Trickster's Queen

by Tamora Pierce

  Aly smiled with pleasure. Already the relationship between the princess-regent and her spymaster was fraying and they had foolishly, or arrogantly, shown it before witnesses. “We must do our best to ensure that Topabaw continues to look unable to manage his work,” she murmured, going through new reports on her desk. At the bottom of the stack was a slate with code signs written in chalk: Ysul's notice that her requested pots of blazebalm were ready for use. Before her pack returned to their own jobs, she said, “Those of you who were with me two nights ago, I'll require you at midnight once more.” They nodded and left.

  Ulasim stuck his head in the door as the last of Aly's pack filed out. “The guests have begun to arrive,” he said. “And the young eagles have decided they wish to go riding to Lady Weeps Park.”

  Aly raised an eyebrow in silent question.

  Ulasim answered it. “Her Grace says they will all go, including Lady Dovasary.” He gave his thin smile. “Dove is not pleased. She has new books to read. Her Grace says His Grace of Nomru particularly requests his young friend's company.”

  Well, that's that, Aly thought, getting to her feet. It's not as if she can turn down one of the ten most powerful nobles in the realm.

  She had asked Dove two nights ago, as she prepared her mistress's hair for bedtime, why she talked so much with a man old enough to be her grandfather. Dove had replied, “He's one of the few people who can keep up with me, and I with him. It's a pleasant change from having to slow down to deal with most people.”

  Aly, looking at Dove in the mirror, raised an eyebrow.

  Dove smiled. “Not you, silly. I have trouble keeping up with you. Where everyone else sees a straight line, you see a maze, and when I'm done talking to you, the maze starts to make more sense.”

  “Thank you, I think,” Aly had replied then. Now she amended her thought. Dove would risk offending one of the realm's most popular nobles if she didn't actually like him.

  With Nuritin in command of household social functions, it was less than an hour until they were ready to go. Sarai's court of young men drew straws for the honor of riding at her side. Aly noticed that the Carthaki Zaimid did not choose to compete. Instead he rode with Nuritin, keeping pace with the duchess and her father, Lord Matfrid Fonfala.

  Sarai's court supplied all the color and liveliness their parade could want, laughing and joking. At last the park appeared at the end of their road, the entrance graced by curved palm trees. Five wild kudarung soared overhead on the day's heated air. Even the younger riders stopped to watch, awed. When they entered the park, they did so quietly.

  Aly and the other servants ended up in a pavilion set near the gate and the stables. Those nobles who chose not to ride left their mounts and wandered among the flower gardens, eating delicacies sold at small pavilions. Sarai and her companions rode on the park's horse paths, racing each other, Sarai determined to beat them all. She lost only to Zaimid.

  After the racing, the horses were led to the stables to be cared for by the hands who worked there. The young people then joined the older ones for rest, food, and conversation. Aly wandered into the stables, admiring the horses and flirting with the hostlers, while she slipped a darking each into the saddle blankets of Duke Nomru, Lord Fonfala, and the Dowager Countess Tomang. She had talked to the creatures about what they were to do and questioned them enough to know that they understood her quite well. Though the darkings did not care to be elaborate with spoken language—perhaps because speech was a tricky affair for them—they were very intelligent.

  Once the mosquitoes came out, it was time to return. Pembery, Boulaj, and Aly repaired their mistresses' appearances with degrees of success. Pembery and Aly did well enough because their ladies had spent the afternoon talking. As soon as Pembery finished, Winnamine went to see if the horses were ready to go. Boulaj had more of a struggle. Sarai had lost every one of the hairpins that had kept both her straight and her curled locks in place. She shook her long mane free. “Don't pin it, Boulaj,” she ordered. “Whose idea was it anyway to make us torture our heads?”

  “It's not seemly,” protested Boulaj. “Young ladies are supposed to wear their hair up.”

  “Aly, there's a sheer scarf in my bag,” Dove murmured. “Somebody should have thought to tell Boulaj that Sarai's old maid always carried spare pins.” She looked at Pembery, eyes narrowed, as Aly searched out the scarf Dove had mentioned. “You were friends with her,” Dove told her stepmother's attendant. As senior maid, it was Pembery's job to help Boulaj, as Dove well knew. “Perhaps you might tell Boulaj the different tricks to dressing my sister that she knew.”

  Pembery recognized a command even when it was phrased as a request. “Yes, Lady Dovasary.” Dove didn't look away until Pembery gave a small bow of her head.

  Aly produced the scarf, a gold and red length of silk that covered Sarai's hair enough for everyone but sticklers like Nuritin and Countess Tomang, who sniffed at the same time. Aly restrained a giggle and Boulaj covered a grin.

  The party was quiet from weariness as they rode back down the stepped rises that lifted the different levels of the city above the harbor. Though it was still spring, the day had been warm and sticky, a hint of summer to come. Nomru and Matfrid Tomang spoke idly of moving to country estates for the summer. Zaimid told his companions, Sarai, Dove, and Sarai's friend Isalena Obemaek, that he wouldn't miss the dampness at all when he returned to hot, dry Carthak.

  The closer they went to the heart of the city, the more Aly's skin prickled. The sidewalks were unusually crowded, even for this time of day, and few people on them were moving. Instead they stared at the noble riders. At Sarai.

  Aly eased along the line of guards until she found the commander of the Balitang men-at-arms. Junai moved in from the other side of the thin ring of men to listen to Aly. First Aly counted, then wished she hadn't. The Balitangs had sent five soldiers. Most of the other riders had brought one, maybe two, guards, not anticipating trouble on an afternoon's ride to the park.

  “You've got your cautious face on,” the guards' commander murmured. “What is it?”

  “Too many quiet people who are just staring,” Aly replied. “And we know who they're staring at, too. Is there any way we can avoid the next army checkpoint?”

  “I would think you'd want soldiers to handle the crowd,” he replied.

  Aly and Junai both shook their heads. “Oil on tinder,” Junai explained. “The soldiers itching for a fight and the people itching to get at soldiers.”

  “It might not be too inconvenient to the regents if the very popular Balitang sisters got hurt—or accidentally killed—in a fight between a mob and soldiers. Things get so confused in street fighting—”

  “Too late,” the commander interrupted, “here's the checkpoint. I'll pass the word for everyone to look sharp.” Ahead, the road crossed with Rittevon's Lance, the street that went from the palace down to the docks. The soldiers at the checkpoint warily eyed the people, who outnumbered them, but did nothing to send them away or to hinder the nobles. It was five blocks farther down that the mob swept out of the side streets to surround the riders. In eerie silence, many of the new arrivals ragged and dirty, they tried to force their way through the guards, reaching for Sarai.

  “Whatever you are doing, this is neither the time nor the place.” Duke Nomru had a thundering voice when he cared to use it. “You will bring grief upon yourselves with this display. Return to your homes!” He wheeled his mount, forcing the people nearest him to back away.

  Ferdy Tomang had stronger feelings. “Raka dogs!” he cried, lashing the nearest member of the crowd with his riding crop. “Back to your kennels!”

  Oh, splendid, Aly thought, rolling her eyes. Our hero.

  The eerie silence broke with a roar. Half of the mob turned on the young count. Ferdy spurred his horse to rear. The other noblemen and Matfrid Fonfala did the same, urging their mounts to turn on their hind legs, showing everyone the crushing power of those raised front hooves.

 
; Balitang House's people had been trained for this, even if the guards with them had not. Junai and a man-at-arms collected the duchess and Nuritin. They drew them and the other noblewomen onto the sidewalk to put a building at their backs and take them out of the physical movement on the street. Aly gripped Sarai's and Dove's mounts, forcing them toward the same wall.

  “Sarai, don't!” cried Dove. Aly looked up.

  Sarai had her riding crop raised; her target was Aly. “Let me go!” she ordered. “I have to stop them before they kill people—before we kill more raka!”

  Aly held Sarai's eyes with her own. She did not say it, but she thought it: if Sarai hit her, Aly would teach her a lesson Sarai's supporters would not like.

  “Don't be a fool!” snapped Dove over Aly's head. “Get the wall at our backs, and get our servants behind us!” Boulaj was already ranging among the maids' horses, drawing them together and moving them to the rear, speaking softly as their riders kept very still. Aly was grateful that maids seldom chose lively mounts.

  “This bad,” Trick murmured in her ear. “Four-leggers mashing two-leggers bad.”

  Above the cries of the mob Aly heard the sound she'd been dreading: the tramp of boots. “It's about to get worse,” she muttered. Here came the King's Watch, stern, hard men in red-painted breastplates, metal helmets, and boots with nails in the soles and metal pieces that covered the toes, making any kick the soldier gave a bloody one. They were armed with short swords, clubs, and shields, and used all three to drive the mob, cutting their way through to the nobles. A raka woman moved to scoop two children out of the way of their mounted captain, diving between the Balitang guards into the protected inner circle. It was Eyun, one of Aly's pack. She bore a scratch down one creamy cheek. She looked at Aly, who nodded that she'd done well, then turned her attention to the shrieking children. One looked to be a merchant's child. Her gown was luarin-style cotton, unfaded and unmended. She yelled for her nursemaid while the other child screamed over his broken arm. He looked like the worst dregs of the slums, ragged and filthy.

  “Here.” Winnamine knelt beside Eyun, a flask of water in her hands. To the girl she said, “I'm sure your nurse is fine.” She offered the boy a drink from her silver flask. The boy blinked at her, then took the flask and drank. He might have then tried to run with it, but light flashed from Nuritin at Winnamine's side. The boy's eyes rolled up and he collapsed, Nuritin's sturdy old hands catching him before his bad arm hit the stones. Aly had heard that the old lady had been rough and ready in her day. It seemed she could still muster a bit of power at need. “Well, I couldn't leave him feeling all that pain,” Nuritin said, meeting Winnamine's look. “And softhearted as you are, I suppose we'll need a healer who will tend him.”

  “That depends on the healer, surely.” Zaimid dismounted. He knelt in the street, apparently unaware of the war being fought on the other side of the protective line of men-at-arms and noblemen on horseback. “It's quite a simple break, and luckily, it's not pierced the skin.” Gently he wrapped long fingers around the broken limb, his head bent, his brown face closed and thoughtful. In Aly's Sight silvery fire spun a thread from his blazing magical core down through his arm and into the boy's.

  He's got wonderful control, thought Aly, impressed. Of course, he would. They wouldn't put a noble idiot in charge of the Carthaki emperor's health.

  Zaimid released the boy's arm. The marks of his hands showed pale at first, then faded. The boy stirred, then grabbed his arm. He looked at it, agape, then at Nuritin, who had recovered Winnamine's flask, then at Zaimid.

  “You'll do better here until this ends,” Zaimid said. “No good sending you out to get something else broken.”

  Dove nudged Aly and handed over plums that had survived the nobles' meal. Aly gave them to the boy. He began to devour them, his wondering eyes still on Zaimid.

  Beyond their circle of safety, the royal soldiers dispersed the mob with brutal speed. Sarai was still trying to fight her way between Ferdy Tomang and Duke Nomru, screaming, “They weren't hurting anyone! Leave them alone!” She finally gave up when the soldiers had driven the crowd so far down the street that none of them could hear. She glared at Duke Nomru, tears running down her cheeks. “They weren't going to hurt us!”

  The older man raised his stern brows. “And do you think that would stop the kind of men they have in the King's Watch? Their orders are to disperse gatherings.” He looked down the street, with its litter of bodies. “This one is well and truly dispersed, whatever its intention was.” He looked back at the ladies. “I propose we return to Balitang House at all speed, before the animals hired for the Watch return.”

  Winnamine and Nuritin mounted up.

  Aly moved in close to Eyun. “Stay here. Learn what you can, maybe get this little one home?” The little girl had sobbed herself into silence in Eyun's hold.

  Eyun nodded and hand-signed, They wanted to touch the twice-royal. That's all. Just touch her, to know she is real.

  “So much beauty shouldn't be marred,” Zaimid said over Aly's shoulder. He brushed Eyun's cheekbone with his fingers. Her cut healed before their eyes, as if the work of several weeks had been put into a breath. There was not even a scar. To Nomru he said apologetically, “Your Grace, my ladies”—he looked at the older women next—“forgive me, but I am needed here. I bid you all farewell.” To Sarai he added, “I'll make sure these two children are looked after.” He was already unbuckling saddlebags from his horse. Draping them over his shoulder, he asked the boy, “Will you hold my reins?” He passed them into the child's hands. Aly thought he was being overcharitable, giving the reins to a boy who had meant to steal the duchess's silver flask, but it seemed the boy held the healer in too much awe to steal the horse at present.

  Aly mounted her pony. Sarai might have pulled away from her group, but her grandfather Matfrid came up beside her as she urged her horse forward, and took the reins. “Granddaughter, you are overwrought,” he said quietly, holding her dark eyes with his gray ones. “Allow me to escort you.”

  They rode off, picking their way around the fallen—Aly was pleased to see a few soldiers groaning in the road—the men and the guards in a ring around the ladies and their maids. Aly looked back between two guards. Zaimid, saddle-bags on the ground beside him, was engaged in turning over a woman who resembled a bundle of rags, unaware or uncaring that she'd left a bloody handprint on his white lawn sleeve.

  At the house, the gathering broke up quickly. Sarai announced that she had a headache and needed to lie down. Without her to hold them together, the young nobles chose to go home. The gloss had been stripped from the afternoon.

  Only when the guests had gone did the Balitang ladies and their maids ascend to the family quarters. They entered their private sitting room to find Sarai and a litter of overturned chairs and decorative tables. Gazing at the mess, Aly thought it was just as well that the second-best furnishings went into this room, which was for comfort, not style.

  “Have you taken leave of your senses?” asked Nuritin. Her back was as stiff as a poker, her voice chipped ice. “This is not the behavior of a properly bred young woman, it is the behavior of spider monkeys!”

  “After seeing all those ‘properly bred' people just sit there while people were being thrashed, I'd rather live with spider monkeys!” cried Sarai, eyes swollen with furious weeping. “Every last one of us—every last one—just let it happen! Ferdy was glad—he called them raka dogs, I heard him!”

  “A riot cannot be controlled, Sarai,” Winna said calmly, setting a table upright. “All we could have done was get pulled from our horses and savaged. Soldiers can lose control in those circumstances. They don't care who they batter—and they can always claim they didn't realize we were nobility when we were among the commoners. It's happened before.” Dove, Aly, and Pembery began to help the duchess pick things up. Nuritin continued to stare at Sarai as if she were a badly trained housemaid.

  “It's happened here,” Sarai shouted. “It happens he
re, because soldiers believe the poor are a disease, not people. And they get that attitude honestly—it comes straight from the Throne! It always has and it always will, and people who are supposed to be noble in nature will let it happen, for fear of their own lives! Only one of us showed any decency today: Zaimid! The foreigner! He actually cares about people, whether they live in kennels or not!” She stormed out, yanking the door open so hard it chipped the stucco wall.

  There was a long silence. At last Nuritin said tartly, “Well! I am not charged with her upbringing, Winnamine, but in your place, I would slap her for addressing elders in such a way.”

  “She was upset, Aunt,” Winnamine replied wearily. “There was blood running in the gutters.”

  “Screaming and shouting will not change that,” snapped Nuritin. “Getting enough power among ourselves to force the Crown to change how it rules the people, that is the way to change.”

  Well, it's one way, thought Aly, collecting the pieces of a broken vase.

  What Nuritin had just said sounded very close to treason. If Aly really did belong to Topabaw, she could get all kinds of favors from him for that tidbit alone. She wondered if Countess Tomang—certainly not her son!—Lord Matfrid, Duke Nomru, and Baron Engan, Dove's astronomer friend, held the same view that the Crown must be controlled.

  At the conspirators' nightly meeting Aly reported on the fight. Ochobu was not present. The moment she'd heard the news, she had packed her bag of medicines and gone to offer help. No one suggested they would pray for any member of the Watch who made the mistake of trying to stop her.

  There were more reports to give and to hear. At last the conspirators separated, most bound for their beds. Aly went to her office. Ysul came in not long after with three packs, setting them on the floor very carefully. He was dressed as an itinerant worker, the kind of fellow people expected to see around the docks. In a cloth bag carried like a bedroll on his back he had his waterproof and sight-proof disguise. Aly dressed in her own suit, then in her Carthaki noble's disguise. Fegoro came again as a Bazhir, Lokak as a southern Car-thaki, Jimarn as another Carthaki noble, and Yoyox as Death's priest. Aly, Jimarn, and Yoyox hid Ysul's packs under their flowing clothes.