. What was she missing? She felt stupid and useless . . . yet there it was inside her, stronger than ever, that buoyant, fizzy feeling, as if an answer were rising up from her depths. . . .

The door swung open again, and once again she lifted the inkpot before the new arrivals could bump into her table . . . which of course they proceeded to do even though she called a timely warning. Everyone did. It was absurd to put the table here, so close to the door. But there was no other place for it; the apartment was already crowded. There were the chaise Micah sometimes used as a bed, pallets for residents both permanent and temporary stacked in a corner, a handful of chairs, overflowing bookshelves made of wooden crates, a smaller table likewise constructed, and assorted items scavenged from the streets by Rafe, Joshua, and Thaddeus for artistic or scientific projects that never quite commenced, the remains of meals too desiccated to be of interest even to rodents, and heaps of cast-off clothing that seemed to belong to no one, as if they’d sprung up overnight like toadstools in the manure piles on the farm. She’d never imagined being able to live with so much clutter. Was it any wonder her calculations kept coming out wrong? The Inkpot was scarcely better, but at least there she could enjoy a tomato pie while working.

Coming to a decision, Micah pushed away from the table and stood. She set the cover tightly onto the inkpot and stowed it in one pocket, then gathered up the papers from the desk willy-nilly; time enough to sort them properly once she was ensconced at her favorite table, a refreshing glass of cider in front of her.

She glanced around the room. Clarence, Larry, and Thaddeus were sharing a pipe whose noxious fumes provided further inducement to depart. The chaise was occupied by a pair of students who seemed to be wrestling in slow motion underneath a blanket. The student using the sack of turnips as a pillow had turned from his left side to his right.

Micah’s aunt and uncle had impressed upon her that it wasn’t polite to simply get up and leave a room where others were present, so she walked over to Thaddeus.

“Thaddeus, I’m going to the Inkpot.”

“Hmm? Oh, that’s nice, Micah,” he said, gazing at her with a look of vague disappointment, as if he’d been hoping to see something else entirely.

“If Rafe comes back, will you tell him? I don’t want him to worry.”

He nodded absently as the pipe came round again. The billow of greenish smoke that rose from the bowl pushed her into a coughing retreat. Meanwhile, four more students had entered the room. She wondered if there might not be some equation to predict the seemingly random movement of bodies within an enclosed space, some tipping point after which the flow of students into the interior room would reverse, without the students themselves being aware of why they felt an obscure compulsion to exit a space they had so recently been keen to enter. There was something deeply comforting in the notion that even human beings—that capricious order to which, by an accident of birth, she belonged, without ever quite belonging—were as subject to the laws of mathematics as any other bodies in motion.

Comforting in theory, anyway. But in practice anything but, because that was the very problem Rafe had given her to solve, and which eluded her at every turn. How could bodies in motion—in this case, ships—plot a true course across the curved surface of an ellipsoid—which turned out to be the true shape of the world, according to Kaab, who should know!—using Kinwiinik formulae that relied upon centuries of their people’s painstaking observation of the stars and planets?

Of course, the real question was why they couldn’t. Because theoretically they absolutely should be able to do just that. It was simple geometry. Well, maybe not simple, exactly, but simple enough for her.

Math didn’t lie. It shouldn’t be necessary to fudge the answers to basic problems of navigation with fixes based upon direct experience, as ship captains and navigators routinely did. That was cheating. People cheated all the time, but not numbers. That was one reason why, on the whole, she preferred numbers to people. With numbers, she knew exactly where she stood.

Or always had, until now.

And there it was again, that fizzy feeling she’d felt in Volney’s lecture, with its peculiarly pleasant mix of discomfort and anticipation, like an itch that begged for scratching.

An itch she couldn’t reach.

But she had to reach it. If she failed, she would disappoint Rafe, who had been so nice to her. Who believed in her. And all her time here in the City would be for nothing. She would go home a failure, and her family would smile and hug her but on the inside would think about the work she’d missed, the help she hadn’t been there to give them just when they’d needed it most.

At least, she thought, she could do something about that.

On her way out, Micah paused to push the slumbering student aside—he snorted but did not wake—and retrieved the sack of turnips. Sooner or later, Rafe would show up at the Inkpot; he always did. And when he did, she would make sure that he took the turnips to Tremontaine House as he’d promised. They were not yet too old to make a favorable impression on any cook who knew a thing or two about root vegetables.

Juggling the sack and papers in her arms, Micah made her way down the stairs and out the front door. The sun shone brightly; it was a hot day, the first day that really felt like summer, even though it was technically still late spring. She stood back against the door, blinking and getting her bearings as crowds of people streamed by. It was as if the party inside had reached that tipping point she’d postulated and spilled out onto the sidewalk. And in fact the return of chocolate did seem to have put the whole City in a festive mood. Lately, everyone she saw on the streets was bursting with energy and enthusiasm; people talked loudly and gesticulated as they walked, smiling and laughing together; her aunt would have said they had a spring in their step, but to Micah it seemed much more than that, as if they were awaiting only some prearranged signal that would send them spinning about each other like the dancers at the Tremontaine ball.

She took a steadying breath and plunged into the stream.

As she walked, half swept along in the flow, shifting the sack of turnips in her arms so as to keep the jumble of papers from blocking her view, she thought again of music, and of math, which was merely another kind of music, just as music was another name for math. The notion came to her that perhaps the unheard music that orchestrated the movements all around her could be translated into math.

For an instant, she pictured herself as one of the guests at the Tremontaine ball, sweeping across the tiled ballroom floor in swift and elegant steps that traced hyperbolic patterns, which themselves could be rendered in the curves of trigonometric functions, orbiting the room like one of the planets in Rafe’s heliocentric theory, the floor no longer flat beneath her feet but swollen, rounded. She felt it then, the fizzy sensation that had been announcing something all day, felt it rising up higher than it had before, but still not high enough for her to grasp with her conscious mind, though she reached for it, groping, felt it slip back through the fingers of her flimsy understanding and fall away, saw in her mind’s eye its glittering effervescent after-trail bending against a dark background like the tail of a comet. Desolation scraped her insides, as if she’d lost the thing she loved most in all the world. A soft moan escaped her lips, and her feet fell out of rhythm.

“Hey, watch where you’re going!”

A shoulder jostled her along with the voice, and she felt herself spun in a direction she hadn’t intended to go. Before she could gather herself, someone else stumbled into her, or she into someone else; at any rate, the collision altered her trajectory again, and what was even worse, loosened her grip on the papers in her arms. They began to slide, and as she frantically tried to clutch them closer to her chest, like a shield, a third collision, the most forceful yet, knocked her off her feet. As she fell, papers and charts and tables and numbers real and artificial scattering like leaves around her, the sack of turnips flew up, and its contents, as if eager to be free, shot from the open top. For an instant, a flock of bulbous shapes in graceless tumbling flight was silhouetted in transit across the sun’s blazing face.

Time froze. Or she did. The backlit shapes, smoothed in shadow, hung suspended like fruit, perfect orbs ripe for plucking. She felt as if she had grown unbelievably large, bigger than the whole world, and was gazing down upon creation as the gods themselves might see it, from an incalculable height, watching the stately, ordained dance of the planets about their central star. A fizzing kind of music filled her ears.

Then it was over. Micah was her normal size again, flat on her back, head ringing from an impact she hadn’t felt, partially blinded by the sun. Blurry people shapes gathered around her making solicitous sounds she barely heard and didn’t trouble to understand. Things were happening to her body; distantly, she was aware of being helped to her feet, of loose papers and turnips being thrust into her arms, which somehow accepted them.

“I’m fine,” she said, or tried to say, or imagined herself saying. “I’m fine. Leave me alone, please.” Meanwhile, she shoved and pushed and wriggled her way free of the crowd, propelled by pure instinct.

None of this was important. None of it mattered.

What mattered was so beautiful, so simple, so clear. A sphere. The world was a sphere, orbiting the sun in harmony with other spheres. It could never be an ellipsoid; she knew that with an utter certainty, as she knew that water was wet. The math was something to be worked out. But Rafe was right. She knew that now, utterly. Felt the rightness of it, like the sprouting of a seed, the turning of a season. She understood why her calculations kept coming out wrong, even after she’d corrected the tables.

Laughing now, her mind on fire, Micah set her papers and turnips down on the sidewalk. She stood, though she barely realized it, in front of a shop of some kind, the glass of the windowpanes reflecting her own image and that of the murmurous crowd gathering behind her. She paid no heed to either. Instead, she stooped and shuffled through the papers until she found a certain page from her table of artificial numbers. Standing, she studied it intently.

Micah gasped. A terrible new knowledge broke upon her.

If the earth was a sphere, then Kaab was wrong. The Kinwiinik were wrong. Their navigation was based on a false understanding of absolutely everything! Only pure luck had enabled them to repeatedly cross the sea without disaster. That luck couldn’t hold. No ship that left port was safe, she realized. Not those of the City. Not those of the Kinwiinik. All of them, and all aboard them, were as good as sailing to their deaths.

But was she right? She had to do the math. Prove it to herself, prove it all worked with her new realization. She tucked the page under one arm, digging meanwhile in her pocket for the inkpot . . . Oh god, had it broken? No, there it was, whole and sound! She wrenched off the top and heedlessly let it fall; then, with the open inkpot cradled in the palm of one hand, she patted herself down with the other, looking for a quill. But it seemed she had neglected to bring any, damn it all. No matter!

Dipping her finger into the inkpot, Micah stepped up to the glass window and began feverishly to write.

 

As Rafe shouldered his way down the choked, narrow streets of the Hill in the afternoon light, the memory of the afternoon’s embraces so recently shared—of the last, lingering kiss he’d snatched before parting, the sweet hint of chocolate he’d licked from Will’s lips—caused his breath to catch, his legs to tremble. He scarcely saw his surroundings, paid no heed to the passersby he jostled, like some drunkard reeling home from a tavern.

Ah god, the duke had such a confounded effect on him! It was as if Will had put him under a spell . . . or, rather, Rafe thought, a curse. He had but to catch a glimpse of Will, or not even that, just to smell him, for his body to respond with a fervor he couldn’t resist, had no desire to resist—on the contrary, he yearned more than anything to surrender to it. And surrender he did, repeatedly, holding nothing back, giving of himself to the very dregs. It was bliss. It was torture.

His feet had led him by habit to the booksellers’ quarter, one of his favorite haunts in days gone by. Stalls filled with books, journals, and pamphlets of all kinds lined the street, and he felt a pang of nostalgia for the hours he’d spent browsing here, his only concern whether or not he would be able to convince a bookseller to give him credit. Now, thanks to the duke, he had the money . . . but his desire for books had been overwhelmed by other desires, as a small flame is blown out by a larger blaze.

“Ah, young Master Fenton!” a nearby seller called. “I’ve been holding some journals for you—full of numbers and lines and arrows and whatnot, just the sort of thing you like best.”

“How are you, Master Brooks?” Rafe inquired politely. The man was nearly as old as the books he sold, but sharp as a knife. Rafe wondered what he wanted.

“Still breathing,” Brooks said, showing three yellowed teeth in a smile. “I hear congratulations are in order. You are a Master of the University now.”

“It’s true,” Rafe said, satisfied.

Brooks gave him a sly look. “Then perhaps you can pay your debt.”

“Ah, yes. Of course. How much was that again?”

A figure was named, and Rafe took some small pleasure in conveying the amount coin by coin into Brooks’s wizened hand.

The old man’s eyes widened at the weight in his palm. He wasted no time tucking the money into his purse. “Let me get you those journals,” he said.

Rafe waved a negligent hand. “Another time.”

The prospect of reading the scientific work of others filled him with something close to despair. He’d always put the pleasures of the mind above those of the body, enjoying the latter all the more for the respite they provided from the intense, exhausting demands of the former. For years he’d flitted like a bee from flower to flower in the lush hothouse of the City while his mind, unconcerned, went about its lofty and imperious business. But now there was no separation: the Duke Tremontaine had taken possession of him, body and mind.

“Shall I hold them for you?” asked Brooks.

Rafe shrugged. “As you like,” he said, and resumed his downward path.

He had given everything to the duke, and what had he received in return? He was secretary to his lover . . . and to his lover’s virago of a wife. He was a Master of the University, the goal toward which he’d worked for so long . . . yet could he truly claim to have won that prize on his own merits and not thanks to the duke’s influence? And as for the school he planned to build, would that, too, be less his own accomplishment than the duke’s fond indulgence?

This was not the life he had wanted for himself. This was not the person he had imagined himself becoming.

It wasn’t Will’s fault. The man had done everything in his power to make it plain how much Rafe meant to him, how much his ideas were valued, his dreams shared. But there was a fundamental imbalance between them, one that Rafe couldn’t ignore even if Will seemed content to do so.

That imbalance, like so many other things, was easy for Will to ignore. He was, after all, the head of a noble house of great antiquity. Wealth and position were his birthright; they were the very air he breathed. Rafe was a merchant’s son.

What, then? Must he spend his life in thrall to a passion that demanded he play a role he had no stomach for, a role that rebuked him daily for taking the easy route, for sacrificing ambition on the altar of lust and expediency? As altars went, he supposed it wasn’t too shabby, but if he were to turn a corner now and find himself face to face with the Rafe of a year ago, wouldn’t that Rafe regard him with a sneer, the hard glint of contempt in his eye? And wouldn’t he deserve to be so regarded?

No, he told himself for the thousandth time, he must resign his post. He must make his own way in the world. If the duke loved him as he loved the duke (and oh, he thought, has it really come to love? He blushed as if that sneering Rafe of a year ago were witness to this moment and judged it as well), then wouldn’t the duke understand, and wouldn’t he still come to Rafe in a manner that preserved Rafe’s dignity as well as his own? Was that too much to ask?

But what if he did not come! Rafe’s heart thumped hollowly, and his legs grew weak in quite another way than they had a moment ago. Never to see Will again, never to touch him . . . Tears stung his eyes. He mentally kicked the smug Rafe of a year ago bloody and senseless to the curb, then trod back and forth over him with hobnail boots a dozen times for good measure.

Ah gods, such an overwhelming effect the man had!

Rafe had descended the Hill and crossed the river to the University without even noticing it. He needed a drink. Hell, he needed a few drinks. He’d intended to go home, to change into fresh clothes, check on Micah’s progress, and see whom he could coax out to the Inkpot. But now Rafe decided to make straight for that refuge.

Around the next corner he came upon not the battered Rafe of a year ago seeking revenge, but a noisy crowd gathered in front of a butcher shop. The shop’s window—what he could see of it through the milling crowd—was covered in numbers and geometrical drawings, like some rogue slate board run off from a University lecture hall for an exciting life in the streets . . . only the ink used to draw upon the window had run, so that the glass almost appeared to be bleeding. The crowd laughed and hooted. A smudged paper on the sidewalk caught Rafe’s eye; he snatched it up; there could be no mistaking that handwriting. Gods, what had happened? Alarmed, he hastened forward and began to push his way to the front of the crowd even as he heard a voice ring out—a voice as unmistakable as the handwriting.

“I’m telling you, we have to close the port! Don’t you see? We can’t let them sail! Not a single ship! We have to shut it down right now!”

Laughter crested on all sides. Then Rafe burst through.

Micah stood in front of the shop window, his hair disheveled, his eyes wild, his gesturing hands covered with black ink, as was his face, which was otherwise pale as Duchess Tremontaine’s pristine ball invitations. Rafe had never seen him so worked up. He was facing two men, his attention fixed on them to the exclusion of all else.

One of these men, by his dress, was a member of the City Watch. This gentleman had pushed back his cap and was scratching his gleaming bald head in perplexity. The other man, beardless as Micah, wore a bloodstained butcher’s apron and carried a cleaver in one hand and a length of sausage in the other. The former hung seemingly forgotten at his side as he shook the latter like an admonitory finger as he spoke, much to the crowd’s delight.

“What do I know of ships?” he demanded. “This is a butcher shop, not a customs office! This boy is crazy—do your duty and arrest him for defacing private property!”

“Wellll . . .” drawled the watchman, squinting his right eye as if by doing so he might suddenly bring what he was seeing into a sensible focus.

“I’m not crazy!” Micah pointed toward the window. “It’s all there! Are you blind or just stupid? The numbers don’t lie! We have to shut down the port!”

“Wellll . . .” repeated the watchman, squinting his left eye now.

“What seems to be the problem?” Rafe said, stepping forward.

“Rafe!” Micah turned to him, an expression of relief flooding his features. “Where have you been?” he added sharply, as though Rafe were late for an appointment.

Rafe was pretty sure that wasn’t the case.

“At Tremontaine House,” he said, inserting himself smoothly between Micah and the two men.

“And who might you be?” the watchman asked.

“Rafe Fenton,” he answered, “Master of the University and Private Secretary to His Grace the Duke Tremontaine.”

At this information, delivered in a single breath, a hush fell over the crowd. The watchman drew himself up, while the butcher let his sausage droop and his jaw hang open.

“This lad,” Rafe continued smoothly, “is a University student, a protégé of the duke’s. He’s a mathematical genius. Arrest him? Why, we should be giving him a medal! These calculations alone—” And here he glanced theatrically toward the window, where the ink had continued to run, rendering Micah’s scribbles all but meaningless.

“You see, Rafe?” Micah said urgently. “You see, don’t you?”

“What is it, sir?” asked the guardsman.

“Never mind,” said Rafe, collecting himself. “Very sorry to have troubled you. Apologies for the window,” he added, addressing the butcher.

The man managed to close his mouth, but anything more seemed beyond him.

Rafe turned to Micah. “Gather your things and let’s get out of here,” he said in a low, urgent tone.

“But Rafe—”

“We’ll talk in private,” he said. “Please hurry.”

“Yes, we must hurry!” Micah echoed, and bent to retrieve his scattered papers. The nearest members of the crowd helped; one woman handed Micah a dirt-smudged, bulging sack that he accepted with a glad cry and pressed to his chest as if it were the most precious thing in the world.

“Here now,” said the watchman. “What’s all this about shutting down the port?”

Micah stood, the beginnings of a reply on his face, but Rafe cut him off with a laugh. “Just a misunderstanding.”

“But Rafe—” Micah began.

“Now, Micah,” Rafe said, shooting him a look whose meaning he hoped would be plain, though, knowing Micah, he suspected otherwise, “it’s all right. You’ve passed.”

“Passed what?” asked the watchman blankly.

Rafe leaned forward and spoke with a confidential air. “Micah’s been put up for membership in an exclusive University club that sets its proposed members certain, er, amusing but harmless public tasks to prove their interest.”

“Gods help me, another stupid University prank,” said the watchman, frowning.

“I hope there are no hard feelings,” said Rafe. “Boys will be boys, you know!”

“But my window,” said the butcher.

“Oh, the ink will wash right off,” said Rafe. “It was in need of a good scrubbing anyway—look at all these streaks! Come, Micah”—he grasped Micah’s arm firmly above the elbow—“let’s get back to the University. The lads are waiting!” And without another word, he dragged him past the watchman and the butcher, who stood dumbly aside, and then through the crowd, which parted for them amicably, with grins and chuckles, even a few hearty thumps on the back that caused Rafe to wince, knowing how distressing such contact could be for Micah.

“Cheeky lads!”

“Well done, Micah!”

Micah bore up surprisingly well, only pulling out of Rafe’s grasp once they were in the clear and had hustled down the busy street, away from the crowd they had drawn. “What club, Rafe?”

“There is no club,” Rafe said, glancing at him as they walked on. “Sorry about that—I had to come up with something to get us away.”

“Good,” said Micah. “I wouldn’t want to belong to a club like that. It’s mean to make people do embarrassing things in public.”

“Very mean,” he said. “Look, Micah, about those calculations—”

Micah thrust the bulging sack at Rafe. “Here, hold this!”

Rafe took the sack and peeked inside. “Are these turnips?”

“Yes,” said Micah, and looked up from the papers he’d been sorting through. “My uncle’s turnips. You promised to take them to Tremontaine House! This is the fifteenth time I’ve reminded you.”

“I’ll take them next time for sure,” he said. “But the calculations—”

“The port!” cried Micah. “We’ve got to shut it down, Rafe!”

“Why?”

“Didn’t you see the numbers?”

“They were a bit runny,” Rafe said.

“It’s a sphere.”

“Excuse me?”

“The world. It’s a sphere. Not an egg shape. Kaab and the Kinwiinik are wrong.” Micah shook a handful of papers at Rafe. “That’s why I couldn’t get the tables to come out right! That’s why the star charts are off.”

“You’re sure of this?”

“I did the calculations.”

“On a shop window.”

“It doesn’t matter where. Numbers don’t lie.”

“I see,” said Rafe, and he felt his mind click abruptly into a higher gear. He stopped walking. “Land’s sakes.”

“What?” said Micah, who had also stopped.

“Your results indirectly prove my theory.” He felt a stirring of pride, of confidence, that had been sorely lacking these last hours and days.

“Yes, of course. That’s obvious.”

“It’s just a question of working out the math.”

“Obviously,” Micah said, rolling his eyes. “But that’s not important.”

“Not important?” cried Rafe. “Not important? Micah, it’s only the single most important thing in the world!”

“No, it’s not. What’s important is the port.”

Rafe blinked. “What are you on about?”

“The port,” he said. “Every Kinwiinik ship is in terrible danger. Their whole system of navigation is based on a”—he visibly groped for the words—“faulty premise. That’s why we have to shut it down. We have to save those poor sailors—Kaab’s people!”

“Oh great god,” Rafe groaned. He recalled how Kaab had told them all those weeks ago at the Inkpot of the star charts used by her people. If those charts were wrong, as he now knew them to be . . . “You’re right! We have to get down to the docks!”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!” Micah said crossly.

“But hang on a minute,” said Rafe, feeling the gears of his mind shift again.

“We don’t have a minute!”

“The Kinwiinik make the crossing regularly.”

“Yes, they’ve been very lucky!”

“Have they?” Rafe asked. Luck was a matter of math too, and he wasn’t sure anyone was that lucky.

“What do you mean?”

“Where did you get those star charts again, Micah?”

“From Tess.”

He nodded. “Tess the forger.”

“Well, really from Kaab.”

“Who is sleeping with Tess. And who told us that the world was an ellipsoid. Oh sodding hell.” Rafe felt sick. The star charts were forgeries, intentionally misleading fakes. Obviously. He stopped, leaning against a lamppost as black-robed students streamed around him, intent on their next class.

“What is it?” asked Micah. “Are you all right? We have to get to the docks!”

“No,” he said. “We don’t.”

“But I just explained—”

“Kaab knows about the sphere,” he interrupted. “The Kinwiinik know.”

“They do? Who told them?”

“They’ve always known.” Rafe sighed. “Don’t you see it, Micah? Their knowledge of these things is ahead of ours, and they want to keep it that way. Their economy, their security depend upon it. Once this gets out . . . it will change everything.”

Micah looked stricken. “So . . . Kaab lied to me?”

“Yes, I’m afraid she did,” he said bitterly. “To both of us.” He was a fool not to have seen it sooner, he thought. Perhaps he would have seen it, if not for his preoccupation with a certain delicious duke. . . . But now he had new information to bring him, a discovery that would change everything in the heavens and upon the earth. What a splendid gift to lay at a lover’s feet!

“Friends don’t lie to friends,” Micah said.

Something in Micah’s voice cut through Rafe’s reflections. The boy was upset, near tears. “Look, Micah, she had to lie,” he explained gently. “She was protecting her family, her people. Wouldn’t you do the same?”

“I love my family,” Micah answered without hesitation.

“Same with Kaab.”

The boy considered this for a moment. “Sometimes you have to lie to protect the ones you love,” he said, as if stating the conclusion to a difficult mathematical problem.

“That’s right.”

“So Kaab is still our friend.”

“Yes, she is,” said Rafe. “But she can’t know that we know.”

“Why not?”

Rafe shuddered to think of what the Balam family would do to protect this secret. The fact that he and Micah and Kaab were friends wouldn’t matter. Even if she wanted to, she wouldn’t be able to protect them. Not with the stakes so high. “It’s complicated. But trust me. It’s better that Kaab doesn’t know. You do trust me, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Micah said. “Well, mostly.”

Rafe ignored this. “Right now, you and I are the only ones in the City who know the truth. The first thing you have to do is write down the proof. And not on a window this time. On paper.”

“I don’t have any quills. Or ink.”

“You can get them at the Inkpot. It’s closer than home. You can work there, all right?”

“Good. I’m hungry. But what if Kaab is there?”

“Oh sodding hell,” Rafe said. “Look, if we see her, we have to pretend that everything is normal. Can you do that?”

Micah frowned. “I’ll try.”

“If there’s any talking to be done, I’ll do it, understand? I’m better at that sort of thing.”

“Yes, you are,” Micah agreed. “Just like I’m better at math.”

“Er, right,” Rafe said.

“We all have our special talents. That’s what Aunt Judith says.”

“A very wise woman. Now let’s go.” Rafe pushed off from the lamppost and strode down the sidewalk.

“Rafe!” He turned to see Micah holding up the sack of turnips.

“You forgot these.”

Rafe grimly retraced his steps and took the sack, which he hoisted over one shoulder. “Can we go now?”

“Go where?” came the last voice he wanted to hear just then. “Can I come too?”

He turned, heart sinking into his boots. It was Kaab.

 

As she worked in the shell of the ruined building where she and Applethorpe practiced, every inch of Kaab’s flesh sang with joy, and there was a shining at the heart of her that made her want to close her eyes and bask in its melty glow whenever she wasn’t with Tess. When Tess was near, well, she didn’t want to stop looking at her for even an instant; she begrudged every blink. Was there a more beautiful, more perfect, more delightful creature in all creation? And to think that she, Ixkaab Balam, had won the love of this treasure among women! The scent of her strawberry hair, the smooth softness of her creamy skin, the heat of her kisses, the thrilling touch of her forger’s fingers, so skilled, so delicate, so wicked, and so wise . . .

The flat of Applethorpe’s training blade smacked against the side of Kaab’s head, hard enough to leave her seeing stars and send her own blade spinning into the dirt of the weedy yard that served as their practice ground.

“Really?” he said in a disgusted tone. “That’s it. We’re done for today.”

“But we just started,” Kaab protested, gingerly probing her scalp to see if there was any blood. There wasn’t. Applethorpe didn’t draw blood unless he meant to do so; she knew that well enough by now.

“No, we’ve just finished,” he repeated. “Bad enough that you show up late for our lesson—”

“I overslept!” she said. “I told you!”

“Overslept.” He snorted. “Is that what you call it? Over-something, that’s for sure. Forget it, Kaab. You’re in no shape for training.”

“I am in the best shape,” she protested, stooping to pick up her blade and assuming a garde position.

“Physically, yes. But mentally?” He shook his head. “Mentally you’re still in bed with our Tess.”

She rushed to deny it, because she knew Applethorpe was right. “Try again and see where I am.”

“No. Love and swords make a dangerous combination, Kaab.”

“You think I do not know this?”

“You know it up here.” Applethorpe touched the edge of his training blade lightly to the side of his head, then brought the fist that held the blade down to his heart. “But not down here.” He grinned. “Or perhaps the confusion lies farther south.”

Kaab still had trouble differentiating the cardinal points used by the Xanamwiinik, but Applethorpe’s meaning was crystal clear. The realization that she was blushing only made that blush intensify. But she didn’t lower her blade an inch. Or her gaze.

Applethorpe matched it. “I’ve seen plenty of fine swordsmen lose their lives because they were dreaming of a lover’s kiss or a whore’s embrace when they should have been concentrating on sticking the other guy with the pointy end of a blade. When you draw your sword, you have to cut through everything that binds you to your life, Kaab. Love, hate, every emotion. Nothing else can exist but the moment, the sword in your hand, your opponent, and his sword. Do you understand me? Everything else is just a distraction. And distractions are what get you killed.”

She sighed and let the point of her sword fall. If only he knew how close to home his words had cut! “I know. I cannot help it.”

“Poor thing,” he said with a smirk that belied the sympathy. “Well, no harm done. I don’t suppose you’re likely to be fighting for your life anytime soon. But I’ve got better things to do on a beautiful afternoon than smack around a lovesick girl who doesn’t have sense enough to know when to quit. You won’t improve, and my arm will just get tired. We’re taking some time off, as of now. Keep practicing your forms for at least an hour every day.”

“But when will we spar again?”

“We’ll see,” he said.

“I cannot stop being in love,” she said. “It does not work that way. I would not wish it even if I could.”

“I’ve been in love myself a time or two, believe it or not. I know what it’s like.”

“Is that why you left the City? A love affair gone bad?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he said, and winked. “Now, get out of here.”

Normally such cavalier treatment from Applethorpe, or anyone else, would have filled Kaab with seething resentment, but now she merely laughed, put up her training blade, buckled on her own sword, and went her merry way.

Applethorpe had been right about the afternoon: It was beautiful, even by the stingy standards of this too-cold land. The air held an actual promise of heat, if not the thing itself, and the trees lining the streets were in their full greenery at last, with flowers blooming in window boxes and the songs of birds trilling out amid the racket of horses and carts clattering over cobblestones. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine herself in one of the plazas of Binkiinha; all that was missing was the chattering of monkeys and the chanting of Ixchel’s priestesses on the temple stairs. She felt a pang, a keen awareness of how far away that familiar and loved world was, yet the sadness normally connected to all she’d left there was less than it had been, and she knew that she had changed in her time here, and would no doubt go on changing, and there was something wonderful in that knowledge—yet sad, too, all mixed up together.

She supposed she should go home, but she knew her aunt and uncle would only put her to work at some boring task or other, and she didn’t have the heart for it. Not today. She considered going back to surprise Tess, but Tess had her own work to do.

In the end, she decided to visit Rafe. She hadn’t seen him since he’d taken his exam, or Micah, either, and she liked to keep regular tabs on the girl’s progress with her calculations, or her lack thereof. But she hadn’t gone far when she saw the two of them huddled beside a lamppost. Rafe’s back was to her, but she would have recognized that lanky form anywhere, even behind the sack he carried slung over one shoulder, while Micah stood out like an inky thumb, her face smudged with dark streaks. Kaab felt a surge of affection for these quirky, wonderful people whom the gods had placed in her path, and she hurried over, eager to share this gift of a perfect afternoon.

“Can we go now?” she heard Rafe say.

“Go where?” she asked. “Can I come too?”

He turned in surprise, and the look on his face—though he immediately disguised it with a grin—told her that something was wrong. A glance at Micah confirmed it; the girl was blushing fiercely, gaze fixed on the dirty sidewalk. The fact that she clutched an armful of loose papers among which Kaab recognized Tess’s star charts deepened her unease.

“We’re just heading to the Inkpot,” said Rafe. “Of course you can come—that is, if you don’t have anything more important to do.”

Two can play this game, she thought. “What could be more important than congratulating you on your good news? You are a Master now. How does it feel?”

“Oh, you know,” Rafe said airily as they began to walk down the pavement. “It’s a burden, of course, but one does one’s best not to forget the little people who helped one to greatness.”

Kaab knew a diversion when she saw it. “Speaking of burdens, what’s in that sack? Books?”

“Turnips.” He sighed. “Don’t ask.”

“And what about you, Micah?” she continued brightly, leaning around Rafe, who, she noted, had been careful to place himself between them. “How did you get so dirty? Did you fall into an inkpot?”

Micah kept her eyes on her feet. “I’m not supposed to talk.”

“Whyever not?”

“Because Rafe is better at it than me. But I’m better at math.”

Rafe broke in with a brittle laugh. “Micah, you take things so literally!” He turned to Kaab. “He is better at math, but sometimes one doesn’t enjoy being reminded of it quite so often. After all, I am a Master now.”

Micah raised her head, a confused expression on her face. “But you said—”

“Ah!” Rafe interjected with obvious relief. “Here we are!”

He ushered them into the Inkpot, looking about the noisy, smoke-filled room as if in search of a group they might join, but he didn’t appear to know anyone present, for he led them to an empty table. He sat, stowing the sack of turnips at his feet. Micah perched on the bench beside him as nervously as a bird, letting the papers in her arms fall onto the tabletop.

“I will buy the drinks,” Kaab offered in a cheery voice. “Will you have beer?”

Micah shook her head, gaze glued to the papers, which she had begun to arrange into some kind of order that wasn’t immediately obvious to Kaab. “Cider for me. And a tomato pie. And ink and quills.”

“Ink and quills?” Kaab looked at Micah, narrowing her eyes. “Micah, we are here to celebrate, not work.”

“You know Micah,” said Rafe. “That brain of his—always churning.”

“And how is the work?” Kaab asked. “Any progress?”

“None at all,” said Rafe as Micah continued sorting the papers. “Isn’t that right, Micah?”

“Yes,” said Micah, and then glanced up at Kaab with an expression of almost frightening intensity. “I love my family.”

“Well, I hope so,” said Kaab, taken aback. “They seem like good people to me.”

Rafe laughed that brittle laugh again. “He’s a bit homesick is all. Nothing a slice or two of tomato pie won’t cure!”

While Kaab was placing her order at the counter, she took the opportunity to observe Micah and Rafe in the mirrors behind the bar. They sat with their heads close together in low, urgent conversation. Actually, Rafe was talking. Micah sat quietly, still as a statue. Rafe glanced up at Kaab, gauging her attention, and, seeing her back to him, took a handful of papers from the table and slipped them into the sack of turnips.

By now, Kaab was certain that something dire had occurred. And she had a sickening feeling that it had to do with navigation. Could it be that despite her efforts to set Micah down the wrong path, the clever girl had found her way to the truth? Kaab groaned inwardly, seeing the happy life she’d begun to build for herself here in the City snatched away—and Tess with it—all because of one stupid slip of the tongue . . . and one girl’s obstinate genius.

But no—she couldn’t jump to conclusions. Rafe and Micah were acting oddly, but that in itself didn’t prove anything. Kaab needed more than mere suspicion. She needed proof. Because if Micah really had discovered the truth, and had shared that truth with Rafe, then Kaab would have to go to her aunt and uncle and confess everything.

The thought of it made her legs wobble. But there would be no other choice. And she didn’t want to think about what would happen after that. She had no illusions about her own fate. Her exile would be permanent, her duties restricted to helping in the kitchens and the nursery. For Rafe and Micah, things would be even worse, for her family would stop at nothing to keep the Kinwiinik Traders’ secret of navigation from these Xanamwiinik and preserve their own privileged seafaring and merchant position, which was precarious enough already.

Kaab could scarcely contain her anguish. What was wrong with her that she kept bringing disaster to everyone she loved? It took everything she had not to walk out of the Inkpot and keep on walking, right out of the City, disappearing into the wideness of the world, where her family would never find her. But even if that were possible, it would solve nothing. Her duty was clear. With a deep breath, she lifted the drinks that had been set before her and returned to the table.

 

“Here she comes,” Rafe whispered. “Remember, once we’re gone, go back to our rooms and wait for me to send word.”

Micah nodded mutely, eyes downcast. The poor kid looked miserable. Rafe felt sorry for him. And more than that: responsible.

It was plain that Kaab suspected the truth. Rafe had been a fool to invite her along to the Inkpot. He should have made some excuse, no matter how lame, to get away from her. Not that he thought he and Micah were in immediate danger from Kaab herself. But her family was another matter. The best course of action—or so he’d feverishly worked out while Kaab stood at the bar, pretending not to be spying on them in the mirror while he pretended not to be spying on her—was to muddy the waters. Right now, Kaab didn’t know how much Rafe knew, or who else might know. That meant the first order of business was to get Kaab away from Micah. Once he did so, Rafe was confident he could lose the Kinwiinik woman in the streets. Then it would be a matter of securing protection for them both.

As Kaab approached the table, she tripped—or gave a very good impression of doing so—and spilled the drinks she was carrying over Micah’s papers . . . and over Micah as well. “Oh, your calculations!” she cried. “They are ruined!”

Micah stood, brushing awkwardly at his clothes. “It’s all right. I remember everything. I can write it down again.”

Rafe, who had been caught off guard by this maneuver, saw his chance and took it. He rose to his feet, tossing the sack of turnips—and the papers he’d made sure Kaab had seen him add to it; papers snatched at random from the pile—over his shoulder. “Good idea. We’ll celebrate another time. Meanwhile, I’ve got something to do at home—that is, Fenton House.”

“Fenton House?” Kaab repeated. “I thought you did not get along with your father.”

“I don’t,” said Rafe. “But it’s never too late to patch things up. Especially with a nice gift.” He gave the sack an expressive shake.

“But those—” Micah began.

“Yes, yes,” Rafe said, cutting him off. “I haven’t forgotten what we talked about, and you haven’t either. I’ll see you both later.” And he slid away from the bench and began walking toward the door, forcing himself not to glance back over his shoulder.

“Wait!” came Kaab’s voice.

He stopped and turned, relief coursing through him.

“I will come with you,” she said. “I have business in that direction myself—family business.” She turned to Micah. “You should come too, Micah.”

“I have to go back to Rafe’s,” the boy said.

“We’ll catch up to you later,” said Rafe. “Come on, Kaab, if you’re coming.” And he turned again and made for the door. By the time he reached it, Kaab was at his side.

Their journey through the streets of the City, from the University to the Middle City, was one of the most unpleasant he had ever made.

“How’s Tess?” asked Rafe.

“Fine, fine,” said Kaab. “Are those turnips from Micah’s farm?”

“Yes, what of it?”

“I thought I could bring some to our cook,” Kaab said. “Introduce him to some of the better Local produce.”

“Very thoughtful of you.”

“Could you spare a few?”

“Sorry. These are all spoken for.”

“Not even one?” Kaab leaned sideways. “Here, let me choose it myself—you can make sure I leave the best!”

“Honestly, I wish I could, but I’m afraid my father would be cross with me if I didn’t bring him everything in this bag.”

For a moment, it seemed to Rafe that Kaab might actually try to wrest the sack away from him. Either that or draw the obsidian dagger she always wore at her side and plunge it into his. He had never been so grateful for a crowded street in his life. At last Kaab simply shrugged and said no more.

He’d hoped to shake her, but she stuck close, following him right up to the gates of Fenton House. “Perhaps you’d like to come in,” he offered politely.

“Another time,” she said. “I have pressing business of my own, as I mentioned.”

“A pity,” he said. “Thanks for the company, anyway. Don’t forget, you still owe me a drink.”

“That is the least I owe you,” she said.

Rafe felt her eyes upon him all the way up the walk and the stairs. He doubted a dagger would feel much more piercing. Indeed, a blade between the shoulders would be an anticlimax. He knocked; the door was opened by Loverage, an unflappable man who had served the Fentons for Rafe’s whole life.

“Master Rafe,” he said, raising one impeccably etched eyebrow. “We did not expect you.”

“To be honest,” said Rafe, slipping past him and into the coolness of the house with a feeling of immense relief, “neither did I. If anyone asks for me, tell them I’m with my father.”

“I’m afraid your father is not at home,” Loverage deadpanned.

“Good,” said Rafe. “Neither am I.”

He made straight for the kitchen and the door that opened into the alley behind the house. He feared and more than half expected to find Kaab waiting for him, but there was no one. Rafe drew a deep breath, hoisted the sack of turnips, and set off for the Hill and Tremontaine House, which, of course, had been his true destination all along.

Home, he’d said. Nor had he been lying. Wherever Will was, there was his home. He knew that now. In the moment when the enormity of Micah’s discovery had washed over him, he had not thought of the advantage this knowledge might win for his family’s business, but of Will, and of how Will would understand more than anyone in the world how best to use it for all people, not just the privileged few. Retracing his steps to the top of the Hill, Rafe felt, for the first time since he had agreed to Will’s terms, that there was nothing false in his position. He was going to Tremontaine House not as a secretary or even as a lover, but as Rafe Fenton, the man whose discovery would change everything.

 

Uncle Chuleb and Aunt Saabim were sitting side by side on mats and enjoying a late afternoon chocolate in the courtyard when Kaab burst in, out of breath, desperate to speak but dreading the necessity. Aunt Saabim took one look at her and dismissed the servants with a sharp clap of her hands. After that it was just the three of them in the cool, leafy courtyard, and the birds in the trees trilling their evening songs. Kaab wished she could listen to them forever. But she knew her duty.

“Well, what is it?” prompted Uncle Chuleb.

So she told him.

“They what?” he thundered.

Kaab swallowed dryly and glanced toward Aunt Saabim for reassurance—she did not find it in her aunt’s pinched expression where she sat beside her husband, hands folded over her rounded belly. There was nothing for it but to repeat the words she had composed and rehearsed under her breath as she ran home from Rafe’s precious Tremontaine House on the Hill.

“I have reason to believe the Xanamwiinik have learned the mysteries of the Four Hundred Siblings and deduced, or soon will deduce, the secret of crossing the North Sea.”

Uncle Chuleb sagged as if he’d been struck a blow.

“Oh, little bee,” said Aunt Saabim, “what have you done?”

Kaab bit her lip. She hated lying to them, but to tell the truth about that conversation with Rafe and Micah was just as impossible now as it had been all those weeks ago. “I’ve done nothing,” she said. “I swear it! I told you they were close to understanding. I warned you it might happen.”

“Tell us everything,” said Aunt Saabim.

Kaab did so, though her version of everything still left out quite a lot.

“So the Fenton boy knows,” said Uncle Chuleb heavily. “By now, his wretched father knows as well.”

“Not so,” said Kaab. “After he entered his family compound, I circled around to the back. Rafe had already tricked me once—I wasn’t going to let it happen again. Sure enough, he came out almost immediately. Believe me, Uncle, there was no time for him to speak to anyone of anything significant. Or to leave a note. He led me to that house as a ruse.”

Aunt Saabim smiled. “And you did not confront him. Well done, little bee. You are learning the virtues of restraint. We will make a good Trader of you yet.”

Her uncle grunted dubiously.

“I followed him to the Hill,” said Kaab. “To Tremontaine House.”

Another groan from her uncle. “Tremontaine House? That is a thousand times worse! Better you had slain him on the street than let him reach that viper’s nest!”

“In broad daylight? In front of a hundred witnesses? It would have been suicide, Uncle.”

“And would that not be an honorable death, Niece, if it protected our family?”

Kaab bowed her head. She had no answer to that.

Luckily, Aunt Saabim did. “It was clever of the Fenton boy to split them up like that. Even if she had killed him, the mathematician Micah was still at large.” She thought for a moment. “If Kaab had remained with Micah and taken care of her, would the situation have been improved?”

“No,” said Uncle Chuleb. “Either way, we are doomed. Once the news gets out, those upstart Cocoms will have all the leverage they need to convince His Majesty to revoke our Trading monopoly. We shall be lucky if we are left with our heads.”

This byplay gave Kaab time to gather her wits. “I think we are fortunate that Rafe went to Tremontaine House.”

“Explain,” said her uncle. “Because you and I must have a different understanding of the word ‘fortunate.’ Keep in mind that you are as close as you have ever been to ruin. Less than a breath away, Niece.”

Kaab looked him in the eye. “If Rafe had told his father, that would have been the end of it. Master Fenton is a greedy, grasping knave who cares about nothing beyond the swift gratification of his desires and the advertisement of his ego. But Tremontaine? The duchess is a more subtle creature.”

“A viper,” her uncle repeated.

“Even a viper does not strike blindly, without cause. But the Duchess Tremontaine is not a serpent but a spider. She spins her webs, planning for the future. She will not proclaim what she knows. She will hold it to her chest as tightly as we ourselves have done for all these many years. That is to our advantage. We know already that she is willing to bargain secretly with us. In this matter too, she will be approachable.”

“That is well reasoned, little bee.” Aunt Saabim turned to her husband. “You must admit that she has the right of it, dear.”

Uncle Chuleb gave a terse nod. “In our previous dealings with the duchess, we possessed a certain leverage. We had something she needed, and so she came to us. What is our leverage here? Enlighten me, Niece.”

“I don’t know,” said Kaab, then quickly added: “Yet. But there is something. That murdered man I told you about—Ben Hawke.”

“The one who was the protector of your Tess,” said Aunt Saabim.

Kaab nodded. “Remember I told you about the locket I saw the duchess wearing at the ball—the same locket that had been in Ben’s possession, and which I think may have been the cause of his death?”

Her aunt pursed her lips. “You think that may be our leverage?”

“I do,” said Kaab. “ I don’t exactly know how. But the duchess is hiding something. I’m sure of it.”

“You may be right,” said Uncle Chuleb. “Still, it is a slim thread to hang our hopes upon.”

“At present, there is no other,” said Aunt Saabim.

Her uncle grunted. “How do you mean to uncover this secret?”

“There is only one way,” said Kaab. “I will have to enter the spider’s web.”

 

Diane, Duchess Tremontaine, spread the silken folds of her dressing gown and settled softly on the cushioned window seat in the highest room of Tremontaine House, itself situated on the highest point of the Hill. From this privileged perch she gazed with satisfaction on what was, now more than ever, her city.

The sun in its lazy decline still painted the canted roofs of the big houses across the river and splashed the high, windowed facades of the old University buildings beyond them in profligate gold. The river, too, at the foot of the Hill—and thus, in a very real sense, laid at her feet—glittered as if covered with spilled coins, and the bridges joining the two halves of the City, old and new, past and future, shone like fanciful confections of glazed sugar in the waning afternoon light of a late spring day in which, or so it seemed to Diane, summer had announced itself for the first time.

She felt as sleek and contented as a well-fed cat in a sunbeam.

Her arrangement with the Kinwiinik Traders had gone through without a hitch, thanks to the efforts of Lord Davenant, the Dragon Chancellor of the Council of Lords, who lay sprawled across the daybed behind her, snoring lightly, his clothes in disarray after more recent efforts, equally successful, undertaken on her behalf. The tiresome difficulties that had preyed on her mind over the last months, since the loss of the Everfair, were as good as over. That dark cloud had lifted with the return of chocolate to the City, and soon, by the terms of the mutually beneficial understanding she had forged with the Traders, would follow the funds allowing her to redeem Highcombe and at last place the future of the Tremontaine family—her future—on unshakable financial ground.

In that regard, even as her gaze played appreciatively over the cityscape she knew so well but which had rarely appeared to her in a more attractive light than now, she was drafting a letter to Ahchuleb of the Balams in her mind, a letter she would write and dispatch to that shrewd foreigner once Lord Davenant—who was neither of those things, but had other virtues to recommend him—took his leave.

This was a note whose every word must find its target with the artful precision of a Riverside swordsman sparring with an opponent he one day might be called upon to dispatch in earnest.

A snort from behind her signaled her paramour’s return to consciousness. Smiling, Diane rose and turned to him. He remained as she had left him, shirt open, trousers likewise; there was an urgency and passion to their coupling that had been missing from her marriage of late, and which she enjoyed very much, in the manner of a brisk walk through gardens she had once loved to lounge in—though the Dragon Chancellor had the regrettable tendency, not unlike his namesake, of falling asleep over the body of the treasure he had pursued with such fevered zeal.

Davenant returned her smile, basking in her attention, confident in his effect on her. Her effect on him was already quite visible. “Come back to bed, Diane,” he growled.

“It is late, Gregory,” she replied, though in fact she was tempted to give in just this once. Instead, she walked to the small marble-topped table on which the paraphernalia of chocolate preparation awaited: the kettle, brazier, spouted chocolate pots, silver grater, the set of porcelain cups hand-painted with red roses, and various spices, sugars, and creams. “We’ve time enough for chocolate, and then I’m afraid I must dress for dinner.”

He sat up and began to make himself presentable. He had learned not to argue. Still, a petulant note crept into his voice. “Our trysts always end with chocolate.”

“That is because you do not give them time to begin with chocolate, or indeed with any other refreshment,” she said as she bent to her task.

“Your kiss is all the refreshment I require,” he said gallantly.

She laughed. It was pleasant to banter with her lover in this mindless way, to let her hands go through the practiced motions of readying the chocolate, while beneath the surface, in the ceaselessly turning mills of her mind, she worked out what she should say to Ahchuleb Balam.

It was not that she doubted the man’s word. He was, after all, a merchant, and merchants, however exotic they might appear, conducted themselves within the pettifogging constraints of written agreements. What concerned her was what had not been explicitly rendered into words: the spirit rather than the letter of the thing. A bond now existed between their houses; their interests—political, economic, social—were linked in subtle ways that went beyond the terms of the present understanding. Ever so gently, without seeming to do so, she must impress upon him (and his wife, Ixsaabim, who she knew was the real power in the family) that despite all this, theirs was not a partnership of equals. This was her city, and if the Balams forgot that, there would be a price to pay. It was the kind of challenge Diane relished.

“I do enjoy watching you prepare the chocolate,” said Lord Davenant, adjusting the fall of his collar. “There is something so domestic about it. Do you prepare it for the duke as well?”

“Jealous?” she asked in turn as she poured hot water from the kettle into the chocolate pot.

“Should I be?”

“That is a strange question to ask one’s lover about her husband.”

“You are no happier in your marriage than I am in mine,” he answered. “If only we were free to—”

Her laughter interrupted him. “I have all the freedom I require, Gregory, I assure you. As for happiness, why, only a fool expects that from marriage. I have something a good deal better, as do you.”

“And that is?”

“Position,” she said, and began grating the chocolate: superb stuff, a gift from Ahchuleb Balam. “But to answer your question, no, I do not prepare chocolate for the duke.” Or much of anything else these days, she thought with a bitterness that surprised her.

“Then I am fortunate, indeed,” he said, flushing with pleasure, “to receive such a mark of favor from your hands.”

She did not bother to inform him that it was for her own sake, not his, that she was teaching herself to become adept in the preparation of chocolate in the traditional way of the Kinwiinik. Months ago, when she had been a guest in the Balams’ house, she had taken particular care to observe the preparation of the chocolate that had been served to her. Such knowledge, she’d reasoned, might be turned to her advantage. In that meeting, she had been briefly wrong-footed by the fiery effects of the brew; that was a negotiating tactic she meant to adopt, even as she habituated herself to the potent mix of chili, corn, and allspice that the Kinwiinik themselves preferred, or so Ahchuleb had assured her. She would not be taken unawares again. She insisted upon preparing the drink herself, scorning the assistance of a maid, first because she found the ritual soothing, a means of focusing her thoughts, and second because she did not wish anyone else in her household to learn it.

“Are you certain you will not give the chili another try?” she asked, glancing up at him.

“My dear,” he said, the flush on his clean-shaven cheeks taking on a rather different hue, “that is one experience you have given me that I do not care to repeat. I will stick with my usual sugar and cream.”

“I thought you might,” she said as she added these final ingredients and handed the porcelain cup to Lord Davenant, who took it gingerly, as though the thorns painted upon its sides with such realistic flair might actually draw blood.

“You always ask me nevertheless,” he said, and sipped. “Why is that?”

“Because one day you may surprise me.”

“You like surprises, don’t you?” he said with a grin.

“That depends,” she answered, and sipped from her own cup. In truth, she had come to enjoy the flavorful heat of the spices . . . and even more the chilly exercise of willpower that kept all evidence of that heat from her voice and expression, though as yet she’d been unable entirely to banish a faint sheen of sweat from her brow.

“Depends on what?”

“On who is doing the surprising.”

“Perhaps I will surprise you now,” he said coyly. “Throw you down and ravish you. Would you like that?”

“Try it and find out,” she said, with no more expression to her voice or features than had been evident after her first sip of chocolate.

Lord Davenant assayed a smile; one side of his mouth complied. He raised the cup to his lips, drained it, and licked away the thin band of chocolate. “Another time,” he said, setting the cup down upon the table. “As you said, it is late.”

“Indeed.”

As quickly as that, something shifted between them. She saw him out of the room as warmly as ever, but now she was not at all certain that she cared to serve him chocolate again. Or anything else, for that matter. The man was so predictable. He was already starting to bore her. He had none of William’s imagination. None of his quickness of mind, his variety of interests. But she still needed the Dragon Chancellor. It was too soon to break things off. She must wait until the new tax situation had become established, so that the chancellor, spurned in love, could not revenge himself on her by reneging on his support for the deal. She must wait until she had the money in hand.

Diane sat at her desk and began drafting her letter to Ahchuleb of the Balams. Most of it she had already composed during her time with Lord Davenant. She had only to decide whether to introduce some allusion to the liaison between the girl Ixkaab and the Riverside forger known as Tess the Hand. The information had come to her from her swordsman Reynald—who, she reflected, was also in need of a reminder that theirs was not a partnership of equals.

That was the problem with employing such men. Swordsman, chancellor, or duke, sooner or later they always forgot their place.

The Balam girl was an interesting person. She had first come to Diane’s notice acting the part of a servant in the Balam household; honestly, it was only because the girl had prepared chocolate for her that Diane had noticed her at all. But then Diane had learned that the girl was Ixsaabim’s niece, recently arrived from across the sea. Whispers of a scandal had reached her ears, enough to convince her that Ixkaab Balam was not the innocent, enthusiastic young woman she appeared to be.

First, Kaab had cultivated the friendship of Rafe Fenton, the ambitious son of a powerful merchant family who had wormed his way into her husband’s employ . . . and into his bed. Further, Kaab had sought out the friendship—and, if Reynald was to be believed, the embraces—of the Riverside forger, while taking lessons in swordplay from Vincent Applethorpe, a man whose skills with a blade Reynald had described as “formidable”—high praise indeed coming from a man whose opinion of himself brooked no rivals.

Taken together, these actions struck Diane as purposeful, threads in a web whose overall shape was not yet clear. What was clear, though, was that the Trader girl was playing a part, or rather a succession of parts. This was something Diane understood very well and respected. Here was a worthwhile adversary, not to be underestimated.

Ixkaab’s ultimate purpose might be hidden, but her actions touched too closely upon the affairs of Tremontaine to be coincidence. The question was, how much did the girl know? One heard she was also asking at the back doors of certain noble houses about their masters’ relations with a certain Riverside pretty-boy, lately deceased. And that was where things got tricky, because while the agreement with the Balams had solved Diane’s money problems, it hadn’t eliminated the other danger, the one to her position. On the contrary. There were worse things than bankruptcy in the world.

What made information valuable was not what one knew but rather how one used what one knew. This was a truth that Diane had lived and thrived by. But it could also bring her down. The knowledge she possessed about Ixkaab and Tess was a minor scandal at best. Still, properly prepared for and skillfully placed, a hint that it was Tess’s forger’s skills, and not mere carnal pleasures, that had brought Tess to the attention of the Balam girl might be a useful card to play should the Balams forget their place.

But not, she decided, just yet. Better to leave the matter in Reynald’s hands for now. He had instructions to do nothing but report. She would watch and wait. And then, when the time was ripe, strike.

Diane smiled, flexing her slender fingers with their sleek nails against the creamy white paper on which she had been writing. The duke called this room her bower, her gentle falcon’s nest. Poor William. He mistook her in that as in so many things. He was a man given to deep thoughts, and too easily satisfied with what he saw on the surface, so in love with his own depths that it did not normally occur to him to look below the surface of others.

Indeed, what were others to him, really, but mirrors that reflected his own fascinating depths? How else, she thought, to explain his dalliance with the Fenton creature? What was it William embraced with such fervent passion that his groans pierced the thickest walls of the house, causing the servants to look at her—her!—with shame and pity in their eyes, but his own distorted reflection?

But of course Rafe was no mere reflection. He was, loath as she was to admit it, an intelligent, oh-so-ambitious young man. His influence over her husband was strong and growing stronger. It was not William’s body that Diane begrudged the boy; it was not even his heart.

It was his will, which had always been hers to command. She would not give that up without a fight. Not now, when she had come so far, accomplished so much. Indeed, she would not.

She sealed the letter and rang the bell to summon Lucinda, instructing her to have it delivered to the Balam residence by the usual means. Then she dressed and went down to dinner.

She waited for some time for William to join her but finally began without him.