“Yes, Domon.”
“Now that your father is the general in command of the Royal Army, you must call me ‘steward,’ Doma. To call me ‘domon’ is to suggest I outrank you, which I do not.”
My surprise must register on my face.
He adds, “Despite your irregular birth, you are the general’s daughter. His position must never be called into question, so therefore you must never be seen to be a lesser person than those who serve him.”
“Even though I am a mule.”
“The general has always made it clear he will not tolerate any use of that word among his household.”
The weary soldiers stride with renewed determination as the news filters back along their seemingly endless column that Lord Prince Captain Kalliarkos has won a victory and now leads the Royal Army. The sun is halfway up the sky before Haredas and I reach the last wagons and the rearmost unit. I shade my eyes into the glare. The road stretches eastward through flat countryside. Smoke twists in columns behind us, marking the destructive path of our enemy through the once-peaceful Efean countryside as they burn villages close to the road. Only the brutal speed of chasing us prevents them from doing far worse.
Two bodies lie at the base of the embankment. One twitches, and I’m aghast that a wounded man has been tossed away to die, but then a fox emerges from beneath the fabric of his tabard with a glistening moist organ in its mouth.
Hastily I swing my horse around to pace the captain overseeing the rear guard.
“Captain, where are the Efean laborers?”
He stares at me as if I am a crocodile abruptly capable of speech, then looks at Steward Haredas for help.
“Doma Jessamy is looking for two Commoners who were back here with the trenching crew,” says Haredas.
“Cursed Commoners.” The captain spits on the ground. “We distributed weapons to them, as we were ordered to do, even though I knew nothing good would come of it. They abandoned us just as if we hadn’t rescued them from the enemy. And stole the weapons we lent them. Lazy thieves! That’s gratitude for you.”
“None of them stayed behind?”
I’m going to find a way to fight for Efea, Mis told me. For Efeans. Not for them.
Here I am, riding with them. Allied with them.
A wild desire bursts in my heart: to take my horse and ride inland, to find Mis and Dusty, to vanish into the heart of Efea alongside people who will accept me as I am. But I can’t leave Father now, and I won’t abandon Kal. I have to see this through to its end because there’s no other way to make sure Nikonos and Serenissima and their foreign allies do not destroy Efea.
Yet an unquiet voice tugs at my loyalties. What if I’m wrong?
Two days later, not long after dawn, we march into view of the sycamores marking the turnout to Falcon Villa, where Father married Lady Meno?. The command company with its carriages pulls out for fresh horses. I can’t help but think of Kal driving me here in a race to get Father’s help to free Mother and the others from the oracle’s tomb.
“We will reach Saryenia by midday.” Father sips at a flask, looking out the open window of the carriage at the army marching past, still in disciplined ranks.
“Are we going to set a siege? Won’t that just trap us between the queen inside the city and the East Saroese army marching up behind us?”
“We are going to bluff.” He has ruthlessly kept me beside him, acting as my constant chaperone. I have seen Kal twice, and always with Father in attendance so we have been allowed only to greet each other from a polite distance. “We are taking a dangerous chance. Once we enter the city, if fighting breaks out you must melt away into the population of Commoners.”
“No.”
He blinks. “What did you say?”
“I want to stay with you, Father.”
He takes a much longer draft of the wine in his flask. His face is flushed, and maybe that is a tear in his eye. “Very well. But you will stay in this carriage.”
“Yes, Father.”
We roll on past grain fields, lush orchards, and prosperous villages. Efeans pushing carts and driving wagons are streaming away from their homes, some hurrying for the walls of Saryenia while most head north into the interior.
We pass the regimental encampments, now empty. The Royal Road’s night-lanterns hang at intervals, unlit because it is day, and beside each lantern hangs a cage. No new prisoners have been hung out to die in recent months; the old prisoners are dead, rotting away under the sun, skin turning to leather and viscera decaying until there is nothing left but bone.
I think of the horses left behind, the stragglers, the skirmishers, the captain sent to light an oily fire; he knew his task was to create havoc and cause damage, not to survive.
I brace myself for what I fear is coming as the walls of Saryenia rise out of the west. Always in my youth those walls meant security. Now I see only the promise of death. How can Kal possibly win his way through a city occupied by foreign soldiers and a queen who wants to kill him?
We pass companies of soldiers who have halted at the side of the road to allow the command company to move forward to the vanguard. They cheer as the royal carriage and the general’s carriage pass. For people watching from the city walls, it will appear that the conquering hero, Nikonos, has returned, flying his banner and the king’s flag of Efea, bringing General Esladas with him as prisoner or as an ally.
That is our bluff. Let them see what they expect to see.
Even so, Father’s ability to march calmly into a potential disaster amazes me. The walls loom so high I have to tilt back my head to see the battlements.
Horns blare from the tops of the walls. Will they close the gates? Do they guess the ruse? Has Nikonos arrived here before us?
The horns blare again, singing out the fanfare that rouses the city when its king or queen returns in triumph.
Unmolested, we cross the plank causeway across the canal that rings the city and pass under the triple gates. I brace myself, waiting for boiling oil or hot sand to be poured down on us, but no attack mars our entry. Nikonos’s banner carries us past the gate and the guards. Kal cannot be seen behind the royal carriage’s closed shutters.
“Shut the window on your side, Jessamy.” Father does not close the shutter on his side but draws a gauzy curtain across, making it hard to see him. When I don’t immediately obey, he reaches across me and latches the shutter.