Pawn (The Pawn Series Book 1)

by Robin Roseau

  "Yes, Your Highness," we intoned together.

  "Good. She's expecting you in her office five minutes ago. Get going."

  We scrambled to our feet and practically ran for the door.

  "And girls," Juleena said. We turned to face her. "This is important. Not everything you do for Malta will appear important to you. Some of it will appear well below your station. Some of it will be boring. Some might be grimy or unpleasant. But this is a deeply important event. Lady Malta will be counting on you to make the event easier for her. I am counting on you. And Queen Ralalta is counting on you. Am I clear?"

  "Yes, Your Highness," we said, each offering a curtsey to punctuate our understanding.

  "Good. Go."

  * * * *

  We found Lady Malta in her office, and she wasn't alone. But her door was open, and so we stood in the opening and knocked on the doorframe.

  "Ah, good," she said when she turned her head in our direction. "Come in. Close the door." Everyone in the room stood and turned to us, and as Muranna pulled the door closed, I found myself facing Lady Malta as well as two other people, a stern-looking woman dressed as an officer in the Queen's guard, and a tall, smiling man.

  "Everyone is here," Lady Malta said. "Let us do introductions. Both of you know who I am."

  "Yes, Lady Malta," we said together.

  "All right. Except in public, drop the titles. We don't have time." And so we nodded. She gestured to me. "This, as you both know, is Lady Yallameenara. And with her is Muranna, a ward of Lady Griffen. Although I am left wondering when Lady Griffen last saw her, as she seems to spend day and night beside Yallameenara."

  Muranna giggled nervously but said nothing.

  "Girls, this is Lieutenant Keelara of the Queen's Guard. Keelara is one of three lieutenants in the guard and is our liaison for anything related to security."

  "I'm pleased to meet you," the lieutenant offered.

  "This is Lord Holland," Malta continued, "of the diplomatic corps." The man in question stepped forward and took my hand, kissing my knuckles, then treated Muranna the same. I blushed at the attention.

  "This is not our entire team," Malta said. "But this is the core. The two of you are provisional members. If you prove responsible, we will remove your provisional status."

  "We will," Muranna said for both of us.

  "Good. Let's sit." Her office held a conference table, and we gathered around it. "This is primarily an introductory meeting. We have three months until the Winter Solstice. That is not a lot of time. However, some of the advance work is done, and so we jump right in." She looked at me and then Muranna. "The three of us will meet every morning at this time. Yallameenara, some of your educational responsibilities are on hold, although you will continue with your music lessons."

  "Yes, Malta," I said.

  "This group will meet as needed," Malta continued. "No less often than weekly. As we draw closer to the event, I would expect the frequency to become daily."

  "Of course," Lord Holland said. The lieutenant simply nodded.

  "All right. Are there any pressing issues to discuss immediately?"

  "We need the guest list," said Lieutenant Keelara. "We must begin to vet the attendees, and that takes time."

  "We can't prepare a final list until we know the allowed guest count," Holland said. "And we need to know the theme."

  "Yes. We'll need to come back to both of those later in the week."

  "If I could have a preliminary list," suggested Keelara, "we could begin our inquiries." She narrowed her eyes. "You people always try to invite people we will not allow near the queen."

  "Diplomacy!" he said. "If you act like you distrust someone, he'll give you cause."

  "When you are too trusting, you learn the hard way not to be so trusting. I prefer to have those lessons behind us."

  Muranna and I exchanged glances then leaned back in our chairs. Oh, this was going to be even more interesting than I could have imagined, if these two were going to fight all the time.

  But it appeared, at least for now, the dispute was put away. Holland nodded. "I'll send a preliminary list in the next day or so."

  "And we'll eliminate the most egregious choices the day after that," Keelara added with a smirk.

  "And we'll add some of them back on when your back is turned," Holland added.

  And I realized then the two of them were teasing each other.

  Ten minutes later, Malta said, "Then we're dismissed. You two stay." She escorted Holland and Keelara out of her office then, without closing her door, turned to us. She pointed.

  "Those boxes contain the records from the winter solstice event ten years ago then for each of the last five years." She moved to the boxes in question and removed the lids. There were two, and they were positively stuffed with papers arranged in folders. She replaced the lids and said words I would regret ever hearing.

  "Take these to your quarters and familiarize yourself with the contents. We'll discuss it tomorrow."

  We stared at her.

  "You expect me to read that-" and I pointed, "-in a single day?"

  "No. I said familiarize yourself. Glance through them. You don't have to read each paper, but if I ask you to find the menu from four years ago, I expect you to do so efficiently. I won't expect you to memorize the menus, but you should be able to find them."

  She moved one of the boxes to the table before us, removed the lid, and pulled out two large folders each holding a number of thinner folders. "These are the records from ten years ago." Together on the table, the stack was eight inches high. "Each folder covers a particular topic." She withdrew one of the inner folders. "This one, for instance, covers the catering for the main dinner. Somewhere is another one for the caterer who handled the appetizers and another for the beverages. There's at least one folder each year devoted to entertainment and more folders that cover the information on the guest list. Do you see?"

  "Yes, Malta."

  "So if I asked for the dinner menu from ten years ago, you would withdraw these two thick folders, find the inner folder for the dinner menu, then quickly page through to find the final menu. Note that there may also have been intermediate menus before we came to a final conclusion, and it is possible I would ask you to prepare an analysis of those choices."

  At that, we nodded.

  "I have a few more things to say." She replaced the box contents and returned the lid while she spoke. "These records are valuable and irreplaceable. I shouldn't have to say this, but I presume you will take proper care. I shouldn't have to say this, either, but proper care means you will not allow them to be exposed to foul weather or food or beverage drips."

  "Of course not, Malta," Muranna said for us.

  "Good. You also do not want to mix the contents. You'll never get them straightened out if you do."

  My eyes grew wide just thinking about it, and we both nodded.

  "Good. Can you each carry one of these, or should I summon some stout assistance?"

  I stood up and hefted the box on the table. It wasn't that bad. I would come to another conclusion long before we reached my room.

  "Excellent. I have one more thing to say. The details of our preparations are secret. We want our guests to experience our surprises as we choose to unveil them. However, there are too many people who are ultimately involved, and there are leaks. Some of those leaks are intentional, and some of the intentional leaks are misdirection. Do you understand?"

  "If there are twenty rumors," I suggested, "no one is sure which ones are accurate."

  "Exactly." She leaned forward, looking at each of us in turn. "There will be leaks. But those leaks had better not originate with either of you. If they do, I will have you strung from your toes to swing back and forth over our guests. Do I make myself clear?"

  "Yes, Lady Malta!" we both said quickly. I wasn't sure if it was a toothless threat, or a promise, but I made a self vow I wouldn't find out.

  "Excellent," she said again. "Questions?"<
br />
  "If we're taking these to Yalla's quarters," Muranna asked, "what is to prevent the maids from peeking?"

  "We count on it," Malta replied.

  "Excuse me?" I said. "I don't really care to be strung up by my toes, and I wouldn't want you to treat Mellara that way, either."

  "You will leave nothing for Mellara to see except the things I'm willing to let her see," Malta replied. "These records aren't secrets, although I'd rather she not poke her nose through them." She smiled. "Mellara isn't a gossip, anyway. She's not the one I'd worry about. And the girls who clean your room don't typically know how to read. We offer to teach them, but not everyone takes us up on that offer. But there are a few who can read, and someone could make a few crowns sharing advanced details of our event. That's quite a lot for a housekeeper. Other questions?"

  We both shook our heads.

  "All right. I'll see you both tomorrow morning. Bring these with you."

  * * * *

  "We should have accepted her offer of stout assistance," Muranna said by the time we reached the third floor.

  "Agreed, but we're almost there." However, we both set down our boxes and gave ourselves a brief rest. "What do you think of all this?"

  "I think Lady Malta intends to run us ragged and smile while she does so."

  I laughed. "Agreed."

  "I think I should have asked Princess Juleena what we got paid for helping."

  I laughed again. "Admittance to the event."

  "Oh, that's special. We've gone every year since you arrived. I bet this year we'll be too busy to enjoy it."

  "Do you mind?" I asked. "You don't have to do this."

  "Are you kidding?" she exclaimed. "If word gets out we're helping, we're going to be hounded for details."

  "You heard what Lady Malta said-"

  "I know. I'm going to practice my enigmatic smile." She offered an example. I wasn't sure I could tell a difference between her enigmatic smile and her other smiles.

  It was a pretty smile either way.

  By mutual agreement, we each picked up our boxes and finished carting them to my room. We set them down and turned to each other. "What do you think we should do?"

  "If we start at the beginning, we won't get anywhere at all," she said. "So I think we should get an overall feel for what we've got. Then we can work down from there."

  "That works for me." So we each plopped down on the floor, the two boxes between us, and opened both lids. Muranna pulled out one thick folder, glanced at it, and said, "Three years ago."

  "I've got the two from ten years ago."

  She looked at the two stacks I was holding. "You know what? Here. Help me." She climbed to her feet and pulled me up after her. I didn't understand why, but I helped her move all my sitting furniture to one side of the room, making a large open place on the floor between the windows and the door leading out into the corridor. Muranna frowned and moved one of the chairs so it sat in front of the door. It didn't prevent the door from opening, but it prevented how far it could open.

  "Why did you do that?"

  "If anyone comes in, she won't create a breeze and spread everything around."

  "If we want to use the balcony, we should use the door in the bedroom," I suggested.

  "Yeah. Okay." She moved back to the boxes, grabbed the stacks from ten years ago, and set them down far to the left. I got what she was doing immediately, and soon we had each set of data on the floor, well separated by year.

  "Okay. But we can't leave any papers out of it's folder," I said. "We'll never get them back in the right place."

  "Right. You start at that end," she said, pointing to last year's stack. "I'll start down there." We both plopped back down with Muranna in front of the ten-years-ago stack of papers. "Let's see what we've got."

  She emptied the first of the thick folders out onto the floor into a pile of individual folders of varying thickness, keeping the contents from each of the larger folders slightly separated. A moment later, I did the same with last year's folders. Then Muranna picked up the first folder from one of her two stacks.

  "I've got a blue folder."

  I looked at the top of both of my stacks; they were both yellow. "My top folders aren't blue."

  We frowned at each other.

  "Maybe they aren't in the same order," she said. She opened it and paged through. "This one is about entertainment."

  "I've got..." I paged through one. "This is about food." I closed it and opened the other one. "And this is a guest list."

  "Find a blue one that talks about entertainment."

  I only had three blue folders. None of them contained papers discussing entertainers.

  "Well, shit," Muranna said. "They aren't in any particular order or color."

  "Maybe that one is too old," I said. "Try a newer one."

  It took us perhaps fifteen minutes to verify. The big folders weren't organized in any particular order, and the color of the folders didn't indicate anything about what was contained in the folders.

  "Well, that's just untidy," Muranna complained.

  "Malta never said we couldn't organize," I observed.

  "And the subject of each folder isn't even written on the outside. How stupid is that?"

  We eyed each other and nodded.

  It was several hours later, the sun shining in the windows at our back, when there was a knock at the door followed by an attempt to open it.

  "No!" Muranna and I both screeched at the same time.

  Juleena poked her nose inside the partially opened door, saw the chair in front of the door, and then looked past the chair to see the efforts of our labor. She wriggled her way into the room and stepped past the chair, coming to a stop at the apex of the mess we'd made.

  "What is all this?"

  "Um."

  "Please tell me this is more organized than it looks."

  "I think it looks perfectly organized," Muranna said. She pointed to the left. There were sheets of paper on the floor arranged in a line. They each had a single word or phrase on them. "Meal." "Appetizers." "Entertainment." And the like. She read each one.

  Working from there, the records from ten years ago formed the first group of folders. At the far right were the more recent years, each organized carefully so the food folders were all organized first, then the beverages, etc. At the very bottom were folders related to the guest list and security. Furthermore, we even had arranged folders by color, moving papers between folders as necessary. We had four colors, and so food and beverages were blue, security was red, entertainment was green, and anything else was yellow.

  Juleena looked over all this. "So why are they all over the floor?"

  "How else should we have organized them?" Muranna asked.

  "Why did you need to organize them?" Her tone was sharp.

  I thought about it for a moment. "There was no rhyme nor reason before." I explained the status of the folders when we received them. "It would take weeks to make heads or tails the way they were."

  "Now we can actually find things," Muranna added. Then we both looked down. "Are we in trouble?"

  "Yes," Juleena said sternly. "You realize when Malta sees this, she's going to ask you to organize all the palace records." She chuckled. "I'd tell you to carry on, but someone is on the verge of arriving late to her music lesson."

  "We have to get all this back into the boxes," I said.

  "You go," Muranna said. "I'll handle it. I should make an appearance at home, but am I invited to dinner?"

  "Aren't you every night?"

  * * * *

  Balla wasn't impressed I hadn't practiced today. She made me practice scales for a half hour as penance. All the while she quizzed me on music theory, and when I got one wrong -- or made a mistake in the scales -- she rapped my knuckles with her pointer.

  Before she released me at the end of the lesson, she said, "Yallameenara, I know why you didn't practice today. What you're working on is important. But you mustn't let your studies slide
. You are still working to catch up, especially in music. Framaran society has expectations for a woman in your position, and you must meet those expectations."

  "I understand," I replied meekly.

  "And yet you don't promise it won't happen again." She tsked at me then waved her pointer. "Go on."

  * * * *

  Muranna and I stayed up late, learning what we would from the records. We didn't even try to memorize the information. Instead, we became as familiar with it as we could until we could each quickly find the appropriate folder to answer every question we could think of, even if the answer itself sometimes took longer to discover.

  We did stumble across some interesting information, and as soon as we did, I wondered if we were supposed to. Muranna asked, "Who was rejected from the guest list the first year you were here?"

  I laughed, found the appropriate folders, and starting paging through them. I came to a stop and whispered quietly, "Me."

  "What? But you were there. We both were. It was my first year."

  I paused. "You were excluded, too."

  "Oh, no, I wasn't," she said. "I distinctly remember. I even kept my invitation. I didn't have enough money for a new dress, but I bought that hat."

  "I remember," I replied. But I showed her. "Look. Here's the original guest list. We're both crossed off." I pointed to my name, and immediately below it, hers. I looked deeper. "Wasn't Lady Griffen there?"

  "Yes."

  "She's not on this list."

  We dug deeper through the folder. I found a single page that listed the reason I was rejected. It started with the basics: my name (Yallameenara), Age (13, although it was my 14th winter), Nationality (Arrlottan), and other impersonal information. But at the bottom it said, "Reason for rejection: security risk."

  "It says they thought I was a security risk."

  "Me, too," Muranna said. "You were living in the palace."

  "Right next to the crown princess," I pointed out.

  "I wasn't spending nights yet-"

  "You spent some."

  "But not nearly every night," she clarified. "And only dinners with the queen when specifically invited."