The Laurentine Spy (32 page)

“No.”

“Let me make it right.” She heard him take step towards her. “Please.”

Saliel turned her head to look at him.

One stood tensely. She saw emotion shining in his eyes: shame, remorse. “If I’d known it was you I would
never
—” He swallowed. “Please, let me make it right.”

She should feel sympathy for him; he was One. But all she saw when she looked at him was Lord Ivo.
I look at you, and I want to be ill.
“No.”

His brow twisted. “But I owe you—”

“You owe me nothing.”

“I do! I—”

“I’m a poorhouse foundling,” Saliel said flatly. “From the Ninth Ward. You owe me nothing.”

His nostrils flared, as if he smelled the stink of the slums. The muscles in his face tightened. He swallowed again. “No. You’re lying.”

“I’m from the Ninth Ward.” She said it in the dialect of the slums this time, coarse. “Laurent’s Cesspit.”

His nostrils flared again. He took a step backward.

Saliel looked away. Her fingers trembled as she tied the headscarf in place. One would keep his distance.
At least I’ve gained that. My presence now disgusts him.
A laugh choked in her throat, bitter and unuttered. He’d offered her his House, but the servants would never let her through the door. They’d cast her into the street and spit on her.

The agent came back into the room. He no longer carried the bundles of clothing. “Are you ready?”

One’s face smoothed free of expression, becoming blank. “Where do we go?”

“Across the marshes.”

“How?”

“I’m taking a coal barge across,” the agent said, and the grime etched into his skin suddenly made sense.

“We need to eat,” said One. “And sleep.”

“You can do both on board.”

One nodded.

“You’re peasants. Your names are Petter and Franta.” The agent paused to let them absorb the information.

Franta. Another name. Another role to play.

“You’re signed up on a migrant caravan across the Bazarn Plateau. It leaves tomorrow morning. You’re on your own until you reach home.”

Home. The distance was vast. How many months would it take?
With him.
Saliel looked down at the filthy floor.
I don’t think I can—

“I’ve arranged supplies and donkeys for you.” She looked up to see the agent hand a pouch to One. “Corhonase money. Not much. You’re very poor, seeking a better life.”

One took the pouch.

“The border with Marillaq is closed,” the agent said. “But there are smugglers who’ll take people across—for a high price.” He held out a second pouch, much larger than the first. “Marillaqan money. I suggest you pose as someone more prosperous once across the border. A merchant perhaps. There must be no connection with the migrant caravan. I understand you both speak Marillaqan?”

Saliel nodded. One nodded too, and hefted the second pouch in his hand. “Our passage home?” he asked.

“From that. And payment for the smugglers. It’s mostly gold. There should be enough.”

One stowed the pouches beneath his vest.

“Are you ready?”

No.
She reached for the cloak and shawl. Franta’s cloak and shawl.

“Then let’s be off.”

WINTER

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

O
NE DIDN’T SHUN
her. Nor did he ask her to marry him again. She caught him watching her, a baffled expression on his face, as they disembarked from the coal barge, and again as they parted with the agent in the bare dirt paddock of the caravansary. Noise swamped them: shouts, children’s wails, the sound of dogs barking and mules braying, the clatter of ironware being hefted onto wagons.

One said nothing. He just looked at her, a tiny crease between his eyebrows.

Saliel turned away, hugging the cloak more tightly to her.
Don’t look at me. Don’t speak to me.

But there were no opportunities for private speech in the frantic bustle of the departing caravan, and no time to think about what lay ahead. The afternoon was a confused blur of cooking pots and food and blankets, of tents and donkeys. Her ears strained to understand the words being spoken around her. The Corhonase was rough, almost unintelligible. She spoke in careful monosyllables, afraid her tongue would betray her.
I’m Franta. I’m a peasant.
The precise vowels of the court, the clipped consonants, sat in the back of her throat, wanting to be uttered.

On the first evening One offered to share his food, silently, as they sat around a fire with other peasants.

He held his bowl out to her. His portion was twice the size of hers.

She looked at the stew, the thick slices of bread, but all she saw was his hand. He had touched her with those fingers. He’d pushed her legs open—

I’m going to be ill.

She stood abruptly.

The nausea subsided as she hurried between the groups of peasants eating. She halted by the line of mules and donkeys and looked back across the caravansary. The paddock was alight with campfires. Sparks swirled upward. Tents and wagons were dark shapes.

The moon rose slowly in the sky. The air was fragrant with woodsmoke and stew.
I should go back to our fire.
But she couldn’t make her feet move. She stood, listening to the murmur of voices and thenicker of mules.

Rely on no one but yourself.
She’d learned that in the slums. But the slums had taught her other lessons too:
Do what you must to survive.
She had to do this—be with him—to survive. She had to do it to get home.

The mule beside her shifted its weight. It touched its nose to her shoulder.

Saliel laid her hand on the animal’s neck. She felt its warmth, the roughness of its coat, its aliveness.

The moon rose higher. To the east lay the Bazarn Plateau, high and cold. It would take two months to cross that stretch of land.

In spring I’ll be home.

She closed her eyes. A home of her own, with cats sunning themselves on the step. A garden with vegetables. A cow to milk. She saw it behind her eyelids: the cottage and the cats, the smoke rising from the chimney, tall hollyhocks and beans climbing a stone wall, a cow grazing.

Saliel opened her eyes. She lowered her hand and pulled her cloak more tightly around her and walked back through the campfires. She didn’t look at One as she sat down beside him.

I
T BECAME EASIER
to understand the conversations around her as the caravan climbed towards the plateau. Two days became three and then four, and the vowels that came to her tongue were broad, the consonants deeply guttural. She no longer needed to think about each word before she spoke.

The stubble on One’s cheeks and chin, his throat, grew into a beard. He was unrecognizable as Lord Ivo. It was more than the clothes and the beard, the peasant’s voice; it was his manner. There was nothing vague or lethargic about him.

He still tried to share his food with her. She saw his guilt, his shame, each time he held the bowl out to her. “Don’t,” she said shortly, on the fourth evening.
Your shame makes me remember.
“I don’t want your food.”

One’s face tightened. His gaze fell. He pulled back the bowl.

And now it’s I who feel shame.

She stared down at her own bowl. The sounds of the caravan surrounded her. Male voices rose in a shout of laughter, logs shifted on the fire, a goat bleated. She pushed the stew around with her spoon, remembering One’s words.
I didn’t know it was you. Let me make it right. Please.

He’d been the Guardian’s pawn. They’d both been.

One hadn’t come to bed her, that second time. He’d come to tell her who he was.
Please sit
, he’d said.
I must speak with you.
And she’d caught his gaze and set his clothes on fire.

Saliel laid down the spoon. She closed her eyes.
I owe him an apology.

It was an impossible apology to make.

She opened her eyes. She saw firelight and a dark, night sky. Flames hissed as they devoured branches of wood. Embers glowed red-hot.

Saliel shivered. She picked up the spoon.
Forget what happened in the Citadel.
She scooped up a spoonful of stringy meat.
He’s not Lord Ivo. Think of him as Petter.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

T
HE PLATEAU STRETCHED
—wide, white—to a range of mountains. The snow didn’t soften them; they stood strong and sharp. He could see their bones: thrusting ridges, deeply scoured gullies.

The donkey stumbled. Athan steadied the animal. He looked behind him. The caravan straggled—slow, lurching wagons and weary pack-animals. The track they left was wide and dirty, snow churned with mud.

Athan clicked his tongue, urging the donkey forward. He’d expected the snow and ice, the cold, knifing wind that came off the mountains; he hadn’t expected the mud.
Cursed stuff.
It bogged down the wagons and exhausted everyone—donkeys and mules, peasants.

On overcast days the mud stayed frozen and the plateau was bleak and traveling swifter. On days like today—

Athan raised his head. Sunshine. Snow. Mud.

The plateau, the mountains, were beautiful in their own way. It was an austere beauty: strong, stark.

He cast a quick, sideways glance at Franta. She walked alongside him, leading a donkey. She’d pushed back the hood of her cloak. Not one strand of red-gold hair escaped from beneath her headscarf. Her face was thinner than it had been a month ago, when they’d started this journey.

He looked away before she could catch him watching her.

A
BLIZZARD BLEW
up in the evening. Pitching the goat-hair tent was difficult; anchoring it before the wind tore it from the ground was a battle. They shared the tent with another couple, peasants as poor as themselves. Tonight they’d share it with the donkeys too—or find them dead in the morning.

Athan laid a boulder on an edge of flapping fabric. Beside him Franta leaned into the gusting wind. She was wrapped tightly against the cold. All he could see were her eyes.

“Another?” The wind tore the words from his lips.

She shivered, hugging her arms, and nodded.

Athan’s eyes watered as he turned into the wind. The moisture trickled down his cheeks and froze. He lowered his head and bulled his way forward. Hard pellets of snow whipped past him.

His bones ached with cold. Hunger cramped in his belly.
I wish I was back at the Citadel.

The words sat in his mind as he bent to pick up a large boulder, as Franta crouched to help him.

Back at the Citadel for a night.
All the food he could eat. A hot bath. A warm, soft bed. An evening in an overheated salon, surrounded by drunken noblemen and whores—

No. I wouldn’t go.

The answer surprised him into stillness.
Wouldn’t I swap this for that? For one night?
Warmth and alcohol, sex.

The answer was still
No.

Franta levered her fingers under the boulder, grasping it. Athan grunted as they stood. The sound was part-laugh.
I’m insane. The cold has driven me insane.

He tried to take as much of the boulder’s weight as he could, but their progress was slow and staggering. The wind howled, snapping his cloak around his legs. Snow came more heavily, thick and horizontal.

They placed the boulder on the last flapping edge of frayed fabric. “That should do it,” he shouted. The roar of the wind swallowed his words.

The tents and wagons were huddled together tonight, as if warmth could be gained from proximity. A single campfire burned. The flames were thin and wind-whipped, struggling to survive. Inside their tent, order reigned. Osker had tended to the donkeys; the animals lay across the opening, fed and watered. His wife Lenka was spreading out bedrolls and blankets.

Athan ducked his head and stepped over the donkeys. Osker, a morose man, looked up and grunted. Lenka spread the last blanket. She reached for the stew pot.

Athan shrugged off his cloak. It was crusted with snow. His fingers moved stiffly as he pulled off gloves and scarf and boots. The scent of food made his mouth water. Hunger growled in his stomach.

The stew was lukewarm—lumps of meat, floury root vegetables. They dined in silence. Athan ate slowly, trying to make the meal last. He wiped his bowl with the last of yesterday’s bread, dry and stale, and chewed stolidly. He was still hungry when he’d finished.