15
REBEL PREPARATION
The ladies and their maids retreated to their rooms to change after the hot ride home. Aly was about to help Dove with her buttons when a knock sounded on the door. One of the house's runners stuck her head into the room. “Excuse me, lady,” she said, bobbing a curtsy to Dove, “but Chenaol says Jimarn and her folk need to talk to you in the meeting room.”
Aly looked from the runner to her mistress. She ought to help Dove to change clothes, but Jimarn, Fegoro, Eyun, and Yoyox were operating on a time limit. The Crown would start shipping the captives in the slave pens the next morning. She sighed, trying to make up her mind.
“Let me help?” asked Boulaj. “I liked being a lady's maid. It's very soothing,” she told Junai defensively. “There's no reason why I can't do her hair and clothes and protect her at the same time.”
“Go on,” Dove ordered Aly. “We'll sort it out. I do know how to remove my own clothes,” she protested yet again.
Aly followed the messenger to the servants' stair. It occurred to her that she had less and less time to attend Dove as the rebellion began to pick up its pace. She didn't mind being Dove's maid, but she was needed to deal with the material from her spies. Is it always like this? she wondered as she trotted downstairs behind Wayan. The more successful your work, the more it shoves other things to the side?
She wondered what her mother had given up when she had become the King's Champion. Da had given up being an outlaw as he'd made the transition from thief-king to spymaster, but what had Mother surrendered?
I'm going to have to let Boulaj take over, she realized. I'm more use to the rebellion getting information out to people as quickly as I can. But I'll miss talking to Dove.
When Aly reached the conspirators' meeting room, Jimarn let her in. Aly nodded to the others who sat in the room. She recognized five from households nearby, but six she did not know at all. Eyun, Yoyox, and Fegoro waited behind them, frowns of worry on their faces.
Aly went to an available chair and sat. “What is it, my dears?” she asked. “Surely you have not come to tell your old Duani they have shipped the captives already.”
“The slave pens are a harder knot than we expected,” Yoyox admitted ruefully. “We can whittle that stick down a day or two, but they're moving both faster and slower than we expected.”
“They have about five hundred people to ship,” explained Eyun. “And the head clerk told me the regents have ordered them to get as many out of the Isles as they can, as soon as they can.” She smiled slightly. “The clerk has taken a liking to me. He says the regents want to free up the soldiers who guard the slave pens, because they're needed elsewhere. They expect an attack from the kinfolk of those they arrested, so they won't be reassigned until there's less danger.”
“Getting to their kitchen is tricky,” admitted Fegoro. “I won't have a shot at it tonight, not if they're loading slaves.” He pointed to a chunky young luarin. “Tell her,” he ordered.
“Three ships leave for Carthak tonight from Fifth Dock,” the young man explained. “They'll load at midnight and sail at dawn. All of the other ships have cargo in the hold, or are off-loading cargo and taking new cargo on. We won't be able to save those who get shipped tonight.”
Aly shook her head. “Children, children,” she told them in a sorrowful voice. “The solution is right under your noses, if you would but look. Yes, they have three ships scheduled to sail, only three ships, all due to sail at dawn. There is no law that says they must be able to sail.”
The conspirators looked at her, mouths agape. Then Yoyox struck his head with his palm. “We focused on the pens and the guards. We didn't think to look at the ships.”
“Such vulnerable things,” Aly remarked. “All that wood and tar—it's a fire hazard. I tremble to think what would happen if, oh, a ship lost its rudder or its masts.” She looked at them from beneath raised eyebrows. “Need I go on?”
They shook their heads, suddenly eager to get back to mischief.
The heavy luarin chuckled.
“Share the joke, Callyn,” ordered Yoyox.
“I work at the harbormaster's,” the bearded man explained. “We're still wading through bills submitted to the Crown for payment for the ships that burned when the slave docks did. That's one of the reasons they could only find three ships right away—their masters are nervous about cargo from the slave markets. If something happens to these three, I bet they won't be able to find anyone at anchor here who will take on slave cargo. In fact, they might decide they've taken on enough goods and sail anywhere, as long as it's not Rajmuat harbor.”
Jimarn smiled. “Thank you, Duani,” she said.
“Shall you require a mage?” Aly wanted to know.
The bearded man shook his head. “No, see, Duani, the last seven or eight months we've had these twin hedgewitches hiding out in the Honeypot. They have this spell that cuts clean through a piece of wood. In October Her Highness went to inspect a new royal navy ship named for her, and she leaned on the rail, and she'd've gone straight into the harbor if the prince hadn't grabbed her. If the girls can do a rail, they can do masts just fine.”
Aly nodded. She would have liked to see that.
“We could use some bows and arrows,” one of them remarked. “But not for the slave market. For Downwind. So the folk there can have them.”
Aly looked at Jimarn, who nodded. “Then speak to the armorer,” she said. “Get crossbows—they're easier for inexperienced archers. Is that everything?” she asked. When they said nothing, she went on, “Very well. Go forth, with my blessing.” When they were gone, she ran her fingers over Trick and Secret.
“Stupid?” asked Secret.
“No,” Aly replied. “My children are not stupid. But sometimes you can stand too close to a thing to see it. It takes a fresh set of eyes to tell you where to find the cracks.” She went to her workroom and assembled paper, ink, and a quill. “What happens in the palace?” she asked.
That night, the raka conspirators had plenty of news to report, particularly Ochobu. Aly had not known that the mages of the Chain had been laboring to eliminate any mages who had worked magic on the Crown's behalf. So far they had killed seven of the most powerful.
Chenaol would call this count of the dead another “good start,” Aly thought grimly. This crude business of counting up lives taken struck her as a bad idea. It took the horror from death. When Ochobu named four mages on Lombyn who had been killed in the streets of their towns, it was about numbers, not lives.
Maybe this is how you become a Rittevon, she thought. You get used to the dead being described as numbers, not fathers or daughters or grandparents.
She turned to Dove when Ochobu finished. “Don't ever be like this,” she urged. “Don't think that it doesn't matter if you only hear of murder as a number. If you keep it at a distance.”
“They serve the Rittevon Crown,” growled Ochobu. “They have killed in their numbers, too. We must even the odds between us and the Crown, and the mages matter. It was the mages who destroyed us when Rittevon invaded.”
“They and our own feuds,” Dove said quietly. “That's why we have to make peace with the luarin who agree. So we aren't so torn that we are easy pickings for some of the Carthaki malcontents.”
Everyone winced. While it had been eleven years since Emperor Kaddar had taken power, he continued to struggle with his western nobles, all of whom thought they would make better emperors that he. It was all too easy to imagine them turning their attentions to easier pickings in the Isles.
As the meeting broke up, Aly drifted over to Ulasim. “How go things at Galodon?” she asked, curious, though if he refused to answer, she would ask Trick to query Ace, the darking who hid under the chair Ulasim normally used.
Fesgao stood and stretched. “All we did today was ensure that the army's provisions for the next five weeks were delivered and neatly stored. We'd hate for them to run short.”
Aly grinned and left them. She worked for a while before she went to bed. As she slept, she dreamed of the whispers of the darkings, and the endless black scrawls of reports.
It was nearly dawn when she was roused by the clang of alarm bells sounding down by the waterfront. Aly smiled as she sat up on her pallet. “I could get very fond of that sound,” she commented as Boulaj and Junai sat up as well.
“Aly?” Dove asked warningly. “What have you done?”
“I, my lady?” Aly said, holding her hand to her breast as if she were unsure of Dove's meaning. “I have done nothing whatsoever. I was here all night, and I was at the palace with you yesterday, if you recall.”
Junai listened at the window. “It's coming from Dockmarket or the wharves,” she said after a moment. “Forgive me for saying so, my lady, but if it is, you won't be having your walk again today.”
Dove scowled and rang for her wash water to be brought up. It took some time, enough that Dove, who normally did not press the servants when she knew they would also be busy with the others, rang a second time. Soon after, a pair of kitchen maids practically tumbled into the room, hot-water jugs in their hands.
“Forgive us, my lady,” said one as she filled a basin, “but Fesgao was telling us the news. He likes to drill the men before dawn, you see, and when they heard the alarm—”
“Does he know the cause?” Dove interrupted.
“Oh, my lady, such a shocking thing!” said the other girl, who filled the servants' basin. “Three ships destroyed, right at the wharves! One sank, one burned, and one had the rudder and the masts and the anchor chain and the mooring ropes just cut, Fesgao said!”
“They meant to ship out some of the folk they arrested because they stopped working,” the first maid said, shadows in her eyes. “They meant to ship them to Carthak. But now they can't, and there are no more ships.”
To say there were no more ships was an understatement. From Jimarn's recruit Callyn and the palace darkings, Aly learned of furious arguments as Rubinyan and Imajane tried to order other captains in port to put off their loads and ferry the newly enslaved to Carthak. Some claimed they needed hull work done before they could sail. Others showed their master's papers, each with a clause that they not transport slaves. Some captains sailed before the harbormaster could order the harbor mouth barred. Then there were the officials who complained the harbormaster had been suspiciously slow to close the entrance.
Aly was taking darking reports midafternoon when the second blow came to Rubinyan. A thousand of his reserve soldiers, and more than half of the sailors, were confined to their beds with violent dysentery. The darking present when the prince regent heard this news was so impressed with Rubinyan's language that it copied him, earning the name Foul.
The news arrived just before word came that a company of soldiers had been lured into the mountains of northern Kypriang and massacred by renegade raka. Imajane demanded the deaths of everyone in the village closest to the fight. Rubinyan was forced to tell his wife that the soldiers were too ill to move.
That night, when it came Aly's turn to report to the raka conspirators, she asked, “What happens if the army and navy have food shortages? If, say, they have to replace poisoned stores? Who handles the emergency supply, at least until more food can be brought from outlying islands or even overseas?”
The conspirators looked at one another. It was Dove who said, “Local merchants are invited to share warehoused provisions with the Crown, who pays them . . . something. Not full value. Full value when there's a shortage is higher than full value in good times. The merchants who are asked to share with the Crown will see their other friends make money hand over fist while they're forced to practically give food away. But that hasn't happened in ages.”
Aly twiddled her thumbs. “But it could happen?”
“They would approach the merchants and remind them of their obligations,” replied Dove. “And they're already pressed, the merchants. It's been a dreadful year, and the harvest doesn't look good. Nobody's that far away from debt bondage, Aly. The regents might as well ask them to empty their pockets. They . . .” She stopped, her eyes wide.
She sees it, Aly thought.
“No, we can't trust these regents to be careful, can we?” Ulasim asked softly. “They might annoy the merchants. They might turn the merchants into—”
“Enemies,” said Fesgao, his eyes bright. He looked at Aly. “You'd thought of that when you suggested it would put a dent in Rubinyan's reserve troops to poison their food.”
“You flatter me,” Aly said shyly.
“Here I just thought you would deal with information,” Ochobu remarked slowly, her eyes on Aly. “But you understand a thing or two about war, don't you?”
“As much as any girl reared under the sign of the Trickster would,” Aly replied smoothly.
Ulasim smoothed his beard. “You are a gift and a marvel to me,” he said. “What are you doing at the slave pens?”
“Me?” inquired Aly. “Nothing. I sit here and interpret reports. My bottom is going flat from all the sitting I do.”
Ulasim shook his head. “Very well. Keep it to yourself. If you require assistance, only ask. Now. Through the Chain we hear that the raka of southern Lombyn have risen up against their masters. And the governor of Lombyn is dead, as is his chief mage, as is the general in command of the army posts on Lombyn, all shot with crow-fletched arrows. Nawat and his people are helping the Lombyn rebels retreat into the highlands, where the new general may hunt for them until he encounters a ribbon snake. Or a hundred.”
The next morning Dove finally persuaded Ulasim and Winnamine to let her take a walk to the Dockmarket.
“I'm going mad in here all day,” she informed them. “And Fesgao has got layers of protection on me that an onion might envy. I swear, the moment anything untoward happens, I'll trot right home. But seriously, Winna, Ulasim, I'm going to rend the next person who speaks to me if I can't go out for a time.”
Pressed, the duchess and the head footman gave way. Aly, too, was grateful for the chance to go out, though she thought she ought to deal with reports. Information was pouring in at a rate she was hard-put to manage. A walk will do me good, she told herself firmly.
At the Dockmarket people went about their business, but they kept one eye on the soldiers present. The ship that had lost its masts had drifted to the center of the harbor. Men were out in rowboats, securing lines to bring it in. The ship that had burned had also drifted when the fire devoured its hawsers. No doubt it would be sunk: it was only a charcoal shell. There was no sign of the third ship, which had sunk.
She could see Dove taking note of the changes, though she said nothing. No one could miss the increased guard around the royal dock where the king's birthday present rode at anchor, its colorful sails furled. There were even men on its decks, watching no doubt for whoever could navigate the harbor waters well enough to burn the slave docks and destroy three merchant ships, in case they turned their attention to the king's ship.
As Aly looked around, Dove crouched to talk with the old raka who sold good-luck charms. She had known the woman since she was small, she had told Aly, and the charm seller always knew the best gossip. As they talked, a part-raka woman who carried a basket of seaweed approached the girl. Aly hand-signaled the men-at-arms to keep to their places. The woman lingered until Dove kissed the old charm seller on the cheek and stood. When Dove looked at her inquiringly, the woman blurted out “Good morning” and fled.
As Dove walked on, a sailor came close enough to tell her that she looked well that day. He was followed by a gaggle of well-wishers, all of whom were happy simply to say hello or to venture an opinion about the weather.
Aly led Dove's group in another direction when they neared the part of Dockmarket where soldiers in the armor of the Rittevon Guard and the King's Watch protected the slave pens. Several of those guards did not look at all well. Jimarn and her cohorts finally got into the slave market kitchens, Aly thought.
A little girl ran up to Dove to show her a dirty rag doll, obviously much loved, then ran away.
“I don't understand,” Dove murmured to Aly as they finally left Dockmarket. It was almost noon. Normally Dove would have visited friends at some of the nearby shops, but that was before it had taken her the entire morning to go from one end of the markets principal to the other. “They don't queue up to say hello to anyone else.”
“But you let them,” Aly pointed out. “You're walking down here with street muck on your sandals, asking what the squid is like today and how business is doing. They'll have heard from your friends that you're not the kind of girl who rides by with a smile and a wave. You understand business. You don't want a fuss. You just want to learn. And they need to see for themselves if your friends have spoken truly.” She looked back at the market. A number of the people there were staring in Dove's direction. When they saw Aly turn, they hurriedly went back to work.
“But I'm no warmhearted people lover!” Dove protested softly. “I like to know how business is doing. I'm interested in things like who's importing and who's exporting, who buys and who sells. I like to try and figure out trade, that's all.”
Aly shrugged. “Even if they did know that, it would probably only make you more of a real person to them. Don't forget, their fortunes rise and fall with the tiniest drop of the squid-fishing industry. A blight among sheep, and prosperous merchants are selling their old clothes to make some money.” She leaned in so that only Dove would hear. “They will look at you, as you ask them questions about how they manage to earn a living, and they'll compare you to people who tax them without asking if they can pay.”
Dove's eyes were startled as she stared at Aly. At last she said, “Care to wager on how many days it takes before the regents hire someone to kill me?”
Boulaj and Junai heard, and moved closer. “Just let them try, my lady,” Junai assured her. “We'll send whoever takes the job back to the Gray Palace in pieces.”
That night Jimarn and her crew killed the brokers' guards who were still healthy enough to fight. The former slave and her companions raced through the slave pens with keys to open the locks, and baskets of weapons. Every captive who could lift one took it—sword, axe, knife. Most raced through the shadows to the Honeypot and up over the ridge, vanishing into the forest that lay on its northern side. Others were given places to hide in the city.
Many returned to their old homes in Downwind. Once they had reached their district, they scrambled to lay wagons, tables, benches, even stable doors on their sides to block streets. As they did so, Yoyox, Fegoro, Eyun, and their cohorts scattered, to bring out crossbows and quivers of bolts they had hidden away. Jimarn remained, helping people as they blocked the streets, reinforcing the wood barriers with cobblestones and pavement flags. When word got out, soldiers would comb the area. They would quickly learn that for every person who had fled, five had stayed to fight.
Too anxious to sleep, Aly waited until the house had been quiet for a couple of hours, then climbed to the second-story room where the family placed winter things and ancient keepsakes. The door was locked with a hasp and padlock. As a professional, Aly was offended that someone of her skill was taken so lightly. As she chose her lock picks, she felt Trick and Secret put up heads to watch.
“What that?” whispered Secret, always curious.
“It's a lock, and I'm opening it,” Aly whispered back. The lock sprang open easily.
“That not a key.” Secret understood keys. Quedanga wore a bunch of them on her sash.
“No, it's a lock pick. Actually, both are lock picks. You need different kinds.”
Aly stepped into the storeroom. It was huge, but everything from Tanair was near the door. She spotted the trunk she needed immediately. It too was locked. At least this was more of a challenge. She went after it with her picks. It resisted her a little longer than the padlock had.
Opening the trunk, she found Duke Mequen's correspondence going back three decades. Here were bundles of letters from Winnamine, tied up in scarlet ribbon, and letters from Sarugani, his first duchess, in gold. He had letters from family members and friends. Then Aly found what she needed, a bundle of letters in bold, slashing handwriting, with a distinctive signature: Rubinyan.
Carefully she replaced everything but Rubinyan's letters and did up the lock. She dusted the floor to hide the marks left by her knees, then dusted off her knees. After making sure all was in order, she left as quietly as she had come, doing up the padlock. Then she carried the letters downstairs so she could practice the prince regent's handwriting.
She found Kyprioth at her desk, sandaled feet on top of a stack of reports, hands locked behind his head as he leaned back in her chair. Aly squinted at him. Had he grown larger?
“What a wonderful night this is,” he told her, his black eyes dancing. “How such small mortals like you and Ulasim cause so much damage . . . I tell you, it fills me with a sense of wonder. It truly does.”
“And if it were just us, you'd be right to wonder,” Aly said. “We have good people and we trust them to trust their training. I take it you've been down by the slave pens.”
“A work of art,” the god replied. “I'm beside myself.” For a moment there were two of him.
Aly cringed. “Please stop that,” she begged. “The thought of two of you makes my head ache.”
“I understand. It would be too much glory for your poor mortal body to withstand. When do you rise? When does the rebellion begin?” he wanted to know.
“When the regents give us an excuse,” Aly said, taking a chair. “You know, you're getting marks on my papers.”
“I'll take them off. I am a god, you know.”
“So you keep telling me,” replied Aly. “Why ask when we rise? Are your brother and sister on their way?”
“Not yet,” said Kyprioth, polishing an emerald bracelet on his wrapped jacket. “Why wait for them to push you forward? The regents?”
“Because we're supposed to be the heroes, rescuing the Isles from oppressors,” Aly explained. “It never looks good to other governments if we rise up against a lawful monarch.”
Kyprioth smiled. “I thought that might be it. Perfectly sensible, of course. I'm sure it will all work out in the end. Get ready, Aly.”
“Are you bigger?” she started to ask, but he was gone.
Aly waited up for her pack to return. They were tired but content, and complained only from habit when she insisted that they scrub every trace of blood from their persons before they went to bed. Only when they were tucked in did she go to her pallet. She was certain she had just nodded off when the alarm bells sounded, rousing the entire household. Someone had found the ruins of the slave pens. It would not be long before they also discovered that when they went to search for fugitives in the city, they would get a far warmer welcome in Downwind than they expected.
Aly followed her morning routine, then cleaned up Dove's room. Boulaj went over the girl's dresses. The day before, an invitation had come for the three Balitang ladies, asking them to a riding party in the palace parks. Aly suspected that Imajane meant to press Dove on taking her place among the regent's ladies-in-waiting, where she could persuade Dove to accept Dunevon as her betrothed.
Aly hoped they would not have to cancel their outing due to those alarm bells. She wanted to pass some incriminating bits of paper to Vereyu to be placed where Imajane, or someone stupid enough to inform her, would find them.
Their plans went unchanged. Two squads of the Rittevon Guard came to escort the ladies and their maids to the palace. Their group had just reached Rittevon Square when they saw that people stared and pointed at the northeastern part of the city. Columns of smoke rose from Downwind; the Honeypot itself was blanketed with it. The King's Watch had discovered the barricades, and fighting had broken out.
Imajane greeted her guests as if there were no fighting on the streets of Rajmuat and led them away to ride with her. Aly sat outside the Robing Pavilion, watching the sky. The crows reigned supreme over the palace. The Stormwings had gone. They've plenty to feed on today, Aly thought.
Suddenly she drew in her breath. Above the crows soared a golden kudarung, great wings outspread. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
She was dozing off when Vereyu poked her. “Late night?” she asked, sitting next to Aly.
“Only because I worry too much,” Aly replied. “Here.” From the front of her sarong she drew some battered, dirty scraps of paper with bold black handwriting on them. One read simply meet tonight, another must not know. A third mentioned your blushing lips, a fourth cannot live with this secret for much longer.
Vereyu looked them over with a frown. “That's the prince's handwriting.”
Aly smiled. “Certainly that's what we want the princess to think. Over the next week can you leave these in places where he might drop them? His dressing room, for instance, or the hall outside Her Highness's door, or their private dining room.”
“She may not even see them,” Vereyu told her.
Aly wrapped her arms around her legs and leaned her chin on her knees. “You've known Her Highness far longer than I,” she murmured. “Do you honestly think she never slips into his rooms when he's not around?”
“But who is this foolish woman, if that's what you mean Her Highness to think?” asked Vereyu. “Who would be mad enough to get involved with His Highness?”
“If you can get samples of her handwriting for me, Lady Edunata Mayano,” Aly replied.
She watched Vereyu's face as a flinty light filled the raka's eyes. Lady Edunata was infamous for having taken a raka lover and then claiming he'd raped her.
“It will be our pleasure,” said Vereyu. “I think I can lay hands on some of the lady's writing right now. Wait here.”
Ah, revenge, Aly thought drowsily as she listened to peacocks cry. People never lose interest in it.
She stood, stretched, and returned to gossip with the other servants at the pavilion. Only when she saw Vereyu at the servants' door did she leave off flirting with a boastful manservant to talk to her. With the ease of long practice Vereyu slid papers into Aly's hands. Aly in turn rolled them casually and tucked them into her sash.
Imajane seemed determined to incorporate the Balitang women into court life. They rode to the palace nearly every other day over the next week and a half. The regents did their best to pretend the fighting in Downwind was minor, but Aly knew of their real worry from the darkings. The rebellion was spreading like wildfire: for each rising that was put down, two more broke out elsewhere.
“Rubinyan say they maybe need mercenaries,” Trick told Aly two nights before the king's birthday. “Princess say can they afford? Prince say they can't not afford.”
Aly smiled. Mercenaries were always such a problem. If they weren't paid on time, they got unhappy and did damage. If they were without work, they often looked for trouble out of boredom, burning villages and robbing travelers for their amusement. People feared them as much as they respected the need to hire them. The luarin nobility would also see mercenaries as Rubinyan's attempt to build an army that would answer to him alone.
While the princess entertained the ladies, Aly supplied Vereyu with incriminating scraps in Edunata's handwriting. These were hidden in Rubinyan's chambers and study. One of the prince's earrings also found its way into the sweet dreams bag that Edunata, like many luarin women, hung over her bed.
Sooner or later Imajane would find something to make her uneasy, in her husband's or in Edunata's rooms. When she did, Aly was willing to bet that the roof would come off the Gray Palace.