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“It’s not much more complicated than that,” said Kadou, which seemed like a lie, but who was Evemer to disagree? “We just need another set of eyes. Just . . . if you notice anything that seems odd.”
“Honestly, I looked over all of this twice last night,” Eozena said. “And I do have some other appointments. I’m to meet with Her Majesty before lunch—more nonsense with that dreadful Madam Melachrinos, I believe.”
“Oh,” His Highness said blankly. “Is that going any better than this?”
Eozena shrugged. “Too soon to tell. Siranos is reminding us at every possible moment that he—and therefore Oissos as a whole, apparently—isn’t happy to see one of his countrywomen questioned outside of a fair court trial.”
His Highness winced. “Better you than me. I’ll—I’ll send word, I suppose, if we find anything useful. I have some things later today as well.”
“Right,” Eozena said and got up from the table, sketching a very casual bow—Evemer supposed that was one of the privileges of rank. She left, and then they were alone again, Kadou looking more worried now than he had all morning.
Evemer begrudgingly admitted that he could not entirely fault him. Siranoswasdreadful, and if he were throwing his weight around like that and making a nuisance of himself, then Kadou’s concern was understandable.
He could almost see the thoughts circling Kadou’s head like buzzards, and it was not at all surprising when Kadou spoke up. “Yesterday was . . . it was strange, wasn’t it? The way he acted? I’m not just imagining it, am I?”
“No, Highness,” Evemer said.
“No to which part? Sorry.”
“Your Highness didn’t imagine it. It was strange.”
Kadou laughed nervously and shuffled the papers around, flicking through them in random order, picking them up and putting them down again. “I was surprised he went straight for calling my mother an adulteress.”
“Highness,” Evemer said, for lack of anything else.
“Usually people come at it more . . . sideways. They start with comments about my name, things like that.”
He could have just saidHighnessagain, but the words that left his tongue were “My apologies, I don’t speak Vintish. I have no context for what comments there might be to make.” Other thanfunny, foreign,andwhy would he be named like a Vint?
“It’scadeau,if you’re speaking Vintish.” The vowels were different when he said it like that, with the stress on the second syllable instead of the first. “It means gift, and there’s zero significance except that my mother didn’t speak Vintish well either. I was born at the Arasti embassy in Ancoux, and all the Vintish servants kept coming in to stand around my crib and coo,Cadeau, un cadeau, un tel cadeau,and she thought it sounded nice, so she named me that, spelled out phonetically in Arasük.” Kadou shrugged one shoulder. “They were all flattered. I’m told it finished the trade deal she was trying to negotiate. Most people bring it up as a lead-in to the ‘So did your mother sleep with a Vint?’ topic. I was surprised that Siranos didn’t.”
They’d hardly stayed long enough for Siranos to plumb the depths of the inappropriate comments available to him. “Highness,” Evemer said. And then, because his tongue and his better judgment had apparently ended their professional relationship, “Have you mentioned anything to Commander Eozena about yesterday’s incident, Your Highness?”
Kadou winced. “No. I don’t want to trouble her with . . .” He looked away. “Well. I suppose that sort of thought is what got me into this mess in the first place, isn’t it?”
Evemer didn’t dare risk saying evenHighness. “I will send her a report.”
“Right,” His Highness said faintly. “Of course.”
Evemer didn’t say another word to him for the rest of the morning. They sat in silence, which Kadou felt was agonizingly uncomfortable, and read through the ream of paper. Evemer fetched a wax tablet and scribbled equations from time to time, double-checking the arithmetic, and had to get up twice to change it for a new one. It was inconvenient to have north-facing rooms at a time like this—if there’d been a sunny windowsill, he could have just left the tablet there to soften until it could be smoothed out again.
Tadek returned at noon with the mended kaftans folded over his arm, a bit of sun-gilded color in his cheeks, and a pair of cadets in mist-colored uniforms behind him carrying trays of lunch. Evemer pointedly cleared up all the papers that Kadou wasn’t physically touching, and said, “Highness,” in a particular way that Kadou took to mean,Give me the rest; you’re going to eat lunch or else.
He ate lunch.
Evemer put away the papers and scrawled out a note, presumably the report to Eozena about encountering Siranos the day before, while Tadek sat across the table from Kadou with his hands folded. “I’ve been thinking,” he said.
Kadou was hungry enough at this point that even this sort of ominous comment couldn’t ruin his appetite, but it was a close thing. “Oh?”
“You don’t have a personal secretary.”
“I don’t need one. I’ve never needed one, except around holidays.” He didn’t receive enough correspondence to warrant foisting it off on someone else to sort through what was relevant or urgent, nor did he have enough appointments that he couldn’t keep track of them himself. He usually managed with notes on scraps of paper or, in a pinch, scribbled on his inner wrist, above where the cuffs of his kaftans would hide.
“It would give me something to do. ‘The prince’s secretary’ is more coherent than ‘the prince’s armsman.’ People know what a secretary is for, but armsmen are for country estates. I don’t makesensein the city—even in a town house, I wouldn’t make sense, let alone here in the palace where there’s a kahya every twenty feet.” Tadek looked away. “And I think it would make both of us look responsible.”
Kadou turned these thoughts over several times. It wouldn’t step on the kahyalar’s toes too outrageously, though around the busy holidays, Midsummer and Midwinter, the person temporarily assigned to manage his schedule always came from their ranks. It would be work that would give Tadek a purpose, because that too was Kadou’s responsibility now. If Tadek could be a little happy with it, then it might be enough to assuage some of Kadou’s guilt, and it would keep Tadek near him, which would be nice, if Kadou could figure out how to keep himself from making any more mistakes like last night’s.
And Tadek was right. Itwouldlook responsible. It would look like Tadek was settling down into a demure and sober sort of role, and that Kadou was expecting to get more formal correspondence, or that he was intending to make himself busier with official matters. All manner of things. “All right,” he said. “That sounds like a good idea.” He should say something else too, something about last night, to Tadek, tell him it wasn’t going to happen again.
