7
PUTTING DARKINGS
TO WORK
The next morning, Aly woke before dawn because her nose itched. She crossed her eyes to see the cause. It was the darking Trick, who had produced a thin tentacle to tickle her with. Aly groaned quietly—Dove was still asleep, Junai gone—and retreated to the privy closet. “What is it?” she whispered.
“Look,” the darking told her. It leaped to the shelf that lined the wall and stretched until it formed a thin snake nearly thirty inches long. Then it changed shape until it looked like a long string of black beads. Rising and turning, it made itself into a continuous necklace. Sticking up the bead that seemed to be its head, it told Aly, “Neck more fun than sash.”
Aly twiddled her thumbs. Finally she asked, “Where did you get this idea?”
“I snoop,” Trick said proudly. “Dove have beads. Sarai have many, many beads. Duchess have beads. Rihani have beads. Chenaol—”
Aly raised a hand for silence. She had the idea that the enterprising creature would have told her the contents of every jewel box in the house if she had asked. Trick stopped talking. “Do you ever sleep?” Aly asked.
“Sometimes,” Trick replied. “After we split to make new darking.”
Which could be useful, Aly thought. Spies that seldom need rest. “Have you any information from Lace or Feather?”
“Feather say there weapons under house and barn and stable and dairy and in tunnels under house,” Trick replied promptly. “Lace say Ochobu and Ysul magic on workroom and bedroom hurt. Lace can't go in there.”
“And the others? What do they say?” Aly wanted to know.
“The others explore Joshain Street. Lord Asembat next door snores in night. Lady Asembat meets young man in room by dock. Spies outside Balitang House from Topabaw and Carthak and Tyra bored. They say nothing happens here. Raka man stabbed soldier and other soldiers kill him. Lady Yendrugi in pink stucco house expects baby. Guards in Kadyet House across street owe Fesgao fifty silver gigits over dice. They tell Fesgao their master say Duke Nomru must watch step with regents. Daughter in Kadyet House is kissing her maid. In Murtebo House—”
Once more Aly raised a hand to halt the flow of information spilling out of her darking necklace. “I have to get some of you into the palace,” she murmured. “If you learn all this in just one night, I'll be deluged with what you can learn where it matters.”
“Kissing maid not matter?” asked Trick.
“No,” Aly said. “But the stabbing and the news about the duke matter.” She nibbled her lip, then said, “Once I'm dressed, you go back in my sash. Dove will want to visit the market—I'll find an excuse to break away, report to Master Grosbeak, and leave one of you with him. When I return, I'll wear you, so everyone will think I bought you at market. While we eat breakfast, get about four of you into that small red pouch I left in my workroom—the place where I put the others. You're all back, aren't you?”
“Yes,” replied Trick. Its bead head hung, somewhat forlorn. “No more fun today?”
Aly smiled and stroked the creature's head with a finger. “Don't worry. All of you will be having more fun than you can stand by week's end, I promise.”
She gathered up the darking and quietly went into the other room to dress. Junai's pallet was already folded and stowed. Dove slept with her light coverlet over her head. Once clothed, Aly tucked Trick into her sash and went downstairs.
In the stable courtyard, working by the pale early morning light, all combat-trained members of the household practiced their skills, with Ochobu and Ysul's spells to keep the sounds of their training from escaping into the air outside the walls. Aly joined them and soon found how rusty she had gotten since the family had left Tanair to come south. When Fesgao dumped her on her back in the dirt and leveled a spear at her throat, Aly noticed a trickle of darkness flow away from her sash. It seemed Trick did not care to be smashed. Aly swiveled her legs, twining them around Fesgao's as she gripped his spear, then yanked his feet from under him while gently touching his throat with the spear's butt. She rolled to her feet as Fesgao lay on the ground and cursed, turning to guard herself as Ukali came at her with double daggers.
When the sunrise bell rang out over the city, everyone dusted themselves off and checked one another's bruises. Fesgao tousled Aly's hair with a grin and ambled off with the other men-at-arms to change into uniforms. Aly scrubbed herself and combed her hair in the laundry, then went to her office. Trick was already there, exchanging sniffs with a miniature kudarung on Aly's windowsill.
“There seem to be more of those things every day,” she remarked, picking up a sheaf of reports.
“They come careful,” said Trick. “They don't all come at once. They can take darkings to other places.”
“We might do something with that,” Aly said absently, absorbed in her reading. Merchants who dealt in crops were saying that the price of rice would shoot up that summer, which meant poorer folk would be forced to eat millet. It was edible grain, but not by much.
She was halfway through the stack of paper when Junai stuck her head in the door. “You missed breakfast, and Lady Dove wants to go to Market Town,” she informed Aly.
“I rejoice,” Aly replied, setting her reports aside. “Nobody even saved me a sago cake?” She didn't love the palm-starch cakes, but they were filling.
“I saved two,” Junai said, placing them on Aly's desk. “Hurry up. You're supposed to be a lady's maid, remember?”
After she left, Aly hung her red pouch, with its five darkings, from her sash. She then hurried to dress her mistress for an expedition to Market Town. This time Dove and her guards followed Joshain Street to Susashai Way. After three blocks of eyeing the seamstresses' shops that lined Susashai, they turned down Ratechul Avenue. Dove knew many people here, too—flower sellers, door guards, and booksellers. Having learned the day before that Dove could spend an hour chatting with just one person, Aly asked to leave the group for a short time. She knew Dove would be well watched in her absence.
Dove nodded permission as a bookseller came out of his shop, beaming. Aly nodded to Dove's guards and left.
From here, it was nine blocks to the building that Topabaw's man Grosbeak used as his workplace. Aly walked through his door into a large waiting room, where faded bolts of cloth were displayed on counters.
Seated at a table, with an account book, reeds, and ink before her, was a hard-faced old woman. She glared at Aly but said nothing. Aly looked about as if for a friendlier face, though no one else was there. She wrung her hands to complete the picture of nervousness, then bent down and whispered, “I'm here to see Master Grosbeak. I have messages.”
The old woman sniffed. “Don't you all.” She got up. “Follow me.” She led Aly down a narrow, badly lit hall to an office. There were bundles of paper stacked everywhere, on shelves and on the desk at the center of the room. There was no chair for visitors: Aly suspected that few people would want to linger.
Grosbeak himself was a part-raka with wiry black hair. Aly fumbled with her hands, then her sash, wondering if he'd been trapped into this like Vitorcine or if he liked his work. She noticed the large emerald ring on his left hand as he opened the ledger and decided not to care about Grosbeak. Topabaw had made him rich.
“You're new,” he said, his black eyes memorizing her face. “Name?”
“Aly Homewood, your lordship,” she said, voice shaking.
“Where do you work? And it's Master Grosbeak, wench. I don't hold with mockery.” His voice was as tight and flat as his mouth. He picked up a writing brush, dipped it in ink, and began to copy her particulars into his ledger.
“Please, Master Grosbeak, I'm maid to Lady Dovasary at Balitang House.” Aly had tucked a darking with a peony inside it into her sash on the way to Grosbeak's. Now she smoothed her hands over her sash, as if drying her palms. “I wasn't mocking, sir, truly.” Rubbing the sash was her cue to Peony. The darking flowed out the back of her sash and down to the floor. Aly stepped closer to the desk so that Grosbeak could not see her below the hips.
“Have you anything to report? Treasonous talk against the regents or His Majesty, letters and messages from mysterious sources, private chats between nobles without the servants to hear? Gossip from the servants about making trouble in the streets? Rumors of unrest, or traitors?” He scowled when she didn't answer right away. “This is Rajmuat, wench. Someone always talks loosely.”
“Well, but, sir, we've only been back in the city less than a week, and first my ladies had to go to court, and folk are calling, and there's dresses to be made, and my lord Elsren comes and goes from the palace, it's really all very confusing. They were sad when they saw some people from the Ibadun family had been killed when we came, and Lady Dove was scared bad when a fight broke out near us at Dockmarket yesterday. . . .”
She nattered at him until he tired and dismissed her, with orders to listen to more conversations between noble guests. Aly curtsied as much as the sarong allowed, to ensure that Peony was tucked under Grosbeak's desk. When she saw that glint of flower, she knew the darking would manage well, and retreated. The old woman scowled at her in the front room, while a newcomer turned her head so that Aly could not see her face.
Aly was smiling as she turned into an alley two doors down from Grosbeak's. By the time she visited the man again, she would know a great deal more about who was loyal to the regents and who was not. Then she could do her best to direct Grosbeak's—and Topabaw's—suspicious eyes toward their own supporters.
In the alley, she stepped into a dark corner between buildings. “All right, Trick,” she murmured. “If you want to spend life as a necklace . . .”
The darking poked its new bead-head out of her sash. “See more,” it explained.
“Very true,” said Aly. She gently lifted the Trick-bead string from her sash and draped it over her neck. It felt like cool drops of water rolling over her skin as Trick arranged itself in two loops of shiny beads. Under her right ear, one bead joined with another as a kind of clasp, giving Trick a slightly bigger head to speak from, where Aly could easily hear it.
Once she was freshly arrayed, Aly went in search of her mistress. Dove had moved on from the bookseller's where Aly had left her group, so Aly walked along until she saw Dove's unofficial guards. They pointed out the three household guards stationed at the entrance to the largest shop on Dori Way: Herbrand Edgecliff, Bookseller and Importer.
“How long has she been in there?” Aly asked the man-at-arms positioned by the main entrance.
“Long enough for my feet to hurt,” drawled the man, an ex-bandit and devoted family servant.
Aly smiled. “Then I believe I'll wait out here. How many books can one person read?” she joked, with only a little, well-hidden wistfulness for long winter afternoons spent curled up, reading until her eyes began to blur.
The man-at-arms grinned. “Don't ask me—I can't read anyway.” Then pride dawned on his face. “But my daughter can. Her Grace's maid's been teaching the little ones.”
Aly smiled. She understood a father's pride. “She's a clever girl,” Aly told him. “With luck she'll go far.”
To keep from distracting him, she wandered along the storefront, part of her mind on the talk around her, part on what she had planned for that evening, and part on the bookseller's display. He had a very expensive front window, made of small panes of costly glass, the better to show off his wares. The books looked gorgeous, even through the warps and bubbles in the glass.
Something caught her eye. In the lowest right-hand pane in the corner, someone had scratched a design. Aly sharpened her magical Sight. The emblem of the open shackle was cut into the window. More importantly, it had been done from inside. Someone working in the shop, perhaps Master Edgecliff himself, supported the rebellion.
She yawned. “Maybe I can hint that it's getting toward lunchtime,” she told the guard, and ambled into the shop, switching her behind like a lazy servant girl. When the door closed behind her, she reached into the bag that hung from her sash. It was like reaching into a bowl filled with lively cool liquid. A ball of it moved up into her palm. Gently Aly brought out a darking and, while looking at a wall of books, deposited it on a bottom shelf. There was an inch-wide gap between shelf and floor: the darking slid into it and vanished.
Pleased with her morning labor—she would place two more darkings on the way home, one at the checkpoint on Joshain and Trade Winds Street and one near Topabaw's spy outside Balitang House—Aly went to find Dove.
As the household napped, Aly returned to her workroom to talk with her pack and their recruits. They were training more people, teaching them how to gather information and where to send it. And there was news: Vereyu had sent a note from the palace. It seemed that the night before, Topabaw had been forced to interrupt the regents' supper with the news that the luarin governor of Ikang Island had been murdered. Servants had been present to hear both Topabaw's admission that he had no information as yet and Imajane's enraged reply, “Then what good are you?”
Aly smiled with pleasure. Already the relationship between the princess-regent and her spymaster was fraying and they had foolishly, or arrogantly, shown it before witnesses. “We must do our best to ensure that Topabaw continues to look unable to manage his work,” she murmured, going through new reports on her desk. At the bottom of the stack was a slate with code signs written in chalk: Ysul's notice that her requested pots of blazebalm were ready for use. Before her pack returned to their own jobs, she said, “Those of you who were with me two nights ago, I'll require you at midnight once more.” They nodded and left.
Ulasim stuck his head in the door as the last of Aly's pack filed out. “The guests have begun to arrive,” he said. “And the young eagles have decided they wish to go riding to Lady Weeps Park.”
Aly raised an eyebrow in silent question.
Ulasim answered it. “Her Grace says they will all go, including Lady Dovasary.” He gave his thin smile. “Dove is not pleased. She has new books to read. Her Grace says His Grace of Nomru particularly requests his young friend's company.”
Well, that's that, Aly thought, getting to her feet. It's not as if she can turn down one of the ten most powerful nobles in the realm.
She had asked Dove two nights ago, as she prepared her mistress's hair for bedtime, why she talked so much with a man old enough to be her grandfather. Dove had replied, “He's one of the few people who can keep up with me, and I with him. It's a pleasant change from having to slow down to deal with most people.”
Aly, looking at Dove in the mirror, raised an eyebrow.
Dove smiled. “Not you, silly. I have trouble keeping up with you. Where everyone else sees a straight line, you see a maze, and when I'm done talking to you, the maze starts to make more sense.”
“Thank you, I think,” Aly had replied then. Now she amended her thought. Dove would risk offending one of the realm's most popular nobles if she didn't actually like him.
With Nuritin in command of household social functions, it was less than an hour until they were ready to go. Sarai's court of young men drew straws for the honor of riding at her side. Aly noticed that the Carthaki Zaimid did not choose to compete. Instead he rode with Nuritin, keeping pace with the duchess and her father, Lord Matfrid Fonfala.
Sarai's court supplied all the color and liveliness their parade could want, laughing and joking. At last the park appeared at the end of their road, the entrance graced by curved palm trees. Five wild kudarung soared overhead on the day's heated air. Even the younger riders stopped to watch, awed. When they entered the park, they did so quietly.
Aly and the other servants ended up in a pavilion set near the gate and the stables. Those nobles who chose not to ride left their mounts and wandered among the flower gardens, eating delicacies sold at small pavilions. Sarai and her companions rode on the park's horse paths, racing each other, Sarai determined to beat them all. She lost only to Zaimid.
After the racing, the horses were led to the stables to be cared for by the hands who worked there. The young people then joined the older ones for rest, food, and conversation. Aly wandered into the stables, admiring the horses and flirting with the hostlers, while she slipped a darking each into the saddle blankets of Duke Nomru, Lord Fonfala, and the Dowager Countess Tomang. She had talked to the creatures about what they were to do and questioned them enough to know that they understood her quite well. Though the darkings did not care to be elaborate with spoken language—perhaps because speech was a tricky affair for them—they were very intelligent.
Once the mosquitoes came out, it was time to return. Pembery, Boulaj, and Aly repaired their mistresses' appearances with degrees of success. Pembery and Aly did well enough because their ladies had spent the afternoon talking. As soon as Pembery finished, Winnamine went to see if the horses were ready to go. Boulaj had more of a struggle. Sarai had lost every one of the hairpins that had kept both her straight and her curled locks in place. She shook her long mane free. “Don't pin it, Boulaj,” she ordered. “Whose idea was it anyway to make us torture our heads?”
“It's not seemly,” protested Boulaj. “Young ladies are supposed to wear their hair up.”
“Aly, there's a sheer scarf in my bag,” Dove murmured. “Somebody should have thought to tell Boulaj that Sarai's old maid always carried spare pins.” She looked at Pembery, eyes narrowed, as Aly searched out the scarf Dove had mentioned. “You were friends with her,” Dove told her stepmother's attendant. As senior maid, it was Pembery's job to help Boulaj, as Dove well knew. “Perhaps you might tell Boulaj the different tricks to dressing my sister that she knew.”
Pembery recognized a command even when it was phrased as a request. “Yes, Lady Dovasary.” Dove didn't look away until Pembery gave a small bow of her head.
Aly produced the scarf, a gold and red length of silk that covered Sarai's hair enough for everyone but sticklers like Nuritin and Countess Tomang, who sniffed at the same time. Aly restrained a giggle and Boulaj covered a grin.
The party was quiet from weariness as they rode back down the stepped rises that lifted the different levels of the city above the harbor. Though it was still spring, the day had been warm and sticky, a hint of summer to come. Nomru and Matfrid Tomang spoke idly of moving to country estates for the summer. Zaimid told his companions, Sarai, Dove, and Sarai's friend Isalena Obemaek, that he wouldn't miss the dampness at all when he returned to hot, dry Carthak.
The closer they went to the heart of the city, the more Aly's skin prickled. The sidewalks were unusually crowded, even for this time of day, and few people on them were moving. Instead they stared at the noble riders. At Sarai.
Aly eased along the line of guards until she found the commander of the Balitang men-at-arms. Junai moved in from the other side of the thin ring of men to listen to Aly. First Aly counted, then wished she hadn't. The Balitangs had sent five soldiers. Most of the other riders had brought one, maybe two, guards, not anticipating trouble on an afternoon's ride to the park.
“You've got your cautious face on,” the guards' commander murmured. “What is it?”
“Too many quiet people who are just staring,” Aly replied. “And we know who they're staring at, too. Is there any way we can avoid the next army checkpoint?”
“I would think you'd want soldiers to handle the crowd,” he replied.
Aly and Junai both shook their heads. “Oil on tinder,” Junai explained. “The soldiers itching for a fight and the people itching to get at soldiers.”
“It might not be too inconvenient to the regents if the very popular Balitang sisters got hurt—or accidentally killed—in a fight between a mob and soldiers. Things get so confused in street fighting—”
“Too late,” the commander interrupted, “here's the checkpoint. I'll pass the word for everyone to look sharp.” Ahead, the road crossed with Rittevon's Lance, the street that went from the palace down to the docks. The soldiers at the checkpoint warily eyed the people, who outnumbered them, but did nothing to send them away or to hinder the nobles. It was five blocks farther down that the mob swept out of the side streets to surround the riders. In eerie silence, many of the new arrivals ragged and dirty, they tried to force their way through the guards, reaching for Sarai.
“Whatever you are doing, this is neither the time nor the place.” Duke Nomru had a thundering voice when he cared to use it. “You will bring grief upon yourselves with this display. Return to your homes!” He wheeled his mount, forcing the people nearest him to back away.
Ferdy Tomang had stronger feelings. “Raka dogs!” he cried, lashing the nearest member of the crowd with his riding crop. “Back to your kennels!”
Oh, splendid, Aly thought, rolling her eyes. Our hero.
The eerie silence broke with a roar. Half of the mob turned on the young count. Ferdy spurred his horse to rear. The other noblemen and Matfrid Fonfala did the same, urging their mounts to turn on their hind legs, showing everyone the crushing power of those raised front hooves.
Balitang House's people had been trained for this, even if the guards with them had not. Junai and a man-at-arms collected the duchess and Nuritin. They drew them and the other noblewomen onto the sidewalk to put a building at their backs and take them out of the physical movement on the street. Aly gripped Sarai's and Dove's mounts, forcing them toward the same wall.
“Sarai, don't!” cried Dove. Aly looked up.
Sarai had her riding crop raised; her target was Aly. “Let me go!” she ordered. “I have to stop them before they kill people—before we kill more raka!”
Aly held Sarai's eyes with her own. She did not say it, but she thought it: if Sarai hit her, Aly would teach her a lesson Sarai's supporters would not like.
“Don't be a fool!” snapped Dove over Aly's head. “Get the wall at our backs, and get our servants behind us!” Boulaj was already ranging among the maids' horses, drawing them together and moving them to the rear, speaking softly as their riders kept very still. Aly was grateful that maids seldom chose lively mounts.
“This bad,” Trick murmured in her ear. “Four-leggers mashing two-leggers bad.”
Above the cries of the mob Aly heard the sound she'd been dreading: the tramp of boots. “It's about to get worse,” she muttered. Here came the King's Watch, stern, hard men in red-painted breastplates, metal helmets, and boots with nails in the soles and metal pieces that covered the toes, making any kick the soldier gave a bloody one. They were armed with short swords, clubs, and shields, and used all three to drive the mob, cutting their way through to the nobles. A raka woman moved to scoop two children out of the way of their mounted captain, diving between the Balitang guards into the protected inner circle. It was Eyun, one of Aly's pack. She bore a scratch down one creamy cheek. She looked at Aly, who nodded that she'd done well, then turned her attention to the shrieking children. One looked to be a merchant's child. Her gown was luarin-style cotton, unfaded and unmended. She yelled for her nursemaid while the other child screamed over his broken arm. He looked like the worst dregs of the slums, ragged and filthy.
“Here.” Winnamine knelt beside Eyun, a flask of water in her hands. To the girl she said, “I'm sure your nurse is fine.” She offered the boy a drink from her silver flask. The boy blinked at her, then took the flask and drank. He might have then tried to run with it, but light flashed from Nuritin at Winnamine's side. The boy's eyes rolled up and he collapsed, Nuritin's sturdy old hands catching him before his bad arm hit the stones. Aly had heard that the old lady had been rough and ready in her day. It seemed she could still muster a bit of power at need. “Well, I couldn't leave him feeling all that pain,” Nuritin said, meeting Winnamine's look. “And softhearted as you are, I suppose we'll need a healer who will tend him.”
“That depends on the healer, surely.” Zaimid dismounted. He knelt in the street, apparently unaware of the war being fought on the other side of the protective line of men-at-arms and noblemen on horseback. “It's quite a simple break, and luckily, it's not pierced the skin.” Gently he wrapped long fingers around the broken limb, his head bent, his brown face closed and thoughtful. In Aly's Sight silvery fire spun a thread from his blazing magical core down through his arm and into the boy's.
He's got wonderful control, thought Aly, impressed. Of course, he would. They wouldn't put a noble idiot in charge of the Carthaki emperor's health.
Zaimid released the boy's arm. The marks of his hands showed pale at first, then faded. The boy stirred, then grabbed his arm. He looked at it, agape, then at Nuritin, who had recovered Winnamine's flask, then at Zaimid.
“You'll do better here until this ends,” Zaimid said. “No good sending you out to get something else broken.”
Dove nudged Aly and handed over plums that had survived the nobles' meal. Aly gave them to the boy. He began to devour them, his wondering eyes still on Zaimid.
Beyond their circle of safety, the royal soldiers dispersed the mob with brutal speed. Sarai was still trying to fight her way between Ferdy Tomang and Duke Nomru, screaming, “They weren't hurting anyone! Leave them alone!” She finally gave up when the soldiers had driven the crowd so far down the street that none of them could hear. She glared at Duke Nomru, tears running down her cheeks. “They weren't going to hurt us!”
The older man raised his stern brows. “And do you think that would stop the kind of men they have in the King's Watch? Their orders are to disperse gatherings.” He looked down the street, with its litter of bodies. “This one is well and truly dispersed, whatever its intention was.” He looked back at the ladies. “I propose we return to Balitang House at all speed, before the animals hired for the Watch return.”
Winnamine and Nuritin mounted up.
Aly moved in close to Eyun. “Stay here. Learn what you can, maybe get this little one home?” The little girl had sobbed herself into silence in Eyun's hold.
Eyun nodded and hand-signed, They wanted to touch the twice-royal. That's all. Just touch her, to know she is real.
“So much beauty shouldn't be marred,” Zaimid said over Aly's shoulder. He brushed Eyun's cheekbone with his fingers. Her cut healed before their eyes, as if the work of several weeks had been put into a breath. There was not even a scar. To Nomru he said apologetically, “Your Grace, my ladies”—he looked at the older women next—“forgive me, but I am needed here. I bid you all farewell.” To Sarai he added, “I'll make sure these two children are looked after.” He was already unbuckling saddlebags from his horse. Draping them over his shoulder, he asked the boy, “Will you hold my reins?” He passed them into the child's hands. Aly thought he was being overcharitable, giving the reins to a boy who had meant to steal the duchess's silver flask, but it seemed the boy held the healer in too much awe to steal the horse at present.
Aly mounted her pony. Sarai might have pulled away from her group, but her grandfather Matfrid came up beside her as she urged her horse forward, and took the reins. “Granddaughter, you are overwrought,” he said quietly, holding her dark eyes with his gray ones. “Allow me to escort you.”
They rode off, picking their way around the fallen—Aly was pleased to see a few soldiers groaning in the road—the men and the guards in a ring around the ladies and their maids. Aly looked back between two guards. Zaimid, saddlebags on the ground beside him, was engaged in turning over a woman who resembled a bundle of rags, unaware or uncaring that she'd left a bloody handprint on his white lawn sleeve.
At the house, the gathering broke up quickly. Sarai announced that she had a headache and needed to lie down. Without her to hold them together, the young nobles chose to go home. The gloss had been stripped from the afternoon.
Only when the guests had gone did the Balitang ladies and their maids ascend to the family quarters. They entered their private sitting room to find Sarai and a litter of overturned chairs and decorative tables. Gazing at the mess, Aly thought it was just as well that the second-best furnishings went into this room, which was for comfort, not style.
“Have you taken leave of your senses?” asked Nuritin. Her back was as stiff as a poker, her voice chipped ice. “This is not the behavior of a properly bred young woman, it is the behavior of spider monkeys!”
“After seeing all those ‘properly bred' people just sit there while people were being thrashed, I'd rather live with spider monkeys!” cried Sarai, eyes swollen with furious weeping. “Every last one of us—every last one—just let it happen! Ferdy was glad—he called them raka dogs, I heard him!”
“A riot cannot be controlled, Sarai,” Winna said calmly, setting a table upright. “All we could have done was get pulled from our horses and savaged. Soldiers can lose control in those circumstances. They don't care who they batter—and they can always claim they didn't realize we were nobility when we were among the commoners. It's happened before.” Dove, Aly, and Pembery began to help the duchess pick things up. Nuritin continued to stare at Sarai as if she were a badly trained housemaid.
“It's happened here,” Sarai shouted. “It happens here, because soldiers believe the poor are a disease, not people. And they get that attitude honestly—it comes straight from the Throne! It always has and it always will, and people who are supposed to be noble in nature will let it happen, for fear of their own lives! Only one of us showed any decency today: Zaimid! The foreigner! He actually cares about people, whether they live in kennels or not!” She stormed out, yanking the door open so hard it chipped the stucco wall.
There was a long silence. At last Nuritin said tartly, “Well! I am not charged with her upbringing, Winnamine, but in your place, I would slap her for addressing elders in such a way.”
“She was upset, Aunt,” Winnamine replied wearily. “There was blood running in the gutters.”
“Screaming and shouting will not change that,” snapped Nuritin. “Getting enough power among ourselves to force the Crown to change how it rules the people, that is the way to change.”
Well, it's one way, thought Aly, collecting the pieces of a broken vase.
What Nuritin had just said sounded very close to treason. If Aly really did belong to Topabaw, she could get all kinds of favors from him for that tidbit alone. She wondered if Countess Tomang—certainly not her son!—Lord Matfrid, Duke Nomru, and Baron Engan, Dove's astronomer friend, held the same view that the Crown must be controlled.
At the conspirators' nightly meeting Aly reported on the fight. Ochobu was not present. The moment she'd heard the news, she had packed her bag of medicines and gone to offer help. No one suggested they would pray for any member of the Watch who made the mistake of trying to stop her.
There were more reports to give and to hear. At last the conspirators separated, most bound for their beds. Aly went to her office. Ysul came in not long after with three packs, setting them on the floor very carefully. He was dressed as an itinerant worker, the kind of fellow people expected to see around the docks. In a cloth bag carried like a bedroll on his back he had his waterproof and sight-proof disguise. Aly dressed in her own suit, then in her Carthaki noble's disguise. Fegoro came again as a Bazhir, Lokak as a southern Car-thaki, Jimarn as another Carthaki noble, and Yoyox as Death's priest. Aly, Jimarn, and Yoyox hid Ysul's packs under their flowing clothes.
“Fun?” whispered Trick in Aly's ear. “Meeting not fun. Fight in street and house stupid.”
She followed the others to the laundry and down into the tunnel, whispering softly inside her veils, “It depends on what you think is fun. It will be loud.”
“Loud maybe fun,” said Trick. “You think fight in street and house stupid, too?”
Aly was about to ask how the darking could judge what was stupid for humans when she stopped herself. She had to remember, these creatures were intelligent. They learned ferociously fast. They already knew every member of the household by face and voice. And they had lived nearly ten years among dragons. Surely that counted for something, since Daine had also mentioned dragons were less than patient as a whole. Aly grinned wryly as they emerged from the tunnel.
“Fights were stupid,” she said. Then she and Jimarn each took one of Fegoro's arms as the rest of their group cut over to other streets.
As before, the King's Watch had abandoned the checkpoints for the night. The afternoon's unpleasantness had taken place in Middle Town, not at the dock. It was habit among the city's guardians to decide that a violent outburst kept the lower classes quiet for days, which meant they were off their guard now.
Their watchman friend was absent. They entered his shack, removed their disguises, then redistributed the packs. Quietly they descended the ladder to the meeting places of stinking piers, stinking water, and stinking boulders. The noise from the dockside merrymakers was as loud as ever, a jangle of music, singing, debate, and the occasional fight. It covered any slips they made on the rocks. At last they came to the metal net and passed into the slave market piers.
Aly adjusted her Sight as the three teams split up. Beside the piers she could see ships at anchor—seventeen in all. They should be close to empty. Even with the net, slavers didn't like the risk that some desperate swimmer might yet escape. Slaves were always taken to the market's pens as soon as their vessel docked. Aly hoped there would be crew aboard but knew the likelihood was small. They would be out, spending the profits of other slave sales.
She led Ysul out to the farthest left pier of the dock she had kept for herself, the dock where she had disembarked as a slave. As he treaded water, she took a small clay globe from his waterproof sack and jammed it into an opening between boards. Back and forth they went, careful to let no water leak into the sack of globes. At last all six were placed. As they waited, Ysul left the waterproof bag close to the nearest globe. It would be incinerated when the globe was set off. It was always important to get rid of any trace of the mage who did a piece of work like this. If Topabaw's people were good enough, they might track any remnants back to Ysul.
Aly and Ysul returned to the net to wait for their companions. The others arrived, their own bags left behind. Swiftly they made their way back to the watchman's shack and changed out of their waterproof clothes into their disguises. As they left the shack, they took the bundled suits over to one of the many fires that lit Dockmarket and burned them. Then they mingled with the crowds.
They reached the end of the night market, a good four blocks from the slave docks and pens. Wooden barriers were set there, manned by rock-muscled freemen with iron-studded clubs. The slave merchants liked to guard their property.
Aly, Jimarn, and Fegoro reached the barriers, inspected the guards by eye as if they too may be for sale, then turned to look at the fading gaiety of the Dockmarket. Ysul was watching a juggler nearby. When he glanced at Aly, she raised two gloved fingers.
She saw the silver flash of Ysul's magic. At the corner of her eye she noted an orange flicker; fast behind it came the roar as the blazebalm ignited, blowing their cheap clay globes into dust and setting the slave docks on fire. Aly turned when the other merrymakers did, to see a vision that made her shiver in delight. Columns of flame clawed the night sky as fire raced over the docks. Within moments their fire was reaching for the ships. A handful of men threw themselves from a few vessels and swam for shore: watchmen, left behind while their mates toured the city.
Like the rest of the Dockmarket crowds and the guards on the barriers, Aly and her friends stayed to look on as ship after ship caught fire and alarm bells began to sound in their part of the city. Only when they heard the ominous thump of marching feet did they mingle with the rest of the crowd and flee, splitting up as the crowd did, to find their way home by separate routes.
Aly went to bed feeling drained but pleased. When she had been brought to those docks and the slave markets beyond, she had promised herself that everyone who had fetched her there would come to regret it. It might take her years to find the actual pirates who had captured her, but the docks, and the vessels of some providers of captives for sale, made for a very fine start. She rather thought her mother would approve.