‘Why, nothing.’ The landlady flicked crumbs from her blouse and gave a shrug as dour as a fisherman’s. ‘Let these outsiders untangle their own misadventures. We’re not traderfolk, to hang our daily lives upon rumours. The mackerel won’t swim to the net any better should we buy and sell talk like informants. If Arithon’s evil, that’s his own affair. He tried no foul acts in our village.’ But her forceful, brusque note as she ended spoke of doubts irrevocably seeded.
The landlady folded the linen she had used to pack the scones. ‘With only two bodies found to be counted, Prince Lysaer wished you to hear there may have been other survivors.’ As she arose and smoothed her skirts over her ample thighs, she added on afterthought, ‘His Grace seems anxious to know the number of Shearfast’s crew. They were Arithon’s people, I told him.’
Miserable and mute, Jinesse watched the other woman sweep past the pantry to let herself out. Paused at the threshold on departure, her full-lipped, cattiest smile as much for Lysaer’s young officer, listening at his post outside the doorway, the landlady concluded her last line. ‘I said, why ever should we care?’
The following morning, the Prince of the West presented himself at the widow’s cottage for a visit. By then, he had made enough inquiries to know that her husband had drowned a year past in a fishing accident. Whatever her attachment to the men who had crewed the lost Shearfast, he came prepared to treat her grief with compassion. As his escort, he brought a pair of neatly appointed guardsmen to relieve the one on duty in the yard.
The elegance and manners of old blood royalty should not have upset her poise, Jinesse thought. Arithon’s disconcerting, satirical directness had never made her feel embarrassed for unrefined origins, nor had his bearing afflicted her with apologetic confusion over whether or not she should curtsy.
Resplendent in glossy silk, and a chain of gold and matched sapphires, Lysaer stepped across the waxed boards of her parlour and caught her chapped fingers away from her habitual urge to fidget. ‘Come sit,’ he insisted.
He spun her gently to a chair. The shutters on the window were latched against the morning, the gloom pricked by leaked light through the cracks where the wood was poorly fitted. Clad in dark skirts and a laced bodice of brown twill, Jinesse looked more faded than usual. Her cheeks were drawn and her eyes as tintless as the palest aquamarine.
Memories of another prince in rough linen who had set her just as deftly on a woodpile dogged her thoughts as she sought once again to plumb royal character through a face. Where Arithon had shown her discomfiting reticence and a perception forthright enough to wound, Prince Lysaer seemed candid and direct as clear sunlight. His dress was rich without being ostentatious. The breathtaking effect of overpowering male beauty he countered in personal warmth that lent an effect no less awesome.
The study he flicked over the room’s rude interior held detached interest, until the fired glitter of the fine, cut glass bowl on her dish shelves snagged his interest. His surprise was genuine as he crossed the room on a stride. The sculpted shape of his hand bore an uncanny resemblance to Arithon’s as he lifted the Falgaire crystal from the shelf.
‘Where did you get this?’
Jinesse’s answer was cold. ‘I received it as a present from a friend.’
Lysaer recrossed the floor, set the bowl on the chest by the window, then unlatched and flung wide the shutters. Sunlight streamed in, and the salt scent of breakers, cut by the shrill calls of the gulls. The facets of the crystal responded in an incandescent flare of captured brilliance.
‘A lovely gift, Falgaire glasswork,’ Lysaer said. He found the battered stool the twins liked for whittling and perched. ‘I shan’t hide the truth. I know you accepted this bowl from Arithon s’Ffalenn, though no doubt you would have declined his generosity had you known where he first obtained it.’
When Jinesse did not favour him with more than her stony-eyed quiet, Lysaer sighed and fingered the faceted rim. Broken light caught in the jewels of his rings, an icy point of cold at each knuckle. ‘I know this piece well. It was granted to me during a state visit by the Mayor of Falgaire, then stolen in a raid by barbarians allied with the Shadow Master. You would do well to take heed. The man is a threat to every city in Athera, your own children even now at his mercy. You knew him well enough to receive his favour. Perhaps you also heard the name of the port that will come to shelter him next. Were this campaign in sole charge of Duke Bransian of Alestron, or my Commander-at-Arms, Lord Diegan, either one would use means to force the information from you. I shall give no such orders. Your collusion is a tragedy and I pity your twins. But I shall not try abuse to gain my ends. Your Master of Shadow held no such scruple with the man he took prisoner, who claims to have fired his shipyard.’
‘Arithon kept no one captive,’ Jinesse insisted.
Lysaer did not miss how her gaze stayed averted from the bowl. That’s a falsehood most easily disproved. The wretch we saved off the Shearfast was left bound there to burn. Once we got him cleaned up, he was recognized as a former captain of Duke Bransian’s, who had reason to bear malice toward your Master.’
‘Why not go back and question him?’ Jinesse said, a struck spark of iron in her tone.
Lysaer met her with patience. ‘When the victim regained his wits, he talked well enough. He said he had torched the s’Ffalenn ship works, and for that, suffered rough interrogation. The scars on his body attest his honesty.’
‘Arithon never beat him,’ Jinesse said.
‘No.’ Lysaer regarded her in level, brutal truth. ‘Alestron’s officers did that for what looks like mishandled justice. What Captain Tharrick received from your Shadow Master were burns, inflicted with a knife blade heated red-hot, then assault with a bludgeon that left knots in his sides from broken ribs. Not pretty,’ he finished. ‘The additional blistering he suffered from the flames before he was rescued from Shearfast cause him pain aboard an anchored galley. My healer says he needs stillness and rest. Therefore, I came to beg your charity. Let Tharrick come to your cottage to recover from his injuries. My servant will be sent to administer remedies as needed. After seeing this man’s condition first-hand, you may reconsider your opinion on the criminal your silence comes to shelter.’
Too upright to feign horror, since every mark on Tharrick’s body was already infinitely well known to her, Jinesse sat braced in her chair. The depths of her feelings stayed masked behind acid and painful politeness. ‘Bring your injured man here. I refuse none in need. But lest you hope falsely, my kindness to an outsider will lend no more credence to your plotting.’
‘Very well.’ Lysaer stood in a frosty sparkle of disturbed gemstones. ‘I see I’ve upset you. That was necessary. My concern for the dangers you refuse to acknowledge is no light matter for dismissal. Two of my guards will stand watch at your door. Having suffered the tragic consequences of s’Ffalenn cunning all my life, I realize the allure he can foster. Knowing, I stake no less than my personal assurance of your safety.’
‘I wish no protection,’ Jinesse said, obstinate.
Lysaer inclined his head in regal sympathy. ‘I can hope you’ll reconsider, if only to help your lost children. Have no fear. The ones in the village who disagree with your stand shall not be permitted to badger you. Should you wish to confide in me, you have only to send one of the men-at-arms. Rest assured, mistress, I will come.’
On the instant the Prince of the West had departed, Jinesse took the offending bowl of Falgaire crystal and shut it away in a clothes trunk. She banged the catch down and sat on the lid, then buried her face in her shaking hands and wept in painful relief.
Tharrick had survived the wreck of Shearfast.
By a stunning twist of fate, a misapprehension, and the sort of tangled handling Arithon left like moiled waters in his wake, Lysaer s’Ilessid meant to send him here, ostensibly to undermine her prior loyalties.
The