Winterkeep Read online

  And yes, he had been in that situation. In fact, he was pretty sure he’d been on both sides of that situation. But it was hard to trust his own best instincts in giving her advice, since in those moments, it became achingly clear to him how badly he wanted her to jettison whatever man she was talking about.

  But he considered the question seriously, because she looked unhappy, and because she trusted him.

  “I know it’s hard to feel like you’re being kind,” he said, “when the truth you need to tell is going to be hurtful. There’s just no way around that. But when I look back, I most appreciate the people who were straightforward about it, you know?” Even a little merciless, if he was being honest, but he didn’t say that out loud. He didn’t trust his own intentions in advising Bitterblue to be merciless with some man she was kicking out of her bed. “It’s good to avoid ambiguity,” he said. “It helps everyone move on.”

  And then he waited, with various levels of agitation and self-enforced patience, until the man in question stopped being talked of, disappeared from court, and seemed unmissed. And then the next one came along, and he felt his age, the small income the Council granted him, his unworthiness, again. She was probably going to marry Katu Cavenda, once they figured out where he’d gone. Or she’d marry some earl, or at any rate, some man with a fortune and an unblemished past who deserved her, as much as anyone could deserve her. A good man.

  Giddon had discovered, in his Council travels, that he could be many different men, depending on whom he was with and what they needed from him. He didn’t like all the Giddons he could be. Some were manipulative or forceful. Some were even violent, which always reminded him uncomfortably of his past, for in his life before the Council, Giddon had been a bully on behalf of King Randa. Long, long before the Council had made him understand some things about himself, and kings, and power, and bullies, he’d been a small-minded man who did small things. Bitterblue knew. He didn’t have many secrets Bitterblue didn’t know. He was lucky she considered him a friend.

  This is enough, he thought. A life where I’m helping people, tricking corrupt kings, even dismantling monarchies is enough. What sense would it make anyway, for a queen to marry a lawbreaker? And then he would tell himself that it was time to write to Raffin and Bann, Katsa and Po, and propose a new assignment for himself, somewhere else.

  Somehow, though, he never found the time to write those letters.

  * * *

  —

  Late one morning in August, three months after Saf’s letter had arrived, Bitterblue came to Giddon’s door.

  Minutes before, he’d returned from the tunnels again; he’d just stripped off his shirt and dropped into bed when she knocked. He smelled like horses and mud. In fact, as he blundered across the room to answer the door, he found a streak of mud on his chest, which didn’t even make sense. It wasn’t like he led Estillans through the tunnels shirtless.

  Then he opened the door, saw Bitterblue, and woke up.

  She blinked at him. “Oh good,” she said. “I heard a rumor you were back.”

  “Come in while I find a shirt,” he said.

  “Don’t do it for my sake,” she said, which was one of the only flirtatious things she’d ever said to him in their entire acquaintance and subsequently threw him into such confusion that he decided to disappear into his bathing room on the pretense of cleaning up. Luckily he was filthy, so it was a believable retreat. Of course, while he was splashing water on himself, Lovejoy burst through the open window, nearly giving him a heart attack.

  When he came out a moment later, dressed and with what he hoped was an imperturbable expression, Bitterblue was curled up in his big chair with Lovejoy purring in her lap. It made his heart hurt.

  She waved a letter at him. “You know Skye’s in Winterkeep now?” she said. “He’s written a letter and I haven’t opened it yet. I wanted to read it with you. In case it’s bad news.”

  He paused, studying her. “You’re worried about Katu,” he said. “You’re serious about Katu, aren’t you?”

  “I’m serious about making sure he’s okay,” she said, that pucker appearing between her eyebrows. “And I’m terrified of learning that my men were drowned on purpose. If they were, I won’t be able to forgive myself.”

  “Bitterblue,” he said, sitting on the big chair beside her. “If something like that happened, then it’s entirely the responsibility of the person who drowned them.”

  “I know,” she said, then raised her eyes to his face. “But you know how it is.”

  Of course he did. The queen felt responsible for everyone. “I know.”

  She opened the letter and held the page out for him to see, her fingers flashing with gold. “The key is ‘bratty little brother,’” she said, which was adorable, as it had to be a reference to Skye’s brother Po, who was a grown man and the furthest thing from a brat. But it was also superfluous information, as Bitterblue would decipher the entire letter in the time it took Giddon to make out the first line.

  “Saf’s decided Katu really has left Winterkeep without saying goodbye,” she said grimly, reading. “Katu left no forwarding address and his boat is gone. His family and friends say he’s off adventuring, as usual. Saf checked with Katu’s banker and apparently Katu’s drawn money from banks in Kamassar and Borza, with his own checks.”

  “Well, that’s reassuring,” Giddon said.

  “But how could he leave without canceling his appointment with Saf?” said Bitterblue. “And without writing to me?”

  “Maybe he wrote to you and his letter got lost.”

  “Yes, maybe,” she said, still deciphering the letter. “I hope so. Skye says here that Saf has been swimming with the silbercows.”

  “The telepathic seals, or whatever they are?”

  “They’re bigger than seals, and purple, but yes. He says the silbercows keep showing Saf an image of a many-windowed house on a cliff, and a shadow in the sky that looks like an airship. Then, a disturbance in the water nearby. A serious disturbance. Like, everything changes.”

  “What do you mean? Changes how?”

  “He says that in the image, the ocean is normal, then suddenly there’s a blinding light and no water and the silbercows are in pain.”

  “Okay,” said Giddon, to whom that meant nothing. “All we need now is a vague remark about zilfium and the letter will be completely incomprehensible.”

  “He says that now the Katu mystery is solved, he and Saf are going to Mantiper together. The Mantiperans are looking for a sea passage east to Lienid. Saf and Skye are going to join the efforts.”

  Mantiper was the Torlan nation farthest from Winterkeep, so far east that Saf and Skye would likely be gone for a long time, sailing in uncharted waters. “That sounds dangerous.”

  “Yes. But it sounds like they’re happy,” Bitterblue said with a small, winsome smile. “Ah,” she added. “Here’s a bit about zilfium. He says that no one in the Keepish government likes to talk about this, but the Torlan continent is running low on zilfium. Some mines in Winterkeep and Kamassar are closing.” Then she stopped, stared. Something changed in her face. “Giddon,” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “Saf says zilfium is most often found near native silver.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Zilfium rock and native silver are formed by the same geologic activity. Where there’s native silver, there’s likely to be zilfium.”

  “Okay,” said Giddon, not understanding why her face grew oddly furious. Then remembering that the largest and richest deposits of native silver on the Royal Continent were in Monsea.

  “Do you think that the mountains in Monsea have zilfium?” he asked her cautiously.

  “Would you excuse me for a minute?” she said, standing stiffly, so that the cat went sprawling.

  “Of course,” he said, but she was already at the door,
the cat yowling around her feet. A moment later, the door slammed behind them both.

  Abruptly alone, Giddon didn’t know what to do with himself. He was so exhausted that while he was trying to decide, he began to fall asleep in the big chair. He’d just made it across the room and fallen onto the bed when she knocked again, then came storming in without waiting for his answer. She stopped in the middle of the room and stood there with her eyes on fire and her fists clenched, and Giddon was amazed, as he always was when she was angry, at how much power, fury, and force her person could convey.

  “Do you know,” she said, “that a number of different Keepish importers have been buying the rock detritus from my silver mines for the past three years, for almost no money?”

  “What?” said Giddon blearily, stupidly, but then he understood.

  She pulled a piece of paper out of a pocket and waved it at him. “I thought it was odd,” she said, her voice rising, “but I’ve been too busy to focus on it. I figured they used it for some building process. Winterkeep doesn’t have our mountains, they don’t have our rock.”

  “Of course,” said Giddon. “It was natural for you not to focus on it.”

  “They have been stealing our zilfium!” she practically yelled, her body electric with rage. “They’ve been taking advantage of our ignorance of a resource far more valuable than silver! Tricking me, our miners, our scientists. You should see the names on this list! It’s practically every important family in Ledra! Balava Importing. Tima Importing. There’s even a Cavenda company on this list, probably some horrible relation of Katu’s! What kind of people do this? What kind of nation? My kingdom can’t help its backwardness,” she cried. “We were trapped under the reign of a psychopath who made monuments to himself and buried science and burned books and murdered anyone who tried to break free of it, for thirty-five years! Winterkeep has airships and brilliant schools and brilliant industries and I can’t even teach my people to read! And they saw that, and they saw my silver mines, and they decided to trick me out of wealth I had that I could’ve used. To fund a school, one as brilliant as the Winterkeep Academy!”

  Giddon knew the tears running down her face were tears of fury. At the Keepish; at her father, King Leck; at her life; on behalf of the lives of everyone in Monsea who’d suffered. He went to her and put his arms around her.

  “Tell me whom to kill,” he said.

  That made her laugh, and the laughter transitioned her to the other kind of crying. The harder kind for Giddon, because it was about her grief, and he couldn’t lessen that.

  “You’re doing everything any human being could do for Monsea,” he said. “More. You are being amazing.”

  “Giddon,” she said, soaking his shirt with her tears. “What if Mikka and Brek died because they were going to tell me that my own nation is rich with zilfium?”

  “Then someone in Winterkeep is a murderer and is going to pay,” he said.

  “But I sent them there.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “But—”

  “It’s not your fault,” he repeated firmly. “It’s your burden. But it’s not your fault. There’s a difference.”

  She sniffled for a while, thinking about that. “Yes,” she said. “I see what you mean.” Then, a moment later, she said, “Giddon, did I wake you up? Twice?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I haven’t even asked you how it went this time in the tunnels. I’m sorry.”

  “It was fine,” he said, though it hadn’t been, not really, for the soldiers in the Estillan forests had been harder to skirt than ever, and the increase was rumored to be at the orders of Lord Joff, home from his trip to the Monsean queen. Why? Also, along with their blades and bows, the soldiers were carrying a flag Giddon hadn’t recognized. One of the refugees had told him it was the flag of the new Estillan regime. It was just a flag—Giddon kept telling himself it was just a flag—but it was eerily like the Monsean flag. Bitterblue’s flag showed a mountain peak rising behind water with a single gold star above, shining in a dark sky. The new Estillan flag showed a similar mountain peak rising behind hills, and a similar star above, except that their star was shaped like a sword with a cross guard. And the sky was red like blood.

  “I’ll tell you the details later,” he said.

  “I’m glad you’re home,” she said, throwing Giddon into another confusion, because he had no home anymore; he spent his life on the road, in the company of strangers. This court was merely where he was staying, until the Council needed him to be someone else, somewhere else.

  “I’m going to Winterkeep,” she added, pulling away from him and mopping her face with her sleeve.

  “What?” he said, startled.

  “I’ve been receiving invitations from the Keepish Parliament for some time now. I think it’s time I went there myself, and made some things clear. Meet the importers on this list who’ve been cheating me, and learn more about the ship that went down. Make sure Katu is really okay.”

  “Bitterblue,” he said in alarm. “Aren’t those jobs you can delegate?”

  “My last two delegates drowned.”

  “Well then, could it be dangerous? Send someone.”

  “They’re not going to kill the Queen of Monsea,” she said scornfully.

  “All right,” he said, changing tactics, “but aren’t you needed here? Since when do you have the time for a trip like that?”

  “How could it not be worth a queen’s time to see the workings of more advanced nations?”

  “But don’t you get seasick?”

  Bitterblue began to laugh. “Listen to you,” she said. “I’m going, Giddon.”

  But I like myself best when I’m around you, he didn’t say. I try the hardest when I’m with you. Don’t leave.

  “Giddon?” she said, turning those steady, trusting gray eyes upon him. “Does the Council have any interest in seeing Winterkeep?”

  Chapter Four

  Lovisa Cavenda slipped down the corridor and stopped outside her Politics of Trade classroom, tucking herself against the wall.

  A professor walked by, not even glancing at her. Lovisa could make herself as still and uninteresting as a wall fixture. It was one of the benefits of being small.

  She was early, as usual. The previous class was still in the room. Behind the closed door, she heard the even cadence of her mother’s voice, her faint northern accent, strong and assured; the occasional laughter of the class, engaged in the lesson. Every class taught by Lovisa’s mother, Ferla Cavenda, had a waiting list as long as this corridor. Students threw themselves against her high standards and competed for her approval. They wanted to be challenged by her.

  Bullied by her? thought Lovisa, who’d grown up in Ferla’s house and knew the line was indistinct.

  A pair of younger students, heads bent together and giggling, came down the corridor, not noticing Lovisa until they were practically upon her. She memorized their faces, their clothing, their silly conversation about someone they both had a crush on; then leveled an expressionless gaze upon them when they finally saw her.

  Dropping into a startled silence, the two students hurried on. Lovisa watched them go, suppressing a shiver. A fire was crackling in the foyer fireplace around the corner, but September was chilly in Ledra.

  Then someone else came down the corridor and Lovisa stood up straight. It was her own father.

  “Papa!” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Lovisa,” he said, coming to her with open arms, pulling her into a hug. He was a big man, stylishly dressed in a long, dark fur coat as usual, gold scarves at his throat and his black hair cut close. He smelled as he always did, like the warm, spicy teas he drank, and his brown face was different from hers in its striking handsomeness, strong boned and finely chiseled like a sculpture.

  “How have you been?” he said.
<
br />   “I’m fine,” said Lovisa, then repeated, “What are you doing here?” Her father was a politician and a businessman. She rarely saw him during the week. “Is anything wrong?”

  “Of course not,” he said. “I merely thought I’d take my wife out to lunch. Would you like to join us?”

  “I have class.”

  “You should come home for dinner tonight, sweetheart.”

  Behind the closed door, her mother’s voice grew louder, then the door opened and Ferla’s bonded blue fox bolted out of the classroom and down the passageway. Good riddance, Lovisa thought, watching the animal go, for she had no fondness for her mother’s fox. Blue foxes in Winterkeep, which were actually more gray than blue, had the ability to bond telepathically to humans. The bonding was an opening of an exclusive mental pathway between one human and one fox, initiated by the fox. It allowed the fox and the human to share their thoughts and feelings with each other, for the rest of their lives. And Ferla’s fox served as Ferla’s smelly, devoted spy, nosing around, snooping, and telling on Lovisa and her little brothers whenever they misbehaved.

  Ferla glanced out into the corridor. When she saw her daughter, her expression remained impassive. Then she saw her husband and surprise touched her small face. Some silent communication passed between them.

  “I’ll be with you in a moment,” she said quietly, then turned back to the room to dismiss her class. “Next time we meet,” she called out, “I expect an opinionated debate on the topic of chapter two.” Students picked up their belongings and began moving, chatting, forming groups, spilling out into the corridor. By the time Lovisa and Benni entered the room, Ferla had gathered her things and was heading toward the door.