“Oh. But these are luarin assassins, and I’d bet whatever I own that they were sent by the king,” Aly pointed out. “If he sent them, surely he wouldn’t enforce that law. . . .” Her voice trailed off as she registered the grimness on Ulasim’s face. “Even if he sent the assassins himself?” she asked, wanting badly for it not to be true and fearing that it was.
“The idea is that if any member of the luarin nobility is killed, the nearest local raka must have helped the murderer. At the very least, the courts would say that the local raka did not die to stop the killers,” added the duke. He stood behind them, one arm around Winnamine, one around Sarai. Both he and Sarai looked mournful. “It’s insane, but Oron is quite mad. The law itself comes from the time of the luarin conquest. It’s how they broke the spine of the raka rebellion. Some of us have laid petitions before the courts to have the Conqueror’s Laws repealed, to no avail.” He shook his head.
Aly stared. That is just not right, she thought. To murder people who had nothing to say about it, just because they were near? She understood why there were such laws. They were made to fit a conqueror’s logic, used to keep a captive people under control. She had just never matched the law to the faces of people she knew, like the Balitang raka.
I don’t want to get involved with this country, she thought as she looked at the floor. I must go home soon, before I get so wound up in their lives and injustices that I’ll never want to leave.
The prince trotted down the stairs, two of Fesgao’s weary men following. Fesgao himself walked back into the bedroom. “Aly? What do you recommend for this man?” he asked, nodding to their prisoner. “Torture?”
Startled at the suggestion, she met his eyes and realized that this was yet another test. She made a face at him. “Any amateur knows torture is chancy at best. People do still lie under torture. What you need is truthdrops.”
Fesgao gave a tiny smile and went to find Rihani. Aly looked at Ulasim. “So I may look forward to these little exercises until I die, is that it?” she asked brightly. “Or will you decide I’m not some luarin brute before I am, say, fifty?”
Ulasim wiped one of his long daggers on a cloth. “Oh, more like forty, I’m sure,” he replied casually. He flipped the dagger up casually, caught it by the hilt, and in the next motion cut the gag from the last assassin’s mouth. “Who sent you?” he asked.
The man stared at the raka, expressionless.
“Once we have truthdrops in hand, you will speak,” Ulasim pointed out. “Keep your pride and tell us now. Don’t wait for magic to force you.”
The man leaned forward and spat on the floor.
Fesgao returned from the room across the hall with Rihani in tow. She held a small, uncorked vial in her hand. Aly was startled by the healer’s steely gaze. Normally Rihani was as fierce as pudding. “Open his mouth,” Rihani ordered.
A band of green fire locked around the assassin’s throat and tightened, vanishing into his flesh. The man choked. Green fire coated his mouth in Aly’s Sight as his face got redder and redder. The veins bulged in his throat and forehead as he fought for air. Within a moment he was dead.
Aly bit her tongue to keep from shouting her frustration at the lost opportunity. “This is why we need a mage who is not just a healer,” she said quietly, looking into Ulasim’s face. “And I should have seen that coming.” She turned and ran down the servant’s stair before she gave in to the temptation to shout. It was time to get some cool air.
Sloppy! she thought as she strode outside. Sloppy not to check the room for assassins before I so much as let a Balitang set foot outside that protected room. Sloppy not to think he might have a silencing spell on him before we set it in motion. What else have I missed? There are ways to stop a silencing spell. And Sarai shouldn’t have had to kill anyone!
I have to be sharper, she told herself, gently thumping her head on the keep’s stone wall as a reminder. I won’t get lucky a second time.
The inner and outer courtyards crawled with Bronau’s and Mequen’s men-at-arms. They were looking for anyone suspicious, turning the buildings upside down in their search. Three guards from the merchants’ caravan lay dead at the entrance to the kitchen wing. Bronau’s and the Balitang soldiers searched the bodies. Laid out in front of the barracks, awaiting proper burial, were two of the castle’s own, one of the former bandits and one of the official men-at-arms. Aly murmured a prayer to the Black God for their rest in the realms of the dead, then wandered back toward the keep.
She heard voices behind the kitchen wing, where a tiny garden had been built for Tanair’s ladies. A small door opened directly to the servants’ halls inside the tower. Its torches cast light onto two dead merchant’s guards lying on the path that led to the carefully landscaped garden. Two of Ulasim’s servants stood beside them, but their attention was on the fig tree that shaded the walk.
Intrigued, Aly walked over to see what was going on. The two dead men were the first that night who had not been killed by blades. Both lay facedown, with dents between their shoulders and their heads twisted askew.
“Please come down,” a Balitang hostler was saying to the tree. “You have already unnerved us enough for one night, duan.” The title meant “honorable sir,” used to a man who was not a noble. “Ulasim will wish to know what you did here.”
Aly looked up. Nawat, perched easily on a branch that should not have held his weight, gazed down at her. With his dark, long-nosed face surrounded by leaves and growing figs, he looked like some wilderness god.
“Now what are you up to?” Aly demanded as her conscience pinched her. She should have told Nawat what was going to happen tonight so that he could have decided whether or not he wanted to be caught up in human quarrels.
“I am up to nothing,” the crow-man said cheerfully. “Those two were going to mob you through that door.” He pointed to the door into the keep. “I stopped them.”
Aly knelt beside the dead men. Their necks were broken. The dents in their backs looked like the prints of bare feet. She glanced at his: they were bare. “How did you do it?” she asked her strange friend.
“I saw it,” said another servant, one of the footmen. “We had the duty here. They was coming at us, and all of a sudden he leaps up in the dark, and hits one in the back with both feet, kicking out, like. Then he did it to the other. And then he jumped into the tree.”
Aly stared up at Nawat. He must be very strong to break bone with jumping kicks from a standing position, she thought. Well, crows are very strong. “You could have been hurt,” she told him. “They might have killed you.”
The hostler snorted. “Not him!”
Nawat’s gaze was steady as he looked down at Aly. “They were going to mob you,” he repeated firmly. “I mobbed them. Only I added a hawk thing. When the hawk strikes, he breaks the head of the prey. I did that.”
Aly rubbed her temples. “Thank you,” she said. “Will you come down now? I think we have them all.”
Nawat smiled brightly at her. “I will come down for you, Aly.” He jumped down as lightly as a cat. Aly patted his cheek absently and let him come along as they patrolled the rest of the castle grounds.
It was hours before the castle’s residents calmed enough to go to bed. Aly was in the kitchen, finishing a very late supper, when the duchess’s maid, Pembery, found her. “His Grace wishes to see you in the ground floor study,” she told Aly, and yawned. “Don’t take forever. I can’t go to bed until the family is settled.”
Aly sighed. She would have liked to go to bed herself. Instead she found the duke in the small room where she had cleaned up the day Bronau had arrived. There was a bottle and a glass on a table by the duke’s hand, but the contents of the glass were untouched. The duke himself was staring at a branch of candles, drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair.
Aly bowed. “Your Grace wished to see me?” she asked.
“Veron says the merchant Gurhart tells us that all of his people who became particular friends of the
five newcomers are also among the dead,” Mequen replied. “A search of their belongings has revealed gold seratudus and a death order under the Crown’s seal.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Your Grace,” Aly told him softly.
Mequen nodded. “Gurhart swears by his own blood there are no other assassins among his people,” Mequen continued, his dark eyes weary as he gazed at Aly. “He says he knew nothing of the assassins’ true purpose in taking work with his caravan. Some of his people had vanished, so he was forced to hire these. I think we must assume those who disappeared while they were in Dimari were killed by the assassins, so that Gurhart would be forced to take them on.”
Aly nodded. It was what she had expected they would hear. Hauling goods out to the back of beyond was not a trip anyone enjoyed. The road was hard and its dangers were greater than the coastal routes. Gurhart would have leaped at the chance to replace his missing people, and assumed the vanished workers had simply decided not to go to Tanair.
The duke’s voice, husky with exhaustion, hardened. “What I find interesting, god’s messenger, is that you did not warn us that danger was on the way. Instead, as far as my wife or I could learn from Ulasim or Fesgao, you observed the newcomers with the caravan and viewed them as a danger. It argues, you see, that the god has placed you here not as his oracle, but as his warrior.”
“Oh, no, Your Grace,” Aly said, gleaming with innocence. “I’d break a nail on one of those dreadful swords. I just have a memory for faces. Maybe I saw one of the assassins back in Rajmuat. Well, he’d no right to be with a Lombyn caravan, had he? Unless he was up to no good, of course. I said as much to Lokeij, who thought it worth passing along.”
“And that is another thing,” said the duke. “How is it that I find my chief defenders here in the keep are servants and off-duty men-at-arms, not Veron and the men on watch? It was perfectly obvious that Ulasim and Fesgao were in command here, and that they consulted you. I will have the truth now, if you please.”
Behind her mask of wide-eyed harmlessness, Aly cursed. She had walked head-on into his next hard question. She thought fast. “I only noticed something odd, as I said,” she lied. “And I wasn’t sure of Veron, being a royal spy and all. He was carefully watched, I assure you. We made certain he sent no reports to the Crown after he reached Tanair. As for using the servants, it stands to reason that anyone Veron picks for regular night duty is probably someone loyal to him alone, willing to admit Crown servants with orders against Your Grace.
“That those men are mostly the pure-luarin men-at-arms is not a factor?” Mequen wanted to know.
Aly sighed to herself. Why couldn’t this man have been stupid? Instead she replied, “Your Grace would have to inquire of Ulasim and Fesgao. Perhaps the ones with raka blood look up to Your Grace for marrying a raka the first time around.”
“And producing half-raka daughters in the Rittevon royal line?” asked the duke very quietly.
Aly looked down and twiddled her thumbs. He was in possession of far too much of the whole picture for her comfort. “Your Grace’s servants are devoted,” she said.
Mequen scowled. “Are you incapable of giving a straight answer?” he demanded.
Aly grinned at him. “Not always, Your Grace,” she replied impishly.
Mequen drummed his fingers on his leg. “We would be dead tonight were it not for you people of our household,” he said at last. “Be sure I will not forget it.” His gaze hardened. “Any of it, Aly.”
She scratched her head. “You know, Your Grace, this will go so much easier for everyone if you accept the god’s gifts without question,” she reminded him. “Take it from me, you’ll just give yourself headaches this way.”
Mequen smiled. “So I will. I suppose inquiring into your origins comes under the heading of questioning the god’s gifts.”
Aly bowed her head meekly. “Oh, undoubtedly, Your Grace.”
“Very well. You are dismissed—with my thanks.”
Aly was about to open the door when she thought of something else. She faced the duke. “Your Grace also owes thanks to Lady Saraiyu,” she said, not sure if she was overstepping her bounds.
“She will have her sword lessons again, if that is what concerns you,” replied Mequen. “After tonight, I think your Tortallan king is wiser than we are, to allow women to take up arms. Sleep well.”
A noble maiden must convey dignity and chastity without appearing to think about either one. Let common-born girls tussle in the hay with their loutish swains. The future of your family’s bloodline and your future lord’s bloodline should be your greatest concern. Let no man but one of your family embrace you. Let no man but your betrothed kiss any more than your fingertips; let your betrothed kiss you only on fingers, cheek, or forehead, lest he think you unchaste. And never allow yourself to be alone with a man, to safeguard the precious jewel of your reputation. No well-born maiden ever suffered from keeping her suitors at arm’s length. Your chastity will make you a prize to your future husband’s house and an honor to your own.
—From Advice to Young Noblewomen,
by Lady Fronia of Whitehall (in Maren),
given to Aly on her twelfth birthday by her godsmother, Queen Thayet
11
MIGRATIONS
To be on the safe side, Aly suggested to Ulasim that he might want to question Gurhart, to see if he told the head footman the same story he had given to the duke. She looked on as Ulasim and Fesgao interrogated the man using truthdrops. Gurhart’s answers were the same as those he’d given Mequen. It was just a safety measure, but Aly was determined not to be overconfident again. She had been virtually sure of Gurhart’s innocence. He was too terrified to lie, and he should have been. Anyone but Mequen would have confiscated all Gurhart owned and demanded lives as well. Here in the Isles, the duke didn’t even need to have the executions approved by a royal court, as he would in Tortall. On his own lands in the Isles, the luarin noble had the rights of a king. Bronau would have demanded everything, but with Sarai to plead with him for clemency, he gave way.
Aly also made sure to be on hand as Veron, Fesgao, and the men searched the caravan board by board. As she had expected, they had found nothing in the assassins’ gear to indicate who had hired them. As professionals, they had stripped themselves of anything personal before they joined Gurhart on Lombyn.
Returning to the castle after the search, Aly was joined by old Lokeij. He looked none the worse for his late evening. He was teasing her for her yawns as they wandered into the inner courtyard. There one of the corporals put the off-duty armsmen through sword drills. Today their numbers included Sarai, paired off with Fesgao, and the duchess, who was learning the beginning drills under the corporal’s instruction.
“Is she not beautiful?” asked Lokeij softly as he watched Sarai parry and disengage with catlike grace. “Like Gunapi—”
“The Sunrose, the goddess, I know,” Aly interrupted, watching the girl and her partner. “If she doesn’t keep her guard up, she’ll be skewered by someone who knows what he’s doing.”
Lokeij looked up at Aly with a frown. “You know so much about it, I suppose.”
Aly opened her mouth to say she knew plenty about swordplay, then closed it. Finally she said, “I watched lots of armsmen practicing. I even saw the Lioness fight.”
“Who?” asked Lokeij.
Aly stared at the little man. Who had not heard of her mother? “The King’s Champion of Tortall,” she informed him. “The first female knight in over a century. The Lady Alanna of Pirate’s Swoop and Olau.”
Lokeij shrugged. “A luarin,” he said dismissively. “I only pay attention to them when it’s a matter of survival or of protecting my lady’s girls.” He rubbed a hand over his bristled chin thoughtfully. “So she’s good, this Lioness?”
“She’s never lost a fight as King’s Champion!” Aly said, offended by Lokeij’s disinterest. This was her mother, a lady acknowledged by all to be poetry with a sword in her hand. She looked
at Sarai just as Fesgao sent the girl’s sword flying into the air. “Your Sunrose has a way to go to beat Alanna the Lioness.”
She walked on to the castle, feeling wistful. She’d never had to say more than her mother’s name to describe her before. She was truly away from home, to say “Lioness” and not have every person within hearing turn to listen. This is a terrible time to find that I miss her, Aly thought, picking up her step. There’s nothing I can do about it until autumn.
To shake off her mood Aly went to Chenaol and begged for chores. She was setting the dais table when Sarai walked into the great hall from outside, straggle-haired and sweat-soaked. She massaged her sword wrist wearily. Aly guessed that Sarai hadn’t practiced as much as she’d meant to since her last official lesson.
She was about to call out a suggestion that Sarai wrap her arm in hot, damp towels when Bronau emerged from the study near the staircase. He halted Sarai with a touch on the shoulder and murmured in her ear. Sarai looked up into his face, startled, then glanced around with the look of someone checking for her parents. Aly knew that look very well, having often used it herself. She held perfectly still. With the afternoon’s light fading, the dais was in shadow, and so was she.
Sarai nodded and whispered to the prince. Then she continued her climb up the stairs, while Bronau retreated into the study and closed the door.
It had been open before, Aly realized. The prince had been sitting in there, waiting for Sarai to return.
Once the table was set, Aly returned to the kitchen and took Chenaol aside. “Let Hasui pour,” she murmured to the cook. “I have things to do.”
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