Trickster's Choice

by Tamora Pierce

  “Can’t we go in the morning?” asked Dunevon. “This cloak’s hot.”

  Bronau chuckled without humor. “Actually, sire, it must be now. Uncle Rubinyan and Aunt Imajane want to send me to Carthak. If I go there, I’d never see my favorite little king again. I’d rather take you sailing now.” He raised Dunevon’s hood and tightened it until the child’s face was barely visible.

  “But it’s too hot,” complained the boy, flailing under the garment’s heavy folds. “I don’t need a cloak. I don’t want to go sailing now. Aunt Imajane promised I could have jugglers if I ate all my supper.”

  “Well, I have supper waiting on the boat,” said Bronau, picking the boy up once more. “We’ll find you jugglers even if you don’t eat your supper. Dunevon, just hold still and do as you’re bid!”

  “I don’t want to!” wailed the boy, his eyes filling with tears. “I want jugglers now, and my belly hurts!”

  Bronau clapped a hand over Dunevon’s mouth. “That’s not all that will hurt if you don’t be quiet!” he snapped.

  The two dogs had stopped their play when Bronau came in. Dunevon’s greeting had told them this was no stranger, but their manner changed the moment he began to cry. They barked shrilly, advancing as their young master fought Bronau’s grip. Suddenly Dunevon shuddered with the effect of too many sweets on a young stomach. He vomited into the hand Bronau held over his mouth.

  The man reacted just as Aly would have done: he swore and dropped Dunevon, holding his drenched hand out. “You disgusting little brat!” he cried, trying to clean himself on a tapestry. “You did that on purpose!”

  Dunevon ran across the room, screaming as he wept. The door burst open, revealing a handful of guards. Beyond them Aly saw a bottle of wine and a pair of dice on the floor, explaining why they hadn’t checked on their king until now.

  “Halt in the king’s name!” cried one of them, fighting to get clear of his fellows so he could draw his sword.

  “Halt!” yelled another guard.

  Bronau looked at Dunevon. The boy was out of his reach now. The guards planted themselves between him and his quarry. He started to draw his sword, reconsidered, then fled through the secret door. The guards poured after him, leaving the sick king to scream alone.

  “Is he mad?” whispered Aly. “He just tried to kidnap the king!”

  “Not mad, necessarily.” Kyprioth’s glowing form materialized beside Aly. “Hungry for power, which Imajane and Rubinyan will never give him. If he can’t get it here, he will try to find it elsewhere. Those who search for him will bring power in their train, power they will bring to bear on anyone who tries to help Bronau. So, now, Aly of Tortall. We come to the days when you shall win or lose our wager—”

  He stopped abruptly as two bright forms appeared before them, shining so fiercely that Aly shaded her eyes. They solidified until she could tell that they were male and female, and make out their features. The man, black-skinned and powerfully built, a crown like the rays of the sun blazing on his head, wore gold armor and carried a spear. The woman was bare-breasted in the style of the priestesses of old Ekallatum, with a bell-like skirt hanging from its bodice. The crown atop her tumble of dark, wavy locks blazed silver like the moon. Immense snakes twined around her bare arms.

  “Brother, what is it that you do here?” they demanded, their attention on Kyprioth. Aly clapped her hands over her mouth to prevent herself from screaming. The divine voices and presences tore through her ghostlike body, shredding her like ancient silk.

  Mithros—he could only be Mithros, Aly knew—added, “We left you the seas that cradle this place, and the seas alone.” His voice rolled like horses at the stampede, hammering Aly’s ears. Daggers of pain thrust into her skull as she fought to keep from fainting.

  “We have been occupied with affairs on the other side of this world. Now we return to find you in the Rajmuat palace, which is no part of the sea.” Aly’s mother had described the Goddess’s voice as the belling of hounds and the bugle of hunting horns. To Aly it was more like the shriek of triumphant eagles and the slow, whispering glide of snakes on rock. Her knees wanted to give way, demanding that she kneel. She would not do it. It was one thing to kneel to the Black God, who would take her in hand one day. It was another to kneel to the pair who had done the raka such a terrible wrong when they supported the luarin conquest.

  Aly fought. She trembled as she summoned all of her willpower to stay upright. They were gods, but she was not sworn to them. She would not collapse in a heap.

  “Should brothers and sisters suspect wrongdoing at every turn?” asked Kyprioth. “Are you so unsure—”

  Aly kicked him. Later, when she was herself again, she would question her sanity, and wonder how his glowing body felt the kick from her insubstantial leg. Right now she saw only that all three brilliant heads turned their attention to her.

  She followed her instincts. She smiled, bowed deeply to the Great Goddess and Mithros, and said in a tone her father would know quite well, “Begging your pardons, O Great Gods, ruler of we mortals, but I ask that you forgive my father’s friend and patron.” Kyprioth had said he’d worked with her da, after all. Remembering to speak only the truth, she continued, “At present I am deeply interested in the politics in Rajmuat—vitally interested, I should say. If my time here is to be well spent, I should understand how things work. These Isles have long been a factor in Tortall’s politics—” She cut herself off carefully. She dared not play this too broadly, or they might suspect a rat. Humbly she continued, “What am I saying? You are the Great Gods. You know what there is here to know. Forgive me, I beg—I am flustered, standing before you. You divine brother Kyprioth is my father’s patron. He has been helping me to understand the Isles. Since I was stranded on Lombyn with the mortals I presently serve, Kyprioth generously gave me this chance to observe the change in kingship.” There, she thought, wondering if her insubstantial face was sweaty. I spoke only the truth.

  She kept her head down; the light of the gods’ faces hurt her ghostly eyes in any case. Glowing fingers pressed her chin up and forced her to gaze into eyes as green as emeralds, as measureless as the Royal Forest in high summer. “I can look into your heart, Alianne of Pirate’s Swoop,” the Goddess said, her voice making Aly shiver. “I can see if you lie.”

  Aly stepped away from that hand, whose touch burned even her unreal body. Once again she bowed respectfully. “Great Mother, you know I speak the truth,” she said, choosing her words with immense care. “You could see the lie on me. If you know the family I serve, you understand how important it is that they know of Hazarin’s death and Bronau’s treason.” Not for nothing had she listened to Aunt Daine! “Forgive me, Great Mother. I don’t mean to be disobliging. Your divine brother Kyprioth knows the danger to the family I serve. He brought me here to see these things at first hand.”

  It was hard to read the Goddess’s alabaster features in the blaze of her glory. Still, Aly could have sworn the Goddess raised her brows and pursed her mouth. Aly knew that expression from her mother: Alanna looked that way when she had a suspicion that someone was not being honest with her. “Your mother is dedicated to me,” she pointed out.

  Aly bowed yet again. “That is true, Great Goddess, but I am too much like my father. I must follow his path, in service to the Trickster.”

  “You are very like your father,” the Great Mother said at last, her voice shuddering through Aly. “It is the kind of prank he would play.”

  “No prank, Goddess,” Aly assured her. “What I do here is entirely serious.”

  “Enough,” said Mithros impatiently, his voice sounding in the marrow of Aly’s bones. “The Teasai on the other side of the world strike their gongs in the call for war. Their women beg you, my sister, for the strength to fight their city’s enemies.” To Kyprioth he said, “When we made peace nearly three human centuries past, you lost your eminence here. Do not think we will take it well if you break that peace.”

  “Brother,” Kypri
oth said reproachfully as he spread his hands, the picture of glowing innocence, “surely I know when I have been beaten.”

  The universe around them wrenched. When Aly could see clearly again, Mithros and the Goddess had vanished.

  She looked at Kyprioth. From the movement of his light-shape, she could tell he was stroking his beard in thought. She poked his glowing ribs with her ghostly elbow. “You owe me,” she informed him.

  “I know that,” Kyprioth replied slowly. “Well, never let it be said that I do not return favor for favor. Shall I free you from our wager? Take you home and speak to your father on your behalf? Then neither of us will owe the other.”

  Aly pursed her lips. “How can I trust you?”

  “I owe you. Even tricksters must pay what they owe.”

  Aly thought about it. To be home again, without this metal ring around her neck; to have Da give her the chance she yearned for—those would be fine things. The Scanran war was dragging to its end. Soon her mother would return, as would Aunt Daine and Uncle Numair and the baby. There would be hot baths and the newest fashions. As the warriors came home the capital would light up with celebrations. Aly could read books, laze about, dress like a girl of property once more. She could even speak her mind instead of manipulating people.

  She smiled and shook her head, trying to imagine the butterfly self she was among the men of the court. Instead she saw Winnamine and Mequen, Sarai and Dove, Ulasim and Chenaol. Nawat would come back to Tortall with her, but Lokeij and Junai would not. And Kyprioth had hinted Bronau would bring danger to Tanair.

  “No,” she said at last, “a bet’s a bet. You don’t wiggle out of this one that easily. And if I win the bet, you pay what was wagered, and you still owe me.”

  Kyprioth sighed. “You drive a hard bargain, Aly.”

  Before she could ask him if he was trying to pull the wool over her eyes, he swept her up in a glowing arm and shot into the air, through the palace roof. They were on their way north again.

  Something occurred to her as they rose into the air over the city. Her mother was the Goddess’s chosen. Why hadn’t the Goddess known she was missing? Aly knew her mother wouldn’t have wasted all this time, knowing she could call on the Goddess and not doing so. Kyprioth, Aly realized. “Why hasn’t the Goddess come for me?” she asked the god. “What did you do? You can’t tell me that Mother hasn’t been praying to her for a glimpse of my whereabouts.”

  “I wasn’t going to deny it,” replied the god. “You know I dare not let my sister find out what I’m up to. I would be thousands of years coming back from where she and my brother would send me. One of my friends keeps your lovely mother company. She catches your mother’s prayers and keeps them for me.”

  “You’d better hope Mother never finds out, or you’ll have worse than your sister and brother to contend with,” Aly told him. “You don’t want the Lioness hunting for you.”

  “I know that,” Kyprioth said. “I assure you, I am being quite careful.”

  Aly said nothing more as they traveled. Instead she reviewed the various combinations of results that might come from the events she had just witnessed. Bronau had planned to ask Hazarin to recall the Balitangs. Now Hazarin was dead. How friendly would Imajane and Mequen be to the Balitangs?

  She dared not underestimate Bronau. He was now more dangerous than ever, as a man on the run and in disgrace, possibly declared a traitor. Whatever had driven him to such a harebrained stunt? Surely he knew he couldn’t escape the palace with a three-year-old, even if he did know secret passages?

  Why hadn’t Bronau waited? Once his brother and sister-in-law were settled in their regency, they would have been less vigilant for unrest. Bronau could have gathered and bribed followers in his own time, ensuring his ability to seize power without taking unnecessary chances. Now he would be hunted the length and breadth of the Copper Isles. The new regents would view all of his friends with suspicion. The Balitangs would be among the first to draw their attention, since they had housed Bronau only weeks before.

  The raka would need more patrols at Tanair. She would have to talk to Ulasim and Fesgao about that. With Ochobu and Aly to make sure no spies were brought into their ranks, the raka could expand their unofficial army.

  She hardly noticed when she popped back into her body. Her planning stopped only when true sleep washed over her.

  You asked me why the king doesn’t just call on the gods for help with Scanra. We mustn’t get too dependent on the gods. On the day before King Jonathan’s coronation, the Great Mother Goddess spoke of a crossroads in time, when not even the gods can predict how things might go. At such times they must step away and let us deal with things. It’s a blessing, in a way. It evens the balance and saves us mortals from being the gods’ puppets. Still, it’s hard to think of it as a blessing when you’re frightened, you don’t know why, and all you want is for the god to tell you what the bad thing is so you can hunt it down and kill it.

  —From a letter to Aly when she was fourteen,

  from her mother

  15

  WINGED MESSENGER

  When Aly woke at last, her muscles screamed in protest as she tried to sit up. Her mouth tasted disgusting. Her teeth felt as if they had a thick coating of slime. She was lying on a cot in a house that had whitewashed walls.

  “How long?” Her question emerged from her throat as a croak. She looked around stiffly. They had brought her back from Inti and put her in Tanair’s makeshift infirmary.

  Nawat, asleep on a chair by the door, was startled into wakefulness. He raced across to Aly and touched her face. “I am very angry with the god for keeping you so long,” he said, his dark eyes worried.

  Aly smiled at him. “It was very instructive, though,” she whispered.

  Nawat kissed her swiftly on the mouth, then raced out the door. When he returned, he brought Ochobu with him.

  “How long was I away?” she asked the old mage.

  Ochobu sat on the cot’s edge and lifted one of Aly’s eyelids. “Five days,” she said. She checked Aly’s other eye. “We carried you home on a litter. You need a bath.” She rose and looked down at Aly, her old eyes as unreadable as a god’s. “Is it bad, what he showed you?”

  “Bad enough,” Aly admitted. “I’ll need to talk to Ulasim and the others right away. I don’t care what they’re doing. Are Their Graces about?”

  “The duchess and the children help Chenaol to put up fruit and vegetables against the winter,” Ochobu replied. “The duke is in the village. He oversees all the new building here.”

  “They can wait until tonight, I think,” Aly said, rubbing her temples. “But I need Ulasim, Chenaol, Lokeij, Fesgao, and you, as soon as I’m cleaned up. We need to prepare for serious trouble.”

  For two weeks after Hazarin’s death and Bronau’s attempt to kidnap Dunevon Aly roamed. She covered Tanair’s castle and village on her own, then rode all over the plateau in the company of Sarai, Dove, and their guards. It was a relief to leave the keep each day. After hearing the circumstances around Hazarin’s death, Aly’s news about the change in government and Bronau’s rashness, Mequen and Winnamine seemed burdened, as if someone in the house had died. The adults understood that a nation with a child king was vulnerable to rebellion and trouble from its enemies. Sarai was furious that Bronau would frighten a child so badly. Dove’s opinions stayed behind the younger girl’s dark eyes.

  Ulasim had recruited another raka patrol, but the harvest had begun, and every hand was needed to bring it in. Tanair winters were harsh. The crops had to be brought in and food laid up. Aly understood the thin line between poverty and starvation. Harvest at Pirate’s Swoop was always a scramble, one in which the baron’s entire family worked in the fields. Despite knowing that, Aly had to struggle to hide her impatience with the raka. Bronau was on the loose, with the regents searching for him. If she had an army to keep the Balitangs safe, she would still wonder if she had planned for everything.

  Aly calculated the tim
e it would take Bronau to reach Lombyn. It would be a week if his passage was as swift as the Balitangs’ had been. To that she added a handful of days on the road, assuming he landed on the western coast, or a week if he came from Dimari. When a third week passed with no sign of the renegade prince, Aly relaxed slightly. Perhaps Bronau had been captured. Or perhaps he had decided that Tanair was the first place his enemies would look for him.

  Waiting for something to happen, Aly met with the raka conspirators each night to review their arrangements and hear their news. She also visited Nawat to hear what the crows had to report. Only with Nawat could Aly enjoy the summer’s calm. The nights were getting cool, but it was warm at Nawat’s side. Once he finished with the news, he taught Aly the names the crows had for the stars, the different types of cloud, and the moon. The only thing that had the same name for crows as it did for humans was the constellation known as the Cat.

  “My mother knew the Cat,” Aly confided. “At least, that’s what she told me when I was a little girl. That the star-Cat became a mortal one, and taught her things as she grew up. It was my favorite story, even if it wasn’t true.”

  “Why should it not be true?” Nawat asked. “The Cat is a god of sorts. He makes his own decisions to help or to hinder two-leggers.” He put an arm around Aly.

  She leaned into his hold, not thinking, then tugged away. “Nawat!” she exclaimed. “What is that supposed to be?”

  “Don’t you like it?” he asked. “Fesgao does it to Tulpa the miller’s daughter, and she nestles against him.”

  “I’m not Tulpa,” Aly insisted. “Besides, I can’t be distracted.” She got to her feet hurriedly and thanked all the gods that she did not blush as easily as her mother did. “Nestling is very distracting.”

  “I know.” Nawat got to his feet, resting his hands on her shoulders. “You are Aly, who guards us all.” He bent down and kissed her slowly and sweetly. Aly clung to him because she was afraid to try to stand on knees gone to jelly. At last Nawat released her. “Good night,” he said cheerfully. He walked out through the inner courtyard gate, on his way home to Falthin.