Rae Carson - The Crown of Embers

“Yes,” the captain says. “But we’d only get half price. It’s the Orovalleños who pay top coin.”

I smile with remembrance. “I don’t doubt it. Ventierra wine was a favorite in my father’s court. Do you mind if we sit down?”

“Please,” he gestures with a flip of his hand. “Anywhere.”

I plunk down on the nearest cushion and say, “It’s a long journey to Orovalle and back. You’ll overlap with hurricane season.”

He grins with the understanding that we are about to haggle. “It’s one of the many reasons I love the life of a sailor,” he says. “Don’t you find, Your Majesty, that when you and death are bedmates, that is when you feel most alive?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

His eyes widen. He expected to put me off balance by referring to the attempts on my life.

“I’m always in bed with death. Since the moment I left my father’s palace. I’ve nearly died more times than I can count. And I’m a bearer, which means I’m likely to die very young. So, you see”—I shrug with purposed nonchalance—“I wouldn’t know the difference.”

His beard hides any turning of his lips, but his eyes crinkle with amusement. “What do you propose?”

I have a hunch about him, about the person he is. What kind of man leaves the soft life of a conde’s son to embrace the open water? Sacrifices his youth to endless sun and wind, his fingers to the sea? Someone who loves open space and danger, I’d bet my Godstone crown. Someone who can’t wait to see what lies just over the horizon.

“My honor compels me to warn you,” I say, “that our journey is dangerous and our destination uncertain.”

Sure enough, one eyebrow raises high, and the expression is so familiar, so endearing, that it’s hard not to smile. “Oh?” he says.

“I need a captain and crew I can trust absolutely. For it is a secret journey. Outside this room, only a small handful of people know its purpose.”

He raises his chin and looks down at me through lidded eyes. “Seems to me that someone would pay top price for such a venture.”

“Seems to me that the kind of discretion I need cannot be bought for any price. I hardly know where to start.”

His eyes glow, and he’s practically salivating over what I’m about to offer. Good. “Let’s start with my lost cargo. I’ll need to be compensated for the difference in price.”

I nod. “That’s fair.”

“And I’ll need extra supplies.”

“You’ll need the same supplies as if you were traveling to Orovalle,” I point out. “You’ll just be going in a different direction.”

“I’ll need compensation for this danger you speak of, and to ensure crew loyalty.”

“So the crew is loyal to coin but not to you?”

“They’re loyal to me because I make good on my word to give them coin. Did you bring any to give me?”

I hesitate.

He glances at Hector, then throws up his hands in a show of frustration that may be a bit exaggerated.

I’ve intrigued him, certainly, but here I am at a loss. I’d hoped to trade on royal credit. But I have no coin on hand, no horses or—

“I have saffron,” Mara says. “Enough to line the pockets of your crew and then some.”

I twist to face her, remembering how carefully she has preserved her satchel throughout our journey so far. “Mara, are you sure?”

In answer, she pulls a small porcelain phial from her satchel and hands it to Felix for inspection. He feigns disinterest, but his eyes light up when he raises it to his nose.

“I suggest you sell your cargo in Puerto Verde,” I say. “Get what you can for it. The saffron will more than make up for the rest.”

But how do I compensate the captain for risking his ship and his crew? I purse my lips, thinking hard, while Captain Felix unstoppers the phial and examines the contents carefully.

I get an idea. Though I don’t have money to bargain with, as queen I possess something much more valuable. I add, “And for the service of taking us where we need to go, fearlessly and loyally, I’ll write a letter to my kitchen master and stamp it with my own seal, declaring Ventierra the official Royal Vintner.”

His mouth drops open before he can school his expression, and his breathless voice belies his nonchalant demeanor as he turns to Hector and says, “We’d have to pull out all our stores to meet demand. We’d have to sell the oldest barrels at premium prices to keep from running out. We’d have to replant the southern vineyard.”

“Yes,” Hector says. “We would have to do all that.” But he’s staring at me, a little perplexed.

“Do we have a bargain?” I ask. “Because if not, your men should lower our boat before we’re too far from shore.”

The captain crouches down to take my hands in his huge ones. He pauses, noticing the burst blisters from my disastrous attempt at rowing. I’m determined not to wince. Instead, I squeeze his hand hard, and the expression on his face takes on a measure of respect.

“Your Majesty, we have a bargain.” His beard tickles my knuckles as he kisses them.

“You haven’t even asked where we’re going!”

“Later,” he says, his nose wrinkling in disgust. “First, baths for everyone. I can only offer seawater for baths, but I must insist. You all reek of something terrible.”

“I can’t smell anything except the fish oil in your beard,” Hector says, straight-faced.

Felix laughs free and easy, so unlike his younger brother. On his way out the door, he clasps Hector’s shoulder and says, “That queen of yours played me like a vihuela, didn’t she?”

“Yes,” Hector agrees, and though his face is solemn, his eyes shine.

“Please stay here while I make arrangements,” the captain says to the rest of us. “I need to evaluate my crew and see if anyone should be quietly disembarked before you start making regular appearances on deck.”

As the doors close behind him, Hector says, “Thank you, Elisa.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I don’t think he noticed Storm,” Mara says.

The Invierno is huddled on a cushion behind me, partly hidden by the corner of Captain Felix’s enormous desk.

“Oh, he noticed,” Belén murmurs. He is using a small knife to clean under his fingernails.

“Felix trusts me,” Hector explains. But the look he gives Storm is one of suspicion. Or maybe regret that he brought the Invierno onto his brother’s ship.

AFTER baths and a quick meal of salted pork with too-hard bread dipped in onion broth, we agree that Felix will give up the captain’s quarters for me and Mara. He and the men will share the largest passenger cabin below deck.

The next day at midmorning, I’m trying to make sense of the captain’s navigation charts when the crew sends up a raucous cheer, followed by much pattering across the decks. The ship lurches. I rush to the nearest porthole and am delighted to see choppy water pass by. We have caught a wind.

It takes two whole days to unload and sell the wine cargo and acquire a new batch of supplies. I spend the time pacing in the captain’s quarters, trapped and antsy, frustrated at having to backtrack, even for a short distance.

When Felix returns from his final negotiation, he brings back news.

“The queen and the conde are safely on their way to Selvarica,” he says, his eyes dancing. “Apparently it is the city’s greatest shame that the inn she was staying in burned down around her, but no amount of apologies could convince her to stay. They’re already calling it The Great Embarrassment.”

The relief is so overwhelming that I have to sit down. “They’re safe, then. No word about an assassin?”