“Only the weak,” Aisa whispered to herself. “Only the weak.”
She held the torch higher and stepped forward, seeking the far end of the long, narrow room, and as the light hit the far wall, she halted, instinctively raising her knife.
Two men sat there, leaning against the wall, their clothing so streaked with mud and filth that it told Aisa nothing. One man’s eyes were closed; he appeared to be asleep, but Aisa knew instinctively that he was dead. The other simply stared with wide, distant eyes. His face was smudged with mud and he was bone-thin, gaunt hollows beneath his cheekbones. His wrists looked like sticks where they emerged from his sleeves. He stared up into the light, his pupils dilating, and Aisa gasped as she recognized the Keep priest, Father Tyler.
“All right in there, girl?” one of the Caden called from the tunnel outside.
“Yes.”
“Well, hurry it up! These children need food, and we need sleep.”
The priest opened his mouth to speak, and Aisa put a finger to her lips. Her mind was moving, not sluggishly as before, but lightning-quick. Father Tyler, who had helped her to find books to read in the Queen’s library. The Mace wanted Father Tyler returned to the Keep, but had not been able to find him. The Arvath had laid a bounty on Father Tyler’s head, ten thousand pounds, the last Aisa had heard. Of course, the Mace had laid a bounty too, but the two amounts were constantly in flux. The Mace would surely match the Arvath’s offer, Aisa knew that, but the Caden might not. If Aisa told the Caden that ten thousand pounds lay behind this wall, would they help her return Father Tyler to the Keep, just on her say-so? Not a chance.
As quietly as possible, Aisa dug into the pockets of her grey cloak. She had half a loaf of bread, only two days old, and some dried fruit, and these she placed at Father Tyler’s feet. He grabbed the bread and began to wolf it down. She produced her canteen and handed it over as well, and then, placing her finger to her lips again, she backtracked toward the gap in the wall.
“My mistake!” she called. “Rats, a good-size nest.”
“Well, get out here!” James shouted, irritated. “We’re tired.”
Aisa flattened her palm at Father Tyler, indicating that he should stay where he was, and then worked her way back into the main tunnel.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I thought I heard a voice.”
Daniel shrugged. “Good to check every corner. Let’s get going.”
For a moment in there, Aisa had forgotten about Da, but now, as she emerged, his voice echoed across the tunnel.
“Aisa girl.”
She looked up, and a part of her hated herself for it, for the fact that Da’s voice was still the voice of God inside her head, impossible to ignore.
“What, Da?”
“Surely you won’t let them do this to me?”
“Shut up!” Christopher snapped, shaking Da like a rag doll.
“I’m speaking to my daughter.”
Aisa stared at him, sickened. His hair was mussed, his beard soaked with blood, but beneath these things he looked just as he always had. Manacles or not, Aisa was suddenly frightened, for she remembered this exactly: Da’s voice, wheedling, full of slippery oil.
“Aisa? You don’t want to see me in jail?”
She clouted him across the face. “I’d like to see you in a hole, Da. But prison will do for me. You’ll never see any of our family again. I hope you die in the dark.”
She turned back to Christopher. “Do me a favor and gag him.”
“Do us all a favor,” Merritt echoed, his voice disgusted. The group of children around them stared wide-eyed at this exchange, and the little boy wormed his hand back into Aisa’s, staring up at her, as Christopher anchored a length of cloth in Da’s mouth. The gag brought Aisa no relief; she could only stand there miserably, wishing that she were the child of someone else, fighting not to look backward at the hole in the wall. She would have to come back down here, slip the Caden somehow and return with more food . . . alone, down here in the dark. The idea terrified her, but she saw no way around it; the priest must be returned to the Keep. She felt much loyalty to these Caden, who had taken her in and put her to work. But her loyalty to the Mace, to the Queen, these were greater, and both the Queen and the Mace wanted Father Tyler back.
Which am I? she wondered. Caden, or a Queen’s Guard?
She didn’t know, but whichever she chose, it would be dangerous work. Her arm throbbed insistently, and when they got topside, Aisa saw that the seam of her wound had begun to weep clear fluid. The surrounding flesh burned an angry shade of red.
Infected, Aisa’s mind whispered, and her stomach tightened. At their little house in the Lower Bend, they’d had a neighbor named Mrs. Lime who had cut herself with a dirty blade. No one in the Lower Bend could afford antibiotics, and Mrs. Lime had finally simply disappeared from the landscape, her house standing empty until some squatters took it over. Aisa had always remembered the word, which rang like a death knell in her mind.
Infection.
Chapter 8
The Tear Lands