Page 26 of The Ragpicker King
She forced her mind away from those thoughts, though not away from the Prince entirely. Kel had said Prince Conor had changed; that one sentence refused to leave her. Changed in what way?
But the Prince was a topic that Kel did not like to discuss. He saw it as a sort of betrayal; he was already torn enough over keeping his activities in the city hidden from Conor.PrinceConor, she reminded herself. Kel might call him by his first name, but it was not her place to do that.
The Prince was not the only topic Kel Saren avoided. Lin had not missed the way his careful pleasantness turned to tension whenever Antonetta Alleyne was mentioned. When it had been suggested that the Alleynes might be implicated in the Shining Gallery plot, Kel had gone stone-faced, which for him was the equivalent of an apoplectic fit. She wondered what he would say if she told him she saw Antonetta often, that they even spoke of him sometimes, and that Antonetta was as flustered by mentions of him as he seemed to be by mentions of her?
But what would be the point? A Sword Catcher could not marry, and Antonetta was committed to Artal Gremont. She and Kel weresimilar in that way, Lin thought: They lived within walls both real and imagined, bound by the expectations and plans of others. And as for whose faces they saw when they closed their eyes at night, they kept that to themselves.
“No,” she said. “No, you did not do wrong, though I could have told you Mayesh would have sent you packing if you asked him anything.”
Kel pushed his dark curling hair off his forehead; there were light scratches, probably from flying glass, at his left temple, and small nicks and tears in his fine clothes. “It wouldn’t be the first time the Counselor has kicked me out of his office for asking troublesome questions.”
Lin laughed. Kel was good at that, making her laugh. “The whole business— It’s hard for me to talk about, I suppose,” she said as they passed a candlemaker’s shop. Candles had been left alight in the window overnight, an advertisement for the merchant’s goods: fat white pillars and braided, multicolored tapers burning softly behind the glass. “Not because it is forbidden or because I am ashamed, but...”
“Because though you are pretending to be something you are not, you still feel a responsibility.”
Lin nodded. “I walk around the Sault, and I can tell the others are seeing me—but also seeing someone else in my place.”
“Yes. You behind the Sault walls, me behind the walls of Marivent—and here we are, of course; too bad. I was enjoying our talk.”
Indeed, as if he had conjured them up by speaking of them, the walls of the Sault loomed over them. They were not quite close enough for Lin to see who was guarding the gates, but the ever-torches burned in their holders on either side, as they always did. In their light, Kel’s eyes were very gray. She recalled him saying they had once been another color, before they had been changed to look like Conor’s. She could not help but wonder what color.
He said, “I have always wondered what it says over the Sault gates. I’ve seen the words before, I am sure of it. But I cannot recall where.”
“On my grandfather’s medallion, perhaps,” Lin said. “The one he wears as Counselor. They are in our Old Tongue.”
“I thought all Ashkar spoke the same language?”
“We do, though accents, dialects, can differ.” Lin was thinking of her parents, of the bits of Shenzan and Malgasi and Hindish incorporated into the near-incomprehensible trader’s patter of the Rhadanites. She had never learned it herself, nor the written language of signs and symbols that only the Rhadanites could read. It had always been Josit who was interested in all that. “But there is a difference between the language we speak daily and the words of prayers and songs. Words like Sanhedrin, or Shekinah, are in the Old Tongue. Over the gates is written our Great Prayer.Oqodemshe, than Ashkar, Mayyam khaf, anokham miwwod.‘Hear, oh Ashkar, She is One, She will return.’”
“So the Great Prayer speaks of the Goddess. But what does that mean,She is One?”
“It means we do not believe in many Gods, as you do,” Lin said. “We believe only in one. It is what makes us what we are, that faith. And so the words of the Great Prayer are a safeguard. They are etched into amulets worn against the skin, woven into clothing, inked as tattoos. In times when the Ashkar have had to hide who they were, they were often written on strips of paper cunningly concealed inside a pen, or an earring, or the heel of a boot. As long as you carry the Great Prayer with you, she protects you. And you never forget you are Ashkar.”
Kel was silent for a moment. His face was grave in the light of the ever-torches.
“I never knew any of this,” he said at last. “I have known Mayesh all my life it seems, yet I did not know this.”
“We are not meant to tell such secrets tomalbushim.I have come to know my grandfather better these past months, and tounderstand that while he speaksforthe Ashkar at Marivent, he does not speakofus at Marivent.”
“No,” said Kel. “He is an interesting man, Bensimon. I do not think there are many people for whom he lets down his guard.”
“I think I am like him in that way,” mused Lin. “But around you, around Merren, Ji-An, even Andreyen and Jerrod—they do not care if I call myself Goddess or Queen of the Harbor or—or Princess of Potatoes.” Kel grinned. “They know who you are, too,” she added, “Sword Catcher.”
“That they do,” Kel said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must rescue my horse from a brothel. Not a sentence I ever thought I’d have to say aloud. And for the Gods’ sake, don’t tell Mayesh about any of this,” he added, turning to go. “He’ll have my head, and playbouleswith it on the Palace lawn.”
By the time Kel returned to Marivent, the sun was beginning to rise over the Narrow Pass. Having brought Asti to the stables and rubbed her down with a few handfuls of hay (she was quite resentful about having been left behind at the Caravel, and snorted when he tried to give her an apple), he discovered a note from Jolivet tucked inside the feed trough, which simply read,I shall expect a full report tomorrow.
Kel tore the note into small pieces, scattered them, and headed for the apartments he shared with Conor.
He was already rehearsing the version of the evening he planned to share with Conor. He would keep it as close to the truth as he could. Not only was that the safest way, but it also assuaged the part of his conscience that stung like a cut when he had to lie.
He would tell him about Montfaucon, Kel thought as he entered the rooms, and the boxer dressed like a bear, and Esteve’s interest in Beatris Cabrol. That he had talked with Silla. Or perhaps he would not mention her. That Conor had not slept with her was a surprise—but it had been the night of that miserable party at theRoverges’, hadn’t it, and Conor had been wretched at the time. And, Kel thought, it really was none of his business.
The rooms were cold, the fire having burned down in the grate, and dark, too. The only illumination was the dawn light that spilled through the windows like thin blue milk. Conor was at his desk, as he often was these days, but as Kel came closer, drawing off his gloves, he saw that the Prince was asleep, cheek pressed to the topmost of a pile of papers, as if he’d laid his head down for just a moment and fallen asleep instantly.
Kel hesitated. In sleep, Conor’s face was wiped clean of tension and consideration, and he looked as he had when they were boys. Not innocent, or wicked, either, but curious and expectant. As if there were much to look forward to. Kel could still remember what he had thought the first time he had seen the Prince.I want to be like him. I want to walk through the world as if it will reshape itself around my dreams and desires. I want to seem as if I could touch the stars with light fingers and pull them down to be my playthings.
He knew better now. The world did not reshape itself around anyone. No matter how powerful you were, there were forces more powerful than you would ever be. It was true in the city and on the Hill.
