When I was a very small lad of twenty-four, I got the Brown Flu. One does not discuss the symptoms of the Brown Flu in polite company, but let me just say this—everything that was put into my body came immediately right back out by way of random exits. I try not to think about that night if I can help it.
The nights I spent in the middle of the sea on my back on a piece of floating wreckage were pretty miserable as well. I actually remember very little about it, except for the shivering cold and the sting of the salty sea in my eyes. I was shivering so much that I couldn’t make myself be still. What I remember most was that Amariel was with me the whole time. She never left, but stayed by my side, telling me merrow tales and singing me songs in her haunting, beautiful voice. So even though I thought I was going to die, and I was so cold at times dying seemed like a good thing, at least I had a friend to keep me going.
Even after I was rescued, I had some pretty awful nights on the Serelinda . I was exhausted, feeling guilty, missing my family, all of which would have been tolerable except for the snoring of the sailors in the hammocks around me. Lying in a swinging rope bed on a pitching ship with the people around you sounding like they are strangling or boiling small animals alive is not a great way to get a night’s sleep.
As Clemency had pointed out, I seem to have a tendency to get locked up. My nights in the castle dungeon, waiting for the king to return and pass judgment on me, were also pretty terrible ones, lonely and scary.
All those nights put together were one big walk in the park compared to the time we were locked up in the belly of the Raven’s Nest.
* * *
THE MUSCLE-BOUND THIEF LED THEM DOWN A VERY DARK HALL-way to a small curved door with a grated window that was bound in steel. He took a long, thin tool from his pocket and jiggled it expertly inside the door’s lock. Ven heard a click; then the guard swung the door opened and gestured for them to go inside.
“Er, I need to use the head,” said Char to the thief.
The big man seized him by the shoulder and pushed him through the door. “There’s one in there,” he called after Char. Then he turned to Ven and Clem.
“Right,” Ven said, putting his hands up. “Thanks.” He went over to the door.
“Watch yer step,” the guard said.
The warning came a moment too late. Ven stepped into the blackness, tripped, and fell about two feet down to a dirt floor where Char was already sitting, dazed. He landed with a solid whump.
In the dim light of the hallway they saw Clem’s shadow come into the doorway; then she was on the floor beside them, too. The door slammed shut, leaving them in total darkness.
“Well, this is just lovely,” Char said. Ven could feel his friend beside him, but the room was so dark that he could not even make out his shape. “Where do you suppose the privy is?”
“I hope it’s separate from the rest of the floor,” Clemency said from the other side of Ven, “but the way this place smells, I’m kinda doubting it.”
“Ugh,” said Char. “I guess I’ll hold it. How long ya think she’ll keep us in here?”
“I hope you can hold it for six weeks,” Ven said. “I doubt she’s going to release us before Ida’s wedding.”
“That’s so disgusting,” Char said. “It makes me sick to even think about it.”
“Poor Ida,” Clemency said. “I guess this all explains why she’s the way she is.”
“Well, it certainly explains why she’s so talented,” Char agreed. “She’s the bloody Thief Queen’s daughter. No wonder she can work impossible puzzle boxes an’ clean your pockets out from across the room an’ all the other things she can do.”
“And how she could be telling the truth when she said she has been in the Market a bajillion times,” Ven said pointedly. “You called her a liar, Char. You owe her an apology.”
“Guess so,” Char muttered. “I’ll work on that after I find a privy.”
Ven reached into his pocket and took out the king’s stone. The glow filled the dank little room, shining to all the corners, making the three of them wince until their eyes became accustomed to the light.
“Look around,” he said. “Maybe there’s a chamber pot or something like it. That’s what I had in the dungeon of the castle. That was a much nicer place than this, by the way.”
“Glad we have an experienced prisoner with us, anyway,” said Char darkly. He rose, sore from his fall, and walked gingerly around the small dirty room, until he came to the farthest corner. “Eeeuuuuw,” he said. “It’s just a Johnny-hole an’ a ditch. Never mind. I’ll wait awhile.”
“Now what do we do, Ven?” Clemency asked.
Ven set the light down on his lap.
“I guess we just wait Char’s ‘while,’ however long that is,” he said.
* * *
I’m not sure how long that “while” turned out to be. To keep from panicking we talked. We told all the stories we knew. Char knows some especially good ones, being a sailor. And Clem has been listening to McLean talking to the Spice Folk for a long time, telling them tales, so she had a lot to share as well.
All I could tell was the jokes and tales I had heard from my family. But that was not as helpful as it might have been. Every time I started one, I remembered the brother or sister who told it, or the look on my mother’s face if the joke was too crude. My father is the best storyteller of the entire family. Whenever I started one of his, my voice broke and I couldn’t finish it.
So finally we were silent, in the glowing dark pit. We tried to sleep to keep from concentrating on how hungry we were.
And how much trouble we were in.
“They will feed us sooner or later, won’ they?” Char had said hopefully. “If they want us to stay alive for the weddin’ an’ all.”
But no food ever came. In fact, no one came for any reason at all.
After that we lost all track of time. It seemed like we were in the black smelly hole forever.
* * *
Finally they heard the sound of footsteps approaching.
Ven rose wearily to his feet. Weak from hunger, he snatched the king’s stone from the dirt floor and tucked it back into his pocket, dousing the light.
They heard the sound of the lock being picked. Then the door swung open.
The children flinched as the dim light stabbed their eyes.
A long hooked stick was lowered into the room. The dark shadow on the other end swung it toward Char, who took a few steps back. He tried to dodge, but was so weak and blind that he stepped into the path of the big hook. Caught around the waist, he barely struggled as he was lifted like a fish out of the room.
“Just lower the pole down, and we’ll grab on,” Ven called up as the shadow moved back into the doorway. “Believe me, we want to get out of here.”
“No funny stuff, now,” a gruff voice called back. The pole came straight down to where Ven and Clem were standing.
“You want next, or last?” Ven asked Clemency.
Clem just exhaled and took hold of the pole. With a lurch, she was pulled from the room and out of sight.
The door swung shut, taking the light with it.
“Hold on!” Ven shouted desperately. “Don’t leave me down here!”
He could hear the muffled protests of his friends beyond the door. It swung open again.
“Aw, quit yer yapping,” the guard called down to him. “The Queen just said ta bring the kids. She won’t miss one less beggar.”
“Drag ’im up,” another voice ordered. “Ya never know.”
“Awright,” the first voice said grudgingly. The pole was lowered again, and Ven took hold quickly, before the thieves changed their minds.
“Oh, man,” groaned one of them as they lifted him out of the hole. “This one’s a monster. Get movin’, ya fat thing.” He poked Ven in the back with the pole.
The three friends started down the hallway.
They were herded through many twists and turns, just like before, until they finally
came to the deadly garden outside the throne room of the Raven’s Nest.
“Get in there,” the guard growled behind them.
* * *
The room had been transformed since we were last in there. The fire was no longer burning. Now there were round globes with candle flames inside them burning all around the room on the walls, making it bright as day. There were still a few shadows clinging to the corners and to the giant collection of plants, but the rest of the room was easily seen.
* * *
In the center of the room were two enormous cages with metal bars, each as thick as the pole they had been pulled out of the hole with. In the middle of one of them sat Ida, her legs crossed, her elbows on her knees, her chin resting on her hands.
In the other cage, looking terrified, was a tiny Gwadd girl.
“Saeli!” the three shouted, running to the cage and looking in.
“Saeli, are you all right?” Clemency asked, her voice breaking. Ven and Char’s words fell over hers as they all greeted their tiny friend at the same time.
Saeli nodded, still looking terrified.
Ven glanced over his shoulder while Char and Clem talked in excitement to Saeli. Ida had not moved, and her expression had not changed, but he thought he saw a look in her eye that made his heart sick.
“Ida—you all right?” he called across the room. “Are they—uummph!”
A pole hit him squarely in the back.
One of the guards opened Saeli’s cage. “Get in ’ere,” he ordered.
Clemency scurried inside, followed by Char, who ducked to keep out of reach of the pole. Ven waited until last, watching Ida, but she didn’t respond.
The guard raised the pole again, and Ven stepped into the cage, still looking over to Ida as the door slammed shut.
“Well, good afternoon, my sweet little girl,” came a familiar silky voice from the garden. Felonia entered the brightly lit room, a bowl of purple grapes in her hand. “I’ve brought you a lovely snack.”
Ida leaned back and rolled her eyes. “Spare me.”
The Thief Queen looked at her disdainfully.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” she said. “You’ve caused nothing but trouble ever since you’ve been back. Escaping three times, really now. I hope you like your new cage, Ida.” She came over to the cage where the others hovered near the door, and bent down in front of Saeli. The little Gwadd girl shrank away.
“Here you go, sweetie,” Felonia coaxed. “Have some grapes—I hear they are a favorite among the Gwadd.”
Saeli looked to her left, and saw the hollow looks of hunger on Char’s and Clem’s faces. She looked to the right, and saw a similar one on Ven’s. Reluctantly she reached through the bars and took the bunch of grapes that the Thief Queen was offering. She pulled several loose, then reached out to Char with them.
Like a snake striking, the Thief Queen’s hand shot into the cage and blocked Saeli’s reach. “Ah, ah, not him,” she said sweetly, but there was a hard edge under her tone. “Just you. No need to waste food on guests who, hmmm, who won’t be staying long. Eat, dear.”
Saeli’s eyes narrowed. She handed the bunch of grapes back and shook her head resolutely.
Felonia crouched down until she was closer to Saeli’s height.
“Are you sure?” she asked. Her tone was deadly.
Saeli nodded.
The Thief Queen exhaled. “All right, then,” she said, taking the grapes back. She stood and walked back to her throne where the lush array of plants stood. “Deebuld, shoot the skinny one.”
Char’s eyebrows shot up, and his face went pale, as did each of the other children’s faces.
Quickly Saeli reached through the bars of the cage again.
The Thief Queen smiled broadly. She came back to the cage, crouched down again, and handed the grapes to the little Gwadd girl. Then she glared at the other three, who shrank quickly back against the far wall of the cage.
“Eat them now,” she said seriously, “so I can watch.”
Tears rolled down Saeli’s cheeks. She took one grape, put it slowly in her mouth and tried to chew, gagging slightly as she tried to swallow.
Felonia smiled brightly. “That’s it,” she said, pleased. “Keep at it, now.”
From the cage across the room there came a deep, disgusted sigh.
“It’s all right, Saeli,” Char said encouragingly. “We had tons to eat before we got in here.”
“He’s a liar,” said Felonia. Her expression turned smug. “But you knew that, didn’t you? You must eat to keep your strength up, little one. You alone have value to me in this room—you can be of great assistance with my darling plants.”
* * *
There was something about the way the Queen looked at the flowering vines and bushes growing all around her that rang a bell in my head. What entranced her? the Singer in the Market had asked about Saeli. He was helping us find something so interesting, so meaningful to Saeli that she would forget to be careful in a place where being careless could cost her life.
Maybe this was the Thief Queen’s one weakness.
If she had any at all.
* * *
“Your plants are lovely,” Ven admitted. He leaned against the side of the cage so he could see them better. “Now that it’s light in here, I can really see how beautiful they are.”
The Thief Queen looked surprised, then pleased.
“They are, aren’t they?” she said admiringly. “And useful, too—the passionflowers are a wonderful sleep aid, and the aroma of the Stuff-of-Dreams can give lovely night visions. Citronella keeps mosquitoes away. The catnip makes my kitties happy, and the belladonna can be used as a tonic for illnesses of the eyes. But, of course, that’s not why I keep any of them.”
“Why do you keep them, then?” asked Clemency. She glanced at Ven, who nodded. Felonia shot her a suspicious look. “If I may be so bold as to ask, Your Majesty. It seems like a person as busy as yourself would have a hard time keeping up with their care.”
The Thief Queen stared at her a moment longer, then turned and went back to her small forest, where the cats drowsed beneath the plants she had pointed out as catnip.
“Lovely and innocent as these precious plants appear, any of them in a strong enough concentration will kill just about anyone or anything,” Felonia said. “I have a fascination with things that are both beautiful and deadly.”
“I wonder why,” Char muttered under his breath. Clemency elbowed him in the ribs.
“These are Deadly Nightshade—aren’t they splendid?” the Thief Queen mused, running her long-taloned index finger over the huge, starlike blossoms of white and purple. She ran her hand up a tall, treelike vine of innocent-looking red berries. “This one’s my favorite, aren’t you, boy?” She patted the tree lovingly. “This is Waylon. He’s my prize possession, my baby.”
* * *
My mother is not the easiest mother in the world to have.
She has raised thirteen children, twelve boys who like to argue and bounce each other into the harbor when they aren’t winning those arguments, and the most pig-headed daughter in all of the city of Vaarn. We are Nain in a city of humans, and so that meant, at least before my brother Luther was born, that her children got picked on a lot. That couldn’t have been easy for her. By the time I came along, no one was bothering the Polypheme kids anymore, because Luther, brother number three, had already earned his reputation as Scariest Person in Town.
Luther bites. When he bites, people lose fingers and toes.
My mother takes the shipbuilding factory in which we all work as seriously as my father does. They both think manufacturing is a mission. He manufactures the ships. She manufactures the workers who build the ships. We are the machines that make the business run. So we all are very well looked after, from our lessons to our clothing to our food to our manners. She is particularly fussy about our health and manners. Being late is something she does not tolerate well at all, especially being late for tea. She
is not especially cuddly, and sometimes can be quite gruff. My mother is a serious person, just like the Queen of Thieves.
But, even for all her strictness, there has never been a single moment in my life that I did not know how much my mother loves me, and how important I am to her. Every one of my siblings has said the same thing to me at one time or another.
I remembered how mad I was at her letter this morning. Then I glanced over at Ida’s face. I felt like I had been kicked in the gut, hearing her mother talk to her as if she were talking to garbage, then turn around and speak so sweetly to a stupid poisonous plant, the same way she had to Saeli. If I was feeling that way, I can’t imagine how Ida must be feeling.
But Ida didn’t flinch. Her expression didn’t change at all.
* * *
There was a polite knock at the throne room door.
“Enter,” said the Queen idly, caressing Waylon’s leaves.
The muscle-bound thief popped his head into the room.
“Your guest is here, Mistress,” he said.
Felonia sighed. She came back to the cage and took what remained of the grapes from Saeli’s hands, leaving her with but one. Then she headed to the door.
“Ta ta, Ida, darling,” she said, not even looking at her daughter. “I have someone actually important to attend to.” As she passed the guard, she looked back at the cages. “Ida can pick that lock in her sleep. To discourage her from doing so, please station four archers in here right now. If she comes within two feet of her cage door, shoot one of her friends. Start with the skinny one. Leave the Gwadd for last. In fact, if you have to choose between them, just shoot Ida.”
She finally looked over at her daughter’s cage. “I’ll be leaving on a little trip in a few days, once the Screaming Raven alarm has settled down—is there anything you would like Mummy to bring back for you?”