“Never mind my snake,” said Chantel. “What did you do?”
“Keep your voice down,” said Franklin.
“I guess he’s, um, probably a deserter,” said Bowser.
Franklin looked at Bowser through narrowed eyes. “Yeah. I’m a deserter.”
But Chantel had a feeling he was lying.
“You mean you’re a soldier?” she asked. “Aren’t you too young?”
“He’s not,” said Bowser. “Our soldiers enlist when they’re thirteen.”
“Can you all just keep your voices down?” said Franklin nervously.
Now and then they saw dark farmhouses, surrounded by fields. Twice they passed through sleeping villages. There were no lights. Somehow Chantel would have expected these village-dwelling Marauders to be prowling about at night, like cats. But it seemed they preferred to stay in.
“It’s not just that he’s chasing me,” said Franklin. “He’s coming this way anyway. The king’s given him permission to march through West Pharsalia.”
“You mean the king of West Pharsalia?” said Anna.
The snake in Chantel’s head gave an unhappy twitch. “Why is he marching?”
“To break the tollgates,” said Franklin. “Can’t you keep your voice down?”
“I was keeping my voice down,” said Chantel. “What tollgates?”
“The ones you people use to control the road to the mountains,” said Franklin. “Don’t you even know that?”
“Why would I?” said Chantel. “I’ve never been in the mountains. Anyway, if they’re ours, why—”
“Because everyone is sick of you people controlling the only pass through the mountains and the only decent harbor for three hundred miles,” said Franklin. “Shh!”
He froze abruptly, then grabbed Chantel’s arm and pulled her off the road. Chantel only struggled for a second, then she heard it too.
They all ducked down in a damp ditch. A trio of men appeared on the road, barely visible in the moonlight.
“Didn’t you see something up here?” The speaker had the same twangy accent as Franklin.
“Just some peasant,” twanged another man.
“That farmer said he saw a red-haired boy, though . . .”
Chantel and the others stayed still and silent for a long time after the men tromped past.
“Red-haired boy? Did they mean you?” Anna asked at last.
“Those were scouts,” said Franklin. “Karl’s men. He always sends three, because he thinks one or two might betray him.”
Chantel wondered if having Franklin as a guide was such a good idea after all.
“It’s a good thing it’s so dark,” said Franklin. “You all left a track in the grass like a herd of elephants.”
They walked on. It was morning when they reached the port.
Chantel had not known there was a wall around the port as well.
This wall was less formidable than Seven Buttons. It was only twice as tall as a man. There was a wide-open gate, with a sign over it that read
HARBOR DISTRICT
KINGDOM OF LIGHTNING PASS
PERMITS REQUIRED
A seagull perched atop the sign.
There were guards checking papers. But there was some advantage to being young, after all—nobody paid any attention to Chantel and her companions. Adults had to show permits, and argue, and pay. A woman driving an empty oxcart had been pulled off to the side, and her cart was being carefully measured inside and out. She looked frightened.
“What’s going to happen to her?” said Anna as they slipped past.
“How should I know?” said Franklin. “They probably think she has a false bottom.”
Bowser looked confused, then said “Oh, you mean in the cart. Why?”
“To carry stuff you guys don’t let out into the kingdoms and chieftaincies,” said Franklin.
“Contraband, you mean?” said Chantel.
Franklin shrugged. “If that’s what you want to call it. Spices, silver. Medicine for spotted swamp fever. We can never get as much as we need of that, because you guys control it.”
“What’s spotted swamp fever?”
“What killed my mother,” said Franklin.
Chantel felt a little twist of horror in her stomach. She did not, herself, have a mother. But she understood that those who did were often very attached to them.
“I’m sorry your mother died,” she said.
“You might be sorry,” said Franklin. “I mean you yourself. But it was your wretched city’s fault, so don’t tell me you’re sorry.”
Chantel turned away angrily, fighting the retort that the snake in her head wanted her to make. After all, Franklin (whose twangy drawl was not getting any less annoying) was talking about something that upset him. And he wanted to blame someone for it. Chantel could understand that. So he was blaming the Kingdom, which meant the patriarchs. Nothing to do with her.
Chantel had been taught in school that there were two sides to every issue, and that one of these sides was wrong.
“We’re really very sorry to hear about your mother, Franklin,” said Anna.
“Yeah, ’cause she’s the one you did hear about,” said Franklin.
Chantel and Anna exchanged a look. Franklin was difficult. But anyway, they would soon be rid of him.
They had reached the harborside. They stopped and stared. Broad wooden docks edged the cobbled street. Wharfs reached out into the sea. Ships bobbed and thumped beside them. The air smelled of salt and fish.
The ships’ masts rocked. Looking up at them made Chantel dizzy. Seagulls screeched, coasted down the sky, and landed on the decks. A sailor sent them flapping away with a snap of a rope.
Men and boys were everywhere, shouting, cursing, singing. They rolled barrels that rumbled along the docks. Chantel saw a boy her own age climbing a ship’s rigging. He stepped into the crow’s nest and trained a spyglass, not out to sea, but into Lightning Pass.
“He’s spying on us!” said Chantel, incensed.
“’Course he is,” Franklin twanged. “You put up a high wall and don’t let anybody in. What do you expect?”
“I didn’t put up a high wall,” said Chantel.
“Look.” He took Chantel by the shoulders and turned her around. “Do you see your city? Do you see what it looks like?”
Chantel shrugged away angrily. But she looked. She saw Seven Buttons, and the buildings rising behind it, climbing to the castle at the top.
“It’s a fortress,” said Franklin. “You see those towers, ready to fight the world? You see the wall?”
They would be rid of him soon, she told the snake in her head. They were leaving him at the gates. “The wall’s always been there. It’s to protect us.”
“Nah. It’s been there a couple hundred years, sure,” said Franklin. “But you didn’t always need ‘protecting.’”
“It’s been there more than five hundred years,” Chantel informed him. “Because it was five hundred years ago that Queen Haywith caused a breach in the wall, and the Marauders got in, and the city was nearly lost.”
“It’s been there time out of mind,” said Anna, trying to make peace.
“Okay.” Franklin exchanged a glance with Bowser and made a whatever shrug.