When you read the account of a murder - or, say, a fiction story based on murder - you usually begin with the murder itself. That's all wrong. The murder begins a long time beforehand. A murder is the culmination of a lot of different circumstances, all converging at a given moment at a given point. People are brought into it from different parts of the globe and for unforeseen reasons. [...] The murder itself is the end of the story. It's Zero Hour. -- Agatha Christie, Towards Zero

Hariye drummed his fingers against the table. The caravan had been in Mursakoyunlu for three days and he was starting to get nervous. Mursakoyunlu was a city, the biggest city they'd passed through since leaving Güzenbeyli, and for the first time he realised someone might recognise him. He kept a wary eye out for ostentatiously-dressed nobles. If he saw any -- and there were quite a few in a market city as famous as Mursakoyunlu -- he dived out of sight behind the table.

Fahmeral, the girl running the stall, had looked at him as if he was crazy the first few times he did this. After a while she accepted his odd behaviour and even warned him about an obviously-rich person nearby. Hariye didn't know what she thought, and he didn't want to invite trouble by trying to explain. If she thought he was a runaway servant, so much the better. She'd be less likely to think of him if she ever heard of the missing prince.

"Wool!" she shouted to the passers-by. "Fine wool! Wool from Diditalan!"

A rival stall-owner beside them immediately tried to shout louder. "Ready-carded wool from Osmava!"

Fahmeral scowled and changed her tactics. "Pre-dyed and pre-spun wool! Ready to be made into clothes or curtains!"

The contest between the two stalls continued for half an hour. Similar contests were held between other stalls in the marketplace. This combined with the noise of the people milling around meant Hariye found himself unable to focus on anything. His ears hurt and he felt confused and overwhelmed by all the noise.

Under the circumstances he didn't exactly forget to watch out for people, but it certainly wasn't as important as it had been before.

He was jolted back to reality when he looked up and saw someone across the street staring directly at him.

For generations the Çarisar khans had married slaves taken from the barbarian lands to the west[1]. Hariye's grandmother and great-grandmother were from Vakaryan, his great-great-grandmother was from Oknicë far to the west, and his mother had probably been from one of those countries too. After so many years of intermarriage the khans now looked more like the barbarians than the native Çarisarians. Of course, after years of invasions and conquests, no one in the khanate could call themselves a true Çarisarian, but it was especially obvious in the upper classes who both practiced polygamy and could afford to import foreign slaves.

The result of this was that Hariye looked more like a foreign trader than a native of Çarisar. Now that the invasions had mostly stopped -- or rather now that Çarisar, especially south-western Çarisar, was a victim of invasions instead of being the invader -- foreign traders and their families weren't an unusual sight, so no one had commented on his appearance yet.

It occurred to him now that he should have thought of a cover story before.

The man on the other side of the street was dressed in the grey uniform of the Peacekeeping Corp. As Hariye watched he took a sheet of parchment out of his pocket and studied it. He looked up at Hariye, then down at the sheet again. Then he nodded sharply and took a step forward.

Hariye panicked.

He dived through the opening in the curtain at the back of the stall. Behind him was an alleyway leading through to the street beyond. He scurried down it and leapt onto a cart stopped outside a building. It was loaded with bales of hay. He shoved them out of the way to make a space big enough for him to hide in. Then he crawled into the space and hoped for the best.

Running footsteps passed the cart. No one stopped to examine it. Hariye held his breath to keep from sneezing. The straw tickled his nose. He risked poking his head out of his hiding space. Then he dived down again, because two Peacekeeping officers were at the top of the alley.

A door closed. Footsteps approached. Someone climbed onto the front of the cart. A sudden lurch jolted Hariye forward. His forehead bashed into a bale. The straw was harder than he'd thought possible and it scraped his face.

The cart moved off. Hariye stayed frozen in place, unsure if it was safe to move.

What will Fahmeral think? he wondered. That led to an unpleasant thought. What if they've arrested her for helping me?

He didn't dare move until the cart stopped. The driver dismounted and walked off somewhere. Hariye waited until he couldn't hear any voices then climbed out and jumped down. The cart had stopped outside a warehouse of some sort. Hariye could just about make out the words "Agriculture Supplies" on its faded sign.

In front of him was the road the cart had come down. They were so close to the main town that he could see a bakery and a tailor's on the street beyond. Going that way would lead him back to the Peacekeepers. Behind him was the warehouse's yard. The creak of a winch and muffled voices in one of the buildings warned him that it wasn't safe to stay here. All that was left was the river.

It ran a short distance from the warehouse. A pier built by the water's edge suggested it was used for transporting goods by boat.

For the first time it began to dawn on Hariye that running away had been an incredibly stupid decision. Of course his father would have the Peacekeepers looking for him. What else did he expect? And all of this because he wanted to see the sea and he was tired of life in the palace.

Oh well. He'd come so far now that there was no point in going back. It couldn't be far to the sea. Once he saw it he could hand himself into the nearest Peacekeeper barracks. Until then...

Hariye was never sure afterwards what had made him jump into the river. He'd intended to walk along it until he was safely out of the city and could find another way to travel. But somehow, illogical though it sounded, the water had called to him. He answered that call without thinking.

Then he got a nasty shock when he found himself in deep water for the first time in his life. He promptly got another slightly less nasty shock when he discovered he knew how to swim even though no one had ever taught him before. In fact he'd never even been in any water deeper than his bathtub or the swimming pool for the princes. But the biggest shock of all came five minutes later.

It didn't register with him at first. All he thought about it was, Hmm, I've been underwater for a long time.

Then he realised: I should need to breathe.

And that led to the earth-shattering discovery: I am breathing! I can breathe underwater!

Tavgirid was not Ketevan's favourite place in the world. Neither was Onomi Manor, to be honest. But she would have given her sword-arm to be in either right now. Anything was better than sitting on this stupid boat waiting for pirates to attack.

The stretch of water separating Vakaryan and parts of Sui from Çarisar was technically the easternmost inlet of the Finsennak Ocean. But generations ago it had gained a name of its own: the Blood Water. Theories for where the name came from ranged from "a fierce battle was fought on the shore" to "the sunrise makes the water look red". Whatever the reason, it was usually peaceful in spite of its name. Three kingdoms relied on it for fishing and trade. All of them had a vested interest in making sure the Blood Water stayed peaceful.

And that was why Ketevan was out here on this boat in the middle of the sea. If anyone did cause trouble, the nearest kingdom immediately dispatched its navy to deal with them. Since in this case it was a group of pirates robbing merchant ships, a small battleship disguised as a trading vessel had been sent out as lure. Vakaryan's coast had long since disappeared behind them. They were sailing aimlessly in circles, waiting for the pirates to notice them. With each hour that went by it looked more and more like the pirates either hadn't fallen for the deception or had moved to a different part of the sea.

The cannons were concealed behind boxes conspicuously labelled "Spices", "Olives" and "Tinned fish". Why someone had bothered going to that much trouble when they didn't expect the pirates to get close enough to read them was a mystery to Ketevan. The sailors wore everyday clothes instead of their military uniforms. Ketevan herself was dressed as an ordinary passenger. The whole thing seemed more like a ridiculous charade than a serious attempt to catch pirates. She wished for the umpteenth time that her mother had sent her brother or one of her sisters instead.

It was a pointless wish, of course. She knew perfectly well why her mother had chosen her. Ketevan and Queen Khvareshan often had what were politely termed "differences of opinion" (and less politely termed "blazing rows"). The most recent one had been about Ketevan's brother-in-law. She never had and never would make any attempt to conceal her dislike for the man. He had been especially obnoxious one dinnertime, so Ketevan had picked up a knife and threatened to stab him if he didn't shut up.

She'd thought her behaviour was perfectly justified. How could anyone listen to someone talk about tax policies during dinner without feeling the urge to resort to violence? Alas, her mother had disagreed. The next thing Ketevan knew she was sent out of the city on this ludicrous mission.

The ship had been at sea for twelve hours now and they hadn't seen anything but seabirds and the occasional fishing vessel. If this went on much longer she might very well jump overboard.

As if on cue, something finally happened. A small dot appeared on the horizon. It grew larger and larger until everyone could see it was a ship. And it was approaching at speed. Far more speed than their own ship was capable of.

Hariye didn't mean to travel all the way to the sea by the river. He hadn't even realised it was possible until he tried it. The minute he fell into the water it was as if he suddenly had a compass in his mind and it pointed him directly to the nearest sea. All he had to do was follow the river.

The journey was blurred and confused when he tried to remember it. He had a distinct memory of discovering he no longer had legs but instead had a tail like a fish's. He also had a firm impression of catching and eating fish underwater. None of that made any sense. Even he knew you had to remove a fish's bones to eat it, and when he finally left the water he still had legs.

He only climbed back onto dry land because the river grew too shallow for him to continue swimming. For the last stretch of its journey to the sea it was just a wide sheet of water mere centimetres deep. But that didn't matter, because beyond it was a vast grey-and-dark-blue something that reached out as far as the eye could see.

If he'd been asked what the sea looked like Hariye would have said, "Like a large fishpond." Now he was confronted with the real thing, and he realised he might as well as have said Mount Atagzi was like a large pebble.

His first instinct was to run down the beach and jump into the water. But something stopped him. He didn't know why or how, but he had an ominous foreboding of danger.

Hariye looked around warily. There was nothing on the beach except a few seagulls. Out to sea there was only-- Wait a minute. What was that black thing?

Gradually it drifted close enough for him to recognise what it was.

For some reason a boat was floating around on its own. And -- though he had no idea how he could tell from so far away -- it smelled of blood.