by Hilari Bell
She gathered up several empty mugs. No sudden cry of recognition. No hand gripping her shoulder to turn her around.
A cautious peek showed Arisa the back of Master Darian’s coat as he descended the cellar stairs, the sixth man to do so. It must be getting crowded down there. Gradually her heartbeat slowed. Weasel was right—servants were invisible, the Lady be praised.
Arisa counted fourteen people going down to the cellar that night, four of them wearing officers’ boots—fifteen if you included Master Mimms, who was the last man to go down.
After that Arisa was too busy to do anything but work. Mistress Mimms took over the bar, which left Baylee running the kitchen, and Arisa trying to do Baylee’s job as well as her own.
She carried drinks and food to the tables for the first time that night, and a fan of mud spread slowly from the doorway, since there was no one free to clean it until Master Mimms came back and took over for his wife.
Arisa was mopping the floor as the conspirators departed, coming up the stairs one or two at a time, several minutes apart. Trying, she supposed, to make it less obvious that a meeting had taken place.
Master Darian was one of the last to leave, and his coat actually brushed against her, but Arisa didn’t flinch. Just another piece of furniture. His companion’s hard-soled shoes slipped on the wet floor.
“Curse this weather,” the man grumbled. “You need deck shoes even on land these days. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“We’ll all need deck shoes soon,” Master Darian told him cheerfully. “For their proper purpose.”
Arisa kept her gaze on the floor, wiping up mud, her ears straining to hear more. Deck shoes had braided-rope soles, to help sailors keep their footing on a sea-wet deck. Was Master Darian planning a voyage? When? Where? And why would they “all” need deck shoes?
“Well, if we need them,” said the man cheerfully, “I trust your patron in the palace will—”
Master Darian’s feet moved rapidly.
“Ow! All right, all right, I hope your unnamed patron from nowhere will provide deck shoes along with everything else. By the One God, you’re cautious! There’s no one listening, and even if there was…”
Stu opened the door, and they argued their way out into the soggy night. Arisa scrubbed the floor, her mind racing.
A patron in the palace. Katrin’s employer? If the person who had hired Katrin to embarrass the Falcon through her daughter was Master Darian’s patron, then she had linked Master Darian with both Katrin’s death and her mother’s enemy—but she still had no clue who that enemy was! And though she might be nearly invisible working in the crowded tavern, she would certainly be noticed if she carried in a tray of drinks during the conspirators’ next meeting.
She couldn’t spy on them while they met… so she had to find a way to do it afterward. Was there any chance they kept some sort of records?
Arisa was wiping the tables when Mistress Mimms did a final round of the taproom and latched the windows closed. It was the work of seconds to open a latch once the mistress had gone back to the kitchen.
Arisa might not have Weasel’s skill at burglary, but she wasn’t a total amateur.
After the tavern closed she walked down the street as usual, then made her way back from another direction, wiggling into her old hiding place among the barrels. She watched the lamps go out downstairs, bloom briefly in the upstairs windows, and then go out again.
She waited for the family to fall asleep. Allowing longer than usual, since Master Mimms would be excited about the meeting. Perhaps talk it over with his wife.
The street was empty now, and the light drizzle was soaking through her coat.
Still she waited, waited till her teeth began to chatter and she had to walk around the block to warm up enough to approach the window in silence.
Arisa swung it open slowly—there was no creak. Master Mimms said grease was cheap, and annoying your customers with squeaky hinges wasn’t. The sill was low enough to reach, but high enough that she grunted as she pulled herself into the taproom.
It wasn’t much darker than the street outside. Arisa went to the hearth, where the embers still glowed, and stood a moment, warming herself and listening for any sound from above. Nothing. All asleep.
She had worked here long enough that she felt like she was moving around in her own home. No, more than that. She wouldn’t be half so comfortable sneaking around the palace in the middle of the night.
And if this was more home than the palace, did that make her a traitor? To friends, if not her family?
Rot, Arisa thought firmly, fetching the candle that Master Mimms kept behind the bar, and returning to the hearth to light it. The Falcon was her family, and home was where her mother was. These people were her mother’s enemies! Even if they had been kind.
When the candle was burning steadily, she came back to the bar and crept down the stairs, closing the door behind her.
The cellar was much as she remembered, cluttered with kegs and bins near the door, and with all the discarded flotsam of the tavern’s past crowding the back.
There wasn’t room for fifteen people. No place to sit, and not enough light, either. Arisa kindled the lamp that hung beside the stairway.
There were no other lamps or candles, but in the brighter light she could see that the crates beyond the area near the door were dusty. No one had sat on them, and in a meeting that had lasted several hours that was impossible.
Could there be another room down here? She didn’t see any doors. Were there… She squinted. Yes! Tracks in the dust between some of the crates.
It took only a moment to lift the lamp from its bracket and follow the trail across the dusty floor. Excitement prickling down her spine, Arisa tracked the footprints to an old chest, in front of a tall panel that lay propped against the wall. Unlike everything around it, the chest was free of dust! Records?
It wasn’t locked, so whatever was in it probably wasn’t important, but Arisa lifted the lid anyway.
A jacket. Very rich brocade, cut in the old style. On top lay a pair of shoes, the leather cracked with age. There were dimples in the heels from where gems had been pried out.
Arisa remembered Weasel’s tale of Regalis returning naked from a tavern, and grinned. Some ancient courtier had lost his shirt here—literally! But that long-ago man’s losses had nothing to do with her present quest, and though she reached down to the bottom of the chest she felt nothing but old fabric.
No records. Nothing of importance. Then why was this chest so clean? Someone must have dusted it, and the only reason to dust it was because they’d handled it.
Arisa stood and studied the floor. Yes, the chest had been dragged aside, right there.
She hauled the chest to the left, till it lay in the rectangle that had already been etched in the dust. Behind where the chest had been was a long, weathered sign. Arisa tipped her head to one side and read, WAYFARER’S REST.
So the tavern hadn’t always been the King’s Folly, but she had no interest in some long-ago change of name. Marks to the right of the sign showed where it, too, had been dragged aside.
Grabbing the iron pin that still ran through the rings at its side, Arisa pulled the heavy sign across the floor. The door was behind it. An ordinary door, closed with an ordinary bolt.
Arisa pulled the bolt back, and the door swung open.
The scent of hot candles and human sweat gusted out to greet her. Even before she saw the long table and scattered chairs, she knew this was where the meeting had been held.
There were no maps, where X marked the spot. No incriminating notes—signed, of course. No papers, no lists, no hints of any kind as to what had been discussed in this room. Just a table, too small to accommodate the dozen mismatched chairs, and a straw pallet covered with blankets in one corner.
Arisa frowned. Had some of them sat on the bed? Their heads would have been lower than the table’s surface, and they could easily have dragged in a crate or two instead.
Arisa grasped the blanket and whisked it off. She half-expected a flood of spiders, or even worse, rats, but only a faint clanking rewarded her efforts. Clanking from the shiny new chain, that a shiny new bolt secured to the wall, with a shiny shackle at the end.
This room had been outfitted as a prison.
CHAPTER 12
The Five of Stones: the weaver.
All of the arts. Beauty created by man.
She still had no proof. Arisa had spent most of the night wondering if she should tell her mother and Justice Holis what she’d learned, or if she needed some evidence beyond her word.
How could she get solid evidence? Wait till she saw Baylee carrying meals down to a prisoner? She shivered. They were planning on kidnapping someone. But Arisa still didn’t know who or why! Or when. And that might have been the motive behind Katrin’s death as well. Kidnapping wasn’t as bad as murder, but she knew it could lead to deaths—Master Mimms’ death, if no other. Kidnapping wasn’t a certain death sentence, but you could hang for it.
And that was another argument against telling her mother— she didn’t want to get Baylee’s family in trouble. They might be conspirators, but they were kind, decent people. They gave food to beggars, when they could have sold it cheap the next morning, and they’d treated an assistant laundress like… like family. Baylee was her friend.
Not if you betray her father to the law, she won’t be.
When her new maid awakened her from her uneasy doze, Arisa still didn’t know what she should do. She ate only toast and tea, and absently allowed the woman to dress her in a pink gown that she despised, though it did lend her pale face a little color.
Yallin took one look at the dark circles under Arisa’s eyes and laid down her sewing. “What’s wrong, lass? Can you tell me now?”
Solitude misleads you. Arisa knew that if she were going to tell anyone it should be her mother and Justice Holis, but perhaps…
“It’s the same problem I had before,” she said. “Though it’s gotten worse. What should a person do… Yallin, if you had a friend, and you were afraid they were doing something wrong, something that might have serious consequences, should you tell on them?”
Put like that it sounded so childish that she blushed. But it would give too much away if she asked, Should you turn them in to the authorities?
“That’s always a hard one,” said Yallin, taking up her stitching again. “The first thing I’d do is ask why my friend is doing something bad. If they’re acting out of ignorance or fear, if they’re desperate, or have been misled by someone else, then maybe I could persuade them not to do it, or find some other way for them to escape, or get what they need. If they’re acting from malice or revenge, I’d have to ask myself if I really want that person as my friend.”
“What if they’re acting on principle?” said Arisa. “What if they’re like my mother, doing something bad for a greater good? For a cause?”
Yallin glanced up at her. “You’d know more about that than I do. But I do know that principles create a terrible lot of power. A cause isn’t something to take lightly.”
“But what if it’s the wrong cause?” Arisa demanded. “What if they’re not doing good, even if they think they are? You can’t punish them for trying to do good!”
“All causes are good,” Yallin told her calmly. “And those exact same causes are all bad, depending on which side a body’s on. Regent Pettibone and his followers certainly thought your mother’s cause was a bad one. To my mind, causes aren’t about good or bad, in the end. They’re about power. That’s what makes them so dangerous.”
Arisa opened her mouth to argue, and then closed it. Her head was spinning. Her mother’s cause had been good! But weren’t Baylee and her family also fighting against an evil regent, who they thought would corrupt the prince and harm the realm? They were doing exactly the same thing her mother had done! How could Arisa turn them in for that?
Her mother’s cause had succeeded. What if they, too, won their fight? What if their cause had already resulted in Katrin’s death? But Katrin had been working with them! So who had killed her?
“I don’t know what to do,” Arisa said numbly.
“With that, I can’t help you,” Yallin told her. “This is your test. But I do know there’s something important going on. This unnatural rain tells me that, for it’s surely a sign that the sword is becoming, just as the stars were the sign of the shield’s becoming. In fact,” she offered Arisa a wry smile, “I’d give a year of my life to know what’s really going on. And I don’t have many years left!”
Arisa was too distracted to smile back. Hadn’t the Hidden leader, who’d captured Weasel for a midnight meeting, talked about something becoming? Or had it all been about comets and portents? But their portent had been three shooting stars, streaking over the sky… and the shield of stars had been found. And how could Yallin know about that, anyway?
“You’re not helping me make up my mind,” Arisa told her. “In fact, you’ve made it harder.”
“I’m sorry for that,” said Yallin, “but if this is as important as it seems… Have you laid out the cards? They seemed to help you last time.”
Arisa rubbed her temples, which had begun to ache. And she never had headaches. One of her mother’s men had jested that headaches only plagued the indecisive.
“I’m afraid this decision may be too important to let the cards determine it.”
“And I,” Yallin dug into her sewing kit, “think this decision is too important to ignore them.”
She held out the worn deck. Arisa reached for it, then pulled her hand back. “You’re right. But I want to use my own deck.”
And she wanted to be alone when she did it—sometimes Yallin was too perceptive.
“Then go do it,” the seamstress told her. “I’ve a feeling that we’re running out of time.”
The new maid was gone when Arisa reached her room. No reason she should be there—ordinarily Arisa wouldn’t have returned till after her dancing lesson.
Yallin was right. She needed to make up her mind and act, for better or worse. She pulled her deck from the bureau drawer, sat down at the small table, and shuffled the cards. She didn’t have to concentrate on her dilemma—it would have been impossible to keep it out of her thoughts.
It was no surprise to see the storm fall into its accustomed place—she’d have been astonished if her withe wasn’t working for this.
“This supports me,” she said aloud, and laid the top card beneath the storm goddess’ feet.
The traitor? Again? And in the same position. It must be an incredibly powerful influence, but Master Darian no longer seemed to fit. Had Katrin been a traitor, and been killed for it?
“This inspires me.” The five of waters fell above the storm. Arisa frowned. Mistrust was a huge part of her life right now, but… No, it was inspiring her. Mistrust of the conspirators, of Baylee’s family. And since her talk with Yallin… Could she really mistrust her mother’s cause? She’d grown up in the rebellion, dedicated her life to it. When the battle was over, when they’d won, she’d all but lost herself. It wasn’t the palace, the corsets, the courtiers, who’d left her so off balance. It was Arisa herself, drifting like a ship without a rudder. Her mother’s cause had driven her whole life—no wonder she’d felt so out of step when it was gone. And now…
No, she might as well mistrust herself as doubt that the rebellion had been right.
“This misleads me,” she said firmly, and laid the six of stones to the storm’s far left. Yes, compassion for Baylee and her family was trying to mislead her.
“This guides me true.” Reprisals. Arisa thought of prison,
of the hangman’s noose, and shivered. But if compassion misled her…
“This threatens me.” She placed the three of stars to the storm’s far right. The trial. A judgment she had to make wisely. “Fat lot of help that is,” she grumbled. “I knew that.”
And protecting her from the trial… Garbed in ragged motley, the fool grinned up at her. Her heart was full of misleading compassion, but her instincts screamed that the conspirators were dangerous, that they had to be stopped before something went terribly wrong. Something even worse than Katrin’s murder.
Causes are about power, Yallin’s voice echoed in her memory.
The Falcon’s cause had been good—Yallin was wrong about that. But she was right about the power any cause could wield. Power for good or ill.
Arisa gathered up the deck. She had power now, and she had to use it wisely. She had to have proof, to know who was guilty of what before she acted. She had to know… and at least she knew where to look further.
Katrin was the key to all of it, Arisa thought as she set out for the tavern that night. She had donned her tavern clothes and was several blocks from the palace when she heard the swift boot steps on the street behind her.
Tonight the rain had lightened to a drizzle, and a lighter spot in the clouds revealed the location of the unseen moon. Between that and the gate lamps of the nearby manors, Arisa could just make out the tall form of the man behind her.
When he saw she was looking, he picked up his pace.
Arisa spun and ran, taking the fastest route to the city districts, to crowds, and more light, and a squadron of guards if she could find them.
At the end of the block she whipped a glance back and saw nothing—but that didn’t reassure her. The fact that he might be somewhere else, ready to pounce on her with a knife, sent panic racing through her veins. Why hadn’t she brought her own knife with her? She’d be helpless against an armed man. She didn’t stop running till she reached Dock Street—crowded enough to make the most skilled assassin hesitate to take his victim.
