Queen's Peril

by E. K. Johnston

That would give her access to the most personal items that protected the Queen—her clothes, jewelry, and other accessories—and provide a reason for her to always be on hand. It was perfect for an intelligence officer.

  “Yané,” said Suyan. “I’ll be in charge of liaising with the palace staff and droids.”

  She would have her finger on the pulse of everything that went on inside the walls. No one would suspect anything abnormal if she was to appear suddenly in the kitchens or gardens to talk to someone about the Queen’s needs.

  “Eirtaé,” Eirtama said. “Communications.”

  Everyone would be used to seeing her with a variety of tech in her hands. They wouldn’t think about what she was doing with it.

  “Saché. The lowly page.”

  No one would think much about seeing her at all.

  Each girl had chosen something that would make them seem completely harmless, yet would also allow them to have additional functions without causing anyone to look twice. Their skills could be brought into play without anyone being the wiser.

  Padmé smiled and looked at Tsabin. Her first handmaiden. In the two weeks since the election, they had spent nearly every moment together, though most people hadn’t been entirely aware of Tsabin’s presence. She had offered opinions on a variety of matters, and Padmé was already coming to rely on Tsabin’s good sense to temper her own idealism. They were friends, or they were on their way to friendship. And they were learning to navigate the power imbalance between them. It wasn’t perfect—Saché seemed to be avoiding Yané deliberately—but it was a start.

  “I will be everyone’s assistant,” Tsabin said. “That way people will get used to my stepping into random roles, and also not question my absence if I’m not visible.”

  “And?” Padmé asked. Tsabin would always have to follow the choices of others. The least they could do was give her this.

  Tsabin smiled.

  “Sabé.”

  “I don’t like it,” Panaka said.

  “It’s your own fault, dear,” Mariek told him. She was always blunt, and usually he really liked that about her, but it was a less attractive quality when she was pointing out his own shortcomings. “You can’t put that many teenage girls together and not expect them to scheme. Or kill each other. Frankly, you’re lucky they appear to be doing the former.”

  Panaka thought of about nine responses to that, eight of which would probably end in divorce. He gave up and tried another tack.

  “Do you have any suggestions on how to deal with them?” he asked. “Since you appear to be an expert.”

  “Because I was one, you mean?” she said wickedly.

  “I—”

  “I’m kidding, love,” she said. “You’ve given the Queen an excellent toolbox. What she does with it is up to her, unfortunately for your poor nerves, but the box is still yours. Just don’t make it a cage, or they’ll really turn on you.”

  “I’m not caging them!” he said.

  “Call it whatever you want,” Mariek said. “You’re controlling them, and they won’t like that any more than you like that they’re controlling you. Just do your job and trust them.”

  “I wish you’d taken the promotion to the personal guard,” Panaka groused.

  “That would have been a terrible idea,” Mariek said. “Since I mostly agree with them in this scenario.”

  She kissed him, laughing, and Panaka was left with the sinking feeling that he’d lost more than one fight that morning.

  The first problem was that Saché refused to share a room with Yané.

  She gave no reason and dug in her heels with a stubbornness no one had anticipated. Rabé and Eirtaé had concocted some sort of randomizer for the schedule, the idea being that no one handmaiden was ever in the same place two days in a row, and Saché’s fit was preventing them from implementing it. Padmé was reluctant to take sides, mostly because Yané was inexplicably in agreement with Saché. It seemed intensely personal in a way Padmé didn’t entirely understand, and it was foolish, but she was determined to give her handmaidens what privacy she could, and if this was all Saché ever required, it wasn’t that much.

  “Fine,” Rabé declared at last. “We’ll just add it to the randomizer program. You’ll never have to sleep in the same room. I’m assuming you’re all right being seen in public together?”

  Saché conceded gracefully, and the next three days saw Rabé’s favorite sweets sent up with their evening tea, which everyone considered an adequate apology.

  Panaka wasn’t entirely pleased that he never knew how many hooded figures would be escorting the Queen on any given day. That had been Rabé’s idea, too. If the Queen was always accompanied by a different number of handmaidens, it would be more difficult to tell who was absent at any given time.

  “There are five of them to protect you,” Panaka said. His voice was carefully controlled, as was the Queen’s. They were both trying to speak in such a way that respect was as clear as disagreement, but they hadn’t had quite enough practice yet.

  “This is how they will protect me,” Amidala countered.

  In the end, Padmé agreed to two more guards being added to each shift. It was the rare compromise where everyone got what they wanted in the first place, and the cost was deemed acceptable by all parties.

  By the end of the second week, Yané declared it was time to give Sabé the chance to leave the suite in the Queen’s face. She’d memorized the staff rotation and made a note of the schedule on which the droids cleaned the floors and windows. She knew exactly what timing such an expedition should have. Furthermore, she and Eirtaé had finished three new headpieces, in addition to their other duties, and a dress that had all the appearance of a traditional Naboo gown at one-third the weight. The new gown had much easier fasteners, making it simpler to get in and out of, which Rabé had insisted on after they showed her the original designs.

  They picked a morning when Amidala had no public appearances. Saché left the suite and returned three times on various errands, and then Padmé, dressed identically, left to ostensibly get a book from the Queen’s library, which was located at the end of the hallway. All Sabé had to do was make it down the hall without being recognized for it to be a successful test.

  “This actually weighs less than the old ones?” Sabé asked as Yané fitted the shoulder pieces and tabard over the enormous blue gown.

  “Don’t be petty,” Rabé said. “You know how hard they worked on this.”

  Sabé wore a set of light blue robes beneath the dress, the same set Saché and Padmé had worn when they were seen leaving the room. The handmaidens usually wore robes in the same style, set to complement whatever the Queen was wearing. Hoods were quickly coming into fashion, spreading from the court to Theed to the general populace, and at any given time, there were several handmaiden-looking women in any part of the palace.

  Over the robes, Sabé wore a dark blue dress made of Karlini silk and cut to match an archaic Naboo style. Her tabard was black, and held down by an elaborately jeweled belt. The massive shoulder pieces, which would do most of the work in terms of supporting the headpiece, were also black. Eirtaé was not entirely happy with the design, but Yané had convinced her that it would be easier to test a physical model rather than just keep sketching it over and over again. The headpiece itself was a deceptively simple hairstyle wreathed in white and blue beads that rattled whenever Sabé moved her head. A wide triangular piece rested against the back of her shoulders and the back of her head, completing the look. It didn’t do much for her peripheral vision, but her posture was impeccable.

  Yané finished the last few brushstrokes of makeup.

  “That should do it,” she declared. “What do you think?”

  Rabé and Eirtaé both examined her closely and offered no comment.

  “The shoulders are a good idea,” Saché said. “No one will pay too much attention to her face, even if they try. Their eyes will always be drawn off.”

  “Thank you,” Yan�
� said. She took off the apron she’d used to keep the face powder off her robes and pulled the hood up over her head. She and Eirtaé would be the ones to accompany Sabé on the test, because the other half of it was seeing if they could switch Padmé back into the Queen’s face while they were in the library.

  “Let’s go,” Sabé said.

  “Of course, Your Highness,” Rabé said, not blinking as she stared into Sabé’s painted face.

  It was going to take more than that to rattle the second-best girl. Sabé nodded slowly, and turned to the door.

  The guards in the hallway straightened when Amidala walked past them, and gave no indication that they spotted anything unusual. Two of them fell in behind Yané and Eirtaé. It was about fifty meters down the hall to the library, and the distance suddenly seemed ridiculously far to Sabé. The dress was heavy. She hadn’t practiced enough in the shoes. She couldn’t turn her head because of the headpiece. She filled her lungs, no part of her moving to reveal the steadying breath, and started walking.

  They got within ten meters of the door before Captain Panaka appeared in the hallway. He was early. Behind Sabé, Yané inhaled sharply and Eirtaé subtly grimaced.

  “Your Highness,” Panaka said amicably. “I didn’t think you had any appointments today.”

  “I am going to the library,” Sabé said, hoping to keep the conversation as brief as possible.

  Panaka nodded and stepped aside to let them pass. He was almost past Sabé’s eyeline when she saw his brow furrow. She took the last few paces to the library as quickly as she could, letting Eirtaé pass her to get the door open. This gave Eirtaé a clear view of Panaka’s face as Amidala went into the room before she shut the guards out.

  Sabé wanted to lean back against the door and grumble, but the dress wouldn’t let her. She settled for cursing under her breath instead.

  “It could have gone worse,” Yané said encouragingly.

  “What happened?” Padmé asked. The “page” was standing on top of the library ladder, a book in her hand so that if anyone else came in, she could pretend to have just located it.

  “Panaka,” Sabé said shortly. She held out her arms so that Eirtaé could get to work.

  Padmé came down the ladder and stood in front of her so that Yané could start the prep, too.

  “He caught you?” she asked.

  “He saw us,” Sabé said. “And I am sure he knows it was me.”

  “He was puzzling it through, in any case,” Eirtaé said. “When I saw his face, he was still thinking.”

  “Which was all you needed,” Padmé said. “That’s not bad for a first try.”

  Sabé didn’t reply, hypothetically because Eirtaé was wiping the makeup off her face, but truly because, just once, she had wanted to be the best at something because of a natural gift.

  “He only started to suspect when you spoke,” Yané said.

  “I can’t double for the Queen if I can’t speak,” Sabé said. Her head was free of the headpiece, so she twisted her hair up into the simple coil the handmaidens were wearing in readiness for the hood.

  “We’ve talked about the Queen’s face,” Padmé said. “We do that with makeup and practice mirroring each other’s expressions. We’ll just . . . have to come up with the Queen’s voice.”

  It wasn’t a terrible idea.

  “You already speak differently when you talk to government officials,” Sabé said. “It shouldn’t be too hard to adjust the inflection for both of us.”

  “All of us, I’ll say, because Rabé isn’t here,” Padmé said. She was smiling. Sabé had thought she might be disappointed, but the truth was that Padmé loved a plan, and now they had one. “And we’ll have to work to incorporate Rabé’s accent as well.”

  “I’ll add it to the list,” Eirtaé said.

  Working quickly, the handmaidens transferred the dress from one queen to the other, and Yané produced a small, portable version of the royal makeup case from one of her pockets. She did Padmé’s face while Eirtaé attached the headpiece and Sabé tucked herself into her hood. It took several minutes to make the changeover. If it was a more complicated dress, like any of the ones Amidala wore for court, it wouldn’t have been so quick, but Rabé insisted they work their way up to that challenge.

  Sabé picked up the book Padmé had retrieved, and fell into place at the back of the procession. Eirtaé opened the door again, and the four of them progressed into the hallway as though it were any other sort of day.

  This time, the fifty meters seemed friendlier. All Sabé had to do was keep her head down, and pass for the page everyone had seen enter the library half an hour ago. The guards fell into step behind her, and they all walked back to the suite as though everything was perfectly normal. When they reached the door, Panaka threw it open for them.

  “Did you find the book you wanted, Your Highness?” he asked blandly.

  They hadn’t told him about the plan to make Padmé a separate identity as a page. Yané had said it was easier to ask forgiveness than permission, so they had just gone ahead and done it. Perhaps they should have left the “page” in the library to better sell the bit. Eirtaé could add that to the list.

  “Yes, thank you, Captain,” Padmé said. Her voice was pitched low, much closer to Sabé’s than usual. “I did.”

  Governor Bibble was not surprised by the result of the vote, but Padmé could tell he was a bit disappointed, though neither she nor her handmaidens gave any indication.

  “Of course we all understand the agricultural reasons for allowing half the fields on Naboo to rot,” he said after they finished summarizing the report. “There is always a risk of overfarming, and any chance to help the nitrogen cycle along naturally is appreciated—but I had hoped that your influence would be enough to unlock the planet, such as it were.”

  “I agree, Governor,” Amidala said. The new voice didn’t come naturally to her quite yet, so they were trying it out on a known ally to start with. So far, Bibble hadn’t reacted at all. “The economy could certainly support buying grain right now, but there is a difference between simply purchasing things from offworlders and actually welcoming them, as encouraging emigration from offworld would have done.”

  Sanandrassa had been a good ruler, but she had shuttered Naboo in keeping with her beliefs about planetary isolationism, and both Queen and governor had been looking forward to opening it up again. Neither of them needed to say it out loud.

  “Ah, well,” Bibble said quietly as Amidala rose to take her leave. “There’s always next season.”

  “We appreciate your dedication, Governor,” Amidala said. Her voice cracked slightly at the end of the sentence.

  “Are you feeling well, Your Highness?” Bibble asked. “You have adjusted to being queen exceptionally well, but there are always strange side effects to new jobs.”

  “I am quite fine, thank you,” Amidala said. She let a bit of warmth back into the queen’s tone. A movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she knew Yané had balled up her hands in her sleeves, which she often did when she was trying not to laugh.

  “I’ll let you know the developments as I receive them,” Bibble said, bowing to her.

  Once the door was closed between them, Padmé heard the unmistakable sound of a snicker from inside Rabé’s hood.

  The situation between Saché and Yané didn’t change, nor did it become any clearer what the situation actually was. They were friendly enough to each other, but Saché would not be left alone with the older girl. She refused to explain why, and Yané did not seem to take offense. Gentle teasing only made Saché uncomfortable and caused Yané to shut down, so eventually the others just gave up and accepted it as a personality quirk. Like Eirtaé’s tinkering with small electronics or Rabé’s tendency to whistle when she was thinking, they ignored the issues completely. Which is to say: the annoyances built up until they exploded in a semispectacular fashion.

  “I thought you would appreciate the chance to write a mor
e complicated program,” Yané snapped. Eirtaé was grumbling about having to move out of the room when Saché caught the cold Yané had picked up the week previously. The med-droid had recommended the two of them share a room until their symptoms passed. Saché had refused point-blank.

  “My life is complicated enough, thank you,” Eirtaé said. “I could be apprenticing in the eastern quadrants, helping to build bridges, but instead I’m here with the pair of you, and you can’t even be sick together.”

  For a moment, it looked like Padmé was going to pull rank, something she had never done in the suite. But then Saché sighed.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll move in with Yané.”

  “I have already packed!” Eirtaé was well into high dudgeon now. Since they so rarely got to vent their emotions, it was probably overdue.

  “Packed what, exactly?” Sabé asked. “We share a closet.”

  Eirtaé looked ready to bite someone’s head off, and Padmé reluctantly stepped in.

  “Thank you, Saché, for seeing the other side of this,” she said. It came out in the lower tone they’d been working on for Amidala. “I know it’s not easy to do something that makes you uncomfortable.”

  Saché slunk off to the room where Yané had been staying since she started showing symptoms.

  “Eirtaé, I’m sorry for the disruption,” Padmé said.

  “Don’t you take the blame for this,” Eirtaé said. “I’m not supposed to be angry with you.”

  “You can be angry in here,” Padmé said. “Festering serves no one.”

  “Thank you,” Eirtaé said. She did not apologize or accept Padmé’s apology, but that was the price of common living.

  “Do you really want to build bridges?” Padmé asked. They had loosely agreed that the handmaidens would stay at least one term, but no one had made any binding promises.

  “Not really,” Eirtaé said. She grinned. “Bridges are easy.”

  “Anyone else?” asked Padmé. “Since we’re all here.”

  There were a few moments of silence, and then Sabé cleared her throat.