Excerpts from TRICKSTER'S CHOICE

• Chapter 1: "Parents"
   

• Chapter 2: "Trickster"

1.  Parents

Pirate's Swoop, Tortall
on the coast of the Emerald Ocean
March 27 - April 21, 462 H.E.

             George Cooper, Baron of Pirate's Swoop, second-in-command of his realm's spies, put his documents aside and surveyed his only daughter as she paused by his study door.  Alianne--known as Aly to her family and friends--posed there, arms raised in a Player's dramatic flourish.  It seemed that she had enjoyed her month's stay with her Corus relatives.

            "Dear Father, I rejoice to return from a sojourn in our gracious capital," she proclaimed in a comic, over-elegant voice.  "I yearn to be clasped to your bosom again."

            For the most part she looked like his Aly.  She wore a neat, green wool gown, looser than fashion required because, like her da, she carried weapons on her person.  A gold chain belt supported her knife and purse.  Her hazel eyes contained more green than his own; they were set wide under straight brown brows.  Her nose was small and delicate, more like her mother's than his.  She'd put a touch of color on her mouth to accent its width and full lower lip.  But her hair.…

            George blinked.  For some reason, his child wore a very old-fashioned wimple and veil.  The plain white linen covered her neck and hair completely.

            He raised an eyebrow.  "Do you plan to join the Players, then?" he asked mildly.  "Take up dancing, or some such thing?"

            Aly dropped her pretense of an over-bred noblewoman and removed her veil, the embroidered cloth band that held it in place, and her wimple.  Her hair, once revealed, was not its normal shade of reddish blonde, but a deep, pure, sapphire hue.

            George looked at her.  His mouth twitched.

            "I know," she said, shame-faced.  "Forest green and blue go ill together."  She smoothed her gown.

            George couldn't help it.  He roared with laughter.  Aly struggled with herself, and lost, to grin in reply.

            "What, Da?" she asked.  "Apart from the colors, aren't I the very latest fashion?"

            George wiped his eyes on his sleeve.  After a few gasps he managed to say, "What have you done to yourself, girl?"

            Aly touched the gleaming falls of her hair.  "But Da," she said, voice and lower lip quivering in mock hurt, "it's all the style at the university!"  She resumed her lofty manner.  "I proclaim the shallowness of the world and of fashion.  I scorn those who sway before each breeze of taste that dictates what is stylish in one's dress, or face, or hair.  I scoff at the hollowness of life."

            George still chuckled, shaking his head.

            "Well, Da, that's what the students say."  She plopped herself into a chair and stretched her legs out to show off her shoes, brown leather stamped with gold vines.  "These look nice."

            "They're lovely," he told her.  "Which 'they' is it that proclaims the hollowness of the world?"

            Aly flapped a hand in dismissal.  "University students.  Da, it's the silliest thing.  One of the student mages brewed up a hair treatment.  It's supposed to make your hair shiny and easy to comb, except it has a wee side effect.  And of course the students all decided that blue hair makes a grand statement."  She lifted up a sapphire lock and admired it.

            "So I see."  George thought of his oldest son, one of those very university students.  "Don't tell me our Thom's gone blue."

            Now it was Aly's turn to raise a mocking eyebrow at her father.  "Do you think he even notices blue-haired people are about?  Since they started bringing in the magical devices from Scanra, he's done nothing but take notes for the mages who study how they're made.  The only reaction I got from him was 'Ma better not see you like that.'  I had to remind him Ma's safely in the north, waiting for the snows to melt so she can chop up more Scanrans."  Aly had left a pair of saddlebags by the door.  Now she fetched them and put them on a long table beside George's desk.  "The latest documents from Grandda.  He says to tell you no, you can't go north, you're still needed to watch the coast.  Raiding season will begin soon."

            "He read my mind," George said crossly.  "That cursed war's going into its second year, your mother's in the middle of it, or will be once the fighting warms up, and I stay here, buried under paper."  He indicated his heaped desktop with a wave of a big hand and glared at the saddlebags.  "I've not seen her in a year, for pity's sake."

            "Grandda says he's got an assistant trained for you," Aly replied.  "She'll be here in a month or so.  He is right.  It's no good holding Scanra off in the north if Carthak or Tusaine or the Copper Isles try nipping up bits of the south."

            "Don't teach your gran to make butter," George advised her drily.  "I learned that lesson before you were born."  He knew Aly was right; he even knew that what he did was necessary.  He just missed his wife.  They hadn't been separated for such a long stretch since their marriage twenty-three years before.  "And an assistant in a month does me no good now."

            Aly gave him her most charming smile.  "Oh, but Da, now you've got me," she said as she gathered a wad of documents.  "Grandda wanted me to take the job as it was."

            "I thought he might," George murmured, watching as she leafed through the papers she held.

            "I told him the same thing I did you," replied Aly, setting documents in stacks on the long table.  "I love code breaking and knowing all the tittle-tattle, but I'd go half mad, having to do it all the time.  I asked him if I could spy instead...."

            "I said no," George said flatly, hiding his alarm.  The thought of his only daughter living in the maze of dangers that was ordinary spy work, with torture and death to endure if she were caught, made his hair stand on end.

            "So did Grandda," Aly informed him.  "I can take care of myself."

            "It's not the life we want for our only girl," George replied.  "My agents are used to living crooked--you're not.  And whilst I know, none better, that you can look after yourself, it's those other folk who worry me, the ones whose business it is to sniff out spies."  To change the subject he asked, "What of young what's-his-name?  The one you wrote was squiring you about Corus?"

            Aly rolled her eyes as she sorted documents into stacks.  "He bored me, Da.  They all do, in time.  None of them ever measure up to you, or Grandda, or Uncle Numy"--her childhood nickname for her foster-uncle Numair, the realm's most powerful mage--“or Uncle Raoul, or Uncle Gary…." She shrugged.  "It's as if all the interesting men were born in your generation."  She scooped up another pile of documents from the desk.  Soon she had the various reports, letters, messages, and coded coils of knotted string into four heaps: Decode, Important, Not As Important, and File.  "So you can forget what's-his-name.  Marriage is for noblewomen with nothing else to do."

            "Marriage gives a woman plenty to do, particularly the noble ones," George said.  "Keeping your lands in order, supervising the servants, using your men-at-arms to defend the place when your lord's away, working up your stock of medicines, making sure your folk are fed and clothed--it's important work, and it's hard."

            "Well, that lets that straight out," she told him, her eyes dancing wickedly.  "I've decided that my work is having fun.  Somebody needs to do it."

            George sighed.  He knew this mood.  She would never listen to anyone now.  He would have to have a serious conversation at another time.  She was sixteen, a woman grown, and she had yet to find her place in the world.

            Aly rested her hip on George's desk.  "Be reasonable, Da," she advised, smiling.  "Just think.  My da and grandda are spymasters, my mother the King's Champion.  Then I've an adopted aunt who's a mage and half a goddess, and an adopted uncle who's a mage as powerful as she is.  My godsfathers are the king and his youngest advisor, my godsmothers are the queen and the lady who governs her affairs.  You've got Thom for your mage, Alan for your knight"--she named her oldest brother and her twin, who had entered page training three years before--“and me for fun.  I'm surrounded by bustling folk.  You need me to do the relaxing for you."

            Despite her claim to studying the art of relaxation, Aly had sorted all of the documents on her father's desk.  She set the Important pile in front of him and carried messages to be decoded to the desk that she used when she helped George.  There she set to work on reports coded in the form of assorted knots in wads of string.  Her long, skilled fingers sorted out groups and positions of knots in each message web.  They were maps of particular territories and areas where trouble of some kind unfolded. The complexity of the knot told Aly just how bad the problem was.  The knots' colors matched the sources of the trouble: Tortallans, foreigners, or immortals--the creatures of myth and legend who lived among them, free of disease and old age.  Most immortals were peaceful neighbors who didn't seek fights, since they could be killed by accident, magic, and weapons, but some were none too friendly.

            George watched Aly with pride.  She'd had an aptitude for codes and translations since she was small, regarding them as games she wanted to win.  She had treated the arts of the lockpick, the investigator, the pickpocket, the lipreader, the tracker, and the knife-wielder in the same way, stubbornly working until she knew them as well as George himself.  She was just as determined a student of the languages and history of the realm's neighbors.  How could someone who liked to win as much as she did lack ambition?  His own ambition had driven him to become the king of the capital's thieves at the age of seventeen.  Her mother's will had made her the first female knight in one hundred years, as well as the King's Champion, who wielded the Crown's authority when neither king nor queen were present.  And yet Aly drifted, seeing this boy and that, helping her father and arguing with her mother, who wanted her daughter to make something of her life.  Aly seemed not to care a whit that girls her age were having babies, keeping shops, fighting in the war, and protecting the realm.

            Perhaps I should let her work, George thought, then hurriedly dismissed the idea.  She was his only daughter.  He would never let her risk her neck alone in the field.  It was bad enough that he'd taken her to a handful of deadly meetings in earlier years, meetings where they'd had to fight their way out.  If she'd asked to try the warrior life as a knight, one of the Queen's Riders, or one of the battle-ready ladies-in-waiting who served Queen Thayet, he would have found it impossible to refuse.  His wife and Aly's foster-aunts would have had many things to say to him then, and none would be blessings.  But she wanted to be a spy in the field.  That he could and did refuse.  He'd lost too many agents over the years.  He was determined that none of them be his Aly.

            He looked up, realizing that she had given him a weapon in her pursuit of fun.  "What would you have done, mistress," he asked sternly, "if you were a spy and I needed you to go out in the field, with that head of hair acting as a beacon?"

            Aly propped her chin on her hand.  "It comes out in three washings, first of all," she informed him.  "Second, if I was in Corus or Port Caynn, it would make no never mind.  The apprentices and shopkeepers' young there pick up university fashions straightaway.  Any other big city, I could just say it's the newest style in Corus.  Or I'd say that they'd remember the hair and never the face under it, just like you taught me."  George winced.  Aly pressed on, "If none of that eased your flutterings, Da, I'd say that's what razors and wigs are for."  She brightened.  "I'll wash it out right now if you've a field assignment for me."

            George got to his feet.  "Never mind.  Leave your poor hair alone.  It's near suppertime."

            When Aly stood, he came over to put an arm around her shoulders.  At five feet six inches she fitted just under her tall father's chin.  George kissed the top of her very blue head.  "I'm glad you're home, Aly."

            She smiled up at him, all artifice and playacting set aside.  "It's always good to see you, Da."

That night they ate with Maude, the Swoop's ageing housekeeper.  Aly's former nursemaid clucked over her hair, as Aly had known she would.  She loved to make Maude cluck.  Then she could remind the old woman how much she had changed from the Maude who had once disguised her young mistress Alanna as a boy and sent her off to become a lady knight.  Maude always got flustered by that.  Alanna was now a legend and a great lady of the realm.  Maude could say it was fate that made her open-minded back then, but she knew she was being inconsistent when she said it.

            Aly liked to fluster her nursemaid, not to mention everywhere else.  Her father knew her tricks and enjoyed catching her at them, which was fine.  She knew most of his, because he'd taught them to her himself.  She disconcerted most other people, from the many boys who came calling once they'd noticed her mischievous eyes, ruddy gold hair, and neat figure, to the hardened brigands and criminals who carried information to her father.

            The only person she left alone was her mother.  Lady Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau, King's Champion and lady knight, known throughout the Eastern and Southern Lands as the Lioness, did not startle well.  She had a temper, her own way of doing things.  She only showed a sense of humor around her husband.  Aly knew her mother loved her two sons and lone daughter, but she was seldom home.  She was forever being summoned to some crisis or other, leaving her children to be raised by her husband and Maude.

            Not that Aly required any more raising.  She was sixteen, almost an adult and ready for adult work, as people were forever reminding her.  Aly sometimes felt that everyone in her world had more interesting things to do than she did.  She hadn't seen her mother, Aunt Daine, or Uncle Numair since the Scanran war began a year before.  In this last month, while she had been in the capital, her grandparents were constantly advising the king and queen, so much so that she couldn't impose on their hospitality any longer.  Her brother Thom, two years older, thought mostly of his studies.  Her twin Alan, who'd begun his page training three years late, was kept busy by the training master.  She had seen him twice during her visit, and only for brief periods of time.  She had felt left out, even as she had understood that for the time being, Alan belonged to his training master more than he did even to his twin sister.  Rather than distract him from his training, she left him alone.  Alan was like a cat: he would return to her when he was ready, and not one moment sooner.

            All of the young men she had not flirted with and discarded were also busy.  They prepared to march north when the mountain passes opened, as they would any day, or else they had left to guard the realm's other borders.  None of her family would allow Aly within coughing distance of the war.  So back home Aly had gone, feeling restless and in the way.  At least Da would use her for paperwork, which was something.

            Sometimes she thought she might scream with boredom.  If only Da would let her spy!  As she decoded reports and summed them up for him, she tried to work out a plan to change his mind.

            On Aly's third day home, more reports arrived.  One of them was sealed in crimson, for immediate review.  She deciphered it: the code was one of many she had memorized, so that she required no book to translate it.  Once done, she read what she had written and whistled.

            George looked up.  He sat at his desk, reading letters from Tyra.  "Somebody would tell you that's unladylike," he pointed out.  "Not your dear old common-born Da, for certain."

            "No, not my dear old common-born Da," she replied, smiling at him.  "But this is worth whistling over.  Somehow our man Landfall's made it to Port Caynn.  He's hiding out there, with important messages for you."

            George's brows snapped together.  "Landfall's supposed to be in Hamrkeng, keeping an eye on King Maggot," he replied slowly, using the Tortallan nickname for Scanra's King Maggur.

            Aly reread the message, noting the apparently insignificant marks that marked it as coming from one of their agents, not a forgery.  "It's Landfall, Da," she said.  "I taught him this code myself, before we got him into Maggur's capital four years back.  He kept saying it was a hard day for the realm when a little girl was teaching code."

            George thought it over, rubbing his head.  "Landfall.  Either he was found out and escaped in time, or…."

            Aly finished the sentence for him.  "Or what he has is so important he could only carry it himself.  Maybe both.  He must have come down by ship."

            George got to his feet.  "Well, I'd best see what it's about."  Landfall was vital, one of a handful of agents smuggled into Scanra in the years before the war.  He was so important that he could report only to Aly's grandfather Myles or to George.  "Be a good lass and handle these papers for me?  I shouldn't be gone more than a day or two--I'll fetch him back here.  Have Maude get one of the hidden bedchambers ready."

            Aly nodded.  "You'll get muddy, riding to Caynn now," she pointed out.

            George kissed her forehead.   "It'll do me good to get out in the field a bit, even if it means getting some of the field on me.  I'm that restless."

            Aly waved goodbye from the castle walls as her father rode out of Pirate's Swoop, two men-at-arms at his back.  The ride would do him good.  She only wished he could go all the way to her mother's post at Frasrlund in the far north, where he clearly longed to be.

            She returned to his office in a gloomy mood.  Would she ever find someone to love as much as her parents loved each other?  She would miss such a partner dreadfully if they were separated, she supposed, just as her parents did.  At least she would have someone to talk to, someone clever who didn't gawp at her and ask her what she meant, or worse, be shocked by her.  It wasn't much fun, when the only people who could keep up with her were at least nine years older than she was.

            The day after her father's departure, Aly heard the horn calls that signaled the arrival of a friendly ship in the cove.  Normally she would have run to the castle's observation platform to see who the new arrivals were, but she was in the middle of a particularly difficult bit of translation: code entered as pinholes in a bound book.  If she were not careful, she would flatten the delicate marks, ending up with gibberish instead of a message.  She stayed at her task until she heard hooves in the inner courtyard.  Gently she set the book aside and went into the main hall, then out through the open front door.

            Whatever she had expected, the scene in the inner courtyard was not it.  Hostlers gently led her mother's warhorse Darkmoon toward the stable.  The big gelding limped, favoring his left hind leg.  Aly quickly eyed the rest of the arrivals.  Ten Swoop armsmen who had gone north with her mother the year before helped the servants to unload their packhorses before taking them to the stable.  The horses looked thin and salt-flecked, as if they'd been at sea.  The men-at-arms looked much the same, as did Aly's mother.

            Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Barony Olau, King's Champion, watched Darkmoon as he was led away.  The Lioness wore loose, salt-stained buckskin.  There was salt in her copper hair, and she had lost more weight than the men.  Aly knew her mother hated ships.  She would have been sick throughout the voyage.

            Aly trotted down the steps and kissed her mother's thin cheek.  "What brings you here so unexpectedly?" asked Aly.  "Is Darkmoon all right?"

            Her mother looked up at her: even wearing boots, she was slightly shorter than her daughter.  Fine lines framed the Lioness's famous purple eyes and her mouth, marks of long weeks in the open air, summer and winter.  There were a few white strands in her mother's shoulder-length copper hair that Aly could not remember seeing before.

            "He pulled a tendon," Alanna replied wearily.  "Our horse healers did their best with him, but he needs rest.  His majesty gave us a month's leave.  Where's your father?"

            "Off," replied Aly.  It was the family's code phrase that meant her father was on spymaster's business.  "He should be back soon--it was just a quick trip to Port Caynn."

            Her mother nodded, understanding, and gave Aly a brief hug.

            "Why didn't Aunt Daine heal Darkmoon?" Aly demanded.  Daine, the Wildmage, spoke with and healed animals as easily as she took their shapes.

            "Your aunt is having a baby shapeshifter within the month," replied her mother as the men carried her packs into the castle.  "If she doesn't change below the waist whenever the child does, it might kick its way out of her womb."  Alanna shuddered.  "It wasn't even worth asking her, not to mention it made me queasy to see her go from bear to donkey to fish every now and then, while her upper half remains the same.  Darkmoon will be fine with rest."  She walked toward the castle steps, limping slightly.

            "What happened to you?" Aly demanded, keeping pace.  "You're hobbling like..." She'd been about to say, "you're old," but her throat closed up.  That wasn't so.  Forty-two was not old, or at least, not that old.

            "I took a wound to the thigh last autumn," Alanna said tersely.  "It troubles me some yet."

            "But you're up to your ears in healers!" Aly protested.  "You're one yourself!"

            Alanna scowled.  "When you've been healed as much as I have, you develop a certain resistance.  You know that, or you should.  What have you done to your hair?"

            Aly tossed her head.  "It's the latest fashion in Corus," she informed her mother.  "It's the height of sophistication."

            "It's as sophisticated as a blueberry," retorted Alanna.  "Aren't you a little old for this kind of thing?"

            "Why?  It's fun, and it washes out.  It's not like the world revolves around my hair, Mother," Aly said sharply.  Why did this always happen?  Home not even half a day, and her mother had already found something to criticize about her.

            "Fun," Alanna said, her voice very dry.  "There ought to be more to your life than fun at sixteen."

            Aly rolled her eyes.  "Someone has to enjoy themselves around here," she pointed out.  "It certainly isn't you, forever riding here and there for serious work.  You're always be so grim!"

            "You're sixteen," retorted Alanna.  "When I was your age, I was two years from earning my shield.  I knew what I wanted from my life, I knew the work I wanted to do--"

            "Mother, please!" cried Aly.  They hadn't seen each other for a year, but they had returned to the last conversation they'd had before Alanna left.  "Must you be so obsessed?  I know all of this already.  When you were my age you'd killed ten giants, armed only with a stick and a handful of pebbles.  Then you went on to fly through the air on a winged steed, to return with the Dominion Jewel in your pocket and the most beautiful princess in all the world for your king to marry.  I'm not you.  If you were about more, you might have seen that much for yourself."  She wished she hadn't made the accusation, but if anyone could make Aly lose control over her tongue, it was her mother.

            Guilt pinched the girl as Alanna's shoulders slumped.  "That's not what I meant," Alanna said.  "That's not what I want.  At least, it would have been nice, to have you do as I did, as far as getting your shield is concerned, anyway.  But the whole point to doing as I did was so you could do something else, if you wanted to.  It's just that you don't seem to want to do anything."  She massaged one of her shoulders, watching her daughter.  "Look, hair is, is hair, I suppose.  If you want it blue, or green, or leopard-spotted . . .  Who am I to say what's fit for a girl?"

            She walked into the castle.  Aly turned, to see the hostlers and men-at-arms regarding her with reproach.  "She's not your mother," she told them.  "You try being the daughter of a legend.  It's a great deal like work."

            Aly hadn't expected to see Alanna at the supper table, but the servants did.  A second place had been laid, and Alanna was already seated, when Aly entered the smaller family dining room.

            "My first solid meal in days," Alanna informed her daughter as Aly took her seat.  "I threw up all the way here on that cursed ship."

            "It's still too wintery to ride?" asked Aly, accepting a bowl of oysters in stew from a maid.

            Her mother had already begun to eat.  Once she'd emptied her mouth she replied, "Not if I didn't mind getting here by the time I'm supposed to be back at Frasrlund."  She ate with quick, efficient movements.  "Seasick or no, the boat was faster.  It's going to be a long summer.  I admit, I will be the better for some time here."

            "Then King Maggur means to fight on, despite losing his killing devices?" Aly inquired.

            Alanna mopped out her bowl with a crust of bread.  "He's still got his armies and his ship captains.  If all there was to Maggur was that disgusting mage of his, we'd have beaten him like a drum last year.  Could we not talk about the war?  I've done nothing else for months."

            Aly stifled a sigh.  There were so few subjects she could safely discuss with her mother.  Unless….

            It had been over a year since their last talk.  In that time she'd honestly tried to find something to do that would please her father, without success.  Perhaps she had gone at it the wrong way.  It had never occurred to her before to enlist her mother's help.

            "You know what you were saying before, Mother?" she asked as the maid set a roasted duck between them.

            Alanna carved it briskly, serving herself and Aly while Aly put served the fried onion pickle that went with the duck.  "I barely remember my own name at the moment," Alanna replied.  "What did I say before?"

            "That I needed to find work."  Aly arranged her onions in a design on her plate.  "As it happens, there is work I like, work I'm good at.  And it's as important as warrior's work; I think you'd be the first to say as much."

            Alanna looked up from her plate, her purple eyes glinting with suspicion.  "Out with it, Aly," she ordered.  "You know I have little patience for dancing around a thing.  What's as important as a warrior's work?"

            Aly put down her knife and folded her hands in her lap, where her mother couldn't see them.  Making sure the proper casual, blithe spirit was in her voice and face, she said, "I would like to serve the realm as a field agent.  With the war making a hash of things, I bet I could make my way into Scanra.  We need more agents there.  Or Galla, or Tusaine.  We're about to lose one of our Tusaine folk--well, not lose, gods willing"--she made the star-shaped sign against evil on her chest--"but we have to pull him out of Tusaine, and we'll have to replace him--"

            Alanna set down her knife so hard that it clacked as it struck her plate.  "Absolutely not," she snapped.  Her face was dead white.  Her eyes burned as brightly as the magical ember-like stone she always wore around her neck.

            Aly leaned back in her chair, startled by Alanna's vehemence.  "I beg your pardon?" she asked politely, buying time until she figured out what she'd said wrong this time.

            "No daughter of mine will be a spy."  Alanna's tone made the word "spy" into a curse.

            "But Da's a spy," Aly pointed out, shocked.

            Her mother fingered the glowing stone at her throat and replied slowly, "Your father is a unique man, with unique talents.  They are put to better use in the service of the realm than in his old way of life.  I am grateful for that.  He also has people of like mind, training, and background to help him in what he does.  People better suited than his daughter."

            "You're trying to say Da's no noble, no blueblood of Trebond," Aly said, finding the point that her mother tiptoed around.  "You're trying to say spying is not a noble's work.  But Grandda is a spy, too--what about him?"

            "Your grandfather distills the information your agents gather.  He serves as the visible spymaster so your father may work undisturbed," said Alanna.  "That's different."

            "You wanted me to have work that means something to me," protested Aly.

            "Not this work, Alianne.  I have to endure it when your father does it.  I don't have to accept it from you."  Alanna sighed and leaned back in her chair.  "Spying is not fun, Aly.  It's mean, nasty work.  One misstep will get you killed.  If you were hoping I'd talk your father around, you were mistaken."

            "But that's what I want!" cried Aly, frustrated.  "You're always after me to do something with my life.  You tell me, make a decision, and I have!  I help Da with it all the time and nobody objects!"

            "Then I should have done so," Alanna said.  "And I should have done it years ago.  You're right--I was never around for your growing up."  She pushed her chair back from the table.  "While I'm here, I'll try to make up for it a little.  We'll use our wits, see what we can do."  She got to her feet, wincing, and walked past Aly.  For a moment she stopped, hesitated, then rested a hand on Aly's shoulder.  "I've been a bad mother to you, Aly.  But perhaps I can help you find your way at least."

            She took away her hand, and walked stiffly out of the room.  The maid pursued her, after giving Aly an annoyed stare, to remind Alanna that she'd barely had anything to eat.

            Aly stared at the goblet beyond her plate.  She knew that tone in her mother's voice, the one that had crept in as Alanna spoke of Aly "finding her way."  Aly was to be her current project.  Every time she was at home, Alanna seemed to require a task, something to keep her hands busy until her next summons to kill a giant, round up outlaws, fight a noble who challenged the crown's judgment, or take part in a war.  During her last stay she had gone over every inch of the Swoop's walls with masons, remortaring stones and building the walls higher by a full yard.  The household had spent weeks cleaning out stone dust after she left.

            Aly had no interest in being a project, liking herself as she was.  Frowning, she considered her choices as she drummed her fingers lightly on the table.  She could stay and have her mother talk at her until Da returned.  Then she could sit about decoding reports by herself, feeling underfoot and alone, until her parents remembered there were other people in the world.  It had happened before.  The prospect was not enticing.

            Her parents needed time to themselves.  As it was, George would probably have to visit the spy Landfall, especially if the man were tucked away in a secret room for safety.  It also occurred to Aly that she might not like the result when Da learned she had tried to enlist her mother's help.  It was very hard to make Da angry, but that might just do it.

            They deserve time alone, together, Aly told herself virtuously.  I will give it to them.

            She got up from the table and went to her father's office.  If she applied herself, she could finish the rest of the correspondence that evening, and leave her father with nothing to distract him when he returned.  In the morning, she would sail her boat, the Cub, down the coast to Port Legann.  She would even leave a note so her parents wouldn't worry.  She often sailed alone, and winter in the south had been fairly mild.  The sea might be a little rough, but she could handle it.  If the weather turned bad, she would take shelter with the dozens of families she knew along the coast.  And it was early enough in the year that pirates wouldn't have started their raids yet.

            She would sail to Port Legann, visit Lord Imrah and his tiny, vivid wife, and give her parents the time alone that they deserved.  She would also avoid being turned into her mother's project.  Alanna's energy was a fearsome thing.  A few days before her mother left for the north, Aly would return to bid her farewell.  If a tiny voice whispered, at the back of her brain, that she was running away, Aly ignored it.  Her plan really was for everyone's good.

            She finished the decoding and paperwork, leaving her summaries in a neat stack on her father's desk.  That night she packed a small trunk.  As the sun first drew a silver line along the horizon, she carried it down to the Cub.  By the time the sun was clear of coastal hills, Aly, was plowing through the waves, shivering a little in her coat.  She imagined the result when her mother found her note on the dining room table.  If her mother's past reactions were any indication, she would curse the air blue that Aly had dodged her plans.  Then Da would return, Aly's parents would bill and coo like turtledoves for three weeks, and by the time Aly returned from Port Legann, both of them would be in a better frame of mind, ready to welcome their only girl-child.  Aly liked it.  This was a good plan.

            For two days she enjoyed her sail and the solitude.  Shortly after dawn on her third day out she rounded Griffin Point and found she had miscalculated.  A clutch of pirate ships, their captains not aware that the raiding season had yet to begin, had destroyed the town that lined Griffin Cove.  Aly tried to turn the Cub,  but the wind was against her.  They surrounded her before she could get her ship out of the cove.

            By mid-morning a mage was stitching a leather slave collar around her neck.  It would tighten mercilessly if she tried to escape beyond the range of the mage who held its magical key.  The captain of the ship that had sunk her beloved Cub watched as the mage finished the collar.  "I want her head shaved," he snapped.  "Nobody's going to buy a blue-haired slave."

Three weeks later, Rajmuat on the island of Kypriang, capital of the Copper Isles:

            Aly huddled in the corner of the slave pen farthest from the door, knees drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped around her knees, forehead on her arms.  She was barefoot.  Her hair was now only the finest red-gold stubble.  She was dressed in a rough, sleeveless, undyed tunic, with a rag that served her for a loincloth.  The pirates' leather collar had been exchanged for one that would keep her in the Rajmuat slave market until she'd been sold.

            After three weeks, two of them on a filthy, smelly ship, her body was skinnier and striped with bruises.  There was also a purple knot on the back of her head.  That was a pirate's gift: he had not expected her to know so many tender spots where her nails could inflict serious pain.  To anyone inside or outside the pen, she looked as cowed as any slave about to be sold for the dozenth time.

            Her brain, however, ticked steadily, working through what was likely to happen and what she could do about it.  Tomorrow the slaves in her pen were to be sold.  Escape from the pen was not impossible, but it would have required more time than she had, and there was the nuisance of her leather collar to consider.  Her best bet was to be sold.  She could then leave her new masters, acquire money and clothes, and take ship for home.

            It was the selling part that most concerned her.  At sixteen, she would be considered ripe for a career as a master's toy.  This was not acceptable.  She wasn't sure what she wanted to do about her virginity yet, but she did know that she wanted to give it up when she chose.

            To that end she had eaten little until now.  The other slaves had thought her mad for giving away half of the pittance they were fed, but Aly did not want to be as shapely as she had looked at home.  The head-shaving had been a blessing, though the pirates hadn't meant it to be.  Anything that made her look odd and troublesome would help her to avoid masters who might buy her for pleasure.

            Aly watched her companions over her arms.  They clustered around the gate, knowing supper was on its way.  When it came, she would get a last chance to make herself as undesirable as possible, without actually cutting off important body parts.

            The slaves stirred.  Keys rattled.  The gate groaned as it was pushed open from outside.  The slaves shrank from the guards armed with padded batons who entered first, to hold them back.  Cooks tossed a number of small bread loaves onto the floor.  Next they set down pots of weak porridge.  The slaves surged forward with the wooden bowls they'd been issued on their arrival.

            The strongest captives kept things orderly, at first.  They held off the rest as they helped themselves and their friends.  Only when they retreated did the others descend like starving animals to seize what remained.

            Aly deliberately flung herself into the flailing mass of limbs, offering herself as a target for any elbow, fist, knee, or foot that might help to make her look ugly.  She fended off the worst blows with tricks of hand-to-hand combat taught to her by her parents.  The rest, accidental or weak, sharp or soft, Aly endured.  Her skin would have few white patches left when she was done.  The rest would be bruised, cut, and scratched, the signs of a fighter.

            A white starburst of pain opened over her right eye.  An elbow rammed her lower lip on her left, splitting it.  She didn't see the fist that struck her nose, but she heard it break through the bones in her head.

            Blood rolled down the back of her throat.  Heaving, Aly struggled out of the crowd.  She stumbled back to her corner, her face blood-streaked and her lip swollen to the size of a small mouse.  Once she had the pen's wooden walls at her back and side, she clenched her teeth and molded the broken cartilage of her nose so it wouldn't heal entirely crooked.  The pain made her eyes water and her head spin.  Still, she was pleased with herself and with the slaves who had unknowingly helped to mark her.

            A while later someone's foot nudged her--it belonged to the big woman who'd been thrown into the pen two days before.  Aly blinked up at her with eyes swollen nearly shut.

            "That was stupid," the woman informed her as she crouched beside Aly.  In one hand she offered a crust of bread soaked in thin porridge.  In the other she held a bowl of and a rag.  As Aly maneuvered a scrap of soggy bread through her swollen lips, the woman gently wiped dry blood from her face.

            "You'll have a nice fighter's scar on the brow, little girl," she remarked.  She spoke Common, the language used throughout their part of the world, with a rough accent that Aly couldn't place.  It was Tyran, maybe, but there something of Carthak in the way she treated her r's.  "And a broke nose--they'll brand you as quarrelsome," the woman continued, cleaning Aly's many cuts.  "No one will buy you for a bedwarmer now, unless they're the ones that like women in pain."

            "For them I'll look like trouble.  I'd be a dreadful bedwarmer," Aly told her with an attempt at a grin.  The effort made her wince.  She sighed, and popped another piece of bread into her mouth, although it was hard to chew and breathe at the same time.

            The big woman rocked back on her heels.  "You planned this?  Be you a fool?  A bedwarmer gets fed, and clothed, and sleeps warm."

            "With a good owner," Aly replied.  "Not with a bad one.  My aunt Rispah used to be a flower seller in Corus.  She told all manner of tales about masters and servants.  I'll wager it's worse when you're a slave with a choke collar."  She fingered the leather band around her neck.  "I'd as soon not find out.  Better to be ugly and troublesome."

            The woman got back to work on washing the blood away.  "So were you always mad, or did it come on you when you was took?"

            Aly smiled.  "I'm told it runs in the family."

            Think of this as a sort of divine present from me to you.  It could almost be letters from home. I don't want you thinking that all kinds of dreadful events are taking place in your absence.  I hope you appreciate it.  I wouldn't do this for just anyone.  The man who spoke in Aly's dream had a light, crisp, precise voice, the sort of voice of one who could annoy or entertain in equal measure.  That voice didn't mumble, or speak in dream nonsense.  Aly was completely and utterly convinced that it was a god who spoke to her.  Now she knew why her mother had once answered a question about how she knew when a god was a god: "Trust me, Aly, you know."  Aly knew.

            Darkness cleared from her dream vision to show her Pirate's Swoop.  It was the clearest thing she had ever seen in her sleep.  She felt as if she had become a ghost who watched her mother.  Alanna sat on a merlon atop the observation deck on their largest tower.  Out on the Emerald Ocean, the sun was just kissing the horizon.  Shadows already lay over the hills east of the Swoop.

            Alanna rested a mirror on her thigh, an old, worn mirror that Aly recognized.  Thom had given it to their mother when he was small, when he'd thought her the kind of mother who liked mirrors with roses painted on the back.  Ever since Alanna had used the mirror to scry, or magically see, the things she wanted to find.  Briefly Aly felt a hand squeeze her heart: her mother still used Thom's childish gift.

            Alanna picked up a spyglass and trained it on the southern coast, despite the poor light of the fading day.  After watching through the glass for a time, she set it down, and grasped the mirror.  Violet fire, the color of Alanna's magical Gift, bloomed around the glass.  On the mirror's surface, Aly saw only gray clouds.

            Her mother cursed and raised the mirror as if to smash it against the stone of the merlon.  Then, gently, she lowered it back onto her lap, and returned to the spyglass.

            Footsteps.  Ghost Aly turned to see her father walk right through her.  He rested a big hand on the back of his wife's neck and kissed her under the ear before he asked, "Nothing yet?"

            Alanna lowered the spyglass and shook her head.  "I thought she'd come home in time to say goodbye," she said, shaking her head.  "I have to sail tomorrow, George, I can't wait."

            Aly looked down at the cove, where three ships flying the flag of the Tortallan navy lay at anchor.  All were courier ships, built for speed.  The king wanted his Champion in the north as soon as he could get her there.

            Poor Mother, thought Aly.  She'll throw up for the whole voyage.  But she's going anyway, to get back to her duty.  And she put up with it coming south, to give herself as much time with your father and you as she could.  Now she thinks you don't care enough to see her and tell her goodbye.

            "What of the mirror?" asked George.

            Alanna turned vexed eyes up to him.  "I'm getting nothing from the mirror, but there are a hundred reasons for something like that."

            "Like you being exhausted?" George inquired gently.

            Alanna rolled her eyes.  "Don't start with that again, George."

            "And why not, when it's true?" he demanded.  "If you won't speak to the king, perhaps I should."

            Tired? Aly thought, startled.  Alanna the Lioness tired?  Impossible.

            She looked at her mother's face and saw lines she hadn't noticed before, at the corner of those famed purple eyes, at the corners of the Lioness's mouth.  Aly remembered that her mother was almost forty-three.

            "Field duty is a lot less tiring than serving as Champion during peacetime," Alanna told him.  "And I won't have you saying anything to anyone."  She sighed.  "But it could be the reason I can't find her when I scry.  I was never that good at it to begin with."

            "If she's not home by the time you sail, I'll see to it she visits you in the north, to apologize for worrying you."

            "I'm not worried worried.  Aly can take care of herself.  I just--bah."  Alanna leaned back against her husband.  "Thank all the gods the war is winding down.  Will you write to me when she comes home?"

            "I'll send her with the letter."  George kissed the top of his wife's head.  "Don't forget, Alan would have told us if there was anything to worry about.  He can always tell if Aly's in trouble.  Remember the time the horse threw her and she broke her head.  Alan knew of it before Aly got conscious."

            Alanna smiled reluctantly.  "I'd forgotten that."  She reached for her mirror.  "Maybe I should give it one more try."

            "And tire yourself more?  I think not."  George took the mirror from her hand and tucked it into the pocket of his breeches.  "Why don't you go get ready for supper?  Maude had them cook all your favorites."

            "All my favorites?  They'll have to roll me north, I'll be so fat."  Alanna collapsed her spyglass.

            "Ah, but you'll puke it all up on the trip, so eat away," George said in a falsely comforting voice.

            "That's disgusting," said his wife drily.  She turned and left him alone on the observation deck.

            Only when she was gone did George pull a rolled scrap of paper from his pocket.  When he read the message on it, the lines of his craggy face deepened; his broad mouth went tight.  Ghost Aly read over his shoulder.  On it, in code, was a message from Lord Imrah of Legann.  It said only, She's not here.

            George crumpled the paper in his hand and stuffed it into his pocket just as Aly felt her ghost self fade.

            When Aly woke in the morning, she felt as if she'd been beaten all over--and so she had, she remembered, by slaves fighting for supper.  Her eyes were watering.  She swiped at them with her hand and winced as she touched the sensitive bruising that ringed them, the legacy of her broken nose.

            Had she really heard a god in her dream?  Why would any god show her visions of home?  She hadn't understood that comment about "letters," or the one about her absence.  She wished she had tried to tell her parents that she was fine and would be home as soon as she could get away.  It hadn't even occurred to her, she'd been so caught up in what her parents said.  She did know that she would sail north as soon as she got back, to mend bridges with her mother.

            Get sold, learn my way about, get free, get home, she thought, grunting as she struggled to her feet.  That's simple enough.  I'll make it up to her.

            Please, Goddess, she prayed to her mother's patron deity, let me get sold to people I can escape from in one piece.

You asked me about slaves.  They mean different things to different countries.  There are slaveholders throughout the Eastern Lands, though slaveholding is an uneasy subject from Tortall to Maren, for one reason or another.  Slaves are expensive, that's the thing to remember.  You need vast lands to make slavery pay.  They're a sign of wealth in the Copper Isles.  Owning slaves there says that the master is as rich as any Carthaki lord.  In Scanra, slaves are a sign of your skill in combat.  It's the big farms like those in Maren, and in the Carthaki Empire, that need slaves all the time, to work their huge fields.  And there's little their majesties can do about it.  We buy back Tortallans taken captive if they can find them, but pirates strike and flee, selling some of their load here and some of it there.  They're careful.  They have to be.  If they're caught, their punishment is painful and fatal.

-- from a letter to Aly when she was twelve, from her father

2. Trickster 

the house of Duke Mequen Balitang
Rajmuat, Kypriang Island, the Copper Isles
May 4 - 6, 462 H.E.

             Dressed in a light cotton tunic and leggings in the Balitang house colors of red trimmed with blue, Aly the slave sat on a bench in the front foyer of the Balitang family's rambling town house.  She was there to answer the door in case anyone came during the night.  In a chest across the entryway was the pallet and blanket she would lay out for herself later.  At the moment she was wide awake and planning.

            Her hands were as busy as her mind.  Deftly she used pliers and wire filched from the house blacksmith to shape a lock pick.  It was part of a new set to replace those that had been taken by her pirate captors.  She would be whipped if she were caught with pliers or lockpicks, but she didn't intend to be caught.  They were the next element in her plan to return home.  With them she could open the smith's locked cupboards where he kept the special saw that would cut the metal ring off of a slave's neck.  The saw would break both the ring and its magic, a spell that would choke her if she attempted to leave the city.

            With one ear cocked for the sound of anyone's approach, Aly reviewed her plans.  Once free of the collar, she would disappear into the depths of the city.  Already she was armed with a sharp knife she had stolen from the kitchen on her second day in the house.  The law forbade all slaves to carry weapons, but Aly didn't care.  She would always prefer the risk of getting caught with a forbidden weapon to the risk of getting caught without one at a moment when she would need it.  With a knife and lockpicks a girl of her talents could easily find decent clothes and a cloth to cover her stubbly head.  Properly dressed, she could make her way through the marketplaces and help herself to enough coin to buy her passage on one of the many ships that sailed out of Rajmuat harbor every day.  Her father had trained her well; she meant to prove it to him.  Maybe, when she returned, he would be convinced that she could take care of herself as a field spy.

            Her plan to discourage buyers who wanted a girl for their bedchambers had worked so well it was a little eerie.  She had shown the market a sullen, scowling face that added to the impression made by her cuts and bruises.  They marked her as a fighter, and trouble.  Still, she had expected to get some bids.  None had been offered--none at all.  Even those who might like to break a troublesome slave had not even blinked when they saw at her.  After two days of no offers, and the puzzled looks of both her fellow slaves and her sellers, Aly's owners decided just to get rid of her.  When Ulasim, the head footman to House Balitang, and Chenaol, the cook, had purchased an expensive pastry chef, the slave sellers had thrown Aly in for free, to thank them for their custom.

            To Aly's surprise, Ulasim and Chenaol kept her.  It seemed they needed a slave-of-all-work, someone to obey the orders of everyone in the house.  She stayed busy, but Mequen and his wife, Duchess Winnamine, believed that a well-fed slave was a harder worker.  Their policy of kindness extended to clothes and even to healers.  Aly could now breathe through her nose, although it would show the sign of the break all her days.  The scar in her eyebrow was also hers for life.

            In a way, Aly almost regretted the need to leave this interesting household.  Its sheer size had not impressed her, despite the fact that the Balitangs hired or owned over a hundred servants and slaves in this great residence alone, not counting the family men-at-arms.  Her foster aunts and uncles in the Naxen and Goldenlake households boasted as many servants, and the Tortallan palace had four times that many people to keep it in order.  It was the makeup of the Balitang household that intrigued Aly.  After years of lessons in the Isles' history, detailing the thorough job of conquest done by the luarin, or white, ruling class, she had expected to find all luarin in service, and all the brown, or raka, folk as slaves.  She had also expected that, as a luarin and a slave, she would need to prove over and over her ability to find tender spots on a raka tormentor's body before he, or she, decided to leave her alone.

            Instead the pure-raka cook Chenaol had taken Aly under her wing and introduced her to a household that contained a majority of part- and full-raka servants and slaves, in addition to pure luarin slaves like Aly, purchased as they came into the Isles' markets.  As head cook, the wickedly humorous raka woman ran the kitchens with a firm brown hand and a sharp brown eye, supervising luarin, part-raka, and full-raka servants and slaves.  She made it clear to all who came through her door that Aly was to be left alone.

            "They gave her away, poor lass," Chenaol had told the household.  "She's got enough on her plate without you lot tormenting her."  It seemed Chenaol's word was law, regardless of her ancestry.  Aly admired the woman.  Chenaol was in her mid-fifties, a tart-tongued woman with sharp dark eyes.  There were a few gray streaks in the coarse black hair she wore in a braid down her short, plump back.  Her skin was the coppery brown shade of a full-blood raka, creased with light wrinkles about the eyes and mouth.  Busy as she was, she still found time to show Aly the ropes in the rambling mansion.

            The strangeness of this household didn't end with Chenaol.  Ulasim, the brawny head footman, was also a full-blood raka.  Of the Balitang's chief servants, the housekeeper, the steward, the coachman, and the healer were full luarin and free, as was Veron, the commander of the men-at-arms.  The chief hostler, the elderly Lokeij, was a full-blood raka slave who didn't seem to notice the collar around his neck, and half the hostlers who served under his eye were free and of mixed parentage.  If the raka of the Isles were oppressed by their luarin masters, it was a thin, watery oppression in the Balitang household.  Aly was fascinated.  If she hadn't known her parents would be worrying, she might have stayed on for a while to see what kind of people the Balitangs were.  Already she'd learned that the duke, the master of this house, had taken one of the raka nobility as his first wife, and married her best luarin friend for his second.  His choices might not have been worthy of note in another man, but Mequen was a descendant of the luarin ruling house, the Rittevons.  Did this mean the luarin attitude was softening toward the enslaved raka, or did it simply mean that Mequen Balitang was far enough from the throne that no one cared who he married?  Sadly, Aly wouldn't get the chance to find out.  Her parents would be fretting.  She was going home, even if she had to manage all the arrangements herself.

            Her escape would have been easier if she could just visit one of Da's Rajmuat spies, but Aly didn't dare.  Spies were not to be trusted.  Her identity was a vital secret in this new, hostile world.  Tortall's enemies would pay any sum for her in order to use Aly against her family.  They might even suspect that Aly knew something of her father's work.  If that happened, they would squeeze her like a lemon.  With those stakes, an agent might give in to the temptation to sell her for a profit.  Even a faithful agent's communications to George might be intercepted.  Aly had to get out of this one on her own.

            There was a chance that her family might locate her first.  Mother couldn't seem to find her, if Aly's dream was true, and the god had made her believe it was.  It had been too vivid, too clear, and too convincing for her to deny it.  So Mother couldn't scry her.  Her father or Uncle Numair might track her down.  Normally she would have expected Aunt Daine to have animals out to search, but Aunt Daine was in the process of having a child.  Even the Wildmage couldn't attend to things while carrying a baby that changed shape constantly.

            Still, Aly wasn't going to wait for rescue.  She would free herself.  If that didn't convince her father she would be a good spy, nothing would.

            Sudden hammering on the house door made her jump.  She hid her tools and went to see who was outside.  A big white man and two men-at-arms, all soaked to the skin from the warm, pouring rain, strode into the hall.  Aly greeted the first man with the deep bow of a slave to someone who was clearly a luarin noble, her palms together before her chest.  His men had brown and reddish-brown skins, marking them as warriors from either the lesser, raka nobility or the bulk of the regular population of the Isles.

            "I know it's late and doubtless they've retired for the night," the luarin nobleman said gravely, "but I'm afraid you must rouse the duke and duchess.  Tell them Prince Bronau Jimajen has come with news of great import for them.  Royal news."

            Aly took the prince's sopping cloak and went to rouse Ulasim.  The likes of her didn't visit Duke Mequen and Duchess Winnamine in their personal quarters.  When she gave the big raka Prince Bronau's message, Ulasim went pale.  "See the prince to the azure sitting room," he ordered as he struggled into his tunic.  "Show his men to the kitchen to be looked after.  Ask Chenaol for refreshments for his highness.  Hurry!"

            Aly spread Bronau's cloak before the kitchen hearth to dry as she passed on her orders to Chenaol.  The cook sniffed.  "Keep your bottom away from that one, girl," she advised as she set out a tray and a bottle of wine.  "When he visits the summer residences, he goes through maids like grease, a different one in his bed every night."

            Aly nodded and ran to show Bronau to the sitting room.  He took a chair with a sigh as Aly hurriedly lit candles, then the braziers that gave these city homes their warmth.  As she worked, she reviewed what she knew of this man from the reports.  Bronau was not of King Oron's immediate family, but he was the brother-in-law of Princess Imajane, the king's sole daughter.  His older brother, Rubinyan, had married the princess.  Everyone who knew him said that Bronau was a good man in a fight, a commander who had the respect of his men and the affection of the king and his family.

            Aly glanced at him as she got the braziers going.  He looked taller than he actually was, being only three inches taller than Aly.  He had a warrior's build, with broad shoulders and heavily muscled thighs, fierce gray eyes, and winged brows over a nose that had been broken once.  He wore his reddish brown hair in waves to his shoulders, but kept his beard closely trimmed.  His big hands carried an assortment of weapon scars.  The main flaw in his comeliness lay in the mouth framed by his beard: his lips were thin almost to the point of invisibility.

            Like most luarin nobles, he wore the fashions of in the Eastern Lands, remade for a jungle city: elegant blue silk hose and a blue linen tunic, over a semi-sheer shirt of shimmering white lawn.  The tunic was embroidered in the raka style along the collar and hems in a silver design of coiling dragons.  He was dressed for an elegant spring party.  His blue leather shoes were not meant for walking or riding in the rain, and he wore jeweled rings on every finger, a gold earring with a diamond bauble in one ear, and several gold chains on his chest.

            He caught Aly's eye and smiled, his face lighting with humor and tremendous charm.  "I know.  I'm scarcely attired for the weather."

            Aly gave him a sidelong glance, that of a woman who likes what she sees.  He probably noticed that look all the time and surely expected it.  He smirked at her.

            "It's not for me to say, my lord prince," Aly murmured.  The relationship between Tortall and the Isles had always been unsteady.  She would get a measure of this man now, so she could add to her father's notes about him when she returned.  Their people seldom got the chance to talk to one of the most powerful men in the Copper Isles.

            Bronau's eyebrows came together with an almost audible snap.  "Come here, girl," he said, beckoning.

            Aly obeyed.  There was little danger that he might try anything improper.  Under slave etiquette, another man's slaves were to be left alone, unless the master or the slave involved indicated otherwise.  Aly already knew, because Chenaol had told her, that Duke Mequen never let other people mishandle his slaves.

            The prince gripped Aly's chin with his hand and inspected her face.  "Not a drop of raka blood in you, is there?" he asked, curious.

            "No, my lord prince," murmured Aly, keeping her eyes down.

            Bronau released her.  "I don't like the precedent, keeping luarin slaves.  It gives the raka ideas.  See here--if these raka dogs bother you, don't hesitate to tell Duke Mequen," he told Aly sternly.  "He looks out for the slave women, and you can't trust the raka to behave themselves unless they know there's a whip close to hand."

            "My lord prince is too kind," Aly said, bowing once again.  Bronau obviously didn't know that Chenaol, who could juggle razor-sharp cleavers with ease, had discouraged most problems of that sort.  "If you will excuse me, I will bring some refreshment to you," she murmured.

            Bronau nodded and settled into his chair, watching the embers in the nearest brazier.  Aly fetched the pitcher of wine and the tray of fruit, cakes, and cheese the cook had put together to the sitting room.  As she set the tray where Bronau could reach it, then poured him a glass of wine, she made sure that nothing in her manner told him that she was interested in giving him more than food and drink.  It wouldn't take more than the right look and the right smile with this man.  She would be in his lap with his hand under her tunic before she could sneeze.  Chenaol was right; Bronau had a flirt's air.  When Aly got home, she'd suggest to Da that they try one of their female agents with him.  Bronau might tell far more than was prudent to a pretty, listening ear.

            Once he was served, she left him.  She fetched a mop and set to work cleaning up the water the guests had tracked onto the marble floor of the hall.  She was nearly finished when Ulasim raced down the steps from the family quarters.  He slowed when he approached the azure sitting room, straightened his tunic, then went in to the prince.  Both men emerged a moment later, to climb upstairs.

            Aly watched them go.  She'd give much to know what Bronau told the Balitangs.  He'd said "royal business"--was that code for problems with the king?  It could be.  Oron was insane.  Most of the Rittevon House was, these days.  Aly's own mother had been forced to kill a Rittevon princess years before, when that lady started to kill people with an axe.  The present Isles king was her uncle, a fearful and unstable man who turned on favored courtiers overnight.

            Eavesdropping was not an option.  If she were observed anywhere but at her post by the door, she would be questioned.  Instead she finished mopping the floor.  Later she would see what she could learn to take home to her Da.

            The next day the duke and duchess summoned the household to the hall where they held parties.  It was the first time that Aly had seen any of the Balitang family but her master and mistress.  Chenaol named them for Aly.  The proud, brown-skinned girls were the daughters of the duke's first marriage to a raka noblewoman, imperious sixteen-year-old Saraiyu and small, intense, twelve-year-old Dovasary.  His two full luarin children were by Duchess Winnamine, a four-year-old girl, Petranne, and three-year-old Elsren, still awkward on his short, rounded legs.  Other relatives who lived in the house were present, cousins who served Winnamine as ladies-in-waiting, a great-aunt, and the duke's uncle.

            Duchess Winnamine sat on the dais, her long, elegant hands neatly clasped in her bronze velvet lap.  Her large brown eyes were only slightly accented with kohl, her brown hair dressed in curls that were tied up, then threaded through a velvet net on her head.  Her sharp, straight nose and small, neatly curved mouth gave evidence of a strong will.  She wore pearl drops in her ears, a gold chain around her neck, and only three rings, which was restraint in jewelry for an Islander.  Many wore rings on every finger and several earrings, men and women alike.

            Duke Mequen rose to his feet as the last to enter closed the doors behind them.  He was about five feet ten inches tall, with the solid build of a man who rode a great deal but spent little time practicing weapons skills.  His dark eyes were set under strong, perfectly curved brows and framed by laugh lines.  His nose was broad and straight, his mouth wide, his chin square.  He wore his dark hair clipped short to draw attention away from the fact that it was retreating from his forehead.  He was somberly dressed luarin-fashion in a black linen tunic over a silvery shirt and gray hose, with a ruby-hilted dagger at his waist, a signet ring on the index finger of his left hand, and a gold hoop ring in one ear.  Aly liked the look of him.  She already knew from his servants that he was a fair man, if unconventional in the way he ran his home and chose his wives.  Now she could also see that he was well-mannered and thoughtful, always nice traits to find in a noble.

            Slowly his people quieted.  Mequen looked them over, hands clasped behind his back.  "I'm sure you've heard rumors," he said, his deep voice clear throughout the room.  "His majesty is no longer confident about my loyalty.  He has invited me to prove it with expensive presents.  While he evaluates these presents, my family and I are invited to visit our estates on Lombyn Island, where we must stay until he feels better about us."

            Shock raced through the people like a physical thing.  Some of their families, free and slave, had worked for the Balitangs for generations.  Because the duke was not a political man, uninterested in the intrigues that filled the court, they had believed the king would never turn on him.

            "This breaks our hearts," Mequen said, his sorrow plain on his face and in his voice.  "We are forced to sell lands and slaves to give the king the reassurances he requires.  And those we can take with us are dreadfully few.  Our Lombyn holdings, the inheritance of Duchess Sarugani"--the mother of his older daughters--"are small."  He glanced at his steward. "Our chief sources of income are not gold and gems, but sheep, goats, and rabbits.  We cannot live there as we are accustomed to do.  We cannot feed you all."

            By now some of the women were crying.  Husbands wrapped their arms around their wives.  Children clung to their parents.

            The duchess rose.  "We will do our best to see you are cared for," she said, her calm voice flowing over them.  "Our friends have asked to hire or purchase many of you.  We will separate no families.  We will sell you to no one known to treat his people badly.  As soon as provision has been made, you will be told.  It will be soon.  We must be on our way in just a week."

            The duke took up the explanation.  "Should no one we trust offer for your service, we have sent for a matcher, one with connections and the magical Gift to see what your aptitudes may be.  He will examine you and obtain new places for you.  That begins today."  Mequen sighed.  "Some of you will come with us.  Many of you already know who you are.  For the rest, tell the steward if you desire to stay with us.  But remember, we go to a rougher way of life, far from any town.  We will have few amenities, less food.  The highlands are colder than our jungles, the land inhospitable.  Think it over."  He paused, then nodded.  "May the gods bless you.  May they grant us all voyages to safe harbors."

            Chen