IX) Mara and Atreyu: The Conspiracy of the Blue Ribbon

Mara found the first suspicious document beneath a cabbage.

This did not, by itself, make the document unusual. The palace kitchens produced enough paperwork to feed a modest bureaucracy, and the cabbage had been placed upon it to prevent a draft from carrying away the morning’s delivery orders. What concerned her was the sentence visible beneath the outer leaf.

The king must be removed before the sixth bell.

She lifted the cabbage.

The next line read:

No weapons. The queen insists.

Mara stood very still.

Then she looked toward the kitchen door, where a boy carrying a sack of flour had just seen her expression and decided that some other errand urgently required his attention.

“Wait.”

He waited with the sack halfway off his shoulder.

“Where did this come from?”

“The table.”

“Before the table.”

“I wasn’t here before the table.”

She considered him.

He considered the possibility of death by flour sack.

Mara put the cabbage back.

“Fetch General Atreyu. Quietly.”

“How quietly?”

“Without shouting his name across the courtyard.”

“Yes, Captain.”

He backed through the door and collided with a woman carrying onions.

The resulting noise was not quiet, but it contained no military information.

Atreyu arrived six minutes later carrying half a piece of toast.

Mara showed him the note.

He read it, chewed thoughtfully, and looked at the cabbage.

“An unusual place for a plot.”

“Or an excellent one.”

“That is true of most places until someone finds the plot.”

He read the remaining lines.

Blue ribbon identifies our people. East gallery after dark. The large package through the service entrance. No word to His Majesty. If he asks, drainage.

Atreyu lowered the page.

“Drainage?”

“He has been asking about the western drains for three days.”

“Everyone has been asking about the western drains. They smell.”

“Which makes it a convincing explanation.”

He looked at her.

Mara looked back.

They had worked together long enough to know the difference between a concern and a conclusion. Neither had yet reached the second. It was possible that the queen had ordered some entirely ordinary inconvenience kept from her husband. It was also possible that somebody had found a useful way to disguise a threat as household business.

“We check the queen’s safety first,” Atreyu said. “Then the king’s. Nobody gets arrested because a cabbage has frightened us.”

“The cabbage is not the part that concerns me.”

“I wanted that clear in any eventual report.”

Io was in the garden room with Lisbeth, surrounded by fabric samples.

She looked entirely safe.

She also placed a cloth over the paper she had been reading when they entered.

Mara noticed. Atreyu noticed Mara noticing.

“Good morning,” Io said. “Is something wrong?”

“Routine checks,” Atreyu replied.

Lisbeth raised an eyebrow.

“Both of you?”

“An efficient use of the corridor.”

Mara almost looked at him.

Almost.

Io studied them for a moment, then smiled with the particular brightness of someone who had decided not to ask a question.

“How reassuring. Have either of you seen Lexander?”

“In his study,” Mara said.

“Good. Do try to keep him there until luncheon.”

Atreyu’s expression did not alter.

“Any particular reason?”

“He keeps going downstairs.”

Lisbeth reached beneath the cloth and retrieved a blue ribbon.

Mara saw it.

Io saw Mara see it.

The queen laid her hand over the ribbon.

“Was there anything else?”

“No, Your Majesty.”

They withdrew with every appearance of professional composure.

In the passage, Atreyu stopped beside a window.

“She is safe.”

“And involved.”

“In something.”

“The mother too.”

“We are not referring to Queen Lisbeth as the mother in an investigation.”

“You prefer subject two?”

He took a breath.

“I prefer the possibility that we are overthinking this.”

From the other end of the passage, Loki emerged carrying a coil of blue ribbon and a small hammer.

Both officers watched him.

He stopped.

“I can explain.”

Mara folded her arms.

“We haven’t asked.”

“Experience suggests that saves time.”

Atreyu looked at the hammer.

“I thought there were to be no weapons.”

Loki glanced down.

“This is for tacks.”

“And the ribbon?”

“For taste.”

“Whose?” Mara asked.

“That has become a contentious question.”

He tried to move past them. Mara stepped aside just enough to make clear she had chosen to allow it.

Loki hesitated.

“You haven’t spoken to Lexander?”

“Why?” Atreyu asked.

“No reason.”

“That was an unsuccessful answer.”

“I’ve had very little sleep.”

He departed before either could improve the conversation.

Atreyu watched him turn the corner.

“He had a hammer.”

“For tacks.”

“I find that explanation more troubling than a weapon.”

They checked the king.

Lexander sat at his desk with three reports and the expression of a man who had discovered that everyone wanted him occupied but nobody would supply an occupation worth doing.

“Atreyu. Mara. Excellent.”

Neither had expected excellent.

“Your Majesty?”

“I want to inspect the east gallery.”

Mara thought of the note.

Atreyu thought of the queen.

Both thought with considerable intensity.

“Why?” Mara asked.

Lexander looked at her.

“Because someone has barred the passage and put up a notice saying floor work. We repaired that floor last month.”

“Work can fail,” Atreyu said.

“Did it?”

“We are establishing that.”

“Then I’ll come.”

“We should inspect it first.”

“You are remarkably interested in floorboards.”

Atreyu met the king’s eye with the steadiness that had served him through battles, councils, and military budgets.

“A floor is part of a defensive position.”

Mara wished she had brought paper. Some statements deserved preservation.

Lexander sat back.

“Fine. But if there’s nothing wrong with it, I want my passage reopened.”

They promised to report.

Outside, Mara said, “We have now agreed to keep him in his study.”

“Temporarily.”

“Without knowing why.”

“We know there may be a floor.”

She looked at him.

“A problem with a floor,” he corrected.

The east gallery was guarded by a footman wearing blue ribbon around his wrist.

He saluted Atreyu so enthusiastically that his elbow struck the notice.

“General.”

“What work is being done?”

“Floor work.”

“I can read the notice.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Describe the work.”

The footman looked toward Mara, found no assistance there, and tried an answer.

“On the floor.”

Atreyu stared at him.

“You should never be assigned to deception.”

“No, sir.”

Behind the door came the scrape of something heavy and Thor’s voice.

“It’s too narrow.”

Another voice answered. Lysandra.

“Turn it.”

“I have turned it.”

“The other way.”

“There are more than two ways.”

“Try one that works.”

A crash followed.

The footman closed his eyes.

Atreyu reached for the latch.

Before he touched it, the door opened and Thor came out backward, carrying one end of an enormous screen painted with flowering branches. Lysandra guided the other end. Both stopped when they saw the officers.

Thor looked at the screen, then at Atreyu.

“Drainage.”

Mara took one step forward.

“No.”

Thor considered the reply.

“Decorative drainage?”

“Also no.”

Lysandra put down her end.

“Have you seen Io?”

“We have,” Atreyu said.

“Then why are you here?”

“That question has become the central difficulty of our morning.”

Mara looked past the screen.

Inside the gallery stood covered trestle tables, crates, ladders, a stack of chairs, and a woman measuring the distance between two window frames with a piece of string. None of it looked dangerous. All of it looked deliberately concealed.

She saw a second document on a table near the door.

Subject to be brought by the garden route. He must suspect nothing. Position the children before arrival.

Mara pointed at it.

“Whose handwriting?”

Lysandra glanced over her shoulder.

Then she began laughing.

Not a cautious laugh. Not the laugh of someone buying time. She bent over the end of the screen and laughed until Thor asked whether somebody had broken her.

Atreyu felt understanding approaching from a humiliating distance.

Mara did not move.

“Tell us.”

Lysandra managed three words.

“His. Birthday. Tomorrow.”

The gallery became very quiet.

Atreyu looked at the tables.

Mara looked at the blue ribbon.

Thor looked from one to the other and smiled with appalling slowness.

“Oh,” she said.

“Not a word,” Mara told her.

“I haven’t said one.”

“You are preparing several.”

“Hundreds.”

Io arrived while they were still standing there.

She took in the arrangement at once: the half-moved screen, Lysandra wiping her eyes, Thor glowing with the pleasure of acquiring permanent material, and two senior officers attempting to occupy a dignified silence.

“You found the kitchen note,” she said.

Mara turned.

“You knew?”

“I suspected when you began conducting routine checks in my sitting room.”

“You could have told us.”

“I thought you had received the invitation.”

Atreyu shut his eyes.

The invitation.

A pale envelope had arrived among the morning’s reports. He had set it aside because it smelled faintly of flowers and therefore seemed less urgent than the account from the western watch.

Mara was looking at the wall.

“Mine is under a patrol schedule,” she admitted.

Thor made a sound like a kettle beginning to boil.

Io held up one hand.

“You checked the circumstances before acting. I’m glad.”

Mara appreciated the kindness. She appreciated it less when Io’s mouth began to twitch.

“I am also,” the queen added, “very grateful to the cabbage.”

That finished Lysandra.

They moved into the gallery, where the entire plot was revealed with far more documentation than several genuine conspiracies Mara had investigated.

Io had asked Lexander what he wanted for his birthday. He had said a quiet day. She had asked what he meant by quiet. He had said no formal petitions, no speeches, and perhaps supper with the family.

“So,” Atreyu said, looking at the chairs, “you have arranged a gathering.”

“Supper with the family,” Io replied.

“There are many chairs.”

“Have you counted the family recently?”

That was a fair objection.

There would be no public ceremony, no civic delegation, and no opportunity for anyone to present an account of national achievements. Uriah and Evelyn were coming through the gate. Lisbeth and Lysandra had helped gather small memories from people who knew Lexander before he became someone expected to receive formal praise. The children had made presents. Bruni had made something requiring the service entrance. Loki had been forbidden to arrange an illusion of an invasion, a deceased ancestor, or any form of supernatural test.

“Hence no weapons,” Mara said.

“Hence no weapons,” Io agreed.

“The note should have said birthday.”

“Then Lexander would have known it was a birthday.”

Atreyu looked down at the offending page.

“There is a middle ground between clarity and a warrant for treason.”

Io smiled at him.

“You could write it.”

It was a trap. He knew that immediately.

Mara saw him recognize it and, with a loyalty tempered by long experience, chose not to rescue him.

“We would be happy to advise on practical arrangements,” he said.

“Excellent,” Io replied. “Then please help me keep my husband from discovering them.”

Their investigation had become employment.

The first task was to replace the kitchen note with one less likely to alarm people who could read.

Mara wrote: Private supper preparations. Refer inquiries to Her Majesty’s household.

Atreyu considered it.

“That will do.”

Thor leaned over his shoulder.

“It lacks menace.”

“That is its principal virtue.”

The second task was to ensure that concealing a birthday did not interfere with actual palace security. Deliveries would still be checked. Guard changes would remain ordinary. Nobody was to send patrols away because a musician looked nervous near a sword. Nobody was to tell the Castellan to ignore unexplained smoke.

“I didn’t,” Io said.

“Someone asked,” Mara replied.

They both looked at Loki.

“It would have smelled of lavender,” he said.

“No smoke.”

“You are narrowing the possibilities.”

“Deliberately.”

By afternoon, the plan was sound.

Unfortunately, Lexander had begun investigating.

He found Mara outside the east passage and asked whether she had discovered the fault in the floor.

“Yes.”

“What was it?”

She had questioned spies who could invent a childhood while being chased across a roof. She had tracked enemy movements through incomplete reports and persuaded frightened witnesses to trust her with the truth. Nothing in that experience supplied a good reason for a perfectly sound gallery to be full of birthday chairs.

“Access,” she said.

Lexander frowned.

“That is not a fault in a floor.”

“It is if the wrong person walks on it.”

“The wrong person.”

“At the wrong time.”

He folded his arms.

She folded hers.

From somewhere behind the door, a chair scraped.

“Someone is walking on it now.”

“An authorized person.”

Lexander looked at her for a long moment.

“Is Io planning something?”

There it was. The decisive moment. Mara could tell a direct lie, dodge, or surrender.

She chose professional truth.

“The queen plans many things.”

He nodded slowly.

“You and Atreyu are terrible at this.”

“At what?”

“Whatever this is.”

He walked away before she could answer.

Mara found Atreyu in the courtyard supervising the arrival of a large covered object.

“He suspects.”

“How much?”

“Enough to be irritating.”

“That is his ordinary condition.”

Bruni stood beside the wagon, looking worried.

“Door too small?” he asked.

“The door is large enough,” Atreyu said. “The turn beyond it is not.”

Mara lifted the cloth’s edge.

Beneath it stood a broad wooden bench, carefully carved. At one end a dragon guarded a small house. At the other, a cat sat on what might have been a hammer or a particularly heavy spoon. Across the back ran a row of uneven figures holding hands.

“I made family,” Bruni explained.

Mara’s expression softened.

“You did.”

“Too big?”

Atreyu studied the bench.

“For the passage. Not for the family.”

They took it through the garden instead.

This would have been simple if Lexander had not chosen that moment to inspect the garden drains.

Mara saw him first.

“Down,” she said.

Bruni immediately lowered the bench.

Atreyu crouched behind it.

Mara remained standing, because it was too late for everyone to discover an interest in the ground.

Lexander approached.

He looked at the bench-shaped object beneath its cloth. At Bruni, trying to appear as though he had always stood in that exact patch of shrubbery. At Atreyu’s boots, plainly visible beyond the carved leg.

“General.”

From behind the bench came a dignified voice.

“Your Majesty.”

“Why are you on the ground?”

A pause.

“Drainage.”

Mara closed her eyes.

Lexander regarded her.

“Contagious, apparently.”

He walked on.

When he was gone, Atreyu stood and brushed leaves from his knee.

“I now understand why prisoners eventually confess.”

That evening they convened a meeting in a room that had never before required discussion of how to keep a king away from his own birthday cake.

Loki proposed disguising the cake as a map.

“No,” said everyone who had seen his maps.

Thor proposed telling Lexander he was needed outside the city.

“That would make him worry,” Io said.

Lysandra proposed being honest that there was a surprise and refusing to discuss it further.

The room fell silent.

Mara looked at Atreyu.

Atreyu looked at Mara.

“That,” he said, “is distressingly reasonable.”

Io nodded.

“I’ll speak to him.”

She found Lexander in their sitting room, reading a book upside down.

He righted it when she entered.

“There is a surprise,” she told him.

“I had begun to suspect.”

“It’s a kind one. Nobody is arranging a public spectacle. Nobody is bringing a petition. Will you let me have until tomorrow evening?”

He looked at her.

Then his expression changed in a way that reminded her why she had wanted the surprise in the first place.

“Of course.”

“You could have said that earlier.”

“You could have asked.”

They both laughed.

He took her hand.

“Should I stop asking about the drains?”

“Please.”

“Atreyu may be trapped beneath something.”

“I’ll send Mara.”

The following day proceeded with an ease that made the previous day’s exertions look deeply unnecessary.

Lexander stayed out of the east gallery. The cake arrived under its proper name. The musicians tuned in an ordinary room instead of pretending to be roof inspectors. Bruni’s bench reached the garden without further tactical crawling.

There remained one complication.

Actually, there were two, but Atreyu felt that listing them separately would imply a degree of control he no longer possessed.

The first arrived in a box smelling of butter.

Two porters carried it to the service table, set it down with great care, and produced a receipt for a decorated cake. Mara checked the delivery mark against the household list. It matched. She checked the baker’s seal. That matched too.

Then she lifted the lid.

In magnificent blue lettering across a field of white icing were the words: A WELL-EARNED RETIREMENT.

Atreyu looked over her shoulder.

They read it together.

“We should not show this to the council,” he said.

Mara examined the little icing chair beneath the words. Beside it stood a miniature pair of slippers and a pipe.

“He might accept.”

“That is my concern.”

The senior porter leaned closer and went pale.

“That isn’t yours.”

“An encouraging beginning,” Mara said. “Whose is it?”

“Master Tollen. At the counting house. Forty years keeping the accounts.”

“Where is our cake?”

The porter shut his eyes.

Atreyu reached for his coat.

The counting house stood three streets from the palace. They reached it to find six clerks gathered around a second cake, all of them regarding their retiring colleague with new uncertainty.

The cake read: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LEX.

Master Tollen, a small elderly man with an ink stain on his thumb, was saying that he had no explanation for it and would prefer everyone stopped asking.

Mara entered with the porter.

“A delivery error.”

The clerks looked relieved.

Master Tollen looked disappointed.

“I had begun to hope there was an inheritance.”

Atreyu apologized and explained the exchange. The old accountant listened, then inspected the officer’s face with the calm expertise of someone who had spent forty years identifying discrepancies.

“You’re arranging a surprise.”

“Assisting,” Atreyu said.

“For the king.”

“Yes.”

“Does he suspect?”

Mara looked at the blue icing.

“Less than he might have.”

Master Tollen laughed.

They exchanged the cakes without damage. Before the officers left, the retiring accountant asked them to wait. He found a clean card, wrote a few lines, and handed it to Mara.

“For him. Since we have shared a cake, however briefly.”

She accepted it.

Outside, Atreyu looked toward the palace.

“We have successfully intercepted an accidental abdication.”

“No arrests,” Mara said. “An efficient morning.”

Back in the gallery, Io read Tollen’s card and began to smile.

It wished Lexander a happy birthday, advised him against retirement until he had identified what he wished to do before luncheon, and thanked him for a kingdom in which an old accountant could expect to spend his remaining years arguing about gardening instead of wondering whether his savings would survive the next war.

Io read the last part again.

“Put it with the others,” she said quietly.

Mara did.

Atreyu looked at the correctly delivered cake. It contained fruit, pale icing, and no throne. He approved of the absence.

“No more surprises,” he said.

From the family room came a shout.

Mara turned toward it.

“An optimistic order.”

Seraphina had written a message for her father on a folded card. Ignatius had decided the card ought to be kept safe until the proper moment. Neither could remember where safe had been.

Mara found them in the family room, searching a basket with the concentration of officers examining captured correspondence.

“What have you lost?”

“Nothing,” Ignatius said.

“The card,” Seraphina said.

They looked at one another.

Mara sat down.

“Start at the beginning.”

It was the most demanding interview of the entire investigation. The card had been on the table, then under a book, then possibly beside the wooden horse, except that the horse had gone to inspect a room built from cushions and could not reasonably be expected to remember everyone who accompanied him.

Atreyu arrived halfway through.

“Progress?”

“The principal witness is wooden.”

He nodded as though this were a familiar difficulty.

“Have you checked the stables?”

Ignatius brightened.

The card was inside a little box beneath the toy’s blanket.

Seraphina took it with immense relief.

“You’re very good at finding things.”

Mara looked at Atreyu.

“Occasionally.”

At the sixth bell, Io took Lexander by the hand and led him through the garden.

The east gallery doors stood open. Lamps shone inside. His family waited among flowers and tables and a screen painted with branches that had finally negotiated its way into the correct place.

“Surprise!” the children shouted.

Thor shouted it a moment later, louder than necessary, because she disliked being excluded from a successful operation.

Lexander stopped.

Mara, standing near the door, saw him take in the faces one by one. Io beside him. Lisbeth and Lysandra. Uriah and Evelyn. Loki pretending not to watch. Baldr with a cup already waiting. The children trying very hard not to reveal their gifts before being asked.

He looked at the tables.

Then at his wife.

“Supper with the family.”

“Exactly what you requested.”

He bent and kissed her.

The evening became noisy after that.

Bruni showed him the bench. Lexander ran a hand over the carved figures and asked which one was himself.

Bruni pointed.

“One eye.”

“An excellent likeness.”

“Made smile.”

Lexander’s hand stopped on the wood.

“Yes,” he said softly. “You did.”

The children gave him their card. Lysandra read aloud a childhood incident that he had hoped everyone had forgotten. Lisbeth corrected three details, making the story worse. Uriah laughed until he had to put down his drink.

Nobody asked the king for a decision.

Nobody praised his strength in a way that required him to look strong while accepting it.

He sat down among people who knew him well enough to enjoy his embarrassment, and for once embarrassment was the worst thing awaiting him.

Mara and Atreyu took places near the end of a table.

For several peaceful minutes, nobody mentioned the investigation.

Then Loki rose.

Atreyu put down his fork.

“Sit.”

“I haven’t said anything.”

“We are learning.”

Loki ignored him and produced a cabbage tied with blue ribbon.

The room went quiet with interest.

“A presentation,” he announced, “to the officers whose vigilance has once again protected the crown from an organized meal.”

Thor struck the table with one palm.

Lysandra began laughing before the explanation.

Mara looked at Io.

The queen had covered her mouth.

“You permitted this.”

“I permitted no weapons.”

“A narrow instruction.”

Atreyu accepted the cabbage with the solemnity of a man receiving a decoration before hostile witnesses.

“We thank the intelligence service,” he said, “for maintaining such excellent cover.”

The laughter grew louder.

Lexander demanded the whole story.

Mara told it. She included the flour sack, the screen, and Atreyu beneath the bench. Atreyu supplied her answer about the dangerous floor. Neither tried to improve their own part.

By the time they finished, Lexander was laughing hard enough that Io had to rescue his cup.

“Best birthday I’ve had in years,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” Mara replied dryly.

Later, when the lamps were low and the children had begun leaning against whichever adults remained upright, Atreyu found Mara in the garden.

She stood beside Bruni’s bench with the cabbage under one arm.

“Taking the evidence home?”

“The kitchen can use it tomorrow.”

He sat on the bench. She joined him.

For a while they listened to the voices inside.

“We were right to check,” he said.

“I know.”

“Quietly.”

“The onions were not our fault.”

He smiled.

She turned the ribbon between her fingers.

“I would like more investigations to end this way.”

Atreyu looked through the open doors at the king surrounded by his family.

“So would I.”

They remained there until a servant came looking for them with two plates of cake.

Mara accepted hers, tasted it, and closed her eyes briefly.

“Well?” Atreyu asked.

“The queen’s conspiracy is extremely well provisioned.”

“Should we make a report?”

“In the morning.”

The report was one page.

It recorded that an ambiguous household instruction had been investigated without disruption to ordinary security; that the suspected plot had proved to be a private birthday celebration; and that clearer delivery notes would reduce unnecessary inquiries in future.

Atreyu signed it.

Mara added one final sentence.

The cake was excellent.

He considered striking it out.

Then he signed beneath that too.