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VI

Their coach was three-fourths of the way to the border when darkness overtook them. After some debate, Penric ruled that they should stop at the next coaching inn to eat and sleep, rather than paying extra for night service. Mira would be rumpled and unattractive at the border post if they rode all night, such travel was rare and thus more likely to draw suspicion, and Adelis would do better to present his petition for refuge at the court of Orbas in daylight. Adelis was on edge at the delay. Penric couldn’t blame him.

The inn proved modest and clean, but Mira was sulking, and left Pen to play her part by himself. Fortunately, it was brief, the traveling courtesan’s gold coins speaking for her, speeding the negotiation for a private chamber and dinner to be brought up. Desdemona as a whole was still talking to him, though she didn’t seem to have much to say.

Nikys was scarcely talking to him either, plainly repelled by his last night’s—surprisingly successful—ploy. Really Mira’s ploy, but what was the point of him protesting? It would just make it sound as if his demon was in imminent danger of ascending, hardly an improvement. It must be enough just to get Nikys and her brother over the frontier safely, which, after all, was the task he’d started out to complete. Anything else, including gratitude, would be a boon that he couldn’t do anything about anyway, right? It was better that she was peeved with him. It would make parting less painful. Right?

The reflection that their whole detour to Sosie might well have been the Bastard’s answer to prayers none of their own was too disturbing to dwell upon. As they blew out the candles and settled into their beds, Penric turned his mind to more practical matters.

Vilnoc would be his first chance to report in at his own Order since news of his execution-or-escape from the bottle dungeon in Patos. There had been time by now for first words of the fate of their envoy to get back to Lodi, to the duke and to Pen’s archdivine, but Pen had no guess what stories they’d received, let alone believed. They might think him dead. Pen wondered morbidly if the archdivine would have claimed all his books, or yielded them to the duke, or broken them up for sale.

And if his treasured volumes were gone beyond recall, what did he have to go back for, really? He toyed with the notion of staying dead. It would be a very clever, tidy escape from all his oaths and disciplines, to be sure. Except that he didn’t really want to. He’d no heart to abandon the reputation for learning that he’d spent the last ten years building, and a scholar needed a rich patron. It was not the sort of work ordinary men would understand or pay for, not seeing immediate benefit to themselves.

Keep it in mind for your future self, then, murmured Des slyly, enduring his fretting. As if she had a choice to do otherwise than endure him, any more than he did her.

Des!

But his outrage was weak.


They made a reasonably early start the next morning, despite delays for making up Mira to her most polished perfection that had Adelis’s hand clenching on his sword hilt with impatience. But at last, escorted by her matched pair of masked and tabarded servants, Mira swept aboard, and they were off again. Only twenty-five miles more. One more relay of horses would do it, although they would be compelled to exchange both horses and coach again at the border village, leaving their Cedonian transport behind and picking up men and beasts of Orbas. No doubt at a premium price, but at least that assured such services would be waiting. Skinning foreign travelers trapped by border laws was a happy tradition for such countrymen, in both directions.

They had made their first change, with but ten miles left to go, when Adelis, painfully tense, turned his head. “Hoofbeats. Horses. Galloping behind us.”

“Put your mask back on before you stick your head out, sunder it,” Pen demanded. Adelis glared but complied. Nikys gave him a glance for this rare black profanity, and took to the other window.

“Cavalrymen. Half a dozen of them,” she reported.

Adelis swore. “Bastard’s teeth and Mother’s blood. It’s Egin Chadro. Come for his revenge on you, Penric?”

“Can the coach outrun them to the border? If you offer the postilion gold?” asked Nikys.

“Not a chance,” said Adelis. “Still too far. They’re bound to overtake us in another mile. We’ll have to fight.” He readied his knife in his belt sheath and set the sword beside him. Extracted the bow from the wrapped bundle, strung it, and retrieved their scant handful of arrows. Frowned at Penric. “We’ve taken down that many men before, between us. Can you do your magic tricks again, Penric? Pull the bow, or should I give it to Nikys? Or will you be afraid to muss your dress?”

Penric ignored the trailing insult. He wanted to think fast, but he mostly thought of his quiet study above the canal, suddenly missed. “It would only take one survivor to warn the border against us, and bring back a swarm of reinforcements. He wouldn’t have far to ride.”

Adelis’s teeth set. “Then we had better make sure none get away, eh?”

Penric contemplated the potential chaos. Was this a gift of his god? If so, I don’t want it, Sir. “It’s a busy road. A single passing witness could get away and do the same. Or a coach-load. I don’t think we can count on privacy for such a bloody brawl.” He slid over beside Nikys and risked a glance himself. The horsemen were close enough now for a deep bellow to be faintly heard over their own team’s hoofbeats and harness-jingle and the creaking of the coach. “Wait.”

“What?” said Adelis, outraged. “Have you lost your wits?” His mouth thinned. “Or are you betraying us at the last? What were you really talking about with Chadro all those hours night before last?”

“Not that,” said Penric, fervently. “Listen.”

The bellow became words: “Sora Mira! Stop! Please!”

“Don’t you think,” said Penric slowly, “that if he’d learned of my disguise, he would be yelling something more like Stop so I can kill you, Jurald, you lying son-of-a-bitch?”

Nikys’s eyebrows climbed. “Would he?”

“ . . . Unless he’s being clever. Is he that clever, Adelis?”

“Maybe.” Adelis’s hand worked on his hilt. “Maybe.”

“Because if he still believes I’m Mira, I think I could talk our way out of this.” Whatever this was. “Give him his remaining gold back, something.” Right, Mira? Right?

The return silence was palpable, and pointed.

Pen scrambled to persuade her. Lovely Mira, if I was insufficiently admiring of all your hard work, I apologize, and I promise to make it up later—but only if there is a later. Besides, if we get slaughtered here on this road, where would you all jump? I mean, I know you liked Chadro, but surely not in that way?

Desdemona-as-a-whole snorted. An admirable man, but he does not have a swift and malleable mind. Not like you, young Penric.

“We can still fight after we talk,” Nikys gulped, “but we can’t still talk after we fight. I think we’d better let Penric try first.”

Adelis set his jaw on fulmination, but choked out, “Perhaps so.”

Pen managed a short nod. “Stay in the coach, out of sight, Adelis. Those masks are enough to mislead anyone who hasn’t met you, but not someone who has. If things go badly, I’ll try to send a couple of horses your way. Or cut loose the leaders, or anything I can. Ride and don’t look back.”

“Don’t try to explain my trade to me,” growled Adelis, “and I’ll not try to explain yours to you.”

The grinning cavalrymen were riding up around them, one of them grabbing for the surprised postilion, another for the coach horses’ checkreins. Their hoots for a halt sounded more cheery than murderous. The coach rumbled to a stop over the protests, but not the resistance, of the postilion. Chadro cantered up and swung his lathered horse to the door, blocking it. The animal’s nostrils were round and red and blowing. Chadro was in scarcely better shape, though as exultant as a successful runner at the end of a god’s-day race. His boot-face was damp with sweat as his chest rose and fell.

Pen signed himself, tapped his thumb five times against his lips, took a deep breath, fixed a smile in place, and leaned out the window.

“Dear Egin!” he cried, endeavoring to sound surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought you’d still be resting at Zihre’s place. I didn’t expect you to leave so soon. I came last night to speak to you, but you were already gone.”

“I do have, as I mentioned, an obligation, and we were already much delayed.”

Chadro dismounted, handed off his reins to an attentive soldier, and looked up at her. “Mira, would you walk a little apart with me? What I have to say is for no one’s ears but yours.”

Pen’s lips parted in doubt, but Mira spoke up at last: Oh, for pity’s sake. It’s not like I haven’t acted in this playlet before, too many times to remember. Stand aside, Learned Fool. I couldn’t bear to watch you flounder.

Relieved, Pen yielded the lead to her, though on guard to take it all back in an instant. She dismounted from the coach into Chadro’s helping arms rather more gracefully than Pen could have managed. Her smile was grateful and soft. Chadro’s grip was understandably hot, and Pen quickly captured his hands to keep them from straying anywhere near his underpadding. No convenient bedposts and bindings here, and his costume was only meant to fool the eye.

Mira hooked her elbow through Chadro’s as they sauntered up the verge away from the straining ears and avidly curious eyes of both their escorts. An old plane tree stood near the road, and Chadro led her into its speckled shade, a few papery fallen leaves crackling underfoot, then turned to take both her hands in his. Pen looked down into his earnest, ugly features; he was a good half a head taller than the general even without the clogs. Chadro looked up like a man kneeling before an altar.

“What would it take to make you stay with me, Mira?”

“I cannot stay. I told you I was journeying, and why.”

“Yes, you’ve been wholly honest with me . . . ”

Ouch, ouch, ouch.

“Yet you plan to tarry for one man. Why not another?”

“My course has already been laid.”

He ducked his chin. “I expect the lucky fellow only thinks to give you some private portion.” He took a breath. “How if I outbid him? Marry me, and all I have will be yours.”

“Oh, Egin,” Mira sighed. “Do you think I haven’t received such proposals before, from other great men?”

That’s laying it on with a trowel, isn’t it? thought Pen.

No, it’s quite true. Mira tapped Chadro on his big hooked nose, in a friendly but distancing fashion. She continued to him, “When I get to Orbas, I must make a final choice of service between two dukes.”

That, Pen realized, was also perfectly true. Although the duke of Adria had never shown any sign of wanting to bed him. Thankfully.

Chadro swallowed, taken aback. But not for long, because he was, clearly, not a man who surrendered readily, or he would not have achieved his present rank. “But I daresay neither offers you marriage.”

“No. That is their attraction.”

“You don’t have to sail so isolate. I could be your harbor. Your rock.”

“You’re a soldier, Egin. You must serve at your emperor’s pleasure, not mine. One unlucky moment in battle, and my rock turns to sand. Or grave dirt.”

“A Cedonian general’s widow is not without resources.”

“Exchanging my wedding garlands for bier wreaths? I like you well, but I am not drawn to such a ceremony.”

You know, this man really is terrible at courting women, Pen observed in bemusement.

Hush, chided Mira. I think he’s very sweet.

Pen stared at that ugly boot-face, and tried to see what she was seeing. The horrible thing was, he could.

“What do you want, in your heart of hearts, Mira? Anything I can command, I will lay at your feet.”

Sadly, fondly, Mira smiled. “My freedom.”

Chadro was silent for a good long time, taking this in. At length, he gave an infinitesimal nod. “I’m a man of my word. Shall I escort you to the border, then?”

“That would be very welcome.”

Chadro offered his arm again, and they strolled slowly back toward the coach. “If your duke proves sand, would you know how to find me?”

“I would.”

“You are young yet—what, twenty, twenty-three? You might change your mind in the future. The future is a long time.”

You have no idea how long, thought Mira. I had no idea. She had reigned in Lodi over a century ago, after all. “Would you still want me at thirty? Forty?” She smiled dryly. “Two hundred?”

“Yes,” said Chadro simply.

“Cruel to give you false hopes.”

“Crueler to give me none.”

“Not really.”

This is excruciating, said Pen.

Aye. The darling men used to imagine they’d fallen in love with me all the time. Most of them were actually in love with their own cocks.

But not all?

She sighed, silently. No, not all. I might have surrendered myself to one of them, but the tumor in my womb overtook me first. I wasn’t half past forty when I died. She brightened. It’s lovely to know I can still hook them in.

Yes, Mira. Now please throw him back.

I am trying, she pouted. He’s charmingly persistent.

“Two dukes, eh?” Chadro vented a reluctantly defeated huff.

“One must seize great opportunities when they come.”

“It seems some opportunities come too late. Or too early.” He stopped and turned her toward him. “For all we did night before last, I never got a kiss.”

Pen barely managed to get an arm up between them, fingers spread on Chadro’s chest, as Chadro encircled Mira and drew her to him, leaned up, and pressed his lips to hers. Pen did not interfere as Mira returned it with grace, but chastely, as far from the wickedly inventive Mira of the bedchamber as he could imagine. No wonder she’d made men’s heads spin. He was just glad he’d chosen a minimal sort of padding, hard to discern in the folds of the blue-green dress. The watching soldiers whooped and whistled. Pen sensed wide eyes behind the masks in the coach window.

“Freedom can turn to ash as well,” murmured Chadro.

“I know,” said Mira.

“You are too young to be so wise.”

“You are too old to be so foolish. But you are kind, which is a rarer treasure than gold. May the woman you finally bestow it upon be worthy of it.” She slipped out of his hold, and Pen skipped toward the coach, terrified lest some incriminating underpadding come loose in the heat. With a strained smile, Chadro followed and handed Mira up the steps once more, giving her copper-tipped fingers a last squeeze of sincere farewell. He clicked the coach door closed.

Pen fell into the seat across from Nikys and Adelis, wheezing. Some low-voiced commands from outside, and the coach started up once more, this time with six armed outriders.

Adelis looked ready to surge across the gap and throttle him. “What just happened?

“General Chadro has charitably undertaken to escort Sora Mira to the border, and see her safely across.”

“What?” gasped Nikys. “How did you bring that off?” Adelis jerked around to look out the window, as if making sure they were still headed in the right direction.

“All Mira’s work, I assure you.”

Nikys stared at him, wary-eyed even through her sequined trim. “So where does Mira leave off and Penric begin, behind that pretty face of yours?”

Pen thought of how Sugane and Litikone had blended together, after all their years, and Vasia nearly as much, and shook his head. “Should I live long enough, who knows?” Still reeling, he flung his head back against the seat and waited for his heart to slow. That had been worse than sprinting. “If my demon doesn’t slay me by sheer terror first. Although then she will be someone else’s problem. Consoling thought.”

Nikys tensed as if she wanted to recoil, but in the close confines of the coach, there was nowhere to retreat.

Penric closed his eyes, and thought, I swear to my god, Desdemona, if I ever again have to disguise myself as a woman, I’m calling in Learned Aulia.

Ungrateful, Penric! But he could sense Mira’s amusement. At him, of course.

A murmur from Aulia: I’m not sure it’s such a compliment to me, either. Are you saying I’m dull?

Penric imagined a mental figure of himself flailing his hands in apology and backing away, which made Des snicker.

Des went on, If you wanted a dull life, Penric, you picked up the wrong demon from that roadside out of Greenwell.

Ha. Which of us picked up which? And what were wrong or right demons, anyway? All demons started identically, as unformed blobs of chaos escaped into the world from the Bastard’s hell, or repository of disorder, or whatever it was. Each grew more different from all the others with every rider it came to; the differences redoubled as its riders accumulated over time. Des’s theological argument that the Temple should not blame the demons for the imprints their riders left upon them was ongoing, and . . . not to be solved on a coach road.

The vehicle rumbled onward. After a few minutes, Pen opened his eyes and gathered his wits enough to caution, “No word of this episode must ever pass anyone’s lips.”

Adelis snorted. “Embarrassed, Learned? It seems late to find your pride.”

Not one word,” said Penric, irritated. “If it ever gets out to your enemies at the Imperial court how Chadro let you slip through his hands like this, they’ll hang him in your place, Adelis. And he doesn’t deserve it.” He added, more cruelly, “Or maybe they’ll put out his eyes with boiling vinegar.”

That won a real flinch, and Adelis dropped his gaze, if not ashamed, at least deterred. Although after a while he muttered, “If we ever end up facing each other across a field of arms, I may well wish I’d let him hang.”

The last five miles to the border passed in brooding silence.

Chadro’s high-ranking oversight saw them past the guards on the Cedonian side with utmost courtesy, and no questions asked. The hired coach ferried them the few hundred yards down and across the stream marking the boundary of the two polities, and up the next slope to the post of the Orbas guards. There the postilion let them off, was duly rewarded with a suitable coin, and turned his horses around to go back.

The men of Orbas, having watched their impressive arrival at the opposite guard-post, gave them a closer inspection. No one broke character yet. The two masked servants trailed dutifully, overshadowed by their dazzling mistress, who gave the guards to understand, without naming names, that she was traveling under the protection of a very high lord of Orbas indeed, who was looking forward anxiously to her safe and untrammeled arrival.

The closest thing to an attack was after they cleared the soldiers, as they suffered the importunities of three rival coach owners competing for their business. Adelis, in the role of Mira’s manservant, shouted and cuffed them to silence and chose the one who seemed to boast the healthiest and fastest team. It wasn’t till they clambered into the new conveyance that Chadro, watching from the far side of the ravine, gave Mira one last wave. Charitably, she waved back and blew him a broad kiss before he turned his horse and rode away, spine disconsolately bowed.

They were a mile up the road from the border village, with no sign or sound of pursuit, when Adelis at last threw his countryman’s hat and the carnival mask to the rocking floor of the coach and bent over with his scarred face buried in his hands. His shoulders shook, and Penric wasn’t sure if he was weeping or getting ready to vomit. Or both. Of the three who had shared this journey, Adelis had borne the most frightening burden, and Penric fancied the mask staring up blindly by their feet was not the only one he’d been wearing.

Nikys laid a consoling hand on her brother’s arm and squeezed, perhaps knowing better than to speak. Prudently, Penric copied her muteness.


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