3
TOPABAW
The next morning Nuritin assembled the family in the lobby of the house, inspecting them as if she were a general and they her troops. No stray thread or curl escaped her frosty blue eyes, no unfortunate fold or bitten fingernail was not remarked upon. At last she smiled thinly.
“Let us see what Her Highness makes of the impoverished, newly returned Balitangs today,” she told the duchess. “If she thinks she can buy you with royal favor, there is no time like the present for her to learn differently.”
“Aunt, please,” murmured Winnamine. “Topabaw has ears everywhere.”
“He may eavesdrop all he likes. At this point, the regents need to keep us happy. They need to keep you happy,” added Nuritin. “You'll see. Come, ladies, and my young lord,” she added with a curtsy to little Elsren.
He looked up at his formidable relative and chuckled.
“Very good,” Nuritin said with approval. She took his hand and led them all out to the courtyard.
The ladies had chosen to ride, though Sarai had sulked over Nuritin's decree that they ride sidesaddle. Elsren and Petranne, along with the maids who served the older ladies, and Rihani, the younger children's nurse, rode in litters; the boxes of ceremonial clothes were in a small wagon at the rear of the procession. Fesgao rode at the head of the double ring of household men-at-arms, every one of them armed and armored. Junai, dressed as a man, walked on one side of Sarai's mount, Boulaj on the other. Aly walked between Dove and the ring of guards, to be on hand in case the Crown decided life would be easier without the older Balitang girls and the rumors that cropped up wherever they went.
Fesgao moved them out into the Windward District. Despite the earliness of the hour, there were people on the streets, and still more atop walls or looking out of windows. Aly found a familiar face in the crowd, handsome Rasaj, one of her pack. The rest of Aly's spies would be watching for anything troublesome or interesting. She saw three other faces she recognized from Balitang House, and she knew her pack had taken some of their own recruits with them. That was fine. The more the merrier.
For the most part it was a quiet ride. Aly saw other signs that the winter had not been a quiet one. The King's Watch kept people from gathering in any one place for long. Aly noticed still more scorch marks and chipped wood, swatches of fresh paint, and an overall atmosphere of tension. At one intersection, shopkeepers washed what looked like blood from the ground, their expressions sullen as they eyed a nearby clutch of Watchmen.
The previous spring, even with mad King Oron on the throne, the city had been a riot of flowers, colors, and movement. Today it was as if Rajmuat held its breath, waiting for something to shatter the stillness of the air. Aly wasn't sure if the place was ready for open revolution, but she guessed it was certainly ready to explode in some fashion.
That pleased her. The people did not seem to appreciate being supervised as if they were children bent on playing pranks against their elders. Not even the luarin acted as if all was right with their worlds.
Their path rose steadily up the terraced sides of the immense crater that was Rajmuat city and harbor. By sharpening her Sight Aly could see there was a soldier posted every ten feet along the palace wall on the heights. There were no marks on the wall, so the city's troubles had yet to reach the palace. She would make sure that did not last. The soldiers were alert and sweating under chest and head armor. How many guards did the Rittevons lose to heatstroke? Aly wondered. Summer might be a good time for all-out war.
“I wouldn't want their job,” she murmured to Dove, pointing at the wall. “They have to be hot up there. Do they always wear armor on duty?”
Dove shaded her eyes. “Usually they wear lighter stuff, metal plates on leather shirts. They're wearing plate armor?”
“Helms and cuirasses at least,” Aly replied. “They must be cooking like lobsters.”
“Idiots,” whispered Dove contemptuously. “Don't they realize the whole city knows what it means when they put men in plate armor on the palace walls? Why not paint a sign that says We're frightened and hang it on the gates?”
“Never complain of another's foolishness, my lady,” Aly said, her voice just as soft. “Not if there's a chance you might put it to use.” She wondered what the city folk had been up to that winter to make their rulers this skittish? She would have to talk to her pack and catch up on the gossip.
The road entered open ground, flanked by emerald lawns perfectly cropped by slave gardeners and populated by peacocks, geese, and more than a few crows. Streams wound across the land in front of the palace walls. Bridges allowed riders to pass over the wide, deep waters where they met the road. The streams held gray and red fish with sharp, protruding teeth.
“What do they feed the fish up here?” Aly asked Dove as they rode over the first bridge. The water on either side churned as the fish swam to the surface, gathering where they heard the sound of hooves.
Sarai heard and answered. “Meat once a day, but just enough to keep them alive,” she said, her eyes flashing as she looked at the stream. “For the rest, they eat whoever gets pushed in. The third Rittevon king brought them here from the rivers of Malubesang. They were to help him save money on executions. If you can make it to the far bank and out of the water alive, it's assumed you're innocent.”
“How efficient,” said Aly, awed in spite of herself.
“That's where the rebel's children go, when the rebel himself, or herself, is made an Example down by the harbor,” Winnamine called over her shoulder. “Some years they just throw people off the cliffs into the sea, because the fish are too well fed to eat any more.”
So glad I asked, Aly thought with a wince. Then a happier idea made her smile: she would enjoy putting an end to the kind of rulers who would think of such a brutal way to punish their followers, however rebellious.
At last they came in view of the main gate, called the Gate of Victory. It was set behind a deep moat, on the far side of the last of the bridges spelled to collapse if the right command word was spoken. There were no fish in this water-lily-covered moat, but crocodiles eyed the passersby. Beyond lay the gate itself. When it was open, five heavy wagons could enter abreast. Aly could see that the white marble exterior of the walls was only a facade: the core stones were granite.
Traffic here was at its heaviest. They were not the only visitors that day, but the guards bowed low to the duchess and waved her through, while they stopped the merchant who followed them to inspect his wagons. More guards joked with some riders who were leaving the palace.
Once they had clattered down the tunnel in the wall and emerged on the other side, Sarai told Aly, “That was the Luarin Wall. Rittevon Lanman started building it as he put the crown on his head. It took them three generations to finish. Maybe if the raka queens had put up something like that, instead of using softer stone for the Raka Wall, things would be different.” She pointed ahead.
Before them lay an open stretch of grass. There was no place for enemies to hide. On the far side rose a wall and a second gate. The stones of the gate were faced in white marble: the rest was a coppery reddish brown sandstone. On the right side stood a giant gold statue of Mithros the Warrior. The crown of the sun blazed on his head. On the right was a giant silver statue of the Great Mother Goddess in her aspect of the Mother, a sheaf of golden grain in one arm. Crows perched atop the statues, squalling without fear of the gods whose images they treated so casually.
“The raka didn't even have statues of the gods here,” Sarai told Aly. “They believe it's unwise to draw the gods' attention.”
With the Trickster for a patron god, I can see why they feel that way, Aly thought as they passed through the Raka Gate. Its tunnel was fifteen feet long. When they emerged into sunlight again, Aly halted with a gasp.
“I always forget how stunning it is,” Dove murmured.
Before them lay a splendor of buildings and gardens that made the Tortallan palace Aly knew so well look like a frumpy old aunt who refused to dress for company. Aly's gaze caught and slid along curved-tipped roofs bright with gilt, pillars capped and footed in brightly polished copper. The doors were intricately carved and polished costly wood. Mother-of-pearl inlays shone on door and shutter panels.
Gardens wrapped around every structure, big and small, studded with ponds and banks of flowers that blazed with color. Trees flourished everywhere. Brightly colored birds darted overhead, the contents of a living jewel box. Aly saw a troop of woolly monkeys race along nearby rooftops and raised an eyebrow: five of them wore collars written over with listening spells. On the ground, crowned azure pigeons strutted along the paths.
As members of the Rittevon Guard came to greet them, one left their number and walked over to Aly. He blazed with a god's borrowed glory in Aly's Sight. He stopped beside Aly and stood looking at it all, hands propped on hips.
“It was the jewel of the Eastern and Southern Lands, once,” Kyprioth informed Aly. “And it was mine.” He flung out an arm, pointing to a stern granite wall in the distance. Atop it Aly saw the crenelations of a luarin fortification, like the castles and the palace she had grown up knowing. “That was the best they could do, my brother and sister,” Kyprioth added. She stood with the god in a bubble of silence at the center of the household. “Build themselves and their Rittevon pets a gray stone cave where they may hide from my people. Well, that will change.” The god inside the man glanced at Aly. “This is your chessboard, I believe, my dear.”
Aly beamed at him. “So it is. And the game begins.”
With an answering grin, Kyprioth abandoned his guardsman. Sounds from the real world filled Aly's ears. Other guards were helping the Balitang ladies to dismount: after a moment, Kyprioth's guard accepted Dove's reins from her. Dove slid from the saddle; Sarai, with a glare at the guard who had claimed her mount, turned, disentangled herself from the sidesaddle, and jumped down.
Stormwings circled the palace, snarling as crows darted in and out of their reach, calling crow insults. Fesgao rode back down their line, gathering the Balitang men-at-arms in his wake.
“Here we leave our ladies and the young master,” he said. His bow had been directed to the Balitang ladies, but his eyes were on Aly. “We will be in the Long House by the Gate of the Moon. Send a runner for us when you are prepared to go.”
Winnamine nodded graciously. Fesgao rode off with the men-at-arms and Junai.
Naturally they don't want our warriors staying with us, Aly thought as their small parade moved on. There's less chance of anyone smuggling in a rebel force that way. She smiled slyly. We'll let them find out the hard way that we already have people inside the walls. I do love surprises!
Nuritin and Winnamine led them down the road called Rittevon's Lance, which stretched from the palace to the royal docks on the harbor. Here it ended at its intersection with the Golden Road. Along the Golden Road sprawled two of the palace's most important areas, the Throne Hall, where the monarchs held audiences, and the Pavilion of Delightful Pleasures, where festivities were often set. Both structures blazed with white paint and gilt against their background of trees.
The Balitangs halted at the entrance of the Robing Pavilion directly across from the Throne Hall. Only the litters and the cart with their clothes had been allowed this far past the inner gate.
Inside the Robing Pavilion, the maids and Rihani led their charges to a small private chamber where they could change into court dress. Aly neatened Dove's many braids and helped her into her gown, shoes, and overrobe. Once the Balitangs were ready, a footman escorted them to the Throne Hall across the Golden Road. Aly followed.
Nuritin's maid; the duchess's maid, Pembery; and Sarai's maid, Boulaj, stayed in the Robing Pavilion. Pembery was to introduce Boulaj to members of the rebellion's network among the servants of the court. Both were ready to glean information from the winter's crop of gossip, news, and whispers. Aly turned down the chance to be introduced now—she wanted a view of the court. Later she would find out who served the rebellion here. Instead she entered the throne room in the wake of her employers.
Meek in her green-on-white printed sarong, her hair covered by a green headcloth, she found a place in the rear to view the proceedings. If questioned, Aly had a reasonable excuse for her presence: she had never been here before. She had come once, as Kyprioth's guest, to view Dunevon's coronation, but that visit had been one of the spirit only. Today she was able to appreciate the realities of the hall: the textures of wood and stone, the scents of flowers, and the whispers and shifting of those in attendance.
The master of ceremonies bowed deeply to the duchess and to Lady Nuritin. He stepped onto the gleaming floor of the throne room and thumped his ebony staff on the brass disk provided for that purpose. Courtiers as colorful as butterflies turned to look at him. His voice rang from the high, arched ceiling and its gilded beams as he proclaimed, “Her Grace, the Duchess Winnamine Balitang. Duke Elsren Balitang. Her Ladyship, Nuritin Balitang. Lady Saraiyu Balitang, Lady Dovasary Balitang, Lady Petranne Balitang.”
The family stepped forward when he turned and bowed to them. Slowly, their chins high, they crossed the expanse of floor. Elsren and Petranne, clinging to their half sisters' hands, did their best to act as formal as five- and six-year-olds could look. Their great-aunt, mother, and sisters walked slowly so that the little ones could keep up.
Aly memorized the position of every guardsman in the room. Interestingly, those on duty here did not wear the combined sun and moon that was on the cuirasses of the Rittevon guards who patrolled the palace grounds. These men wore black breeches and chain-mail shirts, covered with an open-sided black tunic. They wore armored caps and carried broad-bladed spears. These men were the King's Guard, the personal bodyguards of the Rittevon rulers. Once more the Rittevon paranoia showed itself. Their kings could not even bring themselves to trust the guards named after them, but relied on the King's Guard instead. Aly glanced up and found black-uniformed archers with crossbows positioned on the beams from which the hall's lamps were suspended.
Aly was impressed. She had heard of the new commander of the King's Guard, a man named Taybur Sibigat. He had certainly smartened them up since Kyprioth had last brought her here. These were not bored or panicky men, as Hazarin's and Oron's guards had been. These were hard professionals, alert and attentive.
At last she turned her eyes to the dais, where the kingdom's rulers awaited the Balitangs. The dais was reached by a number of broad steps. Two steps up from the floor sat the regents, Princess Imajane and Prince Rubinyan, on low-backed chairs. Aly had seen Imajane before, first at the bedside of her dying father, King Oron. At that time she hadn't appreciated just how imposing Oron's only surviving daughter was. She did now.
The princess was an icily beautiful woman who wore her silvering blond hair in a double-domed style. Her chilly blue eyes were placed under commanding arched brows, and she sat with her chin high, like a queen. Her lips were a vivid red against her white skin, which was further set off by a pink gown under a sleeveless overrobe of white silk bordered with silver. She dripped silver jewelry with pink and gray pearls and blue sapphires.
If only someone could teach these people the meaning of restraint in adornment, Aly thought with a silent sigh. They're like newly ennobled merchants. They just have to show everyone they have money.
Ten feet to his wife's right sat Prince Rubinyan, the brother of the man who had killed Duke Mequen the year before. A tall, balding man with hard gray eyes and thin lips, he wore a white silk shirt and hose, and a deep blue tunic with figures of dragons in its weave. Like his wife he wore rings on every finger. His were gold set with rubies, onyx, and sapphires.
Their heads were bare even of the modest gold circle they had the right to wear as prince and princess, but they held themselves as if crowned. Aly wondered if it had occurred to them that their lives might be easier if something happened to Dunevon and they simply grabbed the throne for themselves. From the cold, shining pride that flowed from them, she was willing to bet that it had.
Five steps higher on the dais, the source of their power, King Dunevon, sat uncomfortably on an immense teak throne. He was a bit younger than Elsren, and plainly bored. Aly's heart went out to the child, clad in gold and cream silk, a small crown on his head. He was absorbed in something tucked between his side and the arm of the throne. She suspected he had a toy up there.
A man in the chain mail and black tunic of the King's Guard stood at the king's side in a relaxed posture, observing the room. Around his neck hung the gold chain and gold-framed iron disk that marked him as the Guard's captain. This would be the new man, Taybur Sibigat. Aly memorized his face and the way he stood, then turned her gaze back to the child. She wondered how long the boy had been sitting there and how much longer he would do so quietly. Elsren would have thrown a tantrum by now.
Dunevon kicked his soft leather shoes against the throne. Sibigat reached out a gentle hand and placed it on the child's knee. Dunevon's feet went still. His lower lip came out in a pout. This is no life for such a little fellow, Aly thought.
A chill crept up her spine. If the raka had their way, Dunevon would die. Left alive, he would be someone for dissatisfied nobles to rally around. The raka couldn't afford that.
Winnamine and the other Balitangs had stopped three feet from the foot of the dais. The ladies of the group curtsied, seemingly to Dunevon, while Elsren executed a carefully rehearsed bow. Imajane rose and clasped Winnamine's hands in hers. They kissed one another formally on both cheeks as Rubinyan stood.
“Welcome home, Your Grace, my ladies,” said the princess. The room was shaped perfectly. Aly could hear the princess as clearly at the rear as if she stood in front. “Welcome to His Majesty's court.”
Aly heard the tap of hard-soled boots on the floor behind her. Gloved hands grasped her elbows. One of the two men who had taken hold of her bent down to whisper in her ear, “Come quietly, wench. Draw attention and we'll make you squeak.”
Aly made her eyes wide with fright, bit her lip, and nodded. When the men steered her out of the throne room, she trembled just as Aly Homewood, the lady's maid, would surely do. She was being taken captive for some kind of questioning, that was plain. How forceful would the questioning be? She would hate to need Kyprioth's protection against her telling the truth under torture. Out onto the Golden Road they went. The silver shimmer of the Gift wrapped around Aly and the men. Whoever had given her captors their orders did not want anyone to know who they had taken. Only one person in the realm would grab the Balitangs' full-blood luarin maid on her first appearance at the palace: Topabaw.
Letting the men half-carry her quivering body, Aly sank deep into her mind, into the liar's palace she had built in her thoughts all through the winter. Most people thought it was impossible for a Giftless human to fool truth drugs or spells, but it was not. Development of a liar's palace had been a game between her and her beloved adopted uncle Numair, Tortall's most powerful mage, a game she had studied until she could fool even him. While he could have broken her if he'd used all of his immense power, he had only tested the strength of her liar's palace against the normal truth spells. The odds were very long that she would ever be questioned by a mage of his stature.
The farther they went, the more nervously Aly behaved, giving her best interpretation of someone who expected nothing good of those in power. She was babbling questions and protests of innocence while her mind weighed her captors. Something was off about them, something that she ought to have identified already. She looked at each from the corners of her eyes, then finally realized what it was: both men were full-blood luarin. It was a sign that she had been in the Isles for some time, that she had come to expect everyone to be some shade of raka brown.
The men guided Aly eastward, followed silently by three crows. The buildings here were nondescript, despite the gorgeous landscape. These would not be state areas but working ones, where economy was considered before grandeur. When they stopped, she gauged that they were somewhere near the northeast corner of the palace grounds, right beside the Raka Wall. Her guides stopped at a building that showed only a small plaque set in the wall beside the front door: INTELLIGENCE.
Aly went from trembling to shaking in the guards' hold as they took her inside. They didn't appear to notice, but she knew they would spot it quickly if she didn't act like the others who were brought here did. Inside, the walls gleamed in Aly's Sight with spells for silence and fear. Tears began to leak from her eyes as her body was affected by the spells, but her mind worked as coolly as ever. Her father had taken most of her fourteenth year to make her accustomed to all kinds of fear magic. She would be frightened, but it wouldn't swamp her reason if she held her concentration.
This is going to be tricky, she thought.
The guards propelled her through one broad stone corridor and turned down another. Chained men and women hung from the walls. Some of these people were more than halfway to the Peaceful Realms of the Black God of death. Aly cowered from them, as she was expected to do. She wept harder, from pity, and she made certain to count every one. She would add their sum to Topabaw's and the regents' accounts when the time came to bill them.
She understood that she was meant to notice these people's pain. It confirmed the stories of the spymaster's work that had reached her ears that winter and before, at home in Tortall.
“It is just the worst possible combination,” her grandfather Myles had said once, shaking his shaggy head. He was Tortall's official spymaster or, as his son-in-law liked to call him, the Target. “Duke Lohearn is a spymaster as well as a mage, and he has been at his post for thirty years. He thinks he can do everything. If he can't, he'll just kill the problem. No skill, just power.”
Aly thought her grandfather might be right. If Topabaw had gotten lazy, secure in his own reputation, Aly would have an opportunity to knock him from his vital position.
The guards turned down a third hall, which ended at an open door. They pushed Aly inside. As she sprawled, they slammed the door, leaving her alone with the room's occupant.
She looked up at Duke Lohearn Mantawu: the ill-famed Topabaw. He sat on a plain chair, one hand braced on his thigh, one resting on a crude table that held a large parchment book, inkpot and quill, a three-throated lamp that smelled of cheap oil, a pitcher, and a pair of cups. Aly closed her eyes and adjusted her Sight so that the blaze of his magical Gift, added to the spells on the charms that bedecked the man, wouldn't blind her. Fumbling at her sash, she drew out a clean handkerchief and blew her nose.
Under the layers of charms, Aly saw a pallid, bony aristocrat in his late fifties. He had a razor cut of a mouth, small brown eyes, and short steel-gray hair. His cheap black cotton tunic and breeches were shabby and stained. Work clothes, thought Aly. Her Sight read the stains as dried blood and other liquids.
Am I supposed to be impressed that a luarin gets his clothes dirty? Aly wondered, lowering her gaze to the man's scuffed boots. She continued to quiver and weep.
“My dear girl, get off that floor.” His voice was suspiciously kind. “It's dirty. There's a stool right beside you. Sit on that.”
Aly obeyed, still not looking Topabaw in the eye.
“Isn't that better?” he asked. He opened his book to a page that was already marked. “Let's see. Your name is Aly Homewood, correct?”
Aly nodded, then scrambled to say, “Yes, my lord.”
“Very good.” He smiled mirthlessly, not parting his lips. “Luarin slave, given to House Balitang with the purchase of a cook on April 24, 462. Formerly a maidservant at Fief Tameran in Tortall. No bids were made for your purchase in the slave market.” Icy amusement was in his voice as he added, “I think it would be very different if you were to go to the selling block at present. Some would consider you to be most fetching.”
That was supposed to frighten her. She whimpered and cringed. “Please don't sell me, sir,” she pleaded. “I've a good place, I'm learning to be a lady's maid—”
“Quiet,” he ordered gently.
Aly went instantly silent.
“Taken into exile by Duke Mequen Balitang. Served as goatherd, then maid. Fought for your owners during a kidnap and murder attempt by our prince-regent's brother, Bronau Jimajen. Freed as a result. Now serving as maid to Lady Dovasary Balitang. You're a clever girl, Aly Homewood.”
Aly bobbed her head. “Thank you, my lord, sir—”
“Your Grace,” he said gently. “I have the rank of duke. Look at me when I speak to you, my dear.”
Aly raised her eyes as she was commanded to, still shaking. Gazing at him openly, she realized that he did not look like the Crown's stone hammer. There were dark circles under his eyes. His skin was dry and cracked, his lips bitten and peeling. There was the slightest tremor in his hands. His hair looked greasy, as if he had not washed it for a while. This was a man who had been forced to work hard of late.
Topabaw smiled as she met his eyes. “There. Isn't that more friendly?”
She bobbed her head eagerly.
“Do you know, I am surprised they made you only the maid of the younger daughter,” he told Aly. “Such a deed as you did for them, they should at least have given you the post of maid to the older girl, or to Her Grace the duchess.”
Aly ducked her head. “I couldn't say, Your Grace.” Then she met his eyes again, so he would think she lied, that she had thought of a better reward, like a higher position.
“They don't appreciate you.” He nodded to a pair of cups and a pitcher on his table. “Pour us both a drink,” he commanded. “Some wine will do you good.”
Aly slowly rose and did as she was told. In Topabaw's position her da or her grandfather would have done the pouring, to make her feel treated almost as an equal, to flatter her. You're supposed to stroke and slap me, so I won't know what's coming, she thought, exasperated with him already. Inspecting the wine with her Sight, she found the signs of truth spells.
Taking her cup, she settled back onto her stool. It was time to call up her liar's palace. Homewood, homewood, homewood I go, she told herself silently, sinking into her own mind as if it were a pool of water. She surrounded herself with the mind of Aly Homewood. Part of her split off to watch and advise. The rest of her awareness filled the liar's palace. She sipped from the cup, pretending she liked the taste of the wine. She also pretended not to notice that while she drank, he did not, though he put his cup to his lips. The spell in the drink went straight to work, making her light-headed and relaxed.
“Does it not irk you, to be at the beck and call of raka?” Topabaw asked softly, more confident. “To be under the orders of that head footman, that cook, those armsmen, when your skin is as white as that of the duchess?”
“It's not my place to say, Your Grace,” she said, her voice slurred from the drug.
“You may speak freely here,” said Topabaw graciously. “Drink up.”
She drank. “I mean, sir, Your Grace—” She giggled, then pressed her arm to her mouth to stop herself. “This is quite nice,” she told him, and emptied the cup. He refilled it. Leaning forward as if this bone-pale man were her friend, Aly confided, “It was this way at home, you know. Everyone else gets the good stuff. I get the odds and ends. It wasn't my fault my mother left, stupid slut. And now?” She made a disgusted noise and flapped her hand as if driving something away. “Nothing for me again, ever. You know, we have these dark-skinned folk at home. Bazhir, they call themselves. Sand lice, I call them. Riding about like lords when we own their lands. Acting like you're dirt while they eye your bum.” She snorted a laugh.
“The Bazhir?” asked the spymaster, folding his hands on his desk.
“These raka, too,” she said earnestly. “They're just the same. I want to tell them, Who owns who? Seems to me we luarin beat your lot like drums, miss, so don't you go looking down your nose at me.” Her internal distant watcher shook her head over the look on Topabaw's face. His contemptuous smile and satisfied pose told her that she'd said just what he wanted to hear. He didn't even respect her enough to keep it from his face.
“Tell me, where were you born?”
In her liar's palace, a door opened to show her the answer. “Ginine,” she said, “north of Port Legann in Tortall. Didn't want to work there. Too many sand lice, if you take my meaning. Then I come here. Sand lice, jungle lice, they're all the same.”
He asked the questions she expected. She answered all of them from her liar's palace. The girl who lived there was small and sordid, a petty servant and thief with a raisin for a heart.
“There is a way you may better yourself,” Topabaw explained softly. “One that might grant you revenge on those who show you so little respect. If you will perform a small service for me, I will do one for you. Her Highness is always in search of pure-blood luarin girls for her household.”
Aly sat up straight, her eyes blazing. “You'd take me from that pen of mongrels?” she asked eagerly.
“You must remain a while longer,” Topabaw said, leaning forward to hold her with his eyes. “We believe there is plotting afoot in that household. Our other spies there bring us stories that hardly seem likely. I believe those spies may be compromised, or worse, that they have betrayed me. I count on you to find out the truth.”
Distant Aly Saw that he lied about spies in the household. She also knew he wanted her to believe him, to keep her from lying to him.
“They'll cut me up if I'm caught,” Liar Aly pointed out. “That's a lot of risk for just a promise of ‘someday.'”
He smirked and reached into a pocket, drawing out an ordinary leather purse that clinked. “Will this make the risk more bearable?”
Aly seized it greedily and counted the coins—silver and copper, no gold, which might be suspicious if she was searched. There were listening spells on the lot of them. “This is all?” she asked.
Topabaw slammed his fist down onto the table. She jumped. “You overstep!” he barked.
Aly cringed. “Forgive me, Your Grace—I don't know why I'm so loose-tongued,” she told him, kneeling on the floor. “Normally I keep my own counsel. I didn't mean any disrespect, I swear. Forgive me, Your Grace!” Distant Aly thought, You ham-handed brute.
Topabaw smiled and sat back. “Mind your place,” he ordered. “You will report every third day to Master Grosbeak on Gigit Lane. Depending on what you bring to him, you will receive some manner of payment. And don't try to lie to me, wench,” he said coldly, pointing a bony finger at her. “My other spies in your household will be truthful about your actions, if about nothing else! Get out.”
Aly got out, bowing over and over until she was out of that room, then fled down the hall, bolting past the chained captives on her way to the door. Outside she raced down the path to a clump of trees. She collapsed against one, out of sight, and relaxed, feeling the last traces of the spell vanish from her body. Most such spells were short-lived, so that the person they were used on could return quickly to normal. “Homewood, homewood, homewood I go,” she whispered, listening to the shriek of distant Stormwings and the calls of distant crows. Slowly her real self rose from the liar's palace, freeing her mind and concentration.
Waiting, breathing, identifying the scents that met her nose—cumin, roses, jasmine, horse urine, rust—she reassembled herself. Only when that was done did she begin to turn over the interview in her mind. He hadn't made her swear in blood. She assumed Kyprioth would protect her from the penalities for those who broke that magical oath, but Topabaw's omitting it before he'd dismissed her made her even more contemptuous of him than she'd already been.
Ham-handed and lazy, she thought with disgust while she stared at the leaves overhead. And sloppy. Maybe he was something once, but no longer.
With a sigh Aly got to her feet, startling a marmoset clan into flight among the trees. “Sorry,” she called, and walked down the flagstone path to Golden Road. She ambled down to the Robing Pavilion, sidestepping peacocks and crowned pigeons.
She heard a boisterous call overhead. The three crows who had followed her, seeing through the magical veil over Aly and her captors, were leaving now that she was free and unharmed. She watched as they flew toward a Stormwing that soared overhead, calling insults. The Stormwing jinked in midair, then—with no other Stormwings nearby to watch his back against the crows—fled.