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  The green glow of the lantern threw flickering goblin shadows beneath Jean's eyes and mouth. “Why is that?”

  “The Cwen wash and clothe the boys before they get on the boat. They knew she was a femmina.”

  Marion’s head felt like it was full of angry hornets. Of course the Cwen knew, unless this woman was very, very clever and resourceful, and what he'd seen of her so far didn't convince him of that. He pushed aside the question for more immediate concerns. “Where's my pack?”

  Jean looked over his shoulder. “Um. I dropped it. It was making noise.”

  “Get it. A little food might bring her around. She looks weak.”

  Jean grunted. “She looks dead.”

  Marion peered upward, trying to see the top of the villa tower they had found her under. The pale structure was outlined against the moody clouds obscuring the moon, which seemed to glow with hidden light. “Did you see how far she fell?”

  “No, but she's not bleeding.” Jean knelt and gingerly reached out with a finger to touch the side of her neck. “She's got a steady pulse. No blood from her nose or ears. Maybe donne are built differently. They say they can land on their feet like cats.”

  “That's shite. She's as human as you or me.” Marion looked at the woman with pity. “Why would her own people do this to her? I thought the Cwen hated men.”

  “Maybe they hate her more.”

  “Get the pack. I'll check her bones for breaks.” He offered Jean the lantern.

  “You keep it. I know my way around here blindfolded.”

  The waterline of a saltwater pool came up to the ruined steps of the villa, eroding the cement and stone from beneath with the deep patience of the marsh. The floor made crackling noises as he crossed it, and Marion began lifting and placing his boots gingerly, aware that there might be a sinkhole beneath the foundation. He shrugged his coat off and put it over the woman, then placed the lamp near her and backed away, watching her from his side of the light.

  She was shorter than a youth, and the prominent brow lines that would have appeared by now on a boy were not there. The bones of her feet were narrow and her soles were laced with shallow cuts where she had tried to make her way barefoot up the tower ruins. Her hands seemed tiny, almost like a doll’s.

  That's what women look like, he thought, marveling at her. I imagined them bigger, more warlike. How can they hold so much power and still be so small?

  He'd had been too young to fight when the Cwen ships landed, before the Peace, but he knew the stories. The women wore steel armor and fought with sword and axe and even guns. He'd seen a revolver once, under glass in Kon Sessane's library. He didn't know if it worked.

  He tried to picture this slight female in armor and failed utterly. I could break her in half. Is she even the same kind of female as the Cwen? With enough light to see, he very carefully felt the woman's arms and legs. He couldn't find any obvious injuries. He lifted her sweater and pressed on her belly, looking for the discoloration that would signal internal bleeding. He intended to avoid looking at her chest when her sweater was raised, but then he found he couldn't not look.

  Marion’s brows drew together quizzically and he tilted his head, confused at the way the strange, soft mounds on her chest made him feel. He decided he liked the look of them, their curved smoothness and the pink peaks. He tried to imagine how they would look on a man, but that seemed wrong and odd, even comical. Then he tried to imagine them on Tris, and he felt a line of shocking heat blazing down to groin. It was like a warm hand stroking his shaft, making his member begin stiffen at once.

  Marion gasped and dropped the edge of her sweater as if it burned him, scooting away from her, his throat with astonishment and even fear. Paladin save him, was that a woman's power over men? If so, it was a potent one. He'd never felt anything like it.

  Footsteps thumped on the path. He stood and held the lantern higher, his face hot. He felt unaccountably guilty.

  Jean came into the light, holding the pack. He dropped it at Marion's feet just as a loud snap came from the marsh.

  Marion threw himself to the side as an arrow slammed deep into the wall, barely missing his ear. “Jean!” He rolled, got one knee under his body and pushed to his feet.

  A dark object swung toward his face. Marion backpedaled, narrowly avoiding catching the heavy crossbow on his chin. He stumbled and fell.

  “Hold still, fish-bait! Bastardo!”

  A man kicked him in the ribs. Only the wall prevented him from rolling into a pool of silt.

  “Stay where you are, fancyman.”

  Marion counted three gangers, maybe four. He couldn't see Jean.

  “Ah-ah! Get le mani where I can see them.”

  Marion obeyed, raising his hands, a shard of the wall poking into his shoulder blade. The crossbow was loaded with two quarrels, over and under. Only the lower arrow had been loosed. The upper was pointed at his chest.

  Marion heard a whimper and looked in the corner. The woman was awake and staring.

  “Calma,” Marion said carefully. “Calma, signori. No need for blood here.”

  “I'll be the man to decide that.” The ganger looked away from Marion to the woman and grinned. “Little young for you, isn't he? You nasty piece of work, I saw you peeking at the wee thing when he was asleep.”

  I pray that's all you saw.

  The ganger aimed the crossbow vaguely in the woman's direction. “Hsst! You there, boy! Scat! Vada via!”

  The woman regarded the ganger with eyes like marbles. She scooted back against the wall, her eyes darting from side to side, then she leapt up like a deer and ran.

  The ganger laughed, and Marion got his first good look at him.

  I have the worst luck.

  Franny styled himself as The Crab now, but Marion could see no reason for the title in this short man with a hooked nose and mouse-brown hair. It must have been for the blue tinge to his skin. As a boy, Franny had been whiny and stupid. As a man, he would sell his own father for a pint of beer.

  “Easy come, easy go,” Franny chuckled. “Losing that one’s not going to win you any points with the old cock, is it? I know how he feels about his pretty boys.” He smacked his lips. “Maybe I'll just track that little one down myself. Granchio will show him what it means to be a man.” He looked over his shoulder to his comrades. “Look what we have here, lads! Marion Casterline, lord high pissmuck himself.” He giggled. “D'ya remember me, Marion?”

  He wished he didn't. “Go fuck yourself, Franny.”

  “Francis!” Franny bent down and shouted into Marion's face. Spittle flew from his mouth. “My name is fucking Francis!”

  Marion wiped his chin. “Whatever you say, Fucking Francis.”

  Franny punched him in the eye. Marion slumped and listened to his ears ring. He licked his lips. “Where'd you get the balestra, Fucking Francis?”

  Franny hit him again. Marion's eyes crossed and his head felt like a cantaloupe after a good rain, swollen and ready to burst. He slumped and moaned.

  Franny laughed meanly. “You never did know when to shut your mouth, you stupid limp dick.” He motioned imperiously to his crew. “Take the pack. I'll take that coat and pretty pin, too, and his boots. Tie the bastardo up and leave him.”

  Franny stepped back and held the crossbow cocked upward, tilting his head back to shout. “Jean! I know you're out there, Jean!”

  Jean's voice floated to them from the dark. “And I know where you are.”

  Shut up, Marion thought. Jean should have been following the woman. Why was he still here?

  Franny giggled as the gangers stripped Marion of his boots and began to lash his arms behind his back. “Aren't you coming to get your boy, Jean?”

  “Take the pack,” Jean called. “There's food and a skin of wine in it. Take anything you want, but if you hurt Marion, I'll be the one coming after you. Not the wardens, Granchio. Not the guardiers. Me.”

  That seemed to sour Franny's jovial mood. “Hasten up, you slugs. Take it
and go. Move!” Franny shooed and kicked the gangers into the dark, then lurked over Marion with the arrow aimed at his eye.

  Marion heard footfalls pounding east in the marsh and the gangers hooting in victory. The pack contained young wine and olive bread with cheese, smoked crab and a lush red apple Tris had chosen himself. Gangers ate well one night out of a month, maybe, and to them it must have been a treasure hoard of goods. He remembered what that was like.

  Franny stroked the crossbow against Marion's cheek. The steel arrowhead scratched his jaw.

  “Say it. Say my name. The right one.”

  Marion set his teeth, but the arrowhead pressed into his jugular next. “Granchio,” he growled. “Happy now?”

  “Nice seeing you, warden.”

  He smiled. “You'll be seeing me again, Francis.”

  Then he was alone. The lantern battery was dying before Jean finally knelt beside him to untie his ropes.

  “Sorry to take so long. The lantern was lighting you up nicely,” Jean said apologetically. “Fucking Francis could have pinned me from fifty yards away with that balestra. Where'd a shit-stain ganger like him get such a fancy weapon?”

  Marion rubbed circulation back into his wrists. “Damn it, why didn’t you follow her?” he snapped.

  “You know why.”

  One look at Jean told Marion everything. The woman was their first responsibility, but Jean would never leave him in the hands of gangers, no matter the cost.

  “He pinched it, naturally,” Marion said, setting his anger aside. “Franny isn't smart enough to make one himself. Did you see which way our boy went?”

  Jean shook his head.

  Marion’s coat was gone, and the highwarden badge that had cost the magestros a small fortune. Losing his boots was the least of it.

  “I know how much you’re blaming yourself right now,” Jean said. He took Marion's bruised wrists in his hands and rubbed them. “But you couldn’t have known this was going to happen.”

  Marion pulled his hands away. “I'm the highwarden, Jean. It’s my job to know.”

  Jean rose. “Then you should be prepared for a reckoning. Are you?”

  “No.”

  They found the path quickly, Marion holding the dying lantern high for maximum light. Jean followed a few paces behind, and Marion grabbed for his arm and steadied him when Jean stumbled on something that gave to his boot with a soft thud. Marion lowered the lantern to scan the ground, expecting a cypress log or hump of eelgrass.

  “Paladin save us,” Jean uttered in shock.

  The body was still warm. A wisp of steam rose from the blood pooling under his head. An arrow protruded upright from the dead man’s neck, fletched in black. His doe-brown eyes were turned to jade green by the lantern light.

  “Yves,” Marion mourned. He swallowed hard and his eyes stung. “Damn it, Yves.”

  TRIS

  Aequora, Venticinque

  (Day 25)

  Tris touched the side of the kettle. It had gone cold and the gas bottle that fired the stove was empty. He could have gone out to the market to have it filled, or sent for a coachman to do it for him, but he was tired and upset and it seemed too much effort.

  Marion was very late. A full day late, with no word.

  His blueprints were scattered on a table in the hall, but he hadn't seen Paris, though he'd asked after him. He'd been dreading a meeting with Paris after the Corsair, but now he wished Paris had been there so he could have gotten it over with, not brought this worry home with him to add to the others. He also could have asked if there was word from Marion.

  He considered sending a message to his father to ask the same thing. It was dark and the heliograph towers would be closed, leaving the remaining options of the telegraph booth at the gates of the Myrtles or a private runner. Inquiring was not the same as interfering in warden business or keeping tabs on his promessa, yet it was a fine point and one that wouldn't hold water with Marion.

  Tris pushed the window above the sink open, looking out over the Canal Tignola that ran parallel to the manor house. Humid night air sighed restlessly though the myrtle trees, and not far away the wistful notes of a tenor aria floated to him. He cocked his head and listened. The singer had talent, the notes pure and ringing, and he wondered if the singer was a guest of the house or the master. He hoped for the latter. It would be pleasant to have musicians for neighbors.

  He enjoyed the music for a while, smiling when the strings of a violin joined in. He drifted, his eyes closed, then the music ceased abruptly, jarring him back to the present. His mind inevitably turned to the papers falling from the sky at the Gran Consiglio. If he had only known the danger Marion was in, he would have refused to leave.

  And then what? You wouldn’t have been any help to him. You’re useless as a swordsman, and even worse as a brawler.

  The music began again, but Tris sighed and closed the window, his enjoyment spoiled. Perhaps he should send a message to Paris, at least. Awkwardness aside, Paris would know if anything went wrong at Aequora. Maybe he should just get it over with and contact him.

  Ever since he was a boy, Kon had been maneuvering him into carefully-orchestrated trials and situations where he had to examine his path and choose. Often, it was a path that he had not known he desired, but then Kon's manipulations proved he should have chosen otherwise. Was that what Kon wanted?

  Tris rubbed an aching spot on his temple, annoyed. Kon was forever saying that a man couldn't anticipate every result of his actions, and yet he had trained Tris to do just that. Of course his father wanted him to change his mind.

  Kon had objected to the marriage. Why else would he beguile Tris into a situation with Paris, knowing that it could have ruined everything with Marion? What if he hadn't left the Corsair when he did, and Marion had come home to find him gone? Would he have explained or kept it a secret?

  But I didn't keep it a secret. Tris frowned. Lying had its place. It was useful in politics, but marriage? Marion's proposal had been sweet and sincere. He hadn't mentioned love, only affection and caring, loyalty, and the life they could build. All of that had appeal, of course, but the prize was Marion.

  Tris asked himself how much the same proposal would have sounded coming from Paris, and feared the answer. Perhaps he was too taken with Marion, getting married because it was what Marion wanted, doing exactly what Kon always warned him against: acting without thinking, thinking with his heart.

  He opened the door of the marble cold safe and saw beer and beef; two of Marion's favorite foods, neither of which he was in the mood for. The ice compartment would need refilling, too. Another chore he must remember.

  He stood in the chilly drift of air from the safe and thought with regret of the lavish dinner Kon had ordered and how flustered the poor waiters must have been when they'd returned to find the room empty.

  If father tries to send me that bill, I'll kill him. Or he'd send it to Paris. That would be amusing.

  He wandered into the parlor, wiping sweat from his forehead. His hair had come undone from the green ribbon tied at his nape, damp tendrils tickling his neck. He pulled the ribbon free and dropped it on a table.

  The room was hot and his thin shirt was sticking to his skin. He paused by the bookcase and brushed his fingers over the familiar leather spines, idly reading titles. He was in the mood to climb to the upper balcony and read in cooler air, but he'd need a book suitable to reading under the moon by candlelight; a romance or a mystery.

  Tris noticed the new books Marion had given him and frowned, puzzled by Marion's choices. He liked none of them. Did Marion think he read school books for leisure? For relaxing, he preferred a good romance or adventure, but the titles Marion had chosen were all academic: A History of Malakhan Trade Customs and Tariffs, by Bovari. He'd had quite enough of Bovari during his school years. Dry as stale bread. The others were just as bad: foot bridge construction, recipes for brewing beer, anatomical drawings of dissected birds, and one on the subject of making firearms:
Art of the Marksman. The author was unsigned. Anonymous.

  The marksman book was slim and leather-bound, taller and narrower than most volumes. A strange symbol was embossed on the cover in gold; the letter A enclosed in a rough circle. He didn’t recognize it. The leather was stained a vivid purple, which went pleasantly with the gold. Inside were detailed schematics of firearm construction, parts and measurements, recipes for incendiaries and projectiles. It felt heavier in his hand than it should be.

  Tris flipped through the pages, intrigued in spite of himself. He'd never make a swordsman, but he might have made a good marksman, or a bowman. Like a bow, a pistol needed only a good eye and a steady arm, and he had both. Andreja Paladin had wielded a bow when he drove out the first Starless Men. That was fifteen hundred years ago, and while the pistol became an outlawed weapon and the Starless Men drifted east, the legend of Paladin remained.

  Tris was turning for the stairs when the front door opened. He hadn't locked it, and he hadn't heard a lowcoach.

  Paris stepped through the front door and closed it behind him.

  Tris froze and the book fell from his hands. It landed on a section of bare marble floor with a loud slap. His brows drew together in real anger. Any trepidation he might have felt at the carcelero's sudden arrival was quashed by the man's effrontery. “How dare you enter my house uninvited?”

  Paris knelt and retrieved the book. “I apologize for the lateness of my visit.”

  “Visit?” Tris tried to snatch the book from Paris's hand. Paris jerked it away. “This is no visit. You can't simply walk into my home without leave, messere, however familiar you imagine our relationship.”

  “Imagine?” Paris smiled. “As I recall, we were very familiar in the Corsair.”

  Tris refused to be embarrassed into backing down. “This game has turned vulgar, and you've forgotten your manners. Worse, you're boring me. Now give me my book and get out.”

  Paris turned the book in his hands and read the spine. “Who gave this to you?”

  Tris held out his hand. “That's none of your concern. Get out of my house.”