The Tinkerer's Daughter (28 page)

“He has a farm north of Anora now,” I said. “General Corsan, that is. I was there last spring. He has a vineyard. He makes excellent wine.”

“Is that so?” Robie said. “I’d like to try it some time. Good wine is hard to find.”

He had been gazing across the field, watching Tinker, but now he turned to look me in the eyes. “Breeze, don’t you think it’s time to stop all this?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Stop what, Robie?”

“The planes, the air force. You don’t have to do it anymore. I don’t even know why you bother. Your entire life these days is delivering packages and shuttling ambassadors back and forth. How can you stand it? How can you stand to be in the same plane with those people?”

“I’m not with them,” I said. “I’m with the sky.”

He sighed, exasperated. “Is that all that matters to you then? The sky?”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be foolish.”

He twisted slightly and slid closer to me, taking my hands. He folded his own large, rough-skinned hands around them. “Breeze, marry me. Let’s put all of this behind us and get on with life! We can buy a farm, and you can have children-”

“What are you talking about?” I said, interrupting him.

“A family, Breeze. A life!”

“I already have a life.”

“This?” he said cynically. “Shuttling fat diplomats back and forth so they can feed each other greasy food and buy each other fancy clothes with our taxes? This is no life you have, Breeze. You’re not living, you’re hiding.”

I pulled my hands away from him and placed them in my lap. “I’m doing exactly what I want to do, Robie. Look at me. Look at my face, my ears. Do you think I’m one of your farm girls? Do you envision me standing at a cook stove all day, my belly swollen with child, our house full of chaos and noise? Is that what you want?”

A mystified look swept across his face. “Cook stove? I don’t know… you do cook, don’t you?”

I snorted, pushing away from him, and rose to my feet. My skirts caught in a root as I did, and I tugged them free, causing a small tear in the fabric. “I hate these things,” I snapped.

“You hate trees?”

“No, fool! I hate skirts. I’ve half a mind to throw them all away and buy a drawer full of breeches like yours.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he said, laughing. “Women don’t wear breeches.”

I stared at him furiously, and the smile vanished from his face. “Do you mean to say that after all I’ve gone through, you’d refuse to let me wear comfortable clothes because I’m a woman?” I pressed my fists to my sides. “Do you think
you could stop me, Robie?
”

His face reddened. “I, uh… no, of course not. It’s just that-”

“I know.
Women don’t wear breeches.
”

He stared at me, suddenly speechless.

Perhaps he was right. Perhaps I was being foolish. After all, it was tradition -not only for the humans, but also for the Tal’mar-that the womenfolk wore skirts and dresses. It didn’t matter so much for children, but when young girls grew into women they were expected to wear the right clothes and to cook and work in the garden, and to have children. That was simply the way things had always been.

Why did it suddenly bother me so? After all the things I had accomplished, how had I been reduced to hating my skirts? Was it simply that there was nothing else to worry about? Was I so safe and comfortable in with my life that the little things seemed more important than ever before? Or was it something else? Was it really about skirts at all, or was it because I was hiding, as Robie had said?

I didn’t have time to examine the thought more closely because a plane whooshed over the park and sent ribbons and streamers spinning across the grass. The faire-goers froze, turning their faces skyward and stared frightfully at the aircraft.

“What’s that idiot doing?” Robie said next to me. “It’s illegal to fly over cities!”

I watched quietly as the plane circled around the north end of town and swooped in for a landing right in the middle of the park. The citizens broke into a screaming panic as they raced out of the landing path. I glanced at Robie and saw a snarl creeping across his features. He flexed his hands into fists.

“I’m going to beat some sense into that rookie, whoever he is!” With that, he went stalking down the hill towards the plane. I threw caution to the wind and ran after him.

Robie rushed up to the plane just as it pulled to a stop. “What’s the matter with you, pilot?” he shouted.

The pilot looked down at him, his face shielded by his flying cap and goggles. “Who’s flying that thing?” Robie demanded. “What’s your name, pilot?”

The pilot climbed out of the cockpit and dropped to the ground. He pulled off the helmet and goggles and we both suddenly realized that
“he”
was in fact a
she.
Her name was Becca. She was one of the younger pilots from the squadron located at Avenston, the capital city. She had tucked her long blonde hair inside her flight jacket. From the ground, it had been impossible to tell she was female.

Becca looked right past Robie towards me, ignoring him entirely. “Commander Breeze, the kingdom has been invaded. The King is dead.”

I hardly knew what to think at first. The words were such a shock to me that my instinctive reaction was to believe this some sort of elaborate joke. But I knew from the look on her face that it was not. My breath caught in my chest. “Attacked? Who was it, the Kanters?”

“No. I don’t know who they are, ma’am. They came in the night with no warning. The dragon ships swept in from the west and we were completely unprepared. It was all we could do to escape. A few of us, anyway.”

“Dragon ships?” I said. “The attackers came by sea?”

“No, by air. They fly in massive boats unlike anything I’ve ever seen. They look like ships sure enough, but they’re held aloft by great balloons and a vicious black smoke follows in their wake everywhere they go. They’re armed with flamethrowers and cannons larger than anything we’ve ever built. One shot could level an entire house.”

I took a deep breath, steadying myself. “The King, you said?”

“Yes, ma’am. Their first volley all but decimated the royal palace in Avenston. The entire royal family is…” she stopped as her voice broke. She took a breath and blinked away the tears. “The King and his family are all dead.”

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