The Spy Princess

by Sherwood Smith

  He let his breath out in a rush. “Oh, I did. Sort of. After all, you can’t go to the worst nobles and say, ‘Hand over your estates,’ and expect them to do it. And a lot of them fought. One duke, he must have slashed up a dozen people before they got him. But some were kids our age! They tied one girl up and gagged her and threw her in the lake, and laughed as she struggled.” He shook his head. “And when she drowned.”

  Sickened, I asked, “What was her name?”

  “All I know is, her own maid was the ringleader. Kept saying horrible things, like how she’d been beaten for dropping a hairbrush. Had her fingers smashed for wrinkling a gown. But I thought, ‘Make the noble brats earn their bread. That’ll cure ’em. Don’t kill ’em.’”

  Peitar said, “The murders of children were not on Derek’s orders, Bren.”

  “I know. But that’s the other thing! They aren’t listening to his orders! They’re just doing whatever they want.” Bren took a deep breath. “You’re right, Lilah. Deon just wants to help Derek. And she will. Even if no one else does,” he finished in an undertone.

  We picked our way past evidence of fighting, into the deserted stable. The horses were uneasy, ears flicking and flattening. Bren bridled and saddled three as I worried about Peitar, who had not ridden since his accident. We had to help him mount.

  Then it was my turn. I’d never been on horseback, and it was frightening to be seated so high on a shifting animal. But Bren said, “Hold on with your knees, and follow me. Don’t kick, or yank the reins, and you’ll be all right. We won’t gallop—we have to make the horses last.”

  Knees? Forget that! I clutched the horse’s mane in a death grip. We began riding slowly into the city, Peitar also clutching the reins so hard his knuckles were white. After a while, when we realized that the animals never went faster than a walk, he relaxed a little, and so did I.

  Finally Peitar said, “We were in prison all day yesterday. Can you tell us what happened?”

  Bren said, “Derek gave the command at midnight. They set fire to noble houses in four separate places. We could see the fires from the servants’ quarters.”

  “And while the guard was assisting with the fire lines down to the lake, the rest attacked guard posts, and converged on the palace?” Peitar clearly knew what Derek had planned.

  “Yes. Deon took me to a drill my first night. I didn’t want to kill sleeping people, not even nobles. I wanted to do something else, like put out the fires, but there were never any plans for that.”

  We continued in silence. Smoke billowed from the center of the city, drifting in a frightening brown haze over the lake. I wondered if some courtiers had hidden on their boats or gone out the day before and had no idea anything was wrong until they saw the flames. I did not know which would be worse.

  When we reached the market section near the south gate, bigger crowds surged down the streets. Some of the stores had hastily painted signs to forestall looters—FREEDOM! AND HAIL THE REVOLUTION!—but others had armed people stationed outside. The streets were covered with glass and smashed furniture and even food, which amazed me. How could people who had complained about hunger destroy food?

  No one paid attention to us as we rode out through the open and unguarded gates. People streamed past, some carrying goods in baskets and knapsacks. Others had carts, and there were coaches, pulled by horses, by goats and oxen, and even by people, many roaring drunk.

  At last the crowds thinned out, and we started toward the east, and Selenna.

  I finally burst out, “I’ve always hated Uncle Dirty Hands, but that—what Derek said, about making his execution last for days. He never did that to anybody, not that I ever heard of.”

  “No. He hates torture. He has had people roughly handled, like Bernal. And killed. But never as entertainment.” Peitar drew in a long, shaky breath. “I won’t be a part of that, even passively.”

  Neither Bren nor I knew how to respond. But I could tell that Bren wanted to say something more.

  “I saw your letter,” he finally told Peitar, in a rush. “Yesterday morning, late. I’d just talked to Derek, in the garden where the servants go. After, I thought of a question, and turned back, but he was reading. Then he crumpled up the papers and threw them down. After he left—well, I was curious.”

  “What did you think?” Peitar asked gently.

  “You’re right. You’re right, and Derek can’t see it.” Bren’s voice cracked—he was crying. “I thought every man being king for himself would work—would mean peace!”

  “Maybe it can work if each person governs only him- or herself. I read somewhere that the problem comes when people seek to command one another. I believe Derek will see that this way, with violence, doesn’t work.”

  I hoped so.

  two

  At nightfall, we camped. That is, we stopped on a hillside just above a stream, the horses tethered nearby, since we had nothing to make camp with. It was the first time I had ever slept outside. We had no blankets, and I hadn’t eaten since we’d been in the garrison. I was stiff and hungry when I woke.

  Bren readied the horses, then showed us how to stretch out our aching legs. Peitar’s face blanched with effort. We mounted up and began the first of two long days on the road.

  The weather stayed clear and hot. Bren knew which wild berries were safe to eat; otherwise, we went hungry. Whenever we saw a stream, we drank, and turned the horses loose. We did not talk much, except about horses, berries, where to sleep. We were all lost in our separate thoughts.

  When we finally reached the Selenna House gates, the guards stared at us in surprise—especially when they saw me in my Larei clothes, with my braid hanging down.

  “There’s been violence in Miraleste,” Peitar called up at the sentries. “Against the homes of nobles. We had to evacuate, but it’s spreading. They may well come here.”

  The guard in charge looked back grimly. “We’re short-handed, my lord.”

  “Do your best,” Peitar said as we passed inside.

  Two stable hands took our horses, as if everything was normal. Yet here I was in my disguise, still smelling of torched city. Peitar gave me a troubled glance. “Lilah, watch your tongue. Bren, you too.”

  “Why?” I asked, feeling unsettled and crabby. “What can Father do to us now?”

  “Lilah, Uncle Darian must have told him we were traitors before ordering him home, or Father wouldn’t have left without us. Don’t force him into a position of having to choose between two loyalties.”

  Loyalties? I was still working that out when we reached the front doors. The hall was dark, and though shadows gathered, no one had lit the great chandelier. It sparkled with dim, ghostly shards of light, reminding me of the rooms in the palace that had not yet been looted.

  “Where are the servants?” I whispered.

  “Most of them are probably still gone,” Peitar said. “Remember, we were supposed to be in Miraleste all week. As for the rest . . . I don’t know. We’ll have to shift for ourselves. I’ll go talk to Father.”

  “Well, I’m hungry. Come on, Bren, let’s find something to eat.”

  “Sure,” he said with some of his old enthusiasm.

  The kitchens were empty but clean. Neither of us could find the fire stick, so Bren used the sparker to light the lamps and the wood laid ready in the grate. The smell reminded me horribly of Miraleste. Bren and I managed to cobble together a meal—reheated barley soup, as well as bread, cheese, and fruit. Peitar joined us, and said, “Lilah, take Father’s share on a tray to him, please.”

  Father sat in his study, staring into the fire. When I appeared, he glanced up but said nothing. I left as fast as I could.

  When I got back to the kitchen, I asked Peitar, “What did you tell him?”

  “That Uncle Darian had been mistaken, which was why we were free. He didn�
��t ask me anything more.”

  He paused when Father’s valet appeared, casting us a narrow-eyed glance as he went straight to the wine closet, selected a bottle and a goblet, and vanished again.

  “Better leave him some food, too,” Peitar said.

  I was tired and filthy, but I didn’t want to sleep in my room. “I think I’ll get some blankets from the linen closet,” I said, “and stay right here.”

  Bren curled up on the other side of the fireplace. It was warm, and I felt the fears of the days before slip away. Maybe things will get better, I thought as my eyelids closed.

  • • •

  LAST NIGHT’S MESS looked worse in daylight. I felt grimy and reeked of smoke.

  “Peitar, Bren. I’m going upstairs to use my cleaning frame.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Bren said, throwing off his blanket.

  It had never felt better to step through the frame and feel magic take the dirt and smoky grit from my skin and hair and clothes. I wished we could do the same for the dirty dishes, but I had no idea where the cleaning spells were.

  Father’s valet came in soon after and showed us the small barrel of water and the drying cloth. We dipped the dishes once, and they came out sparkling. Magic buzzed through my fingers as I worked.

  Afterward, we poked around the larder and found potatoes, onions, and cabbage. I, of course, had never cooked. Bren tried to remember how his mother made potato pancakes, and we worked together. We served them with new grapes from the vine out back, and Peitar took some to Father and his valet. The meal was delicious.

  When the kitchen was clean again, it was already noon. “What do we do now?” I asked Peitar.

  “Maybe I should go home,” Bren said. He didn’t sound all that eager, and I wondered if he was afraid that if he went home, he wouldn’t get paid. I knew his family was counting on that money.

  “Can you wait?” Peitar asked. “I think we’re better off staying quietly here, at least for a day. Maybe you can go scout things tomorrow.” He walked toward the stairs.

  Bren scowled. “I’m not going to go into the village and yell about you being here, and tell them to attack,” he muttered.

  I’d forgotten that to Riveredge, we were still Lady Fluffbrain and Lord Cripple, brats of Prince Greedy. But Peitar hadn’t forgotten. “Maybe Selenna Leader would tell them to attack anyway,” I said, and Bren scowled even harder. But he didn’t disagree.

  We counted up the various foods stocked in the larder, tried to figure out how to cook things, then finally decided to make potato pancakes again. By then the shadows had grown long.

  Sudden, loud pounding on the front door startled us. We ran out to the foyer. Peitar was on the stairs, carrying a pile of books and papers. Father and his valet appeared in the doorway to their suite. The pounding came again, even louder.

  One look at the valet’s face made it clear that he had never answered a door and was not about to begin. So I did.

  “Gate sentry,” the man said. “Villagers are rioting. Tell His Highness—”

  “What?” My father came up behind me, interrupting the sentry.

  “Your orders, Highness?”

  “Turn them away!”

  “But there are only a dozen of us, Highness.”

  “You have the gates, and the weapons.”

  “But there are too many to count. . . .”

  “Hold them off! Kill anyone you have to!” And, as the man ran back into the night, “Shut the doors,” Father ordered. He glanced somewhere between Bren and me and said, “Please bring me my dinner.”

  We finished cooking, eating our share as we did. As Bren began the cleaning, I picked up Father’s tray—

  And almost dropped it when I saw the windows flickering with the wicked flare of many torches. I ran to Father’s study.

  My father’s valet had fled, and he was alone. “Lock the door.”

  Then we faced one another. Without his wig, my father seemed older than he was. Pity, fear—a snake pit of conflicting feelings squirmed inside me.

  “Are you afraid?” he asked.

  It seemed a strange question, but I whispered, “Yes.”

  “Then I take it these are not here on your invitation.”

  “Oh, no.” My voice quavered. “I . . . when I saw what happened in Miraleste, it was—”

  He raised a hand, and his rings sparkled. “I hope,” he said in a quick, low voice, “that the two of you will amount to something someday. But your time is now, and mine is past.” Then he was again the father I knew. “Go to the library. I’ll hold them here as long as I can.” He took up his fine sword. “Go!”

  Someone battered against the door. “Come out, you bloodsucking noble soul-eater!”

  I fled to the library, and the secret passage in the fireplace—but how would I get out the other end? Trembling, I hid behind a chair as people stampeded in.

  “No one here!” I yelled, just as the first man saw me.

  I got a perplexed stare, but the villagers had no interest in a scruffy urchin. One started pulling books off the shelves and flinging them into the fireplace, as another lit the sparker. A few hacked at the furniture, one with a sword, another with a scythe. A woman grabbed my mother’s porcelain figurines and stuffed them into her bodice.

  I dodged past, into the parlor, where Father lay in a heap on the floor, his sword gone. I ran, sobs tearing at my throat for him, for the careless violence destroying the only home I’d known.

  The hall was filled with smoke. I lurched blindly toward the kitchen, and bumped into someone who dropped his booty and cursed me. I was sobbing too hard to care. The kitchen was empty, but I spotted the fashion book tossed aside on the floor, and stuffed it inside my tunic.

  If Bren and Peitar were hiding, I knew where.

  I didn’t feel safe until I was in the passage. As the fountain slid closed over my head, I felt my way along the damp walls until I heard Peitar call my name. They were in the room where he had met with Derek. Candlelight wavered on the walls.

  “I helped Peitar escape.” Bren’s voice was tight. “They meant to kill everybody.”

  “Did you bring Father?” Peitar demanded anxiously.

  I stood there, my breathing ragged.

  “They got him, didn’t they,” Bren said.

  “He—he—s-said we’d better amount to something, and he told me to go, and I wouldn’t, and he ordered me, and they s-smashed everything, and—and I went after my book, because . . .”

  I couldn’t talk anymore. I was crying too hard.

  Peitar caressed my cheek, but I felt the tremble in his fingers, because he was crying, too.

  Bren crouched on the ground, all bony arms and legs. “I saw them. I know them. My own brother Tam. Just a year ago he wanted to be in the army, training horses. And today, he was as bad as those people in Miraleste.”

  “I’ve learned something about crowds.” Peitar’s voice was unsteady. “People are no longer themselves when they join crowds. There’s a group mood. It’s like a magic coercion.” Bren was listening, even if his face was pinched and miserable in the light of the candle. “They seem to take on the ugliness or goodness of the leader. Today it was ugly. Tam might not remember what he did when he wakes up tomorrow.”

  “But I’ll remember,” Bren whispered.

  three

  We hid for two days, while above us the villagers destroyed everything they couldn’t take. It was a good thing Bren was with us. Before he helped Peitar to safety, he had made sure to grab as much food as he could.

  We slept a lot. When I woke and remembered what had happened, I felt so sick I wanted to go back to sleep again. Bren poked around, examining the golden candlesticks and carved boxes and old clothes of stiff brocade and gemmed velvet, while Peitar, as usual, took
solace in reading the books he’d managed to save. I forced myself to write down everything that had happened, using the pen and ink Peitar had brought.

  The second day, he read to us from the memoirs of Adamas Dei of the Black Sword, a legendary warrior who had left Sartor in search of peace. Although Bren didn’t say much, he seemed to be interested, so Peitar lent it to him.

  Our food was gone by the third day. Bren and I listened through the fountain, and when we heard nothing, dared to venture out. The vegetable garden was stripped, the closest fields empty, but we managed to dig up some roots and drank from the kitchen well.

  Later, we found Peitar sitting on the front steps in the ash and rubble, looking distraught. “I said the Words of Disappearance over Father. And over the others who had fallen.”

  I’d been afraid to go back into the parlor. “I’m glad,” I said, thinking of Father’s remains, now a part of the soil where our ancestors lay, and though I hadn’t been there when Peitar did the Disappearance magic, I silently recited the poem wishing peace to Father’s fled spirit.

  Then it was underground to sleep again, amid the gleaming treasures of ancient Selennas.

  • • •

  IN THE MORNING, Peitar said, “Just before the raid I burned all my letters.” He paused. “Now I believe I must return to Miraleste.”

  “Miraleste! Isn’t that going right into worse danger?” I exclaimed, and even Bren looked startled. “You said there was nothing more for us there. Why go back? ”

  “There’s even less for us here,” he said. His smile was bleak. “And the danger is probably about equal. Also, Lizana hasn’t returned. I think that means . . . Derek might need my help.”

  “He didn’t listen when we were there before,” I argued.

  “Maybe he will now. I did promise. I have to try.”

  Bren and I traded glances. “We’ll go with you,” he said.

  Peitar sighed, and I knew what he was thinking: No place is safe anymore. “We’ll have to have mounts.”