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“You’re still angry,” Mariam observed as they crossed Historians’ Way. She and Lin stepped aside to let a group of clearlyinebriated students stagger by. “You’re all red. You only turn that color when you’re furious.” She bumped her shoulder against Lin’s. “Was it a particularly important book? I know Lafont said it was coursework, but I can’t imagine there’s anything the Academie could teach that you don’t already know.”
Loyal Mariam. Lin wanted to squeeze her hand. Wanted to say:I need it because of you. Because you have been getting thinner, and paler, all year; because none of my remedies have made you even a little bit better. Because you cannot clamber up a ladder or walk the length of a street without losing your breath. Because none of my books can tell me what is wrong with you, much less how to treat it. Because the knowledge we had before the Sundering is half lost, but I cannot abandon hope without trying everything, Mariam. You taught me that.
Instead, Lin shook her head. “It was what he said, that even my own people don’t want me to be a physician.”
Mariam looked sympathetic. She knew better than nearly anyone else how hard Lin had struggled to convince the elders of the Sault that she, a woman, should be allowed to learn medicine. They had finally permitted it, not believing she would pass the physician’s exam. It still gave her pleasure to remember that her scores had been higher than those of any of the male students. “It was not the whole Sault, Lin. There were many who wanted you to succeed. And think how much easier it will be for the next girl who wants to be a physician. You forged the way. Do not mind the doubters.”
The idea pleased Lin. It would be lovely to have more female physicians in the Sault. People she could trade knowledge with, discuss treatments, patients. The maleasyarignored her. She’d hoped they would accept her after she passed her exams, and then again after her first year of practice, but their attitude had not changed. A woman had no business doctoring, whether she was good at it or not. “I’ll do my best not to mind them,” she said. “Iamawfully stubborn.”
“Oh, indeed. You’re as stubborn as your grandfather.”
Lin would usually have objected to being compared to Mayesh,but they had just reached the Biblioteca Corviniana, the Great Library, and a chatter of voices had burst out all around them.
The Library had been built two hundred years past by King Estien IV, and thus was a relatively new building in the quarter. Its stone doors were closed today, but a wide marble courtyard opened out in front of it, crowded with people. Estien, a patron of philosophers, had ordered that raised squares of marble be erected outside the Library for the purposes of debate. Any citizen of Castellane was allowed to climb upon one and hold forth on any topic they chose, free from accusations of disturbing the peace—as long as they did not stray from their perch.
There was, of course, no rule that anyone had tolisten,and thus the various speakers tended to shout their opinions as loudly as possible. A tall young woman wearing the green-lined cloak of a student of science was shouting about the unfairness of the Academie, expecting foreign students to pay for their own lodging when the Castellani were housed at no expense. This drew friendly boos from a group of drunken students who were singing a bawdy version of the anthem of Castellane.
Nearby, a blond young man in a tightly buttoned black tunic was loudly denouncing the monarchy. This drew more interest, as criticizing the royal family was dangerous business. Most of the scholars at the Academie were the children of merchants and guildmasters, shopkeepers and traders. The nobility employed private tutors, rather than sending their children to the free university. Still, loyalty to the crown and the Charter Families ran deep.
“Hey! You, there!” someone shouted, and the blond young man raised an inquiring eyebrow. “Just saw the Vigilants coming around the corner. You’d better hie off if you don’t want to wind up in a crocodile’s belly.”
The young man gave a bow of thanks and leaped down from his marble podium. A moment later he had vanished into the crowd.
Mariam frowned. “I don’t think anyone was really coming.”
Lin glared around, but there was no way to tell who had shoutedat the anti-monarchist. The shadows were lengthening, though, the Great Library casting its pillared reflection across the courtyard. They could not afford to keep dawdling.
They turned onto Vespasian Way, an avenue lined with university lodgings. Through open doors, Lin could see students in their black cloaks running up and down steep sets of stairs, laughing and calling to one another. Someone on a balcony overhead was playing avielle;the melody of their lament drifted through the air, rising and falling like a gull over the harbor water.
May she have the courage
to have me come one night there
where she undresses
and make me a necklace of her arms.
Otherwise, I will die.
“Musicians really do make being in love sound awful,” said Lin. “Just endless moping away, all alone because no one can put up with you.”
Mariam laughed softly. “How can you be so cynical?”
“Not to mention, apparently love makes you poor, and sickly,” Lin went on, ticking off the list on her fingers, “and terribly likely to die young, in a very small room with bad lighting.”
“If it was that awful, no one would do it.”
“You don’t have a choice, I hear,” Lin said as they turned onto Yulan Road, where the Student Quarter dead-ended in a wide thoroughfare lined with Shenzan lane houses, terraced and surrounded by low walls with iron gates. Shenzan traders and sailors had settled here in the time of the Empire, their traditions blending over time with those of Castellane. “Love just happens to you, whether you like it or not; otherwise there wouldn’t be so many songs. Besides, people do all sorts of things that are bad for them. I ought to know.”
The lane houses had given way to shopfronts selling everything from jade sculptures and cheap jewelry to fireworks and paperlanterns, painted with symbols for independence, luck, andDaqin—the Shenzan name for Castellane. Delicious steam wafted from the doors of white-painted noodle shops, where Shenzan sailors and students enamored of cheap, delicious food rubbed shoulders at long rosewood tables.
Lin’s stomach growled. Time to get home; she was sure there was a whole honey cake in the pantry. Nearly whole, at any rate.
She ducked down an alley topped with a stone arch, narrow enough that she and Mariam had to walk single-file. She could see over some of the low walls into the gardens of the lane houses, where chrysanthemums and poppies bloomed. Giggling came from overhead: Families were already sitting on the roofs of their houses, from which they could command a view of the red-and-gold fireworks that would later explode like falling stars over the harbor.
When they emerged finally from the alley, Lin cursed under her breath. She must have taken a wrong turn. She had meant to cut past Valerian Square, behind the Justicia. Instead they had emerged from the side streets into the middle of a cheering crowd facing the Convocat.
By the Goddess,she thought, her heart sinking.No.
