“Who here would like an early Solstice gift?” Robert said in his deep voice. “I’m afraid my bags are too full and heavy, and carrying it for much longer may tire out my trusty steed, Winter. Is there anyone here willing to help me empty it, for his sake?” Trevor, wearing a yarn mane and tail, brown felt covers over his hands and feet for hooves, and a cloth horse’s head mask with two holes that showed his mischievous blue eyes, gave a convincing, tired whinny.
The girls who had been frightened before melted into a chorus of giggles, and descended on him like a swarm of bees, pulling the bags away. The chorus turned into shrieks of delight as the ones among them who knew how to read well enough recognized their names on the bags.
Gertie’s eyes welled over, and she buried her face in Winna’s skirts. “The Solstice King brought us presents, Mama Winna. He ‘membered us.” When Trevor ambled over and gave a whinny that sounded like her name, Winna took the last two bags off his shoulder, hers and Gertie’s.
The little girl opened hers at the table, pulling out a new dress and a set of books with the myths of the Goddess as well as pictures. Haven had read these same books to us years before.
“She knows?” I whispered to Robert as he came close.
He shrugged. “She set a stack of books out this morning, asking me to find somewhere to donate them. She must suspect something.”
Winna had set her own bag aside to help Gertie with hers, but when I nudged her, she opened it, taking out a half-dozen skeins of the softest gray wool I’d been able to find, and then the things the rest of the crew had tucked inside. Soon the table was piled high with all the gifts: sweets, combs and soft hairbrushes, feather quills and rolls of parchment, small bags of spices, fancy threads and squares for quilting, and more.
The girls kept running over to Robert to thank the “Solstice King” for everything, and by the end of the hour, I caught him wiping his own eyes more than once.
When I heard Gertie whisper to Heather, “I never knew the Solstice King was an Alpha. Maybe Ratter’s right. Maybe there’s a few good ‘uns,” I knew I had to leave, or I’d be a sobbing mess.
When I stood, though, the crew stopped me, with Smith and King calling out, “Time for your gifts, Ratter!”
“What gifts?” I asked, just as a small hand pulled me over to a side table covered in wrapped packages that I’d assumed were for the girls. But then I saw the fabric these presents were wrapped in had been hand painted with small rats. I opened them carefully, folding the cloth as I uncovered each one.
Winna had knitted me a soft scarf just one shade darker than my cloak, and the other women had made socks, mittens, and even long stockings. There were eight drawings of me doing all sorts of ridiculous things: fighting a dragon, flying on golden wings and battling some sort of sea monster, climbing up onto a tree that looked weirdly like a man, jumping into an enormous fire with knives in both hands, and… I almost choked.
For some reason, someone had done a gorgeous picture of me, wrapped in my cloak, sitting in the middle of a nestmade of blankets, pillows, and hundreds of gemstones. They’d even found some sort of mica-flecked paint to make the stones shimmer. This one hadn’t been done by a child; it was every bit as good as the portraits I’d seen hanging in the castle.My face blazing, I hastily tucked the pictures away.
Winna covered her mouth to mask her laughter. “Sorry about that. Zara was the one helping the girls with their gifts before she, ah…” She nodded in the direction of the far side of the factory, where Zara and her mate were still holed up for her heat. “She was inspired.” Winna wiggled her eyebrows, and I stuck out my tongue.
“Come on, Ratter, we have to get back home now,” Verity said softly, then raised her voice. “And the Solstice King and his mount need to take gifts to some others in the city.”
Everyone groaned, but I knew she was right. Tomorrow, we would have our family Solstice party, and the next morning, I would have to be on the road before dawn.
Standing, she retrieved one last gift from the table. I took the slim package she handed me, and opened the bag. “Oh, Verity! It’s beautiful!”
It was the most exquisite knife sheath I’d ever seen. Hand-tooled black leather had been pressed with the Rimholtian royal crest, rats, and the moon and sun symbols of the Goddess all around the edges. The hardware was all brass, but shone like gold. I unbuckled my belt and slid it on, placing one of my plain knives inside. The blade was a little too small, and the fit was loose, but I could stuff some fabric inside, or get a longer knife. In Verdan, probably.
Baby nudged me. “It was made for your old dagger. We tried to get it back. The jeweler wouldn’t sell it to us for what we had.”
Augusta grumbled, “And when we went back in to lift it, it was already gone! We thought it’d been stolen; the shop wastossed. But he said he had the money for it in his lockbox, and he wouldn’t spill who bought it.”
“The buyer tossed the shop?”
She shrugged. “Broke a chair, and some glass. More threw a tantrum, it looked like. Nothin’ else was nicked.”
Huh.That was odd. “He was all right?” They nodded. “Well, whoever bought it won’t have the world’s best knife sheath to go with it.” I smiled at them all. “Thank you, crew. Thank you, Winna, and everyone. You know how much you mean to me. If you ever need me, truly, I’ll come if you send word.”
They buried me in a hug, my crew hanging back while the women and girls all whispered their goodbyes and gratitude for the years of safety. There were far too many tears for comfort, so the crew moved us out toward the main room again, doing a few acrobatic tricks to lighten the mood. Gertie ran up and placed the paper queen’s crown back on my head, while Trevor got down on all fours and whinnied for me to mount up. I did, and the others bowed and curtsied as we made our way to the door, me waving with a cupped hand like I’d seen a stuck-up Mirrenese princess do from her carriage.
As they walked me to the door, I noticed Heather holding hands with Baby, and two of the older girls giving Robert and Trevor considering looks. Verity’s eyes met mine, and she nodded. Things were changing in our city, for the better.
And even if I wasn’t here to watch all those changes happen, my crew would be.
SERAK
It was Solstice Eve, and the castle was in an uproar, as it had been all day. A holiday feast would always mean a more frantic air, but the furor wasn’t due to that alone.
That morning, the king’s guards had rounded up everyone in the castle, all the servants and every visitor, and escorted us to the Great Hall, where we were asked to wait. Then, one by one, we’d been taken to a smaller room for questioning, like common criminals.
I’d been intrigued. The others in my group were incensed. Not only had one of their countrymen been murdered days before—though no one would truly miss Duke Lukenza, who I thought had been sent out of Mirren in hopes of him meeting a sudden end, as it was rumored he’d attacked more than one young woman in his own country. But now—from what I’d gathered from the guards who spoke in their Rimholtian sign language, erroneously believing none of our group understood it—we were all to be questioned about a theft from the royal treasury. The talks between our nations, even with Lady Cilla being the favorite daughter-in-law of the southern province’s fierce queen, would never bear fruit.
