Buried Heart (Court of Fives #3)
Kate Elliott
1
I stand poised on the shore of Mist Lake like an adversary gathering focus before a Fives trial. South across the waters, too far away to see from here, lies the city of Saryenia, from which we just escaped. A rhythmic sound drifts out of the dawn haze that obscures the horizon: the drums of a fast-moving war galley.
“Do you hear that?” I say. “The new king is already hunting us.”
The boat I arrived in rocks wildly as its two occupants—Lord Kalliarkos and the poet Ro-emnu—jump out onto land and scramble up to either side of me. Kal takes my hand, the touch of his skin a promise against mine, and gives me a smile that makes my heart leap. Ro glances over, gaze flicking down to our entwined fingers, and looks away with a frown.
“We’ve got to get you out of sight,” I say to Kal, reluctantly shaking loose from his grip. “And get my mother to safety where your uncle can never find her.”
My mother has already disembarked. We are the last people out of the flotilla of now-empty rowboats in which our party fled the murderous new king. Surrounded by local Efean villagers, Mother is speaking to them with such an appearance of calm dignity that no one would ever guess how desperate our circumstances are. As the three of us run over, the villagers leave her and race past us to the shore, carrying baskets and fishing nets. They shove the boats back out onto the water.
“Are they abandoning us?” I ask as we rush up to Mother.
“Not at all, Jessamy. They are risking their lives to aid us.”
“By fishing?”
Ro breaks in with his usual needling. “The sight of Efeans hard at work to enrich Patron treasuries always lulls our Saroese masters.”
“By placing their own bodies between us and the soldiers,” Mother goes on. “It isn’t only military men wielding swords who defend the land and act with courage.”
I look back again, viewing the scene on the lake with new eyes. “That’s very brave, especially since they’re unarmed.”
“Doma Kiya, we need to get moving to the shelter of the trees,” says Kal to Mother, offering her a polite bow with hand pressed to heart.
Although his words and tone are courteous, Mother’s usually gentle expression stiffens into a stony-eyed mask. “I can see that for myself, my lord,” she snaps.
Kal is taken aback by her hostility, and so am I.
Irritation and impatience clip off my tongue. “He’s helping us!”
Kal looks from my mother to me and, still with his courteous voice, says, “I’ll scout ahead to make sure my uncle isn’t lying in wait in the trees to capture you.”
He races away while we follow at a brisk walk. Mother holds my infant brother, Wenru, while, beside her, my friend and former Fives stablemate Mis carries Wenru’s twin sister, Safarenwe. All the other Efeans have either gone out onto the lake or have left to escort the wagons conveying the fugitive Patrons of Garon Palace, who own this estate and its surrounding villages.
“Maybe the soldiers will pass by,” I say with another anxious look toward the lake. The shape of a mast coalesces in the mist. Oars beat the water in unison as the warship speeds toward us.
“Seeing only dull Commoner fishermen and farmers, not bold conspirators who just rescued the new king’s rivals from certain death,” murmurs Ro.
“Don’t speak of such matters in front of Lord Kalliarkos, Ro-emnu,” says Mother, with a warning glance at me.
“Kal won’t—”
“Enough, Jessamy. Keep moving.” Her tone scalds.
Kal waves an all clear from the edge of the orchard and ducks out of sight before the war galley can get close enough to spot his Saroese features and clothing. The fig and pomegranate trees aren’t particularly tall but they are bushy enough to conceal us. As the others push forward on a wagon track through the trees, I pause to look back one last time.
While most of the rowboats have dispersed out onto the water, six have made a rough circle with a large net between them, blocking the approach to the shoreline where we landed. But the galley cuts straight through the little flotilla. Two of the boats flip, and the others rock wildly as their occupants struggle to keep them from overturning. Oars slap the heads of people in the water to jeers from the oarsmen. Arrows streak out from the deck. Most splash harmlessly into the water but one strikes a hapless swimmer in the back. The armed men crowded on the deck shout excitedly and laugh as the victim’s head sinks beneath the surface. It’s a game to them.
The drumbeat ceases. The galley plows through a stand of reeds with a rattle of noise before dragging to a stop in the shallows exactly where we just disembarked.
A man steps up to the rail of the ship.
It is the new king himself, once Prince General Nikonos and now the man who murdered his older brother and innocent young nephew so he could seize the throne of Efea. From this distance I can’t fully distinguish his face although I know he resembles Kal in having regal features and a golden-brown complexion; they’re cousins, after all.
Nikonos calls out in the voice of a man used to shouting over the din of battle. “The Garon estate lies beyond the trees! The man who brings the corpse of Lord Kalliarkos or Lord Gargaron to me I will raise to become a lord! As for the rest of the Garon household and any who shelter them, show no mercy to traitors!”
I sprint after the others. Thorns from the pomegranate branches scrape my arms. Mother has been jogging along at the rear but she slows to a halt, puffing as she struggles to catch her breath. The others stop too, Mis supporting Mother with a hand under her elbow.
I charge up. “It’s Nikonos himself. Right on our heels.”
“Honored Lady, I’ll take the baby to lighten your burden,” says Ro.
To my consternation—because I should have asked first—Mother hands Wenru over to the poet. After a moment of disgruntled squirming, my infant brother settles into Ro’s arms with an expression of unbabyish disgust.
The sounds of snapping branches and men cursing at thorns chase us onward as the soldiers push through the trees. We emerge at a run from the orchard and hurry through grain fields toward the stately roofs and walls of the main compound, built for the Saroese stewards who supervise the estate with its rich fields, groves, and fishing. A path lined by trees leads to the northeast, toward an Efean village.
“Shouldn’t we head toward the village?” I whisper urgently.
“My grandmother always keeps an escape plan in reserve,” says Kal. “There’s a merchant galley hidden in a backwater river channel beyond the northern fields for just such an emergency as this. She and the rest of the household should already be boarding it.”