Court of Fives

Page 19

The thought of never again running the Fives smashes down like a vast rock. My eyelids flutter as I crush back tears. “It doesn’t matter. What point is there in training if I can never compete?”
Her expression darkens, like the breath of an oracle pushing an ominous cloud over the bright eye of the sun. “You should have lied to the young lord. Why should he keep your secret?”
“How could I lie when he saw my shoes? Anyway, he promised not to tell.”
“There will be trouble,” she mutters, and lapses into silence.
The horses labor, pulling uphill, and I wonder where we are going because our house lies downhill from the City Fives Court. When the carriage glides to a halt I peek outside. To my astonishment we have stopped at the Ribbon Market.
“Amaya! Father told us to go straight home!”
She leans in to whisper, “You ran your Fives! Now I’m going to go buy my cat mask.”
Before I can react she hops out of the carriage and, with Coriander and Taberta in tow, strides away into the Ribbon Market.
8
I jump out. Junior House Steward Polodos waits in the shade of the carriage with his arms crossed. He came from Saro-Urok only two years ago, from the same town as Father. For months after arriving he wore his straight black hair long and tied back in a club as Patron men do in the homeland, but recently he cut it off into the short style all men wear here where it is hot year-round and soldiers go clean-shaven. It’s as if he is trying to impress someone.
The groom and driver are standing at the horses’ heads, talking together, looking agitated.
“Steward Polodos! What is going on?” I demand.
He regards me with a pleasant and entirely unruffled expression. “There’s been some trouble with the horses’ harness, Doma. We just have to stop here a moment to fix it.”
No one is fixing anything.
He turns his face back toward the sea, a faint smile on his usually serious face as he gazes at the view. The promenade is built on a crater rim and offers a splendid view across Saryenia, the royal city of Efea. Saryenia is famous for two conical hills, the King’s Hill and the Queen’s Hill. The King’s Hill is crowned with the massive king’s palace, the Royal Fives Court, and the many administration buildings and military offices. On the Queen’s Hill, the queen’s stately palace oversees banking and merchant offices and the markets. The Archivists say these hills were once tiny volcanoes like the Fire Islands that seed the western sea.
I can imagine exactly how fiery Father’s reaction will be if he learns we have disobeyed his direct order.
“Amaya wheedled you into doing this, didn’t she? I mean no offense, Steward Polodos, because Mother speaks highly of your skills. But if you harbor some sort of romantic feeling for Amaya, you must know she has her sights set on a dashing military man. Not a mere household steward like you who besides that is as lowborn a Patron as our father.”
If my words offend him he does not show it.
“Almost any man would find Doma Amaya hard to resist,” he says with another smile. “I respect Captain Esladas more than I can say, Doma Jessamy. But it will not harm your sister to find a little happiness by buying a mask. The Ribbon Market is always perfectly safe. Lest you wonder, the groom and the driver both had a drink of celebratory beer while on duty. Should your father hear of it they will be whipped and lose their employment. So they will say nothing. Will you tell your father that we came here?”
The thought of Father finding out about this reckless escapade and thus causing Amaya to tattle about the Fives makes me want to scratch my fingernails down my cheeks and scream.
“I’m going to find her and bring her back.”
“Doma, your sister took the servant and ill-wisher with her for propriety’s sake. You must stay here with the carriage.”
“Will you tell my father that I walked alone into the market when you weren’t meant to bring us here at all?” I stalk off before he can answer.
Nestled inside the Queen’s Hill crater, the Ribbon Market is a maze of stairs and narrow aisles shaded by canvas awnings. I know exactly where Amaya’s favorite mask vendor has her stall, but when I make my way to the place down several flights of twisting stairs, Amaya isn’t there.
I want to strangle her. Where has she gone?
I head deeper into Mask Lane. There are wooden masks and thin hammered metal masks and fragile glass masks and inexpensive canvas masks and woven reed masks. Masks ornamented by beads sit beside masks sewn entirely of feathers.
Numerous side alleys make Mask Lane a maze for shopping but fortunately I spot Amaya on the central aisle. She is standing at a stall holding a pair of cat masks so she and Taberta can look them over. The ill-wisher loves shopping with Amaya because my sister includes her in decision-making and slips her extra coin to buy trinkets for herself.