“Maraki, are you? Sure, you can hunt with us. If you use our nets, though, half goes to our clan.”

“Fair’s fair,” Neel said, and took a net. A spidery-looking crab scuttled out from under a rock, close to his toes, and Neel snatched at its hindquarters, right behind its claws.

“You’re a quick one.” A woman smiled at him, showing a gold tooth.

Neel grinned back. “My name’s Sid,” he said, and thrust the crab into his net. This would be fun. Plus, he could catch up on some Maraki gossip.

Which, he discovered, was all about the lease of the coconut plantation.

“We deserve it,” a girl said as she snagged a crab and dropped it into her net. “Greedy Ursari.”

“Ignorant Ursari,” the short man corrected her. “They don’t understand that the world’s changing.”

“Europe’s crazy about the sea,” another sailor agreed. “They’re poking their noses into new corners of the world. Sailing, searching for new lands, new riches, new routes to Asia. They’re building boats faster than you can gut a fish. Now’s the time to sell good rope to the gadje.”

Neel glanced up. It hadn’t occurred to him that the Maraki would sell the rope. He had assumed they’d want it all for themselves.

“Can’t agree with you there,” the gold-toothed woman said, then swore when she missed a crab. “Good coir rope gives us the edge at sea. A lot of battles take place on the water. Why hand our advantage over to the gadje?”

“Battles.” The man scoffed. “You make it sound like we’re at war with them. Nonsense. We want nothing the gadje got, and they don’t even know what we have. They don’t even know the Vatra exists. So what’s the harm in turning a nice profit?”

“One thing’s clear,” said the girl. “Whether the Maraki keep the rope for ourselves, or sell it, that plantation should be ours.”

There was a general grumble of agreement.

“But the king—”

Everyone moaned.

“—the king needs to see things our way.”

There were a few muttered insults, which amused Neel. He guessed his disguise was complete if the sailors felt so free with their words. And he guessed that he’d probably spit out a few nasties about a king, too—if he wasn’t one. If he was his old self.

“What do you think, Sid?” a boy about his age asked Neel.

“Me?”

“You’re awfully quiet.”

Neel swiped at a crab and stared, aghast, when he missed. He never missed. “Oh. Um. Can’t stand the fellow, of course.”

The boy nodded enthusiastically.

“I mean,” Neel continued, “who’s he to take the throne from our leader? I didn’t think we’d see a Lovari as ruler of the Vatra for years to come. A juggler. A music-maker. Hey, know why the Lovari are such good musicians?”

“Oh, I know that joke,” said the girl. “Because when you blow into a Lovari’s ear, all that empty space inside his skull makes a pretty sound.”

They laughed, and Neel did, too.

“My sis works at the palace,” Neel said, “and she says no one likes him, not even the stuck-up courtiers.”

“Well, and why would they?” said a sailor. “Did you hear about that trick with the globes? He thinks he’s so smart.”

The gold-toothed woman flipped over a rock, but there was nothing underneath. “Seems like it’d be a good thing to have a smart leader,” she said. “And he shared the power of the globes. That’s something.”

The short man shook his head. “He’s too young.”

“Yeah,” said the boy. “He probably sucks his thumb to sleep at night.”

The sailors snickered. After a moment, Neel did, too. They began offering jokes about the king, each sailor coming up with a more ludicrous insult. Neel joined in, and his words had a special zing to them. “He’s no looker,” Neel said, “no matter how many silk shirts you throw on him. You can dress up a squid, but that doesn’t make him any nicer to dance with.”

The sailors went into fits of giggles. As soon as they choked back their laughter, they all began talking over each other, fighting to say the wittiest, cruelest thing they could about King Indraneel.

Then the word came, cutting through the talk like a knife: “bastard.”

The smile dropped from Neel’s face. He scanned the five faces. “Who said that?”

No one answered.

“He’s got a mother, you know. A real mother who raised him,” Neel said. “And so what if his blood parents weren’t married? Lots of parents aren’t. Mine weren’t. What does that make me, then, to you?”

“You’re fine, lad,” said the short man. “We didn’t mean any harm to you.”

“But see, that’s the thing,” said the girl. “The king is exactly like you, Sid.” She pointed at Neel. “He’s ordinary. Kings aren’t supposed to be ordinary.”

“Yes,” said Neel. “What a terrible thing that would be, if the people who decide our lives were just like us.” He turned out his net, letting the crab fall to the sand and scuttle free. Then he dropped the net at the sailors’ feet and walked away.

* * *

NEEL WAS SWEATY and his heart was beating with a fierce feeling when he pushed his way into the jungle that began not too far from the shore. A canopy of trees blocked the high noon sun, but the air was still heavy and hot.

By the time he reached the rows of coconut trees, Neel looked exactly as he’d hoped: like a grubby street boy looking for work.

In the palm trees overhead, light-limbed young men and women were climbing up the scaly bark to hack with knives at the coconuts, which fell to a soft landing of palm fronds littered over the moist jungle soil. In a small clearing, several shirtless men sat in front of mounds of hard coconuts, ripping off the brown fibers to toss them into a pile. Then the coconuts were broken open, their milky juice poured into one barrel, and the white meat chopped and tossed into another. Hiding behind a tree, Neel watched them for a while, and noticed that the men seemed to ask questions of the oldest one among them, whose long black and silver hair was tied back. He must be in charge, Neel decided, and approached him.

“Need a hand?” Neel asked. “I’m a good worker.”

The man paused, but the others barely glanced up as they continued to break open coconuts. “Maybe.” He peered at Neel. “Let’s have a look at you.” When he stood, he towered over Neel, and sized him up. “Hmm. We could use you in the trees. Can you climb?”

Neel laughed.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” The man rubbed his sun-lined cheek. He held Neel’s eyes, then said carefully, “What kind of pay are you looking for?”

“Whatever I can get.”

“Seeing as it’s your first day on the job, I’ve got little to offer. You can have flatbread, mustard seed chicken, and as much coconut milk as you can drink during your break, and as much milk as you can carry home at the end of the day. Fair?”

“Sure.”

The man handed him a knife. “I’m Shandor of the Ursari. You come see me when you’re done.”

“I’m Sid. Of the…” Neel paused, uncertain which tribe he should name. He didn’t think this man would be easily lied to.

“Don’t care what tribe you’re from. Just do your job.”

Neel shrugged and climbed the nearest tree.

It was peaceful high up, following the bend of the palm tree trunk into so much green. Green, green everywhere. Occasionally a parrot squawked its bright way out of a tree, but otherwise it was mostly quiet work, filled only by the rasp of Neel’s knife as he cut the coconuts, and the thud as they fell to the earth.

It was tiring work, too, and when Neel took his break he could barely muster the energy to ask the other Roma his seemingly innocent questions about how they liked working on the plantation. Answers were short, and no one mentioned the lease. Neel drank the sweet, thin coconut milk and swallowed his disappointment. There was no gossip for him here. Just hard work.

“Break’s over,” Shandor told him. “Back to the trees. Unless you feel like quitting?”

Neel scowled. He walked away and climbed another tree.

When he saw the sun bury itself somewhere in the thick green wilderness, Neel returned to the forest floor and admitted to himself that the day had been a waste. And—he remembered the crab-hunting Maraki—a disheartening waste, at that. He wasn’t even sure he’d be able to drag himself back to the city. Looking around at the plantation workers, who were collecting their pay (money, for some, milk for others), Neel figured they felt much the same way.

He stumbled past Shandor, who hefted a barrel full of coconut meat. “Sid,” the man called.

Neel turned.

“Do you like horses?”

Neel’s eyes lit up.

“Come along with me,” said Shandor.

It was a long walk down a path that cut through the jungle and finally opened onto a stretch of beach Neel had never seen before. The sand here was sugary white, and Neel was sure that if Tomik were here he’d faint with happiness to see sand so perfect for making glass.

Neel snorted, forgetting for a moment that Shandor was just ahead of him.

“You don’t like her?” Shandor said.

Neel looked up, confused, then shifted to see what the man was looking at, off in the distance, and which his broad body had blocked.

A sleek black horse. Standing, with trim legs, in front of a set of stables. Almost as if she knew Neel’s heart begged for it, she broke into a gallop, spurring herself across the beach with such swift speed that Neel couldn’t breathe.

“Ohhhh,” he said.

Shandor smiled then, his first smile for Neel. “There’s more where she came from,” he said, and led Neel to the stables.

Such horses. They couldn’t be real. They had to be prayers, Neel decided. They had to be what real horses prayed they could become.

“They’re half-breeds,” Shandor said. “Half Arabian, half wild Vatran.” He seemed to expect some kind of response.

“Uh-huh.” Neel nodded vaguely. He smoothed a hand down the gleaming brown nose of a horse leaning over its stable door.

“Why don’t you help me with this barrel, Sid. That is, if you can tear yourself away.”

With a backward, longing glance at the rows of horses, Neel helped the man lug the barrel into a room with horse tack on the walls and several people tipping barrels of coconut meat into a trough, where it was crushed with mallets and mixed with oats. “It’s called copra.” Shandor nodded at the mash in the trough. He hefted the barrel, and Neel reached inside to sweep the white hunks of coconut into the trough. “It’s what gives the horses their shiny coats and strong bones.” Shandor set the barrel down onto the floor and looked at him.

The realization struck Neel. Of course. This was why the Ursari wanted so badly to cling to the plantation. This was why they kept their reasons under wraps. The coconut meat was an Ursari trade secret, just like card tricks and sleights of hand were Lovari trade secrets.

Shandor turned and walked out the stable doors, leaving Neel standing there, perfectly still, as he listened to the thunk of mallets against the trough.

Why would Shandor share a trade secret with Neel—a perfect stranger from who knows what tribe? Why had this man singled him out?

Neel followed the man outside and found him waiting. He was leaning against the wooden stable wall as he watched the black horse gallop through a sunset that blanketed the beach with an orange, hazy glow.

“Why are you showing me all of this?” Neel asked the man.

“I decided it wasn’t a good idea to keep secrets from my king.”

Neel didn’t know what to say.

“I’ve been doing this”—Shandor waved a hand that seemed to include the stables, the horses, and even the jungle they could no longer see—“for ten years. In that time, you’re the only ruler to take an interest.”

“How did you know?” Neel found the words difficult to say. “How did you know who I am?”

Shandor looked him full in the face. “No one has eyes like yours.”

Neel studied Shandor as he looked away again to watch the horse. There was a soft expression on the man’s hard face. It was, Neel realized, pride. Shandor was looking at the black mare with pride. What would it take, Neel wondered, to make this man look at him like that? Neel was surprised by how much he wished he knew the answer.

22

A Vatran Ball

NEEL GUESSED that it was bound to happen sooner or later.

A palace dance.

There had been one already, to celebrate his coronation—and a stuffy bore that was, what with him having to stand still the entire time, accepting congratulations from people who almost choked on their fake, smiley words.

What really got under his skin was that, usually, he loved to dance. He loved beautifully cut silk shirts, and jewels, and music. The coronation ball should have delighted Neel, but instead it made him feel like someone had sprinkled his favorite foods with a bitter spice. The thought of yet another court ball made him resentful—and resentful of his own resentment.

He tried to distract himself by talking with Petra, but she was busy. Iris was preparing her and Tomik for the Academy exam and lecturing them about the etiquette of polite Bohemian society. She’s trying to iron out my country accent, Petra grumbled one afternoon in February. And make me take smaller steps. This is stupid.

Now you know how I feel, Neel said. He was in the library, trying to work on his reading skills without Nadia’s help. It hadn’t been going well.