“Residents of Queensbridge, and now a King and Queen in South America?” the businessman asked. His dark blue eyes sparkled with curiosity. “I’d have expected to hear something of that in the newspaper.”
“A certain William Starling and his wife,” the King said.
This startled the businessman. He thought for another long moment, then asked, “The Starling Theatrical Company?” There were things that Mr. Bendiff, too, wasn’t saying.
“I believe so,” the King answered. “My thought is that you would be qualified to understand the economics of Andesia, to see where an industry might flourish, and what that industry might be. It may prove a dangerous assignment,” he added. “I can’t swear that diplomatic credentials will offer safety in that part of the world.”
Hamish Bendiff studied the King, thinking his own thoughts. “I’m tempted,” he said at last.
“I hoped you might be,” the King said.
“May I take a few days to consider your proposal?” the businessman asked.
“Don’t take too long,” Teodor advised. “The ambassadorial party sails on the Estrella August seventeenth.”
As if that confirmed something—but what could it confirm?—Bendiff nodded briskly. “In that case, I’ll let you know within twenty-four hours,” he promised his King. “And now, would you like to see the kitchens? I’m rather proud of those kitchens.”
King Teodor, who was seldom shown the working areas of the institutions and businesses he visited, was happy to do just that while he waited for his party to arrive. If he was any judge of character, Bendiff would agree to become a member of the Andesian embassy—and perhaps, someday, the royal Minister of Commerce, although Teodor suspected that the man’s independence was more important to him than a position at court. The big man had an adventuring look to him, and he had—in his way—led an adventurous life. The addition of Hamish Bendiff would give the embassy more credibility and increase its chances of bringing his spies safely home. That it might also bear economic fruit for his own country and his own people was another of Teodor’s thoughts. A good king is always thinking of his country’s well-being, and a wise king knows how seldom armies and wars achieve that goal.
—
At their next meeting, the King had announcements to make to Max. “I’ve made an addition to your party” was the first.
By that time, the strangeness of everything had Max so far off balance that he couldn’t have stopped himself from objecting if he’d wanted to. But he didn’t want to, King or no King. “Why would you do that?” he demanded.
“The embassy needs one more addition as well,” the King announced, as if Max’s protest had never been made. “You’re the best person to choose that one. I speak of someone to act as servant to the Ambassador’s party. A King’s envoy on a state visit to establish diplomatic and commercial relations with another nation would have a personal servant, as well as a private secretary and a housekeeper and an economic adviser.”
“What economic adviser?” Max demanded. “What commercial relations?”
These are my parents, he was thinking. This is my plan and it’s a good one, what are you doing messing around with my plan, I don’t care if you’re King, my father’s a King, too…but when he reached this point in his thoughts, he almost laughed, and only the seriousness of his parents’ situation stopped him.
“A genuine embassy, seeking to establish diplomatic relations, would include someone experienced in economics,” the King said. “I have appointed someone. A Queensbridge man.”
Max thought he could make a guess about which Queensbridge citizen King Teodor might mean, and even if the idea was entirely new, and not his own, he could see that it was a good one. When profits are possible, everyone becomes friendlier.
“Surely you know someone reliable who would be able to act as the Envoy’s servant,” Teodor said, no longer surprised at the way he talked with this ordinary boy—although the King doubted that any ordinary boy could get done what this one had gotten done. There was something about this boy’s eyes, something as undefinable as their color, a rough gray like the stones at his waterfront fortress at Porthaven, massive blocks of granite that were covered by every rising tide and then left exposed to the oxidizing air as the waters receded every day. “Some boy who might be useful in a scuffle, someone resourceful, strong, but young enough to be overlooked by a military governor. The kind of person who asks what can I do, not what do I have to do, and clever enough to learn new things quickly…Do you know someone like that? I think you must.”
In fact, Max did, and that silenced his protests.
“I’ll pay his wages, of course,” the King said. “All costs of the embassy will be met by the royal treasury—”
Now Max interrupted. “No,” he said. “That will not be necessary,” he added, because a one-word refusal sounded rude, and he did not want to be rude to the King. “Sire.”
The King studied him.
Max met the royal gaze steadily.
“Max,” the King said, as gently as if he were talking to one of his own children. “It’s an official embassy. The embassy you asked me to send. Carrying the credentials you asked me to give to it.” He watched the boy understand this, and accept it. “Your grandmother will need to cancel her booking. The palace will arrange all passages, yes, still on the Estrella. The palace will establish a line of credit for your Baron in Caracas. It’s safer for everyone this way,” the King advised. “We want Ari to have all necessary credentials. I’d give you an army if I could, Max. These are two of my people,” he explained in response to Max’s expression, which was mostly dismay because what would he do with an army? “But war is a burden and an expense, especially when private citizens are willing to undertake what may well be”—and this was what he really wanted to get said to Max, to warn the boy—“a very dangerous mission.”
“I know,” the boy said.
He knew but he did not understand, the King thought.
Max wanted to be sure Teodor understood him. “I don’t want an army,” he told his King.
“So we’re agreed?”
Max nodded.
“Can you continue to give lessons to Marielle until your ship sails?”
Max nodded.
“And bring the dog for my little Marguerite, who so badly wants one?”
Max nodded.
“Then it’s left to me only to await news of your return, and hope that you do return, accompanied by your parents and with your embassy intact.”
Max nodded, and bowed, and left the reception room.
—
This was the last meeting the King requested. After that day, Max the drawing master came and went, Sunny at his side, taught his lessons, and returned home on the midday ferry. The strangeness, however, did not end. It was strange to be taking out one of the small bags stuffed with gold coins and deciding how to conceal the coins in luggage and clothing, “just in case.” Ari would be in charge of whatever funds the embassy was given, but Max didn’t know how generous King Teodor would be, or if Ari would refuse to pay a bribe, should one be asked. Grammie agreed. “Better safe than sorry,” she said.
It was strange to be offering employment to Tomi Brandt and strange that Tomi didn’t seem reluctant to act as Ari’s personal servant. Max had watched Tomi across a schoolroom for years, admiring his forthright character, and not been surprised when, recently, Tomi had proved a clever and trustworthy ally, but he wouldn’t have predicted that the boy would agree so eagerly to alter his own plans and fit in with Max’s. “Firefighting wasn’t what I thought it would be,” he explained. “I might try the police when we get back. But I never dreamed I’d get a chance to travel, and on a ship, across an ocean. Maybe I should just go to work for you, work my way up to a partnership. Just joking,” he said then, but added, “Maybe,” as if he knew Max well enough to tease him.
It was also strange for Ari to take Max out onto Barthold Boulevard to purchase the kind of clothing
a private secretary would wear, the dark suits and narrow ties, the stiff collars, the low boots, and even the fine cotton pajamas, as well as a leather portfolio. Tomi, too, needed outfitting, and Grammie made sure she had a good supply of the kind of pinafore aprons a housekeeper-cook would prefer. It was strange to have a weaponry discussion in which his grandmother took part, all of them deciding together that a nobleman might carry a sword, as might his private secretary, who would have to be ready to protect his employer in the unpredictable dangers of an ambassadorial career in foreign lands. Their servant, also, would be armed, although only with a knife. Pistols, they agreed, were not appropriate for a royal embassy.
Strangely, it was Max—who had often carried a sword at his side onstage—who showed Ari how to walk and sit while bearing arms, although it was Ari who had been trained in sword fighting. They practiced with one another. However, more strange than all the rest was the visit from Mr. Bendiff, Pia’s father, to the little house at 5 Thieves Alley.
Pia herself had been keeping away, day after day. When she brought Max R Zilla’s final payment, she boasted to him that both milliners were satisfied with her work on the job—only, being Pia, she called it “the case.” Max congratulated her and fully expected her to become even more insistent about being given assignments, but he hadn’t heard a peep out of her since that time. As more Pia-free days went by, Max grew puzzled. This behavior in his part-time assistant was not at all what he expected, and now here was her father, come to find him at home.
Like his daughter, when Mr. Bendiff burst into the house he started talking right away, giving orders. “You have to do something about Pia. She’s stealing her brothers’ clothes, she has a hoard of coins, she hacked off her hair. You know what she’s going to try, don’t you?”
When Mr. Bendiff put it like that, Max was afraid he did know, and he guessed he shouldn’t be too surprised. But it was her father’s responsibility to deal with Pia. “Can’t you—?”
Mr. Bendiff cut him off. “I’ve got enough other trouble at home right now. You’re the one who’s involved Pia in all this—and to her benefit, I won’t deny it. But as I see it, Pia is your problem. I expect you to solve it, young man. Right away.”
The idea came as quickly as if it were a natural thing for him to ask of Pia—which in fact it was, if he planned to continue his new, independent life when he returned to Queensbridge. “Would you object—” he began, expecting to be interrupted. When he wasn’t, he asked, “Would you object to Pia running my business for me? Only while I’m away and I don’t want a partner, but…I think she could do it. I think she’d like to do it,” he added.
Mr. Bendiff didn’t hesitate. “You’ll have a hard time turfing her out, later, after,” he said, but that was his only objection. “It’s a clever solution,” he said thoughtfully, “very clever,” and he shook Max’s hand. “Thank you, young man,” he said, then turned on his heels and left.
In which the Estrella sails
August seventeenth finally arrived, and Max walked along the docks in the company of his grandmother and Tomi Brandt, the Envoy’s household, boarding together. Great steel hulls in various stages of being loaded with supplies, and with luggage, and with passengers, loomed beside him, like unscalable cliff faces. Gangplanks led up into lower decks, and it seemed as if the people ascending them approached a mysterious and quite possibly dangerous and maybe even doomful future. He watched a family (husband, wife, two young children, a babe in arms) come to the top of a gangplank; when they stepped into the ship and disappeared, Max thought of his parents.
On that April morning, his parents had stood just where he was, their feet on the same thick boards, eager to catch their first glimpse of the upper decks, where first-class passengers would stroll at their ease. He could imagine how they had looked, his father’s arm gesturing as he exclaimed about something to the woman at his side, both faces bright with anticipation of the adventure to come. Captain Francis had noticed William Starling that day. Well, William Starling was the kind of person you noticed, and it raised your spirits to see him, his gladness in being alive, in being himself, in being about to do whatever it was that he was about to do. Mary was not so noticeable. Her particular skill was the ability to be anybody: a proud queen, a flirtatious village beauty, a homely middle-aged shopkeeper, an aged crone—each one distinctly herself.
A wave of sorrow washed over Max and might have sucked his feet out from under him, had not a jolt of fear held him upright. They had walked into one of those dark entries, William and Mary Starling, and he did not know what had happened to them then, except that it was not what they had expected, not what had been promised them.
This embassy had to move fast, it might already be too late, and the ocean voyage was going to take too much time, too many long days and…Max felt like a dog at the end of a leash, desperate to run ahead and cruelly pulled back.
“Slow down, Eyes.” Tomi Brandt spoke quietly from behind him. “We’re the Envoy’s household, servants and the private secretary, we don’t hurry anywhere.”
Tomi was right. Max fell back into step just in front of the other two.
“We’re doing everything we can.” Grammie spoke as quietly as Tomi, but he heard in her voice the same fear that was quickening his steps. “All you can ever do is everything you can.”
The side of the Estrella loomed above them as they entered. But they were greeted by the uniformed purser and then led by a sailor up to the first-class deck, along a narrow but well-lit and carpeted hallway to their accommodations. Their trunk and valises awaited them, and like the good servants and secretary they intended to be taken for, they set to work.
Grammie withdrew to her small, windowless servant’s cabin across the narrow corridor from the Envoy’s stateroom. There, she hung up the clothes she would need for the voyage and unpacked the books and notebooks with which she intended to continue her study of Spanish, as well as teach as much as she could in the time they had to Ari, Max, and Tomi. Her housekeeping duties would not begin until they reached Apapa.
Tomi, the Envoy’s personal servant, unpacked Ari’s clothing into the narrow closet and deep drawers. He set Ari’s shaving gear and toiletries out on the shelves built in behind the mirror of the tiny bathroom. Only when his employer’s things had been entirely arranged, and the supply of towels and blankets checked, did Tomi withdraw into his own cabin, next to Grammie’s but, unlike hers, a double, which he would share with some person who had not yet come on board. Tomi claimed the lower bunk.
Max and Ari were to share the stateroom, with Max in the small second sleeping cabin. Max first unpacked his new shirts and suits, socks and underwear, leisure trousers, sweaters, a modest enough wardrobe for a young gentleman employed as a personal secretary, but an extensive one for an about-to-be-thirteen-year-old, who might or might not eventually return to being a mere schoolboy. That done, he went into their sitting area, where armchairs and a table and even a long desk with bookshelves over it awaited the important man. There, he set out pens and notebooks, stationery, a chessboard, and a two-volume history of South America, with which they could pass the long days and evenings of the voyage.
Once the rooms had been made ready, Max, Grammie, and Tomi went out onto the deck to watch the activity on the docks below while they waited for the rest of their party to arrive. Ari would be the last to board the Estrella. His would be a ceremonial entrance, since he was not only the King’s Envoy but also the next Baron Barthold.
Max leaned against the metal railing of the first-class promenade deck and looked down, at the crowd of people gathering to watch friends and family off, at the carts and carriages taking supplies and trunks to two liners berthed nearby, at the Harbormaster, hurrying from one man in nautical uniform to another, carrying papers, talking and gesturing importantly. The commotion of departures filled the air: voices and hoofbeats, the dull sounds of great engines muffled by thick layers of steel, the higher-pitched motors of the tugboats that woul
d pull the liners from their docks, one after the other, to lead them under the raised drawbridge and out onto the broad river. The air itself shimmered with the excitement of the journeys about to begin. Even Max, whose journey had a dark and dangerous purpose, not to mention a worrying and fear-filled cause as well—even Max couldn’t help but feel eager. He turned to look at Grammie, and saw in her face the same unwilling excitement.
As the hour of departure approached, more people crowded up around the Estrella’s gangplank, more faces looked up at the faces looking down, and more travelers made the ascent. Max caught a glimpse of a blue beret in the crowd and thought for a minute that Joachim had come to see him off, but he couldn’t find it again, and besides, he hadn’t seen Sunny, so it couldn’t have been his teacher. At his shoulder, Tomi Brandt asked, “Who’s that? Is that Ari?” as he pointed toward a long black motorcar making its slow way through a throng that moved clumsily and reluctantly aside, to let it pass.
Max suspected that he knew who it was, but all he answered was “I think Ari will arrive in one of the royal carriages.”
He felt Tomi’s sharp glance. “What haven’t you told me, Eyes? What are you up to now?”
Max grinned. Tomi Brandt was nothing if not blunt. You couldn’t fool him. “It’s not me. I’m not up to anything, it’s the King.” Then a chauffeur opened the rear door of the vehicle and now they could see the ornate golden B painted there.
“Pia’s father?” Tomi demanded.