River Secrets

by Shannon Hale

  The footfalls stopped for a longer moment, and a horse grumbled for a treat. That would be his own Bee Sting. He heard a pat as if Ledel stroked her neck, and then the steps passed by. After several moments of silence, Razo allowed himself to scratch his nose.

  Slowly, he started to ease upright. A crunching sound set his heart pounding even harder, and he hesitated. Silence. He had to get out and hide that body before others found it. Again, he began to rise from the straw. A twitter, a growl, a hush. Silence. Razo pressed a fingernail into the skin of his forehead to keep himself sane. He had to go, now. Go! He heard a squeak and eased himself back under the straw.

  I’m in a cursed stable, he thought. It’s never going to be totally quiet. Just go.

  Silent as a cat (or so he hoped), Razo ascended from the straw, crept from the stall, and slammed right into someone. And squealed. A shrill cry of surprise answered his squeal. It was not Ledel.

  “What’re you doing?” asked Razo. “You likely stopped my heart, sneaking around like that.”

  “I work the stables,” said the Tiran boy, his eyes still wide. “I should call a sentry, you know. What were you doing in that stall?”

  “I was…I…” He sneezed, and a flake of straw flew out of his nose. “Uh, the festival. Didn’t quite make it back to my cot, I guess.”

  The boy squinted. “You’re Bayern. You the one who goes around with the prince? I heard someone tried to kill you right in front of him.”

  “Nothing happens in Ingridan but everyone knows,” said Razo. He stared out the door, wondering if the body would still be there. “Sorry about the startle. I’ll go now, if that’s all right.”

  “Go ahead. I’m not going to rat on the prince’s friend. Um, did you know you have hay in your hair?”

  “Of course I do. It’s fashion.”

  Razo plucked the straw from his hair when he was well out of sight, removing an impressive handful.

  Sneaking back to the barracks took a painfully long time, hiding from workers and sentries and from the sun as it shuffled over the horizon. There was no need for stealth by the time he reached the Bayern barracks. The soldiers were up and outside, milling around, tension humming in the air. A few of Ledel’s men stood off, whispering to each other, as if trying to figure out what was going on. Razo found Talone under his spying tree.

  “A body,” Talone whispered. “A sentry found it beside a gardener’s cart, covered it up, and sent for Lord Belvan. Ledel showed up soon after, helped Belvan’s men get it out of sight. You look surprised.”

  “Just about Ledel helping to hide it.”

  “You think he’s involved?”

  “He’s our man, Captain. I’ve nothing to prove it but the eyewitness of a Bayern, and I doubt any court in Tira will accept that evidence.”

  “Hm. I trust Belvan to keep this quiet, but Ledel’s bound to let rumors of this body trickle out. Lady Megina should take Belvan’s advice and we should leave before—”

  “We’ve still got four days, Captain. Release me from other duties. Let me keep trying.”

  “The risk is too great,” said Talone. “If we’re here when they vote for war—”

  “And if we leave now, there’ll be no chance at all. We’ve got to keep trying. I can do it, Captain, please …”

  Talone nodded. “Good luck, soldier.”

  Razo watched Talone leave, and only two things stopped him from racing after him and taking it all back—Talone had responded as though he trusted Razo, and Razo was beginning to have a plan.

  He took to his heels again, first collecting Dasha from her chamber, where she was already dressed and up, and then off for Enna, who left Megina with Finn and other guards. Razo explained what he needed from them as they jogged across the grounds, Enna always slightly in the lead.

  “Proof that Ledel’s the fire-speaker. And in a hurry, before he burns someone else.” Razo did not mention what he’d seen from his tree perch, or he would also have to tell the part where he ran and hid. “He’s rotten with motive, and Victar mentioned he disappears sometimes for whole days. You’ve both been around him before, and you didn’t notice anything?”

  “I can never be sure,” said Enna. “It’s the wind that tells me that sort of stuff, and I’m not as good as…” She glanced sideways at Dasha. “I’m not so good at wind. I’d have to consciously beckon the wind that’s touched a person and listen to hear if it talks of heat and strange fire on the skin … but even then it’s not always clear.”

  “That is fascinating,” said Dasha, putting on a respectful smile. “The water is touching me constantly, but I have to be really close to someone, touch them even, to tell if there isn’t as much water hanging in the air around a person, as though more heat than normal is burning the water away. I never noticed anything unusual about Ledel, but I guess I was only looking for a Bayern fire-witch.” She flinched after speaking the phrase and looked aside at Enna.

  “So, Dasha, do you ever feel compelled to use water?” Enna asked.

  Dasha opened her mouth, but for a moment she did not speak. “Sometimes I feel … pressure all around me. When I do something small, like fill my hand with water, the pressure lifts for a time. A day, a few hours. But that’s all I do, just small things.”

  Dasha looked at Enna, eyes wide, hoping for approval. “Hmm,” was all Enna said.

  When they drew near, Enna stopped. “You don’t think you’re coming with us, do you, Forest-born?” she asked with a laugh.

  Razo glanced at Dasha, wondering if she knew what it meant to be Forest-born. “Why can’t I?”

  “Because, sheep boy, your face is—”

  “Is a signpost for all to read, I know. I’ll wait here.”

  Enna grabbed Dasha’s wrist and muttered to her as they hurried away.

  Razo sat in the petite shade of a flowering bush, flaking the bark off a twig until it was smooth as water wood. He watched Dasha and Enna amble around the barracks, look at Dasha’s sling, pretend to practice on Ledel’s training circle. Several soldiers came and went. Tumas passed by with painful slowness, and Razo kept his hand on his own sling until the man left Enna and Dasha alone. Then Ledel emerged. Razo slapped his neck, a sudden crawling sensation making him think he was besieged by spiders.

  Dasha, her gait a happy skip, went to Ledel, apparently asking him some innocent question. Enna sidled up. They waited a bit after Ledel left to return to Razo.

  “And, and?” he asked as the girls approached. “Ledel’s the fire-speaker?”

  Both shook their heads.

  Razo felt his mouth gape. “Are you … are you sure?”

  “Ask her,” said Enna.

  Dasha smiled meekly. “We … it was Enna’s idea … we combined talents. Enna moved the wind around Ledel and straight to me so I didn’t have to touch him. His heat seemed normal to both of us. We tested everyone who passed by, and that other soldier—”

  “Ah-ha! I knew it was Tumas, that nose-breaking, mossy-breathed, rotting hunk of—”

  “No, not him,” said Enna, “but his friend, the young one.”

  “Yes, he had something,” Dasha agreed.

  “Yes, something.” Enna nodded, thoughtful. “Not like…”

  “Not like you, Enna,” said Dasha.

  “No,” Enna agreed. “Maybe he’s just new to it, but I wouldn’t even’ve sensed a scrap of fire-speaking in him if it hadn’t been for Dasha. Razo, I don’t think he could be the burner from the grape harvest festival.”

  “Come on, you two, if he’s got the fire-speaking, then that’s it. Tumas’s friend is our man, and Ledel’s helping him.”

  “Maybe…,” said Dasha. Enna nodded as if anticipating what she was going to say next. “Maybe there’s more than one.”

  “Hello!” Victar stalked up, trailing his group of friends. “What a stale air in the city. We need a brisk sea wind, this autumn heat is beginning to ferment.”

  “Hello, Victar,” Razo said, trying to sound casual. “Yes, it’s pret
ty stale.”

  Razo was not in the mood to keep up with Victar’s chatting. The mystery still bound his hands; his mind was limping and no closer to a conclusion. After a few moments of inept silence, Dasha stepped in. Razo watched them chat and dug the tip of a sandal between two paving stones.

  “Come here a moment,” Enna said in her carefully even tone. Razo tensed, anticipating some rebuke. Instead of scolding, Enna drew inward a bit, as though some buried sadness wrapped a string around her attention and tugged.

  “Razo,” she whispered, “I’ve got a thought, and I’m hoping I’m wrong. Tell me what the bodies looked like.”

  Razo sniffed with one nostril. “Couldn’t you ask me something pleasanter? Like, say, what I’d like for lunch?… No? Well, they’re black. Stiff, charred, unrecognizable.”

  She closed her eyes. “I don’t think they were actually murdered, Razo. Not set on fire, as such.”

  “Believe me, they were burned, sometimes still smoking.”

  “But it sounds like … like Leifer.” Her eyes flashed to his briefly. She meant her brother, who had used his talent with fire-speaking in the first battle of the war and grew so hot with it that he had burned to death. “When the skin’s how you described it … it’s not like someone set on fire, more like someone who burned from the inside.”

  “They burned themselves up?” Razo tugged on his hair. “I’m stumped. I’d been so sure it was Ledel, but now… Great crows, Enna-girl, what a hornets’ nest. Anyone could be involved.”

  “Including her,” Enna whispered, nodding toward the sound of Dasha laughing with Victar. “She knows I’ve got fire-speaking. I don’t mind telling you, I’m feeling as vulnerable as a goose in the cook’s fist, and I don’t like being scared.”

  He inhaled deeply. “I promised during the war I’d watch your back. I’m still keeping that promise, Enna-girl. I swear.”

  Enna rubbed his head and left to return to the ambassador. Razo took another decent look at Dasha. She had said she did not know the pale-haired soldier, yet she and Victar seemed friendly enough now. But why would she lie? And if they were friends, perhaps Victar had told Dasha that Razo was just a Forest boy and how that meant that he was poor and lowly and should not be dangling himself around a noble girl’s shoulders.

  A clack of wood drew Razo’s attention to the training ring. Ledel was practicing sword with his secondman, and his eyes looked hollow and bruised with sleeplessness. Razo rubbed a self-conscious hand through his hair to check for forgotten bits of hay and thought, Four days left.

  24

  A Parchment Map

  The next day, Razo wore his plain white clothes and skulked around Thousand Years. Once, Ledel left the palace grounds alone, and with a dry mouth and antsy heartbeat, Razo followed the captain from a respectable distance. He lost sight of him just west of the heart and skittered around side streets for hours, anxious at the sound of his own footsteps and wishing he’d asked Enna and Finn to help spy.

  But I can’t get her any closer to the danger, he reminded himself, or she might burn again.

  After lugging himself back to Thousand Years, he skipped dinner to collapse on his cot for a quick snooze.

  When he woke, feeling tumbled and giddy and half-dead, he found he’d slept through both evening and night. In the distance, the bell tolled dawn with a mockingly happy ping. Razo lurched out of bed, still in clothes and sandals, and rubbed his eyes fiercely, in the way his mother used to say would wake up his brain. The assembly would vote for war in two days.

  Half-asleep, he jumped back into his routine of walking a broad circle around Ledel’s barracks. It had rained in the night, and the fat worms lay gasping on the paving stones. Razo was hopping around, trying not to squash them, when he saw Tumas prowling the early morning.

  Razo slid between two bushes, earning a mouthful of cedar greens. Far ahead, Tumas entered the abandoned barracks where Razo had taught Dasha slinging. He stayed inside just a few moments before leaving again. He was coming awfully near Razo’s hiding spot. Nearer still. Razo held his breath and tried to look like a tree.

  Tumas veered, heading in the direction of the Thousand Years west gate. Razo spat green and waited until the porkchopeared soldier had gone a good distance before bustling out to follow.

  And then he jumped right back between the trees.

  There was another of Ledel’s men entering those same empty barracks. He stayed a bit longer than Tumas, then left again, also empty-handed, and took Tumas’s path toward the west gate.

  Razo made sure no one else paraded down the path, then slid from tree to tree, behind buildings, moving in the flow of early-morning errand runners, and came at the building from the back side.

  He stole a look through a window. Nobody home.

  The stale odor accosted him, cots rotting where they stood, all silent in mourning the dead. The floor was dusty, and he could see footprints muddling around a cot near the opposite door. So as not to leave his own marks, Razo leaped from cot to cot until he came to that spot. He sat down, heard a crinkle, and leaned over the edge. Between the thin straw mattress and the slats, someone had stuck a parchment. Razo pulled it out.

  There was a crude drawing but also a lot of script. He cursed, wishing not for the first time that he knew his letters. He’d have to get some help.

  Then voices. Razo skipped across a few more bunks and slid beneath one. Dust stirred around his face, and a fat brown spider ambled out of his way. He pinched his nose, stifling a sneeze, then heard people enter.

  A rustle at the lifting of a straw mattress, a sigh of old wood.

  “It’s supposed to be here. The captain said Tumas would leave it under the third cot.”

  “Captain hinted the new place would be downriver from the old. Maybe we can just sniff around and find it.”

  “On all that riverbank? Not a chance. I’m certain he said the third cot, but we had better check them all.”

  Razo swallowed.

  “No, don’t bother. That dunce Malroy probably took it with him. Maybe he’ll show it to Lord Belvan and ask for directions.”

  The men laughed.

  “Well, the captain will be busy enough without us today. He’s invited half the company. Why so many? I asked him. He wouldn’t say, but Tumas whispered to me that the captain’s getting impatient with just a body here, a body there. Plans an all-out attack, wants as many warriors as he can trust. Tumas hinted it had something to do with the assembly, but I don’t…”

  The voices moved away. Razo whined with another strangled sneeze.

  He waited, hurting his brain with the effort of trying to hear new voices or footsteps, and glared at the fleas dropping from the filthy mattress onto his arms. His thoughts drifted, tangled in the skittish movements of a spider.

  Ledel did not have fire-speaking.

  One of his men did, but he was not the fire-speaker from the festival.

  That soldier had said, The captain invited half the company …

  Weeks ago after a feast day, Belvan’s men had found an empty warehouse littered with burned wood.

  Two men were missing from Ledel’s company, supposedly to join Manifest Tira, but Razo recalled that Ledel was the one who had claimed that. So where were they, really?

  And that first day, when Ledel’s and Talone’s companies sparred on the training ground, Ledel had said, …we’ll see how well they perform as soldiers without the fire fighting for them. Initially, Razo had taken the comment as an insult, an insinuation that the Bayern were just the lackeys of a fire-witch. But as he heard it now in memory, he realized there had been jealousy, a twinge of sadness on the word soldiers, of longing with fire.

  So, two of Ledel’s men were gone, and Enna said the corpses had most likely burned themselves to death. Razo shuddered. That captain was up to something very, very bad.

  Razo poked his head out, slithered from under the cot, and stepped from bunk to bunk to the door. When the area seemed clear, he ran to the palace.
The parchment crackled under his tunic.

  Enna was gone. Conrad was guarding the ambassador’s chambers, and he reminded Razo that today was yet another feast day, the day of apple cakes.

  “For women only. From what I gathered, Enna and Lady Megina joined the assemblywomen and others at the heart, making apple cakes and griping about men, no doubt. Finn and Talone will be hovering nearby and wishing they could have some cake. Maybe they’ll toss ’em a core. As it was, they had to get special permission from Lord Belvan to let the men go at all. There was some rather intriguing talk of dressing Finn and Talone in skirts….”

  Conrad laughed. Razo disappointed himself by not being able to get his own laugh past the rock in his throat. Another feast day. A thought shocked him like touching static metal. The bodies have been appearing after feast days. Ledel must go someplace that’s emptied because of the day off and teach his men to burn.

  “Any idea when they’ll be back?” asked Razo.

  “Evening or night. Enna’s sour expression told me that it promised to be a long day.”

  “Conrad, do you know your letters?”

  Conrad snorted. “Not likely.”

  Razo thought of going to the prince for help—surely the man knew how to read—but no, he would not allow suspicion of Dasha to squash and squeeze him.

  She had not joined the feast day celebrants yet and was still in her rooms, breakfasting on bread dipped in a greenish oil, olives, and cold ham. Razo gave her the parchment, sat on the floor, and took over the meal. He could not help whimpering a bit as he ate. It was a cruel, cruel mission that denied him his five meals a day.

  “It’s a map,” she said.

  Razo had figured that. He winced as he bit into an intensely sour olive. There was something satisfying about food too bitter or spicy to eat without a grimace, making him feel as though he’d accomplished some difficult physical feat.