Aloren (25 page)

He stared, suddenly awake.  “I’m a bastard.”  He put down the parchment and got ink all over his fingers.  “Not a prince.  And I suppose you told me a whole lot more?”

I wanted to take his stupid, long neck, and throttle it.  “Why’d you hide it?  Why’d you lie?”

“Natty told you?” 

“What are you going to do?  Throw her into the sea chained to a rock?”

“Is that what princes do?”

“You couldn’t have kept it hidden.  Why’d ye even try?” 

He wiped the ink on his trousers.  “Why do you think?  Any other girl as clever could figure it out.”

“Go on,” I said.

“It was such a pleasure,” he said sarcastically, “being insulted, told-off, slapped and kicked––”

“There weren’t Gralde enough?”

“Most of them are too craven to do it to my face.” 

“That in’t it,” I said.  “Any other girl as clever would figure you’d been hiding your pile of horseshit.  That’s what she’d figure.  But you’ll always be standin up to your neck in shit, Andrei, no matter whose head you decide to screw onto your neck in the morning.”

“Lord of Light, you are a hot-head.  Calm down, think a little––your life could be a lot easier.”

“It in’t so easy,” I said, “when you think about it.”

“Oh.” I couldn’t look at him. “Is that why you’ve stopped thinking?” I began walking away.  “Did I say you could leave?”  It was the old, sour Andrei behind me, and I ran.  My legs were no match for his, and he caught me by the arm. 

I shook him off.  “Don’t dirty yerself.”

“Aly––”

“You oughtn’t be touching a filthy Eldine rat.”

He stopped, and I didn’t look behind, but I knew he stood there without moving because Sandal’s halter rang when the horse jostled his shoulder.

***

His thin face, the eyes––I walked and walked, faster and faster, but still they burned before me.  Though he wouldn’t go, I struck the
Aebelavadar
from my thoughts––after all, what could I do about it?––and tried to think only of the ice asters. 

I walked all the way to the weaving pool.  I had one tunic to complete: my own.  So I gathered armfuls of the flowers from the pool, and stuffed the flowers and shirts into my saddlebag for weaving during my journey north.  But before I could begin this I had a last errand to run.  I decided to deliver the letter to the tavern myself to ensure that it was opened by Hal.  The other insurgents were too hysterical to respond with sense. 

***

I hid the saddlebag in the hollow log on the beach––it could wait there until I was ready to go north––and I came to the tavern around midday. 

The sun poured into the boathouse when I opened the door, and the lamps guttered.  No one noticed.  There was no sign of Hal or his fiddle, but Wille, Padlimaird, Sal, Bequen, and at least twenty others I knew among the throng, were deep in argument. 

“We starve this coming winter or we raise hell,” said a small man with a blue cap.  Wille stole the cap.

“What sort of hell?”  He held the cap over a candle and smiled as a hole burned through.  He was in his cups.  “Fiery or rainy, Gwat?  How about both––if we torch their ships they’ll have no place to run when we corner them with our brollies.” 

Gwat slugged him in the stomach and took back his cap.  “Have a care, Illinla, or yer lass’ll get etted by the Ombens.”  Wille made to rise, but Sal forced him down.

“Are you all so hard by?” Bequen said.  I inched into a corner and looked around for Hal. 

“The same hambone can yield up lots of meals,” said a man philosophically.

“My hambone’s white as a pickled haddock,” said Sal.  “Good for clobbering noggins.  And Daira’s at Goody’s house, screaming for food––we came to do something, not talk of waiting.”

“Let’s raid a storehouse,” said Wille.

“Not you, clobber-face,” said Padlimaird.

“How do we get rid of em?” called a boy from the back. 

“I don’t know,” said Bequen. “No one likes them here, not even the court.  Except for Herist.” 

“As he’s got the thing they want,” said Gwat.

“No, he doesn’t,” said Bequen, “and thank Machenan for it. Herist would get the whole black horde to go to war with.”

“Oh,” said Gwat, grinning, biting on his pipe stem, “is Snakey letting you in on his war councils?”

“She’s right.”  I felt compelled to say it, hidden in my corner.

“A puppet!” said Gwat.    

“It’s the bastard’s pet Gralde,” someone said.

Chairs clattered, and Gwat stood up, and about five others, too. 

“Eager to dance off with news about us,” he said.

“He’ll put a ribbon in her hair for it, I’ll warrant,” said someone else.

“Or a coronet.” 

This was all too much.  “That’s right,” I said.  “You can all bow and go hang.”  Wille studied me as he would’ve an old ewer, newly buffed.

“Don’t wind yourself in a trawl,” said Bequen to me.  “You’re no nark, we’re not stupid.  But he chases after you the same.  And as I was saying––if any of you would listen––now his mother’s gone the
Aebelavadar
’s his to give, not Herist’s.” 

Folk started squawking at this, and she yelled over them, “He’s reached his majority.  I can hardly see him giving Herist control over the troops, they hate each other so.  Maybe––”  

“If he wasn’t to give it to them?” said an old sailor named Gabe.

“They want it real bad,” said Gwat sourly, “so they’ll stay, and take it by force, and take Norembry too, to shit on, as they like it so much here.”

“Aye,” said another man.  “They like it so much here, there’s nothing left for us to like.”

“It’s lose-lose.”

“Listen,” said Padlimaird.  No one did, but he must have thought it important, because he began shouting.  “Listen!  If the weapon left––on a ship, say––the Ombens might follow it.” 

Gwat laughed. “Like women after Laerty Lace-Pants?”

“Get it out of the country?” said Bequen.

“And they’ll follow like a swarm of bees,” said Wille.  He nodded at me.  “Sweeten the bastard’s bed, Lally, or sting him if he likes, and maybe he’ll ship the thing to Noldecelah, or Miachamel, or Evenalehn.”

I clutched a stool, preparing to throw it at him, and Gabe said, “It’s true, he’s smitten with her. It’s a running joke at Old Stolker’s.”

“Aloren,” said Bequen in a voice both firm and fraught, “you’re in a rare position to help. He’ll listen to you.  Tell him to send the
Aebelavadar
someplace else, or sell it to the Ombenelva, even, so long as he makes them leave the country. We need for you to at least
try
.  Otherwise we’ll have to shed blood to survive the winter.”

I kicked over a tool bench on my way out the door.

Twenty-Six

As I walked I brooded over Andrei, trying to undo the knots.  They only seemed to wind into new ones.

“That bottle thing, the
Aebelavadar
, it belonged to the Queen,” I said to Floy.  “And it fits into that broach.  Faiorsa was the one.  From the journal, the woman who stole the baby.  And Andrei’s the––like I thought––”  I groaned like a ship in a storm.

“Mordan would be proud,” said Floy. 

“Who is he, then?”  I walked so fast I was almost running.  I was confused as I’d ever been––the baby in the journal was supposed to solve problems, not make new ones.  “What was she doing,” I said, “making him prince of two countries? Getting hold of that weapon and inviting all the Ombenelva in the world to squat over Norembry.  Was that what she
wanted?
”

“Yes,” Floy said sarcastically, “considering all the work she put in.”

“Well she left a big pile, right enough.”

“But there––I doubt she intended
to die before sorting it out.”

“Herist poisoned her,” I said.  “That’s what happened, and now
he’ll
sort it out.”

My feet had steered me to the belltower.  I climbed the terrace and threw myself down in the shade at the base of a pillar.  My legs grew cold and I stuck them in the sun.  The wind chased locust leaves and cloud shades through the square, and a shadow grew firm and stayed in place over my knees. 

I’d half-expected it––the belltower was a sort of lodestone for him.  “Well met, your High Royalness.” My blood boiled and I drew my legs back into the shade.

“And you, sparrowshit.”

  “You listen,” I said.  He didn’t move, so I tried to get it over with in one breath:  “Ellyned needs for them Omben troops to leave straightaway, and the
Aebelavadar
belongs to you, don’t it? And they want it real bad.  So send the weapon off somewhere and they’ll go after it.  Or you can give it to them.  But either way you’ve got to send em away.  Norembry can’t support an army.” 

“What are you blabbering about?” He wiped sweat off his face.  “Believe me, I hate them as much as everyone else.  But I can’t send them away.” 

“Why?”  I hugged my knees.

“They’re the only thing keeping Herist at bay. And with Lorila like it is––”

“The
Queen
was the only thing keeping Herist at bay, and now she’s dead.  Poisoned by him, no doubt.  Now he’s got rid of her, he’ll get rid of you next and use your Ombenelva to overthrow the government.”

“Overthrow the government?”  His brows knotted together.  “You think he has the wits?”

“You,” I said, “are vastly underestimating his wits.” 

“Alright.”  He spoke as if trying to calm a nervous horse. “I’ll have him killed––then they’ll have to take orders from me.”

“A sixteen-year-old boy?”  I scratched my hair furiously.  “And if you manage that, what then?  Why keep them here? To march against Caveira?  And after ye’ve plowed over Dirlan, were you gonna send a letter to the Lorilan Ravy-whatsit asking him to tea in his desecrated duchy?”

“If he accepts the invitation,” said Andrei, who was working up a temper, “I’ll be happy to arrange with him his terms of defeat.”  He took a good look at my expression, and said quickly, “Both countries only want stability and he’s on his sickbed with his cousins squabbling––”

I stood up.  “You’re going to invade Lorila?”  The irony was too much. “D’you mean to be an emperor?  Andrei the Terrible, Scourge of the West?”

He didn’t say anything.  I nocked the arrow on my heartstring, drew it back, and took aim.  “Or are you too cowardly to send them troops away, too frightened Herist’ll resent it and let slip about those children he murdered? They probably thought it was their father coming. What a shock it must’ve been.”  He still said nothing, and it made me cruel.  “You’re nothing but a usurper.”

He went very white.  “I didn’t give those orders.” 

“Maybe.”  I shouldn’t have said it––he definitely wasn’t going to listen now, and to hell with the whole country if it meant I had to get on my knees.  “So why are you so scared of a letter? So scared of it you’re getting caught up in a fake war?  You’ve got to get rid of the
Aebelavadar
, it in’t
good
.  And the Ombenelva––get em out while they’re still obeying you, and send a message to Lorila about Caveira and Herist’s warmongering.  And if Herist strikes back, who cares?  Folk’ll know what he’s done by then.  They’ll think it’s nothing more than slander.  If you to go to war instead, Ellyned ain’t gonna sit by.”

“Ellyned won’t sit by for much, will they?” he burst out.  “Ellyned can’t understand the quickest way to pull us out of the mud is an army and a war.”

I couldn’t believe him.  “Out of the mud?”  I put a hand behind my back––the rock was damp.  “Norembry don’t want to be
important
.  Don’t you know what happens to important places?”  I was yelling now.  “Lorila, Virnraya, Evenalehn that used to be Eurlaire––they all rise with tricks, tyranny, war, and fall with the same shit again and over again in a hurtful, miserable cycle while everyone in this muddy nowhere goes about their slow, backwards business of being happy.”

He was silent for a moment.  Then he said, “I suppose you have to be human enough.”

“For what?  Destroying everything?”

“Forgive me, Aloren.”  His voice shook.  ”But I must compensate you for all your work.”  He reached into his cloak.  I thought of the handkerchief, but instead he pulled out a small sack of burlap.  He slammed it into my hand. “It’s gold.  Enough to buy a ship.  Now get out of here.  If I see you again I don’t know what I’ll do.”

I dropped the sack.  Coins clinked.  He walked away and the void in my chest filled with the old hate.

***

I left the gold beneath the belltower, and the hate stopped the flow of sense to my brain, so that by the time I’d retraced my steps to the tavern on the quay, the letter in my pocket, the one intended to stop the rebellion, was given not a thought when I burst in and upset the tool bench again.  Hal was there this time, his back to the door, and he played a tune with Halfwit Tom. 

Bequen saw me first.  She didn’t even have to ask, just took one look and threw herself out the door, probably to rally the west side.

The room got quiet.  “They’re staying,” I explained. 

Then one of them began shouting for building barricades around the warehouses, and another for igniting the Daldera ships and raiding the armories, and the room turned clamorous.  Begley Turnip climbed up from the bench where he’d been lying with a bottle and leaped towards the tools I’d knocked over.  But Sal and her table were there first, grabbing up wrenches and crowbars and hammers; and they began ripping crates apart in search of other things. 

The breath caught in my chest.  “There’s too many of em,” I shouted.  “Ye can’t fight em.  There’s too many.”  But the din swallowed my voice.  Tears began to roll down Tom’s cheeks; and I stole his fiddle and whacked it against people’s backs, but no one noticed.  Haberclad snapped a lantern from the ceiling and swung it from the chain like a flail; and Hal pulled me under a table, where it was near black.  He yelled that I could do no more about it, that I had best get myself hidden somewhere.  I pulled away and saw Wille and Padlimaird headed towards the door, pokers bristling in their arms.  I knew immediately where they were going: the forge, to hammer the metal into weaponry.  I made after them.

Bequen had burnt trails through the streets.  The lampposts along the quay were decapitated and folk had tossed the lanterns into warehouses, where fire sneaked about the wood and flowered.  The sun sank and people ran amok, cramming their pockets with bread, and swinging chickens by their feet.  Others were upturning carts, ripping up docks, and piling crates into the bones of a barricade.  I narrowly avoided a few rolling kegs, and pushed through the crowds down a side street.

Smoke curled out of the smithy, and sure as the sun had gone, I could hear Wille and Padlimaird pounding and singing.

“These useless things ain’t for flattening iron, are they?” Wille threw a hammer handle into a corner.

“We’ve got enough to last the night.”  Padlimaird reached for the tool rack.

“Where’s Nefer?” They turned to look at me and Wille tongued his cheek.

“You were a sight back there.  Looked like you had a row with Fillegal or Paddy.”

“Where’s Nefer?”

“What d’you want with him?”

“He’d bring you to your senses.  Ye’ve a daughter to look after, and Sal.”

“Don’t stick your nose in,” said Padlimaird.  Wille had an ugly look on his face.

“What d’ye suppose she’ll look like in ten years, my little Daira?”

“Chains?” said Padlimaird.

“Shackles?”

“A collar?”

Frustrated, I turned and ran into Nefer, who was holding an empty coal scuttle. 

“Not sure they need yer craftsmanship.”  He slowly eyed the three of us.  “The White-Ships’re gettin ready to tackle the armories.”

The boys whooped and ran past Nefer, and he shoveled hot coal into the pail.  “Don’t know about you followin em, Al.  Ye’re a bit smaller, after all.  Good for stealth, but I don’t know about fightin––”  He walked toward the door with his smoking scuttle.

“Where’re you going?” I said.

“To help them along.”

“You can’t.”  I moved in front of the doorway. 

“Can’t I?”  Nefer picked me up and set me behind him.  “Who’re you, then?  One o’ them lost Lauriad princes?”  And chuckling, he stepped out the door. 

I watched him leave and my eyes fell on the shoe-bench.  I stared at the silver dragonfly that had alighted there, wrenched at my hair for several minutes, and then slipped the broach into my pocket for safekeeping.  And ignoring Nefer’s advice, I took up a big slag shovel and walked out the door toward the east armory. 

***

The sky was thick with the smell of fire.  I chose the darkest streets and came to a halt east of the barracks, at the edge of the old canal, and gaped across at the smoke.  It was billowing from one of the northwestern towers of the palace. 

Soldiers fled from the barracks by the dozens, across the bridge, and I had a keen idea about what Nefer had done with his scuttle of coal.

Movement below drew my eye––a few people weaving through the debris at the bottom of the canal. 

They reached the side and I recognized a voice.  Someone scrambled for handholds.  Catching sight of Padlimaird’s white face, I walked over and gave him a hand.  He pulled himself up, and grabbed his poker from a man I didn’t know.

“We’ll have better weapons than these soon enough,” the man said, hauling himself after.  “I’ll go get more folk should the garrison come back overly quick.  We’ll have at the both of them tonight.”  He ran down an alley toward the quay.  Nefer jumped over the edge of the canal like a great black cat, and dangled his leg down for the last of them, a boy too short for Wille.

“Go an’ hide yerself, girl.” Nefer’s forearms were grey with coal dust.  “There’s wickeder men than I out tonight.  You go with her, Paddy.”

“But it was my idea,” said Padlimaird in a furious whisper.

“You
thought to light the palace afire?” I asked.

“Max’s bedchamber.”

“Gave you special permission, did he?”

“Yes.”  Max threw back his hood and rubbed his nose, and before Nefer could spin more warnings Max grabbed Padlimaird by the shoulder, and they ran toward the armory.  Nefer growled, waved me against a building, and walked after the boys, whistling like a happy thrush.

“That one’ll get his neck split for treason,” sang Floy from the eves.

“Which one?”  My heart skipped and I walked after them.

***

The soldiers’ fountain murmured in the courtyard.  Two sentries slouched unconscious against the wall, almost indistinguishable from each other.  The lights had been blacked.  I rubbed my sore eyes: it was a hive of silent activity, people handing off bows, pikes, swords and staves.

Nefer and the boys got lost in the crowd and I hung behind for a bit.  I heard a voice calling through the arcade: “They’re here!  Overtaking the bridge.” 

“Those not in line,” said someone else, “move up.  We’ll hold them off till Drebald comes with men from the quay––” 

The voice was cut off with a gruesome noise.  I saw a big man––Nefer––hurdle through the arches, followed by a swarm of other folk.  I fought to look, and Max stood abandoned in the center, hood shrugged from his head.

Finally he threw his hood up and ran after the others, and likewise abandoning my senses I walked through the arches, slag shovel swinging. 

The bridge writhed; everything was a muddle.  A cudgel swung down.  The breeze ruffled my hair, and seeing the uniform, I kicked the man in the knees and slammed his face with the flat of my shovel.