Tricksters Queen (5 page)

"Who cares if Her Highness plays games with us or not?" Winnamine's gaze was still adamant. "I certainly did not return to accept charity."

Nuritin sniffed. "My dear young woman, has the highland air made you stupid? It is an
investment”
When no one spoke, Nuritin sighed. "You must build a power base for King Dunevon's heir, goose. Elsren is next in line for the throne. He will need friends and support. Our families agreed that setting you up is worth whatever we might dredge from our coffers." She looked at Sarai. "Men will hare after
you
to forge an alliance with our family. I expect you to
remember
your family, and the interests of your family. Flirt with those men, learn their minds, and promise them nothing."

Sarai's mouth trembled. "I have not done so well in my flirtations lately," she replied softly. "If you haven't heard, my last lover killed Papa. And where were the Balitangs, and the Fonfalas, and the Temaidas, when we were in danger?"

Nuritin's thin eyebrows snapped together. "Your last lover? Do not tell me you forgot what you owe to the family by tumbling Bronau."

Sarai gasped in indignation. Winnamine rose to stand with Sarai. Dove did the same. "Sarai would never disgrace us by bedding a man of whom her father did not approve," said Winnamine, while Sarai's cheeks turned a beet color.

Nuritin's eyes were on Sarai. "Bronau deserved to die," she said, her voice flat. "You and your sister did the realm a service by killing him. You also saved his brother the embarrassment of paying an executioner." She looked at the duchess and at Dove. "Is she a fool? Better to lock her up than have her ruin things for us at court. It is not the place to stumble, not after this winter. The regents have proved to be less than patient."

"She is no fool, Aunt," replied Dove. "She just thinks the family's drawing back from us was wrong. Winna and I understood—Papa understood—the family had to save themselves from the taint of our disgrace. Sarai just hasn't made her peace with it."

"Then make your peace," Nuritin said tartly. "You have a duty to Elsren and to your stepmother, if you don't care for the duty you owe to our royal blood."

"I never had to worry about that before," Sarai retorted, her mouth mulish.

"Before there were several heirs between your family and the throne. Now there is only one. You will marry to your
brothers
advantage, which is the
family’s
advantage." Nuritin inspected the faces of those before her. Then she nodded. "Come upstairs. We need to get your new clothes fitted this afternoon. And I want to see Elsren."

The afternoon dissolved in a flurry of fabrics and flashing needles. The Balitang clan had mustered an army of seamstresses to work on the ladies' new wardrobes all winter long, using Nuritin's precise memory for the Tanair Balitangs' height, weight, and measurements. The old woman was surprised to find that everyone, not just Sarai, had to have their clothes taken in. Winter had been lean.

Aly, Boulaj, and even the duchess's personal maid, Pembery, found themselves elbowed out of the way by women who sewed at a speed they could not match. Aly finally slid out and spent the remaining daylight hours inspecting the house and grounds.

Out in the garden an open-sided square pavilion glowed with extra-powerful spells against eavesdropping. Inside it, Aly could hear nothing, not even the artificial waterfall that hissed over rocks beside it. It was perfect for secret conversations.

"Come to me," a familiar voice said behind her. "The air is dead under that roof."

Aly turned and smiled. The new arrival was nearly six feet tall, with skin the color of dark sugar syrup. She hadn't seen Nawat Crow in five days, and as always when they'd been apart, she realized that she had missed him. Everything about him made her happy. He appeared to be about nineteen or twenty, with glossy black hair. His deep-set brown eyes were alert to any movement around him. The young woman who didn't follow him with her eyes when he passed was rare. The women who lingered when they got to know him were even more rare. Nawat's grasp on humanity was light, to say the least. It was perfectly understandable: despite his apparent age, Nawat was three years old as a crow and had spent only a year as a man. More often than not, he acted first as a crow might, then only belatedly and occasionally as a human.

Their friendship had begun when he was a crow teaching her the crows' language at Kyprioth's request. During those lessons Aly had fascinated Nawat so much that he had changed himself into a human, something he told her that all crows could do. Seeing him made her pulse quicken as she left the pavilion. He wore clean clothes and he'd finger-combed his damp, crow-black hair back from his face. His feet were bare. "You forgot shoes," Aly reminded him. Resting her hand on his chest, she stood on tiptoe for his kiss.

Nawat stepped back.

Aly’stared at him, her hand dropping to her side. She felt almost as if he'd slapped her. "No kiss?" she asked, keeping her voice light. I'm crushed."

"You said I must not kiss you in front of people," he reminded her. "You said they will think you are frivolous if we are kissing."

"But we're not in public," she explained patiently. "Listen. No one's outside. We could go behind a tree—Nawat, it's just a
kiss."

She took a step forward, reaching for his jacket lapel. Nawat took another step back. "I have been thinking," he said. "You will let me kiss you and preen you, but you will not mate with me. I think you are a mixed-up human. You think that mating is not important if you have kisses and preening. If I do not kiss you and preen you, I think you will want to mate with me. To have nestlings. To be with me all our days."

Aly rubbed her temples. Sometimes it was very hard to get a former crow to see things properly. "I didn't say I won't mate with you because we kiss and preen," she said patiently, remembering how close to mating some of that preening had gotten. "I can't be distracted. It's going to be a dangerous spring and summer. This is a horrible time to mate. We can't risk it."

"All life is a risk, Aly," he told her soberly, reaching a hand out to her, then hastily lowering it. "At any moment an archer may shoot you, or a hawk break your neck. A forest fire or a volcano will burn you. A Bronau will stab you. Risk will not end if the god gets his islands back."

Aly sighed. "No, but my task will be done, and then we can mate."

"And what if you are killed?" Nawat wanted to know. "What if I am killed? What if a Bronau steals you away?"

Sometimes a crow cannot be argued with, thought Aly, feeling a little impatient. Sometimes you only give yourself a headache if you try. He'll be stealing kisses again soon enough.

Changing the subject, she asked, "What was that display this morning? It looked as if all the crows in the Isles had decided to draw attention to our arrival."

"The crows came to win our bet with the god," Nawat replied.

Aly raised an eyebrow at him. "I thought that bet was just with the Tanair crows, and just for last summer."

Nawat shook his head. "Not just with my cousins at Tanair," he explained, his dark eyes following a Stormwing high overhead. "He wagered with all the crows of the Isles."

Aly stared at him.
"All
of them?"

Her friend nodded. "While you are here, they will help to guard Sarai and Dove. Only when Kyprioth rules again may we collect the wager, if you are still alive."

"That must be some wager, for you all to risk so much," Aly remarked. "You know, I would be so much more cooperative if I knew what the prize actually
was!"

Nawat gave a bird shrug, a lift of his shoulder blades more than his shoulders. "You would not like it," he said dismissively. "It is for crows."

For the third time that afternoon Aly felt as if she'd been slapped by someone who had never even frowned at her. In a tiny voice she asked, as she had heard girls she despised ask, "Are you angry with me?"

Nawat closed his eyes as if asking for patience. Then he cupped her face in both hands and kissed her mouth softly, lingering, holding them both absolutely still, as if only this connection between them existed. At last he released her. For once Aly could think of nothing to say.

As she stared at him, he answered her. "Never. Never, never, never." Then he turned and walked away.

Slowly everyone settled. The ladies ate with Nuritin, then retired upstairs. Before she joined them, Dove dismissed Aly for the night, reminding her that she could still take off a simple gown herself if she wanted to go to bed. Aly took a last walk around the grounds, knowing that her fellow conspirators would have to wait until most of the household had gone to bed before they could meet.

At last Aly strolled into the kitchen and down the hall to the meeting room. Nawat was there already, as were Chenaol and Ulasim. Except for Nawat, who perched on a countertop, the others had taken comfortable chairs. They shared a pitcher of the liquor called arak and bowls of nuts and fruits. They knew better than to offer the potent arak to Aly. She never drank, fearing liquor would loosen her tongue.

As Aly slumped into a chair, Fesgao arrived, then Ochobu. She brought with her a slender, young part-raka with ears like jug handles. In Aly's magical Sight he, like Ochobu, blazed with his magical Gift. This would be the mage who had laid all the fresh spellwork on the house.

"Aly, this is Ysul," Ulasim told her, pointing to the new man. "Another mage with the Chain. He will live here, to help keep our ladies doubly safe."

"He is mute," Ochobu said tartly as she sat. "King Oron's torturers did that when he was small. So don't go trying to talk his ear off just because he's defenceless."

Aly shook her head. She'd known wolverines with more diplomacy than Ochobu. Then she grinned. Ysul was using military hand-sign code to say I’
m not defenseless.

Don't tell Ochobu,
Aly hand-signed back, her movements concealed by the arms of her chair.
She's happy because she thinks she just insulted me.

Ysul nodded gravely and settled on the floor beside one of the cupboards. The room was supposed to be a linen storeroom, but that was only in the daytime.

"Where's Quedanga?" Fesgao asked, looking for the housekeeper. "Now that we're all in Rajmuat again, she ought to join us."

"She's keeping watch," Ulasim replied. "One of us must stand guard for a third of every night, to take reports and deal with the unexpected. I have the time around midnight, and Chenaol gets the time from false dawn to sunrise."

"I'll always take that one," Chenaol said comfortably. "I have to start the bread anyway."

Nawat ate nuts, cracking them with his fingers before devouring them. As Ulasim handed Aly a pitcher of guava juice and a cup, Ochobu spoke a word that set magical signs ablaze throughout the room. They faded slowly until they were all but invisible.

Ulasim leaned in his chair. "It is good to see you all again," he remarked.

"Is it?" snapped Ochobu. "How could you allow that old woman to move in here, Ulasim? She will ruin everything."

Ulasim sighed, running his hand through his long hair. "Mother, one does not
forbid
Lady Nuritin Balitang
anything."
he explained with resignation. "She is, as far as all Rajmuat is concerned, the head of the Balitang family with the death of His Grace. Technically this is the Balitangs' house, not Her Graces. It is Nuritin's signature that makes anything to do with this house possible."

"How can we keep anything in this house secret with that woman and her servants at our heart like a luarin tumor?" demanded Ochobu.

Chenaol grinned and poured out two cups of arak. She offered one to Ochobu, who ignored it. The cook gave a "Suit yourself" shrug and drank from her own cup, setting the other within reach. "Just as easily as we keep our secrets with tradesmen and messengers coming in and out all day, old woman," she told the mage. "It's far easier to do in a house like this than it was up in our mountain aerie. You let us worry about Nuritin and her servants. She's good to have on our side—connected to every family of the luarin nobility, and to one in three families among the raka nobles."

"It would draw attention we cannot afford to keep her out, and it would not be easy to arrange," added Ulasim. "Topabaw would think we had something to hide."

"Speaking of hiding . . ." Aly began. Everyone looked at her. "I admire the way you've concealed the magics on this house. I noticed them, but fortunately, the Sight is the rarest aspect of the Gift. You did beautiful work here."

Chenaol looked Aly over. "Since when do you know what's magic and what isn't, mistress?"

Nawat offered Aly a nut. She took it and looked at Ochobu. "You never told them?"

Ulasim snorted. "You spent a winter cooped up with my mother and didn't see it?" he wanted to know. "She never tells anyone anything. She makes clams and oysters look slack-jawed. What is it?"

The old woman grumbled under her breath and tugged her jacket around her shoulders.

Aly popped the nut into her mouth and chewed it thoroughly. "I have the Sight," she told them. "I can see magic, or death, or sickness, or godhood. I can see poisons in food. If I concentrate a little differently, I can see distant things clearly, and tiny things in complete detail."

"So those liars signs you told us to look for were not real?" Fesgao asked. "The looking aside, the blinking?"

"Oh, no!" Aly reassured him. "A blink, a fidget, a change in body position, those are all perfectly good measures of a lie told by an amateur." She smiled wickedly. "I just have a little something extra." She looked at Ochobu. "I spent the whole winter thinking you'd told and they didn't care."

"I don’tcare," Ochobu snapped. "It is foolish to rely on magic, any magic, including the Sight. The Rittevons have that much right, at least—they know too many people use magic as a crutch, and they are wary of it."

"So says the mage," grumbled Ulasim.

"And who would know the truth of that, if not a mage?" demanded his mother.