Belinda asked with a laugh. “I’m not buying a man, I’m buying dinner.”
He clucked as sorrowfully as the chickens did and pushed the gondola toward the lichen-covered canal wall. “What kind of a woman doesn’t want a handsome man to sell her things?” he asked mournfully.
“The kind who wants a handsome man to buy her things,” Belinda suggested.
“If I buy you a chicken, you will see my man!” the boy enthused, and leapt forward to snatch up one of the cages from the hawker’s feet. They fell to bargaining, speaking too low and too quickly for Belinda to catch the words. She settled back beneath her canopy again, entirely certain that the price of the chicken would be added to the fare for her afternoon ride. Another gondola slid by, an expensively dressed woman reading from a book of poetry to a man who doted on her. Belinda watched them go until the curve of the canal took them from her sight, then smiled and searched for another such pair.
Courtesans. Their days of great power in the Maglian courts were over, brought low by the plague and the Heretical Trials half a century earlier, but their stories were still told throughout Echon. Had she been born to the warmer Parnan climes instead of foggy Aulun, Belinda thought she might have been one of them. Not necessarily beautiful, but well-educated in studies forbidden to most women, and then taught to be hedonistic lovers as well. Their lives weren’t so different from Belinda’s own, although a courtesan worked for money, and Belinda for—
A cage with a shrieking chicken was dropped at Belinda’s feet. She looked up to see the gondola boy, who stood with his chest thrust out and arms akimbo. “You see!” he crowed. “I have gotten you a chicken, and now you will see my man.”
“What do I need to see him for,” Belinda asked, “if I’ve already got a chicken?”
The boy’s face fell, comical and quick as melting wax, but he recovered with lifted eyebrows and widened eyes. “He’s wealthy and handsome, lady. Maybe he’s a good husband for you, huh?”
“Or maybe he’s a thief who wants my necklace. Tell him it’s paste and have off with him, boy. I want my afternoon ride.” Belinda searched for biscuit crumbs from the lunch she’d carried with her, and dropped them into the chicken’s cage. The bird stopped protesting and fluffed its tail feathers into the air, pecking at the crumbs. The gondola boy pushed the boat back into the canal, still entreating her.
“But he has asked for you, lady. He says he will give me two guineas for bringing you to him.”
“Two, hm? I must be very important, then.” Belinda smiled again, watching a girl above the canals lean out of her room and wave. Someone smacked her skirts, making her jump, and she fled back inside, but not before Belinda returned the wave and a young man caroled out a ribald poem.
“Yes, lady,” the boy said, undeterred. “He said to look for you, to not take any other riders but you.”
“And how did he tell you to know me?” Belinda asked, willing to continue the banter. It was the courtesans, her sisters in all but name, that made her feel as if she belonged here. She knew rare moments of peace and satisfaction in her life, but only in Aria Magli did she know happiness. Until her father or one of his men met her, she would spend her evenings slipping uninvited into parties, hiding behind masks to speak of politics and poetry to women whose names she would never know. It was the closest thing to freedom the queen’s bastard had ever known.
“He said you would have fair skin,” the boy all but sang, “and hair like the rich brown earth turned up to the morning sun. He said your eyes were the green of new leaves, and your smile softer than a thousand roses.” Belinda twisted to look over her shoulder at him, astonished. The boy looked immensely pleased with himself, and she laughed out loud. “He also said you would be wearing a dress of blue and gold, and gave me the address you lived at. I waited half the morning, lady, and missed many commissions,” he added more prosaically. “Now we have to go to him, or my father will beat me for losing so much money on a day like today.”
“Would he really?” Belinda asked, the question mere noise to hide the dismay that