Just when I think I cannot hold any longer, the barrel is tipped onto its side and rolled down a ramp, turning over and over until I heave up convulsively against the foul-tasting cloth tied across my mouth.
By the time the barrel comes to a halt I am so dizzy that I hallucinate Serenissima being dragged into a lightless passage with the bloody corpse of her son draped as a curse over her shoulders. Women’s voices murmuring inside a bricked-up tomb whisper in my memory like snakes tangling. At least oracles can move their limbs. I will die in torment, full of the poisonous, stupid dream that I could fall in love with a prince and not pay a bitter price. That he could escape the grip of generations of Patrons fighting to keep their hold on power and treasure. That he wasn’t already one of them, living in the rarefied air of the palace-born, who need never see anything but what they want to see.
A crowbar scrapes and screeches. The lid pops, and the air around me changes, breathing salty and sour.
“Good Goat! What a stink!” It is the voice of Captain Neartos.
How is that possible? The surviving members of Garon Palace went north to Maldine.
Footsteps slap as a new person enters the space. A whiff of lavender touches my vomit-stained nostrils. Melding with the smell of my bile, the aroma makes me retch. Or maybe it is the sudden onset of fear. It can’t be him. He fled north with the rest of the household.
“Lord Gargaron, here she is.”
Dread fastens its teeth over my heart. How could I ever have thought I had beaten him?
“Ah, Jessamy. Here you are.” His tone reeks of satisfaction. “Let me explain how this is going to go. If you can hear me, tap your heels against the cask.”
The strength it takes me to consider refusing causes me to twitch.
“I can tell you’re awake. And I know you to be an intelligent girl. So if you want to get out of this barrel, tap your heels against the cask.”
I sloppily tap my heels on the barrel’s side. My knees knock the wood in the other direction because I overcompensate. More bruises.
“Very good. Now, tap your heels if you will obey me, make no attempt to escape, and speak only when I give you permission.”
He’s taunting me. He knows it. I know it. I can’t fight any more, so again I tap my heels. The pain of moving has become so familiar that it squeezes only a few more tears out, if they are tears. Maybe I am too desiccated for tears. Maybe all I have left is the last drops of a nectar gone rancid.
“Excellent.” A man savoring a delicious meal might speak his approval of the food in the same tone with which he speaks to me. “I will give you a little time to think about what this means for you. Neartos, put the lid back on.”
I shriek against the grimy cloth, although all that comes out is a hoarse bleat. I try to kick the lid as it is hammered into place but I have no purchase and my legs have gone numb. The cask will crush me, suffocate me.
I must calm myself. I must.
Remember the steps into cat, the first animal in the menageries. Cats wake. They stretch. They consider their surroundings. They take their time. One slow inhalation and one slower and longer exhalation at a time, I keep myself and my pain stitched together; I don’t allow my five souls to scatter apart and break me into pieces.
A loud noise followed by a sharp tug alerts me.
I am dragged out of the barrel and rolled onto a floor. My legs unfold with such painful stabs in my hip joints that I start choking. The gag is untied and the sack yanked off my head.
Light from a swaying oil lamp assaults me. The floor rocks beneath me. Captain Neartos latches shut a door. I see a cheap copper basin, buckets slopping water over their brims, a sponge and a pumice stone, and a grimy-looking towel that might as well be the finest palace linen compared to what I’m wearing. There’s also a big covered pot that smells of mint and chamomile, and a dead man.
His slack, sparkless face is turned toward me. It is the Efean driver, throat cut.
I shut my eyes as a shudder wracks me.
I want to beg for release but I won’t. It’s the last dignity I have.
“I am going to cut your bonds, Spider.” Neartos’s tone is conversational, not hostile, as he returns to me. “You will put the corpse into the barrel, wash yourself and your clothing thoroughly, and dress in the clean clothing provided.”
The rope loosens, and all at once my hands are free.
With a grimace, I ease my shoulders forward. My numb hands turn hot, and I grit my teeth through the spasm of release. The captain cuts through the rope wrapping my legs and at last I am free. Except of course I am not free at all.
With a grunt, I push up to all fours, then clamber to my feet and attempt a stretch. Dizziness sweeps me, and the next thing I know I’ve fallen in a heap on the floor.
Neartos offers me a cup of mint-infused water. “Rinse out your mouth.”
The slosh of liquid in my mouth makes me want to vomit all over again. But after I have rinsed and spit four times, the urge subsides and I can drink without tasting bile.
“Very good. Now, the body.”
I have handled dead people before. When people died in our household Mother herself washed them so they could enter the next life clean in both flesh and souls. But this washing is unclean because they have murdered him and he will have no proper resting place, no family feast to grace his passing, no final songs. Yet what choice do I have?
It’s hard to bend him; he’s stiffening, as corpses do. The only dignity I can offer is to whisper prayers as I wrestle him into the barrel, hating myself for the violence of the act.
Neartos hammers the lid into place.
“I will give you privacy to bathe. Knock at the door when you are finished.”
He goes out.
Every movement hurts as I undress. My clothing stinks of urine, my face is caked with dried vomit, and my hair is matted and filthy. Yet I am grateful as I sit in the basin and pour a bucket of water over my head. I stop only when I’ve scrubbed my skin almost raw with the pumice. Three buckets of seawater later I don’t reek quite as much. The last of the mint-and-chamomile brew provides a sweeter-smelling freshwater rinse. I can touch my hair without touching flecks and slime.
On the table sits a worn but clean keldi and vest. The vest is loose at my waist and tight in my chest, but it covers me well enough. I wash Kal’s riding clothes in the filthy water.
For a while I toy with the idea of sitting in silent protest and not letting them know I’ve finished, but the act strikes me as futile. I rap at the door.
Neartos enters first, Lord Gargaron after, waving a kerchief, its lavender scent so strong my eyes water. Gargaron thoughtfully brandishes the knife my mother gave me. His smile intimidates me so much I would almost rather crawl back in a barrel.
Almost.
I’m not that brave.
“Let me explain the situation to you, Jessamy. If you disobey, you will be put back in a barrel. Obey with courtesy, and you will be allowed the privilege of the deck.”
“The deck?” Finally I understand what I’ve not had the wit or energy to grasp before this. “We’re at sea.”