Морган Райс - A Throne for Sisters

“My mistress is within,” she said. “She told me to fetch everything by the time she was finished bathing, or there would be trouble.”

He looked her up and down. Again, the packages in Sophia’s hands seemed to work like a passport. “Then you’d better get inside, hadn’t you? The changing rooms are over on your left.”

Sophia went to them, putting her stolen prizes down in a room that was hot with steam from the baths. Women came and went wearing the winding sheets that served to dry them. None of them looked twice at Sophia.

She undressed, wrapping a sheet around herself and heading into the baths. They were set out in the style they favored across the water, with multiple hot, warm, and cold pools, masseuses at the side, and waiting servants.

Sophia was all too aware of the tattoo on her ankle proclaiming what she was, but there were indentured servants there with their mistresses, there to massage them with scented oils or scrape combs through their hair. If anyone noticed the mark, they obviously assumed that Sophia was there for that reason.

Even so, she didn’t take the time to luxuriate in the baths that she might have. She wanted to get out of there before anyone asked questions. She dunked herself under the water, scrubbing with soap and trying to get the worst of the dirt from her. When she stepped from the bath, she made sure that her winding sheet reached all the way to her ankles.

Back in the dressing room, she pieced her new self together one step at a time. She started with silk stockings and underskirts, then worked up through corsetry and outer skirts, gloves, and more.

“Does my lady require assistance with her hair?” a woman asked, and Sophia looked across to see a servant watching her.

“If you would,” Sophia said, trying to remember how nobles talked. It occurred to her that this would be easier if no one thought she was from around there, so she added a hint of the Merchant States accent she’d heard at the dressmaker’s. To her surprise, it came easily, her voice adjusting as quickly as the rest of her had.

The girl dried and braided her hair in an elaborate knot that Sophia could barely follow. When it was done, she settled her mask in place, then headed outside, making her way among the carriages there until she spotted one that wasn’t taken.

“You there!” she called, her newfound voice seeming strange to her ears right then. “Yes, you! Take me to the palace at once, and don’t stop along the way. I’m in a hurry. And don’t start asking for the fare. You can send the bill to Lord Dunham and he can feel grateful that it’s all I’m costing him tonight.”

She didn’t even know if there was a Lord Dunham, but the name felt right. She expected the carriage driver to argue, or at least dicker over the fare. Instead, he just bowed.

“Yes, my lady.”

The carriage ride through the city was more comfortable than Sophia could have imagined. More comfortable than jumping on the back of wagons, certainly, and far shorter. In a matter of minutes, she could see the gates approaching. Sophia felt her heart tighten, because the same servant was still working on them. Could she do this? Would he recognize her?

The carriage slowed, and Sophia forced herself to lean out, hoping that she looked as she should.

“Is the ball in full swing yet?” she demanded in her new accent. “Have I arrived at the right time to make an impact? More to the point, how do I look? My servants tell me that this is suitable for your court, but I feel I look like some docksides whore.”

She couldn’t resist that small revenge. The servant on the gate bowed deeply.

“My lady could not have timed her arrival better,” he assured her, with the kind of false sincerity that Sophia guessed nobles liked. “And she looks absolutely lovely, of course. Please, go straight through.”

Sophia closed the curtain to the carriage as it drove on, but only so it would hide her stunned relief. This was working. It was actually working.

She just hoped that things were working out as well for Kate.

Kate was enjoying the city more than she would have thought possible alone. She still ached with the loss of her sister, and she still wanted to get out into the open countryside, but for now, Ashton was her playground.

She made her way through the city streets, and there was something particularly appealing about being lost in the crowds. Nobody looked her way, any more than they looked at the other urchins or apprentices, younger sons or would-be fighters of the town. In her boyish costume and with the short spikes of her hair, Kate could have passed for any of them.

There was so much to see in the city, and not just the horses that Kate cast a covetous eye over every time she passed one. She paused opposite a vendor selling hunting weapons out of a wagon, the light crossbows and occasional muskets looking impossibly grand. If Kate could have snatched one, she would have, but the man kept a careful eye on everyone who came close.

Not everyone was so careful, though. She managed to snatch a hunk of bread from a café table, a knife from where someone had used it to pin up a religious pamphlet. Her talent wasn’t perfect, but knowing where people’s thoughts and attention were was a big advantage when it came to the city.

She kept on, looking for an opportunity to take more of what she would need for life out in the country. It was spring, but that just meant rain instead of snow most days. What would she need? Kate started to check things off on her fingers. A bag, twine to make traps for animals, a crossbow if she could get one, an oilskin to keep the rain off, a horse. Definitely a horse, despite all the risks that horse thievery brought with it.

Not that any of it was truly safe. There were gibbets on some of the corners holding the bones of long dead criminals, preserved so that the lesson could last. Over one of the old gates, ruined in the last war, there were three skulls on spikes that were supposedly those of the traitor chancellor and his conspirators. Kate wondered how anybody knew anymore.

She spared a glance for the palace in the distance, but that was only because she hoped that Sophia was all right. That kind of place was for the likes of the dowager queen and her sons, the nobles and their servants trying to shut out the troubles of the real world with their parties and their hunts, not real people.

“Hey, boy, if you’ve got coin to spend, I’ll show you a good time,” a woman called from the doorway of a house whose purpose was obvious even if it had no sign. A man who could have wrestled bears stood on the door, while Kate could hear the sounds of people enjoying themselves too much even though it wasn’t dark yet.

“I’m not a boy,” she snapped back.

The woman shrugged. “I’m not picky. Or come in and make yourself some coin. The old lechers like the boyish ones.”

Kate stalked on, not dignifying that with an answer. That wasn’t the life she had planned for herself. Nor was stealing to gain everything she wanted.

There were other opportunities that seemed more interesting. Everywhere she looked, it seemed that there were recruiters for one or other of the free companies, declaring their high pay in relation to the others, or their better rations, or the glory to be won in the wars across the Knife-Water.

Kate actually wandered up to one of them, a hearty-looking man in his fifties, wearing a uniform that seemed better suited to a player’s idea of war than the real thing.

“Ho there, boy! Are you looking for adventure? For derring-do? For the possibility of death at the swords of your enemies? Well, you’ve come to the wrong place!”

“The wrong place?” Kate said, not even caring that he too had thought she was a boy.