“You hated it. People were always pestering you for hair dye. It was a waste of your talent.”
Iris showed the faintest hint of a smirk.
“And you didn’t like what was going on in some of the prince’s other laboratories,” Petra continued. “What he was having done to people. You thought it was wrong. And it is.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “It is wrong.”
“Be that as it may, what am I to do about it?”
“Help us.”
“You see? I am supposed to help you. Again. Help you do what, precisely?” Iris’s sour expression returned. “Kill the prince, I suppose.”
The words were like a blow. “No.” Petra tried to block the memory of black blood seeping into snow. “Not that. I don’t want to kill anyone.”
“Then what do you want?”
“To talk to Fiala Broshek,” Petra said, and explained her hope that the woman who had turned her father into a monster would have a way to change him back.
As Iris listened, the fire lowered and crackled, casting a garnet-colored glow about the room. Iris leaned forward and propped her pointy chin on one small fist. Finally, she said, “Fiala Broshek has left the court as well. She’s taken up a post as a professor of the Academy. Prince Rodolfo hopes that she will make some necessary changes to the Hapsburg Empire’s premier school for magic.”
“The Academy?” Tomik’s eyes went wide. “So that’s where we’ll have to go, right, Petra? I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I’ll get to see the Academy.” Then his face fell. “But we’d never get through the door. They’d never let us in.”
“They will,” said Iris, “if you are students there.”
Petra and Tomik stared.
“Oh, yes,” said Astrophil. “A splendid idea!”
“No, it isn’t,” Petra said. “We can’t be students at the Academy. The Academy is for rich people. For aristocrats and the gentry and people with high connections. Not villagers. Besides, we’d have to take a magical exam, and—”
“What,” said Iris. “Don’t you think you’d pass?”
Petra shut her mouth.
“As for connections,” Iris continued, “I believe I could pull a few strings.”
Petra couldn’t look at Tomik, his face was so vivid with hope.
“Ahem,” said Astrophil. “As much as I admire your proposal, Countess, I must point out a flaw. It sorrows me to say it. I was so overcome with rapture at the thought that Petra might actually sit at an Academy desk, might learn from the wise words of an Academy professor—”
Petra rolled her eyes.
“—that the idea’s flaw did not even occur to me. Yet it is obvious. Petra, as you say, is an outlaw. Prince Rodolfo must have spread word that she is to be arrested on sight, and she has very unique features. I do not know if the prince is searching for Tomik as well, but Tomik has been seen by him. The prince, and several of his guards, know exactly what Petra and Tomik look like.”
“Leave the disguises to me,” said Iris.
Astrophil looked as if he might weep for joy. He clapped six legs in a flurry of fierce applause. “Hurray!”
“Thank you, Iris,” said Petra. “But … why are you helping us?” It wasn’t until this moment that Petra realized that she had never really trusted that Iris would help them, or that she would even be here, in her castle. Petra had simply clung to that hope, since some plan was better than none. And now, it seemed, her plan had worked.
“Because what you said is true,” Iris answered. “What Fiala Broshek is doing—what the prince is doing—is wrong. Because the number of Gristleki is growing, and there have been rumors of strange deaths all over Bohemia. Because, a little more than two weeks ago, on the night of the day you say you entered the Novohrad Mountains, one of the prince’s older brothers died.”
“He did? But that means—”
“That only one man—the prince’s remaining brother, Frederic—stands in the way of Prince Rodolfo inheriting the empire. The emperor chooses who will claim his crown, but if Emperor Karl has only two sons, instead of three, the choice narrows.”
“How, precisely, did Prince Maximilian die?” Astrophil asked.
“Quietly,” said Iris. “In his sleep. There was no obvious sign of any foul play. As a countess, I have access to information that few do, and I can tell you that the only trace of anything remotely odd was a tiny welt the size of a mosquito bite on Prince Maximilian’s wrist.”
“A mosquito bite?” said Tomik. “In winter?”
“Indeed,” said Iris. “The death’s shady, I’d say. But very clean, if it’s an assassination. Most people think that Maximilian just caught some strange disease. I think Rodolfo’s tired of waiting for the emperor’s crown, and heaven help us if he gets it.” Iris pulled the spectacles from her face and rubbed at her eyes. Her mouselike features were small and tired in the firelight.
“Petra,” Iris continued, “if you learn how to transform your father back into a human, you won’t only be helping him. You could help other Gristleki. You could help your country.” She sighed. “That is why I’m helping you.” She shoved her spectacles back on, glanced at Tomik and Petra’s empty plates, and said, “Now, go. Go to bed, the three of you.”
Petra had a sudden, dizzingly tempting vision of a feather bed and the privacy of her own room.
She and Tomik were making their way toward the door, with Astrophil perched on her head, when Iris said, “Also … I always liked you, Petra.”
Petra turned.
Iris wasn’t looking at her, but at her desk, and at the blank sheet of paper covering the written one. “You’ve got some feist in you, girl, and hunger. I was hungry once, too. For different things, but, oh, what of that?”
Petra considered this. “The prince is hungry, too.”
Iris nodded, and was quiet.
“Iris,” said Tomik, “what did you mean, when you called Petra the ‘peasants’ darling’?”
She grinned. “You noticed. Interesting, eh? It seems that Petra has become a bit of a legend. The poorer folk of Bohemia have been under Rodolfo’s thumb for a long time, and they’re angry. Powerless, but angry. Somehow people have caught wind of some of Petra’s adventures, and have made a few up, too. She’s become a hero. A regular little Robin Hood.” Iris wagged a finger at Petra. “Don’t let that go to your head. It only makes the prince hate you more.”
Tomik was staring at Petra. She shifted, uncomfortable.
“Well, what are you still doing here?” Iris snapped. “Lollygaggers! I told you to get out. Now, shoo!”
After the door had shut behind them, Iris stood and crossed to the dying fire to stab at it with a poker, trying to rouse a bigger flame. It shot several sparks, then crumpled into chunks of charred wood. The fire was out.
“Bother!” Iris snatched a candle off the mantel, lit it, and returned to sit at her table. She rattled her quill in the inkpot and uncovered her half-finished letter. She began to write, and the room was filled with the scratching of pen on parchment.
I trust you will approve of my decision to send Petra and Tomik to the Academy. I have been careful. I will order them not to contact their family members in Bohemia, for fear of discovery. I will give them the address of my nephew and niece, and specify that any communication with me be sent through them. As for your part, I suggest you look into the existence of the Vatra. It seems that Gypsies have more to them than meets the eye, and that Neel of the Lovari has rather moved up in the world. A king! Who would believe it?
Petra’s opinion of you
Iris paused—
is uncertain. Frankly, I think she doesn’t know what to make of you. One thing is clear: she does not trust you. Therefore, I thought it best to say nothing of our friendship.
Or shall I call it what it is: a partnership based on mutual interests? Don’t forget who stands next in line to the Bohemian throne.
—Irenka Grisetta December, Sixth Countess of Krumlov
P.S. You sho
uld have told me about the spider! I didn’t even know he existed. How embarrassing!
Iris dusted sand on the letter to dry the ink. Then she folded it, sealed it with a wax stamp, and addressed it to John Dee.
20
Tea
“STOP GIVING ME this stale old stuff.” Neel shoved a sheaf of papers at Nadia.
She shoved it right back across the marble-topped table. “You haven’t even read it.”
“You bet I have. It’s about coir. Again. You’ve been forcing me to read this muck for weeks. I hate to break your heart, dear Nadia, but I don’t care about coir.”
“You should.”
“It’s coconut hair. Why in the name of the four tribes should I care about coconut hair?”
“Because,” she said through her teeth, “it’s used to make rope. Rope is important.”
“Oh, right.” Neel smacked the heel of his hand against his forehead. His eyes went wide, sarcastic, and his voice turned mockingly sweet. “How could I forget? Rope! Rope’s got magic in it, right, magic that’ll turn me into a king who gives everyone the glow, they’re so happy I’m theirs.”
“Being a king is not about being liked.”
“Can’t argue with you. After all, you’re the expert on being unpopular.”
“I give up!” Nadia threw her hands in the air. “I’m not teaching you anything, anymore. You have been an insufferable snarl ever since your gadje friends left. You are so obvious. It’s obvious you wanted nothing more than to tear after them and win their hearts a thousand times over, and be the prankster, the adventurer, the wink-quick Lovari getting in and out of scrapes. You’re not that person anymore, Neel.” She stood and glared down at him. “You never will be again.”
Neel opened his mouth, but nothing came out as Nadia stormed from the library.
It took several seconds for Neel to realize that for the first time, Nadia’s sharp tongue had actually cut him.
* * *
“TEATIME, YOUR MAJESTY.” Karim, Neel’s adviser in manners, cracked open the library door to see Neel scowling at papers scattered in front of him.
“Not for me. I’m playing hooky.”
“You cannot miss tea. How many times need I tell you that teatime is absolutely crucial for Roma royalty?”
Neel couldn’t tear his eyes from a chart listing coir profits from last year. “Why?”
“Why?” Karim was flustered.
“You’ve never told me why you’re always nagging me to lounge around on a pile of perfumed pillows and drink tea—when I like coffee, Karim, coffee—and listen to a bunch of witless courtiers natter away about nothing, ’cause nothing is all they know, since all they do is hang around the Vatran court. Tell me why I have to go to tea.”
Karim gave Neel a look that questioned his intelligence. “To find out what your people want, of course.”
“What they want,” Neel repeated slowly. He thought of the clear glass bead, and the fact that someone in this palace wanted him dead. He stood. “Fine. I’ll go. But send a message to my ma first. Ask her to come, too.”
* * *
NEEL SAT ON A LARGE CUSHION stuffed with sweet dried seagrass. He didn’t sprawl across the pillows, although he would have liked to. He sat carefully, his folded legs neatly tucked beneath a low lemonwood table with inlaid patterns of mother-of-pearl. On the table rested a copper teapot warmed to the perfect temperature. He poured himself a cup and didn’t even make a face as he took a cautious sip. He stared at the courtiers arranged around the pool in brightly dressed clusters of color, and gazed at the pool itself. It looked temptingly deep and cool. Neel became conscious of the heat of the tearoom. He glanced away from the pool and took another sip.
“Mingle,” Karim had hissed in his ear before crossing the room to talk with Arun. Both Karim and Neel’s chief adviser had thought it best to keep their distance from the king in public. “No one needs reminding that you are in dire need of better manners,” Arun had said. “And it will not improve your image if your people think that I am leading you around by the nose.”
Mingle. Neel supposed that was fine advice—and, after all, he was here, drinking this vile, flowery tea, in order to get to know the court better. But—Neel took another sip, and let his dislike of the drink steady his nerves—it might be interesting to sit here, wait, and see who’d creep over to talk to him.
He didn’t have to wait long. Treb glanced up from where he was playing a game of Vices with his brother. Tarn leaned across the table with its board of two large circles, a pawn in each center, and muttered something to Treb, who grinned, snatched his brother’s pawn, and strode alongside the pool toward Neel, his boots crushing a few silk cushions along the way.
“I think you’re supposed to wear slippers to tea,” Neel told Treb when the captain reached him.
“And I think you couldn’t care less what I wear.” Treb sat across from Neel, blocking his view of the pool.
Neel sighed.
“Don’t mind if I smoke here, do you?” Without waiting for an answer, Treb rapped his pipe against the table to knock out the old ashes. He thumbed a wad of tobacco into the pipe bowl and lit it.
“What do you want, Treb?”
Treb puffed out a cloud of smoke. “Who says I want anything, coz?”
“What does your brother want, then? Other than to never speak with me again.”
“Oh, now, you can’t blame him for that.” Treb poured himself a cup of tea. “You took away that pretty toy of a throne from him.”
“I won’t give it back.”
Treb slid his teacup toward Neel. “Then give me some sugar.”
Neel didn’t move. Treb shrugged and helped himself. “Give the Maraki something to sweeten our loss,” said the captain. “Give Tarn, our leader, a reason to support you. Because the Maraki can play nice, or”—Treb smiled—“we can get in your way.”
“And now, seeing as you’ve made your point, you might as well say what you want.”
“Nothing. A small smidgeon of a thing. A patch of coconut trees. There’s a coconut plantation on the other side of the mountain, and its ten-year lease is up. The Maraki would like to be its new leaseholders.”
“Huh.” Carelessly, Neel said, “Who’s got the lease now?”
“The Ursari. They won’t miss it, Neel. The Ursari raise and train animals. What could they possibly want with a bunch of coconuts? They’ve hung on to that plantation just to spite us Maraki. Pure, petty spite, that’s all it is.”
Neel watched Treb wait to see if the young king would ask why the plantation was so important to the Maraki. Neel let a lazy look settle over his face. “I’ll think about it.”
“A quick answer’s the best kind.”
“If this is just a small smidgeon of a thing, you won’t mind if I take time to think.”
Treb stood. “Think fast.”
Not a second after the captain strode back to his game, the red-slippered feet of Shaida, the Ursari tribe leader, whispered across the floor to meet Neel. She sat, and got straight to the heart of things.
The Ursari wanted to keep their lease of the coconut plantation.
Neel took pains to be polite, and was relieved when the entrance of his mother gave him an excuse to send the Ursari leader away with the promise that he would consider her tribe’s request.
Damara looked out of place in the tearoom, even more so than Neel, who had put on every elegant article of clothing Karim had handed him, and had even allowed his manners instructor to smudge kohl around his eyes for the occasion. Neel’s mother, however, always refused Neel’s every effort to give her finery.
Damara took the place at the table vacated by the Ursari leader. “Thank you for inviting me.”
Neel shifted uncomfortably. He had decided long ago, during that fall from the palace wall, that his mother wasn’t to blame for the past, and that she’d done the best that she could by him. Why was it, then, that he couldn’t bring himself to say so?
“I’ve m
issed you,” she said.
Neel had sent her packages of dresses and bangles, yet ducked away from every opportunity to see her. He had had his guards send her away. And all because he couldn’t bear to wear his heart on his sleeve.
“Ma,” he said. “Will you help me?”
“Of course.” She smiled, and Neel’s throat tightened to see the happiness on her face. “What do you need?”
“Some advice.” With an eye on the courtiers, to make certain they kept a respectful distance from his table, Neel told Damara about the coconut plantation. “I know why the Maraki want it,” he said.
She raised one brow.
“Coir,” Neel said. “The hair of a coconut is stripped away to make coir, which gets spun into rope. The best rope for seafaring. I sailed with the Maraki long enough to know that salt rots away most rope—except the kind made from coir. A ship needs yards and yards of rope for its rigging. If the hull and masts are a boat’s skeleton, rope is its muscle. I’ve been reading charts on coir profits—”
Damara raised both brows.
“—and its price has been going no way but up in Europe. Whoever runs that coconut plantation could make oodles of money in trade. Not the Maraki, of course. They’d keep it all for themselves. But another tribe could sell that coir anywhere that’ll accept Roma goods. The thing is … the Ursari haven’t been selling it for much. I’ve seen the records. It’s as if they don’t know they’ve got gold in their hands, or they don’t care. The Ursari want to keep that plantation, sure as sure, but I don’t get why. What do coconuts have to do with training elephants and horses and bears?”
“I don’t know,” Damara said, “but I think you’d better find out.” She looked at him. “You don’t need me to tell you that.”
Invisible fingers plucked a gold bracelet from Neel’s pocket and slipped it onto his mother’s wrist.
“Neel—”
“You keep that. You can’t stroll around the palace wearing dowdy dregs of clothes. Karim has a fit every time he sees you.”
“Neel.”
“After all, you’re the king’s ma,” Neel said. “Aren’t you?”