Page 115 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

Damn it all, he was like an olyphant in a teahouse.

“Excuse me, honorable lady,” Niclays said, and bowed deep. “I was not paying attention.”

The merchant stared glumly at the shards. Slowly, the woman turned to face Niclays.

Black hair was wrapped into a knot at the crown of her head. She wore pleated trousers, a tunic of deep blue silk, and a velvet surcoat. A fine sword hung at her side. When he saw the sheen on the tunic, Niclays was unable to stop his mouth popping open. Unless he was mistaken, that waswatersilk. Erroneously named—it was not a silk at all, but hair. The manehair of dragons, to be precise. It repelled moisture like oil.

The woman took a step toward him. Her face was angular and brown, her lips chapped. Dancing pearls adorned her throat.

But what seared itself into his memory, in the few moments their gazes held, was the scar. It whipped across her left cheekbone before curling toward the corner of her eye.

Exactly like a fishhook.

“Outsider,” she murmured.

Niclays realized that the crowd around them had fallen almost silent. The back of his neck prickled. He had the sense that he had just committed a greater transgression than blundering.

“Honorable citizen, what is this man doing in Ginura?” the woman asked Eizaru curtly. “He should be in Orisima, with the other Mentish settlers.”

“Honored Miduchi.” Eizaru bowed. “We humbly apologize for interrupting your day. This is the learnèd Doctor Roos, an anatomist of the Free State of Mentendon. He is here to see the all-honored Warlord.”

The woman cut her gaze between them. There was a rawness in her eyes that spoke of disturbed nights.

“What is your name?” she asked Eizaru.

“Moyaka Eizaru, honored Miduchi.”

“Do not let this man out of your sight, honorable Moyaka. He must always have an escort.”

“I understand.”

She tossed Niclays a final look before she strode away. As she turned, he caught sight of a golden dragon on the back of her jacket.

She had long, dark hair, and a scar at the top of her left cheek. Like a fishhook.

By the Saint, ithad to beher.

Eizaru paid the merchant for his loss and hurried Niclays into a cobbled lane. “Who was that, Eizaru?” Niclays asked in Mentish.

“The honored Lady Tané. She is Miduchi. Rider of the great Nayimathun of the Deep Snows.” Eizaru dabbed his neck with a cloth. “I should have bowed lower.”

“I will repay you for the vase. At, er, some point.”

“It is only a few coins, Niclays. The knowledge you gave me in Orisima is worth far more.”

Eizaru, Niclays decided, was as close as anyone could get to being flawless.

The two of them reached the fish market in the nick of time. Silver crabs spilled from nets of wheatstraw, gleaming like the steel armor of knights. Niclays almost lost Eizaru in the ensuing scramble, but his friend emerged triumphant, his eyeglasses askew.

It was almost sunset by the time they got back to the house. Niclays feigned another headache and retreated to his room, where he sat beside the lantern and rubbed his brow.

He had always prided himself on his brain, but it had been idle of late. It was high time he set it to work.

Tané Miduchi was, without question, the woman Sulyard had seen on the beach. Her scar betrayed her. She had brought an outsider into Cape Hisan on that fateful night and then handed him over to a musician, who was now languishing in prison. Or headless.

The bobtail cat jumped into his lap, purring. Niclays absently scratched between its ears.

The Great Edict required islanders to report trespassers to the authorities without delay. Miduchi should have done that. Why, instead, had she enlisted a friend to hide him in the Mentish trading post?

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