The Wheel of Fortune Never Stops Turning

Last night Queen Amalia’s string of bad luck culminated in an unfortunate sneeze at the exactly wrong moment. The guards at the checkpoint found her hiding under a tangle of nets in a fisherman’s boat. They seized her, tying her arms behind her back, and marching her across the beach and into the jungle. To me.

“Where is she now?” I ask Kacee. She’s brought me the news during my morning walk on the highest terrace; the only space that pierces the rainforest’s emergent layer. The children sit with their nanny on the glass floor, watching the monkeys that play in the trees below. Here, above the canopy, is the only place in the palace where I can feel the sun on my skin. It is hot and humid, but soothing nonetheless. 

“Queen Amalia is in the military stalls, Your Highness.”

The situation is too perfect, really. Like me, she comes from the Eastern Isle where every day is blue sky and at night you can lie on the ground and watch the moon wax and wane. The Southern Isle is mostly rainforest and here, our feet rarely touch the ground. Amalia will be in the under canopy where the foliage is thick and the bugs are thicker.  

“Let’s go to her,” I say. 

We climb swinging ladders from one floor to the other, lower and lower.

Kacee climbs a few feet below me. “There’s other news: an emissary from the north island is set to arrive tomorrow. And with the king absent, the finance minister requests your approval to initiate surveillance of the casino.”

“Have the staff drape and net my terrace tomorrow night.” As I speak, I take in the servants on the main floor as they replace mosquito netting and trim branches that have protruded into the halls. “I will receive him on the terrace. And tell the minister to go right ahead but I expect my own game not to be disrupted.”

We walk onto a long suspension bridge that connects the palace proper to the military block. We climb down another ladder, then another, as the light disappears above the trees. Here the howler monkeys’ menacing calls are strong and the light is so dim, danger could lurk in any corner.

“Wait for me,” I say when we are standing in front of Amalia’s cell. I pluck a torch from the sconce on the banister.

She is something of a pitiful figure sitting on a rickety bench in the cell, staring at the ground. The scent of fish oil emanating from her skin is overwhelming. Even her hair is soaked in it: forming slick clumps and disgustingly wet strands. To think I’d spent hours as a young girl trying to make my hair as perfect and curly as hers. 

She looks up. “Hello, Livvy.”

“You mean ‘Your Highness.’”

“Oh Livvy,” Amalia says. “I didn’t expect to see you here. I thought your husband didn’t like you involving yourself in politics.”

The way she speaks makes me feel small, as it always has. “You’re a prisoner, not a political matter anymore. And I am regent while the King is away. He’s on his way to the Eastern Isle, in fact, establishing diplomatic relations with the rebels who took your throne. Or have you forgotten?”

She stands up in a hurry. “You wouldn’t – you can’t acknowledge them as the leaders of our country.”

“Don’t be naive,” I snap. “Of course we can.”

“They’re murderers.”

I shrug. “The only person they executed was the king.”

“My husband! And they were going to kill the rest of us too until I…”

“So?”

“You grew up on the island.” Her voice is tight. “We were allies.”

“Indeed.” And maybe I’m taking too much delight in it now. “Just like we were allies during the pirate war, right?”

A decade ago, when I was pregnant with our first princess, we suffered a horrible attack from the pirates. Amos and I fled to a battleship with only a few young servants to steer us to safety. We sailed to the Eastern Isle, our ally, hoping for refuge, hoping for a partner in beating back the invaders. Queen Amalia and King Frankut refused to receive us, refused even to let us land on the Eastern Isle to replenish our supplies. They were in a time of splendor, yet our pleas for food and fresh water and sailors were ignored. If it wasn’t for my family on the island who were still loyal to me, we might’ve starved or capsized before we found safety.

“You can’t blame me for that,” she shouts. “If we’d backed you, the pirates would have come for us next!”

“I was pregnant. We needed food!” 

“I have four children in terrible danger right as we speak.”

Her four children versus the three in my nursery. She had an heir, a spare, and an extra right out the gate. I only had girls. I was jealous of her good fortune, once. 

“Well.” I feel like I am giving something to her. I don’t know if she deserves it. “Your little princes and princess aren’t here. We haven’t found them. Whatever sanctuary you’ve arranged for them, it seems like they might make it.”

I see her exhale. Something roars in me. She does not get to feel relief here. 

I slap her across the face. She stumbles back a step. I’ve brought tears to her eyes with the sting. There is a very satisfying red spot on her cheek.

“The king is away.” I remind her. “And you are not Queen Amalia here. You are Mia Eades and I am the girl whose future you nearly ruined. Three. Times.” 

If only I’d known this was coming at nineteen, when she very nearly sabotaged my engagement to Amos. I would’ve cried fewer tears. I would’ve known the tide would turn in my favour.

“It’s up to me to decide what to do with you,” I say. “I get to decide how long you sit in this dirty, sunless cell. I decide what food you eat and what clothes you’re given. I’ll choose when it’s time to transport you back to the Eastern Isle. Amos and I will bargain with them. We’ll become their strongest ally when we return their escaped ex-queen. And we’ll let the rebels deal with you. How does that sound, Mia?”

I expect her to beg.

She does not.

She stares back at me, her eyes defiant and proud. “We will take back the island still.”

“Right.” I laugh. “Four children under age eleven being smuggled through the archipelago. You in my prison smelling of rotten fish. Naivete doesn’t look good on you, Mia. The Eastern Isle is gone.” 

“It is not,” she whispers. “Livvy, give me asylum.”

“No.”

“Please.”

And suddenly we’re both on our feet again and I am right in her face. “You aren’t in any position to play games. If you want me to even consider asylum, you’d better beg for it.”

She smirks. “Beg for sanctuary? Like you begged me on the eve of your engagement?” Her lips are on my ear. “On my knees in front of you. Like that?”

My legs are shaking and my body is humming and I hate her. I did plead with her that night, the night before Amos proposed. I begged her not to tell a secret, and instead she gave me another secret to keep. 

This is my victory and I am going to take it. I stride out of the stall, pulling myself from her and slamming the door behind me. “With our history, I suggest you choose a God and start praying to them. The transport will come for you at my whim. I’ll ask the captain to use gentle ropes when she ties you up in the brig. Have a nice life, Amalia. Or whatever’s left of it.”

#

In the evening, I visit the casino in the village. It, too, is above ground, suspended in the underlayer. Under a roof of wood slabs and palm fronds, men and women try their luck at card tables in the open air. The bright torches and lanterns discourage wildlife from coming too close, but occasionally someone’s chips are stolen by a greedy monkey. No one is compensated for these losses. They’ve chosen to play a game of chance, after all.

I sit down at my usual table with the handsome dealer who knows to bring me fresh lemon juice and vodka between each round.

“The same?” He says.

I nod. “And keep my beverage full. I’m celebrating tonight.”

Before I was queen, I played cards all night: poker, dice, euchre, anything with anyone. Now I play only with Handsome. And Amos doesn’t like it when women play dice or poker. So our game is simple: Handsome lays out fifteen cards. We each choose three. We flip them over and whoever has the better hand wins. 

“I hear the finance minister is going to investigate us,” Handsome says as he executes shuffling tricks in an attempt to impress me.

Or distract me as he fishes for information about his casino.

“Interesting,” I say.

The moment I say it, someone yells from the other side of the room. “It’s fixed!” A patron shoves his table onto its side. Chips and coins roll in every direction, many slipping through the gaps in the floorboards.  “Five times I’ve rolled the same!”

“Excuse me,” Handsome says. 

He is gone quickly, yelling for the patron to be quiet. And in his place, as quickly as if he’d been waiting in line, a young boy with a pointy face and rosy cheeks slides in. “Pick a card, miss.” He holds out a ratty deck. 

“These aren’t playing cards,” I say. This is ridiculous. Shouldn’t there be some security? Twelve year old boys are not allowed to approach the queen like this. I doubt he knows who I am, and that makes it worse. 

“No charge,” the boy says. “Pick a card, miss.”

I glance over my shoulder. Handsome and two dealers are arguing with the patron. Another man has leaned over to get involved. It seems as if Handsome is restraining someone. The dealers yell. 

I look back at the boy. “I don’t believe in Tarot.”

He gets an impish look on his face. What’s the harm? His eyes seem to say. It’s a dare.

And maybe I’m in a good mood. Amalia’s transport back to the Eastern Isle will all but assure our alliance with the new insurrectionist government. Even better, the scales will finally be even between Mia and I. Her three betrayals on one side, my politically savvy move on the other. 

I pull a card from the deck, slamming it onto the table. “There. Leave me be.”

But the boy is looking at the card. “Major arcana,” he says. “The wheel of fortune.”

The phrase sounds familiar. On instinct, I look down. The image is merely a circle drawn in a thin black line. The circle is covered with esoteric symbols. Eight lines stem from the center, reaching for the edges. 

The boy leans forward, pointing at the largest two symbols. “See the figures of the sphinx and the dog? One represents the gods and one the underworld. They are bound to the circle, rotating forever in a cycle. As one goes up, the other comes down.”

“I don’t believe in fortune telling,” I say. Even so, something about this makes me uneasy.

“It is a reminder that change is coming. Always coming.” He pokes his finger into the air in front of him. He draws a wheel in the nothingness; the path from high to low. “This card reminds us luck is as cyclical as the waning and waxing of the moon.”

“But good luck or bad luck? What does it predict?” I am suddenly thinking of the bellows in the battleship during the pirate war. I remember shivering in the cold as we stole past a pirate boat, feeling a terror so acute I could hardly think. I was starving, clothes wet, muscles weak, my belly protruding in front of me. 

Someone is shouting. “You! Brat! Away from that table!”

The boy sweeps the cards into his hands and flashes me a devilish grin. “The wheel of fortune,” he says. “It never stops turning.”

He disappears as quickly as he came and Handsome settles back at our table. “Sorry, Your Highness. The troublemakers have been removed. Shall we continue?”

He chooses a card and flips it. A king.

I choose my card. A two.

He flips. A queen. 

I flip. Five.

He flips. Ace.

I flip. Joker.

“Ah,” Handsome laughs, making a note on our score sheet with charcoal. “Bad luck, Your Highness. Another round?”

I stare at him.  

Luck. Fate. A wheel that never stops turning.

I’m thinking, not paying him any attention. The pirate war was bad luck but we came out of it strong. Now there are the children. What luck should fall to them? My eldest child, what might become of her?

I know what to do. I snatch up what I need from the table, signal Kacee, and rush back to the stalls.

This time, I give Kacee my torch and bring her into the cell with me. Mia is on the wood floor, asleep, her body curved in a C. I nudge her awake with my foot. 

“What?” Mia sits up in a panic. “Who? Is it time? Are you taking me back?”

Now I see the fear in her eyes. Here, in the late night, barely awake, here is her vulnerability. This is what I’ve been waiting for. This is the feeling of power I wanted.

I sit down across from her with my legs folded over each other. I hold up a coin so she can see clearly what it is. I place it between us. Her eyes are wild, looking from me to Kacee to the dark jungle beyond the wall.

“Sit up properly,” I say. 

We sit queen to queen with legs crossed as if we are in primary school. One of us in rags, the other in fine, lightweight silk. Our faces are lit by flickering flames. Sometimes she is in shadow. Sometimes in light. Both of us on the ground, equals. 

“You’re going to flip this coin,” I tell her. “If it lands face-up, I will put you in the convoy bound for the Eastern Isle at dawn.”

“And if it lands on the insignia?”

I look her straight in the eye. “We will let you leave and put you in fate's hands. And in my debt.”

Her hands are already shaking.

“Ma’am…” Kacee says from behind me. No doubt she sees this as sadistic, leaving it to chance, making Mia flip the coin herself. 

“Silence, Kacee.”

Mia’s eyes still dart like an animal on the lookout for predators. I can tell she is hoping for me to say ‘just kidding.’ I do not. Queens don’t joke and she should know it. She has no fighting words now. Mia Eades has finally been bested. 

A long time seems to pass before she finally picks up the coin. She is blinking quickly, trying to hold tears back. Finally, with quick and jerky movement, the way needle inoculations are delivered, she tosses it in the air. 

The coin lands on the dusty plank of wood between us. Mia isn’t looking. I can see the light of the torch flashing in Kacee’s eyes.

“Insignia,” I say. 

Mia breathes in something like a sob. As I get to my feet, she looks up at me, still frightened. She doesn’t think I’ll honour the deal. She’s afraid to ask.

I pull a knife from my waistband. “Take this.” I shove it in her hand as she gets to her feet.

She’s holding the knife in front of her in shock.

“Kacee,” I say. “Give her your torch.”

I guide Mia to the threshold of the cell. “You won’t be bothered as far as the river. Once you reach it, it’s up to you to find your way out of the jungle. No one will know you were here.”

She tucks the knife into a pocket of her rags. “Livvy…”

I reach out and run my hand along the side of her face, smoothing her greasy hair. She inhales sharply as if this touch is intimate.

I take my hand away. “Go.” 

Her eyes find mine one more time and then she runs. Her bare feet slap against the wood and then fade. The light from the torch is gone, leaving us in darkness. 

Kacee still stands beside me. “Ma’am, the king…”

“Will never know.” What was one more secret, after all? Mia and I already shared so many.

She is quiet for a moment, then Kacee presses the coin back into my hand. “Your Highness, this coin is from the casino.”

“It is.”

“But the coins there, they’re rigged. The minister is investigating it. They always fall on…”

“I know,” I say. I flip it again in my hand, knowing it will land on the insignia again.

I can’t see her face, but I can tell she is bewildered, her youth shining through. I allow myself a single moment of motherly affection. I smooth back her hair in a very different way than I’d done to Mia. I smile to myself. There are three little princesses in my nursery, but I have four children. Kacee does not know. Banished Queen Amalia of the Eastern Isles is the only one in the world who could possibly guess it. 

“Let’s fetch some juice and sit on my terrace together tonight,” I say. “Have you ever seen a full moon?”