The Winner's Crime Read Free

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    CRIME
    “What is it?” he asked. “Another tax?” He rubbed his
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    eyes. “The emperor must know we can’t pay, not again, not
    so soon after the last levy. This is ruinous.”
    “Well, now we see why the emperor so kindly returned
    THE WINNER
    Herran to the Herrani.”
    They had discussed this before. It seemed the only ex-
    planation to such an unexpected decision. Revenues from
    Herran used to go into the pockets of the Valorian aristo-
    crats who had colonized it. Then came the Firstwinter Re-
    bellion and the emperor’s decree, and those aristocrats had
    returned to the capital, the loss of their land named as a
    cost of war. Now the emperor was able to bleed Herran dry
    through taxes its people were unable to protest. The terri-
    tory’s wealth fl owed directly into imperial coff ers.
    A devious move. But what worried Arin most was the
    nagging sense that he was missing something. It had been
    hard to think that day when Kestrel had handed him the
    emperor’s off er and demands. It had been hard to see any-
    thing but the gold line that had marked her brow.
    “Just tell me how much it’ll cost this time,” he said to
    Sarsine.
    Her mouth screwed into a knot. “Not a tax. An invita-
    tion.” She left the room.
    Arin unfolded the paper. His hands went still.
    As governor of Herran, Arin was requested to attend a
    ball in the Valorian capital. In honor of the engagement of
    Lady Kestrel to Crown Prince Verex , read the letter.
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    Sarsine had called it an invitation, but Arin recognized
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    it for what it was: an order, one that he had no power to
    disobey, even though he was supposedly no longer a slave.
    Arin’s eyes lifted from the page and gazed upon the
    harbor. When Arin had worked on the docks, one of the
    MARIE RUTK
    other slaves was known as the Favor- Keeper.
    Slaves had no possessions, or at least nothing that their
    Valorian conquerors would recognize as such. Even if Arin
    had had something of his own, he had no pockets to hold
    it. Clothes with pockets went to house slaves only. This
    was the mea sure of life under the Valorians: that the Her-
    rani people knew their place according to whether they
    had pockets and the illusion of being able to keep some-
    thing private within them.
    Yet slaves still had a currency. They traded favors. Extra
    food. A thicker pallet. The luxury of a few minutes of rest
    while someone else worked. If a slave on the docks wanted
    something, he asked the Favor- Keeper, the oldest Herrani
    among them.
    The Favor- Keeper kept a ball of thread with a diff erent-
    colored string for each man. If Arin had had a request, his
    string would have been spooled and looped and spindled
    around another one, perhaps yellow, and that yellow string
    might have wound its way about a green one, depending on
    who owed what. The Favor- Keeper’s knot recorded it all.
    But Arin had had no string. He had asked for nothing.
    He gave nothing. Already a young man then, he had de-
    spised the thought of being in debt to anyone.
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    Now he studied the Valorian emperor’s letter. It was
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    beautifully inked. Artfully phrased. It fi t well with Arin’s
    surroundings, with the liquid- like varnish of his father’s desk
    CRIME
    and the leaded glass windows that shot winter light into
    ’S
    the study.
    The light made the emperor’s words all too easy to read.
    Arin crushed the paper into his fi st and squeezed hard.
    THE WINNER
    He wished for a Favor- Keeper. He would forsake his pride
    to become a simple string, if only he could have what he
    wanted.
    Arin would trade his heart for a snarled knot of thread
    if it meant he would never have to see Kestrel again.
    He consulted with Tensen. The el der ly man studied the
    uncrumpled and fl attened