Lora of Two Worlds

Leon's carriage passed through the gate of the Crown Granary without a challenge.

It was a plain black-canopied carriage, bearing no house crest. In the vast sprawl of the Granary compound, it drew little notice.

It wasn't the turn of the month, and there weren't many wagons delivering goods. Walking in, they counted perhaps a dozen oxcarts unloading sacks of grain.

On the neat chessboard grid of lanes between the storehouses, they heard raucous laughter.

Leon lifted the carriage curtain a fraction. At the door of one storehouse, four granary clerks sat around a square low table. On the table were a number of wooden tiles, all the same size, they seemed to be playing some kind of game.

After the last burst of laughter, one clerk dug into his sleeve and pulled out a dozen copper pennies, grumbling as he divided them among the other three.

"Lyle, go see what they're playing."

Lyle was curious himself. He walked over, and after a moment caught up to the carriage and reported through the window:

"They're using the granary tally tiles to play a game called 'tarocchi.' One of them transferred from the royal granary in the southern provinces, says the clerks there all play it."

"Sparrow hunting?" Leon let the curtain drop and gave a cold snort.

Funny how a game like that spreads like wildfire, when anything useful takes a month to travel a mile.

Through the next crossing, they spotted another four clerks playing the same game around a table. Leon smiled faintly and called Linn over.

"We're intruding on their day, we ought to show some courtesy. Go buy a few casks of cloudy ale. Tell them it's from me, a gift. One cask between two men. I don't want anyone drunk."

Greene, walking alongside, heard this and thought Leon was just being meddlesome. But it was harmless enough, half a cask of small ale wouldn't get anyone drunk, just warm them up a little. And heaven knew Greene himself, who couldn't hold his liquor to save his life, would rather they all had a buzz on.

He smirked inwardly. The man was down on his luck and still playing the grand lord.

While he was rolling his eyes, Leon called out: "Greene, I'm going to have a look around on my own. You go find the Granary Bailiff and borrow a few oxcarts. This place is enormous, a full circuit will take a couple of hours at least."

Greene looked up. The storehouse in front of them had been opened by a clerk. Inside, all manner of decorative carvings, tapestry screens, tables, and daybeds were arranged in tidy rows. Beyond a partition, he could just make out the tops of several shelving racks.

Worldly as he was, the sight of all those fine royal furnishings made him swallow hard.

"Then, then I'll take the men and go, my lord. Take your time choosing. The storehouses all look the same from outside, but only these three hold pieces fit for a princely household. Whatever you do, don't wander off, if you get lost, it'll be a fine mess to sort out."

"Are you telling my lord his business?"

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Lyle stood a full head taller than Greene. He looked down his nose with half-lidded eyes, and Greene very nearly blew steam out of his ears.

Before he could explain, Lyle was already pushing Leon's wheelchair toward the storehouse door.

Greene glared, swallowed his temper, and turned to leave. One of the guards muttered:

"Sergeant Greene, why bother helping him? If he wanders into the wrong storehouse and picks something only the King is allowed to use, wouldn't that be better?"

A breach of the sumptuary laws, that would be a crime.

Greene stopped. A cold little smile crept across his face.

"Smart thinking. Go, call all our men back. We'll go find the Granary Bailiff and beg a cup of small ale off him."

Linn and Lyle had never given him the time of day. Once their master fell, he'd like to see how those two curs kept barking.

Watching one of Leon's men, a sharp-eyed guard named Armand, come over and lead the rest of Greene's men outside, Leon was mildly surprised. He exchanged a look with Lyle, who shrugged.

"I told you he was sharp."

Leon said quietly: "Whatever you promised him, get someone to Augustburg to take care of it."

"Once we move out, his family goes to the Grand Princess's household."

"Done."

"We'll start with the eastern storehouses."

Once Linn brings Roland's men, we'll figure out how to get to the west side.

Leon pushed his own wheels past the partition and into the rear of the storehouse. Lyle stayed in the front, searching methodically.

Weapons would be kept where they could be grabbed quickly. Every cabinet and chest among the furniture had to be opened and checked.

Linn had gone out to the agreed-upon tavern to wait for Roland's men, and was surprised to find Roland himself, in person.

"My lord, you came yourself? If the royal garrison inside recognizes you "

"What, my little mustache isn't convincing enough?" Roland grinned. "It's fine. The ones who show their faces in public are always my eldest and second brothers. I've only been back a few years, and I spend my free time with my books. Nobody knows me."

They bought a cartload of ale and drove the oxcart into the Crown Granary compound.

Mustachioed Roland had barely gotten underway when a girl in lad's clothing came pelting toward them in a frantic rush:

All she'd done was run back to the tower chamber to fetch the dog, how had she still missed them? If Chance couldn't get inside, how was he supposed to help them find black powder?

It had happened like this: Lora had been cutting through the rose and iris garden on her way to visit her mother, and overheard her two eldest brothers coming out of the Countess's quarters.

She had meant to hide behind the rosebushes and jump out to scare them, but instead she heard Alvin saying:

"When you're inside, you won't be able to search every storehouse. The weapons are probably in the ones nearest the city gate. And if those crates really are black powder, they'll have spread them out across several locations. Roland, above all, keep him safe. Understood?"

"Understood. I'm off, then."

Both brothers had walked away before Lora, frozen in the rosebushes, came back to herself. She turned to Margaret behind her:

"A dog's nose is the best tool there's for finding things. Didn't Chance just find Norton's shoe like it was nothing?"

Margaret scrunched her face. "Maybe that was because his feet smell "

"Black powder has a strong smell too. If we let Chance have a sniff, he might be able to track it!"

Lora gathered her skirts and ran for the tower chamber. Roland had only just left, she could still catch up with Chance.

Back at the tower chamber, she found Norton and, with a storm of words and gestures, explained the plan. Norton nodded. But black powder was tricky stuff to track, he smacked his forehead and darted inside.

He came back with a hollow reed tube, a firecracker he had salvaged from the spent remains of Candlemas fireworks. One that had never gone off.

Lora held the tube under her nose and sniffed. Black powder, all right.

In this world, alchemists messing about with their furnaces had stumbled onto black powder. It caught fire far too easily, so they'd abandoned it, but the formula, saltpeter and sulfur and charcoal, had leaked out into common use.

From New Year's Day through Candlemas, the twelve days of Christmas, people tossed reed stalks onto their bonfires. The stalks cracked and popped, driving off evil spirits. Some bright spark had the idea of packing black powder into the reed tubes to make the bang louder.

This particular tube had probably never made it onto the fire. Norton, sweeping up afterward, had picked it up and kept it.

Talk about luck!

Lora grabbed Norton and Chance and blew out of the house like a gust of wind. The household guards at the gate couldn't stop her:

"I'm taking the afternoon off, ground me when I get back!"

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