She hands Safarenwe to Maraya and goes to the hearth, seeking refuge in work.
Cook wipes her hands on a cloth and puts an arm around Mother for a brief embrace before she grabs her tongs to flip a burning piece of flatbread. The sight of their friendship makes Father stare, for he never spoke to Cook beyond bland politeness; she belonged to the other part of the house where he never walked, a place where two women might reach beyond a world that means to divide them and discover loyalty and trust.
Father blinks rapidly. He tries to get out a word, but he cannot speak. Patron men do not weep.
I love him so much, even though he is wrong about so many things and may never know it. I draw him aside to explain about his son.
“There is magic in Efea. You know how the crow priests pull sparks from dying soldiers and place them into the spiders.”
“It’s a powerful gift to be allowed to serve even after death.”
“Your son was stillborn.”
“Stillborn? But he’s here, and alive.”
“I held his lifeless body in my arms in the tomb. It was much later, during the rescue, that he opened his eyes. At first I thought he must have been so weak we just thought he was dead, but now I think the magic beneath the tombs brought some other spark and self to live in his body. He’s just pretending to be an infant. He can understand everything we say, can’t you, Wenru?”
Belatedly, Wenru kicks his legs and smiles a toothless smile as if to say he is nothing but a harmless baby.
Father isn’t really listening. His gaze has already slid away to Mother, although she keeps her back to him.
“How can I convince her to forgive me?” he asks me in a low voice. “I didn’t know Gargaron meant to kill her, to imprison her in a tomb.”
The forlorn words shred my heart because I don’t know if I will ever see him again. Because I don’t see how this can have a good ending.
Because I fear what it means for Kal and me.
I say, “You didn’t want to know. If I hadn’t been valuable to Gargaron as an adversary, I would have been entombed with them. While you—the hero of Efea, married to the new queen, your child the heir to the throne—would sadly reflect that the family you cared for had departed Efea to make a new life.” The truth has risen to the brim of me and it cascades in an unstoppable rush. If he cannot hear me, then I can never forgive him, and I want to forgive him. “You would have believed the lies Gargaron told you, Father. And we would be dead.”
He doesn’t answer. Maybe there is no answer for him.
Instead he settles Wenru on his hip and kisses me on the brow, as he has always done. “Stay away from the palace, Jessamy. In fact, you should all leave Saryenia before Lord Gargaron returns.”
Then my father walks out of the courtyard, and this time I do not go with him.
13
I keep expecting him to return, to push aside the curtain, to proclaim, “Kiya, I love you more than life itself and even more than my ambition!” and for Mother to say, “I forgive you, Esladas, for I understand you were forced into an impossible choice and did what you thought best for us, and now it will all be as it was before.”
But with each breath I take in and with each breath I exhale, he does not reappear. Mother busies herself beside Cook. She makes not a single sound; she just works. I can’t bear standing around so I help Denya out from under the table and offer her an encouraging smile, however false it feels.
Amaya hurries back into the courtyard. Seeing Denya’s expression, she clasps her close and murmurs, “My father never hit us like yours hit you. You’re free of that, my sweet. We are free.”
Denya glances around the shabby courtyard. Her gaze rests longest on Cook, the only other woman of full Saroese ancestry here. As she clings to Amaya she doesn’t look sure she is actually free, not surrounded by people like us.
“Are you going to leave Saryenia?” I ask Mother.
She rests her head against mine, arm around me, and her presence comforts me just enough that I can wipe my eyes.
“Polodos will keep the inn open for a few more days so nothing looks out of the ordinary but the rest of us will be leaving at dawn,” Mother says. “Your father is right. We must not be here when Lord Gargaron returns to Saryenia, as he will soon.”
“Where will we go?” I ask plaintively, thinking of Kal.
“We will go to the Warrens for now, to the Heart Tavern,” says Mother. “I have some work to do for Inarsis.”
I don’t like the sound of that, but fortunately before I can say something stupid, Polodos pokes his head through the doorway.
“Doma Jessamy, we could use help in the front room. Evening is our busiest time.”
All the customers are talking about the new king and how the East Saroese soldiers have been rounded up and imprisoned in warehouses in the Grain Market or on East Saroese ships that have been impounded and placed under guard in the harbor. An official enters the inn, offering to pay generous grain rations for laborers willing to work overnight and through tomorrow to reinforce weak spots in the city walls. Everyone knows an enemy army is marching toward Saryenia, that they are about two days away. The new king will not surrender, so the city must prepare for a siege.
Among themselves the Patron men whisper, “Which king shall we support? Nikonos or Kalliarkos?”
The Commoner men say nothing of kings. They take the offer of grain rations and go to work on the walls.
Late in the evening as the last two tables of customers sing songs from popular plays and drunkenly tell Amaya she is the prettiest girl in all of Saryenia, a man enters. He’s dressed in worn clothes like any impoverished laborer and has the hesitant manner of a fellow looking for friends in a strange place.
He stares at Amaya for a little too long, with a gaze that is a little too intense, then takes a step toward me. “Doma Jessamy?”
“Captain Helias?” Then I realize what his presence here must mean—that Kal must have sent him with a message or even a summons—and the tray slips from my suddenly numb fingers. I’m quick; I grab it as it drops and only a single mug lands on the floor.
Amaya swoops in, batting her eyes at him while she gestures at me to go out the back; she thinks she’s helping me escape an unwanted admirer. “I have not seen you here before, Domon. May I offer you a cool drink?” she says in a voice that would slay a thousand lovesick men.
He’s so flustered he forgets his pretense of being a laborer and offers the polite bow that men of the highborn Patron class give as a courtesy to pretty women of their own kind. Amaya has always looked more Saroese than Efean. “Excuse me. I am here upon an errand.”
His gaze shifts to me.
I shouldn’t go but I know I am going to. I have to see Kal. I have to.
I wipe my hands and go to the back.
“Mother, I am going out.”