50. A Real Selenite Princess (IV) (Patreon)

"Vix… we had a deal," Mr. Hianchi said. His dark mustache quivered above his upper lip, and with more than a hint of annoyance, he tapped on the accruing pile of material for me to translate. "When customers contract this work, they expect timely results."

"Yes, Mr. Hianchi," I said demurely, but my eyes had a glower I couldn't hide. "You don't pay me for work that I don't do…"

"That's not the point, Vix. Our deal was that you were to keep doing translation work until the new girl, Fernie?… no, Mossy… right. Until Mossy was trained. But that girl's done as much as you in the past week, and most of this other material is in languages she doesn't know…"

"I have been training her - two hours every evening. Well… most evenings."

"Again - not the point, Vix. You want to know why we don't trust See… er… Selenites? It's because they go back on their word. You wouldn't do that, would you?"

When you force a people into poverty and crime, of course they go back on their word, I thought. What other choice do they have? But I didn't say that because I knew it wouldn't go over well. I shot him a curt nod. "Fine - I will. But not tonight. I made a promise to Mother Peliom, and I won't go back on that, either. Tomorrow. I'll work all night if I have to."

"I'll hold you to that. Stay safe, Vix."

In the two weeks since I'd met with the local Selenites, I'd been doing a lot of work for them and a lot less work for Mr. Hianchi at The Learned Gentleman. They didn't even pay me as much as him, only whatever meager spare change they had available. I'd just been sort of roped into it, drawn by my cultural loyalties into doing little jobs for the temple and its more prominent members.

What sorts of 'little jobs', you might ask? Checking in on temple members? Disseminating news and pamphlets? Perhaps helping with maintenance in the tabernacle? No, nothing quite so innocent. I was running books filled with shady numbers, playing lookout for shady deals, restamping crates of shady imported goods… in other words, illegal things. Exactly the sort of criminal nonsense that Tizzie Drake had accused me of. She just had the bad fortune to accuse me of those things a few weeks too early, thus drawing the attention of the local Selenites, who promptly conscripted me into their criminal enterprises.

"It's for a good cause," Mother Peliom had explained in that avauntular way of hers. "We're not really hurting anybody."

To be sure, they were a far cry from the Slartic mob. They weren't dumping bodies for the canal slugs to find or even beating up people in alleyways. No, it was only theft and larceny (no doubt people who 'deserved' it), smuggling, and some very light racketeering. The problem was that, when you did those things in a poor part of town, you were hurting people. When you're skirting the whirlpool of financial ruin, a few octavos in either direction can make or ruin a business or a family.

"I really need to do more work for Mr. Hianchi. I'm stopping by his house for the rest of the week - I'm really falling behind in my translation work," I said, trying to look contrite.

"Of course, dear. But do stop by before that - I'll have some tortinas you can bring him. I know how much those Gionians like their tortinas."

I couldn't argue with that. I liked tortinas, too - especially kokatortas. "Okay, but I'm not doing any more jobs until next week."

Mother Peliom chuckled and patted the top of my head. "Perish the thought! And, to be clear, you are doing today's little errand, correct?"

"I promised I would," I said.

"That's a good girl."

That day's 'errand' happened to be playing lookout for Timran and Kolesh Dijurzin, two brawny Kronojic-Selenite brothers whose honest work was breaking up paving stones, tossing them into a huge crank-driven smoother, and then transporting the smoothed stones to wherever roads needed to be built, expanded, or renovated. Their dishonest work was doing whatever schemes were being orchestrated out of the Selenite temple. Today, that had something to do with a big, weather-worn hand truck filled with loose hay.

"Soon as you don't see none of 'em, give us the signal," Timran said. With a disgusting grumble, he hocked a wad of spit onto the nearby street.

"And if you see 'em coming while we're still working, give a whistle and then scram," Kolesh added. "But make sure we hear."

"I know how being a lookout works," I said with a sigh. I considered the back entrance to the rowhouse they were casing and looked around the nearby buildings. "Okay, I'll be on top of that tenement over there."

"That's too high. You won't be able to see anything," Timran grumbled.

"No… you wouldn't be able to see anything. I'll see just fine." Timran moved to object, but I'd already started climbing the building, hopping up to a window ledge, then to the little wrought iron ladder that served as a fire escape. In the southern Foreign Canton the urban planners practically begged you to engage in rooftop antics. I climbed up to the tiled tin roof above the third floor and found myself a perch, crouching like a little gargoyle as I watched the goings-on around the slightly more upscale building across the street.

It was late afternoon, long shadows trailing down the avenue, the silhouettes of horses and carriages distorted into arrays of dancing columns as hooves clopped and wheels trundled. Down, amongst the golden light and dancing shadows, I saw the two brothers positioning themselves in an alleyway. They almost looked like they knew what they were doing. And, as for the house… wow. Three guys, two of them as brawny as either Dijurzin brother and one who looked skinny and mean. Not that the big guys didn't look mean. No, they all looked like business.

From my perch ten meters up, I watched the skinny guy check the lock to the back door - lucky him, it was open. He and both big guys went inside the house. The coast was clear, so I waved to the Dijurzin brothers, crouched over in their little alleyway but paying eager attention to me. Timran nodded and the two of them proceeded out to the street.

A thought crossed my mind: if all three of our marks had gone into the house, assuming they weren't completely incompetent, that meant they probably had a lookout, too. A lookout who was, presumably, watching as Timran and Kolesh Dijurzin approached the nondescript carriage the three thugs had arrived in. Not good.

My first instinct was to stand on my tiptoes for an extra bit of height to get a better look, but that would have just made me stand out more. My second instinct was to give the Dijurzin brothers a nice, sharp whistle to prevent them from making a terrible mistake - but what if there wasn't a lookout? I sure didn't see them… oh. There, in the alcove across the way, I felt something - and, more importantly, saw something. A shadow, a little awning along the building edifice that was darker than it ought to have been. Somebody hiding in the shadows. And, since it was a somebody working for the Slartic mob, it didn't take much to deduce who it might be.

"Aldo," I mumbled. I had to hand it to him - he was very well-hidden. As I watched, he flickered out of the shadows - he couldn't very well keep lookout from within the Shadelands. At least I wouldn't have been able to, and I doubted he was much more adept than me. Something must have spooked him to make him hide like that. Then he glanced in my direction and I saw the whites in his eyes.

-What now?- I sent the signal using street signs, which we'd both picked up in bits and pieces over the years.

-Yours?- Jarto gestured downward to where the Dijurzin brothers had lifted the back cover of the wagon and appropriated two crates of seized goods - of legally seized goods, if I had to guess. Yes, my Selenite comrades were stealing the legal property of the Slartic mob.

I nodded back. At this point, we were at an impasse - Jarto couldn't very well let them carry the goods off. It would be terrible for him. And I… well… I was their lookout. As one, Jarto and I raised our fingers to our lips and trilled out loud, high whistles. The Dijurzins looked up to me and took off toward their cart, tossing the crate atop the loose hay and trundling off down the street. Meanwhile, the two bruisers burst out of the house and glanced up toward Aldo, who pointed them in the direction of the thieves. When it was clear the Dijurzins weren't going to outrun two mobsters while towing a heavy crate of goods, they abandoned it and took off in opposite directions - a classic escape technique. The two bruisers, apparently, didn't think it was worth literally pursuing the issue. They placed the crate back into the cart and wheeled it back to the front of the house where the angry skinny guy was standing on the stoop and tapping his foot, an antique vase under each arm.

"Why in the hell didn't you whistle sooner?" he shouted up at Aldo.

"Had to hide when they spotted me - didn't know they were here for our stuff," he called back down. This explanation was, apparently, good enough.

The skinny guy counted the crates inside the carriage. "Well… at least they didn't get anything beyond a little excitement. I think we're just about done here, anyway." When he shook the vase, it clinked with the sound of rattling jewelry. "Let's take our haul back, just in case we've got a tail on us."

The worst part about it was that, since the Dijurzins didn't get their haul, I didn't even get paid. In the time I could have been appeasing Mr. Hianchi while earning two tollos for my translation services, I'd watched two idiots anger the Slartic mob at the cost of one weather-worn cart (and, I suppose, some loose hay). By the time I got back to the temple, the Dijurzins were already there, explaining things to Father Nesseir - the two of them seemed to think that the failure of their ill-fated scheme was my fault, but Nesseir was sympathetic.

"Who could have known they'd have a lookout?" he said.

If I, a street-savvy nine-year-old, had known, then a pair of grown men hoping to rip off the Slartic mob should have known. True, they weren't inveterate criminals - all the better reason not to anger the mob, who absolutely were inveterate. I didn't say any of this, but I certainly thought it. Instead, I crossed my arms said: "I can't do jobs for you anymore if I'm not going to earn money."

Nesseir stroked his salt-and-pepper beard, nodding sagely. "You boys go on home. Vix, why don't you come up and have some stew. Will you do that?"

"I could eat some stew," I said. If I wasn't going to make coin, I could at least fill my belly.

He escorted me upstairs, the smell of ilzict bushe (pepper dumpling stew) permeating my nostrils and bringing my stomach to grumbling. Mother Peliom joined us a moment later, returning from whatever work she had down in the tabernacle. She smiled warmly, tousling my hair and shuffling over to the cast iron stove, where she had a crock big enough to feed two dozen people set to simmering over the heat plate. She carefully ladled out three bowls, her warm hands clasping mine after she handed my bowl over.

"I'm sorry things didn't work out today, Vix. We're…" she sighed. "We're not used to living this way. As you know, we Selenites are a proud people. But we're a desperate people, too. At least we are now. Still…"

"Still, we don't enjoy bringing a little girl into our problems," Nesseir finished the sentence. "You're worth a thousand Dijurzin brothers. Neither we nor your school should have you living on the street and engaging in… untoward things."

"I-" I started, but he raised his hand to indicate he wasn't done. I'd been about to defend the Collegium - they housed me and fed me, and most certainly didn't push me toward illegal things. Instead, they'd given me the resources to learn as many languages as I could cram into my hungry brain and I'd gotten gainful employment as a translator. Employment that I might well have squandered. I frowned into my ilzict bushe and nestled onto a cushion.

Nesseir sat to my left. "What do you know about South Turia, Vix?"

"What everybody knows, I suppose," I said. "It's big. The Old Turan empire was there, but it got wiped out, and nobody lived there for a long time. Now there are colonies up and down the coast, but most of it's still wild."

"Exactly right," Peliom said, settling to my right. "Exactly right as usual. It's a vast, untamed continent, but it's got tracts of habitable land." She produced a roll of about a dozen papers, carefully unrolling them at the center of the table, smoothing them reverentially, as if she was unveiling holy tracts from the Asuranad. It was…

"Maps?" I said. I shuffled through the papers - a map of northern South Turia, prominently featuring the Turan Free State and the lands west of it. Including a small tract on the central peninsula carefully labeled New Selen. The next page was a closer view of the coastline there, perhaps a thousand square kilometers of coast with accompanying geological, hydrological, and zoological reports on the attached pages. "You're starting a colony?"

"We're hoping to fund an expedition. The Free State is subsidizing use of their ships for colonies along the north coast with the hopes of bringing them into their nation if they work out. There are already remnants of a failed Moudevican colony here…" Nesseir pointed at a heavily-annotated spot along the main river delta. "Abandoned for twenty years. And there are plenty of Turan ruins to work from, too, and now that most of the big animals have been chased out, it's much safer. Vix…" his voice caught in his throat. "Our people haven't had a homeland in almost three centuries. This could be it…"

"That's why we need the money so badly," Peliom said, a hint of sadness in her voice. She gestured around the room. "Obviously, we're not living like royalty. On which topic… we also need you, Vix. We're… well, genealogies are hard to come by, but I have a sneaking suspicion that there's a secret in your family… a secret that maybe your distant ancestors were kings and queens?"

I almost spit out my stew. "How did you know?" Of course, given the exponential nature of our ancestry, just about everybody will hit a monarch if you go back far enough.

"You're very special, Vix. You could be the rallying symbol of our people. A real Selenite princess."

If it had been two and a half years before, they would have had me in an instant. I'd literally dreamed of being a princess, of having strangers (or, in this case, familiar clergy) approach me and, in hushed tones, tell me that I was the long-lost princess of the Selenite people. That they would take me away to a distant land, where I could live in a castle, be waited upon, my every desire a writ of law. But I was no longer a naïve seven-year-old with a sheltered mercantile upbringing. I was a street-smart Scamp who knew a lot more about petty crime than she did about being royalty.

"Would you want me to be queen?" I asked carefully.

"Oh," Peliom chuckled. "Maybe eventually, dear. You're awfully young."

Ah. They didn't need a leader - they already had those. Priests and priestesses, merchants, guildspeople, the whole lot. No, they needed a figurehead. They didn't need a fiery girl with a chip on her shoulder and revenge fermenting in her heart. They needed somebody who looked like royalty, a symbol who could get people to pony up money and risk their lives traveling to a strange new continent. I knew all of this, and I was still sorely tempted. What girl wouldn't be?

"I'd like to finish my education at the Collegium," I said softly, feeling my dreams of being a princess dissolve like morning mist in the sunlight.

"You can have tutors - proper tutors. A palace. Horses. We… we can even contact your family. We've got contacts in the colonies."

My heart caught in my chest - honestly, they should have led with that. I wiped my mouth and pushed my mostly-finished stew away from my place. I looked Mother Peliom right in the eyes, taking a measure of her character. She… she was desperate. Frankly, it was a bit sad. And, frankly, it broke my heart to realize I'd been manipulated like I had, and by my own people.

"Mother Peliom… Father Nesseir… I don't think I'm your princess. I made a promise to myself that I was going to get revenge for what happened to my family and that I was going to rescue them if I could. I don't go back on my promises. If you can contact my family, wherever they are, then we can talk. Until then, I'm way behind on my translation work."

"Vix…"

"I really hope the expedition works out, though. Have a good evening."

Tears were streaming down my face, spattering against the tips of my boots as I laced them up, and it took a big breath and a big wipe of my sleeve to be composed enough to make my way out into the streets. It was a bit over an hour's walk from Crane Island back to the Collegium campus, and I wished I had Mailyn or Aldo there to accompany me back, because I suddenly felt vey alone. I made it exactly one block before I was forced to stumble into an alleyway and once more break down into tears. Not the silent tears I shed while lacing my boots, but blubbering, full-body sobs, messy hair sticking to my cheeks. I felt betrayed and, still, some significant fraction of my brain was screaming that I'd done the wrong thing. That I should sprint back to the temple and beg for them to take me back, beg for them to take me to the new world, beg for them to make me a princess.

But I wasn't a princess - I was a Scamp, soon to be a Sneak. Perhaps sooner than I expected. Just as my tears were abating, something white and gauzy inched into my peripheral vision. I turned to see pale, beautiful Rose Argent offering me a linen handkerchief. I accepted it, blotted my tears, and blew my nose before handing it back. She promptly cast it aside.

"R-rose?" I sniffled.

"I'm very proud of you," she said. "That must've been very hard."

"Y-you knew?" I said, wondering whether I should be surprised, angry, or just glad that I didn't have to explain why I was crying.

She nodded, not bothering to deny or explain anything, herself. "For what it's worth, they really want you. You could still be a princess over a thousand square kilometers of swamp, forest, and hardscrabble."

"I can do better," I said.

Rose laughed at that. "I don't doubt it. But first… first you've got to make Greycloak…"

"Um… you mean Sneak?" I said - I definitely expressed it as a question.

"Nonsense. Check your pocket."

So I did. With trembling fingers, I checked the hidden pocket I'd personally sewn into the inside of my blouse. The one that you had to unbutton to get anything bigger than pocket lint in or out of. Only, instead of my last three tollos, there was a flat sandstone glyph about four centimeters across. It was a token proclaiming its bearer to be a Sneak of the Perdita Free Collegium.

I didn't need to become a Sneak first because I already was one.

I turned it over in my hand, feeling its heft and slight roughness, and I muttered the first words to flit across my stunned brain: "Um… where did my three tollos go?"

And Rose Argent laughed and laughed.