She leaned back, wearing a white dress with a long pleated skirt that rippled and blew in the wind. She tapped the side of her cup, which caused a serving man to refill her juice. Thame smiled, taking more juice as well, though he looked out of place in the fine restaurant.
“How many are there, you suppose?” she asked. “Idrians in the city, I mean.”
“Perhaps as many as ten thousand.”
“That many?”
“Trouble on the lower farms,” Thame said, shrugging. “It’s hard, sometimes, living up in those mountains. Crops fail, and what do you have? The king owns your land, so you can’t sell. You need to pay your levies . . .”
“Yes, but one can petition in the case of disaster,” Vivenna said.
“Ah, my lady, but most of these men are several weeks’ travel from the king. Should they leave their families to make a petition, when they fear their loved ones will starve during the weeks it will take to bring food from the king’s store house if they are successful? Or do they travel the much shorter distance down to T’Telir? Take work there, loading on the docks or harvesting flowers in the jungle plantations? It’s hard work, but steady.”
And, in doing so, they betray their people.
But who was she to judge? The Fifth Vision would define it as haughtiness. Here she sat in the cool shade of a canopy, enjoying a nice breeze and expensive juice while other men slaved to provide for their families. She had no right to sneer at their motivations.
Idrians shouldn’t have to seek for work in Hallandren. She didn’t like to admit fault in her father, yet his was not a bureaucratically efficient kingdom. It consisted of dozens of scattered villages with poor highways that were often blocked by snows or rockslides. In addition, he was forced to expend a lot of resources keeping his army strong in case of a Hallandren assault.
He had a difficult job. Was that a good enough excuse for the poverty of her people who had been forced to flee their homeland? The more she listened and learned, the more she realized that many Idrians had never known anything like the idyllic life she’d lived in her lovely mountain valley.
“Meeting is three days hence, my lady,” Thame said. “Some of these men are hesitant after Vahr and his failure, but they will listen to you.”
“I will be there.”
“Thank you.” Thame rose—bowed, despite the fact that she’d asked him not to draw attention to her—and withdrew.
Vivenna sat and sipped her juice. She felt Denth before he arrived. “You know what interests me?” he said, taking the seat Thame had been using.
“What?”
“People,” he said, tapping an empty cup, drawing the serving man back over. “People interest me. Particularly people who don’t act like they’re supposed to. People who surprise me.”
“I hope you aren’t talking about Thame,” Vivenna asked, raising an eyebrow.
Denth shook his head. “I’m talking about you, Princess. Wasn’t too long ago that—no matter what or who you looked at—you had a look of quiet displeasure in your eyes. You’ve lost it. You’re starting to fit in.”
“Then that’s a problem, Denth,” Vivenna said. “I don’t want to fit in. I hate Hallandren.”
“You seem to like that juice all right.”
Vivenna set it aside. “You’re right, of course. I shouldn’t be drinking it.”
“If you say so,” Denth said, shrugging. “Now, if you were to ask the mercenary—which, of course, nobody ever does—he might mention that it’s good for you to start acting like a Hallandren. The less you stand out, the less likely people are to connect you to that Idrian princess hiding in the city. Take your friend Parlin.”
“He looks like a fool in those bright colors,” she said, glancing across the street toward where he and Jewels were chatting as they watched the escape route.
“Does he?” Denth said. “Or does he just look like a Hallandren? Would you hesitate at all if you were in the jungle and saw him put on the fur of a beast, or perhaps shroud himself in a cloak colored like fallen leaves?”
She looked again. Parlin lounged against the side of a building much like street toughs his age she’d seen elsewhere in the city.
“You both fit better here than you once did,” Denth said. “You’re learning.”
Vivenna looked down. Some things in her new life were actually starting to feel natural. The raids, for instance, were becoming surprisingly easy. She was also growing used to moving with the crowds and being part of an underground element. Two months earlier, she would have been indignantly opposed to dealing with a man like Denth, simply because of his profession.
She found it very difficult to reconcile herself to some of these changes. It was growing harder and harder to understand herself, and to decide what she believed.
“Though,” Denth said, eyeing Vivenna’s dress, “you might want to think about switching to trousers.”
Vivenna frowned, looking up.
“Just a suggestion,” Denth said, then gulped down some juice. “You don’t like the short Hallandren skirts, but the only decent clothing we can buy you that are ‘modest’ are of foreign make—and that makes them expensive. That means we have to use expensive restaurants, lest we stand out. That means you have to deal with all of this terrible lavishness. Trousers, however, are modest and cheap.”
“Trousers are not modest.”
“Don’t show knees,” he said.
“Doesn’t matter.”
Denth shrugged. “Just giving my opinion.”
Vivenna looked away, then sighed quietly. “I appreciate the advice, Denth. Really. I just . . . I’m confused by a lot of my life lately.”
“World’s a confusing place,” Denth said. “That’s what makes it fun.”
“The men we’re working with,” Vivenna said. “They lead the Idrians in the city but exploit them at the same time. Lemex stole from my father but still worked for the interests of my country. And here I am, wearing an over-priced dress and sipping expensive juice while my sister is being abused by an awful dictator and while this wonderful, terrible city prepares to launch a war on my homeland.”
Denth leaned back in his chair, looking out over the short railing toward the street, watching the crowds with their colors both beautiful and terrible. “The motivations of men. They never make sense. And they always make sense.”
“Right now, you don’t make sense.”
Denth smiled. “What I’m trying to say is that you don’t understand a man until you understand what makes him do what he does. Every man is a hero in his own story, Princess. Murderers don’t believe that they’re to blame for what they do. Thieves, they think they deserve the money they take. Dictators, they believe they have the right—for the safety of their people and the good of the nation—to do whatever they wish.”
He stared off, shaking his head. “I think even Vasher sees himself as a hero. The truth is, most people who do what you’d call ‘wrong’ do it for what they call ‘right’ reasons. Only mercenaries make any sense. We do what we’re paid to do. That’s it. Perhaps that’s why people look down on us so. We’re the only ones who don’t pretend to have higher motives.”
He paused, then met her eyes. “In a way, we’re the most honest men you’ll ever meet.”
The two of them fell silent, the crowd passing by just a short distance away, a river of flashing colors. Another figure approached the table. “That’s right,” Tonk Fah said, “but, you forgot to mention that in addition to being honest, we’re also clever. And handsome.”
“Those both go without saying,” Denth said.
Vivenna turned. Tonk Fah had been watching from nearby, ready to provide backup. They were letting her start to take the lead in some of the meetings. “Honest, perhaps,” Vivenna said. “But I certainly hope that you’re not the most handsome men I’ll ever meet. Are we ready to go?”
“Assuming you’re finished with your juice,” Denth said, smirking at her.
Vivenna glanced at her cup. It was very good. Feeling guilty, she drained the juice. It would be a sin to waste it, she thought. Then she rose and swished her way from the building, leaving Denth—who now handled most of the coins—to settle the bill. Outside on the street, they were joined by Clod, who’d been given orders to come if she screamed for help.
She turned, looking back at Tonk Fah and Denth. “Tonks,” she said. “Where’s your monkey?”
He sighed. “Monkeys are boring anyway.”
She rolled her eyes. “You lost another one?”
Denth chuckled. “Get used to it, Princess. Of all the happy miracles in the universe, one of the greatest is that Tonks has never fathered a child. He’d probably lose it before the week was out.”
She shook her head. “You may be right,” she said. “Next appointment. D’Denir garden, right?”
Denth nodded.
“Let’s go,” she said, walking down the street. The others trailed behind, picking up Parlin and Jewels on the way. Vivenna didn’t wait for Clod to force a way through the crowd. The less she depended on that Lifeless, the better. Moving through the streets really wasn’t that difficult. There was an art to it—one moved with a crowd, rather than trying to swim against its flow. It wasn’t long before, Vivenna at the front, the group turned off into the wide grassy field that was the D’Denir garden. Like the crossroads square, this place was an open space of green life set among the buildings and colors. Yet, here no flowers or trees broke the landscape, nor did people bustle about. This was a more reverent place.
And it was filled with statues. Hundreds of them. They looked much like the other D’Denir in the city—with their oversized bodies and heroic poses, many tied with colorful cloths or garments. These were some of the oldest statues she had seen, their stone weathered from years spent enduring the frequent T’Telir rainfalls. This group was the final gift from Peacegiver the Blessed. The statues had been made as a memorial to those who had died in the Manywar. A monument and a warning. So the legends said. Vivenna couldn’t help thinking that if the people really did honor those that had fallen, they wouldn’t dress the statues up in such ridiculous costumes.
Still, the place was far more serene than most in T’Telir, and she could appreciate that. She walked down the steps onto the lawn, wandering between the silent stone figures.
Denth moved up beside her. “Remember who we’re meeting?”
She nodded. “Forgers.”
Denth eyed her. “You all right with this?”
“Denth, during our months together I’ve met with thief lords, murderers, and—most frighteningly—mercenaries. I think I can deal with a couple of spindly scribes.”
Denth shook his head. “These are the men who sell the documents, not the scribes who do the work. You won’t meet more dangerous men than forgers. Within the Hallandren bureaucracy, they can make anything seem legal by putting the right documents in the right places.”