Disclaimer: I am not Tamora Pierce, only a devoted fan. the characters and setting are all hers, but the plot is mine (a little bit belongs to my sister, Sir Gwydion).

Sir Gwydion and I have switched our usual roles for this story, I as fledgling writer, and she as my editor of little experience. Reserve judgment on me for the time being, and we'll see how we get along.

Lizzy, The Ink Stained Quill


There is something wrong in Tortall.

Everyone knows it, can hear it in the hushed whispers, in the quiet streets, in the wind that barely stirs my dust spinners at their corners. Can hear it in the one word on everyone in Corus's lips : war.

The trouble with Scanra started not so very long ago, when King Roger sent his ambassadors, and they never came back. Not a word has been heard from the Scanrans since that day, but folk say that the Spymaster's men have been in and out and heard some queer things whilst they were about it.

Beacause of all the ill feeling toward Scanra, Rosto has been having trouble keeping the Rogue in order. He recieves at least one challenge every day, and on one, I'll never forget, seven. He never goes anywhere alone anymore, nor will he be able to until things settle down. It is hard on us all, having to watch our backs lest we be damned by association. It is both easier and harder for me. Easier, cause I'm a Dog, and there for not considered to be in with the Rats, and harder, cause Rosto never kept it a secret that he'd drop all his other mots for me, were I to give him the smallest hint that I wanted to start that sort of going-on with him. Much as I sometimes wish that I could do just that, I have a duty to the Kingdom, and too, he's a rusher. I swore to myself the day mama died that I would never go with a rusher, and end up with the lung rot, like she did.

Goodwin says that I'm doing the right thing, and Tunstall too. Ordinarily I wouldn't have talked to my Dogs about sommat like this, but Goodwin has a way of barking questions at you, and it doesn't matter if you answer or not, as she can tell right off by the look on your face, and one day she did just that to me, asking, all sharp, what was going on between me and the Rogue.

There is also more crime and murder and theft then I have ever seen. When I asked him, Tunstall said it was the talk of impending war that set everything on it ears. "Folk go a little mad when there's a war on," he told me. "The way they see it, its only so long before they get sent off with the army, so that had best get all the living they can done while they may."

Even my fool cat has decide to get on with things right quickly. Pounce has a lady-cat that sometime goes off with him to yowl or chase mice, or sommat. Whenever I ask him, he only nudges me with his nose and says that if I want to hear about romantic exploits, I had best find someone who wants to share, or have my own. Whenever he says this, I lift him off my lap and glare at him and tell him he knows full well I don't have the time for that sort of thing right now. He only laughs his cat-laugh and purrs and rubs himself against me till he is forgiven and I am grinning like a looby.

We had had just such an encounter not five minutes past when I heard a knock at my door and--

To be continued . . .