“But it could be a year or more before Todan gets that
sorcerer.”
“Lorjee said he expected Averann to be back by month’s end. It’s
he who Todan sent to hire the sorcerer. And there’s something else in the
wind,” Blackeye added. “Lorjee and his sister are plotting against Todan with
some other man. Wears a blue starstone ring, with the carving of a bird on it.”
“Blue starstone ring,” Noss repeated. “Bird carving. I can
ask around. Between one kid and another just about all the toffs are known at
least by sight—hi! You cheated!” He leaned forward suddenly and grabbed the
sticks from Sarilda.
“I did not!” she shrilled.
“Give me my sticks back,” the weaver’s girl yelled.
Confused, Joe looked from one to another, then he heard the
rhythmic tramping of boots, and a squad of warts came marching round the
corner. Everyone started making noise about the game except Warron, who drifted
away, watching the sails in the harbor down below them. Warron was in a good
position to attack from behind—if he had to.
But he didn’t have to. The warts marched by, giving the kids
only the most cursory glance.
The kids played a little longer, then Noss said abruptly,
“I’ll talk around. Send a message when I know anything.” He got up and ran off,
disappearing in the crowd of people moving along the narrow street.
Warron lounged forward and thumped Joe on the shoulder. “Time
for a run.” He flicked his thumb at the next bend in the street. “All the way
down to the wharf, then back up again. Twice.”
Joe sighed. He was getting to know the turns and twists of
the streets zigzagging up the steep palisades—not that he would ever need the
knowledge, he thought sourly.
Warron grinned. “And again after supper.”
Joe winced. “What is it, my fault Nan’s gone?”
Warron stepped closer, cast a quick glance to either side. “See
that castle?” he asked.
Joe turned around. His gaze traveled up the cliffs to where
the castle perched high on the very tallest. Wisps of clouds obscured the top
of it.
“The only way up is steps,” Warron said. “You’ll be going up
there to the prince’s wing. He’s kept in the high tower. All our lives are
going to depend on how fast you can make that run.”
Joe squinted up at the castle, trying to estimate how many
flights of stairs it equaled. Twenty? Sixty? Might as well be a million, he
thought dismally, and turned away.
Warron was watching him, his eyes speculative. He didn’t say
anything, though.
Joe immediately felt bad about his attitude. This is what
I’m here for, he thought as he wiped his hands down his pants. “Well, let’s get
moving.”
Warron grinned.
And started to run.
o0o
“Sundown,” the cook said, peering through the window. “You
four get upstairs to your beds. I want the fire laid and the cook pots ready
when I come down at dawn.”
Nan dropped her arms heavily into her lap, slumping on her
stool. The red-haired girl working just behind her whispered, “That’s us. We’re
off.”
Nan watched the girl rise and make a little business of
wiping her knife and board. The cook turned away, and quick as a blink the girl
grabbed a fistful of the bread bits she’d been cutting for some kind of
bread-stuffed meat pies and stashed them under her apron. As she passed Nan,
her hands were empty.
Nan was too tired to smile, but she thought of the bits and
scraps she’d sneaked herself four or five times during that endless day. As she
got to her feet, she realized she’d never been grateful for her time with the
Wheelwrights and Evanses before. She’d learned how to sneak food by the time
she was in second grade.
Her urge to smile disappeared when she saw the narrow stone
stairs awaiting her. Every single muscle in her body ached, from her forehead
to her feet. She leaned against the doorway, tears of self-pity burning her
eyelids.
“Come on,” a quiet, gruff voice said behind her. “Move fast,
and you can have first bath. Water’s hotter then.”
A thin girl her own age nudged her, hesitated, then took
Nan’s arm. Nan tried not to lean on her for about three steps, but by the time
they reached the top, the girl had nearly taken all her weight.
When they reached the room where the bonded girls had to
sleep, Nan saw rows of narrow cots.
The red-haired girl came forward, smiling. “Here’s one for
you,” she said. “How about a bath first?” She leaned toward Nan and whispered,
“I saved it for you.”
Nan just nodded, and wearily followed the girl down the long
row of cots to a room by itself. Sleep was the first thing on her mind, but she
felt so grubby and gritty from the dungeon, she knew she needed a wash. When
she’d changed her clothes, the frightened girl who brought the gray dress had
hardly given her time to exchange Sarilda’s outfit for the new. There’d been no
water, and no opportunity to even rebraid her hair.
As she followed, she heard a low, rumbling sound that she
couldn’t identify. None of the others reacted, so she decided it was nothing to
worry about. She was too tired to open her mouth and ask.
The red-haired girl opened a door, and turned to grin at
Nan. “Here you go.” She waved a freckled arm at a big wooden tub with a two
troughs above it. One came from the wall, behind which that sound was now a
dull roar, and the other from a huge metal pot next to the bath.
The girl did something to the troughs, and steaming water
poured from the one leading to the pot, and plain water came from the other. As
Nan slowly approached the bath, she saw another trough leading from the bottom
of the wooden tub back to the wall. A drain, she realized.
“I’m Giula,” the girl said with a quick grin. “We red-heads
have to stay together. What’s your name?”
“Nan.”
“A very nice name! The rule in here is, we’re only supposed
to fill the tub once. We have lots of water—you can probably hear the falls
just behind our wall. But it’s cold, and heating it takes forever. If we keep
ourselves to one tub apiece, everyone gets a hot bath, or at least a warm one. We
take turns making sure the heater is filled.”
Nan watched in fascination as the water filled the tub, and
then Giula did something and the water slowed to a trickle, then a drip.
“Get in, quick! It cools off fast.”
Nan winced as she pulled the scratchy gray dress over her
head and draped it carefully over a hook. Her underthings came next, and Nan
noticed the smiling girl looking curious, and wished she’d go away. “That’s an
odd type of underclothes,” Giula he said. “I’ve never seen them before.”
Nan was just about to say, “They’re normal where I come
from,” and remembered just in time that Earth was a secret.
She glanced up at Giula, who was still smiling, and hesitated.
Again she wished very strongly that the girl would just leave her alone, but of
course she wouldn’t say anything. Giula—who looked to be Nan’s age—seemed friendly
enough, which in Nan’s experience was a miracle, and Nan would be very glad for
an ally. She sensed that she could really impress this girl by admitting to
being from another world—but then her princess lie came back to mind, and she
winced. “Got them from a trader,” she said. “Can I wash them out?”
“We always do, at the end of the bath, before we let the
water out,” Giula replied. “Hang them on your hook by your bed. They’ll be damp
but wearable by morning, this time of year. Also your towel—they’re here, and
the one you pick is yours for the week—and the nightgowns as well. Only old
ones left. You have to get here right after the laundry crew brings the dry
things up to get a thick one. Our dresses get washed once a week, did someone
tell you?”
Nan gave a tired nod as she climbed carefully into the tub. The
water stung her skin for the first few seconds, but very soon the warmth
soothed her aching body so much that she felt her eyes trying to close. “Told
me,” she said, so tired she could hardly speak above a whisper. “Said if it
gets real dirty before, and Lady Olucar sees, then I’ll get into trouble.”
Giula came closer, and Nan realized what was making her
edgy: some of her movements, her smile even, reminded Nan of McKynzi. “True,”
Giula said, with a little shrug and smirk just like McKynzi’s when a teacher
was watching. “You don’t want to see seen by The Beast if you can possibly help
it. The Beast is what we call Lady Olucar. She likes to sneak around listening,
and she’s got sharp ears. Don’t be heard even saying her name, unless it’s to
repeat an order.”
Nan felt bad even thinking of comparing Giula to McKynzi,
and tried to smile, to be friendlier. “Thanks for the warning.”
“Oh, I always try to help newcomers,” the girl said with
that little grin. “I just like to get along with everyone. Makes life soooo
much easier. Especially smart people. They’re the ones who can make a
difference. Most of those girls out there, if you want the real truth, are dumb
as rocks. But they’re nice enough.”
Nan nodded, then forced herself to make the effort of
washing herself. It would be so easy, she thought, to just fall asleep right
there in the tub. She wondered if she’d even feel it if she drowned.
“Another one to watch out for is the ferret, which is what
we call Ilda, the one with the streaky yellow hair and the long nose. She spies
on everyone, and whatever you say gets reported back to The Beast. She’s got a
room to herself downstairs now.”
“The one who helped me—I forget her name—seemed nice.”
Shrug. “That’s Amar. She’s all right, but a mouse. You did
real well today in the kitchen, despite the horrible night in the dungeon, and
having to come up the Death-stairs carrying stuff. Sometimes I think Taliath
does it on purpose.”
“Taliath? Dark hair, round face? Kind of stocky?”
“That’s her.” Wrinkle of the lip. “Thinks she’s smarter than
everyone else, but look where it got her—down working cleaning the garrison and
running errands for Nitre. Oh well! We all have to work together, and I try
hard to bring everyone together. I hope you won’t mind my talking. No one does.
They just think, oh, there’s that silly red-head Giula, she talks a lot, but
she’s harmless.” Another grin, and another of those expectant looks—just like
McKynzi, when she wanted the teachers to tell her she was a good worker, or
talented, or clever, or a good leader.
And Nan remembered something else: that stocky girl,
Taliath, saying,
Don’t talk to Giula
. What did that actually mean? Not
to talk to her at all, or just not to tell her anything—and what if Giula, who
seemed friendly, was on Nan’s side, but Taliath, who had made the journey up
the stairs a lot worse than it ought to have been by loading her with that
basket, wasn’t?
Nan dipped herself under the water, deciding she was too
tired to think about it now. And another lie started forming in her mind, but
this time there was no princess, no war, no mother or sister to sacrifice for. As
she finished rinsing her hair and turned to wash out her underthings, she had a
story all ready, about being a cook’s helper on a ship who accidentally got
into trouble.
When she got out of the tub, cold air made her ache again. She
pulled a thin towel off the stack, and began to dry herself off.
“I come from Waneldar,” Giula said. “Was supposed to go for
a lady’s maid, but I got cheated out of my position. Where do you come from?”
Nan paused to wrap up her hair in the towel, and she pulled
a nightgown from the pile of five or six left. It was almost as thin as a slip.
She got it over her head, and sighed. “Cook’s helper. Another apprentice lied
about me,” she said, and saw disappointment quirk Giula’s upper lip for just a
second, then back came the big smile.
Giula continued to chatter, but Nan didn’t comprehend the
words as she padded out into the big room and found her cot. Giula abruptly
turned away and started talking to someone else, leaving Nan to unfold her
blanket and climb into bed. Then, despite the candles, and the quiet murmur of
the other girls, she was asleep within seconds of laying her head down on the
flat old pillow.
Clang-g-g!
Joe tightened his arm, put his whole body into his parry and
bind—and Tarsen’s sword flew out of his hand to land on the hard-packed dirt of
the hideout’s main room.
“Hey!” Tarsen’s protest was midway between a laugh and a
yell.
Joe dropped his point and grinned.
“Nice one.” Blackeye whacked her blade on Joe’s shoulder. “Do
it again.”
Joe didn’t think he could—but he gripped his sword anew as
Tarsen dove after his own blade. They dueled for a few minutes more, and as
usual Joe lost. But at least he’d finally gotten a touch, a real one, after
three solid weeks of practice.
The others cheered for him—all except for Kevriac, that is. Joe
had noticed as the days slid by how the small, blond magic worker avoided him. Not
obviously. He just always seemed to sit on the other side of the room, and
though he’d answer politely enough if Joe talked to him, he never addressed Joe
first. Yet he’d stay around and watch if Tarsen and Joe were practicing, his
thin face difficult to read.
Joe put his practice blade away. Now that he was convinced
it wasn’t accident, it was time to find Kevriac alone and talk it out. If he’d
done something wrong, he wanted to know what.
“Bron’s back!”
The yell came from up the tunnel, and Joe heard pounding
feet before Sarilda and Bron appeared.
“Food.” Bron turned Blackeye’s way, his smile lopsided. “A
real score! Fog helped us out. Got the load meant for the castle this week. Also
saw Shor.”
“You saw Shor?” Tarly repeated.
The gang stopped what they were doing, even Warron.
Bron said, “They’ve gotten work of a kind, with a carter. Lugging
supplies up and down the mountains to the castle. They haven’t gotten into the
castle or anything, but they know where Nan is.”