Trickster's Choice Read Free Page B

busy as her brothers were. 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 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 one of a handful of agents smuggled into Scanra in the years before the war. He was vital enough that he reported 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 Port Caynn now,” she pointed out.

    George kissed her forehead. “It’ll do me good to get out in the field, 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.

    Aly 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 either related or at least ten 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 was 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