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Teigra bit her lip. It was such a huge risk—one she could never imagine taking herself. Or, for that matter, that anyone would take for her.
Jaspar reached for her hand, eyes still fixed on the boy. His grip was warm and firm and soft.
The young man strode into the field, the stems parting at his knees.
The entire meadow held its breath as the boy stopped, kneeling without a second thought, and plucked a green, thorn-covered stem.
He held it up to the dappled light.
And it bloomed—green parting to reveal the of deepest reds.
“Yes!” said Jaspar, jumping on the spot, as the boy ran back to his partner, lifting her in a spinning embrace.
A pointed clearing of the throat behind them broke the moment. “If you are quite done, Mr. Accola, we have a very long list of people to meet with today.”
Jaspar turned stiffly. “Of course, Ms. Securia. But I was just going to take Ms. Cosmin to the Garden of Plenty. I think it will help her adjust to her new home.”
A strangely cruel smile spread across Ms. Securia’s face as she led them back beyond the tree-line of the apple grove. “Yes, that might be just the thing to help her adjust. But best she goes alone. We have work.”
“The Garden of Plenty?” asked Teigra. There had been nothing in the scrolls about that.
Jaspar gave her a comforting smile and pointed to the far side of the meadow, in the opposite direction they’d come in. There was a mazelike space down there, walled in yellow and green. “It’s where you use those wooden coins. Just try your best to keep an open mind, all right?”
And then they were gone.
For a moment, Teigra felt lost, suddenly aware that she was alone in a city she didn’t yet know. She did her best to shake that feeling, heading to where Jaspar had directed, her hands still bearing a little of his lingering warmth.
The entrance to the Garden of Plenty was walled with tall trellises, covered in twists of cucumber vines, with their long, full fruit and wide yellow flowers, so thick that she couldn’t see the space beyond.
She scrunched her nose.
Try to keep an open mind? What could be behind those walls that would shock her so? And why would it need the two coins?
She stood there for a good while at the entrance, fighting an urge to turn away from the unexpected. Ms. Securia’s nasty smile played in her head. Whatever lay beyond, the high envoy knew she wouldn’t want to see it.
And that made her certain that she had to.
With a deep breath, Teigra entered.
She gasped.
No!
35
AURELIUS
The crowd brayed at the crash of bodies. One was a large woman with ratty hair and a green loincloth, the other was smaller, dressed in red and with a more focused resolve.
There were thousands of people sitting up the gentle hillside of the Valley of Fury, cheering the violence in the wrestling circle at the base. After just one week of his mission, he had already met several of the nobility that now sat in the front rows, and had even started to gather a few of their naughtier secrets—although he doubted that tales of infidelity would have quite the same impact here as they would back home.
There had already been three matches so far, each closely fought. After buying a glass of wine for a rugged young man with agreeable eyes, he’d learned that the wrestling competition was held every Ardoralia, between the farmers and the fighters. Apparently, it was an even matchup, for while the fighters had the advantage of tactics, the farmers were flat-out stronger.
Just looking through the crowd he could see the accuracy of that. Those wearing red sat with the keen expressions of carnivores, with bodies that, although big, didn’t immediately present their heft. By contrast, those wearing green were great mountains of barrel-chested stock and full-hipped fecundity, barking out their wine-soaked cheers.
The farmers were currently leading two to one, with only one match to come after this. The whole crowd winced with every strike and every throw. If the soldiers won this bout, it would all come down to the final match.
And Aurelius didn’t need to flirt to know what that match was. It was the entire reason he had come.
