Frederic approved my actions and said he would have a formal announcement and map drawn up to be distributed to each of the caravans.
Two days later we rode out. The night before, Frederic, Cassian, Celine and I gathered as we generally did. Only this time our small group was enlarged by the presence of Tillie. The caravan master’s daughter would be riding on with the Tour along with a small contingent of traders, her handmaidens of a sort. I knew her father had wanted her to stay with them to travel to Lanare, but she had refused to be parted from Cassian.
“This rebellion must be stopped, and soon,” said Cassian, his voice hard, but his arm gentle around his betrothed’s shoulder.
Frederic nodded. “Everywhere we’ve gone, they’ve attempted to wreak chaos and destruction, undermining the crown’s control. And always they’ve striven to make someone else appear the villain. But none of the communities we’ve visited have been responsible. No, the center of all this still lies ahead.”
“Largo.” I said, and it wasn’t a question. Somehow I had always known—from the moment I had agreed to this trip and long before I heard the itinerary. I was returning to where it had all begun.
Part III
Largo and Home
Chapter 24
The traders brought their full caravan to the town east of Largo where they had left the rest of their people. Many times on our journey I heard the murmured words of relief that the most vulnerable among the traders had not been present for the attack. But our arrival at the town that hosted them drained us all, our grief resurfacing as we broke the terrible news to those waiting and expecting a joyful reunion with their caravan.
The entire caravan would have accompanied us on to Largo, but Frederic refused the gesture. “Stay here, grieve, care for your wounded. We need only two strings to carry our baggage.”
And so we were a greatly reduced group when we reached the gates of Largo, the great jungle city of the south. Largo perched like a jewel between the desert, the jungle, and the sea, the one large city where the caravans would go. Built on Largo Bay with its deep-water port, the trading hub had become the center of the south. It was here I had been born.
Many people loved the diverse community that called Largo home, but I had always been more interested in the varied styles of clothing they brought with them. Every design known in the kingdoms seemed to walk these streets, a beautiful counterpoint to the bright colors of the northern jungle which still flourished here, giving a vibrant edge to even the most mundane aspects of life. It had been a shock to me when I eventually discovered that it was only in Largo, alone in Lanover, that pale-skinned northerners were almost as common a sight as the darker-skinned locals and that desert traders mixed freely with city-dwellers. Apparently its remote position at almost the southern-most tip of the Four Kingdoms suggested adventure and freedom to many. But I had not found freedom here.
Riding through the eastern gates felt more like a homecoming than any other arrival of our journey. And yet the city looked unfamiliar, too. I had grown accustomed, it turned out, to the lower level of moisture in the air in Lanare and to the constant sight of reddish sandstone that dominated the capital. Lanare had an almost dusty feeling that Largo lacked, but the air didn’t attempt to stifle me with every breath.
The royals had been provided camels to ride as well as the animals carrying the baggage, but everyone had elected to enter the city on foot. I suspected they wished to avoid a spectacle after all the trouble with the rebels. My eyes roamed restlessly around the streets as we walked, sub-consciously looking for familiar faces as I spied familiar streets and buildings. But I had left Largo at the age of nine. The faces I had known best then had likely changed beyond recognition by now, their owners grown to adulthood, as had I.
We made straight for the governor’s mansion at the center of the city, a building I had never before entered. Being ushered through its double doors alongside royalty felt so intensely surreal that for a moment I wondered if the last months had truly been only a dream, and I would wake to find myself back in my bed in Lanare.
But no such awakening occurred. Instead I was treated to a welcome feast, and the seemingly endless ramblings of the governor who expressed over and over again his shock at the recent attack and his assurance that the princes’ messages to their father would be delivered with the swiftest haste. It came back to me with blinding clarity that the man had always been unsuited for his role. A bureaucrat when a true leader was needed to hold sway over such a large and diverse populace. He had no doubt received the role because his father had held it before him and his father before that. And the earls of Largo had always been unswervingly loyal to the crown. So while their noble position didn’t necessitate their receiving the role of governor, it seemed it had always been so.
I sighed and pushed my food away. It frightened me how quickly I slipped into the mindset of a Largoan, laughing at the inadequacies of the governor and seeing the crown as something distant and foreign. Here, perhaps more than anywhere else, I would have to watch my step.
Frederic and Cassian would have filled the next day with meetings, but Celine insisted we all needed to visit the market.
“We spent a few hours there last year when I came here with Rafe and Celeste,” she said, naming her third brother and middle sister. “But we hardly had any time in Largo. It was incredible, though!” She rounded on me. “Tell them, Evie!”
I smiled. “It’s true that even locals love the markets.” The governor’s mansion might be the geographical center of the city, but its true heart was the nearby marketplace, bigger than any other I had seen since.
“These meetings are important,” Cassian reminded his sister. I suspected his reluctance might have something to do with Tillie who was occupied at the mansion for the day with the small number of Traders who had accompanied us and who would leave the next day to escort the two strings of camels back to the rest of the caravan.
She put her hands on her hips. “And the markets aren’t? You heard what Evie said of them. You should be thinking more like Celeste.”
An expression of consternation crossed his face at the mention of their sister who had been gifted with exceptional intelligence and used it to develop an expertise in spy craft, among other things. He glanced at Frederic.
“Perhaps she’s right,” said Frederic. “We might learn more among the people than we will among the governor and his men.”
When I rolled my eyes without thinking at the mention of the governor, he looked at me thoughtfully. “Yes, I think we had best visit the markets after all.”
I insisted we go at the time of the midday meal since the food stalls sold as broad a range of delicacies as were represented by Largo’s people. My favorites, however, were the succulent skewers of meat cooked with a blend of local spices. That stall had always been the most popular at the market.
Relief filled me to see it was still there, and no one protested when I suggested we eat first and nose around after. And with the smells of my chosen stall filling the surrounding area, no one protested my choice of food, either.