Trickster's Queen

by Tamora Pierce

  She sees it, Aly thought.

  “No, we can't trust these regents to be careful, can we?” Ulasim asked softly. “They might annoy the merchants. They might turn the merchants into—”

  “Enemies,” said Fesgao, his eyes bright. He looked at Aly. “You'd thought of that when you suggested it would put a dent in Rubinyan's reserve troops to poison their food.”

  “You flatter me,” Aly said shyly.

  “Here I just thought you would deal with information,” Ochobu remarked slowly, her eyes on Aly. “But you understand a thing or two about war, don't you?”

  “As much as any girl reared under the sign of the Trickster would,” Aly replied smoothly.

  Ulasim smoothed his beard. “You are a gift and a marvel to me,” he said. “What are you doing at the slave pens?”

  “Me?” inquired Aly. “Nothing. I sit here and interpret reports. My bottom is going flat from all the sitting I do.”

  Ulasim shook his head. “Very well. Keep it to yourself. If you require assistance, only ask. Now. Through the Chain we hear that the raka of southern Lombyn have risen up against their masters. And the governor of Lombyn is dead, as is his chief mage, as is the general in command of the army posts on Lombyn, all shot with crow-fletched arrows. Nawat and his people are helping the Lombyn rebels retreat into the highlands, where the new general may hunt for them until he encounters a ribbon snake. Or a hundred.”

  The next morning Dove finally persuaded Ulasim and Winnamine to let her take a walk to the Dockmarket.

  “I'm going mad in here all day,” she informed them. “And Fesgao has got layers of protection on me that an onion might envy. I swear, the moment anything untoward happens, I'll trot right home. But seriously, Winna, Ulasim, I'm going to rend the next person who speaks to me if I can't go out for a time.”

  Pressed, the duchess and the head footman gave way. Aly, too, was grateful for the chance to go out, though she thought she ought to deal with reports. Information was pouring in at a rate she was hard-put to manage. A walk will do me good, she told herself firmly.

  At the Dockmarket people went about their business, but they kept one eye on the soldiers present. The ship that had lost its masts had drifted to the center of the harbor. Men were out in rowboats, securing lines to bring it in. The ship that had burned had also drifted when the fire devoured its hawsers. No doubt it would be sunk: it was only a charcoal shell. There was no sign of the third ship, which had sunk.

  She could see Dove taking note of the changes, though she said nothing. No one could miss the increased guard around the royal dock where the king's birthday present rode at anchor, its colorful sails furled. There were even men on its decks, watching no doubt for whoever could navigate the harbor waters well enough to burn the slave docks and destroy three merchant ships, in case they turned their attention to the king's ship.

  As Aly looked around, Dove crouched to talk with the old raka who sold good-luck charms. She had known the woman since she was small, she had told Aly, and the charm seller always knew the best gossip. As they talked, a part-raka woman who carried a basket of seaweed approached the girl. Aly hand-signaled the men-at-arms to keep to their places. The woman lingered until Dove kissed the old charm seller on the cheek and stood. When Dove looked at her inquiringly, the woman blurted out “Good morning” and fled.

  As Dove walked on, a sailor came close enough to tell her that she looked well that day. He was followed by a gaggle of well-wishers, all of whom were happy simply to say hello or to venture an opinion about the weather.

  Aly led Dove's group in another direction when they neared the part of Dockmarket where soldiers in the armor of the Rittevon Guard and the King's Watch protected the slave pens. Several of those guards did not look at all well. Jimarn and her cohorts finally got into the slave market kitchens, Aly thought.

  A little girl ran up to Dove to show her a dirty rag doll, obviously much loved, then ran away.

  “I don't understand,” Dove murmured to Aly as they finally left Dockmarket. It was almost noon. Normally Dove would have visited friends at some of the nearby shops, but that was before it had taken her the entire morning to go from one end of the markets principal to the other. “They don't queue up to say hello to anyone else.”

  “But you let them,” Aly pointed out. “You're walking down here with street muck on your sandals, asking what the squid is like today and how business is doing. They'll have heard from your friends that you're not the kind of girl who rides by with a smile and a wave. You understand business. You don't want a fuss. You just want to learn. And they need to see for themselves if your friends have spoken truly.” She looked back at the market. A number of the people there were staring in Dove's direction. When they saw Aly turn, they hurriedly went back to work.

  “But I'm no warmhearted people lover!” Dove protested softly. “I like to know how business is doing. I'm interested in things like who's importing and who's exporting, who buys and who sells. I like to try and figure out trade, that's all.”

  Aly shrugged. “Even if they did know that, it would probably only make you more of a real person to them. Don't forget, their fortunes rise and fall with the tiniest drop of the squid-fishing industry. A blight among sheep, and prosperous merchants are selling their old clothes to make some money.” She leaned in so that only Dove would hear. “They will look at you, as you ask them questions about how they manage to earn a living, and they'll compare you to people who tax them without asking if they can pay.”

  Dove's eyes were startled as she stared at Aly. At last she said, “Care to wager on how many days it takes before the regents hire someone to kill me?”

  Boulaj and Junai heard, and moved closer. “Just let them try, my lady,” Junai assured her. “We'll send whoever takes the job back to the Gray Palace in pieces.”

  That night Jimarn and her crew killed the brokers' guards who were still healthy enough to fight. The former slave and her companions raced through the slave pens with keys to open the locks, and baskets of weapons. Every captive who could lift one took it—sword, axe, knife. Most raced through the shadows to the Honeypot and up over the ridge, vanishing into the forest that lay on its northern side. Others were given places to hide in the city.

  Many returned to their old homes in Downwind. Once they had reached their district, they scrambled to lay wagons, tables, benches, even stable doors on their sides to block streets. As they did so, Yoyox, Fegoro, Eyun, and their cohorts scattered, to bring out crossbows and quivers of bolts they had hidden away. Jimarn remained, helping people as they blocked the streets, reinforcing the wood barriers with cobblestones and pavement flags. When word got out, soldiers would comb the area. They would quickly learn that for every person who had fled, five had stayed to fight.

  Too anxious to sleep, Aly waited until the house had been quiet for a couple of hours, then climbed to the second-story room where the family placed winter things and ancient keepsakes. The door was locked with a hasp and padlock. As a professional, Aly was offended that someone of her skill was taken so lightly. As she chose her lock picks, she felt Trick and Secret put up heads to watch.

  “What that?” whispered Secret, always curious.

  “It's a lock, and I'm opening it,” Aly whispered back. The lock sprang open easily.

  “That not a key.” Secret understood keys. Quedanga wore a bunch of them on her sash.

  “No, it's a lock pick. Actually, both are lock picks. You need different kinds.”

  Aly stepped into the storeroom. It was huge, but everything from Tanair was near the door. She spotted the trunk she needed immediately. It too was locked. At least this was more of a challenge. She went after it with her picks. It resisted her a little longer than the padlock had.

  Opening the trunk, she found Duke Mequen's correspondence going back three decades. Here were bundles of letters from Winnamine, tied up in scarlet ribbon, and letters from Sarugani, his first duchess, in gold. He had letters from family member
s and friends. Then Aly found what she needed, a bundle of letters in bold, slashing handwriting, with a distinctive signature: Rubinyan.

  Carefully she replaced everything but Rubinyan's letters and did up the lock. She dusted the floor to hide the marks left by her knees, then dusted off her knees. After making sure all was in order, she left as quietly as she had come, doing up the padlock. Then she carried the letters downstairs so she could practice the prince regent's handwriting.

  She found Kyprioth at her desk, sandaled feet on top of a stack of reports, hands locked behind his head as he leaned back in her chair. Aly squinted at him. Had he grown larger?

  “What a wonderful night this is,” he told her, his black eyes dancing. “How such small mortals like you and Ulasim cause so much damage . . . I tell you, it fills me with a sense of wonder. It truly does.”

  “And if it were just us, you'd be right to wonder,” Aly said. “We have good people and we trust them to trust their training. I take it you've been down by the slave pens.”

  “A work of art,” the god replied. “I'm beside myself.” For a moment there were two of him.

  Aly cringed. “Please stop that,” she begged. “The thought of two of you makes my head ache.”

  “I understand. It would be too much glory for your poor mortal body to withstand. When do you rise? When does the rebellion begin?” he wanted to know.

  “When the regents give us an excuse,” Aly said, taking a chair. “You know, you're getting marks on my papers.”

  “I'll take them off. I am a god, you know.”

  “So you keep telling me,” replied Aly. “Why ask when we rise? Are your brother and sister on their way?”

  “Not yet,” said Kyprioth, polishing an emerald bracelet on his wrapped jacket. “Why wait for them to push you forward? The regents?”

  “Because we're supposed to be the heroes, rescuing the Isles from oppressors,” Aly explained. “It never looks good to other governments if we rise up against a lawful monarch.”

  Kyprioth smiled. “I thought that might be it. Perfectly sensible, of course. I'm sure it will all work out in the end. Get ready, Aly.”

  “Are you bigger?” she started to ask, but he was gone.

  Aly waited up for her pack to return. They were tired but content, and complained only from habit when she insisted that they scrub every trace of blood from their persons before they went to bed. Only when they were tucked in did she go to her pallet. She was certain she had just nodded off when the alarm bells sounded, rousing the entire household. Someone had found the ruins of the slave pens. It would not be long before they also discovered that when they went to search for fugitives in the city, they would get a far warmer welcome in Downwind than they expected.

  Aly followed her morning routine, then cleaned up Dove's room. Boulaj went over the girl's dresses. The day before, an invitation had come for the three Balitang ladies, asking them to a riding party in the palace parks. Aly suspected that Imajane meant to press Dove on taking her place among the regent's ladies-in-waiting, where she could persuade Dove to accept Dunevon as her betrothed.

  Aly hoped they would not have to cancel their outing due to those alarm bells. She wanted to pass some incriminating bits of paper to Vereyu to be placed where Imajane, or someone stupid enough to inform her, would find them.

  Their plans went unchanged. Two squads of the Rittevon Guard came to escort the ladies and their maids to the palace. Their group had just reached Rittevon Square when they saw that people stared and pointed at the northeastern part of the city. Columns of smoke rose from Downwind; the Honeypot itself was blanketed with it. The King's Watch had discovered the barricades, and fighting had broken out.

  Imajane greeted her guests as if there were no fighting on the streets of Rajmuat and led them away to ride with her. Aly sat outside the Robing Pavilion, watching the sky. The crows reigned supreme over the palace. The Stormwings had gone. They've plenty to feed on today, Aly thought.

  Suddenly she drew in her breath. Above the crows soared a golden kudarung, great wings outspread. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

  She was dozing off when Vereyu poked her. “Late night?” she asked, sitting next to Aly.

  “Only because I worry too much,” Aly replied. “Here.” From the front of her sarong she drew some battered, dirty scraps of paper with bold black handwriting on them. One read simply meet tonight, another must not know. A third mentioned your blushing lips, a fourth cannot live with this secret for much longer.

  Vereyu looked them over with a frown. “That's the prince's handwriting.”

  Aly smiled. “Certainly that's what we want the princess to think. Over the next week can you leave these in places where he might drop them? His dressing room, for instance, or the hall outside Her Highness's door, or their private dining room.”

  “She may not even see them,” Vereyu told her.

  Aly wrapped her arms around her legs and leaned her chin on her knees. “You've known Her Highness far longer than I,” she murmured. “Do you honestly think she never slips into his rooms when he's not around?”

  “But who is this foolish woman, if that's what you mean Her Highness to think?” asked Vereyu. “Who would be mad enough to get involved with His Highness?”

  “If you can get samples of her handwriting for me, Lady Edunata Mayano,” Aly replied.

  She watched Vereyu's face as a flinty light filled the raka's eyes. Lady Edunata was infamous for having taken a raka lover and then claiming he'd raped her.

  “It will be our pleasure,” said Vereyu. “I think I can lay hands on some of the lady's writing right now. Wait here.”

  Ah, revenge, Aly thought drowsily as she listened to peacocks cry. People never lose interest in it.

  She stood, stretched, and returned to gossip with the other servants at the pavilion. Only when she saw Vereyu at the servants' door did she leave off flirting with a boastful manservant to talk to her. With the ease of long practice Vereyu slid papers into Aly's hands. Aly in turn rolled them casually and tucked them into her sash.

  Imajane seemed determined to incorporate the Balitang women into court life. They rode to the palace nearly every other day over the next week and a half. The regents did their best to pretend the fighting in Downwind was minor, but Aly knew of their real worry from the darkings. The rebellion was spreading like wildfire: for each rising that was put down, two more broke out elsewhere.

  “Rubinyan say they maybe need mercenaries,” Trick told Aly two nights before the king's birthday. “Princess say can they afford? Prince say they can't not afford.”

  Aly smiled. Mercenaries were always such a problem. If they weren't paid on time, they got unhappy and did damage. If they were without work, they often looked for trouble out of boredom, burning villages and robbing travelers for their amusement. People feared them as much as they respected the need to hire them. The luarin nobility would also see mercenaries as Rubinyan's attempt to build an army that would answer to him alone.

  While the princess entertained the ladies, Aly supplied Vereyu with incriminating scraps in Edunata's handwriting. These were hidden in Rubinyan's chambers and study. One of the prince's earrings also found its way into the sweet dreams bag that Edunata, like many luarin women, hung over her bed.

  Sooner or later Imajane would find something to make her uneasy, in her husband's or in Edunata's rooms. When she did, Aly was willing to bet that the roof would come off the Gray Palace.

  16

  DUNEVON'S BIRTHDAY

  The day before King Dunevon's birthday, the regents sent an announcement throughout the city. The “unpleasantness” was over. The criminals who had barricaded themselves in the Downwind district had been captured and killed.

  Aly wondered if the proclamation fooled anyone. The truth was that the rebels had set fire to the Honeypot, then melted away, into the city via sewers and tunnels or up and over the ridge, into the mountains. The Watch had killed some, but the victory was
not as great as the regents claimed it was. That same afternoon the bodies of the King's Watch night commander and its captain were placed at the harbor mouth. Aly chuckled grimly when she heard of it. Once again the regents did her work for her by putting men unaccustomed to the job into positions of authority.

  The king's birthday dawned bright and hot. The Balitangs were already awake and dressed, as were their servants, ready for the first ceremony of the day. Elsren was sleepy and irritable in blue silk and white lawn. Winnamine held him in front of her as the family rode out of the house; Dove had Petranne, who was tired of being left behind. Servants and masters wore their best clothes. They joined party after party of nobles, all on the way to the broad green lands around the palace walls.

  They did not have long to wait before the royal party rode out to meet them there. For the occasion the regents had assembled all the pomp that should attend a king, from the Rittevon Lancers to the King's Guard. King Dunevon was not allowed to doze against a friendly breast like his cousin Elsren. Dressed in scarlet, half asleep in the saddle, he rode his pony between the regents. Taybur Sibigat led the pony, one hand behind the little king's back. As the royal group passed, Dunevon's attendants and their families rode into place behind them.

  Behind them came the other luarin and raka nobles, all in their finest day clothes. Down the broad avenue lined with soldiers they rode. People waved from their windows and cried birthday greetings to Dunevon. It was impossible to hate the little boy, even if he was a Rittevon. Banners and garlands hung everywhere, their colors as bright as the parrots that flew overhead. Even the Stormwings could be seen as decorative, the sun glinting from their steel feathers as they idly circled in the air.