Lora of Two Worlds

The west side had a few square storehouses, but it was mostly cylindrical silos.

Standing beneath hundreds of round grain silos, Lora felt the sheer weight of the Empire’s golden days behind all this prosperity.

”My lord, do you think they’d hide the powder in a grain silo? That would make it nearly impossible to find.” Lyle scratched his head. None of them had faced anything like this before.

”No. Look at the silo caps. If it blew inside a silo, it would still need fire to spread, they might as well just set a fire and be done with it.”

At Leon’s words, they all looked up. The silo tops had vent holes, each capped with a little wooden ”hat” to keep the rain out. A flock of sparrows was flying in and out.

A thought struck Lora. She pointed at the row of square storehouses adjoining the silos:

”Then we can narrow it down. The powder has to be in this row, close enough for sparks to carry over and set the grain alight. Same logic: the storehouses nearest the Crown Prince’s palace and the royal palace would be the best spots.”

”Not bad, that little brain of yours took a dip in the Loene and came out sharper than my ten years of books.” Roland didn’t stint on praise for his little sister. He waved his hand, and the men-at-arms behind him ran for the storehouses.

Lora grinned inwardly. Sixteen years of schooling, thank you very much, a sight more complicated than the seven liberal arts.

Proud? Me?

They split up and searched. They’d expected the west side to mirror the east, two chests of powder. But after Chance found one, that was it.

”No time to widen the search. Get what we’ve found onto the cart.” Leon was decisive.

An oxcart already loaded with furniture was brought around. But getting this chest of powder out was going to be tricky, right outside the storehouse door, four clerks were playing cards around a square table.

Fortunately, they’d sat against the opposite wall for the shade, a fair distance from this storehouse door. They’d been ready to skip I, but the previous few had come up empty, and Lora hated to leave it unchecked.

Good thing she insisted. Chance went in, made a circuit, and came out tugging at her hem.

They’d found the powder. Everyone exhaled. Then they looked at the door, and hearts climbed right back into throats.

Lora signed to Roland: I’ll take two men-at-arms in. Chance won’t listen to them.

Roland shook his head: I’ll go. Chance knows me. You, stay outside.

Just then the four clerks fell into a heated argument, cross-eyed over a single wooden tile, going back and forth. Roland and two men-at-arms slipped inside while they were distracted.

”You cheat! Folding the middle and running? Sore loser!”

”You’re the cheat! You called a false win! Can’t you read the lettering on this? I’m done, I’m out!” One clerk was about to throw his whole hand down on the table, but another caught his arm:

”Hey, laying them down means you forfeit. You conceding?”

”Old Black, you’re too tight-fisted. Don’t call me your brother anymore. Let go of me! I’m going back to take inventory!”

He slapped his tiles down and actually stood up. Lora’s fists were clenched tight, scarcely daring to breathe.

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The oxcart was behind the storehouse. If they slipped out now, they wouldn’t be spotted. But her brother was still inside, she couldn’t leave him.

She was about to charge out when she saw Leon’s wheelchair move. He was going to risk it himself. Lora grabbed the chair and leaned close to his ear:

”Let me. Stay and cover me.”

Leon understood her reasoning at once. He simply hadn’t expected a girl that young to have such nerve and such head for the game.

He was the most important person in their group. If he strode to the front and things went sideways, that Bailiff, the one who wouldn’t give him the time of day, could cause any manner of trouble.

But if a subordinate caused the commotion, Leon could still haggle with the man.

”Who’s there? What are you doing, trespassing on royal restricted ground!”

The moment Lora stepped out, the four clerks in their shoving match spotted her. She didn’t panic, she walked right toward them.

”Thank God, live people! Hey, brothers, I came in with the Baron to help with his errands. This granary is enormous. I stepped away to use the privy and got completely turned around.”

The clerks knew the Baron was inside. Their section didn’t hold anything for a princely household, they hadn’t expected anyone to wander over here.

”Wrong way, lad. East, head east.”

A lost wanderer was no threat. They relaxed and went back to staring at the table.

Lora wasn’t in any hurry to leave. She followed their gaze to the table, and nearly choked trying not to laugh.

Holy cow. This was that game. The one she thought wouldn’t exist for centuries. And here it was, in this day and age.

”Hey, brothers, pardon my asking. Is that tarocchi?”

”Tarocchi? What’s that? We’re playing tarocchi.”

Lora could hardly keep a straight face. She picked up a wooden tile with a little bird painted on it. ”This here, is that a sparrow?”

”Sure is.”

”And these, the rods that come after the sparrow?”

The clerks laughed. ”You know a thing or two. They do come after the sparrow, but they’re not rods. We call them batons. We granary men hate sparrows more than anything. Idle hands, you know, someone dreamed up this game.”

”And I?”

Legend had it the round suit was a hunter’s gun, but there were no fire lances in this era, so that couldn’t be right. Lora was curious.

The clerks had warmed up to her, she was the Baron’s man, after all. One of them pointed at the cylindrical silo next to them. ”There, see? We climb up top to chase the birds, and when you look straight down, that’s what the silo looks like.”

Now that he said it, it did match, the round shape in the center was the silo’s vent cap.

”And this square one?”

”That’s our flat board for swatting sparrows. One good swat, if you hit a bird, bam! That’s a match.”

Lifesize, all right. Lora picked up a tile. The quill lettering was badly faded, she could make out what might have been a number, but not which one. She murmured:

”Ink rubs off too easily ”

That set off a fresh round of grievances:

”That’s Old Dai for you, he called a false win and claimed the lettering was too faint to read. Cheating plain and simple!”

Old Dai shot back: ”Just because you can’t read it doesn’t mean no one else can. This lad here is an outsider, let’s let him be the judge. See what the letter really says.”

Lora pretended to look for better light. She cut her eyes toward the storehouse door, and caught Roland leading Chance out, with a man-at-arms just stepping into view behind him. She yelped:

”Oh! It’s a seven!”

The others snorted. ”Half the word’s still there, anyone can see it’s a number. The letter above it’s the part that matters!”

Back in Lora’s own time, her boss at the firm had been a southerner who swore by a regional variant of the game, it had four extra wild cards, which made for far more variety. You’d almost never get two identical hands.

She wasn’t an expert, but she knew the basics.

She scanned Old Dai’s tiles. He was going for an all-pairs hand, if I card was a ”three,” he had it. Her eyes lit on a plan:

”The last stroke of the letter above goes sideways, could be an ’E’ or an ’R.’ But looking at the direction of the ink smear, I’d say it’s an ’R.’ Three.”

Old Dai leapt up, cackling. ”Pay up, pay up! I told you I had it! You lot were trying to rob me. Thanks, lad, you’ve cleared my name at last!”

The other three grumbled, but they’d agreed to let the outsider judge. A deal was a deal.

Lora smiled. ”Do you have any more tiles with faded letters? Give me four. I’ll teach you a variation that changes everything. These four illegible tiles, they’re wild cards. They don’t stand for any one tile. They can be anything you need.”

”Oh? There’s such a thing?”

Intrigued, the clerks dug through a cloth sack on the ground and fished out four tiles with undecipherable lettering. They gathered around the table, and Lora began explaining the rules.

By then, the chest of black powder was being carried out the back of the storehouse by the men-at-arms. Roland stood beside Leon’s wheelchair, and the two of them watched Lora still chattering away at the table.

”Your sister really has the forgetting sickness? How does she know how to do everything?”

”Every loss has its gain. Like you, you lost the freedom to walk, but you gained the freedom to leave the Princes’ Quarter.”

Were those the same thing?

Sounded wise. Was hogwash.