She smiled at Lin around a bolt of green cloth the color of a lily pad. “And yet I wish to hear it again. Is that wrong?”
“I’m curious myself,” added the stallkeeper, a bored-looking woman with white hair and black eyebrows shaped like inverted V’s. “Did you say you’d been to the Palace?”
Lin took hold of Mariam’s sleeve and dragged her several feet away, into a spot between a jeweler’s stall and a watchmaker’s. She put her hands on her hips and looked severely at Mariam—though she wasn’t actually angry, and she suspected Mariam could tell. How to be angry when Mariam seemed, well, better? Whether it was the tisanes Lin had been forcing into her every day, her excitement over the upcoming Festival, or her delight over Lin’s trip to Marivent, it was difficult to say. What mattered was that she had a spring in her step and color in her cheeks for the first time in some while.
“What was the Prince wearing?” Mariam said, unrepentant. “Tell me all about his clothes.”
Lin made a face at her. It was a bright, breezy day, the kind where the sky looked like the high ceiling of a temple, painted in shades of lapis and white. The soft air lifted the sleeves and hem of Lin’s dress playfully, like a kitten seeking attention. “I didn’t notice his clothes,” she lied. “Perhaps you want to hear more about how I treated my patient’s wound? Or would you like me to discuss my concerns about infection? Oh, and pus?”
Mariam stuck her fingers in her ears.
“Mariam.”
“I’ll take them out when you promise to tell me how handsome the Prince is up close. Did you challenge him with blazing eyes? Did he tell you that he ought to put you in the Trick, but he could never imprison someone so beautiful?”
“No,” Lin said, patiently, “because that, Mariam, is the plot of Taming the Tyrant.”
“You are absolutely no fun,” Mariam declared. “I want more, Lin. I wish to hear about the furnishings in the Palace, and what the Prince was wearing, and the size of his—”
“Mariam.”
“—crown,” Mariam finished, with a grin that lit up her thin face. “Honestly, Lin. Surely the cut of the Prince’s coat can’t be a state secret.” She pushed a lock of breeze-blown hair behind her ear. “Anyway, you’ll see them again when you go back to check on your patient, won’t you?”
Lin sighed. She couldn’t lie to Mariam, who knew she always, always returned to see how her patients had responded to her care. “I won’t be going back,” she said. “Mayesh brought me there because they were desperate. But Prince Conor has been clear that I cannot return.”
“Because you’re Ashkar?” Mariam looked as if she’d been slapped. Lin hurried to reassure her, hating that she could not be more honest. But to tell Mariam that the Prince had forbidden Lin from entering Marivent because he disliked her would puncture the fantasy that her friend was enjoying so much.
“No, nothing like that, Mari. Because they have their own chirurgeon, and they do not wish to cause him offense.”
“I heard one of my ladies on the Hill talking about him,” said Mariam crossly. “She said he was dreadful—” She broke off as the city clock, which adorned the top of the Windtower, loudly chimed the hour of noon. “Oh, dear. We’ve been here an hour and I haven’t bought anything.”
“Because you keep bothering me,” Lin pointed out. “Didn’t you say you needed rose silk?”
“Yes, for Galena Soussan. It won’t suit her at all, but she’s determined. She’s got her eye on impressing someone at the Festival, but I don’t know who . . .”
Lin tugged on Mariam’s left braid. “Darling. We can gossip all we want when we get back home. Go get what you need.”
They agreed to meet in an hour’s time at the foot of the Windtower, the great spire that cast its long shadow over Fleshmarket Square. （It was one of the few bits of Castellani architecture, along with Marivent and the roof of the Tully, that Lin could see from her house, rising above the Sault walls. Its shape had always reminded Lin of the silver spice boxes that adorned most Ashkari tables.）
As soon as Mariam had hurried off, Lin reached into the pocket of her blue dress and drew out Petrov’s stone. Approaching the jeweler’s stall, she asked the spectacled man working there whether it would be possible to have it set inexpensively, perhaps into a ring or bracelet?
He took the stone from her, a flicker of what looked like surprise passing over his face. But, “A fine specimen,” was all he said, first raising the stone to the light to peer at it, then measuring it with a pair of engraved calipers. He pronounced it to be a sort of quartz, flawed with what he called “inclusions,” which Lin took to mean the odd shapes inside the stone. It wasn’t worth a great deal, he said, but it was pretty, and he could set it in plain silver for a crown. A brooch, he suggested, would be most practical, and he could do the work now if she was willing to return to the stall in half an hour to retrieve the finished product. Lin agreed, and sallied forth to wander the square while the jewel was set.
Lin loved the weekly market. The great tower with its beautiful clock rose above Fleshmarket Square, and in its shadow stalls and tents sprouted each Sunsday morning like colorful mushrooms. One could find just about anything here: ivory fans and cotton tunics from Hind; black pepper and brilliant feathers from Sayan; dried medicinal herbs and rosewood carvings from Shenzhou; pickled cabbage and rice wine from Geumjoseon; fruit paste, calison, and toys from Sarthe.
The thought of marzipan made Lin’s stomach rumble—a problem very easily addressed in the market. The smells of food filled the air with rich and clashing scents, like a dozen heavily perfumed aristocrats rubbing elbows in a small room: sizzling butter, noodles frying in oil, the spice of chili and the bitter tang of chocolate. The greatest difficulty was in choosing what to eat—pork dumplings and candied ginger from Shangan, or rice-cake soup from Geumjoseon? Coconut pancakes from Taprobana or smoked fish from Nyenschantz?
In the end, she decided on a paper cup of honey-sesame sweets, studded with dried raisins. She nibbled on them as she wandered into the part of the market devoted to small animals meant as pets. Silver cages stacked outside a blue tent held sleepy-eyed cats, their engraved metal collars proclaiming names like RATSLAYER and MOUSEBANE. White-faced monkeys on embroidered leashes darted in and out of the crowd, sometimes tugging on the clothes of passersby and begging with wide eyes. （Lin passed one of them a sesame sweet while the monkey-seller was looking the other way.） Peacocks waddled in enclosures, spreading their fans. Lin paused to visit the abode of a white rat she’d always been fond of. He had pink eyes and a whippet tail, and when let out of his cage, he would crawl up her arm and nuzzle her hair.
“If you want him so bad, you ought to just get him,” grumbled Do-Chi, the grizzled old man who owned the stall. His family had come from Geumjoseon a generation back and, according to him, had always been trainers of small animals, having once owned a hedgehog circus. “Three talents.”
“No chance. My brother would murder me when he gets back. He can’t stand rats.” Lin stroked the rodent’s head through the cage bars with a regretful finger before she bid Do-Chi farewell and moved on to her favorite part of the market—the bookstalls.