Free Trickster's Choice by Tamora Pierce Page B

quietly. She came to lean on the rail on Aly’s other side. “They must have seen their friends being slaughtered or sold. They would have beggared themselves with the conquest taxes rather than suffer the same fate.”

    “You’re half luarin yourself,” replied Aly, her voice idle, her attention apparently on the shoreline. “Begging your ladyship’s pardon.”

    “That would be the half that cousin Oron seems determined to murder or disgrace,” Sarai pointed out. “Even a madman should have more care for his own blood kin, particularly given the nest of vipers at court.”

    Aly smoothed a hand over the rail. “Forgive me for saying it, but your ladyship comes close to treasonous talk,” she murmured. “I’d as soon be with the part of the family that’s exiled but alive.”

    “You won’t betray us,” Saraiyu replied casually. “I don’t know about Tortall, but here the entire household is executed along with the suspected traitor. Then they sell the one who reported their masters, if they’re known, to Carthak.”

    “Ouch,” said Aly, meaning it. “That’s not the way to create support among the lower classes.”

    “The thinking is that a servant of traitors who turns the traitors in is doubly treasonous, to her master as well as the king,” Dovasary explained. “They like to nip that sort of thing in the bud.”

    Sarai turned to face east, watching the moon rise, leaning back on the rail with her elbows and rump. The torchlight slid along her long, barely hooked nose and over a full, sensual lower lip, then flickered along the curved lines shaped by her plain pink luarin-style gown. It lent sparkle to her brown eyes and caressed her perfectly arched brows and high cheekbones.

    “Is it so hard, being half raka?” Aly wanted to know. “All Rajmuat—even a fresh-caught luarin slave like me—knows the lady Saraiyu is considered one of the beauties of the city.”

    Sarai’s smile was crooked. “By men, and the raka nobility, and some of the luarin houses, yes, I suppose.” She looked at her sister. “It’s not vanity, Dove. I can count as well as the next person.”

    Dove shrugged. “I didn’t utter a word.”

    Sarai made a noise that in a less attractive girl would have been labeled a snort. “And yet, when it comes to marriage, it’s amazing how many luarin families discover marriages that were arranged when their sons were in the cradle. Marriages their young men had never
heard
of until then. Particularly the higher-ranking luarin nobles. I can’t help but notice how many young men give way when they learn their mothers don’t care for the color of the future bride’s skin, however beautiful she may be.”

    Dove sighed. “And the raka nobles are wary around us because we’ve got Rittevon blood in our veins. They don’t want to lose their sons the next time the king thinks his relatives are plotting against him.”

    “Dovasary!” whispered Sarai, shocked.

    The younger girl leaned around Aly to look at her sister. “I have ears, Sarai, and people hardly ever notice me. I know what I hear. The raka don’t want to risk the Rittevon insanity for their grandchildren.”

    Aly grimaced. She’d once overheard one of Tortall’s young knights, a Bazhir, tell Grandfather Myles, “Oh, I’m considered wonderful when it comes to letting and losing blood for the Crown. But marriage? Even jumped-up merchants who weren’t barons a generation ago won’t let their daughters marry a Bazhir, whatever their wealth and standing.”

    I suppose I’d best remember what the Bazhir at home endure, she thought, before I go looking down my nose at the luarin. You really should have a clean house at home before you start picking at the way your neighbor does the dusting.

    “What does a slave know of treason and kings anyway?” asked Dove. Her dark eyes were now intent on Aly’s face.

    Aly shrugged. “I was a maid in a nobleman’s castle when I was taken,” she replied.