Flora's Fury: How a Girl of Spirit and a Red Dog Confound Their Friends, Astound Their Enemies, and Learn the Impo

by Ysabeau S. Wilce

  Or what was left of her.

  During his explorations, Octohands had found Madama Valdosta’s stash room. Now he directed me there. The room was stuffed full of booty. Trunks, portmanteaus, valises, carpetbags. One cabinet held a jumble of silver: spurs, pitchers, plates. Clothes were sorted into baskets: jackets, socks, shoes. There were a lot of shoes. A small strongbox was stuffed with Califa divas, Birdie quetzals, Porkopolis hocks, and other currencies I didn’t even recognize.

  We should help ourselves. Octohands was riding on my shoulder, like a squishy parrot. I think we deserve it.

  I shuddered at the thought of taking anything from the Valdosta Lodge. Surely the booty must be cursed.

  You are too dainty. Someday you will be out of tosh and think back to all you left behind and be sorry you did not heed me.

  “That day, that sorrow,” I answered. I found my dispatch case and Sieur Wraathmyr’s satchel and left everything else.

  I did not check out the cellar, where Octohands said he had seen the bodies. Instead, I followed Sieur Wraathmyr’s bloody footprints back down the hall and out the front door. Of course the rain had been an enchantment; outside, it was overcast but perfectly dry Sieur Wraathmyr was standing in the stream, washing the blood off. I laid his gear on the bank and then retreated to the other side of the bridge to wait.

  Octohands’s weight on my neck was giving me a bit of a headache; after an intense argument, he agreed to ride inside my dispatch case. Apparently magickal octopuses do not need constant access to water. This was good, because I did not relish carrying the chamber pot all the way to Cambria.

  Sieur Wraathmyr eventually joined me, hair wet, face as forbidding as the façade of the Califa Reformatory Neither of us said anything as we climbed out of the valley Since Sieur Wraathmyr’s legs were much longer than mine, he soon outpaced me. That was fine with me; I’d rather have him where I could see him. I had buckled my gun belt on over my buckskin jacket, just in case.

  But Sieur Wraathmyr didn’t even acknowledge I was puffing along behind him. He marched on, shoulders hunched. From the back, with that fuzzy coat, he looked distressingly bearlike, though his human body, for all its bulk, was much smaller than his bear form. I had no idea what he was thinking, but I had a strong feeling his thoughts were not good ones. I knew that my thoughts were bad. I had been an utter fool, taken in by a cheap enchantment. I couldn’t think of my behavior the night before without squirming. Enchantment or not, what a moron I had been. Never let down your guard; wasn’t that the first rule of rangering? I had spilled all my secrets to a man who wouldn’t even look at me now. Had I learned nothing from Axacaya?

  Well, now that I had my map, I didn’t need Sieur Wraathmyr anymore. Once we were in Cambria, good riddance to him. I was dying to peek at the map, but I didn’t want to do so with him nearby He’d seen and heard enough about me already. It could wait until I got to Cambria and privacy.

  Ahead, a tree had fallen across the path, blocking our way Sieur Wraathmyr halted, waiting for me to catch up. When I did, he offered me his hand.

  “I don’t need any help,” I said, giving Snapperdog a boost over.

  Sieur Wraathmyr made no move to climb over the tree. I waited for him to go on, but instead he said, “It’s the oldest trick in the book, the honey pot. I can’t believe I didn’t see it.”

  “I fell for it, too.”

  “Ayah, so,” he answered bitterly “But that I am equally foolish hardly excuses either of us. I am well traveled. I should have known better.” There was a streak of dry blood on his left temple. I resisted the urge to reach up and wipe it away.

  “Madama Valdosta was an enchanter,” I said. “How were we supposed to know that?”

  Sieur Wraathmyr gave me a look that clearly expressed his thoughts, and scornful thoughts they were indeed: You might be silly enough to be caught by an enchanter, but I should be above all that.

  Well, you weren’t, now, were you, puggie? I thought, but I said, “Well, excuse me for saving your bacon. If it hadn’t been for me, you’d be back there right now on Madama Valdosta’s butcher block.”

  “If it hadn’t been for you, madama, I wouldn’t have been in that situation at all.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  Flynn, on the other side of the tree, gave a Hurry it up yap.

  “If you hadn’t been such a slow walker, and so feeble you couldn’t keep up, I would not have had to stop for the night to begin with. I would long since be in Cambria by now.”

  “Well, I’m sorry I’ve turned out to be such a difficult traveling companion,” I said sarcastically. “But you were the one so in a hurry to get to Cambria that you wanted to take the shortcut.”

  “And I am in a hurry now and not in the mood for chitchat,” he said, ignoring the fact that he had started it. I started to retort as much, but he had turned away. He easily leaped over the tree, the snapperhead, and continued down the track. I launched myself at the tree trunk and managed to scramble over, getting wet and muddy in the process, but achieving the other side on my own.

  WE HAD LEFT Valdosta Lodge just after dawn; we arrived at our destination midafternoon, footsore, damp, and hungry. Or at least Flynn and I were. Sieur Wraathmyr seemed impervious to the stresses of travel. Cambria was a conglomeration of scruffy buildings, well scoured by salt and fog, huddled around a rickety dock. A large black rock loomed in the middle of the bay; beyond it lay a fringe of breakers and the calm blue line of the open sea.

  At the edge of town, Sieur Wraathmyr stopped abruptly “I am sorry But I cannot honor our agreement regarding the map. Still, you have my word that your secret will be safe with me. I hope you will extend the same courtesy to me.”

  “I thought we had a deal.” I worked a tone of outrage into my voice. I was going to enjoy watching him squirm.

  He had put his hands in his pockets; now he jiggled nervously “I have lost the map, along with several other valuable papers. Madama Valdosta must have found them when she searched my things. I looked throughout her establishment before we left, but I did not find the papers anywhere.”

  I wasn’t enjoying the squirming as much as I had thought I would. He looked so miserable. I said, “I found the map.”

  Relief washed over his face. “Thank the Goddess. Where did you find it? Were there other documents with it?”

  I did not want him to know that I had rolled him while he was helpless. Before, it had seemed to serve him right. Now I felt rather ashamed. “I found it in Valdosta’s trophy room,” I lied. “I didn’t see any other papers with it.” That, at least, was true.

  Sieur Wraathmyr exhaled heavily “About last night—”

  I did not want to talk about last night. “We were enchanted by Valdosta,” I said quickly “People do weird things when they are enchanted, imagine all sorts of things. I don’t know what you think happened last night, but I promise you none of it was real. Your habits are your own, sieur, and I feel no need to describe them to anyone else. I think the best thing is for us to pretend we never met, ayah?”

  I had no idea what I would do if he didn’t agree. This man knew everything about me. It wasn’t much of a consolation that I knew everything about him. I could keep my mouth shut. Could he?

  He regarded me, and I put my hand on my pistol, just in case. Then he nodded and said stiffly, “I am glad you got your map back. Good luck to you. Goodbye.”

  Have a nice life, I thought. And you’re welcome for saving your skin, Sieur Arrogance. As I watched him walk away, I should have felt relieved. Oddly, I did not.

  Downtown Cambria consisted of one narrow sloping corduroy street terminating at a narrow dock, which continued into the expansive Cambria Bay. The upper part of the street was lined with small houses; the middle part with small businesses. Sieur Wraathmyr and his long legs had already disappeared.

  My tum was flapping against my spine; Goddess knows what Valdosta’s delicious chow had really been. At the Cambria Café, Flynn and I devoured an
enormous breakfast and then went on to the Cambria Hotel, where I again checked in as Nyana Romney, just in case.

  The room was small, but it had a real bed with clean sheets. I filled the washbasin with water and dumped Octohands in it; he refused the sandwie I offered him, moaning about a terrible headache, so I left him alone. Leaving Flynn to guard the room, I went down the hall to the bathroom and scrubbed the noisome feeling of the Valdosta Lodge off. Alas, I could not do anything about the rankness of my clothes, but maybe later I could run out and buy some drawers and a new shirt.

  I was fed; I was clean; I was private.

  It was time to look at the map.

  Back in the room, Flynn lay sprawled and snoring on the floor. Octohands’s sandwie had disappeared and he eddied peacefully in the washbasin. I climbed up on the bed and settled back on the pillows. My hands were shaking slightly as I opened the oilcloth packet Sieur Wraathmyr had enclosed the map in; how nice of him to keep it so safe. When I pulled the map out, another paper fell onto the bed. I picked it up, a small vellum envelope, heavy and smooth, closed with a familiar red blot of wax, Buck’s official seal. And on the front, in Buck’s familiar scrawl:

  To Our Beloved Frends the King and Queen of the Kulani Islands

  I stared at the envelope, bewildered. How had he gotten a dispatch with Buck’s writing on it? Then I remembered the lingering smell of apple pipeweed in her office the night of Pirates’ Parade. The apple pipeweed that clung to Sieur Wraathmyr’s hair, his furry jacket, his clothes. His desire not to get taken by pirates. His rush to get to Cambria. The important papers he thought he’d lost at Valdosta Lodge.

  Sieur Wraathmyr wasn’t a salesman for Madama Twanky. He was an express agent for the Pacifica Mail and Freight Company.

  EIGHTEEN

  Alliances. The Map. Captured.

  WHEN SIEUR WRAATHMYR had been pouring his guts out to me, he sure as fike had forgotten to pour out that little fact. I felt a stab of something—irritation—hurt, maybe. I’d told him everything and I thought he had told me everything as well. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to be taken by pirates. He was just a courier; he probably had no idea that the Dainty Pirate and Buck were in league with each other. And no wonder he had looked upset when I told him I hadn’t found any documents with the map; he’d thought the dispatch was gone for good.

  And it must be an awfully important dispatch for Buck to send it via an express agent, rather than a regular military courier.

  But why would Buck be sending a dispatch to the King and Queen of the Kulani Islands to begin with? The Kulanis have no diplomatic ties with Califa; they are aloof and removed and don’t really have diplomatic ties with anyone. They limit their contact with the outside world. They send out trading ships and raiding ships, which return to their islands. Sieur Wraathmyr’s story was one example of just how insular they can be.

  The seal on the dispatch was unbroken, but that would be no trouble to me. In my time at the CGO, I’d lifted hundreds of seals and put them right back again, so no one ever knew the difference. It only takes a hot knife and patience. For a moment, I hesitated. Then, remembering all that Buck had done to me, I got my knife out of my dispatch case, lit the bedside lamp, and got to work.

  The paper had been folded to make its own envelope. I carefully unfolded it and saw more of Buck’s familiar handwriting. Normally she dictates her letters; sometimes she scrawls an addendum in her own hand. This was no addendum. It was a solid page of text, written in High Protocol, the grandiose language of diplomacy, in which everything is couched in delicate and fancy phrasings and nothing is said in one word that can’t be said splendidly in ten.

  Lucky for me, I’d been halfway through an introductory course in High Protocol before I was pulled from the Barracks to serve as Buck’s slave. I couldn’t translate the entire document, but I could get the gist.

  And when I was done reading, I felt like the world’s biggest fool. Here I had thought all this time that Buck had been bowing her head meekly before the Birdies. Even the Dainty Pirate’s claims hadn’t persuaded me otherwise. Now I realized her lap-doggery had been a pose, a ruse, a lie. While she’d been pretending to be meek and mild, all along she’d been quietly plotting and scheming, searching for allies.

  And in the Kulanis she had found what she was looking for. This dispatch was clearly the latest in a long line of communications, because it agreed to previously discussed Kulani terms. Buck would provide the Kulanis with enough hardwood timber to build fifteen raiding ships, four hundred head of breeding cattle, one ton of iron ore, and a thousand pounds of jade. In return, Kulani raiders would blockade the Birdie ports, disrupt Birdie shipping, and support Califa’s freedom.

  I flopped back on the pillows, lousy with guilt. I had misjudged Buck as much as I had misjudged Sieur Wraathmyr. But why hadn’t she trusted me? Why had she let me live on in such despair? She could have at least hinted that things were afoot. Poppy had hinted—is this what he was talking about? Were they in it together? Did everyone know but me?

  But I couldn’t afford to wallow in my private sorrows about how Buck had treated me. If this dispatch wasn’t delivered to the Kulanis—or if it fell into the wrong hands—the Alliance would fall apart, as would Buck’s plans and Califa’s rebellion. I had to get the dispatch back on track, which meant I had to find Sieur Wraathmyr and make sure he delivered it safely.

  I quickly folded and resealed the dispatch and stuck it in the inside pocket of my buckskin jacket. Redressed in my nasty dirty clothes, I shoved all my gear back into my dispatch case—everything but the map. I’d waited for it long enough; I wasn’t waiting a minute longer. A quick glance would take no time at all.

  When I had stolen the map from Buck’s map case, it had shown the whole world. Now, when I unfolded it and cast it over the bed, I saw that the contours of the map had become unfamiliar. Califa had vanished; the Pacifica Ocean vanished. Tiny rows of triangles marked out mountain ranges I had never heard of: the Hierophants, the Dragons, the Verdes. Red lines traced out unfamiliar roads: Banastre Road, Hell’s Track. Blue lines delineated unknown rivers: Sandy, Acre’s Creek, Blue Wash. Where the fike was Calo Res? Or Hooker’s Ranch? Or Camp Kumquat? A dotted line was drawn on the eastern side of the map, the only straight line on the entire piece of linen. To the right of this line, the map was utterly blank except for a small notation in block letters: BRONCOS.

  That’s when I realized I was looking at a map of Arivaipa Territory. The dotted line was the Bronco Proclamation Line, drawn up at the end of the Bronco Wars, when the Califa Army, under Hardhands, had fought the natives of Arivaipa. Under the terms of the final peace, all territory to the west of the line was ceded to Califa and became Arivaipa Territory. All land to the east was left to the Broncos, as the natives are called. No Califan was allowed across the Proclamation Line except on pain of death—a very long and protractedly painful death, enforced by the Broncos themselves.

  Arivaipa Territory. A few years ago a song about Arivaipa had been very popular; every band in the City played it, and you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing someone whistling it, humming it, or belting it out at the top of his or her lungs. The chorus went:

  Old Arivaipa again,

  full of outlaws and bad bad men.

  They don’t do the Califa dip,

  but they shoot you from the hip,

  out in old Arivaipa again, again.

  But where was my blood mark? It was very hard to find, but I did, finally. The tiny splotch had landed near an equally small dot. I had to squint to read the label—Fort Sandy.

  What did I know about Fort Sandy? There isn’t much military presence in Arivaipa, just a couple of posts scattered along the Line, making sure it stays secure. Fort Sandy was the southernmost of these forts; there were two companies stationed there. I remembered the letter I had filed for Buck right before I left Califa—Fort Sandy had a chupacabra problem.

  What in Califa’s name was Tiny Doom doing in Arivaipa Territory? Buc
k had been posted there when she first graduated from the Barracks, and she had nothing good to say about the place. It only rained a few times a year and everything there was dangerous: the plants, the insects, the snakes, the animals, the people. It’s so dry that you think your blood has turned to dust, so hot that you think your skin might burn away, so bright that you think you might go blind.

  And Arivaipa shares a southern border with the Huitzil Empire. If I were Tiny Doom, I’d want to get as far from the Birdies as possible, instead of hiding out right on their doorstep. Granted, very few people cross this southern border, because it’s a pitiless dry desert, but that would still be too close for comfort for me. Well, I guessed I’d find out her reasons when I got there. Arivaipa was only a hundred miles east of where I was now. With a little bit of luck, I could be there in less than a week.

  But first things first. Sieur Wraathmyr and the dispatch.

  When I poked Octohands, he grabbed at my hand. You’ve got to go after him! Don’t let him get away! Hurry!

  I am hurrying! With no prompting, Octohands crawled into the towel I held out and then allowed me to stow him in my dispatch case. Flynn wanted to stay in bed, but I rousted him and made him follow me. It seemed best if we all stuck together.

  Downstairs, the innkeeper disavowed all knowledge of Sieur Wraathmyr; whatever he was up to now, he wasn’t staying here. Outside, the weather had turned gray. A chill wind blew off the water. I pulled my jacket closed, and hurried.

  The Pacifica Mail did not have an office in Cambria, so I went to the General Store and, using the excuse of purchasing new undergarments, asked the clerk if his Twanky rep had been in recently. The clerk said they were expecting a visit from their salesman but he was overdue, and anyway his name wasn’t Wraathmyr, it was Jones, and he was a she. I checked the blacksmith’s; Toby’s Coffee Shack; the Cambria Elixirs office; the dentist/barber’s; the Purple Pig Saloon; the cooper’s; and the wharf office. Sieur Wraathmyr was at none of these locations and they were it; Cambria was not a big place.