by Mindy Klasky
Alana muttered a few more protests, but she already knew that she was not likely to win against Elspeth’s carefully orchestrated campaign. Swallowing a grimace, she fell back with Kari.
“Why are we waiting in this line?” the child asked immediately.
“So that the soldiers can inspect the cart.”
“Why do they want to inspect the cart?”
“To make sure that your parents pay duty on the goods they’re going to sell.”
“Why do they have to pay duty?”
“So that Duke Coren can save the land from marauding outlanders.”
“Oh.”
Alana stared at Kari with suspicion, not quite believing that she had dammed the flow of questions with her bitter answer. The little girl looked at Alana’s cloth-bulged belly, then up at the woodsinger’s face. She seemed about to speak, but then swallowed her words with unexpected tact. The pair edged forward quietly, one cart length. Another.
“Lani?”
Alana braced herself. “Yes, Kari.”
“Will Duke Coren ride for you? Will he kill the bad men who killed your husband?”
Alana’s voice was deadly chill, and she hoped the child would accept her warning tone. “Duke Coren rides for whomever he chooses. There’s no telling whom he’ll kill.”
Of course, Kari missed the meaning behind the words, and a moment later she launched a new string of questions. Why were the city walls made of stone? Why were there only two soldiers inspecting wagons? Why did they unload all the goods from that wagon over there? Why? Why? Why?
Alana fell into the rhythm of the game, phrasing her answers to provoke new and absurd questions. All the while, Elspeth fussed over the carpenters’ load, tightening ropes, shifting goods, trying to make the market wares seem smaller, less important, less worthy of paying a tax.
At last, they approached Market Gate and even Kari fell silent as a tall soldier strode over. With a practiced hand, he tugged at one of the tarps, unveiling a stack of low tables. Nodding to himself, he continued his inspection, kneeling down on the road to view the short stools that were lashed behind the wagon. Elspeth endured the inspection silently, and Alana could imagine the woman counting out coins for each discovered item.
Only after the soldier had circled the entire wagon did he step up to Elspeth’s husband. “That will be fifty sous for the duty and one gold crown for lying to the king.”
“Fifty!” Elspeth’s shriek was as shrill as any ale-wife’s. “Do you think my wares are made of gold? And when have I ever lied? And what king are you collecting fines for?”
“We’ll have a king soon enough, after the Service is complete. Pay your dues, woman. You have four ladders hidden beneath your wagon. I’m already being lenient about that table. I can see the fourth leg is broken, but I’ll not charge you with shoddy goods. We’ll just call it a three-legged stand.”
“As if you’re any sort of expert on third legs!” Elspeth retorted angrily, turning her rage into a leer and an obscene gesture.
“I could have you unload this entire wagon, here and now,” the soldier barked.
“I’d like to see you order that, with all these fine people waiting behind us!” Elspeth planted her fists in the small of her back, forcing her swollen belly out even farther. “I’d like those merchants to view the king’s justice!”
Elspeth dripped sarcasm into the word “king,” eyeing the restless crowd that wound down the road. Before the furious guard could retort, his fellow glided up to Alana. “And you, mistress? Are you with these carpenters?”
Alana winced. Elspeth had her own troubles now; she wasn’t likely to lie for the woodsinger. Even as Alana struggled for some response, Kari chimed in. “Of course she is! Aunt Lani, tell the man who you are!”
The guard waited with a look of scarce-bridled patience. “Aye.” Alana managed not to look at Kari with too much admiration. “That is my husband’s sister there.”
“And where’s your man?”
Alana let a little of her nervousness drip into her words, seasoning her tone with a hint of tears. “In the cold ground, kind sir. He was slain almost a month ago.”
“My uncle Ronan!” Kari wailed, and real tears coursed down her cheeks.
“Hush, now.” Alana fluttered over the child.
The soldier had the good grace to look embarrassed, but he pressed the woodsinger: “You’ll be paying the duty, then, along with your kin?”
“You talk to my mum about money,” Kari responded through her blubbering. “Aunt Lani, why won’t this man leave us alone?”
“Kari, dear! He’s only doing his job!” Alana tried to quiet the girl, worried that the child would overplay their meager cards. “Hush and let the soldiers finish their inspection.” The woodsinger’s humility apparently mollified the guard, and he moved off for a whispered discussion with his fellow. The pair of men glanced over their shoulders at Alana and Kari, and then one of them shrugged. The crowd’s grumbling rose in pitch, and the line inched forward restlessly.
Elspeth was still fluffing herself like a wood grouse when the tall leader came back. The woman’s feet scuffed the earth beneath her heavy belly as she dug in for a fight. Before the soldiers could launch their attack, a cry came from the line behind Alana. “What’s the delay?” a man bellowed from the grumbling ranks. “We’ve got to set up for market, too!”
The soldiers were quick in weighing their options. It was hardly worthwhile to detain one family of difficult carpenters when the entire restless crowd was surging closer to a riot. “Very well, then,” the tall guard said. “Fifty sous, and no penalty for the hidden ladders.”
“Forty sous, or we’re not moving an inch,” Elspeth snapped in response.
“Forty sous from you, and ten from your brother’s wife.”
“My—”
“Aunt Lani,” Kari shrilled, “do you hear that? He wants you to pay ten sous! He wants you to spend Uncle Ronan’s money. You won’t be able to buy me boiled sweets! You promised you would buy me sweets! You said that Uncle Ronan wanted me to have sweets!”
“Your Uncle Ronan—” Elspeth began, a questioning note behind her words, but Alana interrupted.
“I didn’t tell you, Elspeth. That was Ronan’s last request, that I buy sweets for the children when I came to Smithcourt. He wanted them to remember him with gladness, rather than as the cause of all your grief.”
The last of Alana’s speech was drowned out by the scramble of Kari’s brothers, who had awakened to the possibility that the tall stranger woman was going to bring them forbidden treasures. The soldiers did their best to ignore the swarm of boys.
“You’ve got a strange accent to be traveling with these inland folk,” the tall soldier said.
“Aunt Lani,” Kari cried, ever at the ready. “You said they’d be mean to you because of the way you talk. How did you know?”
“Hush, Kari,” Alana tried again, wondering if the soldiers would buy her weak story about leaving the People as a child. Elspeth spoke before she could defend herself.
“And now I suppose you want to tax her words? The king—whoever he’ll be—can’t possibly use all the pennies you steal from us hardworking folk. What are you going to do? Pocket our sous and spend them in the nearest tavern as soon as your shift ends? Which drinking house is it?” Elspeth’s eye ran along the row of ramshackle buildings that skulked inside the city walls. “The Dog and Branch? Or do the king’s guards go to the Rose and Crown?”
Elspeth must have caught a glimmer in the soldier’s eye. “The Rose and Crown, that’s it, eh? Well, we’ll pay your extortion, but you can be sure that we’ll come by tonight. It’s a free house, isn’t it? What will they say, when two women show up, two women in our state appear in the doorway, begging a drink to keep us warm, because we haven’t a place to rest our heads the night before market, because our last penny was stolen by the king’s men? What—”
“Enough, woman! Take your cursed cart and your sniveling brats and yo
ur outlander sister and get out of my sight!”
Swallowing a smile, Elspeth drove her brood through the gates. Just before they passed into the congested city street, the guard cried out one last time.
“Stop!” He directed his words at Elspeth’s husband, who had spent the entire debate huddled disconsolately atop the wagon, feeding his reins from hand to hand. “You, man. Stop by the Rose tonight. If you come alone, I’ll buy you a drink, out of pity.”
Elspeth’s face stormed dark, but she bustled her entourage into Smithcourt and around a bend in the road. Only when she could no longer see the gates did she let loose a bellowing guffaw. “Aunt Lani! That was a masterpiece, girl! Who would have thought you had it in you!” The pregnant woman clapped a hand on her supposed relative’s shoulder. “A stroke of genius, it was.”
“But it was Kari!” Alana protested, not wanting to stake claim to the commotion.
“Kari, you, what does it matter? Don’t you realize? We got through without paying any duty at all!”
Alana heard the cathedral bells toll twice, and she fought against a yawn as she swallowed her ale. She barely remembered to laugh as she leaned against the soldier beside her. There was so much to remember—staring at the guard as if he were the most handsome man in all the Rose and Crown, sighing deeply so that her bodice shifted, smiling seductively when he made a feeble joke. And all the while, keeping an eye out for the guards who had been manipulated by Lani and Elspeth. The last thing Alana needed was to justify herself to those men.
“So,” she purred, reminding herself of her mission. “What did you do then? What did you do when you found him?” She buried her accent in a throaty whisper.
The soldier, Brant, poured more ale into her mug from his own. “Drink up, lass. There you go.”
Alana swallowed obediently, confident in the herbs she had consumed before coming to the tavern. It had taken her the better part of the afternoon to make both mixtures—the one she had consumed to prevent intoxication, and the other that was stored in a flask hidden in her bodice, held close against her flesh. Twice, she had needed to reach out to her sister woodsingers, to confirm amounts of precious herbs. Each time, she had closed her fingers around her bavin, masking the move with a grimace and a shift of her “pregnant” bulk.
Throughout all of Alana’s measuring and mixing, Kari had hovered close, paying far too much attention. Alana had only escaped with tales of traveling to the palace gates, of making her claim for Uncle Ronan’s wergild. Even then, Kari would have accompanied her if Elspeth had not demanded her daughter’s assistance in preparing supper. Alana had carried her rucksack with her when she left the carpenters’ camp, but she had been forced to leave behind the bay mare.
As soon as she had done away with her “pregnancy,” she had come to the Rose and Crown, suspecting that most of the city’s soldiers frequented the place, not just the guards from the gates. It had not taken her long to comb through her memory and Maddock’s bavin visions to identify Brant, the old soldier who had led Maddock down the endless spiral staircase in Duke Coren’s palace.
The grizzled old guard appeared none the worse for having let a prize prisoner escape. Even now, the crafty fox was telling her how he had avoided censure. Even as he spun his story, though, he kept secret the fact that Zeketh had been in Duke Coren’s palace.
Hoping for more useful information, Alana shivered and leaned closer to the fighting man. “Tell me!” She tried to spin her words like Jobina. “What did you do?”
“What was there to do? I took that idiot guard’s knife—my supposed partner’s knife—and slashed my arm. Then I picked up the pitcher and drank it down, made it look like the prisoner had forced me to drink.”
“And they believed you?” It was not hard for Alana to coat her words with incredulity.
“They were suspicious, but what else could they do? Cursed outland bastard. No one knows where he is now. Somewhere in the palace, or the city. His Grace and…and the duke’s allies are turning the palace upside down. It’s been a week, though. They aren’t likely to find him now.”
“But why did Duke Coren want such a dangerous man in his palace in the first place?” Alana shuddered, as if she were afraid to think about the “dangerous man.”
“It wasn’t the duke that wanted him at all. It was…a very important personage, er, a guest of His Grace.”
“Personage.” Alana almost snorted in frustration. Zeketh! Just say the high priest’s name, and then Alana could demand to know why. Taking a shuddering breath and leaning closer to the guard, she pouted. “But who? Who could command you to risk your life and limb, aside from your sworn liege-lord?”
The soldier preened beneath her attentions. “I’m a fighting man. Risk is my life.”
Alana bit her tongue to keep from swearing. The cursed soldier was determined to keep his secret, even if he was a coward and a liar. She let a little of her frustration leak into her words, sounding like doubt. “But this outlander…he’s just running loose in the city streets?”
“Who knows? He’s a mad bastard, pretending to be mute. Cook refused to work in the kitchens without protection, thinks that man’ll be jumping out of the larder at any moment. That’s why I drew the early shift—they think they’re punishing me.” Brant laughed and reached out a hairy fist to chuck Alana’s chin lightly. “That’s punishment, for sure, making me stand near a warm kitchen, where I can duck in for a bite or two. Poor sods. They don’t know which side it’s buttered on.” Brant leered as he made his last statement, and Alana thought that she might never eat butter again. The soldier leaned closer and caught a curl of her hair, twining it around his blunt fingers.
Alana forced herself to concentrate on his words. Cook…the kitchen…scullery work was probably her best disguise for getting into Duke Coren’s heavily guarded palace. She spoke as if she had just made some brilliant discovery: “I’ve worked in kitchens myself! I know how nice it can be to have a good man nearby while I’m kneading the bread. It’s comforting to know that there’s a strong man, a brave man, when the dark night still presses on the windows.” She remembered to throw back her shoulders, managing to edge away from Brant’s exploring hands, even as she exposed more of her flesh to the soldier. “I wouldn’t mind finding a spot of work in the king’s own kitchen.”
“What can you do, lass?” Brant’s drunken eyes were appraising.
“More than you’ll have time to learn, soldier.” She darted her tongue between her lips and arched an eyebrow.
Brant chortled and leaned back on his rough bench. When he sighed, his hand fell onto Alana’s thigh, as if by accident. “I don’t need learning, lass. Not much learning at all.”
“Ach, we haven’t time now. You said your shift begins before the next bell.” Alana forced her fingers to cover his, to weave between them suggestively. She pouted a little as she looked up at him through her eyelashes. “If I could find a way to earn a sou or two, I could wait for you to finish your watch. Otherwise, I must leave Smithcourt with sunrise. I need to harvest the spring herbs before they flower.”
“You are an herb-witch, then. I knew it when I saw your satchel.”
“Not a witch.” She laughed. “I just know how to use a plant or two, how to break a fever, how to make a man…awaken. Nothing important.”
“Ach, lass, maybe nothing important to you. I’d give a pretty penny for that second potion, though.”
Alana let her Jobina-fingers travel along the man’s trews. “I don’t think you need my craft for that.”
Brant smiled slowly and shifted to give her fingers more room for play. “Nay, lass. Not now. Not knowing that I have a lonely night ahead of me. But when I return to the barracks—now, that’s another tale. When I’m needy and tired…” He dug into a pouch at his waist. “Would this coin buy what I want?”
The copper glinted dully in the tavern light, and Alana let a little of her true offense seep into her words. “You think to still your needs with a single copper co
in?” She withdrew her roaming hands and crossed her arms over her insulted chest. She certainly didn’t intend to hold up her end of the bargain they were striking, but she was still insulted that the man thought that he could buy her for so little.
“Copper!” Brant pretended surprise. “I took out the wrong coin, lass, the wrong coin is all.” He burrowed deeper for another token, and managed to produce a small silver disk, along with a guttural chortle. “This is what I intended to find.”
Alana weighed her options. If she gave in too easily, he was likely to become suspicious. Yet she was about to run out of time; the hour was growing late. “I wasn’t playing games, soldier,” Alana finally spoke. “I need more than a man’s bed, or I’ll be leaving the city.”
“You’ll get more, lass, more than just a bed!” For one horrible instant, Alana thought that he still had misunderstood her; his fingers kneaded at her thigh as if he were mixing dough. But then he continued, “Come with me to the kitchens. You can help Cook with bread and the like, and then you can leave with me at noon. The barracks are quiet then.”
It was the safest passage into Coren’s palace that she was likely to arrange. She might contrive to slip away from the kitchen during her shift. And if she couldn’t, there was always the herb mixture in the flask beneath her homespun gown, the tincture she could feed to Brant and then escape.
Forbidding herself to dwell on the bargain Brant thought he was negotiating, the woodsinger reached for the soldier’s coin. The guard snapped it into her palm with a merchant’s greedy grin, and Alana barely remembered to smile as she tucked the silver into her bodice, making sure that it did not clink too hard against her herb flask. Brant followed the coin’s course, and he licked his lips like a dog. “We’d best be on our way, then,” he growled.