Trickster's Choice

by Tamora Pierce

  “He must have an heiress he’s courting,” whispered Sarai, looking down at her lap. “Perhaps Lady Tyananne. She’s come out of mourning. And the Ianjai family wants to marry into the nobility. No one will mind a merchant wife, not if she’s married to someone as popular as Bronau is.” A tear rolled down her cheek and spotted her gold velvet lap.

  Aly, pretending not to notice that Sarai wept, asked the duchess if she had messages for her to carry. Her task was done. She had reported what she had learned, and unless they asked her opinion, they had to decide for themselves what to do with that information. She had no opinions of her own, so she wouldn’t try to influence their thinking. Bronau was still a threat. She did make a mental note of the fact that if she wanted to influence Mequen at some point, she could appeal to his honor, just as she could appeal to Sarai’s love of adventure and excitement.

  Winnamine dismissed her. As Aly pulled the carpet back into place and removed the cloth from the main door’s keyhole, she glanced back at the silent Dove. The girl was sketching the carved whorls in the arm of her chair with a finger, her brow wrinkled, deep in thought. Aly saw no distress on that small face, only calculation.

  It’s those who are overlooked by the folk around them you want to watch. They see more than they tell, and they think more than they talk. You want them for your friend. You don’t want them asking questions about you.

  —From a letter to Aly from her father when she was nine

  9

  Learning the Ground

  In the morning Aly visited the shrine between the stable and the wall. There, under the promised flagstone, she discovered six knives, all of a finer make than her stolen one. Chenaol knows how to pick a blade, she thought admiringly as she tested them on the fraying hem of her undyed goatherd’s tunic. One, as long as her middle finger in the blade and wickedly sharp, had a sheath that hung by a cord. When she put it over her head, the knife and sheath slipped between her breasts under the band she wore. All that showed above her tunic collar was the kind of cord from which might hang a religious pendant of some kind. Two perfectly flat knives fit in sheaths under her leggings so well that they barely left a mark on the cloth over them; two more flat knives and their sheaths went under the sleeves of her tunic. The most substantial she could wear in her waistband at her back or carry it with her lunch and water bottle. She put it into that bag and moved one of her leg knives up under her waistband at the middle of her back, where she could reach it in a hurry.

  The raka conspirators had revealed more with this gift of weaponry than perhaps they intended her to know. They were desperate for help. They knew they were unused to the world of armies, spies, and nobles. The god’s gift of Aly must have seemed like the answer to their prayers.

  “It’s not fair, you getting their hopes up, when you know I’ll be gone in the fall,” she muttered to Kyprioth as she collected her goats. The god chose not to reply. Aly shook her head. Perhaps before she left she could teach the raka the potential dangers of any move they might try against the king. She led her animals out of the castle walls.

  Aly and her flock were halfway through the village when the little shepherd girl, Visda, joined her, along with her sheep and the boy who had summoned Aly to Tanair the day before. “Aunt Chenaol says we’re to graze with you,” the girl confided, waving to the baker as they passed. “And if you’re called off sudden, me and Ekit”—she jerked a thumb at the boy, who stuck his tongue out at her—“we’ll take both flocks. Well, me and Ekit and Grace and Arak,” she added, naming the shaggy herd dogs. “Aunt Chenaol says you’re doing important work for the One Who Is Promised, and we should help you—”

  Aly halted and stopped the girl. Bending down, she drew Ekit over so that he could hear as well as she whispered, “Never repeat that, either of you, all right? Not to anyone. Even if you hear others talking about me. Not even if your friends say it. For that matter, if ‘the One Who Is Promised’ means who I think it does, you must never speak of her that way again. Never let on that you know more than what you need to know to herd animals, understand?”

  Visda scowled. “I know that,” she said crossly. “Great-aunt Chenaol made us promise. But you already know.”

  Aly sighed. “Look—the fewer times you say anything aloud, the better your chances that no one will hear you who shouldn’t. Understand? Enemies can’t report what they didn’t overhear. Now, what shall we talk about?”

  “Sheep, goats,” Visda replied brightly.

  “Dogs,” added Ekit.

  Aly grinned at them. “Better.”

  With a wave to the town men who stood morning watch on the gate, they passed out of the village and onto the dusty road. Visda began to skip, Ekit to run with one of the dogs. “I love summertime!” Visda told Aly. “All the bees, and the flowers, and the sun, and no one to stop us from running!” She raced ahead gleefully, trying to catch Ekit, her bare brown feet thumping against the road. The sheep, resigned, picked up their trot, along with the goats.

  Aly shook her head, smiling, then ran to catch up with the children.

  Their little group settled among boulders. The goats ate grasses tucked between stones, while the sheep grazed on more level ground just below. The dogs placed themselves where they would spot a stray the moment it wandered off from its fellows. Once the animals had settled, Visda and Ekit removed hand spindles from their packs and clumps of wool combed and rolled for spinning. As Aly climbed higher into the rocks to get a more commanding view of their surroundings, the boy and the girl began the painstaking work of spinning thread, just like the children who minded flocks throughout Tortall.

  Aly had finished her breakfast when she heard the thump of bare feet on the rock just behind her. Resting a hand on her leg knife, she looked back. Nawat crouched on the rock, smiling at her. “Would you like a grub?” he asked, offering a plump one. “I got it just for you.”

  Aly struggled to think of a diplomatic reply. “We humans don’t eat grubs.” Remembering stories she’d heard from some of her father’s agents, she added, “Not when we don’t have to.”

  “But these are juicy and filling,” Nawat assured her. “I saved the best of them.”

  Aly gulped. Her breakfast bread and cheese rolled in her belly. “Let the grub live to make more grubs,” she suggested.

  Nawat sighed. “It is hard to mate-feed someone who will not eat.”

  Aly leaned back and looked at the sky. A winged horse soared overhead, flying, it seemed, for the sheer joy of it. “We’re not to the mate-feeding stage,” she informed Nawat lazily. “We barely know each other.”

  “What if I filled my mouth pouch and spilled it for you?” Nawat asked. “Would you take food that way?”

  “I would lose food that way. I’d throw it up,” Aly retorted, amused and nauseated at the same time. “Aren’t you supposed to be making arrows?”

  “I am supposed to be finding goose feathers,” he said comfortably, apparently unhurt by her refusal of his offer. “But my friends are getting them for me so I may see you.” He reached over and ran his fingers through Aly’s hair. “None of the other human females are so easy to preen.”

  The movement of his hand was soothing. “Are you preening other females?” Aly asked, warm in the sun.

  “Only little ones, for practice,” Nawat explained. “The old ones chitter—giggle—and bounce if I try. It’s annoying. You don’t giggle and bounce. I like that.”

  “You keep trying to preen the ones who giggle and bounce, and you might find yourself preening one of them for the rest of your life,” Aly teased. “Their fathers and uncles and brothers will see to that.”

  “Humans do strange things,” Nawat told her with a sigh. “I must go soon. My brethren call that they have my feathers.”

  Aly strained to hear, but Nawat’s ears were better than hers. She heard only goats, sheep, and Visda’s humming.

  “The raka did as they told you they would,” Nawat continued. “Yesterday their warriors began to le
ave the villages here. They took horses, food, shelters. Some moved into the forest at Pohon, others into the woods and cliffs outside the village of Inti. More rove the fields. Fifteen made their camp a mile on the other side of the road, in the rocks. They will keep watch for those who come through the mountains.”

  Most of these were words and concepts Aly had taught the crows in their dream lessons. One was not. “How can you tell they are raka?” she asked. Perhaps he had gotten the idea that raka meant “human.” “Am I raka?”

  Nawat shook his head. “Crows know the raka,” he said. “They are our people. Time long past, when the first nest had given birth to the first flocks, Sky, our goddess, laid green eggs in her nest. The Dawn Crow, her mate and our god, was very confused. They hatched to become our brothers and sisters, the raka. In time they stopped hearing the voices of Sky and the Dawn Crow, and turned to Kyprioth to serve, but they never forgot their brothers and sisters the crows.”

  Aly shook her head. “I had no idea. I’m glad to know the patrols are out, though.”

  Nawat smiled. “I knew you would want to know they do as they say. They respect tricks you will do for them.”

  Aly sat up to protest that she did not do tricks, but Nawat was clambering down through the rocks to the road. Crows flew in from the east, circling him. He was nearly gone from Aly’s view when they began to rain feathers down on his head.

  Aly leaned back on her rock to think, without success. All her mind would produce for her was the memory of Nawat’s fingers as they passed softly through her inch-long hair, and a repeating thought: “This place gets stranger every day.”

  Some time later she heard the distant thud of hooves. She sat up. A party trotted by on the road below, trailed by guards. Prince Bronau rode with his hosts again, or rather, with Mequen, Sarai, Dove, and their guards. They were almost gone from sight when the prince and Sarai broke into a gallop, riding hard down the strip of empty earth.

  Aly propped herself on her elbows. Apparently Sarai had recovered from her unhappiness over the possibility that the prince was looking for a rich wife. It was either that or the prince had flirted enough to make her forget. Aly shook her head. She hoped Sarai wasn’t too infatuated with Bronau. Aly’s instincts shrieked that the prince was trouble looking for a place to happen. She did not want it to happen on her watch.

  Once they were gone, Aly slid to the ground. What was the good of having knives if she was too out of shape to use them? She needed to exercise, and to keep exercising. When she found a level patch of grass, she began her stretch routine, loosening all of her muscles, a group at a time. She followed those with routines for hand-to-hand combat: punches, kicks, pivots, leg sweeps, blocks, elbow and palm strikes, tucks and rolls. She was lost in it, feeling her muscles warm up and loosen, when a crow nearby gave the call that meant “friend.”

  Aly looked around, wary and waiting. A tall raka woman moved out of the shadow between two large boulders. Crossing her hands, Aly gripped her wrists, ready to release the straps that secured her knives. “Good morning,” she said pleasantly in Kyprish, every nerve of her body quivering despite her relaxed appearance. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

  The woman leaned on the six-foot-long staff she carried. “I am Junai Dodeka, daughter of Ulasim Dodeka. I am here at my father’s request, to keep you alive.”

  Aly inspected the newcomer. Junai was four inches taller than Aly and lean, covered with wiry muscle. Her cheekbones were sharp enough to cut with, her nose the same shape as Ulasim’s. She wore her straight black hair braided and pinned tightly down. She dressed in a faded olive-green tunic and loose brown breeches. Her feet were bare.

  This woman was clearly a fighter. There were knife scars on her hands and arm muscles and on her right cheekbone. Dagger sheaths made lines against the cloth of her breeches and waistband. She also wore leather and metal wrist guards and a leather band around her neck, a rough guard against a knife to the throat.

  “I don’t know how much a stick is going to do as a weapon,” Aly remarked casually.

  Junai spun the staff until it was level, then twisted the hand grip at the center. Blades twelve inches long sprang from each end of the staff, turning it into a double-ended spear.

  “Well,” Aly said, raising her brows. “Of course, that is a very different matter.” She looked at the older woman—she was in her middle twenties, Aly guessed—and decided to try a theory she had in mind. “I don’t suppose you know of any mages we might recruit?”

  Junai took a step back. “What makes you believe there is a mage here, luarin, or that I would know of such a one?”

  Aly leaned against a tree and thrust her hands into her breeches pockets. “My gracious, whyever would I think such a thing?” she asked, batting her eyes as she clasped her hands under her chin. “Well, let’s see. We’re attacked by bandits just on the other side of the mountains—we brought some with us, did you know? They’re sweet, in a starveling way. Yet here we are, on this lovely flat plateau, with thriving farms, and raka who aren’t nearly so ragged and thin as most of the ones who watched us come here. Tanair is just a fat goose ready for the plucking, yet no one speaks of bandits. Ever. No one mentions raids in the past, or patrols—your father had to be nudged into setting patrols out in the open lands, to look for royal soldiers or assassins. Back home, bandits huddle in isolated places, waiting to make their fortunes by taking them from others. Oh, wait, I forgot. There are no bandits at home where a strong mage is to be found. Did I miss anything?”

  Junai stopped leaning on her spear and began to spin it, hand over hand, casually. “Father was right. You are clever. So take my advice. Don’t ask about our mage. She hates luarin. She’ll burn your face off if you come near her. Doubtless I would perish in your defense. There are ways to live without mages. You have the god’s favor, I am told. It will serve you better than she will.”

  Aly rubbed her nose and looked Junai over. “So if this mage sees to the bandits, how am I to have faith in your ability to protect me? I’d think your only fighting practice would be from mock battles with people you’ve known all your life.”

  Junai bared teeth in a menacing grin. “I was a caravan guard for seven years,” she informed Aly. “You want to try me?”

  “No,” Aly said, waving an arm in dismissal. “I’ll take your word for it.” She let the conversation end. Junai had told her more than she had planned to. Certainly she had not meant to agree that a mage lived on the Tanair lands, but that much she had done openly. She had also told Aly that her orders to guard Aly’s life were more important than her fear of the mage. The mage was raka, probably a full-blood, if she hated luarin with such unmixed passion. And since Pohon village was notorious for its hate of luarin, chances were the mage lived there. Aly had scouting to do, then, before she approached this mage herself.

  Aly went back to her exercises. The sun was almost directly overhead when the riding party returned to the castle. Aly heard the beat of their horses’ hooves as she searched for a stray kid among the rocks. When she found the youngster and returned him to his mother, she discovered that one of the riders and her bodyguard had come to join her. A horse idly cropped grass where Aly had set her knife-throwing targets. A guard lingered near Visda and Ekit, talking with the children. There was no sign of Junai, but Aly guessed that the woman was around somewhere, watching.

  She rounded the horse and stopped, looking at Dove. She had spread a blanket to sit on and was placing food on it. Aly had thought that if any of the Balitang girls wanted to investigate Aly after learning she represented a god, it would be Sarai, the oldest, who had one foot already in the adult world. Yet here was her younger sister, meek in a pale green riding costume with no embroideries or ornaments at hems and collar. She sat cross-legged in loose, comfortable breeches, a napkin on her lap as she gazed at the meal she had laid out. She wore her black hair in multiple long braids under a sheer head veil, the style favored by maidens in the Isles.

&nbs
p; “I thought you might tire of bread and cheese,” Dove remarked, looking up at Aly. “And I’m tired of Bronau mooning over my sister when he thinks the duchess isn’t looking. I know Sarai’s just keeping her hand in at flirting, but it makes me queasy to watch.”

  Aly sat on the grass beside the blanket. “Your ladyship honors me,” she said, wondering what the girl was up to.

  Dove didn’t look at her. “What honor? I doubt my father lied to us and you aren’t really the god’s messenger. If you are the god’s messenger, don’t you have a particular standing which has nothing to do with the collar on your neck? Oh, curse it, Chenaol forgot the butter.” She tossed a roll to Aly. This was not the rough brown bread that Aly normally brought to her duties with the goats, but a white bread studded with dates, raisins, and bits of fig.

  “Even if your father didn’t lie, and he doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who does, it would still look very odd if you socialized with me,” Aly explained.

  “I’m not socializing.” Dove picked up the open book at her side. “I’m the shy little sister, seeking time to read alone with enough people close by that my bodyguard won’t fret.” She looked at Aly. “It was my idea.”

  Aly studied her companion and helped herself to a handful of olives from a small crock. She’d heard people talk of Dove. The household had decided she was the intellectual one, without the warmth, charm, or dash of her older sister. Certainly Dove liked to read, but Aly had also noticed that the girl was both curious and observant.

  “There’s little I can tell you,” Aly said, spitting an olive pit onto the grass. “I don’t know myself why the god called on me.” Except that I’m to keep you alive through the summer, she added to herself.

  “And if you did, you wouldn’t tell us,” said Dove, eyeing dried slices of mango. “Being the close-mouthed sort. Is there anything you need? Information about the family, Tanair . . . ?”

  Aly shrugged. Just because Dove wanted to test her didn’t mean that she couldn’t test Dove back. “I could use the best maps you can find of this area,” she said. “I know nothing about the layout of the ground here, and that could be very troublesome. I’d like to see the other two villages and the road down to the western sea, but for now I can manage with maps. Copies will do, if you have only one original, but they should be good copies, no mistakes.”