by Anne Leonard
Slowly they drew nearer to the edge of the devastation. They passed houses and shops that were singed but intact, and then they came into another area that fire had not touched. It had once been a fashionable shopping district. Now the stores were boarded against looters, and the vendors sitting cross-legged on the bare street were selling flour and onions and dried beans.
Tam was thirsty, and they stopped in the shade of a tall building that still gleamed silver with sun. She drank deeply. As she was returning the flask to Joce, four Sarian soldiers walked by. They seemed immense. All of them had swords and knives, and two of them had bows, with black-feathered arrows. She froze.
“Look down,” Joce hissed as he took the flask. She obeyed. A dragon cried overhead. This time the pain spiked through her. She thought Corin’s name.
Joce took her hand again and pulled her softly to a walk. The soldiers had passed.
She was jumpy after that. Real fear set in. The dragon had found her, what if it told its rider? She kept herself from looking over her shoulder time after time, but her eyes scanned rapidly from side to side ahead of her. Joce let go of her but stayed very close.
They walked at least another hour, along narrow tree-lined streets past modest houses. It was an older part of Caithenor, with smaller buildings and mismatched stonework. They saw no one. The fear slowly ebbed out of Tam, and so did her strength. She was trying to get up the courage to ask Joce to rest when he said, “Here we are.”
They were on a street that had probably been still and quiet even before the war. There were houses on one side, built close together and right against the cobbles, all with a general air of mustiness. On the opposite side was a large brick building next to an old stable. The stable doors were padlocked with a heavy chain in good enough condition to mean it had not been abandoned before the dragons came. There was moss on the roof, and the wood was weathered.
He pointed to a nearby elm with large spreading branches. “Wait there. I need to be sure it’s safe. I might be some time, but I will be able to hear you if you shout.”
Tam nodded. She did not like the idea of being out of his sight at all, but she knew there might be more risks inside. She retreated nervously to the shade of the tree.
Joce crossed the street and went around the corner of the large building. Momentary panic rose when he went out of sight. Then she got hold of herself. Her legs were aching, and she gave up appearances and sat down at the edge of the street. The air was humid. Nothing moved or made a noise, not even animals. The leaves had lost their spring freshness and seemed to droop a little. The stone in the shade was pleasantly cool, but heat rose from the surrounding cobbles.
Tam felt power here, even stronger than on the road to Dele. A dragon screamed overhead. Her hand went to her knife hilt. It passed, with no pain, no visions. Heavy silence settled back over the street.
She was getting drowsy with heat and inactivity when Joce came back. His shadow was long. She stood up hastily. He led her to a small door opening from an alley on the other side of the building. He did not seem to have forced the lock. Across the alley was a low brick windowless warehouse.
He pushed the door open and she followed him into a large dim room. There were slatted windows high up, and her eyes adjusted quickly. It was, or had been, a theater. Not an elegant one whose stage hosted the most famous of actors, only tiered rows of benches surrounding a slightly raised platform on three sides. Pigeons were roosting in the rafters. Bird dung and feathers splotched the floor here and there. There was not much dust. She did not smell mold or garbage or other waste anywhere. Its disuse was recent.
“Backstage?” she asked.
“A corridor and two dressing rooms. I startled a cat, who seems to be doing an excellent job keeping the vermin out.”
“Pity it can’t get the pigeons,” she said. “It’s a good place, Joce, thank you. How did you know about it?”
“Followed someone to it a few years ago. It was just a hunch that it might be vacant now. No one is going to look for you in a forgotten theater. I checked the stable and the warehouse, too, they’re just as empty. We should eat.”
They made a meager meal of dried dates and stale bread washed down with water. When they were finished Joce briefly showed her the rest of the theater, marking the other two doors and the windows in the back. He found a small lantern and lit it for her. He said, “I’ll be gone a few hours. I’ll bring back more food. You should be able to hear anyone coming. If it’s not me, run, don’t hide. Keep your knife ready, and don’t go to sleep.”
“How will I know it’s you?”
“You will,” he said. His eyes were silvery.
“Where are you going?”
“To find three or four people, if I can.”
She locked the door behind him and went to the stage area, where she sat in the center with her legs folded and her knife drawn. She put the lantern to the side. The air was warm but not hot. The wood of the platform was unvarnished, but well smoothed with wear. The pigeons began fluttering about again. The cat appeared, a lean muscular beast with large paws and a smooth black coat. It sat beside her. When she reached to touch it, it backed away, so she put her hands in her lap.
It was, she realized, the first time she had been alone since they fled the palace. The few times that Joce had not been at her side his place had been taken by the nervous waiting for him to return. But he thought she was safe here. Perhaps he had enchanted her, or placed a spell on the building, or it was he in the form of a cat.
All of which were absurd, and not worth thinking over. Not even with all the other things that had happened.
If they had made it to Dalrinia she would have been home for several days now. What would she have told her parents? Probably nothing. She looked at the ring on her hand. Corin’s cloak and its telltale pin were stowed away with a change of clothing in her pack. In Dalrinia she would have hidden the ring too, to avoid her mother asking questions, and then there would have been no sign that anything had happened to her besides flight from a burning palace.
And if Myceneans came looking for her? They might have searched her parents’ home already. If she were there she would have to surrender herself to protect her parents.
And then they would use her against Corin.
Stop it, she said to herself. There was no point in wasting time or energy in thinking about possibilities that would not happen. Myceneans might already have swooped down on her parents and told them she was the prince’s lover, but she wasn’t there and they wouldn’t find her, and if they came after her here she would run. If she was captured, Joce would rescue her, the abducted princess saved by the loyal knight.
It occurred to her then that she was not worrying about the future but was grieving the things she had lost.
As time wore on, she decided to explore the theater more thoroughly. There was a square in the stage that looked like a trapdoor, but with no latch. She found the stairs and went below. A door opened into a room with metal cables extending to pulleys at the ceiling, and she realized the square was actually a small lift. The room was dank and chilly. She raised the lantern and saw movement as creatures hurried out of the light. They were not large enough to be rats. The floor was stone. There was no bolt on either side of the door; the room would work neither as a hiding place nor as a trap.
She went back up and into the dressing rooms. Costumes spilled out of chests and lay scattered on the wooden floor. In each room there was a large mirror mounted on the wall and a table and stool in front of it. The tables were piled haphazardly with face paints and hairpins and cheap jewelry. At one of them a red silk scarf embroidered with a golden pattern of interlocked straight lines was hanging over the edge of the mirror. It had been expensive by the look of it. Tam fingered the soft fabric. It caught on the rough spots of her fingers. It seemed wrong to leave something so beautiful for looters. She folded it up
and put it in her pocket. She would make good to the actress if she ever got the chance.
She wiped the dust from her hands onto her pants and returned to the stage. The cat had disappeared. She drew her knife again and laid it on the floor in front of her. She put her forefinger on the hilt and reached for power.
It came hard and sharp with a flash of light from the knife blade. She was momentarily blinded. When the afterbrightness faded from her eyes, she saw that the knife was still glowing with a faint blue-silvery light. She reached toward it and watched as the light collected in her hand and spilled over like water. It invited her in. She considered, decided not to. Not yet.
Joce returned before it was fully dark. While they ate, he told her what he had seen. Mycenean or Sarian soldiers everywhere that mattered, the docks, the main thoroughfares, the watch stations. Disease had not begun to spread yet; the water was still good and the Myceneans had been burning the bodies. Looting and wanton destruction had been got under control by means of merciless executions.
But, he said, and, But, she echoed, no one knew who commanded the soldiers. Some said it was Tyrekh himself. Others said it was one of the Mycenean generals. Several lords were known dead. The rest might never have existed. The soldiers had taken away anyone who asked them anything the first few days, and now no one asked. Trade went on uneasily, few words exchanged. No one would say the king’s name. Women hardly went out at all; too many had disappeared early on. It was a silent city, huddled fearfully into its hole like some small beast.
Tam said, feeling low, “We shouldn’t have come. I don’t know what I was thinking. We can’t just hide forever.”
“People can do anything in war,” he said.
She supposed it was true. “But we can’t win this war. It will just go on, until it seems normal to be occupied.”
“We’ll win.”
“How can you be so sure?” Corin had never had such confidence.
“Mycenean soldiers will not tolerate the Sarians. The Myceneans are vainglorious, but more or less honorable and civilized.”
“There are more Sarians.”
“Not in the long run,” he said. “The farther west Tyrekh extends, the thinner his forces become. And Tyrekh made a mistake. He gave his weapons to the Myceneans. Here.” He held out an apple, green and small and round.
Tam bit into it. It was crisp and sour. She contemplated his words, then said, “But who’s going to get rid of the Myceneans?” She wished she had been able to read more politics. She was not very well educated to be a prince’s wife.
“They’ll miss Mycene. They won’t like winter. Occupation is tedious. They will either go home or become Caithenian despite themselves.” He folded thick bread around a lump of cheese. “And Hadon will likely have to recall them anyway. The Empire won’t last another generation.”
“Why?”
“It’s become too corrupt to sustain itself. When the other vassal kingdoms see what happened in Caithenor, they will act before it happens to them.”
“If that happens too soon we’ll be left to the Sarians,” she said.
“The king has made—” He hesitated, then went on. “Arrangements with a Mycenean general. He can stall things if he has to.”
That was probably something he was not sure she should know. She asked anyway. “Why would he do it if Aram’s dead? There’s no benefit to him.” She knew enough about bargaining to be certain of that.
“The king isn’t dead.”
“You can’t be sure.”
“When I went out I made contact with someone. He had reliable word the king is safe. The general will have heard the same.”
“But—” She stopped. There was no point in arguing. Even if Joce was wrong, neither of them could do anything about it. And she wanted him to be right, why was she trying to talk him out of it? Because you’re contrary by nature, Tam, she said to herself. She said aloud, “Damn it.”
He laughed and began wrapping up the food.
Before she settled down to sleep, Tam stepped back outside to breathe clean air. Bats were darting in the twilight. Drawn by the lantern light behind her, a moth fluttered onto the door frame. It shocked her into stillness. Then she saw that it was a small dun-colored moth, quite ordinary, no death omen. Her skin prickled anyway with recall of the wings fluttering against her.
She woke slowly and groggily to Joce shaking her. She sat up stiffly. “What is it? How long have I slept?”
“Not long, barely more than an hour. But someone’s coming.”
She did not bother to ask him how he knew. “Who?”
“Soldiers, I think. They’re doing a sweep.”
A flash of vision, white-painted faces reflecting the green of war-lights. They carried unsheathed swords with edges glinting in the light. One carried a garrotte loosely in his hand. They were close.
“There’s nowhere to hide,” she said, trying to be calm.
“No. We need to run again.”
“Are they looking for us?”
“I don’t know,” he said, standing and offering her a hand to rise. He had the water flask slung over his shoulder and his sword out. “It may be routine, but it doesn’t matter, they’ll take us either way.”
They went out the side door to the unpaved alleyway. Joce locked the door behind them. The sky was clear and starry. The moon was not up yet. The air was cooler than it had been but still full of summer warmth.
“Run,” said Joce.
She did, her boots coming down hard on the packed dirt. Her body was full of sudden strength. Fences and walls on either side of her, stable doors, startled cats. Her blood pulsed. Her legs burned. Sweat ran into her eyes and down her body. Strands of hair flew into her face. Joce was behind her, running smoothly and quietly.
She ran until she could barely breathe. She stopped and leaned against a wall, gasping. Her sides ached. Her shirt and pants were clinging uncomfortably to her. She was afraid, but it was a thing she knew rather than felt. Her throat was sore and her lungs hurt. She bent over and put her hands on her knees. She tried to speak and was racked with coughs.
Joce put a hand on her back and the pressure in her lungs eased. She straightened, wiped her face with a sweaty forearm. Her hair was sticking to her neck.
A dog barked somewhere distant. Joce dropped to the ground, laid his ear against the earth, then leaped to his feet. His eyes flickered silver. “Hounds,” he said. She knew what they were: the Mycenean bloodhounds used by thief trackers and slave catchers. He cupped his hands. “Over this wall.”
She put her foot in his hands. He pushed her up with astonishing speed and grace. She pulled herself on top of the wall, twisted, and lowered down feet first. He was beside her in seconds.
They were in a garden. They slunk along the wall, around the stable, crushing soft grass underfoot. Honeysuckle bloomed somewhere, tossing her in memory back to the night of the ball. They went over the wall at the front of the house, across the street, past unclimbable pointed iron fences, came to another wall.
He boosted her up again but said, “Don’t go over.” It was about a foot wide. He took her hand and led her along it. Tam stared at the back of his head. She was walking too quickly for comfort with darkness and a fall on either side of her, but she knew it was not fast enough for him. There were too many things to be afraid of now. She was exhausted. Corin, she thought.
Joce led her along a maze of walls and a few times over the roofs of small outbuildings. They had to scramble down and back up to cross the alleys. The walls ended and they returned to the streets. The houses became smaller and closer, the streets narrower. Trees and lawns vanished. There should have been noises on a fine night like this, people talking, cats hissing, a baby crying through an open window. Everything was still and silent. There were no gas lamps lit along the streets, and the houses were dark and lifeless.
Joce stopped. The houses here were built right next to one another and against the street, there was no getting between or around them. No trees to climb. Cellar doors, if there were any, would all be in the back.
Tam started to speak, but Joce hushed her fiercely. He seemed to be listening to something. Then she felt dragonpain in her mind.
She looked up and saw it descending. Huge, blocking out the stars, the wings vast. She smelled sulfur. Her heart raced. Foolishly, desperately, she drew her knife. The dragon’s talons were probably longer than the blade.
It landed and the rider dismounted. The wings folded partly but not completely and were all angles and lines against the sky. She could not tell what color the dragon was, although she could see a different shade of darkness at its neck. The mouth was closed.
She tried to find the stillness. If she could only speak to the creature.
Joce stepped in front of her, his sword unsheathed. She knew she should run, try to hide from the rider at least, but it seemed so futile to run from a dragon. The panic had dropped away and her mind was clear now, fear-sharpened.
The men advanced toward each other. The rider had not drawn a blade. Joce and the rider spoke simultaneously, the words blurring so she could not hear them, each with a questioning tone. Joce sheathed his sword. They knew each other. For a faithless frightened instant she thought she had been betrayed.
Then Joce said, “It’s all right, my lady, we’re safe.” Safe was not a word she would have used near a dragon. Tentatively she approached him. Her body was still ready to flee.
The rider bowed and said, “The prince has sent me for you.”
“Which prince?” she asked, suspicious. She could not see his face.
“Prince Corin,” said the rider. “He said you might not believe it, so I am to tell you that he is sorry he could not bring any of the Illyrian red.”
That had to be him. If he were a captive he would have said something that warned her. This was the rider who had taken Corin. She dropped the knife and stumbled into Joce with relief as her legs went loose. He supported her.