Trickster's Choice

by Tamora Pierce

  Chenaol nodded and beckoned to Hasui. Aly left to wash up.

  She ate in the shadows at the foot of the stair, her supper cheese and venison slices jammed into a cut roll. All seemed normal on the dais. Bronau, seated between Winnamine and Sarai, plied the duchess with his usual easy flow of conversation and compliments. He seemed to ignore Sarai next to him.

  Sarai, too, tried to pretend interest in Dove, seated next to her, and in her food, but she wasn’t good at it. A blush mantled her cheeks. She had put a jeweled chain as a band around her forehead, with a citrine droplet dangling at its center. Citrines glinted from her earlobes. Her pale yellow silk dress had a neckline properly meant for court dinners, not country ones. A gold chain with a large gold-tinted pearl drew attention to the shadow between her breasts.

  Aly shook her head. If ever a girl was dressed for an assignation, it was Sarai. Aly could have taught her a thing or two about sneaking away to meet a man. Everyone in the room suspected, particularly her parents. She couldn’t wait to see how the girl would get away from her family.

  Getting to her feet at the end of the meal, Sarai stumbled, bumping into Bronau. He fell sideways against Winnamine as the duchess raised her wine cup to her lips. Wine spilled down the front of Winnamine’s rose-colored gown.

  As servants, Bronau, and Mequen scrambled to help the duchess, Sarai quietly ducked out through the servants’ door behind the dais. Aly had guessed that would be her way out. She entered the passage through another door under the shadow of the stair. On this level the hall passed around the outer wall, allowing servants to bring dishes or messages to the dais without being seen by everyone in the room. The servants’ stairs to the upper floors also ended here. The ground floor level had two exits, one directly into the kitchen, one to the outdoor area where Nawat had brought down the pair of would-be assassins.

  To the left of the outside door lay the ladies’ garden, a small green oasis with a fountain, flowers, and trees tucked between the castle and keep walls, in a spot that drew sunlight every day. Its edges were planted with pines and ferns, which made it seem like part of a forest. The plants also gave Aly cover to hide in as Sarai arranged herself on the broad lip of the fountain. With the approach of night the garden was deep in shadow. The only light came from torches on a walkway on the outer curtain wall. In these conditions Aly got so close to Sarai that she could hear the girl’s dress rustle as she fidgeted. Aly settled down to wait.

  The musical part of the evening’s entertainment in the great hall had begun when Bronau came down the flagstone path. “Sarai, my dear.” His voice was warm and soft, intimate.

  Sarai’s dress whispered as she got to her feet. “Your Highness, good evening.”

  Bronau chuckled. He kissed Sarai’s hand and sat on the lip of the fountain, pulling her down beside him. “That was very clever. I’m not sure Winna will thank you, but I don’t believe anyone noticed you left in all the excitement.”

  “You said you had something important and private to discuss,” Sarai pointed out shyly.

  “But I am distracted by the music of your voice, those lovely eyes, the sweet curve of your lips . . .”

  Aly couldn’t see, but she didn’t need to. Sarai’s quiet gasp, cut off abruptly, and the rustle of silk, painted a clear picture of a kiss. Oh, dear me, Aly thought, shaking her head. Making up to your host’s daughter—bad prince! Now, why do you suppose he’s doing it on the sly? He’s not married, and her parents are his friends. He could probably get permission from His Grace to court Sarai.

  “My lord prince!” Sarai was definitely flustered. “It’s so improper!”

  “I know. I apologize.” Bronau’s voice was a little hoarse. “My feelings carried me away. To watch you ride, to see you among your devoted subjects, like a true queen—none of Oron’s wives were as graceful or as gracious as you. Don’t look so alarmed. No one can hear us.”

  “But you talk something like treason, Your Highness,” Sarai warned gently. “I am no queen, only the daughter of a disgraced nobleman.”

  “But if I asked you to be queen of my heart?”

  Aly crinkled her nose with distaste. She had sighed over speeches like that one in the stories she had read and the romantic ballads she had heard. In real life they sounded tawdry. He was a prince of the realm, nearly twenty years older than Sarai. How could he talk like a minstrel performing for ladies in a bower? Did he think Sarai had no brains or honor?

  “Your Highness, why have you not asked my father’s permission to address me in such terms?” Sarai asked. Her voice was small but firm. “He is your friend. So is my stepmother. For that matter, you used to court Winna.”

  “Ah.” Bronau’s chuckle had an embarrassed sound. “To be honest, I hadn’t meant to get so carried away, truly. But my feelings . . . The affection I had for Winna was that of practicality. She was a widow and my friend, I had found no true love, so I offered her a marriage of friendship. I thank the gods now that she preferred Mequen.”

  Don’t fall for this dolt, Aly silently begged Sarai. I’ll bet he wrote all these pretty speeches down and memorized them so he could make any maiden swoon all over him.

  Unaware of his hidden critic, Bronau continued to talk. “I escaped love for years, only to be plunged into it when I thought myself immune. I need to know from your own beautiful lips: would you be averse to a union with me? You would be queen of my heart in truth, and I would put the world at your feet.”

  Sarai’s hesitation was marked. Aly raised an eyebrow, fascinated. Back in Tortall, she herself had sighed with the feelings of kisses and strong arms, yet she was still practical. The boys who had courted her had called her cold-blooded. Now it seemed that she and Sarai had that in common: that their hearts could be racing as their heads remained cool. “Your Highness,” Sarai murmured at last, “I cannot bring glory to your name. Tanair and a few estates like it are my only inheritance. You have seen how poor it is.”

  “I care nothing for your fortune, Sarai,” Bronau said. There was enough passion in his quiet voice to almost convince Aly. “So I am an impractical fool. Certainly Rubinyan and that human Stormwing he married think so. But I would rather have a woman I loved than the plumpest heiress in the Isles. Unless . . .” His passion faded audibly, with a trained actor’s precision. “The difference in our ages . . .”

  “Oh, no, Highness, that’s not it at all!” Sarai’s emotion was not calculated. She spoke from the heart. “How could I—a man so alive as you—”

  There was the movement of cloth, the catch of breath, sighs and murmurs. Aly pushed back her cuticles, then carefully cleaned under her nails, waiting for conversation to start again. Bronau would do no more than kiss Sarai, not when there was a chance a sentry would look down from the parapet and see them.

  At last Bronau asked, his voice rough, “Will you marry me, enchantress? Will you let me make you queen of the world?”

  Sarai was panting. Aly envied her; she liked kissing, too.

  At last Sarai managed to say, “Your Highness, I am not free to choose. If my father says I may . . . He’s your friend, he won’t refuse us if that’s what we want.”

  Bronau hesitated. At last he said, “I cannot ask him. Not yet. I am under suspicion, as are you. Oron might see a union between us as a threat.”

  “He sees everything as a threat,” Sarai reminded him.

  “When I am in favor at court again, I will ask Mequen for your hand—if you wish to give it.” Another stifled gasp. Aly wondered if they were going to do this all night.

  “I’ll go back first,” Bronau said. “Give me time to reach my rooms before you return. And thank you, for giving me hope.”

  Judging by the movement of shadows beyond her screen of ferns, Aly suspected Bronau kissed Sarai’s hands, then her mouth, one last time before he left the garden. Now she also noticed that the ground under her was damp. The duchess would skin her for getting another tunic dirty.

  “That wasn’t very wise,” a small, clear voi
ce—Dove’s—announced. “And it was extremely improper, letting him get you alone. People would say you aren’t very well brought up.”

  “What do you know?” Sarai retorted, sounding like a cross sixteen-year-old, not a gently bred maiden swept away by her lover’s kisses. “You’re only twelve. And you’re not in the least romantic.”

  “Good.” Firm steps sounded on the earth. A rustle of cloth announced that Dove was sitting by her sister.

  “Besides,” Sarai added, “I had a chaperon. Didn’t I, Aly?”

  Aly giggled and stood. “How did you know?” she asked.

  “I just guessed,” Sarai replied. She and Dove were making sure her hair was tucked up and neatly pinned once more.

  “Why did you let them do that?” Dove wanted to know, bending around Sarai to glare at Aly. “It was so shameful.”

  “Hmph,” Sarai replied with a sniff. She tugged a lock of hair out of Dove’s hold when she tossed her head. “Wait until you’re my age and the blood’s hot in your veins. He’s very handsome, and charming—”

  “And he’s old,” Dove interrupted. “It was disgusting.”

  “He’s a man of the world,” Sarai informed her sister, her nose in the air.

  “So he’s twice as likely to get you pregnant as a boy your own age who loves you and doesn’t know what he’s doing. That’s what Chenaol says,” Dove snapped.

  “Dovasary Temaida Balitang!” cried Sarai, shocked. “Never say Chenaol told that to you!”

  “No,” Dove said, her chin thrust out mulishly. “She said it to one of the maids who’s got one of Bronau’s servants chasing her, but it means the same for you, doesn’t it?”

  “He never mentioned his debts,” Aly pointed out, brushing a clump of moss from the front of her tunic.

  Sarai drooped and sighed. “No, he didn’t. And he didn’t talk to Papa first. But Aly, I think he’s serious about the marriage.”

  Aly propped her chin on her hands. “I do, too,” she admitted. “And it makes me uncomfortable. I hope it makes you uncomfortable. Or wary, at least.”

  Sarai laughed. “I don’t need to be wary,” she said, elbowing Aly. “I have you and Dove for that.”

  Aly smiled evilly at Sarai, showing teeth. “But not for explaining to Their Graces where you have been since supper. You may tell them Dove and I were present, of course, but we won’t be there to sweeten the discussion for you.”

  Sarai looked from Aly to Dove, who gave her a grin identical to Aly’s. “I’m going to read in the library for a while,” she told Sarai. “I’ll come upstairs later.”

  Aly inhaled deeply. “I believe I’ll enjoy the cool air for a bit,” she said, her voice light. “Summer nights are so lovely.”

  “All right for you two,” Sarai told them sharply. She got to her feet. “I may as well get it over with. And I’ll remember this!” She flounced down the flagstone path.

  “She always surprises me,” Dove remarked. “She didn’t try to tell you that you’re a slave, so you have to go with her.”

  “No, she didn’t, and she could have,” Aly admitted. “Most would have.”

  Dove sighed. “That’s Sarai for you. Just when you want to shake her until her teeth rattle, she does something like that.” She stood. “I really do mean to read for a while.”

  “And I really do mean to sit,” replied Aly. She watched the younger girl leave, her soft leather shoes making no sound on the path. Sometimes talking to Dove was nearly as good as talking to Da or Aunt Daine.

  She remembered the time her mother had caught her kissing at a party for Prince Roald’s engagement, and grinned. The boy had fled, not wanting to deal with Aly’s mother when she seemed so displeased. “Now look what you’ve done,” Aly had reproved Alanna when the boy was out of earshot. “It’ll take me weeks to train another one to kiss like I want him to.”

  “Kisses are serious things,” Alanna had retorted. “You talk of them as if they’re party favors.”

  Aly had kissed her mother on the cheek. “They’re serious for you, Mother,” she’d said. “They’re party favors for me.”

  It was worth the scolding that followed, about Aly’s lack of seriousness, to see the shock on the Lioness’s face, and to see her mother realize that kisses didn’t have to be serious. Of course, when Alanna had been in her best kissing years, Aly remembered, most people had thought she was a boy. Boys were never as free with kisses among other boys.

  She sighed. They had the blood of Trebond in their veins, yet she and her mother were so different. She wondered if Alanna had ever noticed that. She definitely needed Da to remind her that life could be fun.

  “Was he mate feeding her?”

  Aly looked up at the fringe tree across the bowl of the fountain. “Nawat,” she said, resigned more than surprised. Of course he would be here.

  Nawat leaped to the ground and circled the fountain to sit next to Aly. “Is that mate feeding?” he asked. “It didn’t look as if he transferred food to her tongue pouch, but it is hard to tell in the dark. I’ve seen other humans do it, only not this close to me. They do it in shadows, as if it’s a secret.”

  “It’s kissing,” Aly explained, her mind half on how she had missed his presence in the tree and half on what she was saying. “Two people touch lips. It’s mating behavior, but it’s not mate feeding. It’s—”

  Nawat turned his head sideways and pressed his lips to Aly’s. His mouth was soft and warm, his breath lightly scented with spices, his smell clean, with hints of beeswax and wood oils from his work. Aly’s usually distant and observing mind focused completely on the feeling of his mouth against hers. She dimly felt Nawat hesitate. Then he brushed his hand against the side of her neck and cradled the back of her head as he deepened the kiss.

  Someone laughed in the distance. Aly jumped to her feet as if launched from a catapult. “Yes, you’ve got the idea, but you should really practice on someone else,” she told him, trembling from head to toe, furious with herself because, after all, she had been kissed before. “Somebody who isn’t so busy, or, or busy . . .”

  Nawat looked up at her, smiling slightly. For the first time there was something in his gaze that was human, and very male. “You said busy twice,” he pointed out.

  “I’m very busy,” Aly retorted. She stopped and caught her breath. What was the matter with her? She was no blossoming girl-child, with no experience or sense of proportion. She calmed down. “But you can see, it’s not mate feeding. Still, it’s very serious, Nawat. You shouldn’t go around kissing just anybody.”

  Now she sounded like her mother. Aly turned and strode down the path, away from the crow-man. She was doing her best to pretend that she was not running away. How could she care enough about this to run from someone who became a human male through sheer curiosity, who would eventually tire of it and return to his own shape? And why did she care if he wouldn’t be around one day?

  The next morning the merchant caravan left for Dimari. Aly and Ulasim, along with thirty raka and part-raka, surrounded the caravan when it reached the area where the road east cut through the rocks at the edge of Tanair. Gurhart and his people obeyed orders to step away from their mounts and wagons, plainly terrified of these masked and hooded riders. As soon as the travelers were seated under guard by the road’s edge, Ulasim’s people began to search the wagons and horses. Following Aly’s instructions of that morning, they combed through the caravan, then its people.

  Aly, sweltering in her mask, followed Ulasim up and down the line of carts, horses, and people. She took care of the tricky bits herself as she taught Ulasim what she knew of caches and secret hiding places. Bronau’s letters to his creditors were in Gurhart’s own mailbag, as were letters from the Balitangs, their servants, and their men-at-arms. Aly glanced over these in case she had missed anything, but they were straightforward enough. Soon they found the other letters, Bronau’s to his brother’s enemies, and all of the reports sent out by the royal spies and Rubinyan’s spies. Those were con
fiscated and burned. Aly would not risk word of anything unusual finding its way to Rajmuat. The merchants would tell what they had seen and could remember, but the worst piece of information they possessed was that Bronau sheltered with the Balitangs. Unless any spies in the caravan were very good and had been able to read the coded documents, they would have no other information that might alert a suspicious spymaster.

  When the searchers finished, they helped the merchants to reassemble the caravan, then saw them on their way. No one would get the chance to sneak back and tell the castle’s spies that they had been robbed of information.

  “You scare me sometimes, little one,” Ulasim remarked as he watched the caravan’s dust settle in its wake.

  Aly yanked off the stifling hood that had covered her face and slave collar. “You’re going to make me conceited,” she replied with a grin. “I’m going to blush, I know it.”

  “My people are not happy about Bronau’s pursuit of our lady Sarai,” he told her as the raka patrols returned to their day’s work. “The Jimajen line is as corrupt as the king’s.”

  “Tell them not to fret,” Aly said. “Sarai’s no fool.”

  Not long after she dozed off that night, Aly saw a glowing figure walk through the soft gray curtain between her and dreams. It was Kyprioth. Although the god appeared in her mind’s eye only as a glowing figure with arms and legs, she was still sure it was him.

  “Hello, there.” His voice sounded in her ear, clear, friendly, and crisp. “Would you like to go for a short trip?”

  “Am I going to be tired in the morning?” she demanded. “You know, I do work during the day.”

  “And you shall be as fresh for it as a sea breeze,” Kyprioth replied. “Look.”

  Aly looked. There was her body, deep in slumber on her pallet. She stood on air beside the god. “Very well. What kind of trip?” she asked.

  Kyprioth put a strong, surprisingly real arm around her ghost self’s waist and told her, “You’ll see. It’s going to be instructive, trust me on that.”