The Laurentine Spy (35 page)

Athan turned away. The door to the yard stood open. He walked over to it. His uncle’s voice was in his ear:
Don’t throw up on me, boy.
He blinked the memory away—bodies lying like broken dolls—and focused on the farmyard.

A hen pecked among the cobblestones. An empty bowl sat to one side of the stone doorstep. A troll bowl.

The bowl brought back even stronger memories of his uncle: his enthusiasm and his endless questions, the scratch of a quill on parchment late into the night—

“You may bathe.”

He turned his head. Three stood in the kitchen, wary, too thin, watching him. Her hair was uncovered. It gleamed, red-gold.

Athan swallowed. “You look...”
Beautiful.
The word dried in his mouth.

The Marillaqan clothes suited her—the forest-green undergown with flecks of brown and gold woven through the wool, the sleeveless overgown embroidered in wine-dark red and saffron yellow.

Athan swallowed again. He stepped away from the doorway and bowed. “You look lovely, my lady.”

Three’s gaze slid sideways, as if the compliment was unwelcome. “Thank you.”

He bathed quickly, scrubbing the grime from his skin, washing his hair. He was dressing when he heard hooves on the cobblestones outside.

Athan crossed the bedchamber and ducked his head to look out of the window. He saw three horses and one rider.

It was time to go.

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

T
HEY RODE FOR
hours through silent forests, he and Three and their guide. The snow muffled the sound of the horses’ hooves. Fir trees stood tall and dark. Morning became afternoon. Shadows lengthened on the ground. They ate while riding and passed a waterskin between them. The guide set a steady pace. He didn’t speak.

It began to snow lightly. Snowflakes drifted down through dark branches.

It was familiar—the fir trees, the snow. He was fifteen years old again. If he turned his head he’d see his uncle.
Trolls don’t exist, sir.

How do you know, boy, until it’s been proved?

Dusk was gathering when at last they came to a road. The snow was muddy, churned with hoof prints and the tracks of wagon wheels. “Therac,” their guide said, jerking his head downhill. It was the first word he’d spoken all day.

“How far?” Athan asked.

“Half a mile.”

Athan nodded.

“Leave the horses at the inn. Someone will collect them.’’

Athan watched as horse and rider vanished back into the forest. He turned to Three. “My lady?”

They rode without speaking. Questions gathered on Athan’s tongue. He held them back with his teeth.
Don’t push her.
The road curved and the forest drew back against the mountainside. He saw snowy fields, smelled wood smoke. Lamplight gleamed ahead.

“What names shall we use?”

Athan looked at her. “Why don’t we use our real names?”

“Our real names?”

“Marillaqan names are similar to Laurentine. There should be no danger.”

Three rode in silence for almost a minute. The horses’ hooves made soft, wet sounds in the mud and snow. The lights of the town grew nearer, brighter. Finally she said, “Very well.”

Athan cleared his throat.
Don’t push her.
“What’s your name, my lady?”

“Saliel.” She didn’t name a House. “And yours?”

“Athan.”

Her expression told him not to ask more questions.

H
E HUNG ON
the end of a rope.
Spinning. Darkness. A scream in his throat
—

Athan jerked awake. He sat up and gasped for breath. His heartbeat hammered in his ears.

He wasn’t spinning. It wasn’t dark. He didn’t lie on straw. Embers glowed in a fireplace. There were sheets and a soft mattress.

Where? Where am I?

He touched his chest, feeling a single layer of linen: a nightshirt. He wasn’t wearing his peasant clothes. He wasn’t in a cow byre, or a tent—

The inn. I’m in a room at the inn.

Athan released his breath slowly. He lay down.

There was a pillow beneath his head.

A pillow.

Laughter choked in his throat, where a moment ago there’d been a scream.

He closed his eyes. The room was silent. No one else breathed but him. For the first time in more than two months he slept alone. Three was in a bedchamber across the hall—

No, not Three.

He had her name now: Saliel.

A
THAN WOKE AGAIN
after dawn. He rang for hot water and busied himself with his morning ablutions—shaving, washing.

It was interesting the difference that so simple and familiar an act as shaving made. It made him feel clean, but more than that, it made him recognize himself. The ritual of it—the movements and the sensation, the sound, the sharpness of the blade, the face he saw in the mirror—all anchored him to Athan. Lord Ivo had been shaved by a valet and Petter had never shaved. But Athan shaved himself; it was part of who he was.

I am myself again.

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

“I
WOULD PREFER
to ride,” Saliel said in a low voice, breaking open a roll with her fingers. The bread was still warm from the oven.

“I’m sorry.” Athan’s regret sounded genuine. “But you’re a wealthy man’s wife. You must travel in a carriage.”

“I rode yesterday.”

“And will be remembered because of that.” His voice was as quiet as hers. No one would hear it beyond their table. “From now on we draw no attention to ourselves.”

“Very well.” She spread pale butter on the bread, and then berry-red jam.

“I’m sorry,” Athan said again.

Saliel shrugged with one shoulder. “We’re in Marillaq; we must do as the Marillaqans do.” She bit into the roll. The jam tasted of summer in her mouth, of raspberries and sunshine.

They talked of safer things after that, more loudly, and she climbed into the hired carriage as a prosperous Marillaqan wife would: cheerful, content to be shut in a box instead of riding on horseback with her husband.

Her stomach didn’t like the swaying of the coach.
I ate too much at breakfast.
But it was hard not to when food was spread before her: freshly-baked bread and creamy pats of butter, cheeses honeycombed with holes, thick slices of smoke-cured ham, jams that tasted of summer.

The view through the windows—small and jerky—made the discomfort worse. She saw trees, snow, Athan astride a large bay.

Saliel closed her eyes. She concentrated on the coachman’s shouts, the crack of the whip, the sound of carriage wheels and hooves on snow, on cobblestones, on snow again. Hours passed. She began to grow cold despite the cloak and gloves she wore. The nausea became harder to ignore.

The sun was high in the sky when at last the carriage halted. Athan opened the door. “We’ll stop here for lunch,” he said, smiling up at her.

Saliel climbed down from the carriage.

“Shall we eat?” He offered her his arm.

Thought of food made her even more nauseous. “May we walk a while first?”

The streets were narrow and cobbled, closely crowded with tall stone buildings. Snow lay in the gutters and ice hung from the eaves. Wooden signs swung above shop doorways, carved with images: an apothecary’s vials of medicine, a cobbler’s shoes. The baker didn’t need his sign; the smells of yeast and cinnamon scented the air far beyond his doorway.

They turned back at a smithy on the outskirts of the town. Furnaces flamed red-hot. Men in thick, fire-scored leather aprons beat metal on anvils.

Saliel’s nausea slowly faded. Athan strolled beside her, seemingly at ease, but he wasn’t relaxed. He was alert, aware of every alley, every doorway, every person on the street.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

She shook her head. “You think we’re being watched.”

He scanned the street again. “Perhaps.”

She glanced around—shops and townsfolk, carriages. “No one’s watching us.”

Athan halted. He looked at her. His expression was serious. “Corhona’s had two months to search for us.”

“You think people could be here, looking for us?”

“I think it’s possible. I think...we need to be very careful.”

She glanced around again.
Marillaq is safe. We’re safe.
But they were no longer surrounded by dozens of peasants. They were alone. They stood out.

Saliel shivered. She lifted the hood of her cloak, covering her hair.

T
HEY ATE LUNCH
at the coaching inn in a cheerful, busy taproom—a pie of chicken with dark-fleshed mushrooms—and traveled on through fir forests and snow, stopping in Herault when night fell. The rooms had whitewashed walls and black-beamed ceilings and bright rugs on the floor. Saliel took her place at the table in the private parlor Athan had hired. She looked at the white walls, the simple furnishings, the rugs.
So much nicer than the Citadel.
A serving maid brought soup and curtseyed and withdrew.

Saliel unfolded her napkin, suddenly self-conscious. For the first time in two months she was truly alone with Athan. She picked up her soup spoon.

“Saliel.”

She glanced up. “Yes?”

“Forgive me, but I need to ask...” He looked at her intently. “Who are you?”

She sat with her spoon poised over the soup. “I told you at the Bight. I’m a foundling from the Ninth Ward.”

Athan shook his head. “No, you’re not.”

Saliel looked down at the soup. It was creamy, yellow, with leeks floating on the surface. She laid her spoon down on the tablecloth.

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

“I
’M FROM THE
Ninth Ward,” she said again.

Athan shook his head.

Saliel folded her napkin and placed it beside her soup bowl.
She’s telling the truth.
He saw it in her face, in the way she sat. “But you walk like a lady.” It was a protest. “You speak like a lady.”

“I’m not one.”

He’d never set foot in the Ninth Ward; few people did out of choice. It was a place of squalor and disease and misery, crowded, swarming with vermin. It had many names: the slums, the stews, Laurent’s Cesspit. Athan inhaled, almost expecting to smell the stench of sewers.
You can tell a Ninth Warder by their stink. It never washes off.

Everything he’d ever been taught urged him to push to his feet, to stride from the room. He stayed sitting. He inhaled again. No smell of sewers, just leeks, soup.

Athan looked down at his bowl.
I wanted to marry her.
He was aware of regret, deep in his chest.

He pushed aside the bowl. “I don’t understand.”

Saliel pushed her own soup bowl away. She didn’t look at him. “Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

For a moment she sat stiffly, looking down at the tablecloth, then she spoke: “When I was seven I was taken to the Aspides. By a diplomat and his wife.”

“Seven?” He had an instant’s glimpse of the child she’d been, thin and filthy, her hair crawling with lice, gutter language coming from her mouth. “Why?”

“They wanted someone to pass as their child.”

A foundling from Laurent’s Cesspit?
They must have been desperate.
“Why you?”

“The wife had red hair.”

Saliel didn’t look up to speak. She sat with her head bowed, staring down at the tablecloth. Athan had a moment of sudden understanding.
She’s ashamed of who she is.

He cleared his throat. “Were they nice to you?”

“They were hospitable.”

He frowned. “Is that all they were? Hospitable?”

Saliel glanced briefly at him. She didn’t speak.

“Why did they take you then?”

She touched the handle of her soup spoon and moved it slightly, so that it lined up with the rest of her cutlery. “I think they wanted to be the same as everyone else.”

Athan rubbed his temples with hard fingers. A dangerous pretense. If anyone had found out—
they’d have been shunned, ruined.
“What was it like living with them?”

Saliel’s brow creased slightly as she stared at the tablecloth. “The luxury was...extraordinary. I had a room of my own, a bed I didn’t have to share. I had new clothes and toys and shoes. I’d never had shoes before. And there was so much food. As much as I wanted. As much as I could eat.”