I should kick him but I just don’t care, and anyway there is a weight like a stone crushing my chest that makes it impossible to struggle.
We move from sun into shade. Slitting open my eyes, I see we have entered a long colonnade that links the central garden to the private living quarters. Workers are busy whitewashing over a long mural that depicts the glorious arrival of the Saroese. They glance curiously at us as we pass, nodding at Ro as if they know him. At the far end of the colonnade, by the doors that lead inside, two women have begun sketching out the features of a new mural to be painted in. The main image depicts the procession of Protector and Custodian and all the officials and professions and clans as they approach the Mother of All, who lives at the heart of Efea. Along the bottom third of the wall a third artist is sketching in the outlines of smaller tales: women building a rudimentary Fives court, an Efean soldier killing a Saroese king on a foreign battlefield, a ship arriving in the harbor with a young man of Saroese features standing at its rail as a newcomer to an old land.
“Ro,” I whisper.
He sets me down.
For a while I stand there watching as, against a background of sea and sky, the artist marks in the blossoms and lamps of the night market and a young Efean woman standing beside baskets of persimmons.
My legs feel so heavy. They begin to wilt, and I begin to sag. But when Ro puts an arm around me, ready to pick me up, a burst of energy allows me to shake him off.
“I can walk.”
“I’m relieved to hear it since my arms are already aching. You’re not small, you know.” When I don’t answer this pointless attempt at humor, he relents. “This way.”
We pass an audience chamber where the Honored Custodian is receiving a delegation from the West Saroese army. Prince General Cissorios and Lord Admiral Dorokos look a little disgruntled, probably because they have to negotiate with a woman when they were expecting a man. Thynos is whispering in their ears, no doubt explaining the proper protocol they must observe if they want the treaty and the grain they so badly need.
I’m relieved Mother is busy; it means I don’t have to answer any questions.
I have nothing to say.
Ro guides me through another massive hall. Here clerks are inventorying the contents of the palace, a tedious task ripe for exploitation and theft that I am glad I do not need to concern myself with, although Mother has decided it is vital. Several of the clerks recognize Ro and call greetings to him.
“When will your play open, Honored Poet?”
“Too early to know yet, Honored Lady. The theaters will reopen when the council of dames and elders decides it is fitting.”
“Soon, I hope.” They let him go and immediately begin whispering among themselves as they glance our way.
“Do you ever get bored of the attention?” I ask as we escape into a courtyard where a delivery wagon awaits us.
“I know that is not a real question, so I won’t answer it.”
I don’t ask for his help but he hoists me up anyway to the driver’s bench, and climbs up beside me. Six young men are seated in the back of the wagon with oars, a puzzle that briefly nags at me before I subside into apathy. Since I don’t speak to them they don’t speak to me, nor do they pretend they are there for an innocent reason as we make our way out the palace gate.
“They’re going to open the City Fives Court and the Royal Fives Court too, once things settle down.” Ro glances at me.
Since I don’t see the point in shrugging I wait for him to go on.
“I thought you might be interested. Some people, including me, have argued we ought to tear down the Fives courts. The game is what the Saroese made out of our holiest beliefs after they buried our temples beneath their gods and their dead. It’s an insult. But others argue with equal force that the game is how Efeans kept the Mother’s temple alive at the heart of every community. That it is a valued tradition that is part of Efea now. In the end, the council voted to leave things as they are and let the people decide if they want to keep attending the Fives.”
I’m grateful that he finally stops speaking because it means he stops looking at me, wondering if I’m going to express an opinion, and I don’t have the energy to have opinions. In silence we drive down to the sea.
We come at last to the Square of the Moon and the Sun, which has become an obstacle course made of heaps of stone. People are dismantling Eternity Temple, a task that even to contemplate exhausts me. Already the gate and tunnel have been torn open. We remain in sunlight as we pass from the city of the living onto the peninsula. Activity swarms here too, the beginnings of an excavation that will uncover the ruins beneath.
“It will take years, but that’s all right. We don’t call it the City of the Dead anymore. We call it ‘the buried heart.’ Soon light will warm it again.” Ro is radiant, all sun and glamour.
“What about Gargaron?” I shade my eyes as I look toward the royal tombs at the top of the hill.
“The Honored Custodian counsels one major decision at a time. For now the agreement is to dismantle the highborn clan tombs but leave the common tombs out of respect for those of Saroese ancestry who intend to stay, and to leave the royal tomb intact as a reminder of the past.”
We roll on around the rim of West Harbor to the lighthouse and its dock, where a big harbor rowboat, the kind that may help tow a ship to its berth, is tied up. His friends jump out of the wagon and ready the oars.
I finally understand where he’s taking me.
“No.”
“Just this one thing and then I will leave you alone unless you yourself request my presence.”
“Do you promise?”
“Yes. A poet’s promise.”
His friends remain mercifully silent as we row into the channel and out just a little more, drifting toward shore. Abruptly Ro pushes me over the gunwale. I hit, go under, and sink into the depths. I could open my mouth and fill up with water. I could let the sea take me and this weight in my chest would go away forever.
But then I’m flailing, desperate to get air. I fight to the surface to see Ro laughing at me and his friends trying not to because they, at least, are decent people.
“What was that for?”
He strips off his vest and dives in, so sleek and assured.
Surfacing, he says, “You have to see this for yourself.”
He dives under again, fishtailing down with powerful kicks. I don’t want to go but I have to. I see that now. I fill my lungs with air and go under, kicking and stroking hard as I follow him, pressure streaming against my face. The water is a little murky but not too deep away from the dredged channel. There is debris on the seafloor: planks, broken pots, a building stone.
A barrel wrapped in chains.