Isle of Blood and Stone Read online

  Reyna’s shoulders drooped as Mercedes listed one daunting obstacle after the other. And when laughter drifted in through the open window, her expression turned gloomier still.

  “What’s this?” Mercedes crossed the chamber, knelt upon the blue tufted window seat, and peered out the window. There was enough light in the day for her to see the ten or so boys in the courtyard below with its giant compass underfoot, waving wooden swords at one another and causing general noise and mayhem. One of the smaller boys tripped, landed on his hands and knees, and let out a wail. The Grecs’ son, Hector.

  Reyna remained on the bed with her chin propped on her hand. “My friends,” she explained. “They’ve just finished sword lessons.”

  Mercedes thought she understood. “No lessons for you?”

  “Master Giarrat won’t train a girl. He says it’s unseemly.”

  A spark of annoyance at that. “Do you wish to learn how to fight?”

  “No, not really.”

  Mercedes was lost. “Then why the long face?”

  “I don’t want to stick a sword into anyone,” Reyna said. “Not ever. But I would like to know how to defend myself. And . . . I don’t like knowing less than the boys, just because I’m not one.”

  Something unfurled in Mercedes, something that made her think her own unseemly thoughts about Sword Master Giarrat. She returned to the bed and, pushing aside some dresses, sat beside Reyna. “And that’s all?” she demanded. “You’ll sit here and be sad while they’re out there learning more than you?”

  Reyna’s brows furrowed, taken aback by Mercedes’s lack of sympathy. “What else is there?”

  “Reyna,” Mercedes said, “if you don’t like the answer to something, you must find a way around it.” As she herself had earlier, ignoring Elias’s refusal and going to Ulises instead. She had found him in his chambers selecting a sword for his own practice. “It’s too dangerous,” Ulises had said.

  “For him, not for me,” she’d insisted. “These maps are not just about his family. You said so yourself. How can we send him into Javelin without lifting a finger to help?”

  Ulises had not put up much of a fight. But he had wanted something from her as well, waiting until she’d reached for the door before asking, “Were you going to say nothing? About the old woman in the courtyard?”

  Fighting a sense of betrayal, she’d turned to face him. “Elias told you.”

  “He was not the only one there.” The sword had slid into its carrier with more force than necessary. “He told me nothing. You should have.”

  She was tired of being reminded about the spitter in the courtyard. “It wasn’t important.”

  “You’re wrong,” Ulises had snapped. “We’re the only family you and I have left, and when someone insults you, they insult me. That must be made clear. Every time.”

  Mercedes had felt her eyes sting. She had gone to her uncle once to ask for more guards for her mother. He had refused. We all have our crosses to bear, he’d said. Mercedes and her mother should spend their days in prayer, grateful that he still offered them shelter. Mercedes loved Ulises as much as she’d hated his father. Now she said to her cousin, “What will it change? Nothing.”

  “You’re wrong,” Ulises had said again, but in a far gentler tone. “I’m not my father. We stand back-to-back on this, Mercedes. No more secrets. Agreed?”

  This was not an argument she would win. “Agreed.”

  Mercedes pushed aside the memory and brushed her palms down her red dress briskly, smoothing out the wrinkles. She said to Reyna, “Girls are not taught to use weapons, it’s true. But there have been exceptions. In Cortes. In this very castle, in fact.”

  Reyna took her meaning. “You, Lady?”

  “And who do you think taught me?”

  That was no great mystery. “Commander Aimon?”

  “Yes.” She had gone to Commander Aimon when she was eleven, after a wealthy merchant from the east had tried to corner her in a dark corridor. It had been a terrifying experience, a very close call. The commander had not laughed at her request, but had taught her how to protect herself, even if she was small. Especially because she was small. And now that she thought about it all these years later, she realized she had never seen that particular merchant in Cortes again.

  Reyna looked uncertain. “I don’t like to trouble you. I know you’re very busy and important.”

  “I’m both these things,” Mercedes said with a smile. “That does not mean I won’t help a friend. Especially one who would give over all her dresses to keep me safe.”

  Reyna returned her smile and thanked her, and after a thoughtful pause, said, “I would like to go with you tomorrow. How do I find my way around that?”

  “You don’t.” Mercedes nudged Reyna’s arm with her own. “Don’t press your luck.”

  Mercedes heard a loud click as part of the wall swung open and a woman walked through it.

  “Reyna,” Madame Vega said, “have you seen my—oh!”

  Mercedes did her best to hide her own surprise. Madame Vega had entered, not through the door that led to the corridor and stairwell, but through a panel beside Reyna’s bed that connected to another chamber. Mercedes had never seen her in such a state. Her severe teaching robes had been replaced with a white silk bathing gown full of frills and lace. Black hair, damp from a recent bath, trailed to her knees. Madame Vega had beautiful hair. Her face had been scrubbed clean, and without her kohl-lined eyes or blood-red lips, she looked far younger than Mercedes had imagined. Younger . . . and female. She had never thought of Madame Vega as a female before.

  “My lady Mercedes, forgive me. I didn’t realize Reyna had a guest.” Madame Vega pulled at the belt of her gown, clearly discomfited and wishing she was more formally dressed.

  “Madame,” Mercedes said, “please don’t apologize. I’ve only come to invite Reyna to sit with me at supper this evening.”

  “Oh!” Reyna looked delighted. Children rarely dined at the king’s high table. She turned to Madame Vega and asked, “May I go?”

  Madame Vega wore a bemused smile. “You don’t need my permission for such an invitation. It’s kind of you to think of her, Lady.” She noticed the great pile of dresses on the bed. “What has happened here?”

  “Reyna is growing too fast for our seamstresses,” Mercedes said. The lie rolled off her tongue easily. She ignored Reyna’s sideways glance, adding, “We’re trying to decide which of these to let.”

  “I did not realize . . .” Madame Vega trailed off, mortified. “Please don’t trouble yourself, Lady. I’ll have the nurses see to it.”

  “It’s no trouble,” Mercedes assured her.

  “Well . . .” Madame Vega backed away toward the panel. “I won’t keep you.”

  After Madame Vega closed the panel behind her, Reyna said, “I forgot to ask her what she needed.”

  Mercedes left the bed and crossed the chamber. She ran her hands along the panel. When closed, one could not tell it was an entryway. It blended seamlessly with the rest of the stone. She said, “Reyna?”

  “Yes, Lady?”

  “How long has Madame Vega lived here?” She had been a young widow when she had joined the School of Navigation as a painter, before Lord Silva had taken her on as his assistant. And she wasn’t from Cortes, Mercedes remembered, but from some town in the north. Or was it the south?

  “Since forever,” Reyna said. “Before I was born.”

  Mercedes smiled. “That long?” And at Reyna’s questioning look, she added, “It’s nothing. Only she reminds me of someone, though I can’t think who.”

  “Alder and oak.” Lord Silva studied the map Elias had left on his worktable. “That is extraordinary. I could have looked at this forever and never noticed.”

  “Reyna saw it, too.” Elias propped his carrier against the table and helped himself to the coffee Basilio had left for them. The cup was slightly larger than a thimble.

  Lord Silva glanced over, unsmiling. “Did she? She did
not mention it.” He refused the coffee Elias offered. “Do you think it wise to leave it here? In the open? Anyone can see it.”

  “Basilio and I are the only ones with keys.” Elias came to stand beside Lord Silva, thimble in hand. “The locks were rusted when I first moved here. He had new ones fitted.”

  “Are you certain of his loyalty?”

  Elias lowered his cup, smiling a little. “To me? Oh, who knows? But to my mother? Yes. Absolutely.”

  Lord Silva did not return his smile. “What do you expect to find when you get there?”

  “Not one thing,” he admitted. “But I promised Ulises. And you, remember? You told me to do this. You said—”

  “Yes, yes.” Lord Silva frowned at the map. “I didn’t realize . . . I don’t like the thought of you walking into Javelin alone.”

  “I won’t be.”

  Lord Silva’s head came up sharply. “Who—? Lady Mercedes is going with you? Elias, I have to object.”

  “She’s not.” He set his cup down and crossed the chamber, kneeling before a chest placed beneath a window. He rummaged around within and pulled out a small leather bag. “Gold,” he explained, dropping it onto the map table. “The plan is to meet Mercedes at the stables at sunrise. I did not make this plan,” he added dryly. “And I’ll be gone before then. Montserrat is near Javelin. I’ll offer payment to one of the village women there if she’ll ride into the forest with me.”

  There was a good amount of gold squid in that bag. Someone would take the offer, and the risk.

  Lord Silva was silent. “She’ll be furious.”

  And hurt. Elias could stomach the first easier than the last. “She’ll be safe.”

  Lord Silva lifted the bag, appalled at its heft. “Surely you don’t need to offer so much?”

  “I didn’t think it was the time to be tightfisted.”

  A hmmph, followed by, “A woman. Can it really be so simple?” He did not appear to expect an answer. “You’ve only Mori’s word that a woman will protect you.”

  Elias was surprised. Lord Silva had known the barber-surgeon even longer than he had. “You think he would lie to me? Why would he?”

  “Not lie, of course, but he could be mistaken.”

  Elias tried to make light of it. “It’s only a forest full of spirits. We’ve seen scarier, I think.”

  Lord Silva’s smile, when it finally came, was rueful. “I forget sometimes that you’re no longer my apprentice and are perfectly capable of taking care of yourself.” He gave the map one last look. “Even so, I will pray a little longer tonight.” Elias laughed, and Lord Silva added, “Now, then. You’re not one to avoid your responsibilities. Why are you kicking and screaming with this apprentice business?”

  It was Elias’s turn to frown. It was uncomfortable sometimes how little he could hide from this man. He busied himself, fetching his carrier and unrolling the second map beside Reyna’s. He poured more coffee and drank it. Lord Silva waited patiently.

  Finally, Elias said, “I’m not my father.”

  A small silence. “No. I can see that.”

  Elias set his thimble onto the tray. “An apprentice of mine would have . . . expectations. That I be like him. That I be wise and courageous, like he was.”

  Understanding dawned. “And you don’t think you could meet those expectations?”

  “I know I could not.”

  Lord Silva was quiet, his expression thoughtful. He reached around Elias and pulled a book from a shelf. Bound in leather, edged in gold; the title read: The Travels of Antoni, Lord of del Mar. It had been written after his death by his friend and fellow explorer Lord Braga.

  Lord Silva placed the book on the table beside the maps. He said, “I spoke to a man at the harbor some weeks ago who knew Antoni. Or so he claimed. He recalled, quite vividly, the time your father rescued a village girl by wrestling a crocodile and killing it.”

  “I’ve read that story. It’s here.” Elias opened the book, turning the pages until he found what he was looking for. The illustrator had captured the tale at its most dramatic point. A twenty-foot crocodile, its body rearing out of the swamp’s muddy shallows. Jaws gaping. Teeth like freshly sharpened daggers. Lord Antoni clung to the animal’s back, his own teeth bared as he plunged a knife directly into the creature’s eye. The artist must have been given a generous paint allowance. Expensive red blood spilled everywhere. In the background, a woman fled the scene with a crying child in her arms. Lord Antoni and the Great Crocodile Rescue. It was one of Elias’s favorites.

  Lord Silva studied the painting for some time. “Antoni was scared to death of crocodiles. You could not drag him near the eastern swamps.”

  Elias stared at him. “What?”

  Lord Silva smiled at him. “Perhaps he did fight off one in order to save the child’s life. But he never said so. And you won’t convince me of it.”

  Elias found himself deeply offended on his father’s behalf. And this from Lord Silva. “You’re saying these stories are false?”

  “Some almost certainly,” Lord Silva confirmed. “Not all. Your father was everything they say. Wise and brave and full of adventure. But death can transform a man into a myth. A legend even he would not recognize.” He turned the page. And fell silent.

  The next story was not a happy one. A long-ago expedition, men crushed to nothing beneath an avalanche. The artist had not considered a father’s grief when he had painted the accompany­ing illustration: a mountain pass, the snow settled peacefully over the landscape, the avalanche long since over. But the tranquil image was shattered by a pair of arms reaching straight out of the snow, hands like claws and frosted over, the only reminder of the bodies buried there.

  It was a chilling picture. A story Elias had never liked, even though his own father had survived, had led the surviving men to safety. It had been his final expedition. He watched as Lord Silva’s palm flattened over the image. The desperate, clawing hands could have belonged to any of the dead, but Elias imagined he thought only of his eldest son, Vittor.

  “My lord Silva,” Elias said when the silence had gone on for quite some time. Lord Silva’s hand trembled. And the mountain pass was no more as he ripped the image from the book and crumpled it in his fist. He stepped away from the table, as if the story were a living thing that could harm him still. The torn page fell to the floor.

  Lord Silva said very, very softly, “Don’t worry so much about what others think. Choose your apprentice, Vittor. You’ll do fine. I’m certain of it.”

  Elias spoke past the stone in his throat. “Yes, sir.”

  Lord Silva left. Elias picked up the page, smoothed it as best he could, and tucked it back into the book. He circled the chamber, lighting more candles. Lord Silva had not noticed his mistake, calling Elias by his dead son Vittor’s name. His mother forgot his name all the time, pointing at him and calling him Isidore and Jonas and Nieve and Lea and even Dita before finally remembering Elias. These lapses greatly entertained her children.

  This was different. It was not a good feeling to return home and realize that Lord Silva, his Royal Navigator, his hero, had grown old.

  Elias stayed up late into the night with the maps. Frustration simmered as he studied first one image and then another, considering each and dismissing all.

  Surely it should not be this difficult. Locating the first clue had been a simple matter. An entire forest painted in error. Which meant that any other clue should follow the same rule. A detail drawn with a subtle but undeniable mistake. But that was supposing the mapmaker had constructed the maps based on logic and not simply mischief or trickery. And how many clues were there? One? Two? Ten? Elias wished he knew who this mapmaker was, so that he could show him with his fist just what he thought of him.

  He was missing something. He started again, from the south. Churches, castles, parishes, rivers, and coves. All were where they should be. Nothing was out of place. He worked his way north. Every town and village and city had been identified, the villages
with a simple name marker, the larger towns with a structure that easily identified it. A church, a castle, the ancient ruins of the amphitheater in Portras.

  He was vaguely aware of Basilio coming and going. He ignored the dull throbbing behind his eyeballs, continuing on until finally exhaustion overcame him and he fell into bed.

  Long before dawn, he woke. After inspecting his wrist—the scratch looked no worse than it had yesterday—and checking to make sure his arms and legs hadn’t gone numb, he dressed and packed a single map in his carrier. The other he left behind for Reyna. He took his dagger. As an afterthought, he took his sword. Passing Basilio on the stairs, he said, “I’ll be home tonight,” and hoped that his words would prove true.

  Nine

  N UNPLEASANT SURPRISE waited for Elias at the stables. Her name was Mercedes. Though it was still dark outside, she was there already, sitting on a white mare, surrounded by the smell of horse and hay and oiled leather.

  “You decided to make an earlier start of it also?” she asked, watching him with narrowed eyes. “Good. I thought the same.”

  Beside her, Ulises strapped a saddlebag onto his own glossy brown horse. “You’re ready?” he asked Elias. They were dressed similarly in plain traveling clothes and dark cloaks to fight the morning chill. “Let’s go.”

  Bleary-eyed, Elias said, “What?” The groom, Marco, came forward with Pythagoras. Suddenly wide awake, Elias grabbed hold of the reins. “You must be joking. You can’t go gallivanting outside the gates without the commander. You’ve no guards.” There was no sign of additional horses being readied. There was no one else about.

  “First,” Ulises said evenly, “I do not gallivant. And second, I do have a guard. Or have you forgotten how to use that sword?” Ulises swung onto his horse. To the boy, “Marco, wait until midmorning . . . no, midday, then inform Commander Aimon we’ll be returning tonight. Late.”

  The boy stammered, “Yes, my king.”

  Elias felt sorry for him. He doubted Commander Aimon would hold his wrath in check simply because the messenger was a child. He kept his voice low, out of Marco’s hearing. “You’re sneaking out of your own city,” he pointed out, and saw the flush rise over the king’s neck.