16. The Gift
Chapter sixteen
The Gift
True to his word, the duke stayed with them.
The storm in Rerdas’s head only grew more frantic as they rode into the northeast and came within sight of Drida.
Umber brushed off Rerdas’s worries about the courtiers scheming in the capitol and their beloved queen unattended by her favorite.
The duke was not deterred. He was relentless as a headache.
He was still with them when they passed through Drida’s old fort wall and into the forest of pine-log buildings crammed within its perimeter.
The coaches threaded through worn, cobbled streets, making halting progress towards the inn that Umber insisted offered the only decent lodgings in the city.
Another flash of the signet ring and their coaches swarmed with servants and guards.
Rerdas saw Imalroc to an attic room up at the top of so many stairs he was panting by the time they reached the final landing.
The temptation to follow Imalroc inside was overpowering, but Rerdas planted his feet on the threshold and allowed himself not a step further.
This so-called gracious establishment was only willing to provide a battleboxer with a room as drab and desolate as a prison.
The walls were a washed-out green stained with damp and the bed’s blue coverlet was so faded it was nearly gray.
The light that seeped through the pair of tiny, porthole windows was cold as a rain cloud.
Imalroc stood silent and still in the middle of the room, his face pale. Rerdas managed a mumble and an apologetic glance before he had to tear himself away. The guards were watching behind him, and Umber waited below.
“Why don’t we stretch our legs?” the duke chirped once their rooms were situated. “It’s still light, and I feel as if I’ve been sitting in that carriage for a year.”
Rerdas pinned on a smile. “Excellent idea.” He’d rather trail Umber around Drida than retire early to their shared bed.
Drida was an old trading post that had grown into an orderly but crowded city.
The squat buildings were a mixture of split-log and stone, all of them packed together and radiating out from larger structures that Umber explained were the trade centers.
They hurried away from the telltale stench of a tannery and into the old town.
The narrow roads were made even more confined by a pointed glass covering, a bit like walking in a glass tunnel.
“Quite determined to keep off the rain,” Etiana said, glancing at the heavy clouds marshaling above.
“Drida comes up with all sorts of clever things. And we’re about to see one of their best inventions.” Umber gestured dramatically as they turned a sharp corner. “There. Bren Kul Mari, the original battlebox.”
It was one of the tallest structures in the city, and situated at its very heart. Bren Kul Mari was a dark colossus of carved and varnished wood. Its bulky first level was adorned with intricately designed pillars as thick and tall as ancient trees.
There was a flurry of activity outside the iron gates to the battlebox grounds.
Enormous barrels, each the size of a carriage, were carted across the road.
Rerdas studied the label flaking on the wood as the parade of barrels passed him.
Oil, blessed in the temples. He didn’t want to think about what a battlebox wanted with so much holy oil.
Imalroc would not set foot in this place, and they needed to block the booking. He flicked a worried glance at Etiana.
She caught on at once. “Your Grace,” Etiana said, “I haven’t even written to the booker yet to announce our arrival in the city. I’m not sure we should suddenly pop up in—”
Umber laughed. “Rest assured, my dear, we needn’t go inside; I just wanted you to see it.
” He cast a strange, measuring glance at Rerdas and smiled.
“And I confess I had something else in mind. There’s a shop nearby that I’d like to see again.
Perhaps to slip away with a gift for my darling huntmaster. ”
Rerdas made an obligatory protest. “You shouldn’t.” Whatever it was, hopefully it was valuable and he could sell it the moment the duke’s back was turned.
Umber snagged his hand and swiped a kiss across his knuckles.
“I do as I please, and you’re lucky it pleases you as well.
” He laughed as though any of that were funny.
“Wait here, dear heart, let it be a surprise.” He trotted off into one of the myriad shopfronts that lined the streets around the battlebox.
The moment the crowd obscured him, Rerdas wheeled around to Etiana. “We’ve got to figure out how to get him to leave.”
She let out an exasperated huff. “You have him exactly where you want him. He’s smitten.”
“It’s more trouble than he’s worth.”
“Kuraya only leaves us alone because one of her most trusted lackeys is holding your leash, and as long as that’s true, she won’t consider us a threat. She must believe we’re still playing into her hands.”
“I don’t want to do it anymore,” Rerdas blurted. “I don’t need to hear again that I’m a fool, maybe I am, but I’m tired of lying and dancing for him. He doesn’t know me, or care to; he just wants me fawning and drooling all over him. I can’t keep it up.”
Etiana stepped close and grasped his wrist. Her voice was low but fierce. “You have to. Don’t forget why we’re doing this. This is our way of fighting back against what Kuraya has done to our family.”
“I don’t want to fight.” He dredged up the words. “I want to escape and go somewhere I can be happy for more than a few hours at a time.”
“Rerdas—”
“I’m tired of doing things that are wrong and justifying it, telling ourselves other people are worse, we’re only trying to protect ourselves.” He chopped his hand in the direction of the battlebox behind him. “This is wrong, Eti. And we keep choosing it.”
Etiana pressed her lips together, looking up at the battlebox with a wary gaze.
“I know,” she mumbled. She shook her head.
“I always thought my mother was being too severe. Battleboxing was exciting; the crowds so alive and riotous, and the fighters were like heroes of old. Perhaps… perhaps if they would change it so it could be safer, no one need die, and if battleboxers governed their own contracts entirely and entered the box freely, it would—”
“But it isn’t like that,” Rerdas said. “They do die, and they aren’t free. And we’ve seen enough blood spilled. We can’t keep doing this.”
Etiana’s head lowered. “You may be right,” she said, speaking to the ground.
It was such a relief to hear her say it.
He needed his cousin at his side, playing the game with him.
“Help me get rid of Umber, and then we can leave Drida,” Rerdas urged.
“There’s enough onyx. We can find some place far enough out of the way, and I’ll…
I’ll feign some illness to keep the duke away, and we can all just breathe for a moment. Please.”
“And then what?” She stared at him, eyebrows climbing high. “Are we supposed to suddenly announce to all of Inofar that Imalroc isn’t a battleboxer anymore? And everyone who knows his face, his name, his reputation, will just forget about it? How exactly do you imagine this working?”
The accusations from before curdled her tone, but Rerdas shoved away his impulse to shout at her. They were all stronger and more protected together; he was sure of that, and when she came to know Imalroc, she’d understand. They’d work out the specifics together.
“Deal with one thing at a time,” he said. “The duke in Drida is the first problem.”
Etiana sighed. “We can’t send Umber away,” she said slowly.
“All we can do is wait him out. I suppose our best prospect is to draw out the booking process.” She tipped her chin at Bren Kul Mari.
“The longer we dawdle over booking a fight, the more likely it is that Umber will be summoned back to Kirinoll. The queen will get word that he’s gone from Kibo to Drida.
Kuraya won’t like it if her noble footstool neglects whatever he’s supposed to be handling with the Southern Felds. Drida is too far east.”
“Let’s put off sending a note to the booker as long as we—”
Etiana interrupted him, smiling hard. “He’s coming back.” She immediately switched to nattering about Drida’s storied history and how this particular battlebox was extraordinary and intimidating. Rerdas nodded without enthusiasm as Umber drew alongside him.
“They had exactly what I wanted,” Umber said. He carried a strangely shaped bundle, wrapped in coarse paper and twine. “Back to the inn, so you can open it.”
Rerdas bobbed his head again. Keep nodding like this, and he’d forget he had a spine that could stiffen at all. Sometimes he felt he was thin as a reed, bending in the wind of everyone else’s will. “Another good idea, Your Grace.”
They left the glass tunnel-streets and rushed down open-air roads back to shelter as the rain turned from a drizzle to a downpour.
Rerdas was damp by the time he plunged back through the inn’s door.
They were greeted with cups of hot, milky tea in a golden drawing room, the windows all glittering with condensation.
Etiana stayed for only half a cup before excusing herself. Aunt Uralta could not be left unattended for long. The purging tonic left his aunt restless, as if she slept in the grip of a nightmare, especially after any extended amount of time in her hiding place.
His cousin’s departure left him alone with Umber.
The duke lounged in an armchair while servants brought him a fresh cup of tea and a pair of slippers.
A lamp sat like a bubble of orange glass on the elaborately carved side table between them, casting a strange light.
Rerdas sat stiffly in his own chair. The cushions beneath the immaculate silk brocade were thick and inviting, but he couldn’t sink into them.
May as well have been sitting in a cold bucket of fish bait for all the comfort available.