Trickster's Queen (Daughter of the Lioness Book 2) Page 2

  “They seem to be missing something.” Thirteen-year-old Dovasary Balitang moved in to stand on Aly's free side, and pointed. Where the Example pier joined the mainland stood a large wooden sign painted stark white. On that sign were three names and the words Executed for treason against the Crown, decreed by His Highness Prince Rubinyan Jimajen and Her Highness Princess Imajane Rittevon Jimajen, in the name of His Gracious Majesty King Dunevon Rittevon. The date was that of the previous day.

  “What happened to their poor bodies?” whispered Sarai, brown eyes wide. “They should be here for weeks.”

  “Perhaps Stormwings dropped down and carried them off,” Dove suggested quietly. Aly's mistress was different from her beautiful older sister, shorter and small-boned. She had the self-contained air of someone much older. She had a catlike face and observant black eyes. Like Sarai, her skin was creamy gold, her hair black, and her lips full. She also wore a black gown and veil in mourning for the father who had been killed six months before.

  Aly knew exactly what had happened to the dead, because she had created a plan for anyone executed and displayed here. The absence of dead Examples was her declaration, as the rebellion's spymaster, that she would turn the Rittevon Crown and its supporters inside out. The spies she had sent ahead with Ulasim three weeks before the family's departure had been charged with putting her declaration into action.

  Body thieves were expected to attack from the land. No one would expect people to swim to the pier in the foul harbor water. Her people had done just that, to remove the bodies, weigh them down with chains, and sink them in the harbor. The plan worked on many levels. The Crown officials lost the Examples they had made, and the Kings' Watch was left with a mystery. Aly knew quite well that mysteries frightened people, particularly those people who were not supposed to allow them to happen. Sooner or later word of the vanishing Examples would leak out. People would start to see that the Crown was not as powerful as it claimed to be.

  “Last autumn Prince Rubinyan told Winna that there would be no more unnecessary executions,” Sarai commented.

  “Maybe he thinks these are necessary,” said Dove, grim-faced. “Or Imajane does.”

  “Hunod Ibadun? Dravinna?” The soft voice spoke the names painted on the announcement board. The voice belonged to Sarai and Dove's stepmother, Duchess Winnamine Balitang. The girls made space for her at the rail. “They wouldn't harm a fly if it were biting them.” She was a tall, slender woman, elegant in deep black mourning. “Hunod is—was—Prince Rubinyan's friend!”

  “I would guess they are not friends now,” remarked Dove, her voice steady.

  “Winna, I don't recognize the names,” Sarai told her stepmother. “They aren't the same Ibaduns who own those rice plantations on the southern coast of Lombyn, are they?”

  “No,” replied the duchess, wiping her eyes. “Hunod and Dravinna were cousins to those Ibaduns. They have—had—their own estates on Gempang. They grew orchids. Has that become treasonous?”

  “It depends on what they grew along with them, I suppose,” Dove said, squeezing her stepmother's free hand. “Or what Topabaw thought they were growing.”

  Aly twiddled her thumbs, as she often did when thinking. She was not supposed to protect the family this year. She was here to gather information and, through exquisite planning, destroy the people's belief in the Rittevon Crown and promote the longing for a young, sane, raka queen. Aly looked forward to crossing swords with the Crown's official spymaster, who'd held that post for thirty bloody years. She knew Prince Rubinyan had personal spies, because she had caught some of them the year before, but the master of the crown's spies, Duke Lohearn Mantawu, called Topabaw by all, was the man who bred fear. The downfall of Topabaw was to be one of her special projects now that she was back in the capital.

  She was envisioning her plans for him when she heard a change in the Stormwings' shrieks overhead, from normal taunts to rage. Seagulls fled the harbor in silence, and the city's myriad of parrots stopped their raucous morning conversations. The clatter of shipping and the shouts of sailors rang overloud in the air. Aly waited, listening. Goose bumps prickled their way up her arms. Gradually she heard it more clearly, a rough sound, harsh and bawling.

  She straightened with a grin. “Crows,” she announced.

  The crows burst into the air above the heights west of the harbor in a squalling, quarreling, soaring ebony cloud. They turned the sky above Rajmuat's palace black as activity around the harbor came to a halt. The Stormwings grabbed for height with their immense steel-feathered wings, snarling with outrage at the invaders. They darted at the crows, bladed wings sweeping out to hack them to pieces. The crows, smaller and nimbler, scattered. Wheeling, they dropped, then flew up among the Stormwings to peck at the exposed tender human flesh of their enemies. The racket was indescribable.

  I wonder how many of these people know that the crows are sacred to Kyprioth the Trickster? Aly wondered. The raka full-bloods know, but how many part-bloods, and how many full-blood luarin? Are they going to take this as an omen? I hope not. We really don't need omens soaring all over the city.

  Aly sighed. “I had so wished that our return would be quiet,” she said wistfully.

  “I don't believe the crows care, Aly,” Dove replied.

  Sarai added, “I like anything that gives those disgusting Stormwings a hard time.”

  The duchess took a deep breath. “Come, ladies. We'll be landing soon. Let's make sure we've packed everything.” She led her stepdaughters below.

  Aly stayed where she was, her eyes on the city. Things would start to move fast now. All the way here, she had picked up stories of the unrest in the Isles that had begun over the winter and still continued. Soon actual fighting would begin. The fighting, at least, was not her concern, but that of the rebel leaders who served Balitang House. Her biggest task was to make sure they had the most current information available. For this she had access to the network of informants built up by the raka, a network that drew from every skin color and every social category. She also had her own pack, the spies she herself had trained intensively over the winter. They had come south with Ulasim three weeks earlier to start training their allies in Rajmuat. They and their own recruits would gather still more information for her. Most importantly, Aly would collect information from inside the palace, to give the raka as much news of possible allies and the regents' movements as she could. Aly would then bring all the information together, study it, find connections, and get the boiled-down intelligence to the people who needed it.

  She thought the odds of the rebellion's success were good. She respected the raka leaders in the household. Coming south, she had glimpsed how far their reach extended, and was pleased. They had a strong, beloved candidate for the throne in Sarai. Her attractiveness and charm would win the hearts of the more reluctant citizens of the Isles. A child sat on the Rittevon throne, governed by heavy-handed regents who were despised by many. And the rebels had been whittling away at the luarin confidence all winter. Only this morning they had dealt the King's Watch a hard slap with the disappearances of the Crown's Examples. Aly even had a god on her side, if he would ever show up.

  Aly's nerves buzzed. As if he had read her mind, Kyprioth the Trickster appeared at her side. It was Kyprioth who had brought Aly to the Isles, though he was not the reason that she had stayed. Three hundred years earlier his brother, the sun and war god Mithros, and his sister, the moon and fertility Great Mother Goddess, had accompanied the luarin to the Isles and ousted Kyprioth from his throne. Now the Trickster hoped to retake what was his.

  “Hello, you rascal,” Aly greeted him cheerfully. “Why didn't you ask the crows to behave?”

  “If I cared to clack my teeth in a supremely useless exercise, I would have tried to tell them to behave,” retorted the god lightly, his black eyes dancing with mischief. “You'll find that not all of your allies are under your control, my dea
r.”

  The god was lean and muscled, straight-backed like a dancer. For reasons best known to him, he wore a salt-and-pepper beard and hair, both cropped short. He'd once told Aly he thought this style gave him the look of an elder statesman. Today his coat was a bright mass of yellow, pink, lavender, and pale blue squares. He jingled with a multitude of charms and bits of jewelry. His sarong, a skirtlike garment that men kilted up between their legs, was patterned in black and white diagonal stripes. He wore leather sandals studded with copper, as well as toe and finger rings made of copper and gems. For once he wore no copper earring, only a single blue drop.

  Aly made a face at him. “Where were you all winter? You left me to yearn. I yearned for months, but you never so much as sent a messenger pigeon.” She kept her voice quiet but teasing. The sailors looked too busy to notice her and her companion, even if they could see the god, but she liked to be careful in all she did.

  Kyprioth beamed at her. “I was someplace warmer than the highlands of Lombyn,” he replied. “Don't complain to me. You were having all kinds of fun, training your little spies. All I could do was wait. I did so in a place where I had plenty to amuse me.” His gaze was fixed on the city. A will of stone showed as the corners of his mouth tightened. “I've waited a long time for this spring to come.”

  Aly stayed where she was, though her body wanted to flee. It unnerved her to see that depth of emotion in the dethroned god. “Well, you don't need me, then,” she joked weakly. “I'll just take the next ship for Corus, get home in time for my mother's birthday.”

  Kyprioth turned to look at her. “You're just as eager to see this through as any of my raka. Don't even pretend that you aren't. Which reminds me.” He reached out and pressed the ball of his thumb against the middle of Aly's forehead. Gold fire swamped her mind, making her sway.

  She braced herself against the rail and waited for her normal vision to return. She dug into the folds of her sarong for the bit of mirror she kept there for emergencies. Her forehead looked much as it normally did, pale after the winter and chapped by the sea air and wind. She grimaced and reminded herself to filch Sarai's facial balm, then put the mirror away.

  “What was that?” she asked him. “I thought you'd at least leave a beauty mark or something.”

  “I would not touch your beauty, my dear,” said the god with his flashing smile. “And I would be bereft if you chose to commit suicide rather than be tortured or questioned under truthspell. No one will be able to force knowledge from your lips or your hands.”

  Aly raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh. So they can torture me, they just can't make me tell the truth. An enchanting prospect, sir.”

  His smile broadened to a grin. “I love it when you call me sir. It makes me feel all . . .” He hesitated, then found the words he wanted. “All godlike. So there's no need to commit suicide. You won't ever surrender what you know.”

  “Have you granted the others this splendid favor?” she asked, curious. “I wouldn't want them to be jealous.”

  Kyprioth leaned against the rail, his expression wry. “No one else in the rebellion has put together as much of the complete picture as you have done over this winter, gathering bits and pieces. You simply had to ferret it all out, didn't you? Ulasim can give perhaps a hundred names. Ochobu can give the names of the Chain and the main conspirators among the Balitang servants. If my other leaders die, they can be replaced.”

  Aly showed him no sign of the chill that crawled down her spine over that matter-of-fact “they can be replaced.” He's a god, she told herself. It's different for them.

  Kyprioth sighed. “But you, my dear, have learned nearly the entire thing—not the foot soldiers, but those in command and where they are, the members of the Chain. . . . You couldn't help it. It's your nature to poke and pry and gather. Even your fellow rebels are ignorant of the extent of your knowledge, which makes me chuckle.”

  Aly fanned her hand at him, like a beauty who brushed off a compliment.

  “Besides, I've grown attached to you,” Kyprioth said, capturing her hand. He kissed the back of her fingers and released her. “I would hate it if you used the suicide spell and left me for the Black God's realm. You know how brothers are—we hate to share.”

  “You'll have to let me go to him sometime,” Aly reminded the god. “I'm not immortal.”

  “That is ‘sometime.' I am talking about this summer,” Kyprioth replied. His eyes darkened. “Make sure you see this through. Once battle is joined in the Divine Realms, we gods draw strength from the success of our worshippers. If you and I fail, the luarin will exterminate the raka. And I will be unable to help them, because my brother and sister will kick me to the outermost edge of the universe.” He brightened. “But there, why be gloomy? We're going to have a wonderful year, I'm sure of it!”

  He was gone.

  For a moment Aly hoped the god was not placing more trust in her abilities than she deserved. Then she shrugged. There was one way to find out if she was as good at her task as she and Kyprioth hoped, and that was to pull off a war. “What's a little thing like revolution between friends?” she wondered, and looked ahead.

  Yards of dirty water lay between the moving ship and the dock, where a welcoming party stood. “So we begin,” said Fesgao Yibenu as he came to stand with Aly. The raka sergeant-at-arms swept the docks with his narrow eyes. “No royal welcome, despite Elsren's being the heir,” he remarked, settling a helmet over his prematurely silver hair. With a wave he ordered the men-at-arms who had sailed with the family to flank the rail where the gangplank would be lowered. “We are definitely the poor country cousins of the royal house.” Fesgao was in charge of the household men-at-arms and the rebellion's war leader. He'd spent his life guarding Sarai and Dove, keeping the last descendants of the old raka queens safe. Now he looked at the man who commanded the twenty extra Balitang men-at-arms waiting on the dock, and saluted him. The man saluted in return, a hand signal that meant all was quiet there.

  “They've added checkpoints where the docks meet the land, do you see?” Fesgao murmured to Aly. “They want to know who comes and who goes.”

  Aly shrugged. Soldiers could not possibly watch every inch of ground between the fortresses that flanked the harbor mouths. In the dark, a hundred raka swimmers could enter the water and no one would know. “If they're watching the docks, they're worried,” she murmured. “Let's go and give them more to worry about.”

  Duchess Winnamine had returned to the deck, leading the two children she had borne Duke Mequen. Petranne, a six-year-old girl with silky black curls and long-lashed eyes, danced in place, excited to come home to Rajmuat. Five-year-old Elsren was his father's son, brown-haired and stoic. He hid his face shyly in his mother's skirts.

  Winnamine shook her head as she looked at the dock. “This is not good,” she murmured, frowning.

  Ochobu, the old raka who was the household mage and healer, came up beside her. She, too, was a leader in the rebellion, responsible for the mage network known as the Chain. They had been the source of the rebels' information all winter. “What is not good?” Ochobu asked. She had a hand against her forehead to shade her brown eyes as she inspected the people on the dock. “You are a duchess, and a woman of property. You cannot walk into the city like a commoner. You must have a proper escort.”

  “We have a proper escort aboard with us,” Winnamine said quietly. “Forty men-at-arms looks as if we consider ourselves important. We aren't important until the regents say we are. And half of those men are new. We can't pay more guards,” Winnamine said. “I told Ulasim before he left not to hire anyone!”

  “Your Grace,” Aly said politely. Winnamine looked at her. “Ulasim always has good reasons for what he does, you know that. See the checkpoints? There's been trouble in the city—they didn't have checkpoints at the docks last year. Maybe Ulasim found a way to pay these men-at-arms. Or maybe they're just rented for the hour, li
ke actors who mourn at funerals. You know, to add to your consequence.”

  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.