Trouble with Kings by Sherwood Smith

was a rescue.”
    Jewel tapped her fingers on the side of her cup. “You know, an idea occurs. Why should we wait for him? Or any of them? Why shouldn’t we plan an abduction?”
    I choked on a sip of steeped leaf.
    She laughed. “Yes. We’ll abduct Garian. Or Jason.”
    “And—?”
    “And dump them into the ocean. Nobody would ever pay a ransom for them .”
    “Too much work,” I said. “And no reward.”
    She waved her hands. “You’re lazy. I shall have to consider this plan.”
    I set down my cup and rose, shaking out the delicate skirts of my new walking dress. “Oh, let’s go and get this thing over.”
    “He said last night that the reading will be held in the gazebo in the rose garden since the weather is so fine. Where were you, by the bye?”
    “Listening to the children’s choir—” I was going to explain, saw her eying my gown rather than listening to my words, and suppressed a smile.
    She said, “Oh, that is lovely. How I wish I could wear that shade!”
    “It’s one of the few that don’t make me look as washed out as shorn wool.” I smoothed the fine layers of midnight blue. An elaborate lace collar was the only added color. On impulse, to bolster my spirits for the boredom ahead, I’d also put on a diamond-and-sapphire necklace that Maxl had given me when I first appeared at court, and added diamond drops to my ears.
    I glanced out the window. “Rain clouds! Perhaps we are saved.”
    “They’re too far away. No rain before afternoon. You like my new walking gown? The rose garden is a perfect setting for it to be seen, if only by Spaquel.” Jewel’s gown was dusky rose with cream lace and gold embroidery. The sleeve ribbons were gold and rose as well. Obviously this was her favorite color—I had seen at least two rose gowns so far.
    On our way out she brandished a rolled piece of paper. “Besides, I went to all the trouble of writing my very first poem, and I don’t want to waste the chance of making you laugh. But I wonder if I ought to turn it into a song.” She fluttered her eyelashes. “I really have considered flirting with dear Spaquel, if only to get him to let some of his secrets slip.”
    I laughed. “Mangle words all you like, but if you mangle music then I run away.”
    We were still joking when we crossed the little bridge to the rose garden, which was some distance from the palace. Spaquel was inordinately fond of “proper settings” for those readings, but most of them had been in the castle hitherto.
    We entered the gazebo and found three older court ladies who had long claimed to be noble poets, one of Gilian Zarda’s friends, and old Count Luestor, who looked like an tall, thin owl. Spaquel presided. As soon as he saw us, he swept forward, giving us an unctuous smile as he bowed most elaborately.
    “Your highnesses,” he drawled. And again there was something in his manner, a sense of hidden irony, of secret knowledge, that contradicted his gracious tone and low bow. The tone was too gracious, the bow too low.
    I was being mocked, yet there was nothing I could think of to say except a bland politeness. As usual. “I have come to hear my friend’s essay into poesy, your grace. And to delight in the works of everyone present.”
    They bowed. I bowed.
    Spaquel peered out. “I believe we will begin. Latecomers will have to miss the pleasures in store. Lady Belissa?”
    Lady Belissa rose with deliberate dignity and fussed with her paper, which a scribe had written out in exquisite handwriting for her. When she’d given us each a stern look to make certain we were attentive, her ladyship sonorously intoned, with quivering rhyme at the end of each line, a twenty-two-verse lament to her lapdog—which (it was rumored) had been overfed with candies by her ladyship, poor little creature.
    My jaws creaked as I gritted my teeth against a yawn. Jewel, who’d stayed up even later than I had the night before, obviously fought yawn after yawn; the sheen of tears in