The Olive Conspiracy (5 page)

Shulamit, wide-eyed and speaking far too
quickly, blurted out, “No, that’s fine. I’m not hungry.”

Isaac’s eyes narrowed. From his position with
the other guards, he could see her knuckles standing out from her
hands—sharp, pointy bones that spoke of stress. What was going on?
She’d been brushing off offers of food for years, ever since
finding out about her sensitivity to wheat and fowl. That’s how one
falls in love with a cook. Why was today different?

“
Are you sure?”

“
Oh, Shulamit, you must try a
Rissol de Frango, a chicken pastry pocket,” said Carolina warmly.
“Since eating gives me nothing right now, you go enjoy it for
me.”

“
No, thank you,” Shulamit
repeated.

Isaac stepped in and rescued her with a blatant
lie. “The queen is fasting for Simchat Torah.” Now he had to hope
the Imbrians were as uneducated about their customs as he was about
theirs!

Shulamit lifted Naomi up to kiss her on the
forehead, but from Isaac’s angle it was obvious that she was using
her daughter’s curly hair to mask her smirk.

“
Ah, then I wish you an easy fast,”
said Carolina with sympathy.

“
Thank you.” Shulamit managed to
get the words out with a straight face.

“
Some other time, then,” the
Prince-Consort continued, “you must return and sample our bounty.
We have so much that is known all over! And not just food. There is
indigo, there is cotton—” He paused. “Queen Shulamit, I think your…
er… wife would like to say something. She looks quite
distressed.”

Aviva’s eyelashes fluttered as everyone turned
to stare at her. “I… it’s not a good topic for a room of
tears.”

“
What is it?” Carolina pressed.
“
Querida
, it’s not like I can get any sadder.”

Aviva looked at Shulamit. Taking the queen’s
slight nod as approval, she said, “There are many in our country
who find Imbrian cotton and rice to cost something we can’t
pay—that of human misery.”

Carolina’s mouth opened slightly. Said the
Prince-Consort, “Oh, but you have been listening to
rumors!”

Shulamit shook her head. “Too many of our
brokers have come back and told us the same thing. Plus, there are
a few who have escaped, and we listen to them too.”

“
Ungrateful.” Carolina looked hurt.
“We gave them food and steady employment. What more does the lower
class need?”

“
Jobs where they have a chance to
improve their lives,” said Shulamit. “And where they aren’t forced
to stay… anyway, I wasn’t going to bring this up, but surely you
know I’ve been in negotiations for months with representatives from
your father’s trade ministry about these issues.”

“
I did know, yes,” Carolina
admitted.

“
Some Perachis don’t want to buy
Imbrian when they hear about these things.”

“
Yes, my father mentioned
it.”

“
I’m very sorry, Carolina,”
Shulamit added hastily. “Please don’t hate me. And don’t think
about any of this today.”

“
I could never hate you.” Carolina
looked up at her with a placidly sad, pale full moon of a face.
“Who else do I have so much in common with, now?”

“
And she’s right, you know, Caro,”
João interjected.

“
What?” The Imbrian queen turned
sharply to look at him.

“
If it’s our farms that make us
strong as a nation, why can’t we all share in those riches as one
united people?” His voice was smooth and frank.

“
We do share,” said Carolina. “But
people are not all the same. Some people work the fields, and some
have to lead them.”

“
I don’t see any ‘have to’ about
it,” said João. “A country belongs to its people, not its
rulers.”

“
You have interesting philosophies,
sir! You will have to tell me all about them when I have awoken
from my sorrows.” Carolina looked at her husband. “I don’t know.
Maybe I am hungry after all. Those
Rissóis
, I kept talking
about them…”

“
I will get it for you.” The
Prince-Consort stood up straight to his full height, a thin, gangly
shape dripping with ceremonial medals, and snapped his fingers in
the air.

Almost instantly a quaking servant in a crisp,
white apron appeared before him and bowed. “
Sim, sua Alteza
Real?
”

“
Bring the Queen a chicken pastry
and a glass of port,” the Prince-Consort told her in
Imbrian.

“
Sim, sua Alteza Real.
” The
servant bustled away toward the food table on the far side of the
room away from the windows.

“
Did you see that wrinkled apron?”
the Prince-Consort commented to Carolina under his
breath.

Isaac heard, and wanted to smack him like the
silly boy he was. On what planet did “I will get it for you” mean
“I will summon a servant, whose clothing I will then criticize
despite her impeccably efficient performance?”

The wizard drew up to his full height of
seventy-seven inches. He had the bad habit of relishing the feeling
of superiority, and right now, he was very happy to be
Perachi.

5. The Map

Four days after the queen and her party had bid
farewell to the mourners in Imbrio, the royal procession stopped at
a roadside inn in the north of Perach. Its back kitchen door opened
up to a lake thick with cattails and lily pads, and there were pink
wading birds with beaks shaped like wooden spoons poking around
between them for water bugs.

Inside, Aviva worked her knife diligently
against the hard winter squash. Rind collected in her wake,
beautiful streaked rind that reminded her of the unevenly streaky
sunset she could see through the doorway. The squash was badly bred
and difficult to peel, but she enjoyed feeling her muscles burn.
After her days of idleness in Riachinho de Estrela, she felt power
rushing back into her soul as she resumed the work that meant so
much to her. She understood why Shulamit had insisted that she
dress up and refrain from any behavior too productive in a land as
class-conscious as Imbrio, but oh, the relief to
make things
again.

She forced her knife down harder into the
almost-rocky, orange flesh.
There
. There was the soft spot.
“Oh, so you have feelings after all, you little—”

“
Are you sure I can’t help you with
any of that?” the innkeeper called to her from the other side of
the kitchen and then started to walk closer. Her arms were covered
in flour and raw dough up to the elbows. “I don’t want anyone
thinking I wasn’t a good host to the queen.”

Instinctively, Aviva placed her padded body
between the dangerous flour and Shulamit’s dinner. She smiled
warmly. “Thank you, really, but I’ve got it. And you are a
terrific
host. Trust me.”

“
You sure?” The other woman was
bright-eyed and wanted to help.

“
I am golden,” said Aviva with a
toss of her head. A strand of black hair worked itself loose from
her hairsticks, and she tucked it behind her ear. “As long as all
the guards are fed, I can take care of the queen.”

“
Those squash can be pretty
hard.”

“
I was noticing that!” Aviva
grunted as she pressed the knife down into the orange
impossibleness again. “I’m used to the ones we get down in Home
City, I guess. But as long as it softens up when it’s
cooked…”

The innkeeper was nodding. “Oh, yes, yes, don’t
worry.”

A noise of boots at the door made both women
look up. Rivka was standing in the doorway holding a basket of raw
meat. She was masked as usual, but from the way the corners of her
eyes were turned up, Aviva could tell she was grinning. “All ready
for you!”

“
Perfect timing—I already cut up
all the onions and garlic.” Aviva peered into the basket. “Oh,
you’re such a sweetheart. I thought you were just going to butcher
it!”

“
I guess I got maybe carried away?”
Rivka chuckled. “You’re already cutting up enough things with your
onions and garlic and, what is that? Squash?”

“
Squash that wants to be a brick
when it grows up,” quipped Aviva. “I feel like my arms got ripped
off at the elbow.”

“
But it feels better than hanging
around Imbrio pretending to be a woman of luxury, right? I know
you.”

“
Mmmm,” Aviva purred as she began
to toast some chopped garlic. “My hands smell like spices again.”
I don’t know who I am when my hands don’t smell like
spices.

She cast the thought into the pan along with
the pieces of onion and let it cook away.

***

Between the guards and carriage drivers,
Shulamit’s royal party completely filled the inn’s dining room. The
guards were happily eating chicken and couscous prepared by the
innkeeper. The queen herself had staked out a pleasant little table
in the corner so she could lean back against the wall while she
nursed the little princess. Rivka and Isaac were sitting on either
side of her playing checkers with green and black olives when Aviva
appeared carrying her pot of food.

“
Smells a lot better than it did
when I caught it,” Isaac quipped, his arms folded across his
chest.

“
Three hours in the school of
flavors makes the deer learn all kinds of new things.” Aviva placed
the steaming vessel between all of them on the table, narrowly
missing several olives.

“
You should write these down,” said
Rivka as she eagerly dished herself out a portion of the venison
stew.

“
Huh? What did I say?” Aviva
blinked.

Shulamit chuckled and adjusted her tunic. “You
are one of a kind. You are…” she trailed off, her face peaceful and
happily lovesick. Tears sprang into Aviva’s eyes. It was such a
welcome contrast from the tightly wound, fearful bundle of twigs
she’d held in her arms these past few days in Imbrio.

“
Oh… I just feel so lucky right
now,” Shulamit added, hugging Naomi gently. “Lucky to have all of
you. My dragon-
tateh
caught the deer, Riv cut it up, and you
cooked it. Just so I could have food without…” Words paused as her
face crumpled into tears. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

Aviva darted into the bench and sat down,
pulling her into a sideways embrace. “We love you.”

“
I know,” Shulamit sobbed into
Aviva’s shoulder. “And I love all of you. I’m sorry. Okay, I guess
I needed that. Screw Imbrio.”

Aviva giggled.

“
I don’t even really mean that.”
Shulamit sighed. “And you really are one of a kind. So many people
would be scared of me seeing someone I’d loved as much as I loved
Carolina, back when I was younger.”

“
I believe in us,” said Aviva.
“Besides, you always said she didn’t like women the way you do or
something would have happened back then.”

“
Right. Exactly. I mean, I didn’t
realize it at the time, but I must have been so obvious!” Shulamit
finally began to eat her food.

“
I’ve been wondering ever since we
left,” said Isaac. “Who’s that minor nobleman—João?”

“
He was around back when we were
teenagers,” Shulamit said through mouthfuls of venison and squash.
“He and Carolina were in love with each other—”

Isaac looked extremely pleased with himself. “I
guessed as much!”

“
Yeah, I guess he’s still hanging
around,” said Shulamit. “They couldn’t get married because of how
much she outranks him. I don’t know what the situation is now. Who
knows—maybe she has the Prince-Consort and then João on the side,
and everybody knows about it. Or maybe not. I have no
idea.”

“
Her husband certainly didn’t look
jealous,” said Isaac, “so he’s either completely aware and fine
with it, or in denial.”

“
He used to accompany her on the
guitar,” said Shulamit, “when she sang. She has a great
voice.”

“
I hope they’re not hurting her
husband,” said Aviva, “because I liked João. He was sticking up for
the working class.”

“
If she listens to him,” said
Shulamit with great seriousness, “if she’s actually paying
attention to what he says instead of just focusing on his eyes or
whatever, then maybe we can get this Imbrio boycott problem solved.
I don’t want to sound like I’m glad King Fernando died, but if João
can influence the throne—” she took a drink of the inn’s sweet,
rustic wine “—it’s a whole new market. I have to say, I’m proud of
our culture and our people that they think about things like this,
even if it means diplomatic headaches for me.”

“
What’s that you’ve got there?”
Rivka was peering into Isaac’s hand.

“
Oh, it’s the last of Yael’s
rugelach.” Isaac offered it toward her.

“
Now I
really
know you love
me.”

“
You know, that whole thing is so
weird
!” Shulamit commented. “I wonder if we’ll ever find out
why Ezra never showed up?”

***

“
Dead?
” Shulamit, who had
arrived back to her home palace thirty minutes ago, stood in the
sunny courtyard with her mouth hanging open like a broken door.
“Ezra. Dead.”