Lindsay Buroker: Beneath the Surface

“ I was never absent.”

When she didn’t find anyone sleeping inside, Amaranthe pulled a lantern off the cart and lit it. The twin bunks were side-by-side instead of stacked against the wall, and the cabin offered a desk, table, chairs, sofa, and water closet.

“ A little more luxurious than our accommodations,” Evrial noted.

“ I didn’t think we should waste Sespian’s money on fancy rooms. Unless I think of something terribly clever during the next week, we’ll likely need it for buying weapons and troops to oppose Ravido.” Amaranthe turned down the beds, handed Evrial a wastebasket to empty, then poked through the desk drawers.

“ You believe it’s appropriate for Sespian to head an army to take back the throne when he’s not the true heir?” Evrial looked at the wastebasket. Did Amaranthe actually expect them to service all the cabins?

“ Nobody’s the true heir, and he’s got as good a claim as anyone else. We don’t want some power-grubbing relative of Maldynado’s to simply take the throne.”

“ But is it up to us to decide?”

Amaranthe slid a desk drawer shut. “Empty that, will you? If anyone wanders past, we want to look authentic.”

Evrial dumped the contents of the wastebasket into a larger refuse bin on the bottom of the cart. A man and woman, arms linked, turned the corner and walked toward her. Ducking her head-and attempting to appear servile, or at least not intimidating-Evrial pulled the cart to the side. The pair walked by without glancing at her.

Inside the cabin, Amaranthe closed the last drawer and rose. “As to who’s responsible for deciding… if everybody leaves it up to someone else, only those who seek the power of the position will be involved in the decision making, and those are probably the last people we want controlling our destinies, don’t you think?”

While mulling that over, Evrial followed Amaranthe into three more cabins. She watched in bemusement as her fastidious companion turned down all the beds, tidied the areas, and removed rubbish. Perhaps Ms. Lokdon should have opened a cleaning business instead of pursuing an enforcer career.

In the fourth cabin, Evrial stumbled to a stop on the threshold. A familiar gray cloak hung on a peg. She caught Amaranthe’s arm and nodded toward it. “The woman was wearing that.”

“ Excellent.”

Amaranthe waved Evrial toward the closet while she dove into the desk drawers. Evrial searched through dresses and robes, patting down pockets. The closet was divided in half with different person’s garments occupying each side, both belonging to women. She wondered if both wardrobes represented Forge people. How many of them might have lost their underwater vehicles and stowed away on the steamer? Not stowed away, she corrected herself. These people had purchased passage and in the nicest cabins too. So why was one of them sneaking about, pilfering food and wine?

She didn’t find any answers in the closet. “Do you have anything?”

“ Maybe.” Amaranthe leaned against the desk, a large book open in her hands, columns of ink handwriting scrawled down the pages. “It looks like… someone’s business expenses for the year.” She flipped a few pages. “Or maybe just the current quarter. There are at least three businesses being tracked in here. I don’t recognize these two, but this information is for the Traveling Ice Show and Circus.”

“ The same people somersaulting and juggling all over the boat?” Evrial asked.

“ The same. They’re-”

Voices sounded in the corridor, and Evrial threw up a warning hand. The doorknob rattled as someone applied a key. Amaranthe shoved the book back into a drawer, and Evrial closed the closet doors, careful not to slam them. Amaranthe lunged for the beds and started turning down the covers. Evrial grabbed a wastebasket a heartbeat before the door opened.

“- didn’t know they were on this boat,” a woman, one of four standing around the entrance, was saying.

“ Sssh, someone’s in there.”

Surprised by the number of people coming in, Evrial stared for a moment before she remembered she was supposed to be keeping her face down. Not before the gray-haired woman who’d been sneaking about met her eyes. Evrial dumped the wastebasket into the bin on the bottom of the cart. She didn’t think the woman had seen her following before.

“ It’s just the maids.” Gray-hair walked in first, grunting when her arm caught the corner of the cart. “Get this garbage out of my way.”

“ Yes, ma’am,” Evrial said.

“ Ma’am?” one of the other women asked. “That’s ‘my lady,’ to you.”

“ Yes, my lady.” Evrial hated debasing herself before anyone, but she’d had to suffer through worse as a low-ranking enforcer.

“ Not me, you dolt. Her.”

Amaranthe, who was doing a better job keeping her head down and staying unnoticed, shot Evrial a stop-talking look. She took her time creasing the sheets and fluffing the pillows. Evrial just wanted to get out of there. She tried to pull the cart to the side so the women could pass, but even the more luxurious cabins were small.

“ Out of the way, you hulking behemoth.” A woman tried to brush past Evrial, but bumped into her thigh instead.

The poorly-fastened knife fell to the floor with a noticeable clunk. Evrial dove down to pick it up, trying to hide it before anyone saw what it was. It didn’t work.

“ Uhm, the maid’s got a dagger the size of a broadsword.” The woman who had knocked it free hustled backward, almost tripping over her feet in her haste to find the corridor.

Evrial didn’t know whether to deny that her dagger was that big or claim she’d found it somewhere or “ Well, of course she does,” Amaranthe said. She kept her face down as she stepped up beside Evrial, but she was clearly addressing the women. “Have you seen the womanizing leers of some of the men working in the kitchens? A girl has to defend herself.”

Judging from the way the rest of the group was backing toward the corridor, the women weren’t believing the story. “Those aren’t the usual maids, are they? That one has muscles like a wrestler in the Imperial Games.”

“ We’re from the second deck,” Amaranthe said. “Your regular maids didn’t show up for work, so we had to take over.”

That much was true at least. The women kept backing away though. Only one of the four was still in the cabin, the rest having slipped into the corridor. Nobody had bolted off to find security yet, but they were exchanging a lot significant glances with each other.

Evrial crouched, thinking to spring after them, but Amaranthe stopped her with a hand on the arm.

The last woman hustled into the corridor. “You stay here. We’ll just check out that story.”

The door slammed shut, trapping Evrial and Amaranthe in the cabin.

Evrial spun on her comrade. “Why did you stop me? We could have dragged them in here, tied them up, and locked them inside.”

“ Of that I have no doubt,” Amaranthe said, “but then what? Unless we wanted to kill them, they’d be found eventually, at which point they’d identify us and cause a search. We’d have to grab the entire team, jump overboard, hike to the next port, and wait for another steamer to come. We need to get to the capital as soon as possible.”

Evrial propped her hands on her hips. She wanted to point out that this scheme had been Amaranthe’s idea, and it’d be her fault if that happened, but she lowered her hands again. Her knife had been the one to fall. “Can your card open it again?” she asked.

“ Not from this side.” Amaranthe jogged to the door and tried the knob. “Hm, I didn’t know you could be locked in from the outside. Not very safe in the case of a fire.”