Pawn (The Pawn Series Book 1)

by Robin Roseau

  "I understand," I said.

  "You are too young to court," the said. "But when you are not, any requests to court you will come through me." She had to explain that, but then I nodded. I admitted it was quite different than what I'd experienced before.

  "I understand. In the meantime, there are things you must do."

  "Continue to learn Framaran."

  "Yes. That is the most important. You must also learn what it means to live in a noble household." She turned to Juleena. "Have you thought about who should teach her?"

  "I assumed Malta would assign someone. She's too old to be a page."

  "And a foreign princess who is fostered in my house would never be assigned the duties of a page," the queen replied. "No, I do not believe I will ask Malta to assign someone. I believe Lady Griffen has a young charge in need of direction."

  "You would pair her with that horrid son of hers?"

  "Oh heavens, no. But I believe she has a girl under her care who would do rather nicely."

  Juleena's eyes grew wide, and then she smiled. "They are of similar ages."

  "But Muranna has been here long enough to know our ways," the queen added.

  "Does she still speak with that accent?"

  "I believe so," Ralalta said, "but Yalla here is smart enough to attempt to emulate my accent and not Muranna's." The two chuckled together, and I knew I had just been given a hint.

  "Do you have questions? My daughter tells me you pestered her with no end of questions."

  "She made me pay for the answers," I said. I offered a quick smile towards Juleena. "I have so many questions, but I don't know where to begin."

  "There is nothing pressing?" And I shook my head.

  "She'll need more clothes," Juleena said. "And we should keep two of the Arrlottan horses as hers."

  I perked up at that.

  "Of course," said the queen. "I'll give you a day or so to help her settle in. Let her pick whichever two she prefers."

  "Spending money," Juleena added.

  "Hmm," said the queen. "Yes. Twenty crowns a month." She looked back at me. "That will rise as you learn certain things. Twenty additional monthly crowns when you are able to carry on a conversation like this without us taking such care. Twenty crowns when you can sit at a table and use the proper silverware. Hmm. I believe you should make a list for my approval, Juleena."

  Juleena laughed. "Of course."

  "On the first day of good weather, I would like a demonstration of this riding ability of yours."

  "I would love to. And do you ride, Ralalta?"

  "I do," she said. She leaned forward. "Better than my daughter, but don't let her know I said that."

  I laughed. "I think she heard you," I said in Arrlottan. "Perhaps you should have spoken quickly in this language."

  The queen laughed. From Juleena's expression, I thought perhaps she didn't fully understand me. And so the queen laughed again, looking at her daughter's expression.

  "I like this one, Juleena," she declared. "I do not believe you could have chosen better."

  I sat up straighter, pleased at the praise.

  Then she turned her attention to me. "I imagine you are quite worn through."

  "Yes."

  "I am going to spend this time with my daughter," she said. "You are welcome to stay if you like, but neither of us will be offended if you escape to your own room. There will be other nights like this one, especially when winter arrives."

  "If it is truly my choice," and the queen nodded. "Then I think I would like to go to bed." But I looked at my plate, wondering what I should do with it.

  "Leave that," Juleena said. "Or was that a request for another piece?"

  "I didn't know if I should wash it."

  We all stood. I looked at them awkwardly. "Am I supposed to curtsey now?"

  The queen answered by holding her arms open. I smiled and stepped into the hug. She kissed the top of my head. And then Juleena gave me a similar hug.

  And thus ended my first day in my new home.

  Part Two

  Horse Shark

  Muranna put on a grim expression as she slowly withdrew the ribbon from her hair. I climbed down from Zana, wrapped her reins around the fence post -- as if she wouldn't stay where she was if I hadn't -- and raised my own hands to my hair.

  "I'm sorry, Muranna," I said. "I was sure I could win."

  "You're always doing this," she said. Finally, with the ribbon released, she held it out. One of the waiting boys took it from her with a little bow.

  "Thank you, m'lady," he said graciously as he held it against his cheek. "I shall cherish my winnings."

  I held out my own ribbon to the other boy as he climbed down from his own mount. He was grinning broadly. He took it from me to the hooting from his other friends.

  Zana and I had just lost a horse race against the boy from Balstead. The Balstead boys, with their dark complexions and sultry looks, seemed quite exotic to me. Coming from so far away -- their parents were part of the newly arrived ambassadorial staff -- they hadn't yet heard my reputation.

  Muranna and I had long worked our way through the available rubes, as she put it, from closer to home. Muranna was the brains of this particular operation. I was little more than a tool in her carefully laid plans.

  "I think you owe me a rematch," I said. "Zana wasn't running well." She probably would have run better if I hadn't been giving her mixed signals. As if she knew what I had said about her, she offered me a baleful gaze. I rubbed her nose. "See? Even Zana knows she could race better."

  "Do you have more ribbons for us?" The Balstead boy said. I strained to remember his name. Tharteen, Thortain, something like that.

  "How much money do you have, Muranna?" I asked. She was busy flirting with one of the other boys -- not that it would do him any good at all. In private, Muranna assured me "boys were goofy". I had to agree with her.

  "No, Yallameenara," she said. "You wouldn't believe what I went through for this purse." She punctuated her protest with a jangle of her purse.

  I had a very good idea what she'd done for it. While we'd taken nearly all the money we were going to get from the boys -- and a few girls -- of Framara, it was only nearly, and there were always new people coming to the capital. The boys were easiest, of course, filled with their swagger and sense of male superiority. But her latest purse was courtesy of a pair of sisters from Almeara, a city three days travel up the coast and another two days inland. In all fairness, the older sister was only a passable rider, but the younger sister was pretty good.

  For a Framaran.

  At the exchange between Muranna and me, all the boys' focus turned intense, waiting to see what would happen. I pulled out my own purse and made a point of weighing it. Then I opened it and peered in. I knew exactly how much it contained -- forty and seven crowns, thirty and five pence. Oh, it could have contained much more, but for some reason, we'd found it easier to get the boys to wager big when we put our entire purses on the line, and fifty crowns seemed to be about the limit we could get another teenager to wager.

  Although there had been that merchant from Port Meerings. He'd wanted what he called a real wager, his son's riding against mine. The queen had gotten wind of that -- I had no idea how -- and put her foot down.

  "No more than two-hundred crowns," she declared. I'd been waiting in anticipation of a real tongue lashing. I didn't think she knew I'd been so heavily supplementing the money she was giving me. At my expression, she asked, "Did you believe I didn't know about your wagering?"

  "You're not mad at me?"

  "If someone is stupid enough to wager against someone raised as one of the Horse People," she said, "that person deserves to lose his money."

  "Then why are you limiting this wager?"

  "Because more than two hundred crowns is greedy," she said. "And arrogant. Two hundred crowns is an amount a man can laugh about, perhaps in embarrassment, but still a laugh. Once you get more than that, it becomes an amount that r
equires, shall we say, compensation."

  "Oh."

  Muranna looked at me as I held my purse in my hands. "The queen is going to scold you when she finds out you lost your purse. Again."

  "No one here is going to tell her," I said. I turned to the boy -- my competition. "If you win, you won't mind paying for my noon meal, will you?" I batted my eyelashes at him, and he practically swooned.

  Boys were so easy.

  I made a point of carefully counting out the coins from my purse.

  "Yallameenara, this is a bad idea."

  "I want a rematch," I pouted.

  "But-"

  "If she wants a rematch," the Balsteader said, "Ollie and I are happy to give it to her." I didn't care for the way he said, "give it to her", but I'd heard worse. Boys were so goofy. If he so much as touched me, the queen would be enraged. I wondered briefly if he knew that.

  Of course, if I let him touch me, then it was me she would be enraged at. She had repeatedly been quite clear on the matter. I was allowed to flirt with and tease whomever I wanted, but it had better not go any further than that. As she and Juleena had been so kind to me in the three years since my arrival, and because boys were so goofy anyway, I didn't mind the restriction. It was convenient, actually, as I could tease all I wanted, but if the boy wanted more, I could simply explain the queen's orders.

  A few boys hadn't been willing to accept that as a reason to keep his hands to himself. As Muranna and I never went anywhere private with them, however, handling it had always been quite easy.

  And if any boys dared to touch me in a fashion I didn't care for, I quietly told Juleena about it. There were never repeat occurrences. Never.

  "This is a bad idea," Muranna repeated. But she began counting out her own coins. The total was just over one hundred crowns. It would have been quite suspicious, after all, if we'd had exactly one hundred between us. Muranna withdrew enough coins from her pouch to make it an even one hundred between the two, setting them both on the top of the fence post.

  The assembled boys gleefully counted out their own money.

  "I don't think you should do this," Muranna said. "Come on, Yallameenara. You were eying that new hat."

  I'd been doing no such thing. She'd been the one eying the hat.

  I ignored her and turned to the boy. "We've already raced on the open flat. I think we should make it more interesting."

  "What did you have in mind?"

  "Are you interested in a real display of riding skill? After all, anyone can sit atop a horse on a straight course like this." I gestured to the track.

  He looked me up and down. "I am a fine rider."

  "Are you?" I turned and pointed into the infield. There was a ring of grass inside the track, and then there was an inner ring of good, soft grass a good five hundred yards long and one hundred yards wide. Three years ago, when the queen had asked for a demonstration of my riding ability, Juleena had arranged for obstacles in the form of barrels set on the ground, and I had ridden a variety of circles around the barrels. They had never left, although we moved them about to avoid killing the grass.

  Now they were arranged in two tracks so that two riders could race the barrels at the same time. Periodically I pulled the barrels out of the way, smoothed out the track, and put the barrels back. In anticipation of today's match, I'd last done it two days ago. The track would be nearly pristine.

  "What's that?" the boy asked.

  "A race track," I said. "You weave between the barrels." I gestured with my hands. "It's a real test of skill, but if you're not up to it."

  "If you can do it," and he poked his chest with his thumb, "I can do it."

  I smiled. "Of course you can."

  "Yallameenara, please. Let's just have lunch then go buy that hat you wanted instead."

  "But our new friends want a new match," I said to her. "We wouldn't want to disappoint them."

  "You're going to lose your money," she muttered. "Again. And mine with it."

  It didn't take much more to get all the boys riled up for the race. I heard the phrase, "Only a girl" and "Show her who the man is" from some of the boys. It was hard not to laugh.

  I climbed back atop Zana and patted her neck. Then I took her around to the gate into the infield, the Balstead boy following me on his horse, then trotting ahead to check out the barrels.

  I admit. I didn't play fair. The barrels were too close together for a larger horse than Zana, and they were offset besides. I moved to the starting end and then called out, "Let me show you. You start by passing the first barrel on the right, then you weave back and forth." I asked Zana for a gentle trot, posting it poorly. She tossed her head at me, about the most complaint I ever received from her. We worked our way through just a portion of the barrels.

  "At the end, you go all the way around and weave back the same way." I showed him. "You must go outside the barrels, not down the middle. Down the middle would be too easy, don't you think?"

  I finished the course with everyone watching.

  "That looks easy enough," he said.

  "Give it a try if you like," I said with a gesture. "I just did."

  And so he did, riding it much faster than I had. I didn't mind. He was free to wear his horse out if he wanted. Not that it would matter. He struggled with the course, but he still finished faster than my little trot.

  "Which side do you want?" I asked when he came back, his horse snorting.

  He offered a bow from his saddle. "Of course, the lady should choose."

  "They are both the same," I said. "But I would not want you to think I picked an easier course."

  He looked them over. "They look the same to me."

  "Then I shall take the left, if you truly do not mind." He bowed again, so we both moved to our starting places. Muranna moved into the gap between the courses, ready to start us.

  "Remember to ride to the outside of each barrel," she called out. "If you go on the wrong side, you have to circle all the way around that barrel or be disqualified."

  Then she raised her hands, and Thurston's friends began to cheer him on. Was that his name? Maybe it was Thoron. I just wasn't sure.

  "Ready!" she called. "Set! Go!"

  We each took off. I stopped worrying about the boy and concentrated on my own race. I didn't worry about winning. I was now racing against my own skill, leading Zana around each barrel, leaning over so far I nearly brushed my shoulder a few times, Zana turning quickly and precisely, every bit the mount I knew she could be.

  We ran a clean, tight race, and as we crossed the finish line, Zana danced around, snorting hard in her own enjoyment.

  She loved the barrels as much as I did.

  We turned around to watch the Balstead boy finish the race. He was really bad at it. He should have slowed down a little. He would have been able to turn more sharply. Instead he overshot each barrel and in the end ran nearly twice as far as he would have if he'd just slowed down a little. But he managed to avoid bashing into any of the barrels, which was an improvement from some of the boys I had raced, and he finished cleanly, crossing the finish line long after Zana and I had. He brought his horse to a skidding stop, both of them panting loudly.

  He shot me a dark look, and then he caught himself and became gracious. He bowed in his seat. "Well raced, Fine Lady."

  "And you as well," I said, offering my own bow.

  It never did to rub their faces in their defeat. Muranna taught me that from the very beginning. "Whatever happens, be gracious," she told me. Then she grinned. "They might come back for a second beating if they enjoy it enough the first time.

  Juleena had overheard us that time and chimed in as well. "And you are not a mean person, Yalla. Of course you will be gracious, win or lose."

  So far, I'd only had to be gracious when winning, but I knew someday I'd lose a race. But it wasn't today.

  "Well, Yalla," Muranna said, "Shall we go to lunch?" She tossed me my pouch before hiding her pouch along with our new winnings. We'd
divide it later.

  "Wait!" said the boy who raced. "We each won a race. We should have one more to decide the true winner."

  "But this way we each won," I said with a smile. "Isn't that perfect? But maybe you should practice the barrels a little more, and when you have another wager available, you know where to find me."

  "We should race now."

  "But you haven't any money left." Between them, they might have had a few crowns, but not a substantial amount.

  "We could race for something else," he suggested. "A kiss."

  I clapped my hands, a silly girl. "Oh, wouldn't that be lovely. But if the queen found out -- and she knows everything -- she would lock me in the tower for a month. No, no, I couldn't possibly pay with a kiss."

  I began to turn away, but Muranna's words stopped me. "I could wager a kiss. The queen won't lock me in the tower for one kiss."

  When I turned back, she wasn't looking at the boys. She was looking at me. I had no idea what she was doing. She caught my eye, smiled, then turned to the boys. "What am I offered against a kiss?"

  "Why, a kiss, of course," said the rider with a grin. Boys.

  "You're cute," Muranna said. "But you're not that cute." The other boys laughed at that. "I prefer cold, hard crowns, but I'd wager a kiss against that knife on your belt."

  I glanced at said knife. It was very ornate and even included a few gems in the hilt. I imagined it was very expensive and as impractical a knife as was possible.

  The boys hand dropped to his knife, and then his eyes. He looked at Muranna, who was smiling sweetly. He looked at his knife. He looked at me. He looked at the barrels. Then he looked over at the standard track.

  "Oh, no," Muranna said. "It's the barrels or not at all."

  He looked back at me. "We've raced the barrels. Perhaps you would be interested in another test of riding skill."

  "What did you have in mind?"

  "Have you heard of tent pegging?"

  I had. "Tent pegging?" I looked to Muranna and actually spoke Arrlottan to her. "Have you heard of this tent pegging?"

  It wasn't the first time we'd played this game, and she went with it. She answered in a completely different language, one I didn't know. We counted on none of the boys knowing either language. We both turned back to the boy. "What is tent pegging?" I asked.