The Hills Have Spies Read online

  Mags grinned and reached out to hug his son. “Good lad. Your mama was going to hold dinner for you, but now she won’t have to. Go tell her yourself.”

  With a whoop of joy, Perry dashed across Mags’ workroom and out the door into the large central room of the suite. Mags smiled and went back to work constructing a series of delicate little telltales of a single hair with a sliver of wood knotted to each end. When fastened in place with a bit of wax, it would be easy to tell in an instant if a door or a container had been opened.

  He and Amily no longer lived in the Heralds’ quarters attached to the Palace nor in the suite off the greenhouse at Healers’ Collegium. With three children, they needed more room than the two rooms off the greenhouse or any of the three-room suites could have provided. Not to mention the fact that the presence of three active children would not have made them very popular with whoever was living next to them. So they had been moved into a suite of rooms right next to the King’s quarters, which had been convenient for Amily as King’s Own and convenient for all the children—their three and the King’s four—as they all played and studied together until they were old enough to attend Collegium classes. There just were not that many small children here on the Hill. Most of the courtiers with children who were in residence at the Palace left them on their estates until they were old enough to make marriage alliances. Those who had manor houses on the Hill and had small children had their own nurses and tutors and kept the children in their own nurseries and away from the Palace. Sedric’s children and Mags’ just naturally ended up together. Fortunately, they all liked each other.

  Mags finished the last of his little telltales and closed them carefully into a small box built like a tiny drawer that he could easily slip into a pouch or one of the many pockets hidden in his clothing. He flexed his fingers carefully and listened to the cheerful noise in what served as the gathering room for everyone. It sounded as if at least two of the four Royals had joined his brood, and Perry was relating his training exercise. Once again, Mags was happy to be reassured that he and Amily were not raising potential hostages. He’d had quite enough of that for his family already.

  As for King Sedric’s four, well, they were getting a modified version of that same training, mostly steered toward evading potential captors and knowing where to run to and all the hiding places in the Palace. There had been a lot of those before. Thanks to Mags and Lord Jorthun, there were a lot more now.

  Maybe it’s time for them to learn how to deal with being tied up. There were plenty of tricks to use to make sure that bonds were not tied as tightly as a captor thought they were. And young joints were more agile than old ones when it came to getting wrists within reach of a pair of strong teeth. Perry, Abi, and Tory had learned these tricks at a very young age indeed; that was why Perry had been tied up by an expert in all those tricks this time. The King’s littles shouldn’t need anything but some simple escapist ploys.

  He took a deep breath and consciously relaxed all the muscles that had tightened up while he worked. That’s better. It was still a little strange to think of Sedric as King, but shortly after the birth of Sedric’s fourth child, King Kyril had announced he was stepping down in favor of his son. Of course he had warned everyone close to him that he was planning this a good year before he did so, but it still came as something of a shock to the highborn and his lower-ranking subjects, who probably had thought he wouldn’t go through with it. A King? Stepping down? Unheard of! Surely he was ill! Surely there was something wrong!

  It had taken nearly another year before everyone was convinced that no, there was nothing wrong. It was still a source of wonder that a King of Valdemar had chosen to leave the throne.

  And at the same time, Amily’s father, Herald Nikolas, had quietly retired from the most public parts of his duty. He and Amily had been working for years to ease her into prominence as the “real” King’s Own; she was a fixture as the Crown Prince’s attending Herald long before the King abdicated, and when he did, that was the final push it took for people to see Amily as King’s Own.

  We’ve been incredibly lucky, Mags thought, as he put his tools and supplies away in his worn wooden work desk and stood up. This has been the easiest, most successful transfer of power in the history of Valdemar. The Crown Prince and Princess had had long years of training at the King’s side, and Amily had had her father to teach her everything the King’s Own ought to know. And me being me, it makes me wonder what horrors the universe has lying in wait for us. Well, a pessimist is never unpleasantly surprised.

  The suite that had been given to Mags’ family was arranged in a rectangle, nine smaller rooms and an entryway out into a hall, arranged around a central larger one. That gave each of the children the unheard-of luxury of having their own small rooms, with the other six devoted to Mags’ and Amily’s bedroom, their very own private bathing room and indoor privy, Mags’ workroom, their own library, a pantry and tiny kitchen if they didn’t want to eat at the Collegium or with the Court, and a storage room. The storage room was part armory . . . if anything went wrong in the Palace, neither Mags nor Amily intended to have to run to the actual armory to ensure that all five of the family members were equipped for mayhem. At this point, all three of the children could hit their targets every time with slings, knives, or hand-crossbows.

  Sure enough, Perry was holding court among his sibs and the Royals. They were all clustered at the far end of the big room, where the fireplace was. Light came in through all the open doors on the two sets of the rooms that were on outer walls. He had unwound the bandages on his left wrist to display his rope burns.

  The children all leaned close to examine them, the three dark heads of Mags’ offspring clustered with the four of varying shades of light brown of Sedric’s. “Ouch!” said Sedric’s eldest, Prince Trey. “Did he have to tie you that tight?”

  “It wouldn’t have been a proper test if he hadn’t. It’s not bad,” Perry shrugged. “I think all the sparrow pecking hurt worse.”

  “And now they have a taste for human bloooooood!” said Abi, making her brown eyes big and round and wriggling her fingers in the air. “You’ve unleashed killer sparrows on Haven!”

  Sedric’s youngest, Prince Kyril—called “Kee” to differentiate him from his grandfather—looked seriously alarmed. He was the only one of the four who had blue eyes, and they grew enormous with apprehension. “Really?” he said, in an uncertain voice. He sounded as though he was valiantly trying not to cry.

  “No, Kee, not really. Abi is just making things up.” Princess Katiana—predictably, “Kat” for short—elbowed Abi, making her giggle. “You’ve got to stop that, Abi. Kee doesn’t know things like that can’t happen. Tell him, Abi.”

  “I am just making it up, Kee,” Abi said, patting him on the head. “You know I like to make up stories.”

  Kee looked relieved. “I don’t like that story!” he replied. “I like your stories where nice things happen.”

  “Well, this story has something nice in it,” Perry put in, wrapping his wrist again. “I took the rope to bits, and the sparrows all carried it up to their nests. So tonight they’ll be weaving walls up there in the thatch with all that stuff, and their eggs will be safe as houses from now on!”

  Kee beamed. It occurred to Mags, not for the first time, that Kee was an extraordinarily sensitive child. Wonder if I ought to have the Healers check him over for Empathy.

  :Good idea,: his Companion Dallen said. :You should definitely do that. If he’s Empathic now, even a little, the sooner someone trains him to ground, center, and wall out unwanted emotions, the better.:

  All of the children were dressed fundamentally identically, in sturdy brown or gray canvas tunics and breeches and lightweight matching linen shirts. Except for the fact that their clothing was free of mends and patches, they probably couldn’t have been told from any ordinary craftsman’s children. Trey and his younger brother Niko were the ones in Gray—Trainee Grays, to be precise.

  They had always dressed like this—no finery for the Royals. This was deliberate, for several reasons; the practical one was that neither family felt it was worthwhile putting active children into expensive clothing. Why either force them to be careful about their clothing or scold them when the inevitable happened? But another was that if anyone got this far into the Palace looking for the Royals, he wouldn’t find children that looked Royal. And the longer an intruder stayed confused, the better the chance for the children to escape or get into hiding.

  This must have been the sort of thing that Nikolas had to consider all the time, Mags thought, as he watched them. Nikolas probably would have suggested the common play clothing, but we thought of it before he got a chance to.

  Amily would not have been able to play with King Kyril’s children, not with her leg healed all wrong and twisted. From what Amily had told Mags, Sedric and his sibs had been extremely active children, so she had fallen in with Lydia and her friends instead, who didn’t spend every waking moment they could escape from their tutors out of doors.

  “Enough of Perry’s test for now,” Amily called from the other end of the room. “I need you all to come set the table while I light the candles.”

  This was the disadvantage of this suite; the big common room in the center didn’t get a lot of light, and the rooms on the two inner sides didn’t get any. Once again he found himself wondering what it could have been intended for. It was right next to the Royal Suite; could it have been a big nursery, with rooms for the Royal Children and their servants and nurses and storage? It was certainly convenient to have windowless bedrooms for the children; with no windows, they didn’t wake up at the crack of dawn. . . .

  Thank the gods. He’d had more than enough of active toddlers crawling into the bed he shared with Amily at unholy hours, demanding rides on Dallen right now, Daddy!

  For once, there were no objections, not even from Perry. All of them trotted over to the long trestle table and picked up a stack of dishes or handful of tableware and began setting them out. Looks like we have all the littles tonight. It really was too much to ask the youngest of the lot to sit through a Court Dinner more than once a week, so both broods ended up eating with Mags and Amily or in the Royal Suite depending on where they ended up by supper time. Mags got the distinct feeling they’d have been happier never dining with the Court, but that was one of the things that the Royals had to learn to do. And out of sympathy, Mags’ three always joined them. And out of sympathy for them, Mags and Amily made the gathering complete.

  Just as the children finished laying the table, the servants arrived with platters and baskets of food, and pitchers of water and tea. As usual, they left those on a sideboard and exited. Getting waited on was only for eating with the Court. With only a little fuss, the children took their seats on the two benches. Mags and Amily had the chairs on either end. Tonight it was Amily’s turn to hand the dishes around; as compensation for having to do that, the one that handed round got to fill his or her plate first. In a very short period of time, they were all eating.

  “So, I didn’t ask you, Perry, but did any of the Bannerites spot you in their workhouse?” Mags asked.

  Perry shook his head. “I came in at the attic and hid in one of the carts when no one was watching it.”

  Mags nodded in satisfaction.

  “When do I get kidnapped?” Abi demanded.

  “When you are better at escaping your bonds,” her mother told her.

  Abi frowned rebelliously. “Perry cheats,” she protested. “Perry gets animals to help him.”

  “You cheat,” Perry retorted. “You keep escape tools in your underwear.”

  “I—!” Abi began, furious with indignation, her face growing red.

  “You both cheat,” her mother said firmly. “And so you should. You don’t play fair with kidnappers, you play dirty. You take every advantage you can get, and you make some more up if you can. Perry can use his Animal Mindspeech, and that’s why you have weapons and tools, Abi, because you don’t have that Gift. As soon as we figure out what Gift you do have, we’ll teach you how to use it to save yourself and others. Eat your greens, Trey, don’t push them around on the plate to make me think you’ve eaten them, or you won’t get any seedcake.”

  Trey made a face, but he pushed the scattered stewed greens together into a heap on his plate and, with a sigh, doggedly started shoving them into his mouth.

  “So, Trey, do you think your Mindspeech is good enough to be kidnapped yet?” Mags asked the eldest Prince.

  Trey looked eager for a moment, then crestfallen. “Not really,” he admitted. “No. Lyspeth still isn’t big enough to come to my rescue. She’d get hurt. So unless you let me use it to call a Herald—”

  Mags shook his head. “What if no Herald is in your range? What if you get taken outside the city? Either you’re going to have to learn to escape your bonds as well as Abi can, or no kidnapping for you yet.”

  Trey sighed with disappointment.

  Prince Trey had been Chosen, but in a startlingly rare occurrence, his Companion was little more than a foal. He’d been on Foal Watch—his uncle’s Companion, Darly, had specifically asked for him even though he wasn’t a Trainee, and the King had thought it would be good practice. They should have guessed that something was up, but none of them had. The newborn Lyspeth had Chosen him as soon as she was able to stand, much to the astonishment of his parents and everyone else. So a good part of Trey’s Collegium education was being postponed until she could take his weight.

  It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been taking the academic classes and weapons training for years now, so he wasn’t behind on those things. In fact, Mags had been concerned for Trey in the last year or so. At the time Lyspeth Chose him, he had been fifteen and still hadn’t been Chosen, and he looked as if he had been feeling the strain.

  But now he was relaxed again. There was now an official Crown Prince, and it helped him even more that his younger brother Niko had been Chosen four moons later. The Royals took their duty seriously, even as young as they were.

  Still, actually putting on Grays and becoming an official Trainee had meant that he was something apart from his little brothers and sister and his three friends. Mags suspected that Trey was looking at his relatively carefree childhood, and now that the stress of not being Chosen was over, he had grown apprehensive about what was coming next. As Crown Prince, he was well aware there were a lot of expectations about him, and a great deal he had to live up to. Did he wish now he wasn’t having to grow up so fast? Very likely. Poor lad. That’s a lot for young shoulders.

  Trey’s next brother, the almost-silent Niko, had been Chosen by a Companion that was a young adult, and Niko—named for Amily’s father, Nikolas—was already well into his first year at the Collegium. From his general demeanor, which was a steadfast contentment, Mags judged he was doing well and still considered himself to be one of the “children” without thinking about it too much. He had Lydia’s temperament: calm, and difficult to ruffle. He still lived in the Royal Suite and, like his older brother, did not seem to be in a hurry to leave.

  Not that anyone is going to ask them to move into the Collegium rooms, not when they are infinitely safer where they are.

  Perry, on the other hand, seemed impatient to “grow up.” He was always eager to try whatever training Mags suggested; he couldn’t wait to be allowed to go down to work in the pawn shop, where Mags bought as much information as he did goods. He’d even had a stint or two as one of Mags’ runners and had done well at it.

  And . . . he was, at least according to Lord Jorthun, one of the best students that worthy man had ever had, excelling at whatever was taught him and plunging into learning with the dogged determination of someone whose mind was set on mastery. And when he did master something, he was as good as an adult. For instance, when Perry didn’t want to be found, not even Mags could find him. And that was saying something.

  At that moment, as he watched his eldest son dig cheerfully into his portion of rabbit pie, Mags realized that Perry had gone far beyond his father’s simple determination that none of his children would ever find themselves helpless in the grip of an enemy determined to use them against their parents—or against their Kingdom. Perry had a real aptitude for spycraft.

  I never intended—

  But it had happened without Mags intending anything.

  He dropped his eyes to his own plate and considered this. The first thing he needed to do, as soon as they were alone, was discuss this with Amily.

  * * *

  • • •

  Perry was pleased with himself on the whole. Of course, the escape might have been easier if he’d been Chosen—but then again, it might not have been. Companions were giant white signals that there was a Herald about. Even though Dallen was spookily good at keeping himself hidden, even he couldn’t have managed it well enough to have been close enough to get Perry out of trouble. This wasn’t the first time he’d had this ambivalence about whether or not it would have been useful to have a Companion.

  . . . but he’d seen how his father was with Dallen and his mother with Rolan. And now, how Trey was with Lyspeth . . . and he wondered. What was it like, to have a friend like that? Someone who would always stick with you, would always be with you? Sure he could Mindspeak with animals, but that wasn’t even close to being the same thing.

  And so, the arguments went back and forth in his mind.

  That wasn’t all. Sometimes it felt . . . uncomfortable, as if people—not his parents, but other people—were eying him as they’d eyed Trey, wondering if there was something wrong with him, that he hadn’t been Chosen yet. And he found himself wondering that.