“In other words,” remarks Ro, because he just can’t stop himself, “you Saroese nobles expect at any moment to be murdered by your own relatives.”
Kal touches my arm as a warning not to bother answering. “This way,” he says in a tone like an echo of my military father, a reminder that Kal fought a campaign in the desert and commanded a squad of spider scouts.
We splash through a shallow irrigation canal and race across another stretch of fields.
“Do you visit here often?” I ask in a low voice, sticking beside him.
“Twice a year with my grandmother. When I was a boy I would play on the hidden ship and pretend I was a sailor on the high seas.”
I grin at this innocent memory. Without breaking stride, he bumps a shoulder against mine, just a tap. Despite the danger we’re in, it’s exhilarating to keep pace together, feet hitting the ground in perfect time.
Mudbrick reservoirs rise at the end of cultivated land and the beginning of marshier ground where bushy-headed papyrus sways over our heads. Fresh wagon tracks in the earth mark where the Garon fugitives passed only moments ago, so it’s with shock that we emerge onto the bank of a backwater river channel to find the dock empty.
The merchant galley is gone.
Except for an embroidered blue silk shawl fluttering in the branches of a sycamore, there’s no trace of the Garon household; of Kal’s grandmother, Princess Berenise; his sister, Lady Meno?; his uncle Lord Gargaron; nor any of the fifty relatives and retainers who escaped with us out of Saryenia. Nothing except three village rowboats bumping against the pilings with neatly folded fishing nets inside, and the two abandoned wagons.
“How could they have left without me?” says Kal, a hand on his neck like he’s trying to stem the bleeding from having his throat cut.
We stare, all too stunned to ask the same question. Safarenwe gives a fussing cry, and Mother takes her from Mis, soothing her with kisses. Wenru remains uncannily silent in Ro’s arms.
Mis points back the way we came. “Look!”
We turn. Shock tightens to a new stab of fear. Threads of smoke rise in the distance. They thicken to columns and then boil up into fierce black clouds.
Nikonos’s soldiers are burning the estate.
2
The tops of papyrus start thrashing: soldiers following our trail.
“I found fresh wagon tracks!” a man shouts in Saroese.
Kal and I instantly scan our surroundings. The channel has been dredged along the steeper bank to give enough draft for a galley to dock, while the other bank is a shallow marshland choked with reeds. We glance at each other with a flash of shared understanding.
“I can swim underwater to hide in the reeds,” he says.
I nod. “We’ll pretend to fish in the boats.”
He doesn’t protest that we’ll become targets while he hides. We both know this is the only way. I grab his wrist and, even with my mother right there, give him a quick kiss as a promise.
If his gaze slides to meet Ro’s in challenge, it happens so fast I am sure I have mistaken it. But then Ro says, as if in retort, “Don’t you fear crocodiles, Kal?”
“The ones on two feet are sure to kill me, so I’ll take my chances.”
He slips into the water, vanishing without sound or splash. I run to the end of the dock and yank the shawl out of the branches so our pursuers won’t guess that Patron women have passed by here. By the time I race back, Mis and Ro, with Safarenwe, are already rowing away as Mother, holding Wenru, waits for me.
We push off. Mother gives Wenru to me and takes the oars. She handles them with an adeptness that surprises me until I remember she grew up in a rustic village far from sophisticated Saryenia. Wenru clutches at my vest like he’s afraid I’m going to toss him overboard. A pair of ducks flutters up noisily from deep within the reeds. I can’t see Kal from here but he must have surfaced and startled them. The thrashing in the papyrus comes closer as men shout, having heard the quacking. Ahead of us, Ro and Mis glide behind a thick stand of reeds. We’re too far behind to have a hope of concealing ourselves.
Mother stops rowing and takes up a net as five soldiers burst into view and stamp out onto the dock. She flips out the net, which flares like a flower blooming, strikes the water, and sinks. The movement draws their attention.
“Hey, Sergeant! Let’s catch some Efean delicacies for our supper,” calls one, his accent that of a man from overseas, not a locally born Patron.
I hate the way they stare at us as if they are hungry and we are food. If only I could slam my oar into their ugly faces.
Mother whispers, “By no sign show you can understand them.”
Wenru stirs, stout infant legs shoving against my chest as he twists around to look their way. He sucks in a breath, prelude to a scream.
In Saroese I snap, “You should be ashamed of yourself, you little rat.”
Our gazes lock. His face is as brown as my own, and his eyes so black they are shadows dropped into his heart. A flicker of irritation passes across his face, and I’m once again sure that an unknown self resides in my dead brother’s body.
I lower my voice to a whisper that brushes his perfect little ear. “I know you aren’t what you seem, but to Saroese soldiers you look like an ordinary Efean baby. They will throw you into the river to drown. If you betray my mother, I will pin you to the dirt and let the vultures eat you alive.”
Mother is staring at me, eyes wide. But the net twitches, distracting her, and she briskly hauls in two fish.
From out of sight a man calls, “Here’s mule tracks, Sergeant! Someone went this way with animals, maybe the ones used to haul the wagons.”
“You two!” The sergeant points to the man who was just insulting us and his nearest companion. “Bring in those women for questioning.”
“But Sergeant, they say the rivers here are infested with monsters that eat people.”
“Use the boat. You others, follow me.”
He and two other soldiers hurry off on a track that leads behind the crowds of willow and sycamore shading the opposite bank. The two remaining soldiers, arguing with each other in the tone of very nervous men, climb into the boat.
“Switch with me.” I thrust Wenru into Mother’s arms, the boat rocking as we change places. “I need my hands free.”
“What do you intend?”
“I don’t know yet.”
I row as Mother uses the shawl to sling Wenru to her hip. I’m not as skilled, so the oars skip over the water a couple of times. The soldiers gain on us. We skim past a clump of reeds into a backwater overhung by trees, where Mis and Ro have paused to wait for us.
I gesture at them to keep rowing upriver. Something large in the water passes beneath us and rocks the hull of our boat. I’m so startled I yelp out loud. Beyond the reeds, the soldiers shout in excitement; they think I’m scared of them, and that’s true too.
A hand emerges from the water to tap the side of our boat, then Kal’s head emerges. He gulps air.
I murmur, “Two soldiers in a boat behind us. No one else in sight. They’re scared of crocodiles.”
“Distract them.” He dives.