Tricksters Queen (3 page)

The thought of her consequence made Winnamine chuckle as Sarai and Dove came to join them. Overhead the Stormwings glided, shrieking like gulls.

Once the ship docked and the passengers disembarked, Fesgao and the guards circled the Balitang family and helped them into litters. Servants loaded the family's belongings into a handful of carts. Only when everything was stowed and the litters surrounded by armed men did Fesgao move the party out. The litter bearers set off into the tangle of streets that ended at the dockside.

Colors, sounds, and smells assaulted Aly, making her shrink against the litter that held Sarai and Dove. She had gotten used to the long silences of winter nights at Tanair. Street vendors shouted news of their wares, bellowing their praises of jackfruit, sweet cakes, and cheap copper and silver bracelets. Bird sellers walked among them, carrying poles laden with dozens of species of loud, unhappy winged creatures. Shops displaying goods for passersby lined the streets near the docks. Perfumes and spices filled the air with scents.

The pedestrians came in all races and colors, shrieking at those who got in the way and bargaining at the tops of their lungs. They were dressed in all kinds of styles, from luarin shirts and hose to the robes of Carthakis. Many people lined their eyes in kohl as protection against sun glare and the evil eye. Slaves and deep-jungle raka in sarongs or loincloths sported tattoos on arms, backs, and chests.

Aly took it in as she walked beside the litter that held Sarai and Dove. She had picked out a couple of watchers— people who paid close attention to their group. She also recognized a couple of her own trainee spies from Tanair. She smiled, proud as a mother whose child had taken her first steps, then glanced up to see how Winnamine and the two younger children did in the litter ahead of them. Fesgao walked beside them, talking quietly with the duchess. Rihani, the raka mage who looked after Petranne and Elsren, walked on the other side of the litter, pointing out sights of interest. Slowly they moved into the quieter, wider streets of Market Town, the city's merchant district.

There were signs of trouble in Market Town, shuttered stores with Crown seals on the doors to show they'd been seized by the law, chipped paint and splintered wood showing where people had hurled rocks. Aly saw a charred open spot where, if she remembered correctly, a temple to Ushjur, the god of the east wind, had stood. This was most certainly a slap at the luarin, who came from the east. Aly made a note to ask about it.

She had no sense of armed watchers, but she felt observed. Aly looked up. In the houses above the shops, people filled each window, their eyes fixed on the open-sided litters. Aly bit the corner of her lip. Ulasim had gotten the word out that people were not supposed to gather in the street to greet their prophesied queen, but he could not stop them from trying to get a look at her. They were drawing the attention of the spies who followed their procession. She could see them noting the audience. Topabaw and prince-regent Rubinyan would have word of this before noon.

"Busy already, Aly?" Fesgao asked. He'd walked back to her. "Your glance darts like dragonflies on the water."

Aly fluttered her lashes at Fesgao. "I never figured you for a poet," she joked.

He smiled. "We can control the common folk only so much," he continued in his softest tones.

"Oh, I know," she replied lightly. "Her Grace was excited to see all these new warriors of ours. Did we rent them, or may we keep them? That tall one with the scar on his chin might actually be able to keep up with me for all of a day."

"You are too gracious," Fesgao replied, face straight. "You would break the poor boy by noon, and I would have to keep him in the infirmary for two weeks." He returned to the duchess at the head of the column.

"It's dangerous," Dove remarked softly from inside the litter. "They shouldn't stare so openly. Someone will notice their interest."

"Perhaps they've never seen disgraced nobility return to Rajmuat before," suggested Aly. "They could just be looking at Elsren. He
is
Dunevon's heir."

"Not officially," Dove said, meticulous as always about points of law. "The regents have to make Elsren the official heir by decree. They should—it's customary—but they may choose not to, if they think the nobles won't insist. Until then, if people know what's good for them, they won't pay any attention to Elsren at all."

Aly noted more signs of trouble as they entered the wealthier   residential   neighbourhood   of Windward:  burn marks on stone, and hastily whitewashed stucco. Here no one could watch the streets from the windows of their homes, because these were set back behind walls ten feet high. Instead, people lined the street on both sides.

"The regents will hear of this," Dove added quietly. "They won't like it."

Aly patted the younger girls thin shoulder. "Now, if they got everything they liked, they would be spoiled," she told Dove. "And nobody likes spoiled regents."

"Spoiled regents kill people and leave them at the harbour mouth," Dove said gloomily.

Aly smiled slyly and told her young mistress, "Yes, but they don't seem to be able to keep them there very long."

Dove glanced at Aly sharply, then eyed her sister. Sarai leaned against the side of the litter, watching the street.
"She
thinks the twice-royal queen is a fairy tale, you know," Dove told Aly "Made up by Mithros and the Goddess to keep the raka quiet under luarin rule. If there is something going on, she will take a lot of convincing."

"If there was anything for her or you to know, you'd have been told, surely," Aly said. As the raka general, Ulasim had ordered that Sarai and Dove not be told of the plans being made on their behalf. "Worry about prophecies another time. Once we've unpacked and had baths, for instance."

Dove sighed. "All right, keep changing the subject," she said as she sank back against the cushions. "But I'm not fooled. You know something. You're harder to work out than Sarai, but I know you too well by now."

Aly was about to reply "Don't ask me, I have brothers," but she caught herself. Over the winter she had nearly told Winnamine, Sarai, and Dove the truth about her own background. Aly wanted to trust them. She would trust them with her life if she had to, as they had trusted her with theirs. But she could not trust them with her past, and her ties to the rival kingdom of Tortall.

She continued to watch the crowd.

There were spells written deep within the walls that surrounded the Balitang home. They appeared as a shimmering silver blaze in Aly's Sight. As the procession passed through the gate, she saw magic sunk below the stones, wood, and carvings. It was partially covered by the silvery gleam of common magical signs for protection and health that any house possessed. Unless someone else in Rajmuat had the Sight in the strength Aly had it, no one would see or sense anything but the everyday spells. Raka mages were very good at keeping their work hidden.

Ornately carved pillars lined the long front porch and framed the front door of Balitang House. The roof was layered, each lesser roof sporting upturned ends. After the summer's heat and rains, and the winter's cold and rains, with no staff to keep the place up, the house should have looked rundown. But this house gleamed. Not one clay tile was missing from the roof. The stucco was the color of fresh milk. Gold and silver leaf glimmered on the eaves and on the carved wood above the posts.

The staff was lined up on either side of the flagstone road. They wore luarin tunics and breeches or hose, raka wrapped jackets and sarongs, or combinations of styles in an explosion of colors that made Aly blink. Housemaids wore white headcloths; the men wore round white caps. They all looked to be wearing every piece of jewelry they owned.

Aly counted. Nearly sixty people were here, not including the men-at-arms. Balitang House was as fully staffed as it had been the previous spring.

The duchess could not afford this. When King Oron had exiled them, he had made them show their loyalty with gold, emptying Duke Mequen's coffers. Winnamine had drawn on her dowry to pay household costs. If Prince Ru-binyan had not virtually commanded her to return to court, she would have remained at Tanair, which was affordable.

"Fesgao," Aly murmured. The man had come to stand by her elbow. "Who's paying for this?"

"Don't worry," the raka man told her. "Ulasim will explain." He went to help the duchess out of the litter.

Aly looked at the steps. Ulasim waited there, smiling. He was a hard-muscled man in his forties with the brown skin of a full-blood raka. His nose had been mashed against his face on several occasions by someone not kindly disposed toward him. A tightness in Aly's heart loosened at the sight of the head footman. He was the leader of the far-flung raka conspiracy, wise and strong at every trial. He had turned Aly's suspicion into respect. Back under Ulasim's wing, the Balitang family seemed much less exposed. Back under Ulasim's eye, Aly could turn to her specialty and leave him to deal with assassins and alliances.

The big raka bowed to Winnamine. As Aly watched, reading his lips, Ulasim told the duchess that they had not spent money they did not have. He reassured her that all would be explained to her satisfaction once she'd had a chance to eat and rest. As he soothed her, Aly identified a familiar face at Ulasim's elbow. Quedanga, the housekeeper since Sarai was born, had stayed in Rajmuat when the family left the city. She had now returned to Balitang House.

"How did they afford this?" Dove murmured as Aly handed her down from the litter.

"It will be a lovely tale," Aly replied, her voice sweet. "Some parts may even be true."

Dove looked up at Aly, smiling slightly. "You sound as if you wouldn't put it past them to have raided the royal treasury."

Aly raised an eyebrow at her mistress. "Do you think they wouldn't, my lady?"

Dove sighed. "I hope not. It would complicate things." Dove had understatement down to an art.

Hands folded in front of her, Aly followed Dove toward the house. They did not get far. A tall woman stepped onto the porch. She was a silver-haired luarin with perfect posture. Her luarin-style gown was pale blue with a high collar. Instead of the traditional overrobe, she wore a stole like the raka wrapped jacket, made of shimmering white lawn.

Sarai and Dove looked at each other.
"Aunt Nuritin,"
they whispered in shock.

Aly had heard of Nuritin Balitang—or as Sarai and Dove called her, the Dragon. Though Duke Mequen had been technically the head of the family, it was his aunt who ruled it. When he had sunk into mourning for his first duchess, it was Nuritin who had badgered him into making a new marriage and a new life. Among the Balitangs, her word was law. Among the nobles of her generation, her opinion was the first they sought.

It did not bode well that she looked very comfortable in Balitang House.

Winnamine was the first to recover. She approached the old woman with outstretched hands and an apparently genuine smile on her face. "Aunt Nuritin, it's wonderful to see you. Girls, come greet your great-aunt. Elsren, Petranne, come."

Aly looked at Ulasim and made sure the nobles couldn't see her before she hand-signed:
Does she live here?

Ulasim nodded slightly.

Again Aly's fingers flew.
Are we safe with her in the house?

Ulasim came over to whisper, "As safe as anywhere in Rajmuat. Were stuck with the old Stormwing, and that's that. She will learn nothing we do not allow her to."

Aly’shook her head. "Well, then," she said, "we'll all just be one happy family. What harm could come of that?"

Once inside, the duchess looked at her late husband's aunt. "Lady Nuritin, may we have some time to settle in before we talk? I'm not at my best so early in the morning, and this is quite a surprise."

"Of course you need rest," the old woman said. "Go. Bathe, change, unpack, take naps if you must. We shall have our talk after lunch, and I can explain everything then."

The family headed for the stairs and the private rooms that opened off the second-floor gallery. The inside of the house was as refurbished as the outside. Teak floors glowed under fresh polish. Seashell inlays along the ceilings and floors gleamed. Frescoes were freshly colored by painstaking hands. The furnishings were influenced by raka, not luarin, taste. Flowers blazed in pottery vases as colorful as the blooms themselves. Hemp rugs with bright borders lay on the floors.

Dove and Sarai had suites of chambers connected by a shared bathing room. Aly looked around Dove's rooms and smiled. There were books on shelves on two sides of the room, books on the bedside table, and candles placed for reading. Dove had covered her walls with maps. Here was every island in the realm, as well as a large map that included the Isles, the Yamani Islands, and the Eastern and Southern Lands. The desk was set with inkwells, quills, and paper.

As Dove bathed, Aly unpacked for them both. She also searched the room, though she expected that her pack of spies had gone over every inch of the house. Mages had renewed all the common spells. She also found more concealed workings against eavesdroppers and watchers, strong ones that made her raise her brows in admiration. Aly had worried that someone might sneak something nastily magical into the house without Ochobu there to supervise, but the old mage had told her the house would be made safe.

Over the winter Ulasim had told Aly that Ysul, the Chain's mage in the Windward District of Rajmuat, where Balitang House stood, was second in rank to Ochobu herself and her equal in power. Aly looked forward to meeting this Ysul. She hoped he would be easier to work with than the cranky, luarin-hating Ochobu. Now, seeing the power in what he had done, Aly prayed he could live in the same house with the fierce old woman.

When she had finished her inspection of Dove's quarters, Ali moved into Sarai's bedchamber and study. Sarai's maid, Boulaj, one of Aly's trainees, had already begun her search of the room for spy magics and bolt-holes where someone could eavesdrop. Aly watched. Security was even more important for Sarai. She was impetuous and hot-tempered, unlike the cool-headed Dove. Since the deaths of her father and his killer, Prince Bronau, Sarai had become hard to handle. She didn't care what she said about the king who had sent them into exile or his family. Aly didn't want any rash words Sarai might let fall in her bedroom to reach palace ears.