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And a clever brain,Kel thought. By being the first to alert Conor to the situation, Alys Asper had won Conor’s loyalty. She had bet on House Aurelian against Prosper Beck, which made sense to Kel. What did not make sense was how many merchants, it seemed, had bet the other way.
For Conor was correct: The lifeblood of Castellane was credit. Trade ran on it. The nobles ran up bills when their fleets were out at sea, their caravans on the Gold Roads, and paid them off when the goods came in. To bet against Conor was to bet against a system that had been in place for hundreds of years.
“Alys,” Conor said, “is one of the few who refused. Totaled together, it seems, the rest of my debts equal ten thousand crowns.” Kel supposed it made sense; merchants were unlikely to pointedly remind the Crown Prince what he owed. The ten thousand crowns could represent years of spending. “And Beck wants it all. Now. In gold.”
“Is that even possible?”
“Not really. I have anallowance,you know that.” It was true: Conor was paid monthly from the Treasury, by Cazalet, who kept a close eye on Palace expenditures.
“This might be a matter for Jolivet,” Kel said. “Have him send the Arrow Squadron into the Maze. Find out where Beck is hiding. Bring him to the Trick.”
Conor’s smile was bitter. “What Beck is doing is legal,” he said. “It’s legal to buy up debt, from anyone at all. It’s legal to enforce payment by nearly any means. All Laws the noble Houses passed—including House Aurelian.” He ran a finger around the neck of thepastissonbottle. “Do you know what Beck threatened me with, if I didn’t pay him the full amount immediately? Not with violence. He threatened to haul me in front of the Justicia, to force repayment through the Treasury. And he could. You can imagine the scandal then.”
Kel could. He thought of what the Ragpicker King had said, that Prosper Beck was likely being funded by someone on the Hill.Had one of the noble Houses engineered all this, just to humiliate Conor? Or was this just the overreach of a greedy criminal new to Castellane, who did not yet understand how the city worked?
“The Treasury would have to pay off my debt,” Conor said slowly, “and you know the Treasury money belongs to the city. The Dial Chamber would be furious. My fitness to be King would be questioned. It would never end.”
Kel felt slightly breathless, and the pain was intensifying. It had likely been hours since he’d last had morphea. “Have you tried to negotiate with Beck? Has he asked anything else of you?”
Conor set the bottle ofpastissondown with a thwack. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. His face changed then; it was as if a hand had been passed over sand, smoothing it out, erasing any marks that had been visible before. He smiled: that too-quick smile that did not reach his eyes. Now Conor was hiding something from him. “I ought to have paid Beck already. I was being stubborn. I didn’t want him to think he could threaten the money out of me. Perhaps at another time, but—” He shook his head. “I don’t like it, but there it is. I’ll get him paid, and we can forget about this.”
“Pay him how, Con?” Kel asked, quietly. “You just said you didn’t have the gold.”
“I said I couldn’t lay my hands on it easily, not that I couldn’t get it at all.” Conor waved an airy hand; the light from the window caught the sapphire in his signet ring and sparked. “Now stop worrying about it. It will make you heal more slowly, and I can’t have that. I need my Sword Catcher back. For the past three days, you’ve been very boring indeed.”
“I’m sure I haven’t,” said Kel. His mind was whirling. He felt as if he had started out on a long journey only to be told it was over before he had reached the Narrow Pass. He knew he had not imagined the look on Conor’s face, the bitterness in his voice. But the pain was radiating through his body, and it was difficult to think.
“Kellian, I have it on good authority that for the past seventy-two hours you’ve been doing an excellent imitation of a landedtrout. I was so bored I had to invent a new game with Falconet. I call it ‘indoor archery.’ You’d like it.”
“It really doesn’t sound like I would. I like the indoors, and archery, but I don’t feel combining the two would be wise.”
“You know what is no fun at all? Wisdom,” Conor observed. “How often have you been invited out for a boisterous night of wisdom? Speaking of boisterous fun—a drink before I call the good doctor in to look at you?” Conor asked, lifting the bottle ofpastisson.“Though I should warn you, Gasquet advises against mixing morphea and alcohol.”
“Then I shall certainly do so,” Kel said, and watched, half lost in thought, as Conor poured him a glass of cloudy green liquor with a hand that shook so imperceptibly he did not think anyone else would have noticed it at all.
Aram was different from any other land. In other lands, to use magic was to be preyed upon by the Sorcerer-Kings, seeking ever more power to feed their Source-Stones. But in Aram the people were free to usegematryto improve their lot. The Queen had no desire to appropriate that magic, and used her own power only to enrich the land. Every market day, the people of Aram could present themselves before the palace, and the Queen would come out and with spells andgematrywould heal many of the sick. It was not long before the folk of Aram came to love their Queen as a kind and just ruler.
—Tales of the Sorcerer-Kings,Laocantus Aurus Iovit III
Five hundred years past, there had been an outbreak of the Scarlet Plague in Castellane; nearly a third of the population had died. As a physician, Lin had been required to learn about it. The bodies had been burned, as had been the custom, and the choking smoke that resulted had sickened more, until citizens were dropping in the streets.
The King at the time, Valis Aurelian, had ordered the end of corpse burning. Instead, plague pits were dug, and the bodies buried in them and covered with quicklime. Not long after, the plague had ended—though Lin wondered if it hadn’t simply worn itself out as epidemics were wont to do. Regardless, Valis got the credit—and his face permanently on the ten-crown coin—and the city got a number of spaces on which it was forbidden to build, as the Law prohibited construction on grave sites. Earth covered the bodies, flowers and trees were planted there, and the houses that faced these green spaces became desirable residences.
And then there was the Black Mansion.
It had been there as long as anyone could remember, rising at the north end of Scarlet Square (which, despite its name, was not scarlet at all, but thick with greenery)—a great house built of smoothblack stone with a domed roof, two great terraces on either side, and narrow vertical windows. It seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. Everyone in Castellane was familiar with the mansion, with its red door like a drop of blood, and they knew who lived there—who had always, it seemed, lived there.
The Ragpicker King.
Lin’s pulse sped up as she and Ji-An dismounted the carriage and approached the dark stone house. She had given up any thought of running away or even protesting. She did not like being misled, but she was terribly curious. Everyone in Castellane, she suspected, was curious about what lay behind the walls of the Black Mansion,just as they were curious about the interior of Marivent. How strange, to see inside both structures within the span of three days. She lightly touched the brooch at her shoulder. How strange life had been recently, in every way.
Two guards, dressed in black, stood on either side of the mansion’s great front door. They nodded to Ji-An as she ascended, with Lin beside her. A bronze knocker in the shape of a magpie graced the door, but Ji-An did not use it. Lifting her necklace over her head, she used her pendant as a key and ushered them both inside.
Inside, the mansion was less dark than Lin would have expected. The interior walls were polished wood, lit by hanging carcel lamps. A long corridor stretched ahead of them, like a tunnel leading into the heart of a mountain. It was carpeted with thick rugs in deep jewel colors, muffling the sounds of their feet as they walked.
“What do you know of the Ragpicker King?” asked Ji-An as they followed the winding corridor. Doors led off it on either side, all of them closed. Lin could not help but wonder what was behind them.
“What everyone knows, I imagine. That he is a criminal mastermind, of sorts.”
