The Olive Conspiracy Read Online Free PDF Page B

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