A Harvest of Ripe Figs

by Shira Glassman

  Several hours later, in the little kitchen-house, Aviva placed a dish of spicy lamb kebabs in the center of the table. She was beaming as usual, an unnoticed piece of carrot peel stuck in her hair.

  "This looks fantastic," said Shulamit eagerly, helping herself from the dish. "And I can't wait to eat. I've just about memorized those pest control briefs, and I still don't know what happened to that violin!"

  "How did the questions go?" asked Isaac.

  Shulamit grimaced. "He swears up and down he had nothing to do with it, that he'd never hurt Esther, that he's never bought anything from Dafna—actually, he said he's never even seen Dafna. He said he still has soap with him from the last place he set up shop and hasn't needed anything here yet."

  "He can say anything," Rivka pointed out, already wolfing down food. "Whoo! Spicy."

  "You northerners," Aviva teased. "Fat, salt, onion." Then she giggled wickedly. "That's why you came down here!"

  "I am Riv Maror; I am not to be defeated by a pain in the mouth." Rivka shoveled more of the lamb into her mouth, as if to prove a point.

  "She's spicier than the food, anyway," Isaac murmured, and Shulamit saw Rivka sit up even straighter.

  "It's not him," said Aviva, finally retrieving the carrot peel from her hair. "I'm telling you."

  "Dafna identified him conclusively," Shulamit reminded her.

  "Yes, but Dafna is the banana that rots when it's still green," Aviva insisted.

  "I know it hurts your feelings when someone in the working class gets accused," said Shulamit, "but every group has dishonest people in it."

  "That's not it. Listen to me," Aviva protested. "Tzuriel is a man of the marketplace. They don't leave their spots."

  "Then she must have come to him."

  "She wouldn't leave her spot, either," said Aviva. "I saw her when Isaac came to take her away. She was very protective of her merchandise. She wouldn't have left her stall unguarded and walked all the way across the market like that. It's not like he's next door, and even if you're next door that's still dangerous. Things have a way of walking off. Everything in a market has legs."

  "She's friends with Gershom; she could have asked him to watch the soap."

  "He's got a busy shop of his own, and it only takes a thief seconds to sting your ankle. She's been doing this for years, and she knows that just as well as I do."

  "Maybe she sent a messenger." But even as Shulamit said the words, she knew they were wrong. "Although that doesn't fit the way she works. She doesn't like getting in trouble, and she'd never approach anyone she didn't already have a feeling would go for it."

  "If he didn't take it, why did she say he did?" asked Rivka.

  "What exactly did she say, Malkeleh?" asked Isaac, a crafty look slipping into his eye.

  "She said... that it was the fat man with 'tails' in his hair, tied back," said the queen. "She didn't know his name."

  "Does anyone else around here have their hair in locks?" asked Isaac.

  "Nobody as big as Tzuriel," said Rivka.

  "The locks are a Sugar Coast thing, and all the Sugar Coast people I can think of in the capital are much thinner than he is," said Shulamit.

  "And he swears he's never seen her," said Isaac.

  "Right." Then Shulamit clapped her hands to her mouth. "If somebody wanted us to think it was him—"

  "All they'd have to do is tell her to say it was the fat man with that hairstyle," Isaac answered her.

  "But he says he never saw her."

  "Which means she never saw him."

  "If he's telling the truth."

  "If we had another fat man with locks," Isaac mused, "that we knew didn't do it, we could sneak him in to where she's eating and ask her to identify the man who bought the potion."

  "We don't have another fat man from the Sugar Coast," Shulamit pointed out, "but we do have Big Simon. And she'd never recognize him, because he's always on night watch on the treasury." It lay deep within the palace walls, so Big Simon didn't often get out to the marketplace.

  "Big Simon is bald," Rivka pointed out.

  "So we'll have to get a wig," said Shulamit.

  "My father has wigs for his mannequins," Aviva reminded them, "for when he sells clothing at market."

  "Are any of them styled into locks?" asked Shulamit.

  "No, but maybe Isaac can sing to them."

  Shulamit looked at the wizard. "Do you think you could figure out how to...?"

  "I'll try!" said Isaac. His eyes twinkled at the prospect of the trickery ahead.

  ***

  The sun had gone down, so the flurry of activity in Ben's dressmaking studio took place by lamplight. Big Simon stood in the center of the room, waiting patiently for Ben to emerge from the trunk in which he was rummaging. Everybody else was focused on Big Simon, except for Aviva, in the corner playing with Naomi and some toys.

  "Try this one," said Ben as he came up for air, a dark brown sherwani jacket in his hands.

  "That one looks more like it'll fit." Big Simon took off the green one he was wearing, which hadn't sat properly across his broad form.

  "It doesn't have to be comfortable, as long as it covers his guard uniform for a few moments." Rivka circled the room like a prowling wolf.

  "Comfortable, no, but it does have to look like he's in his regular clothes," Shulamit reminded her.

  "I'm getting overtime for this, right?"

  "Yes, definitely," Rivka asserted.

  "Looks like this one fits," said Big Simon. "Now what?"

  "Now, the wig," said Isaac, his arms folded across his chest. "Ben? What do you have?"

  "This is the one I use for male mannequins," said Ben, holding up a mass of black horsehair.

  "No, that one's too short."

  "Well, here's the lady one." Ben tossed the other one over to Isaac.

  The false hair was thick and straight. "I think I can work with this." Isaac turned it over and over in his hands. Before their eyes, the strands began to cluster together, twisting like little cyclones. When he was finished, he held it up. "How's that?"

  Shulamit nodded. "Pretty good!" She looked at Rivka.

  "Works for me," the captain agreed.

  "Okay, put it on." Shulamit carried the wig to Big Simon, who fit it to his big, shining, bald head.

  "How do I look?"

  Shulamit tried her hardest not to giggle, but her face shattered into laughter despite her best efforts. "Oh, goodness."

  "What?" Big Simon stepped in front of the glass where Shulamit usually tried on her new clothes. "Oh! Ho ho." He began to laugh as well. "Who's that handsome face?"

  "Tie them back," Shulamit pointed out. "Tzuriel wears his locks tied back." On Tzuriel, they looked natural and, in fact, suave; on her guard... not so much.

  "Oh, yeah," said Rivka.

  "Here, use this." Ben gave him a ribbon.

  "I never had this much hair even when I had hair!" Simon fiddled with the ribbon awkwardly, and eventually Ben stepped in to help him.

  "Now, you have to pretend we've arrested you this morning—" Shulamit began, but Big Simon was making such silly faces into the mirror that she burst into giggles again. "Stooooop."

  "I have so much hair!" Big Simon grinned.

  "Please be serious," Shulamit ordered.

  "Yes, Majesty. You were saying?"

  "You were arrested this morning, and you know you didn't do it, but you're scared, and you're about to face the woman who's accused you—Stop that!" Big Simon was laughing at himself in the mirror again.

  Rivka marched up to him. "Listen, you nightcrawling schmegeggeh, you can stick your head in the ground and grow upside down like an onion once this drama is over for all I care, but you will stop laughing and get in character before I rip that wig off your head and stuff it down your throat."

  "Sir, yes, sir!" Big Simon was instantly serious, his face a rigid mask and his body a statue.

  This time it was Shulamit and Aviva who chuckled, and Isaac's face blossomed
into a predictable half-smile of admiration for his wife's sheer power.

  When Shulamit had gotten the laughter out of her system, she took one final look at Big Simon and then nodded at Rivka. She and Isaac took up position on either side of him and bound him as if he were a prisoner.

  Dafna was in one of the holding cells, finishing her dinner. She rose when she saw the queen's party approaching. "Can I go home yet? My husband will be frantic for me."

  "We've sent word," Shulamit reassured her.

  Fear flitted into Dafna's face. "You didn't tell him—"

  "He knows you're being held at the palace as a witness connected with several thefts," Shulamit replied. "We didn't say you'd done anything wrong yourself, but it may come to that. You still owe us a fine for the illegal use of shapeshifting magic."

  Dafna looked around uneasily. "Am I going to be here overnight?"

  "Probably," said the queen. "It depends."

  "On what?"

  Shulamit clapped her hands. It was the signal for Rivka and Isaac to bring their prisoner into the room. "Dafna, do you recognize this man?"

  Dafna's face was blank for a moment, and then she must have realized she was looking at a fat man with his hair twisted into locks. When Shulamit saw that spark of recognition in her face, she felt like she'd hooked a fish. Rather than yank up the pole before the bait was swallowed, she waited patiently, thinking of her father and how proud moments like this would have made him.

  "That's him, Majesty," said Dafna. "That's the third man who bought my tonic."

  "Are you sure? He says he didn't," said Shulamit placidly.

  "Oh, well, he can say anything he likes, but I would remember a man like that." Dafna grew more self-possessed as she committed fully to the lie.

  "When was this?"

  "Oh, I don't know. The day of that big concert, maybe."

  Shulamit noticed that Dafna wasn't meeting Big Simon's eyes with her own.

  "That's really funny, Dafna," said Shulamit, crossing her arms across her chest, "because this is Big Simon, the night watchman for my treasury. And he doesn't usually leave the palace walls."

  Chapter 18: Teeth Begin to Emerge

  Dafna's shoulders slumped. She sighed and looked into the corner of the floor.

  Shulamit stepped closer. "How about you tell us who told you to tell us that?"

  Dafna shook her head sadly. "I don't know his name," she said, and to Shulamit, she finally sounded sincere.

  "So it was a man, then?"

  "He wasn't fat, and he wasn't light-skinned like those two." Dafna pointed at Isaac and Rivka. "No accent, either. But he spoke in a hushed whisper and he was wearing a lady's veil, so I couldn't see his face."

  "And you didn't recognize anything about him?"

  "No. Just his coin." Dafna finally looked as though she might be feeling ashamed of herself.

  "So he came up to you on the day of the concert, bought the potion, and told you to give us a false lead if you were caught?" Shulamit went over all the facts meticulously.

  "No, not exactly." Dafna paused for a moment to collect herself. "The day of the concert, Gershom came back from speaking with you. We talked about whether or not you'd figured us out, and the man in the veil must have been lurking behind the booths. He showed up later, hours after the conversation, but he seemed to have heard everything we'd said. He offered me money right there on the spot, so of course I took it."

  "Why didn't you think he was a spy from the palace?" asked Shulamit.

  "That's a good question," Dafna admitted. "I don't know."

  "She was greedy," suggested Rivka, and Dafna looked embarrassed.

  "What about the fat man?" asked Shulamit.

  "That was later," said Dafna. "He came back on another day—I don't remember which day—and gave me more money, and told me that if you figured out what I was selling, to say that he was a fat man with his hair like that."

  "And he still had the veil on?"

  "Yes, Majesty. May I go home yet?" She looked around the cell sadly, seeing the sack of straw on which she'd have to sleep if she remained overnight.

  Shulamit nodded. "I think so. You'll pay the fine to the guards when we get you home?"

  "Yes, Majesty."

  "Do you understand why you can't sell shapeshifting magic anymore?"

  "Yes, Majesty." Dafna hung her head.

  "Oh, I can take this silly thing off now," realized Big Simon suddenly.

  ***

  "She's so glad to see you!" Aviva handed the fussy little princess over to Shulamit as the queen entered the comforting womb of the kitchen-house. Rivka was close behind. She sat down at the table and began cracking open peanuts and eating them.

  "You mean she's glad to see these." Shulamit gestured wearily at her chest.

  "If I could, I would," Aviva reminded her.

  "I'm sorry, I'm tired," said Shulamit. "I'm not thinking." She sat down and opened the side of her tunic so that Naomi could latch on.

  "Was I right about Tzuriel?" Aviva asked, bending down from behind Shulamit to rub both her upper arms affectionately.

  "We set him free. Someone paid Dafna to lie."

  Aviva kissed her on the cheek. "I knew you'd get to the truth. It's a good thing you love me anyway—it'd be awfully inconvenient to have a crush on the queen all by myself!"

  Shulamit turned her face to the side so that she could kiss her on the mouth. "You've been eating something sweet."

  "Dried figs. You want?"

  "One or two."

  Isaac slipped smoothly into the room, smiled at the girls, and put his hand on Rivka's shoulder in greeting.

  "Dafna paid you?" asked Shulamit, looking up at him.

  Isaac nodded. "Tivon has the money. He's taking it to the treasury now."

  "This is almost over," said Shulamit, "except it's not over at all. We don't know who that man was."

  "Well, you ruled out Tzuriel, since the man in the veil wasn't fat," Rivka pointed out. "So funny, isn't it? Here I am in a mask playing a man, and a man walks around in a lady's veil—"

  "Wait! Wait—" said Shulamit. "Maybe it wasn't a man!"

  "You mean—Liora?" asked Rivka.

  "She's really tall, for a woman," Shulamit pointed out.

  "Not as tall as I am," Rivka replied.

  "You're a giant," said Shulamit.

  Isaac made a face like a sleeping cat.

  "Dafna did say that he was whispering," continued the queen. "Say it was Liora. Maybe she bought it, but then the marquis was the one who used it."

  "Or it was maybe the marquis himself, and he bought it and took the potion," Rivka suggested.

  "Right. Or our other male suspect—the innkeeper. It's really down to those three at this point, isn't it?" Shulamit paused to arrange Naomi at the other breast. "I keep thinking about that business with trying to frame Tzuriel. He came back the next day to do that."

  "Or on a different day." Isaac pointed out. "She didn't say the next day."

  "Right," said Shulamit. "So that means the means the frame-up wasn't part of the original plan."

  "So then it can't really be the innkeeper," said Isaac.

  "No, it can't, because he set up the party in advance," said Shulamit, a slow, full smile spreading across her face. Smiles fit awkwardly onto her bone structure, so it looked a little bit like the hostile grin of a wild animal. Nevertheless, she felt safe with her family in the little kitchen-house, and more free to smile.

  "That's it, then!" said Rivka, pounding her fist on the table and making peanut shells dance around. "It's either the marquis going behind Liora's back, or it's the two of them together." She stood up. "You want I should go arrest them?"

  "No, no, sit down, Riv." Shulamit watched her captain retake her chair slowly, reminding her of a snake pulling back into its coil. "I want Isaac to go sneaking around as a lizard, to see if he can sniff up any trace of the violin in their villa. Getting that silly thing back intact is the most important thing to me, at this
point. We've already caught two thieves and a...whatever Dafna is. Now that we have only one place to search, it'll be easier."

  "You're so sexy when I can see your brilliant mind reflecting like sun on the water like that." Aviva beamed.

  "Not half as sexy as you are when you're standing up for the honest working person," Shulamit shot back.

  "That's the tree where I sprouted," Aviva said smoothly, "and I'm still in its branches, really..." She looked around the kitchen-house where she spent so much time, toiling on foods that would bring joy to her family and keep the queen out of sickbed.

  "You're such a special woman." Shulamit gazed at her adoringly. "So many people... royalty falls in love with them, they'd take it as an opportunity to seize a life of luxury."

  "Didn't you used to fear that living with the love of another woman counted as a luxury?" Aviva pointed out. "I have a family. That's my silk cushion. Besides," she added with a jut of her hip, "I have enough cushion to sit on."

  "If you ever sit down at all! I love how you're always dreaming up new projects..."

  "That reminds me—the wheat-free challah was a success, right?"

  "It meant the world to me. You know that."

  "I think I might make some extra this week, and sell it to one of the bakers in the marketplace." Aviva brushed a loose wisp of hair out of her face. "For anyone else in Home City with your issues."

  "What a fantastic idea! Oh, Aviva, maybe someday they'll tell legends of you..."

  "See, Princess Naomi?" Isaac interjected, speaking to the groggy little baby. "That's true love. Your mothers are proud of each other and support each other in their great ideas. Nobody's jealous and wants the other one to stay home with her all the time."

  "You'd know all about that, wouldn't you, Wizard?" quipped Rivka.

  "Do you remember the man who would have wanted you to stay home and have his babies? You of all people."

  "The general?" Rivka laughed. "I wish I could now meet him in battle."

  "Isaac..." Shulamit interrupted them. "I've had another idea. Would you mind looking in two places tonight?