Chapter Four

The next morning, after the breakfast things were cleared away, Cay brought his sketching supplies down to the dining room. He usually stayed in his room to draw, but (as he had explained to Lirano) heavy rain clouds had rolled in overnight, and his suite was a bit dark. Cay spread out his new rough paper and arranged his pens and pot of cheap purple ink on the dining room table, where the big windows let in as much light as possible, in spite of the gloom of the day.

No one could fail to see what he was doing: designing a new gown for Kell. Kell had no interest in a new gown, of course. But Cay enjoyed designing, and he rather liked his new idea for her. She was not tall, but a flowing skirt and a tailored waist would make her appear more so, and the high open collar would lengthen her neck. He thought a warm color would suit her hair, which, like their father's, was a medium brown. Amber, perhaps.

"I'm headed for Lodola tomorrow," said Adrio from the doorway.

"Oh?" Cay looked up from his drawing.

"Yes. I need to meet with my steward and see my mother. I'll be gone for about a week."

Valette in autumn was cool and rainy, but Lodola to the south would be warm still, with gentle salt-tasting breezes coming off the sea. And Hob Fierar and his threats could not reach him in Lodola. "May I come?"

"No," said Adrio. "You'll probably still be abed when I leave in the morning, so I'll bid you farewell now." Without waiting for an answer, he bowed and went up the stairs to his suite. After a moment, his voice reached Cay as he spoke to the servants.

It wasn't the first time Adrio had gone away for days or weeks at a time. But this time Cay would be alone with the threat of the Muntegrise envoy. Perhaps it was better so. But the loneliness of his life—a lifetime of wealth, luxury, celibacy, and his husband's disregard—seemed to stretch ahead of him.

"Lord Lodola is here," whispered Mara to Cay, passing behind his workbench at Therescu and Sons.

"Again?" Cay's tone was bored as he stitched tiny silver beads onto a velvet doublet. They had to be perfectly even.

"Yes, again." She giggled.

He tried to ignore the warm fizz of pleasure in his chest. "I'm busy."

"Get your ass up and go give the man a smile," she said. "Tollo wants to keep his business."

"There are things I will not do for Tollo." Cay carefully put his needle into its cushion and put the lid on the box of beads so they wouldn't spill.

Therescu and Sons was a high-end tailor shop. They sold custom-made clothing and accessories to a wealthy clientele. Tollo Therescu was one of the Sons. Mara was one of the tailors who designed and oversaw the creation of bespoke garments, and Cay was one of the small fleet of seamsters who brought their ideas to life with needle and scissors. Therescu also employed an armada of pieceworkers who did mending and sewing at home, which had been Cay's first job for Therescu. He had hopes of moving up to tailor someday.

"Well, if you must turn him down, send him to me," said Mara. "I'll take your place."

Cay bit down on the impulse to throttle her. His heart insisted that Adrio belonged only to him. But someone like Cay could only ever be temporary entertainment for the Heir of Lodola. Temporary entertainment was fine and highly enjoyable, but he'd be a fool to fall in love with the man. That could only lead to heartbreak.

He brushed thread fragments off his shirt and trousers, ran his hands through his hair, and wished he were wearing something more attractive. But that didn't matter. He went out through the curtain to the shop's public showroom.

It was busy on this winter afternoon. Not only was Lord Adrio there, as handsome a suitor as any impoverished seamster could dream of, but there was also a line of people picking up packages from Tollo at the counter, and a large man in the back alcove, standing on a small dais, being measured by another assistant, Cay's friend Illo.

Adrio spotted Cay and smiled, his dark eyes turning to crescents, and Cay's heartbeat fluttered. He seemed a bit out of place—too wealthy and well-dressed to visit a tailor's shop in person. His fashion sense was by no means ostentatious, but he (or his tailor) knew how to highlight his assets, preferring clean lines to draw attention to his height and leanness, his broad shoulders, his classic Lucenequan bronze skin and sun-streaked hair. Cay would very much have liked to run his fingers through that hair, smoothing it into place, tracing his fingers along Adrio's ears and the clean angle of his jawline.

Instead he said, "Good morning, my lord. How may I help you?"

"I don't want to interrupt your work," said Adrio. "But—with your master's permission—might I have a quick word?" He glanced around, noting they were being observed avidly. "Perhaps outside?"

Cay caught Tollo's nod. "Certainly, my lord. But only for a minute."

The street outside Therescu and Sons was little more than an alleyway in the busiest part of the shopping district of Valette, rendered narrower by piles of snow pushed to the sides and packed into dirty mounds of ice. Couriers ran to and fro, for this lane was a good shortcut from the center of town to the docks. The leatherworker across the way seemed to be doing a brisk business, and the bakery next door breathed the scent of hot bread into the air.

Cay crossed his arms against the chill, and concern wrinkled Adrio's brow. "You're cold," he said. "I didn't think." He immediately unclasped the brooch closure of his wool-lined cloak, which he made to put over Cay's shoulders. Cay stepped back.

"No, my lord. Thank you, my lord."

"No? Oh, I suppose not." Adrio smiled sheepishly and bundled the cloak under his arm rather than putting it back on.

"Now we are both cold, my lord."

"Like the sky to the lakes, and the lakes to the sky," said Adrio.

Cay blinked at him.

"Ah," said Adrio. "I was wondering if you might go for a drive with me this evening. When you are done with your work. The hills south of the city are beautiful in the snow, and I know of an inn by the lake where we might dine together. They are justly famed for their oysters, brought up fresh from the bay every day."

Cay looked down, letting his curls hide his face.

He'd been seeing a great deal of Adrio lately. They had walked the city together, talking and laughing. They'd held hands. Adrio had frequently ventured to kiss him, and Cay had been eager to accept those kisses and Adrio's caresses on his face, throat, and nape. He had begun to dream of Adrio at night, to miss him during the day.

And now this. This was clearly a step up in the possibility of intimacy. A long ride together in a dimly lit carriage, a meal for two at an inn, perhaps a private room upstairs... Adrio was planning for more than kisses.

Cay wanted him. He ached for him. If he was not careful, he would give his entire heart to this man. And so he must refuse.

"My lord."

"Yes?"

"I do not care for oysters. And I am an honest man."

"I believe they also serve lamb."

"An honest tailor, not a prostitute, my lord," Cay clarified. The smile fell from Adrio's face. "I am accustomed to earning my own money and buying my own dinner. My lord, I earn my money on my feet, not my knees."

Adrio was flushed. "I never thought—"

A commotion interrupted their conversation: a roar of outrage from inside the shop, a crash, a small scream. Cay turned in time to see the door fly open, and Illo staggered through, flinching away from the big man he'd been measuring, who, in his smallclothes, chased him into the snowy street with fists clenched.

"Illo!" Without a thought, Cay grabbed Illo by the hands and pushed him down the narrow alley, putting his body between his fellow seamster and his attacker. He whirled to see Adrio blocking the man.

Cay squeezed Illo's trembling hand. "Did he hit you?"

Illo nodded.

"That incompetent idiot cut me!" roared the man, pointing past Adrio and Cay at Illo. He whirled to address Tollo in the doorway. "What kind of shambles of a shop is this, where a gentleman can be gashed by scissors while getting his clothes made?"

Tollo was apologizing and bowing. The man was demanding compensation and the immediate termination of Illo.

"An accident, Master Tollo!" cried Illo, whose mouth was already swollen from the customer's fist.

Illo had lived a highly irregular life before becoming a tailor: begging, thieving, and perhaps even worse. He wondered if Illo had cut the customer on purpose. Not that Cay minded. The man was a lout, and Illo needed this job.

The big man roared, "Unacceptable! He goes, or I will take my business to another tailor, and all of my friends will know Therescu and Sons is a butcher shop where you're likely to get stabbed."

"What a shame," said Adrio. His voice, while not loud, rang out through the street and could be heard by everyone from corner to corner. He stood tall, suddenly no longer Cay's diffident suitor but a man who bore eight hundred years of noble heritage lightly on his shoulders. "For if you do fire this employee, I will take my business elsewhere and tell my friends Therescu and Sons does not defend its workers from abuse."

A shocked silence fell, and everyone in the street turned to stare at Adrio, who added, "A shop that mistreats its employees will not do for me. Or my friends."

Cay gazed at him. He'd never in his life seen a rich man throw the weight of his privilege behind an ordinary worker in such a way. It seemed incredible.

"Mistreats its—" The big man's voice went high with outrage. "The brute cut me!"

Adrio lifted his head and stared down his nose at the man. "How loudly you cry at the prick of a pin. So a gull will cry, even as sailors throw fish guts into the sea."

This was apparently a shocking insult, for Cay heard a few gasps and Oooh's from the spectators. A laugh quickly stifled. The big man, barefoot and partly unclothed, went purple in the face and turned back into the shop.

He was blocked by Tollo. "If you have a problem with my employees, you will not lay hands upon them, but come to me, and I will discipline them appropriately. Please take your things and go." He looked at Illo, still standing with Cay, holding his hand. "Illo. I believe you have the beading on Lady Aspa's doublet to finish?"

It was Cay who was working on the beading, but Illo nodded and went into the shop, giving the big man wide berth. Tollo glanced at Cay, then turned to Adrio and said, "I assure you, my lord, I run a humane shop."

"I am glad to hear it, sir."

The two men bowed politely to one another, and then Tollo returned to the shop, and business resumed as usual now the spectacle was over.

Cay and Adrio faced one another in the street. Meeting his eyes, Cay was gripped by a wild euphoria. It was like flying, this swoop and flutter in his heart, and somehow it hurt too. Pain and astonishment and joy mixed, just at the sight of this man.

"Thank you," he said.

Adrio, his expression so haughty a moment ago, dropped his eyes and seemed almost bashful. "There's no honor to strike someone who dares not hit back. Nor for a rich man to assail a poorer man's income."

Cay nodded and did not tell him Illo quite likely cut the customer on purpose. Adrio might rethink his honorable stance.

"Well," Adrio said. He put his cloak back over his shoulders and fumbled with the clasp as though he was about to leave.

With a start, Cay remembered that, before the commotion, he had rejected Adrio.

Like an idiot.

"They serve lamb?" he blurted.

Adrio raised his eyes.

Cay dropped his chin a little and curved his lips. "You see, we do not have oysters in Turla, my lord, and I've never had one. They seem disagreeable. But I do like lamb."

A brilliant smile bloomed across Adrio's face. "You will have lamb, then," he said. "And if you choose, you might try an oyster from my plate and see if it suits. But only if you so choose."

"Thank you, Lord Lodola. That sounds lovely."

"So, what kind of lock is it?"

The night following Fonsca's music-party, Cay walked down to Therescu and Sons at closing time and invited all the staff to supper at the tavern around the corner. He bought his former colleagues a hearty meal of pigeon pie with fresh bread and as much wine as they could drink, and if they thought him a bit uppish, descending from his palace to treat them to tavern food, they were too hungry to say so. He kept Illo back after the rest of them had gone home, because Illo, at some point in his checkered past, had learned how to pick a lock.

"A regular lock?" guessed Cay.

Illo rolled his eyes. "Is it part of the cabinet, with the keyhole in the cabinet's door? Or is it a separate thing that hangs on the outside?"

"Oh," said Cay. "I see. It's hanging outside. There are metal loops attached to the wooden doors of the cabinet, and the lock is threaded through the loops to keep you from opening the doors."

"A padlock. Can you get at the metal loops? Or the hinges? Like to unscrew them?"

"No, all the hardware is inset into the doors of the cabinet. Nothing's on the outside except the metal loops, and the lock hangs from them."

"And is the keyhole on the bottom of the lock or the front?"

"The front. Here, I can draw it for you." He dipped his finger in wine and quickly drew the padlock on the polished wooden surface of the table: a curved shank set into an oval body, with a keyhole in the front. "This is bigger than the actual lock. It's quite small."

"Can you draw the keyhole?" Cay drew the keyhole: a circle with a rectangle extending beneath. "No notches or anything?"

"No."

"Can you see anything in the keyhole? Like a metal pin, right here?"

"No. It's just a hole."

"Easy-peasy," said Illo. "Small lock like that probably only has one ward. Bend a bit of metal wire like this—" he, too, drew in moisture on the table "—and then poke about in there. Feel through the wire, yes? You're trying to push the ward to one side. Once you find it, the whole thing will open up for you like a theater girl on market day."

Cay laughed. "It's easy? Really?"

"Sure." Illo drank his ale, studying Cay over the rim of his cup. "Clever fellow like you. I'm surprised you haven't learned lockpicking by now."

"I'm from a respectable family," said Cay. He frowned at the images now evaporating from the tabletop. "What if I can't do it? Will you come over some night and help me?"

"Maybe. Will you tell me why you're stealing from your rich husband's locked drawers?"

"No! I mean, I'm not." Cay wiped his hand over the wet diagrams he'd drawn on the table as if to erase the suggestion. "I already told you. We lost the key."

"Well, even easier than picking the lock would be breaking the cabinet open with a pry bar. Unless you don't want anyone to notice."

"It's an heirloom."

Illo sniffed. "You think he's sleeping around, do you? You're looking for evidence? Letters from his boyfriend?"

"No." Cay gave Illo his firmest stare. "Don't be silly. If you must know, I lost the key, and I don't want him to know. But Adrio loves me, and we're very happy. And it's been a while since I saw any of my old friends, so this seemed like a good excuse to have supper with you."

"Sure," said Illo again. He shook his head and drained his cup. "You never should have married him," he said, reminding Cay exactly why he hadn't seen Illo in so long. "He's not your kind."

"Why?" asked Cay flippantly. "Because he's a nobleman and I'm a potter's son?"

"No. Because he's a palm tree dropping coconuts upon the water."

"What in the deep hells is a coconut?"

"I don't know. It means he's honorable. He gives. People like you and me, we take."

At one time, Cay would have argued with this, but since he was asking for lockpicking lessons behind his husband's back, he didn't think he'd be convincing. He just said, "Do you mean that he's like the swan, and I'm like the duck?"

Illo laughed. "Exactly right, Cay. You're learning." He tipped his cup to show its empty bottom and raised his eyebrows, and Cay smiled weakly and signaled for another round of wine.

In spite of Adrio's prediction, Cay was awake at dawn when his husband left home.

He didn't go down to say farewell. In the gray light of morning, he sat at his window, looking down at the bustle in the stable yard below: the carriage, the horses, the servants loading Adrio's luggage. He rested his cheek on his folded arms and watched his husband, in a dark green cloak, misty rain beading on his hair, make ready to leave.

He wanted to go down to adjust Adrio's cloak over his shoulders and make sure he had something to eat on his journey. Wish him safe travels, promise to think of him every evening, and give him a kiss to remember while he was gone.

He opened his eyes from this fantasy to see Adrio's carriage pull away with a clatter and disappear around the corner.

Cay would miss him. Cay was stupid, stupid, stupidly in love with him. He cursed his soft, loyal heart.

What sorrow should a swan love a golden-headed duck.

He didn't know what it meant. He knew Adrio liked duck for dinner. He remembered the day during their courtship, when they'd freed the ducks in the lake. They'd driven out to the lake several times since to look at the ducks and try to pick out which ones were their ducks.

Had Adrio been thinking of their lakeside kiss when he'd made his comment about ducks and swans? Did he know how painful it was for Cay to remember his kiss, that evening in the pink sunset when he'd begun falling in love? Was that the point, to cause pain?

At one time, he'd have said Adrio was incapable of deliberate cruelty, but he no longer knew. Perhaps he'd never known the real Adrio at all. After all, Adrio didn't know the real Cay.

No. Cay's heart knew Adrio was a good man. No matter what happened, Cay simply could not stop believing that Adrio was good and worthy of goodness.

He just didn't love Cay anymore.

At breakfast, Lirano brought him a note: Hob Fierar, the envoy from Muntegri, requested a meeting with him.

"Please send him a response," said Cay. "I cannot see him today nor tomorrow; offer him a meeting the next day."

"What excuse should I give him, my lord?"

"Do not give him an excuse. Tell him I will see him the day after tomorrow." It wouldn't do to give Hob Fierar the impression Cay was cowed by him. "Also, please send a card around to Lord Noresposto. Ask him if I might call upon him soon."

"Yes, my lord."

"Thank you. I will be working in my suite today and would prefer not to be disturbed. Should the envoy from Muntegri visit, tell him I am not at home."

"Yes, my lord. Would you like me to bring tea to your rooms?"

"That would be lovely. Thank you. And... Lirano? Do you know of a tale about a swan falling in love with a duck?"

Lirano's face grew impassive. "Perhaps, my lord."

"Will you tell it to me?"

"I would rather not, my lord."

Cay smiled at him wryly. No, it wasn't a very kind thing to ask. No doubt the servants had taken sides between them, and Lirano must be professionally loyal to them both. "But if it is in a book or something, perhaps you could find it for me?"

Lirano continued to look dyspeptic. Cay sighed.

"Never mind. I'm certain it's unimportant. You may go."

After breakfast, he began work on the first part of his plan.

He spent the day drawing purple ink on cheap pulpy paper, but this was no dress design. He'd gathered some books out of the library, including works on mathematics, history, philosophy, and several tales of adventures at sea. (With luck Lirano would think he was searching for the swan story and not look too closely.) He filled pages with sketches, plans, and notations, disguising his hand by writing with his left.

As a child, Kell had gone through a phase of writing him mysterious letters. Their father could not read them; their mother could have but indulged their games and did not. Kell could write with either her left or right hand or backward. She made up codes and rebuses. Five years her senior, Cay had been hard-pressed to keep up. But he could compose a convincing mysterious letter.

By late afternoon he was hungry, tired, his eyes dry from a day of working with pen and paper. He had a sheaf of documents that would have done ten-year-old Kell proud.

He stacked his papers, tapped them to even the edges, and folded them into a thick booklet. Then he unfolded the booklet and folded it again another way and then again another, working the creases back and forth until the cheap fibers began to fray. He swished the papers in the dust under his bed and frowned. It was too clean under there.

Cay leaned out his window, glanced around to make sure he was unobserved, kicked off his shoes, and climbed onto the windowsill. He scaled the outside of the building, which was quite easy. The exterior of Rossoulia was not ornate, but it featured symmetrical pilasters and lintels, which provided ample handholds and footholds. On the roof, Cay rubbed the papers on the roof slates, collecting city dirt and grime. Back in his room, he spilled some cold tea on his worktable and mopped it up with the papers. Finally, he folded them tightly, set an edge on fire with a candle, and then batted out the flames.

When he was done, the papers were stained and tattered and partially crumbling to ash, torn along the creases in some places, the ink smeared in others. When unfolded, certain portions were tantalizingly legible, others obliterated.

It looked quite all right, he thought. He folded the packet up tightly again and hid it in his chest underneath his clothes.

Finally, he took out drawings of the new dress design for Kell and left them about the room, in case the servants wondered what he'd been doing, and went down for a meal.