stumbled over the softer consonants, and the familiar words were tinged with an unmistakable foreignness. “Unless you make a habit of dreaming yourself into medical supervision so that a crack team of strange magicians can eradicate your fever. Nasty business, so I’m told. Not really my specialty.”
At least he knew the language well enough, though his tone was overly formal.
“Excuse us,” said another voice. That one was female and more skilled with our language. “My companion was evidently not chosen for his manners, but rather for his familiarity with the Ke-Han language and customs. Neither of which, I’m sorry to say, he has displayed here.”
“I was being honest,” the man protested, in Volstovic.
As my eyes adjusted to the light, I could see that he had a beard, and was dressed in much the same fashion as the delegates from Volstov had been, if less ceremonial. His companion was a striking woman with dark skin and eyes; no Ke-Han woman had a gaze like that. She pinned me to the mattress with one glance, like a butterfly in a collector’s display. I licked my lips to wet them before I spoke.
“My apologies,” I said, trying to sound like a prince of the Ke-Han and not a mouse caught in the granary. “I am… in Volstov?”
“Thremedon, actually,” said the man.
“If you are looking for your companion, I believe that he is sleeping downstairs,” the woman added. “He was suffering from exhaustion, and even then we had to be quite persuasive with him in order to gain permission to take you here for observation.”
“It certainly caused a scene,” added the man. “I assume they hauled us in as translators to ward off the massacre, since the guards of the Basquiat barely speak our language, let alone yours, and that companion of yours is certainly something to be reckoned with when he’s wielding a sword and shouting like the devil. Why, if we hadn’t been able to tie him down—”
“Royston,” the woman admonished.
The man blinked, then turned to me, bowing low in the Ke-Han fashion.
“I speak a great deal, Your Highness,” he said. “Sometimes a great deal too bluntly. If an apology is in order, then you may rest assured that you have my sincerest one.”
I shivered and tried to remember how a prince acted. It was more difficult than I’d hoped.
“Please don’t,” I said, before I could help myself. “It isn’t necessary to be so formal. Not when you have already been so gracious as to take us in.”
“Margrave Royston,” said the man, gesturing toward himself, “and my lovely companion is the velikaia Antoinette.”
The lady spread her skirts wide as a fan and bowed in her own, delicate way.
“Our magicians have been working through the night to discover the source of your ailment,” she said. “We are keeping the symptoms at bay through… well, certainly unorthodox means, but… As of right now, we believe that we have it narrowed down, though we were hoping to speak with your retainer to perhaps glean some of the details.”
“Kouje,” I said, feeling a selfish desire to see him, even though it meant waking him. We’d come to a decision, however misty and distant it seemed now, and our friendship, not to mention my own duty, called for immediate action. “Yes. And after that, I—It is imperative that I speak with your Esar,” I said.
Antoinette turned her gaze toward Royston though not before I caught the flicker of interest in her eyes.
“Surely your good health is of the utmost importance at the moment, Your Highness. I’m certain the wait to cure you will not be so long as all that.”
General Yisun would not wait for my fever to recede. I was equally certain of that.
“I’m very grateful for your help,” I said, “but it is urgent.”
The translators shared another look.
“Well,” said Royston. “Let’s start by waking the poor bastard up.”
I felt another stab of guilt as two men left the room at a command from Antoinette, going to rouse Kouje from wherever he’d been slumbering in this unknown place. What had Royston called it? Basquiat. I wasn’t sure I could quite form my mouth around the word, but I felt certain I’d heard it before. No doubt it was someplace for which my people had another name—perhaps even a name far less favorable.
Not for the first time, I wished for something I’d had at the palace. It was my tutors, who’d known so much more about this foreign city than I could ever hope to learn. It