The Olive Conspiracy (27 page)

Carolina shook her head. “You don’t know her as
I do. She’s smart, and she’s devoted to her people. If she trifles
with clothing, what is it to you? You have been fooled by her
awkward manners and her size. It doesn’t take a body like a palace
to house a queen. You’re just used to mine.” She was beginning to
speak louder and loftier, and these last words were said
bitterly.

“
But our farms—”

“
Can flourish without sabotaging
our competition. Really, João!” Carolina sniffed and shook her
head. “You speak of fairness, but why do you not consider the
Perachis just as human as our own farmers? They may not be Imbrian,
but isn’t that the same as those class differences you’re so fond
of erasing?”

“
You don’t understand.”

“
No, I understand too much, and it
makes me sad. I understand that I lost my father, and you were
there with your guitar, and… and that grief is a dangerous
drug.”

“
You wished for it your whole life
just as I did. Do not lie.”

“
Of
course
I did, but do you
think I ever wanted to hurt my father, or my husband?” She looked
down at the ground, then looked up again resolutely. “Good-bye,
João.”

“
You can’t do this.”

“
Don’t worry, it already hurts.”
Her voice sounded hollow and dead. She sounded a gong, and Imbrian
guards rushed in. “Put the Visconde under arrest and then bring me
my legal counsel. I have orders and a proclamation to
write.”

As they led her lover out of the room, she
added to them, “And please have the governess bring my daughter to
me.”

She remained motionless by the window, watching
the bare branches outside pierce the white sky. Isaac would have
comforted her, had his presence not been a gigantic faux pas to
begin with.

But he needn’t have worried. Soon, the door
opened and little Princess Sophia appeared. She ran to her mother,
who knelt and embraced her. “Mamae, what’s wrong? Are you
crying?”

“
I will be fine,” said the queen,
“with you here.”

Isaac used the opportunity to make a quick
exit, not transforming into human flesh again until he was well
outside the palace and near the carriage where he was supposed to
have been all along.

Shulamit and Rivka turned when they heard his
footsteps on the gravel. “What’s going on up there?” Shulamit
hissed under her breath.

“
She’s your loyal friend,” Isaac
verified, “but she has a rough time ahead.”

“
Poor thing.” Shulamit stroked the
fur lining of her cloak again. “At least her husband will know how
to make her laugh. And she’s got her kids.”

“
Sophia is with her now,” said
Isaac. They all looked up to the window of Carolina’s salon, where
mother and daughter were visible at the window.

“
Who’s that?” Shulamit pointed to a
second woman at the window.

“
Sophia’s governess, I think,”
Isaac answered. “It looks like they’re talking.”

“
Maybe she did take what I said to
heart, and is talking to the working people like they’re
people.”

“
I knew you could do it!” Rivka
clapped Shulamit on the back soundly. “Time to go home?”

Shulamit nodded vigorously. “I miss my girls!
Besides, this place is
too cold
.”

24. Grandmother Swan

Great, sprawling oaks and silent armies of
pines gave way to palms and papaya trees as Shulamit’s caravan made
its way back toward Perach and sunshine. Fleeing the chill of the
Imbrian winter, and of Carolina’s broken heart, Shulamit was hungry
for Aviva’s velvety embrace and the rightness of her presence. As
the leaves got larger and greener, and the sun more bold, she
perked up and dreamed of her love and their baby
daughter.

At last the carriage arrived at Home City.
Shulamit would have begged Isaac to fly her straight home, to reach
them even just minutes sooner, but he lay asleep in the form of the
great yellow-and-cream python. He was coiled up around Rivka, his
tail spilling out across the narrow floor area, both of them dozing
away their night watch. Shulamit didn’t have the heart to awaken
him.

They reached the palace in the pink of sunset.
Shulamit leapt from her carriage, calling, “We’re back!” with her
face toward the kitchen-house.

Voices from inside surprised her in their
deepness, and she hurried closer. The first person to emerge from
the kitchen-house was not Aviva, but a wiry, bearded man with a
head of unruly curls. Holding the baby princess close to his chest,
he smiled and called out, “Hey, Shulamit!”

“
Kaveh!” Shulamit exclaimed in
happy surprise. “And Farzin! Oh, yay!”

For the Prince-Consort’s stout, amiable-faced
partner had appeared behind him. “Wow, that’s great timing. We’ve
only been here since this afternoon.”

“
I’m so glad to see you two!”
Shulamit hugged them both, kissing her daughter on the cheek in the
process.

Aviva came out last, a wooden spoon in one
hand. “My absolute favorite queen ever.” Without another word, the
two women melted into each other’s arms. Shulamit almost couldn’t
move for a few moments; this was the longest they’d been apart in
ages. Couldn’t they just stay here like this, bare skin sticking
together a little, for another hour?

“
You smell like home,” Shulamit
mumbled. Then her brain clicked. “Wait, if
they’re
here…”

She unpeeled from Aviva and tore across the
garden to see if wishful thinking was lying to her eyes. But, no,
there she was
, the graceful middle-aged lady with black hair
graying in streaks, with her striking, unusual long face and
gigantic eyes. She sat under the coconut palm holding Halleli’s
kitten, and Halleli knelt across from her studiously
drawing.

Queen Aafsaneh set the cat down and hobbled to
her feet when she saw Shulamit coming. “My dear girl!”

“
Oh, don’t get up for me! Your
foot. I’m so—oh, goodness.” Shulamit hugged her tightly.

“
This young woman of your employ
was drawing me,” Aafsaneh explained, gesturing.

“
Looks great!”

“
I can finish it later.” Halleli
withdrew modestly with the kitten, bowing slightly to Kaveh and
Farzin as they walked over. Aviva followed them, holding Naomi
against her hip.

“
Thank you so much for coming!”
Shulamit couldn’t stop smiling; she felt surrounded by so much
love.

“
Of course I came!” Aafsaneh petted
her hair. Shulamit noticed with a squeeze of her heart that
Aafsaneh was always careful to pet her hair in the direction of her
braids, to not disturb them, because she respected Shulamit’s
quirks. It meant more than she could articulate.

“
But your foot!”

“
I’m… it’s getting better.”
Aafsaneh demonstrated her limping walk. “Things happen.”

“
How did it happen?” asked
Shulamit.

“
I tripped over a cat if you can
believe it. On a marble floor.”

Shulamit tried not to giggle. “So, how is
Eshvat, anyway?”

Aafsaneh smiled. “No, not her. It was a real
cat, not a shifter. But she’s doing well. The tavern is busier than
ever, actually—she got a lot of publicity when two men fought a
duel over her a little while ago.”

“
A duel?” Shulamit’s eyes
widened.

“
I know, isn’t it silly?” Aafsaneh
brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Pointless of them to
be so possessive when she doesn’t want anything like a regular
boyfriend.”

“
I bet it made her want them both
even less.”

“
Well, yes, at first,” said
Aafsaneh. “When they first talked about it, with all the shouting
and posturing, she rolled her eyes at them and looked the other
way. She was pretty annoyed. But then, when the actual fighting
started and it was clear it wasn’t just all talk, and she realized
she was selling twice as many kebabs as usual from the attention,
she just laughed at them and figured it was part of
life.”

“
And so what happened afterward?”
asked Shulamit. “When she, no doubt, rejected them
both.”

“
Well…” Aafsaneh looked at Kaveh
and Farzin, her eyelids delicately downcast but her cheeks merry
with a smile.

“
That’s not exactly what happened,”
Farzin volunteered.

Shulamit, tired from the past few days’
journey, looked back and forth between them in puzzlement. “I don’t
get it.”

“
Like Maman said,” said Farzin,
“Mother Cat made twice as many kebabs as usual.” He grinned
enthusiastically at his own joke.

Shulamit growled as she comprehended his joke,
temporarily stunned. “Wow. Well, okay then. Wow!” She looked at
Aviva, who was giggling into the baby’s hair. “I don’t even want to
lie down with one man, let alone two at once! No offense, guys, but
yecch
!”

“
You’re thinking of it the wrong
way,” Aviva pointed out gently, “since you don’t like men. Imagine
two women at once.”

Shulamit smirked. “You win! That’s something
else.”

“
I know the way your mind works,”
Aviva replied. “Speaking of which…” She painted her fingertips down
Shulamit’s arm, continuing in a softer tone. “How’s Carolina
doing?”

“
What? Oh, well. Like you’d expect.
But she’ll move on—and, she’s my friend. She really is my friend.”
Shulamit leaned in closer so that she could whisper in Aviva’s ear.
“But don’t worry; we don’t need a bigger bed.”

“
Girls?” called Queen Aafsaneh,
interrupting their tête-à-tête. “I know I’m needed out in the olive
groves, but it’s late and getting dark, plus I’m tired from the
flight. We can leave in the morning if that’s all
right.”

“
That would be
amazing
,”
said Shulamit.

“
In the meantime, does anyone want
to play Pirate’s Payout?” suggested Farzin.

“
We can go in the salon,” Aviva
suggested.

“
I think I’ll just watch and
nurse,” said Shulamit. “I don’t have the mind for games right now,
but I want to spend time with everyone. I’m sorry we don’t visit
you more often, Aafsaneh. I wish that we did, but I don’t think
your husband can stand me.”

Aafsaneh cocked her head and smiled sadly. “His
loss!”

Shulamit settled comfortably into the sofa in
the salon next to Aafsaneh as Aviva, Kaveh, and Farzin set up the
board and game pieces on the floor. Within a few moments she had
Naomi latched, and overflowed with relief as her breast fed her
child again and not a stranger’s or bare earth. Good she’d
expressed often enough out there in her travels. She’d been so
scared of drying up.

“
Treasure!” Aviva shouted from the
floor. Kaveh stuck his tongue out at her, and she mock kicked his
leg.

“
Oh, goodness, that’s two bad rolls
in a row,” Aafsaneh exclaimed, looking at her dice with
resignation.

“
Maman is showing off how virtuous
she is by not using magic,” Farzin joked.

“
I would
never
!” But
Aafsaneh was smiling.

“
Notice how you don’t see Isaac in
here playing board games,” murmured Kaveh.

Surrounded by so many people she cared about
whom she saw much less than she liked, Shulamit felt like there
were rooms of her heart thrown open and illuminated by a wondrous
glow, rooms that were usually shut up and left to grow dusty. The
light filled her near to bursting, and she hugged her nursing
infant.

A guard’s boots thumped at the doorway.
“Majesty?”

“
Yes?” Shulamit turned to look his
way.

“
A message for you—update from the
northern farmlands.”

“
Thank you.” Shulamit took the roll
of paper and sent him on his way. She opened it, then sighed with
dismay.

“
What’s wrong, dear little one?”
Aafsaneh wasn’t absorbed enough in the game to miss her
distress.

“
I feel so out of control. Here.”
Shulamit gave her the paper to read.

Aafsaneh scanned it with solemn eyes. “So the
bugs you mentioned have crossed the burnt farmland.”

“
They’re already eating more of our
crops. And now there’s nothing between them and the Lovely Valley
but more olive groves.”

“
Come here, sweet thing.” Aafsaneh
held out her arm, and Shulamit snuggled into her inviting side,
craving something motherly. “I’ve handled worse. I have an idea,
and if it works, everything will be fine in the
morning.”

“
You promise?” Shulamit found
herself saying in a voice that reminded her of a
child’s.

“
I’m not promising, but I’m hoping.
Is that enough?”

Somehow, between her gentle confidence and her
maternal warmth, it was.

25. Dragon and Dragonfly

Shulamit’s dreams were so miserable that night
that she was glad when Naomi woke her up to nurse. She clutched her
close and felt like crying, the guilt and shame of the nightmare
still lingering even though it was obviously untrue.