The Spy Princess

by Sherwood Smith

  In reverse order we slid back out the window, I snatched the napkin away, and after edging the glass with smelly stuff Tsauderei had given them, the boys fitted it back into place.

  We ghosted back to our hideaway, where we collapsed, gasping with pent-up nerves and giggles. For a short time everyone talked and no one listened, then I said, “One at a time! I want to record our first true caper. Now. What did you do, or get? Daen?”

  “Paper!” She brandished it in triumph. “Some of these are bills, but too bad.”

  “I can use the other side,” I said, dipping my pen and writing. “Thanks! Bren?”

  “First, I got some scraps of apple tart, which I replaced with a fine drawing.”

  “What?” Deon demanded. “Why didn’t you show me?”

  “You were looking right at me. How should I know what you saw?”

  I cut through their squabbling. “What did you draw?”

  “A sour face, with mean eyes looking right out at you. I learned that trick in the valley. And it says, You turned your back on freedom and justice, but those who want it are not turning their backs on you! Signed by the Sharadan brothers.”

  “Hoo,” Innon said appreciatively. “I should think that’d cause some talk.”

  “So you got the money?” I asked.

  He held up a pouch. “Found it on a shelf behind the crockery, in a wooden box.”

  Deon snatched it and emptied it onto the floor.

  Then Bren made a face. “Um, I think we forgot something.” At our blank expressions, he said, “Did anyone remember the Lure?”

  We looked at one another. Innon groaned. “I sure didn’t. And after all the trouble I went to gathering it!” It was in the corner of the loft, right where he’d put it when we first arrived.

  “Ugh.” Bren shook his head. “That might have been nasty. I thought you girls had the Lure, since we were carrying the tools.”

  “And I thought you had it, Innon,” Deon said.

  “From now on, we should each carry our own,” he declared. “I’ll buy some little bags tomorrow.”

  Deon swept up the coins and dropped them back into the pouch. “Most of it’s copper flivs, scarcely worth a pinch of honey or hay, as my granny says. But! There are four silver squares, and two six-siders. Here’s for the bags.” She handed him a silver. “That should get four, if you bargain. We can hide the money under the table. All we’ve had to eat were the scraps that Lilah brought, and two bites of apple tart each. I’m hungry.”

  “I’ll bring more food tomorrow,” I promised.

  “In that case, I think we ought to have a nutbread. What say?” Innon did the magic and Tsauderei’s bag plumped out with a soft paff. The bread was even fresh and warm. We washed it down with water—“We bucketed the Buckets!” Deon chortled—and settled down to sleep.

  • • •

  IN THE MORNING, Deon wanted to go back to see what had happened—and, of course, to have a private gloat. “Get those potato things,” Innon said. “A plate of them costs five flivs. Gives you a reason to be there. But bring some back for us.”

  As usual, my day was spent in the palace kitchen. It was hot, and everyone seemed irritable. I had nothing to report, but at least I managed to get half a leftover chicken pie as well as a loaf of bread and greens.

  Innon handed out the bags of Lure after we ate. They were cleverly constructed of two layers of waterproof fabric. “Be careful—making these put me to sleep all day. And hoo, did my head hurt when I woke.” He rubbed his forehead.

  I said, “If it does that to you . . .”

  “We’ll only use them if we’re desperate,” Innon said. “Good thing is, Lure works fast and you can use it more than once. Here’s what Tsauderei told me. If you throw it into a room with the windows closed, all you need is three or four blossoms to knock everyone out. You need more if the room is bigger.”

  “But won’t it knock us out too?”

  “Not if we wait until we hear everyone fall down. Then we hold our breath and collect the Lure, put it back in the bag, and open the windows to air out the room. The smell goes away fast. There’s a little water in the bags to keep the Lure fresh, and we can use the Lure again, but each time it’ll be a little weaker. Lure loses its magic when the blossoms dry out.”

  Deon had been barely containing herself through his explanation. “My turn!” she burst out. “Raven was so angry! He was boiling over your drawing, Bren. I heard him talking to another shopkeeper—she kept going on about how it must be Diamagan, or his worthless, murdering peasants. Then his wife went to the money box and screamed!” She waited until we’d finished laughing. “I just sat there, eating potato crisps—and you were right, Innon. They cook ’em in garlic and onion and olive oil, and—”

  Bren groaned, interrupting her. “Did you think to save any?”

  “Ate ’em all. Couldn’t help it. So you go next! That woman—I want to get her good. ‘Diamagan and his murdering peasants.’ Faugh! Fheg!”

  “Does she have anything we would want?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “A quilter. I went to see. She has kids our age working there. Working hard, too, and they looked hungry. We could go set her place on fire.”

  Innon sent her a quick, worried look. Deon often talked wildly, but I didn’t believe she would actually set fire to anyone’s house, especially if they were in it.

  “No, that’s just the sort of thing that will make us look rotten, and what good does it do?” Bren said. “If she has money, we could do what we did at Raven’s. How’s that?”

  Sure enough, Deon shrugged. “I suppose. But you didn’t hear the nastiness in her voice.”

  I said, “Well, we don’t know what the rioters might have done to her shop. Derek said himself he couldn’t stop the worst of them.”

  Deon rubbed her hands, ready to get started. “Why are we blabbing? We’ll steal the money. Leave a note.”

  And so, that night, we did.

  • • •

  OVER THE NEXT week, we burgled three shops either belonging or catering to people whom Bren or Deon had seen wearing the heron signet at the Red Raven. We took all their money and left notes from the Sharadan brothers, thanking them for their donation to Diamagan’s cause. Each time we were faster, and even though we carried Lure, we didn’t need it.

  Bren not only got his potato crisps—and brought some back—he was delighted to overhear complaining from one of the patrol leaders. “He kept cursing, saying that Captain Leonos is being pestered daily for justice by the ‘king of weasels.’”

  “Flendar!” Deon chortled.

  “And! They think the burglars were ‘some noble family.’ Raven pulled out my note!”

  Innon had been thinking. “What about all this money? We can go and spend it, but then we’re liars. We aren’t helping Derek and Peitar, except to make Flendar’s Buckets mad.”

  “We’ve got to find out where Derek is and get the money to him,” Deon said. “That cook might know.”

  As usual, when it came to the palace, everyone looked at me.

  “All right,” I grumped. “I’ll ask Mirah. But I have an idea, too. If we come across anyone who’s really desperate, we leave them money with a note that it’s from Peitar and Derek, delivered by the Sharadan brothers. Maybe it’s not information gathering, but it’s still helping the people they want to protect.”

  “That’s really smart,” Innon said. “I can think of a dozen places.”

  “Me, too,” Deon said. “Starting with some of those kids at Five Points who can’t get jobs. They look so skinny, they can’t be eating much.”

  “I’ll go back to the Red Raven, and find some more donors,” Bren said. We all laughed.

  “Rich ones and mean ones. And while I’m at Five Points, I’m going to work on my ne
w song. It’s going to be about Dirty Hands and his Buckets!”

  • • •

  THREE DAYS IN a row I turned spits while the others spied and left coins and notes in Bren’s best handwriting, saying, Donated by the Sharadan brothers, in Derek Diamagan’s and Peitar Selenna’s cause of freedom! I tried to get Bren to put Peitar’s name first at least half the time, but he refused, saying, “The revolution was Derek’s idea.”

  Two of those nights, we went out and thieved, first from the porcelain seller who hated kids, then from a rich landowner who put his tenants out in the street because they couldn’t get work to pay rent.

  I hadn’t yet been able to catch Mirah alone and ask her if she knew how to contact Derek.

  On the fourth morning I left before dawn, hoping to reach the palace before it became too hot.

  The sun was up and broiling by the time I reached the kitchens, and things were in the usual controlled chaos. Mirah hailed me with relief. “You’re here early. Good. Everyone has bespoken cold dishes, and just as well,” she said. “We’ll be putting out the fires by noon, or none of us can live in here.” She muttered, as so many had over the past few days, “A far cry from my youth, when we still had the cooling spell during summer.”

  Here was my moment. “I have a question.”

  She gave me a sharp look, but just finished loading chickens onto the spit.

  And so I did five rounds left hand, five rounds right, left, right . . . As I cranked the handle, I became aware that most people were working in complete silence. My first few days, everyone had been talking so much the kitchen was a roar of noise. Today, all I heard was chopping, scraping, mixing, sizzling.

  When the chickens were done, Mirah said, “Kessah will have a turn now, and you will make a delivery, Larei. Come along.” I followed her to a small room where silver trays, decanters, and bowls filled the shelves. “What?” she asked, hands on hips.

  “Do you know how to find Derek’s and—and Peitar’s people?”

  She let her breath out in a rush. “I thought you were one of their messengers.”

  “I’m a runner for other people, who are trying to help them.” I looked at her with hope.

  “I’ll see,” she said, and then it was back to work.

  Even though the sun had gone down by the time I left the palace, the paving stones were still warm under my feet. Everyone around me looked weary and glum.

  But not Deon. When I reached the hideout, the first thing I saw was a flush in her cheeks and an extra curl to her grin. “Two of Flendar’s spies are meeting a patrol tonight. At the Red Raven, after it closes. And Flendar wants to be there, too.”

  “Because?” Bren prompted.

  “Because the patrol is going to be taken to where Derek and Peitar are hiding!”

  “You mean they’re here?” I gasped. “In Miraleste?”

  Innon frowned. “Really? Then why aren’t there more patrols and a worse curfew?”

  “Because the patrollers don’t know yet.” And she sat back, grinning in triumph.

  “Now, that’s nacky,” said Bren. “How’d you find out?”

  “Remember that flirty woman? You know, the one with the ring? Her name’s Liseon Alafio. And I’ve been following her all week.”

  “Wait, wait!” I scrabbled for my fashion book, as Deon fidgeted, but I knew she loved having her deeds recorded. “All right, go on.”

  “Well, most of the time she went to stupid places—like the dressmaker’s. But I kept at it, hiding in plain sight, and working on my song so I wouldn’t fall asleep on my feet. This morning she went to a baker’s, and when he saw her, he went like this.” Deon peered around so obviously that a tree would be suspicious. “I ducked down behind a rain barrel. At first I didn’t get every word. Then I heard her say she’d sent a report to Flendar last night, and knew he was going to steal their credit. The baker thought they shouldn’t tell him where Derek and Peitar were until he arrived with the patrol. Liseon agreed, but there was something slimy about the way she said it.”

  “We’ve got to find out where and act fast!” Bren exclaimed.

  “We’ll follow the Buckets to where Derek and Peitar are hiding, and use Lure on everybody,” I said. “And then we’ll carry out Peitar and Derek and their friends and put them somewhere safe. We’ll leave a note that they were saved by us!”

  “Except, how do we carry people twice our size?” Deon asked.

  “And where do we put them?” from Innon.

  I threw down my quill. “We need another plan.”

  “Let’s just get to the Red Raven,” Deon said, in an agony of impatience. “We can figure it out on the way.”

  “Not all four of us. That’s a waste.” We all stared at Innon. “Three go to the Red Raven. One watches, the second Lures everyone, and the third is there in case the second doesn’t get out in time. That takes care of all the villains—and saves Derek and Peitar. But,” he finished, “only for tonight.”

  I gasped. “We have to find where they are so we can warn them before the Buckets wake up!”

  “How?” Bren asked. “Neither spy said where they were.”

  “I think that Liseon is going to cheat the baker and claim the credit,” Deon said. “You should have seen the way she was acting.”

  Innon said, “We’ll find out, because one of us is going to Flendar’s office to raid it. Something,” he added, “we should have done long before. Since he won’t be there, maybe it will be safe.”

  “Who?” I asked, but I already knew. Who else was able to get in and out of the south parlor?

  “Why bother going to the office?” Deon asked. “Since Flendar doesn’t know where Derek is.”

  Innon hugged his knees. “No, but I bet you that spy’s report says where she got her information. We have to find that out if we can—we need to find out everything Flendar knows, in case it can help Peitar and Derek. And since we know where Flendar will be tonight, this is the best time to look in his office.”

  I started packing my tools as Deon said, “Since I found tonight’s caper, you have to tell me if you like the beginning of my song. You’ve all heard ‘The Weaver Maid and the Suitors’ by now, right?”

  “Everyone is singing it,” Bren said.

  Deon clasped her hands. “You know how it goes, then.

  “I knew a merry weaver,

  Who liked a handsome lad.

  ’Twas the season of spring fever,

  When love makes all run mad. . . .”

  Bren made a face. I crawled into our changing corner to put on my dark clothes. Deon said, “I want to describe the Buckets in a funny way that will make them mad, and make our people want to sing it. Beginning with ‘King Dirty Hands the Beanpole . . .’”

  Her verse described how scrawny he was, his mud- colored hair, and his chin like a garden spade. After she finished, I said, “Did you mean that to sound like Peitar?”

  Her eyes widened. “What?”

  “I thought so, too,” said Bren. “Daen, you’d only have to add a line about a crooked leg—and you know that someone on the Buckets’ side will.”

  She groaned. “I didn’t! So how can I make it clear my insults are about the Buckets?”

  I thought back to something Adamas Dei and Lasva had both said: Bind people with a need, and the binding is strong. Bind them with a cause greater than immediate need, and the bond is the strongest. “Can’t it be about freedom, instead of insults?”

  “But insults are fun,” she protested. “Freedom? What do you say about freedom outside of ‘I want it’? It’s a good thing to have, but it’s boring to sing about. People remember insults.”

  “You can say a lot,” Innon began.

  I pulled my kitchen tunic over my dark clothes, grabbed my tools—including a candle and sparker—
and left them arguing.

  four

  This time, I was determined not to blunder ahead without thinking.

  On the way to the palace, I rehearsed what I’d say. I would be confronted by guards, and my only hope was to rely on being known as the spit-boy. When I got to the gates, I tried to act confident, though I was so scared my knees wobbled.

  “Who are you?” came a woman’s voice, deep and unfriendly.

  I quavered, “I’m the day spit-boy. Mirah-cook wanted me back. For the night. For early morning cooking. Because the fires get put out on account of the heat, but when I got home, I was so tired I fell asleep.”

  My interrogators were in shadow while I stood in the light of many torches, feeling horribly exposed. How could they not see the dark clothes under my tunic, and my tools? Surely they knew I was lying.

  After what felt like a thousand years, a man said, “Yes, that’s the spit-boy. Let him through.”

  The gate creaked open. “Don’t be out after curfew again,” he continued, not unkindly. “We might think you’re leading a pack of rebels.” He shook his longbow as the other guards chuckled.

  I hurried to the kitchen staff quarters, listening at each window until I heard Mirah’s voice, and whispered her name.

  She opened the curtains. “What? You’d better have a good reason—”

  “I do, but I must be fast.”

  I climbed in her window. Nina was there, too. “I have to get in and out of Flendar’s office as quick as I can.” Mirah gave me a hard look, until I told her what we’d found out.

  Nina pressed her hands together. “Oh, child, how can we—”

  “Quiet!” Mirah said fiercely. “Let me think. I take it you know how to get in?” When I nodded, she said, “Come back here as soon as you are done.”

  I left my tunic with her, cat-footed through the dark halls to the archive room, slipped in, and sprang the fireplace catch. Then I felt my way along the narrow passage until I reached the end: the south parlor.