Troubled Waters Read Online Free PDF Page A

space, but she didn’t bother to make the observation out loud. “How long will it take us to get to Chialto?” she asked.
    He looked pleased that she was interested enough to ask. “If all goes well, six days.”
    It had taken Zoe and her father half of a quintile to make it from the city to the village. But they had traveled on foot and in carts; they had taken detours and debated where they might settle down. From time to time they had lain in hiding when it seemed patrolling soldiers were looking for fugitives, possibly them.
    When she made no answer, he went on as if she had asked another question. “When we arrive in Chialto, I will take you directly to the palace so you can meet the king.”
    She gave him one slow, level look. “I have met King Vernon. Many times.”
    His gray eyes were suddenly sharp. “Yes, but you were very young,” he said. “Back when your father was in favor.” When she did not reply to that, he went on. “It is the Serlasts, now, who hold the position Navarr Ardelay once had. His property belongs to us now.”
    Zoe only nodded. Her father had known that, somehow; he had received news from mysterious sources over the years, and shared some of the more important bits with his daughter.
    “My mother and sisters live in the house where you grew up,” Darien added. “It is a beautiful place, with exceptional gardens.”
    She wondered if he was trying to be kind, offering praise of a well-loved place, or trying to be cruel, making her envision new tenants in those gardens, in those halls. Perhaps he was just trying to force her to show any emotion at all. But she had never felt much attachment to the city house. It was the place where her mother had died, where Zoe had mostly been alone because her father was always at the palace with the king. She had preferred her grandmother’s house in the northwest territories, and she had loved the small house in the small village. She would be much angrier to have a Serlast take over that little property.
    Because he so obviously expected an answer, she made an effort to speak. “Do you live with your mother and sisters?”
    “No, I keep a house on the western edge of town,” he said. “But I also have quarters at the palace.”
    That was not so impressive; many members of the Five Families had rooms at court. Navarr and his brother each had had a suite there, and Zoe herself had spent more than one night under the palace roof. But it did mean this Darien Serlast was as powerful as he appeared. It did mean he had the ear of the king.
    “Why does the king want to marry me?” she asked abruptly. “He has four wives.”
    Once again, Darien bestowed upon her all the intensity of his undivided attention. “Four wives and three children, one of them an infant,” he said. “He feels the numbers are out of balance. It would be better to have five wives and three children to achieve the number eight in the proper ratio.”
    “As soon as another baby is born, he will be out of balance again,” Zoe pointed out, her tone a little tart.
    Darien rewarded her with a small smile, but in it she read intense amusement. “King Vernon will worry about that when the next child is announced,” he said. “Perhaps three of his wives will become pregnant at once. Perhaps two of his wives will become pregnant, and he will add three more brides, and then the palace will be full of fives and eights.”
    “There are other ways to achieve balance,” Zoe said.
    Darien was still smiling. “Surely you’ve heard of old King Norbert, who had twenty-four wives and seventy-one children,” he said. “Not all of his efforts could produce that seventy-second child—a most propitious number, eight times three times three. There was a great deal of unrest in the kingdom, and famine, and skirmishes at the borders—all due to the fact that his household was out of balance. He finally appropriated an infant born to his brother and named it his own child. And all was