The Olive Conspiracy Read online

  The Olive Conspiracy

  Mangoverse 4

  by Shira Glassman

  The Olive Conspiracy

  By Shira Glassman

  Copyright 2016 by Shira Glassman

  Smashwords Edition

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

  Torquere Press Publishers

  P.O. Box 37, Waldo, AR 71770

  The Olive Conspiracy by Shira Glassman Copyright 2016

  Editor, Jaymi Lynn

  Cover by BS Clay

  Published with permission

  www.torquerepress.com

  ISBN: 978-1-944449-78-0

  All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law. For information address Torquere Press, LLC, P.O. Box 37, Waldo, AR 71770

  First Torquere Press Printing: July 2016

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1. In the Sukkah

  2. The Little Green Spy

  3. Imbrio in Mourning

  4. Queen Carolina

  5. The Map

  6. Agent of the Crown

  7. The Kiss of Your Land

  8. Mi Shebeirach

  9. Hadar and Halleli

  10. Abscheid und Feuerzauber

  11. A Night for Heroes

  12. Turning the Tabletop

  13. Little Stories

  14. A Royal Pain in the Throat

  15. Six Weeks Shy of Seventeen

  16. En Bateau

  17. Sabbath Blessings

  18. A Woman Worth Daydreaming About

  19. State’s Evidence

  20. The Conspirators

  21. The Raid

  22. The Letter from Imbrio

  23. The Pale Queen

  24. Grandmother Swan

  25. Dragon and Dragonfly

  26. Time of Rededication

  DEDICATION

  For Rania, who got me through my own “awkward crushing on straight girls” teenage years with sisterly friendship and loyalty.

  Also dedicated in memory of my perfect grandparents. May all my readers be so lucky as to have family like them.

  The Olive Conspiracy

  by Shira Glassman

  When Ezra tries to blackmail Chef Yael about being trans, she throws him out of her restaurant and immediately reports him to the queen. But when police find Ezra stabbed to death, Queen Shulamit realizes he may have also tried to extort someone more dangerous than a feisty old lady.

  Shulamit’s royal investigation leads her to an international terrorist plot to destroy her country’s economy—and worse, her first love, Crown Princess Carolina of Imbrio, may be involved. Since she’s got a dragon-shifting wizard at her disposal, contacts with friendly foreign witches, and the support of her partner Aviva, Shulamit has hope. What she doesn’t have is time.

  A love story between wives, between queen and country, and between farmers and the crops they grow.

  1. In the Sukkah

  Queen Shulamit’s sukkah was everything you’d expect a queen’s sukkah to be. The lush foliage that made up its roof represented the best the capital, Home City, had to offer. Its bamboo walls were reassuringly sturdy, while still fulfilling the prescribed rules about being obviously temporary.

  Inside, the woman herself sat on a chair made of a piece of thick cloth slung between more bamboo. She’d turned it into a makeshift throne so that in her typical workaholic fashion, she could continue to receive subjects and conduct business during the holiday. She was still human enough, though, to have her feet up in front of her on a stool, and she was using a metal straw to slurp the juice from a scalped coconut.

  “Now this is a throne.” She grinned at her bodyguard.

  The hulking blonde beside her stretched her muscular arms forward and then relaxed. “Nu? What’s stopping you from holding court outside whenever you want? Aren’t you queen?”

  “Have to save some things for the holidays or they won’t be special anymore,” Shulamit pointed out. “Besides, I’d feel bad if I abandoned that priceless work of art I usually perch on.” Even after having a baby her tiny body still only took up half her father’s throne, but that left a conveniently clear view of the carvings of fruit, representing the country’s agricultural riches, that adorned most of the giant wooden chair.

  “This would probably get old anyway,” Rivka admitted as she wiped sweat away beneath the cloth mask that covered the lower half of her face. “I mean, yes, we have shade, but there are still between those palm fronds bits of sunlight—”

  “There are supposed to be bits of sunlight,” Shulamit reminded her. “And I guess I’m supposed to see the next person in line. Who’s there?”

  Rivka stepped out into the sun momentarily and returned leading an older woman. She was tall and thin and bony with age. On the hips of her gold tunic Shulamit recognized kitchen stains, a familiar sight since Shulamit’s partner was also her personal chef. “Aren’t you…?”

  “Yael, Majesty. I own the Frangipani Table.”

  “Yes, that’s right.” Shulamit didn’t frequent her capital city’s restaurants the way she did all the other local businesses, due to a bewildering series of digestive sensitivities that only her sweetheart respected enough to navigate. “Here, have a shake.”

  She handed over her lulav.

  Yael took the bouquet of myrtle, willow, and palm from her, waved it around perfunctorily, then gave it back, her eyes darting around the sukkah, peering at its inhabitants. “Majesty, I’m sorry, I know it’s the middle of Sukkot, but I couldn’t wait. I’m just so angry; I had to report him right away.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Someone tried to blackmail me this morning.”

  Shulamit lifted an eyebrow. “I’m sorry you had to sit through that. Who was it?”

  “Some fool named Ezra. Came into my restaurant this morning and demanded I give him enough money to pay his next week’s rent or else he’d cause me no amount of mischief.”

  “What, he threatened to vandalize the restaurant?”

  “Well, no, not that.” Yael craned her neck, peering around the outside of the sukkah, then dropped her voice. “My husband and I owned the restaurant together, but he died over the summer.”

  “I heard about that. I’m sorry,” said Shulamit. “May his memory be blessed.”

  “Thank you, Majesty,” said Yael. “His sisters would love to get their hands on the restaurant, the farm, and any other property we shared as a couple. Ezra threatened to go to my sisters-in-law and tell them that our marriage wasn’t legal so they could swoop in and take my restaurant.”

  Shulamit rolled the edges of her filmy white scarf between her thumb and forefinger. “I take it he was wrong, and you did have a legal marriage, or you wouldn’t be coming here telling me this.”

  “Better than that,” said Yael, standing up a little straighter. Shulamit noticed she was almost as tall as Rivka but had been slouching all of her weight on one hip. “When he died he left a very clear will, leaving all his property to me by name, and not just my name now, but the boy’s name they gave me when I was born. Ha! So there’s nothing those two old bats can do.”

  Shulamit was surprised to hear the part about Yael’s former name, but she hid it with practiced ease. She admired the way the woman spat out such private details so casually. “That was really clever!”

  “As if we’d leave something like that up to chance.” Yael let out a delicate s
niff that reminded Shulamit of a sulking cat. “Who does he think we are?”

  “I’m glad you came here to report this,” said Shulamit, “but unless he comes back and bothers you again, it may be difficult for us to prove anything and arrest him.”

  “Well, he doesn’t need to be running around Home City bothering people, so…” Yael was clearly trying to be as respectful as possible of her sovereign queen, but the agitated hands she held in front of her shook with repressed irritation.

  Shulamit licked her lips. “How did it end with him? Did you flat-out tell him you wouldn’t pay him?”

  Yael considered this for a moment. “I don’t think so. I think I just told him to get out of my restaurant before I decided he was on the lunch menu, and not to come back.”

  “Did he say anything after that?”

  “Said… he said I’d come around, that ‘people always do,’—” Yael huffed “—and that I knew where he lived when I was ready to send for him. Dung beetle,” she added under her breath.

  “So as far as he knows, you might still ‘come around,’” said the queen.

  “I am not—”

  Shulamit held up her hand. “No, no, I know. I just have an idea. How we might be able to trap him into giving himself away in front of the authorities.”

  “I’m up for anything.”

  “Are you willing to wear a lizard?”

  “What?”

  There was a rustling noise from the vicinity of Rivka’s shoulder, where a nondescript green lizard was crawling out from the thick, bushy golden straw of her hair. It stopped when it was sitting smack in the middle of her leather tunic.

  Yael yelped loudly. “What the fuck is that? Oh, I’m sorry, Your Majesty.” After jumping back, she quickly composed herself and now covered her mouth with embarrassment as she tried to recover from swearing in front of the queen.

  “Sorry; they’re sort of a matched set,” Shulamit murmured as the lizard scampered to the ground and began to transform.

  Soon, an impossibly tall, blond man with a healthy stomach to match his broad shoulders stood with them in the sukkah. “I am deeply sorry, Yael,” he said in a rich and chocolatey voice with a heavy accent that matched Rivka’s. “I never intended to startle you.”

  “You know Isaac, right?” Shulamit smiled, and hoped as usual that it looked more like a smile than a grimace, but knew that it probably didn’t.

  “I thought you were a dragon,” said Yael. Her wide eyes and stiffened muscles showed that she hadn’t entirely relaxed, even though her tone was more comfortable around Isaac’s human form than the lizard. “What happened? Skip breakfast?”

  “I have… other abilities,” was Isaac’s only explanation.

  “I take it from your reaction that it might be a little uncomfortable for you to sneak him into your shirt, then?” Shulamit was thinking furiously, trying to come up with another idea.

  “Nah, I’ll… I’ll deal.” Yael didn’t look thrilled, but her features were softening. “Your Majesty, I’m sorry, but I didn’t know he was there when I told you all of that. It’s all very personal, as you can imagine. Is anyone else hiding in here, if a commoner has a right to ask?”

  Shulamit shook her head. “Not unless Captain Riv’s hair counts as a whole second guard.”

  “I should braid it like yours for a day, see if your subjects can tell us apart,” quipped the captain, who was several shades lighter and nine inches taller.

  Shulamit was pleased to see that Rivka’s quip loosened Yael’s tense shoulders and made her smirk. “But, really,” she continued, “I’m sorry about the breach of privacy. Isaac’s the only one of him around here, we swear, and we also swear that you can trust him. I trust him with my life, in fact. And I’m flattered and gratified that you trust me. What made you trust me with something like that, by the way?”

  Yael looked her over with large, frank brown eyes. “Riv trusts you. And I guess with someone like you trusting Isaac, he must be the real deal.” This last sentence was directed at Rivka, a woman who was content to let most of the kingdom mistake her for male to avoid prejudice against women soldiers. Yael turned her attention back toward the queen. “And of course, if it’s okay for me to mention, you’re a little unconventional yourself, right? I mean, you and the cook—”

  “I wish more people would mention it,” Shulamit groused. “We should be recognized like any other family, without me having to make some kind of big announcement in my Rosh Hashanah speech or something.”

  “Oh, well, that’s good, then!” Yael put her hands on her hips. “But, honestly, most of it? Most of it is just that I’m too pissed off and insulted to give a rat’s ass. I’m too old, and I’ve worked too hard to be talked to that way. He needs to learn a lesson, and I almost taught it to him with one of my wooden spoons!”

  “I’d have liked to see that,” rumbled Isaac.

  “Here’s the plan,” explained the queen. “You’ll send for Ezra, and make him think you’re ready to play his game. When he comes to see you, Isaac will be hiding somewhere in your clothes. That way, a representative of the Royal Guard will be witness to his crimes.” Isaac wasn’t technically a member of the Guard himself, but as its captain’s husband, and the orphaned queen’s surrogate father, he was definitely attached to it somehow even if nobody was sure what his rank really was.

  “He has to be in my shirt?”

  “Your hair isn’t big and wild like Captain Riv’s, soooo…”

  Rivka tossed her head, sending the thick, golden mess everywhere.

  “I understand your discomfort, but I promise he’s a gentleman,” Shulamit added.

  Yael smirked a little. “It’s not that. I’ve got forty years of practice with men in my shirt. I’m just not wild about lizards.”

  Shulamit’s eyes flashed over to Isaac, but he was smirking. She reached into a small silk purse that rested beside her in the seat. It matched her violet clothes. “Here, take this,” she said, placing a single coin into Yael’s hand. “Send a messenger to his house and tell him to come and see you tomorrow morning before the restaurant opens.”

  Yael nodded. “Yes, Majesty.”

  “Isaac will be there at sunrise.”

  “If he shows up too early, I might put him to work shelling nuts,” Yael quipped. “I mean, he does magic, right?”

  “You can pay me in rugelach,” Isaac murmured.

  “Thank you for this, Majesty,” said Yael, serious again. She took Shulamit’s hand in both of hers and venerated it a little. “He can’t do much to me, but that’s only because we already thought of this.” She shook her head. “Someone else in my position—some other woman might have secrets… beast. He’s a beast.”

  “It’s the only way I know how to rule,” Shulamit replied. “Do my best to take care of everybody. Otherwise, why would I deserve this pretty new dress?”

  “Oh, is it new? I love it,” said Yael. “Love the lilac.” Half of Shulamit’s wardrobe was either pink or lilac, but this outfit was new off Aviva’s father’s sewing bench, and particularly beautiful. “Will Isaac turn human again and arrest him once he has the proof you’re looking for?”

  Shulamit nodded. “That’s the idea. Thank you for bringing this to the crown’s attention, Yael! We’re lucky you’re in a position to help us stop him.”

  Yael smiled and bowed slightly. On her way out of the sukkah, she nearly collided with Rivka’s mother Mitzi, whose arms were full of the infant princess.

  “Baby!” Shulamit lifted both arms and accepted her little girl into her lap. She bounced her up and down, then moved the lulav into one of her tiny hands. “Can you shake it? Shake shake?” She left the etrog in her lap so things wouldn’t get too fiddly.

  “Was that a man?” Mitzi asked her daughter in a stage whisper, peering outside the sukkah.

  “No,” said Rivka in passionless deadpan.

  Heat sprang into Shulamit’s cheeks, but one couldn’t really expect anything different from Mitzi. She forgot
her embarrassment as she pressed her lips to the side of her daughter’s forehead. “Om nom nom,” she mumbled. “Baby for dessert.”

  “I think I’ll go to the market and look at fans,” said Mitzi idly. “The new year’s designs should be in by now.”

  “Could you please stop by Aviva’s kitchen on the way out and ask her to bring me a snack?” Shulamit fiddled with her clothing to give Princess Naomi access to her breast.

  “What do you want?” Mitzi asked.

  “Oh, she’ll surprise me with something good.” Shulamit smiled. “She’s in charge of the royal stomach for a reason.” Aviva was in charge of the royal heart too, for a better reason.

  “See everybody later!” Mitzi was gone, in a whirl of extremely fashionable clothing.

  “I think you care about snacks just as much as I care about buying myself a ball gown,” quipped Rivka. “You just want to see Aviva.”

  “It’s not like you’re wrong, but that’s funny coming from the person whose husband literally rides around on her shoulder all day,” Shulamit retorted, a sassy gleam in her eyes.

  Isaac lifted an eyebrow. “It’s only fair, considering how often it’s the other way around when I’m a dragon.”

  “She’s latched,” Shulamit announced, looking up from her daughter. “Who’s next out there?”

  Rivka left the sukkah to go check, and Isaac resumed his lizard form. He was sitting on top of the queen’s head doing a very bad impression of a fascinator when the captain returned, leading two men.

  “Season’s greetings, Majesty,” said one of the men. The other one simply bowed.

  Shulamit’s arms were around the baby, so she couldn’t offer the lulav. But she nodded back at them in response and gave them a serene half smile. “How did the trials work out? Was the new variety of melon resistant to the blight?”

  “Moderate success, Majesty,” said the one who had already spoken. “The fruit are smaller, and the yield isn’t quite where we want it. But the blight only sort of… annoys it, rather than choking it off.”