The Efean woman who is captain of the Lion Guard takes charge. I sink down in the closest patch of shade, grateful for a chance to rest. Ro kneels beside me and offers a flask of glorious water.
“Not all at once. You look very ill, Jessamy. You’d better travel in one of the wagons.” He speaks so gently, not like the sarcastic Ro I know, and I hate his gentleness because it makes me feel vulnerable. “That cut by your eye is a fearful scar, and inflamed.”
“I have salve for it.…” I pat around my vest with my right hand, wince at the lance of pain in my wrist. “It must have gotten lost in the fight. No matter. We’re free.”
He catches my elbow. “Let me see your arm.”
“Are you a healer too?”
“No, just a poet.” His frown worries me. “Your wrist is swollen.”
“Ouch!”
“Is it broken?”
“It can’t be broken! What if it doesn’t heal properly and I can’t run the Fives?”
“Oh, indeed, what if? I’m relieved to hear you say so. As long as you’re thinking about the Fives, I know you aren’t dying. Although probably even then…”
A crowd of children led by Anu swarm over to surround us. In daylight they look so skinny and abused that a towering swell of rage roars in my head. But they are smiling and giggling, damp with water they’ve poured over themselves, fingers gripping dates and figs and other rich food taken from the priest’s supply that will probably make them sick.
“Are you a poet? That’s what everyone is saying.” Anu wriggles with excitement, the others jostling at his back to get a better look.
“I am a poet, sworn to speak truth.”
“Why do you carry a whip? Only guards and captains carry whips.”
“The whip is the goad and guard of truth. It reminds me that truth is a weapon.”
“Does that mean you’re a soldier too? Can we join the army? Can we fight?”
A tear runs down Ro’s face as he takes in their emaciated bodies and scarred faces, but his charming smile and gracious tone don’t change at all. “Yes. Those who wish can join the army. You’re too young yet to carry weapons but there are many ways to serve Efea.”
“The guards said she was the king’s lover,” adds Anu. “That’s why she was sent here. Did you come for her? Are you her husband?”
For once Ro has no response. He doesn’t say anything. He can’t even look at me.
Anu frowns, looking scared by the poet’s silence. “Are we really free?”
“Yes,” I say, irritated by Ro’s refusal to comfort them. “We are free, Anu. All of us.”
Ro stands. “We are not free to rest. There is a long fight ahead. May I help you up, Honored Lady?”
I consider trying to get to my feet under my own power but I’m quivering with weakness, so I nod. He helps me to a wagon. In the bed, sacks are being emptied of hidden weapons as the pretend slaves arm themselves. After he props me up amid the sacks he fishes a round of bread out of a covered basket. I’m grateful he makes no comment as I struggle not to cram the whole thing into my mouth at once.
After I finish I finally ask my most pressing question.
“How is it you came here? You can’t have come looking for me. No one knows I’m missing.”
“Ah, well, there’s a story.” Yet he hesitates.
“What is it?” I demand.
He hands me a tiny strip of rolled papyrus. “I’ve said many things about the Saroese, but even I am obliged to admit their calligraphy is superb.”
Written in the intricate strokes of the palace trained, Princess Berenise’s message to King Kalliarkos crams a great deal of information onto both sides. Meno? and Berenise will sail south with the West Saroese fleet. A regiment of Shipwright mercenaries hired for the duration of the war will march east to the Great River with Lord Thynos and descend on Saryenia from the north. The Royal Army will remain inside besieged Saryenia until these two separate groups of allies arrive. In this way the East Saro and Saro-Urok alliance, under Prince Nikonos, will be threatened on three fronts: from the sea, from the north, and from the city.
At the end of the message, in a corner of the papyrus, two words are scratched in smeared ink by an awkwardly painstaking hand.
SPYDER COT
“The message arrived in Saryenia from Maldine weeks ago with one of the royal messenger pigeons. For the king’s eyes only. As you can see, this addition is a bit cryptic.”
“Also misspelled.”
“True, and while I first wondered if you had somehow managed to send it yourself, such a childish attempt wouldn’t be like you, would it, schemer? King Kalliarkos understood the words to refer to you. Spider caught.”
“Oh. Of course.”
“He sent a messenger upriver to his uncle Lord Thynos, asking him to inquire if you had been seen in Maldine. Thynos told Inarsis, who sent me to investigate.”
“I saw Inarsis leaving Maldine in company with Thynos. Inarsis is still with the rebellion, isn’t he?”
“He has always been with the rebellion.”
I’m not usually this slow-witted. Thinking is as hard as dragging my feet through thigh-deep sludge. “But then… is Lord Thynos secretly part of the Efean rebellion? Of course he must be. And no one in Garon Palace knows it. Not even Kal.”
A horn call lifts over us. The Efean captain rides past, spear in hand.
“Poet! We’re moving out.”
“Yes, Captain!”
“Is captain an Efean rank?” I ask.
He shrugs. “We’re accustomed to Saroese military titles. It’s an efficient system.”
“Poet is a military rank?”
“I can tell you’re feeling better because you’re mocking me.”
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“To take back what is ours.”
20
I doze despite the jolting of the wagon. When I wake, the sun has shifted direction, and I’m sliding into the tailgate because we’re climbing an incline. There are eight other people in the wagon. Djesa sits crammed in beside me, and she smiles with a brightness I’ve never seen from her before.
“The poet asked me to keep an eye on you. Is he your secret lover, the one the king sent you to the mines to keep you away from?”
“My secret lover? Did Ro tell you that?”
“He didn’t have to. He’s very handsome.”
“I’m sure he thinks so,” I reply in a raspy whisper of a voice. Then I laugh, because it’s such a good story, the kind Amaya would adore. “Where are we?”
“We are in the land of Efea, among our own people, guarded by our own soldiers. Come to take back what belongs to us.”
We halt at the gates of the Inkos temple atop the table mountain, the last of the wagons to arrive. Such a frightful clamor rises from beyond the open gates that I climb out of the wagon and make my way to the top of the huge staircase. From the height I look down.