Shell Game

by Benny Lawrence

  I knew that Lynn wouldn’t be in the dining room. Handmaids don’t serve at supper. Nevertheless I cast a quick glance along the row of servants who stood motionless against the wall, waiting for orders. An older woman whose knees trembled as she waited, a tall attentive man whose muscles stood out in lumps—he would be Iason’s body servant—a sallow dark-haired girl, a plump little boy . . . sure enough, no Lynn. I resigned myself to an evening of awful and awkward conversation, and made my bow.

  Lord Iason had remained seated when I entered. The house of Bain ranked above the house of Oropat in the hierarchy of the islands, and the niceties had to be observed. But now he did rise and come towards me, and Ariadne came with him.

  I’ll spare you an account of the back-and-forth that nobles exchange when they meet on a formal occasion. Life’s too short to spend repeating that drivel. But after we had called down blessings from all the appropriate gods, and smarmily praised each other’s houses and our own, Iason finally nudged Ariadne forwards. “And now, allow me to present the greatest treasure of the house of Bain—my daughter.”

  Children are treasure is an old Kilan saying, but that’s a double-edged sentiment. What do you do with treasure? Lock it away. Put it on display to impress your friends. Trade it for something else that you’d rather own.

  “My lady,” I murmured to Ariadne, and bent to kiss her hand. While I was down there, her fingers found my nose and gave it a vicious pinch and a twist. It took all my self-control not to yelp. Instead, I straightened up and handed her a dirty look.

  “My lord,” she tittered, toying with a blonde ringlet. “I’m delighted to meet you. Positively delighted that you’re here. I’ve been so eagerly anticipating your arrival. In fact, I had hoped that you would get here earlier?”

  Her voice turned hard at the end. I hoped that Iason wasn’t watching too closely.

  “A thousand apologies,” I said. “I came as fast as I could.”

  Iason laughed the kind of breezy, meaningless laugh that I’ve always hated. “My daughter has suffered through every second of this long betrothal. But it’s allowed the two of you the pleasure of anticipation, hasn’t it? And now, Lord Jubal, will you sit?”

  He gestured to a seat beside Ariadne’s. I bowed again, took her arm, and led her around the far side of the table.

  “Seriously,” I muttered, hoping we were out of earshot. “I came as fast as I could.”

  “Tell that to Lynn,” she hissed.

  We reached our chairs. As I pulled Ariadne’s out, ready to seat her, I leaned close and whispered, “Where?”

  For a second it seemed that she hadn’t heard me, or that she had chosen not to respond. Then, as if casually, she tossed a glance towards the back wall where the servants waited. I looked myself, saw nothing, was about to tell Ariadne so when one of the servants—the sallow girl—lifted her head.

  I almost fell out of my seat. It was Lynn. They had dyed her pale hair, and not very well; it was now a piebald kind of brown that made me think of liver-spots and mange. She wore a long grey tunic that covered her arms down to the wrists, concealing both her sailor’s tan and the storm-petrel tattoo, the slave mark. When I first looked over the servants, I had noticed the bruises on her, but now I saw them again with mounting horror—small dark pebbles like fingertips on her neck, a mahogany stain over her cheekbone, a black eye.

  But those were details. The real difference was in her bearing. This wasn’t the girl who had throttled Tyco Gorgionson, the girl who had out bluffed Mara of Namor and drowned her minutes later. This wasn’t the girl who mapped out the strategy of an entire fleet of ships and whispered unrepeatable things to me late at night. This wasn’t the girl who—

  “Gwyneth.” Lady Melitta didn’t have a loud voice, but it carried. “Eyes.”

  This must have been a command of some sort, because, without any hesitation, Lynn bowed her head again. Yet she must have seen me. I studied her in my peripheral vision and saw her tongue come out to wet her lips, saw her fists flex. She had seen me, all right. She knew who I was.

  But I hadn’t known her, not in her cowed state. She looked like a servant and I had looked right through her. I felt like snatching up a silver platter from the table and beating my head against it. But it wasn’t quite the moment for that.

  Iason clapped his hands, and dinner began.

  I TRIED TO catch Lynn’s eye while the servants were passing around finger bowls and pouring wine, but she either didn’t realize, or she was ignoring me. When she wasn’t making rounds of the tables, she waited at the back wall, silent as a post. Melitta didn’t have to warn her again to keep her head down. Could she actually be frightened? Or was she just thatpissed off?

  It stunned me so much that I could barely keep my mind on what was passing for conversation around the table. I should have been grinning away foolishly at Ariadne, pretending to be a lovesick, or at least sex-starved, young man. But I couldn’t do it. Never, not once, had it occurred to me that I might have to figure out a way to escape from the castle without Lynn’s help. Now, there was a big glowing blank in my brain where there should have been an exit strategy. There was Lynn, and here I was, so how was I going to get the two of us out of here? Should I keep up my disguise as Lord Jubal for weeks or months, waiting until I found an opening? Should I lunge forward, grab Lynn around the waist, and run out screaming?

  Again and again, I lapsed into a dark daze at the table, and there were awkward pauses that even Ariadne, labouring mightily, couldn’t fill. At last, Iason appeared to make a determined effort. He leaned across the table towards me. “Lord Jubal, tell us about your younger brother. How is Haddrian getting on?”

  “Haddrian,” I repeated carefully. “Well, Haddrian is . . . fine. Really fine, absolutely fine. Very very fine, actually.”

  Ariadne hissed beneath her breath, and I couldn’t blame her. I wasn’t exactly carrying off the impersonation with aplomb. But Iason seemed satisfied. He leaned forward even further, and asked, “So he’s no longer planning to give up his title and go off to become a travelling musician?”

  “No,” I said, “that turned out to be a passing phase.”

  “He doesn’t keep you up until all hours of the night, playing improvisational drum solos?”

  “No, he’s over that now.”

  “And he’s no longer in a relationship with a lobster?”

  “No . . . um . . . he broke up with the lobster after . . . ah.” Iason’s expression was no longer friendly, and at long last, I clued in. “I don’t have a brother Haddrian, do I?”

  “Lord Jubal of Oropat certainly doesn’t,” Iason said, his tone still dangerously light. “Perhaps you do. Whoever you are.”

  An utter silence fell over the dining hall. There was just the barest clink as Ariadne set down her spoon. There were no visible soldiers around, but the tall servant at the back of the room was watching carefully, and his hand had strayed to the back of his belt. A man as paranoid as Iason would never be very far away from his bodyguards.

  It was like that moment in a thunderstorm when the air itself seems charged with electricity, an instant before the lightning hits.

  My mind raced . . . or, more accurately, it tried to start running and fell flat on its face. Plan, plan, I needed a plan, I needed someone who could plan, I needed Lynn!

  Lynn still hadn’t looked up. She seemed half-dead, or drugged, as she leaned against the wall with downcast eyes . . . and hell, maybe she was. But if she could still talk, then she could still help me. I could just shout out and ask her what to do. I could shout and I could ask and she would tell me . . . she would tell me . . .

  I knew exactly what she would tell me.

  If you don’t know what to do, Lynn used to say, then do something. Anything. If you stand around gaping like a stuffed dummy, everyone’s going to know that you don’t have a plan. If you’re doing something, as long as you do it with a bang, everyone will think that it’s what you meant to do from the start. You’ll look li
ke the only person in the room who knows what’s going on.

  I did it all in one motion—threw back my chair and leapt up on the tabletop, kicking over a bowl of fruit and flowers on the way. Jubal’s silly purple cape fluttered to the ground, and I ripped the longer of my knives from its sheath. There were a couple of shrieks around the table.

  Nothing scares an opponent like confidence. You can never, never go into a fight thinking that you’re going to lose. With every motion, every word, every gesture, tell your enemies that they don’t have a chance. Make them believe it.

  Iason was beginning to rise from his chair. I gave him a nasty, feral smile of warning. He hesitated, and that’s when I kicked his wine goblet into his lap. It landed with a thud and a splash, soaking his pale blue hose, and he stumbled back into his seat.

  You think that you can’t be a hero, Lynn’s imaginary voice ground on. You think you’re not good enough. But nobody’s good enough. You, O my mistress, you are just decent and stubborn and stupid enough to keep trying to do the impossible. And that’s why you got stuck with the hero gig, gods help you. But remember, you’re not alone in this.

  “Who exactly are you?” Iason asked tightly, murder in his eyes.

  “Me?” I said. “I’m the pirate queen.”

  I SAUNTERED UP and down the table once or twice, to make sure that no one was moving, and to give myself time to think. Sooner or later they would figure out that they could mob me, piling on top of me until I couldn’t free my blade hand. But if I could scare them badly enough, then no one would want to be the first to move.

  In the end, Iason broke the silence. “I heard you were in the area. One of your ships crashed on the reef the other night.”

  “Really?” I asked with mild interest. “Must have been one of my scouts. My other thirty ships are just fine, in case you were worried.”

  An icy smile flickered over Iason’s face. “Where did you land?”

  “On the north coast.”

  “You’re lying. None of my watchmen reported a border attack.”

  “No. See, the thing is, watchmen have to be alive to report an attack. That’s what we would call a loophole in your system.”

  Iason settled himself back in his chair. “Well, you’ve gone to great lengths to ruin a formal dinner, so you might as well tell me why you’re here.”

  He was impressively calm. I was beginning to think that Lynn inherited her courage from her father, as well as her blonde hair and her sneakiness.

  Before I answered Iason, I bent, speared an apple from the fruit bowl with my long dagger, brought it to my lips, and bit off a piece. This kind of thing always looks impressive, but it takes some serious leather to do it casually. I’m always scared that I’m going to cut my tongue in half. I chewed the fruit as I strode up and down, taking my time.

  When I was good and ready, I said, “It’s nothing big. Nothing dramatic. I’m not here to conquer Bero or take your throne. I’m not even planning to kill you, unless you piss me off. I’m just here to collect a piece of lost property.” I waggled the apple in Lynn’s direction.

  Iason followed my line of sight, and his eyes narrowed to slits.

  “I picked up that girl in a fishing town a couple of years back. She’s nothing special, you understand, but she got to be a habit. Then she ran away juuuuust as I was getting her broken in. Talk about frustration.” I took another cautious bite of apple, and spoke with my mouth full, spraying bits of pulp. “So if you’ll just hand her over, then I’ll get out of your way.”

  Iason’s voice was thick with frost. “Why should I do that when I could simply nail you to a stake and have your throat cut?”

  It was a valid question. I was still trying to think of a suitably piratical answer when there was a soft whirr, and then a thud, and a slim dagger was reverberating in the oak panelling to the right of Iason’s head.

  Latoya had a fine sense of timing, and even better aim. She stood in the doorway, filling it completely, half-a-dozen knives held loosely in her left fist and one in her right hand, ready to throw. She and Regon must have stopped off at the armoury before making their way upstairs. Regon was just behind Latoya, gripping two knives of his own. He was lousy at knife throwing, but Iason didn’t need to know that.

  Give Iason credit, he barely flinched. “If you harm anyone in this room, then you’ll pray for death for months before it’s granted to you.”

  I shrugged. “Duly noted. But you’ll be dead first, and you don’t want that. Besides, why are you making such a big deal out of this? I don’t think I’m being unreasonable. All I want is the girl. A servant, a nothing. Why are you making such a fuss over her?”

  There were murmurs at this. The others in the room, courtiers and the like, had no idea who Lynn was, and why Iason needed her. All they saw was pointy objects aimed at their heads. And Iason couldn’t explain without blowing his secret wide open. I saw him realize it, saw his mouth open and shut twice before he thought of an answer.

  “That girl is an orphan under my protection,” he said. “I won’t abandon her to the likes of you.”

  “That girl,” I corrected him, “is mine, and I really don’t see the issue. Why are you making such a song and dance about a peasant slut who’s no better than she ought to be? You could buy six wenches like that at the Freemarket for a jug of ale and a sack of onions. You really want to fight me for her? Really? When I’ve got knives aimed at your family?”

  At that moment, Ariadne let out a snivelling kind of wail. She was quite the performer.

  “And then there’s your own pink hide,” I went on. “I’m a pirate, Iason. Let’s not forget that little detail. I can do things with a knife that they don’t teach in any fencing academy. Maybe you’re not afraid of the sight of blood, but most people don’t deal with it so well when they get a close-up look at their own kidneys.”

  I kicked over another bowl of fruit. Ripe strawberries skittered along the table like tiny bleeding hearts.

  I was beginning to feel almost good. Planting myself right in front of Iason, I sneered down at his frozen face. “What say we try to work out a civilized compromise? How would that be? Doesn’t that sound better than having a hole drilled right between your eyes?”

  Being the pirate queen, I should tell you, is a lot like being in a relationship. One minute everything is rattling along fine, then you take your eye off the ball and before you know it, everything’s gone to shit.

  Latoya didn’t even have time to hurl another dagger—that was how fast it was. A hand snaked out at viper speed and grabbed me around the ankle. Melitta might not have been all that strong, but she was strong enough, and viciously determined besides. The yank that she gave threw me off balance. I took a few staggering steps, arms wheeling wildly. Then I fell off the table and landed flat on my face.

  Pandemonium. Regon and Latoya were trying to fight their way inside, closer to me, as the panicking courtiers tried to fight their way out. Iason was on his feet, screaming to everyone and no one, “Kill her! Kill the bitch!”

  It’s always the same. Just once, I’d like someone to point at me and scream, “Give her a foot massage! Give a foot massage to the bitch!”

  But no.

  It took a few moments for me to scramble upright, with Regon’s help. By that time, a group of grim-faced men had armed themselves—the generals and captains, the more muscular of the servants. Latoya snatched up a chair and swung furiously to keep them at bay while we backed into a corner. I drew Jubal’s rapier, but it was a feeble, useless toy; I hurled it down again and grabbed my spare knife. Latoya’s chair was a whistling hurricane, and Regon had the coachman’s short sword. We could make a stand for a few minutes, but there were people streaming out the door. It wouldn’t take long for them to fetch reinforcements.

  And then I saw another pair on the move. Melitta had her arm around Lynn’s shoulder, and Lynn was moving like a sleepwalker as she let herself be escorted away.

  “Get away from her,” I yelle
d. “Let go of her, now!”

  Melitta was not going to be drawn into a debate, that much was clear. She cast a single dark glance at me, and then carried on with what she was doing—whispering softly, unceasingly, into Lynn’s ear, as she backed the two of them towards the door.

  I screamed in sheer fury and tried to charge, but a swinging mace nearly took the top off my skull, and I had to duck and retreat. “Lynn, get over here. Get clear of her, I’m right here!”

  I couldn’t get to Lynn, but she could get to me. It would be so simple. A hard stomp to Melitta’s foot, enough to crack the smaller bones, a chop to the ribs, a backwards elbow into Melitta’s face . . . I’d seen Lynn do that kind of thing dozens of times. Hundreds even. But not that day. She shuffled along dutifully where Melitta led. And now they were almost at the door.