The Spy Princess

by Sherwood Smith

  I tried to sound casual. “Don’t suppose you tried to talk to the noble brats?”

  “Try seeing if they’ll talk to us,” Deon scoffed. “Only time their precious highnesses breathe our air is when they ride by in their fancy carriage on their way to the capital to visit the king.”

  “Better them than me,” Tim said in a low voice.

  All the others agreed—and I did, too. I mean, I knew what my uncle was like!

  “Be at the bridge at moonrise day after tomorrow.” Bren thumped me on the shoulder. “You’ll meet Derek then, and he can tell you lots more. And maybe we’ll hear some real news.”

  “I’ll try to be there. If I can get away from my dad. ’Bye.”

  I ran southward, glancing back once. Sure enough, Bren was following, and I heard the others blundering along behind him. They wanted to see where I lived.

  I laughed to myself. I knew the gardens too well for that to be a problem and soon lost them.

  Once I’d climbed to my room, I stashed my disguise under the mattress, jumped through the cleaning frame, pulled on my nightgown, and threw myself into bed. The most I’d dared hope for was a walk around the village to see the buildings up close. I hadn’t thought to meet anyone at all, much less someone my age.

  This adventure was going to be easy.

  two

  I was sound asleep the next morning when my governess came in.

  Lizana was middle-aged and stout, and very, very smart. She’d been my mother’s maid and had taken care of me since I was born. I woke up to find her eyeing me suspiciously. Usually I was the first one awake.

  “I think I have a fever,” I mumbled. I meant to sneak out as Larei again, and the last thing I wanted was bed checks!

  Lizana’s eyebrows rose. She was used to sickness. Peitar was sick all too often.

  “I’ll get the medicine.” At the doorway, she turned back. “Now, you lie there and rest. His Highness wishes to talk to you.”

  Within a very short time shoes clacked on the landing, and my father came in.

  I tried to see him the way the villagers did: a heavy man wearing a purple velvet suit with lace at throat and wrists and an old-fashioned wig of long, curling red hair. His features were pinched with irritation. He pulled over one of my dainty chairs and sat down carefully, then examined the gold-edged buckles on his shoes with approval.

  Lizana reappeared with a tray, and His Highness lifted his nose. “Be gone. You know I dislike servants hovering when I talk to my children.” My father spoke in the court drawl that had been popular for years—until my uncle came to the throne.

  Uncle Darian never drawled. Nor did he wear wigs.

  Lizana set the tray down and left.

  “Lilah, child, this illness is most inconvenient,” my father began. “I was going to tell you at breakfast today that in two weeks we depart for Miraleste.”

  To the capital! That meant the royal palace—and my uncle, the king. My stomach knotted. “Why?”

  Father’s brow furrowed. “You are a good child most of the time, Lilah, but this inquisitiveness is most unbecoming. You must curb the habit. Well-bred children are polite and obedient. Suffice it to say that we make the journey for your benefit.”

  “Yes, Father,” I said in my well-practiced Polite and Obedient Voice, though I burned with indignation—and with questions that I knew would not be answered. As usual.

  “Good child.” He rose, adjusting the satin edges of his cuffs. “Sleep well.”

  As soon as he had clacked down the stairs, I hopped out of bed and inspected the tray. Broth and medicine: from the smell a bitter, nasty willow-bark decoction, suitable for fever and ache. I dumped the medicine out the window. I hoped it wouldn’t poison the trees.

  The broth I drank as I wondered why we had to go to the capital—and why I should benefit. The dread was even stronger than the questions.

  Next came the uneven rhythm of Peitar’s step. That was a surprise. He entered, leaning heavily on his crutch as he always did after climbing the long stairway. His face seemed more drawn than ever, set in an expression of hard-won patience.

  From where I sat I could see us framed in my mirror, in some ways so alike—the slanted eyes and sharp chin and angled cheekbones—and in some so different. I was built more like my father. Peitar was just over medium height, dark-haired, and light in build. Like our mother had been. Like Uncle Darian.

  I shuddered and did my best to look sick.

  “You don’t have to feign illness. You’re as healthy as I am.”

  “You aren’t healthy—”

  “So everyone tells me,” he retorted. “I’m crippled, not sick. Though I admit I use that when I have to.”

  “I hate it when you sound like Uncle.”

  “I saw you sneak past my window last night, Lilah,” he said mildly.

  I sat upright. “You know?” Peitar’s smile made him look younger—more like his nineteen years. Yet the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Are you going to tell?”

  He shook his head, still smiling. “Ah, little sister, how I’ve wished to do the same! What did you find?”

  “I met some villagers sneaking around, and—” I stopped short. “Wait, you want to explore, too?”

  “I kept that to myself until I saw you last night. We’re too good at hiding our real selves, I suppose.” He paused, as if making up his mind about something. “But we’ve been fooling one another when, perhaps, we should be working together.”

  “Working together? How? On what?”

  “First tell me what you found out, and what you think of it.”

  I have loved my brother ever since I was tiny—all the more intensely after our mother died when I was two. He was the one who had given me books to read after Father had forbidden Lizana to continue my lessons. He’d done it with her unspoken approval, too, telling me all the details about Lasva Dei and the adventurers I admired, and he also practiced Sartoran with me when Lizana was busy. I trusted him more than anyone—but then he’d stopped answering my questions.

  I told him about meeting Bren, what he had said, and what I had answered. Peitar listened, and when he didn’t look angry or shocked, I finished, “So I ran back here, and I was trying to figure out a way to get over the wall before moonrise tomorrow, and meet this Derek person.”

  “I wonder . . .” Peitar’s hand tightened on his crutch. “I wonder if you ought to meet Derek. The problem is, it’s almost impossible to separate him from dangerous circumstances, even just to talk.”

  More surprises. “Dangerous? Wait, wait! You know Derek?”

  “Yes.”

  My insides felt as if someone had dumped me out the window along with the medicine. “Tell me! I want to know what’s going on.”

  “I’ve known Derek for years. Ever since we were—oh, not much older than you are now. Lilah, he wants to raise Sarendan in revolution.” Revolution?

  “Why? How?”

  Peitar’s forehead puckered with worry. “He wants to right the wrongs he sees about him. We both do. He thinks the way is through violence, and I’m not so sure. But then I sit here in safety.”

  “Safety!” I repeated in scorn.

  Peitar’s lips twisted. “To those outside the family, it seems our lives are nothing but plenty and bliss. The plenty I will grant, but the bliss—well, you know as well as I. Derek doesn’t know, nor do his followers, what life is like here, or in Miraleste, for us.”

  “Can’t you just tell him?”

  “It’s not that simple.” He looked distracted, and I wondered if he was going to get lost inside his head as he often did. Then he blinked. “As for how, those children in the village are to be a part of it, just as countless ordinary people in towns and villages all over the country will be a part. On a given signal they will
attack the local authorities. Like us.” Peitar indicated himself, me, and then downstairs, where Father sat in his rooms.

  “Attack? But people might get hurt!” I exclaimed.

  “Yes. Yet too many think it’s a game. Not all. But some think it’s impossible that any real harm could happen to them, because their intentions are good.”

  “What can we do to fix things?” When he hesitated, I said, “Not telling me doesn’t stop me from worrying. Nobody answers my questions. That’s one of the reasons why I dressed as Larei, to find out! And why are we going to Miraleste, anyway? Father said it was to benefit me. What did he mean?”

  “Lilah, I think it’s to arrange a marriage for you.”

  “Ugh!” I exclaimed. “You’re not betrothed, so why should I get stuck with it?”

  “I’m not because . . . more politics.” Peitar looked away. “Though I might be forced into it, if . . . oh, if things don’t change.” He met my eyes. “If it helps, you and your intended will decide when the marriage actually takes place. So if you want, it could be ten years. Or twenty, if you’re deft—you will probably have the higher rank, so you’ll have more say. You just need to be diplomatic.”

  “But I’ll still be betrothed. Some fun if he’s a snob, and most of those court boys are snobs. And what if Uncle says I have to live with the boy’s family? At least if he joins ours, I can stick him in the farthest room and pretend he isn’t here.”

  Peitar grinned. “None of that has to be decided now.” He struggled to his feet. “Maybe you should go into town—but go during the day, if you think your disguise will hold. Far too many of those children are roaming around with nothing to do and little to eat. Talk to them. Listen to them. I’ll invent a cover for you. The threat of contagion ought to keep Father away. Just come back as soon as you’ve met Derek. We’ll talk tomorrow morning.”

  He left. I stared after him, in wonder.

  three

  Next morning, Lizana brought a bigger breakfast than usual. “Eat everything,” was all she said.

  Had Peitar talked to her? And that would mean that she also knew about Derek and revolution, wouldn’t it?

  I’d worry about that later. Right now, what worried me was the fact that I was going to try my disguise in daylight, among people who hated me and my family.

  I pulled out the Larei clothes and inspected them. Bren and Deon hadn’t recognized me. If I don’t try, I’ll hate myself forever.

  I rebraided my hair, dressed carefully, and after I shinnied down the tree, dirtied myself everywhere, even underneath the tunic’s laces. Then I raced through the garden, made sure the sentries couldn’t see me, and got myself over the wall.

  Outside Selenna House the weeds grew untended, and the wild olive trees were picked clean. I set out for Riveredge, using the shrubbery along the stream as cover. I was glad I was used to going barefoot, because the ground was stony and full of weed-stickers. I passed abandoned houses, the roof-thatch gone along with the doors. Some of the stone walls had been taken apart and hauled away.

  Soon the occupied part of the village was in sight.

  My father’s carriage always followed Prince Street, the once-grand main road, which cut through the town square. The houses there were in the best condition, though much repaired. The rest of Riveredge looked terrible.

  On the few remaining fences, somebody had scrawled Unity! and Down with Tyranny! Then I stopped short. Decorating one wall was a skillful drawing of my father, Peitar—and me.

  The fat, fox-faced girl with the long hair had her nose turned up and her mouth turned down. Next to her stood a larger, fatter man wearing a gigantic wig, his mouth turned down, too. The one that upset me was the crooked figure, more crooked in the sketch than in real life.

  I burned with anger. It wasn’t Peitar’s fault our father had forced him onto the back of a warhorse when my brother was seven—of course he’d get thrown!

  Even when I was small, I somehow understood that the accident never would have happened if Uncle Darian hadn’t insisted Peitar was spoiled, that he needed to get trained and tough. My uncle had banished all the mages from the kingdom, in case any were conspiring against him; that meant the healer mages were gone, too. Uncle Darian always said a strong man healed on his own.

  So Peitar’s shattered knee was never treated correctly. That was when he’d started reading in earnest—Lizana had told me about the first year, when pain kept him awake at night, and he set out to read every single book in our library.

  Whoever made that drawing had no idea.

  I gave the wall a last glare and walked on. I passed a few more houses and reached a rickety bridge just as a swarm of boys and girls arrived from the other direction.

  “There he is!” Bren! My heartbeat quickened again. “Larei! Here!”

  He was perched on the wooden rail. In the daylight, I saw that his patched tunic had long ago lost its laces, and that he, too, wore knee pants, cast-offs from the fashion of the generation before. The others were as ragged and dirty. I sauntered warily toward them.

  “We were calling the hatchlings hatchlings.” Bren flapped his arms at me. “Said they were chased off. I say they lie. Did you see anyone t’other night?”

  A small girl with filthy blonde hair whined in look-at-me injury, “I saw the cripple and they won’t believe me. He said I should run away before the guards got me. So I did.”

  “Now why would he do that?” Deon asked sarcastically. “I think you made it up. His Crookedness would call the guards on you and laugh as they dragged you to the guardhouse.”

  “Doesn’t make sense,” another boy exclaimed. “Why should Crook-Leg send you off?” As he said it, he made a gesture with two fingers, one straight and one bent.

  “He did! He did!” The little girl hopped from one foot to the other, shrieking as the others continued to scoff.

  I didn’t dare tell them that Peitar would be likely to do just that. But the girl crouched down in a ball on the other side of the bridge, her arms wrapped around her legs as she sobbed, all showing off forgotten. “He did,” she cried. “Crook-Leg sent me away.”

  I couldn’t stay silent anymore.

  “I say it could’ve happened.” Everyone turned my way. “It’s a big place. Who knows—maybe some of them are on our side.”

  “Oh, sure, and they just haven’t had a chance to come over here and help us,” Deon sneered.

  “Well, maybe Prince Redwig would have ’em killed.” Bren spread his hands. “I know! We’ll ask Derek.”

  Deon tilted her head. “Fair enough.”

  The little girl gave a hiccup, her crying over.

  “So let’s have some fun,” someone said.

  I was worried, for I didn’t know any games, but the rules were easy to figure out.

  As we played, I discovered that they all knew one another, but they weren’t old friends. In fact, judging from things I overheard—and some exchanged looks—the village children had kept to separate groups until recently. The ones who worked on the Selenna farms were distrusted by the trade families, and villagers scowled at farmers.

  I asked Bren about it when we were hiding in an empty trough. He told me that Derek had insisted they make friends, because he wanted them to work together.

  “For what?”

  “Derek says we need to be unified. Learn everything nobles do. He even made us practice reading and writing! You’ll see.”

  By late morning, I was hungry and thirsty, despite my big breakfast. People ran down to the river to drink. So did I. I had a feeling that there wasn’t going to be any food.

  When the midday bells tolled, everyone stopped, looking grim as they began picking up rocks and stuffing them in pockets or wrapping them in worn aprons or skirts.

  “Hurry up,” Bren said to me. At my puzzled expression, he a
dded, “Slam justice! Get those rocks, fast!” and smacked me on the shoulder. I staggered, bit back a protest, and loaded up until he gave a short, sharp whistle. “Come on. You’re with us.”

  We joined some boys loping along a street winding between shabby houses, then over a low wall and up onto the roof of a stone building. It was no harder than climbing a tree. I looked down—straight into the guardhouse courtyard.

  Bren whispered, “We can’t stop ’em from that.” He pointed at the main street, where two families slowly departed, the adults harnessed to old carts piled with possessions. “They can’t pay the taxes.”

  “Where will they go?” I whispered back.

  “I don’t know.” Bren made a face, then indicated the adjacent rooftop, where Deon stood with a group of girls. They each held something—some had stones, but others had metal pans or trays. “At least we might be able to stop this.”

  Below, several people marched out. I gulped when I recognized my father behind an honor guard, all of whom carried spears. He wore his pale gray velvet judgment robe, trimmed with blue silk braiding, the Selenna colors. He looked hot and sweaty and in a very bad mood.

  Then came more guards, leading a disheveled man in bloodstained clothing.

  At the other end of the courtyard was a gallows.

  My mouth dried, and I clutched the rocks tightly.

  Again, Bren whistled.

  Everyone on the roof began throwing stones at the guards, except for the girls with the pans. They aimed them so the sunlight reflected into the men’s faces, dazzling them.

  “Get those brats!” my father roared.

  I flung my rocks as hard as I could. Not one hit the targets. The boys began jumping down from the roof.

  “Run,” Bren said, tugging me. “Unless you want to get caught! Down with tyranny!” he shrieked, and leaped awkwardly after his friends, his arms windmilling.

  I landed hard, my ankles twinging, and followed Bren between houses, under an ancient, warped fence, and across scrubby vegetable gardens. Finally, we collapsed onto a grassy bank near the slow-moving river, laughing breathlessly.