Court of Fives Read online

  From the height of the carriage, he offers me a hand. His grip enfolds my fingers and I’m breathless as he pulls me up. He overweights his tug and I accidentally thump into his body, forcing him to grasp me around the waist so I don’t fall. His chest presses against mine. Our faces almost touch, his lips so close to mine I need only exhale to kiss him.

  Why shouldn’t I take the risk? Father’s rules no longer define my life.

  My lips brush his mouth.

  “Jessamy,” he murmurs as his arm tightens around me.

  The carriage jolts under us as the horses back up a step. I slip as he lets go to better grip the reins. What am I to him, really? Something with which to defy his uncle?

  The bricks of the tomb rise between us.

  “We must hurry,” I say, scrambling for the passenger bench.

  Kalliarkos’s muttered curse makes me jump. Have I offended him? Is he like his uncle, angry if he’s challenged?

  Then I see that we are no longer alone.

  Lord Thynos stands at the horses’ heads, holding the harness, while Inarsis leaps up into the carriage beside me and pulls down the canvas curtains to conceal the passenger bench. The carriage rocks again as Thynos climbs up onto the driver’s bench beside Kalliarkos.

  “Keep moving, Kal,” says Thynos.

  After a moment the carriage rolls. I peek out between the curtains to see Kalliarkos’s rigid back.

  “Did you follow me, Uncle?”

  “My dear nephew, long ago I promised your mother that I would never, ever let you walk about the city unattended. She fears you may be kidnapped and held for ransom. Or murdered, which would be less expensive but far messier. You’ve made my task easy so far. Am I correct in thinking that this is the first time you have sneaked out on your own?”

  Inarsis chuckles. “Not the first. On the other occasion he followed our young tomb spider to the Ribbon Market.”

  “What do you want?” snaps Kalliarkos, sounding embarrassed and thwarted.

  Thynos sighs with a dramatic emphasis worthy of Amaya. “Either you don’t intend to feast with your sister and her new husband tonight and instead plan to ruin the prospects of an extremely promising adversary, or you are expressly defying Gar’s injunction that all ties between our heroic General Esladas and his irregular family must be severed. Which is it?”

  “None of your business.”

  Lord Thynos’s eyebrows fly right up his forehead. “Do not tell me what is and is not my business, puppy. Answer me!”

  “Enough, Thynos,” says Inarsis in a genial tone. “Be glad our young man is finally showing some spine. It was a good ruse, Lord Kalliarkos, to have this carriage made ready in the back alley and meanwhile tell your mother you were riding with your grandmother, and your grandmother the opposite.”

  “Not good enough,” mutters Kalliarkos.

  “I am an experienced campaigner, my lord. Not much gets past me.”

  Thynos laughs. Kalliarkos does not. Neither do I. They will ruin everything. I twist my hands together, wound tight with anguished frustration, but I see no way to be rid of them. They have all the power and I have nothing but my wits and determination.

  We turn a wide corner and pick up speed. Peeking out between the curtains I see we are headed toward the eastern gate along the Avenue of the Soldier, so called because so many armies have marched out of the city along this wide boulevard. I’m a little surprised Thynos has not taken the reins, but in fact Kalliarkos drives with an impressively brisk confidence even though his expression is stiff with anger. I can’t stop looking at the way his hands masterfully handle the reins and how his gaze flits along the traffic to find narrow spaces to slide our carriage through so we don’t need to slow down.

  Lord Thynos glances back at me, his smile turning to a flat stare. “Spider, that was an imprudent place for you to agree to meet a man. A crowd of drunk soldiers is not safe for a woman, especially one like you.”

  I do not need to be scolded about such matters by a man who isn’t my father! “Because I am young or because I am a mule?”

  “Because you are both. Patron women are protected by their clans. And every foreign man who reaches these shores soon learns that Commoner women are protected by the magic of their father’s mother. A dame’s evil eye can kill a man’s potency. But one like you has no clan and no Commoner grandmother on her father’s side. Your father was no fool to raise his daughters as if they were Patron girls. I feel sure he knew exactly how far his shield of protection extended.”

  There is no answer to that, but no trace of humiliation or offense will show on my face. I keep my head high and my eyes forward, as Mother taught us girls to do.

  We approach the huge gate with its sentries, lamps burning as the purpling twilight sinks into the full darkness of night.

  “Kal, take that cursed scarf off your face. The guards need to see an uncle and his nephew on their way to a joyous wedding feast, not a prince skulking about playing at banditry.”

  Kalliarkos tugs down the scarf so it wraps only his neck and leaves his face visible. As we come to a stop, he hands the guards a piece of fired ceramic with a cipher stamped on it, giving us permission to leave the city. Inarsis pulls the curtain out of my hand and shrouds us behind it before the guards can get a close look. So have my mother and sisters been cut off from everything around them. I clasp my hands in my lap and, trembling, wait out the crossing, but quickly enough we are allowed to pass under the triple gates and over a wide plank causeway that spans the canal that rings the city.

  Beneath the wheels the grind of wood turns to the rumble of stone as we roll onto a paved road and head out of the city into the countryside. Inarsis ties the curtains up out of the way.

  The Royal Road follows the coastline of Efea from Saryenia all the way to the easternmost fortress at Pellucidar Lake in the mountainous Eastern Reach, a journey that takes weeks. At night the road is lit with sturdy glass lanterns fastened to pillars. Iron cages posted at intervals contain the remains of dead enemies scavenged off the battlefield and left to rot. The bones of those the king has defeated are ground to dust and, so it is said, mixed into the goat’s milk drunk by King Kliatemnos the Fifth every morning to strengthen his blood.

  “What do you mean to do now, Uncle?” asks Kalliarkos. His raised chin and brusque tone give him a lordly arrogance that makes him seem a stranger, not the amiable young man who first spoke to me on Lord Ottonor’s balcony.

  “Must I do anything? Can I not enjoy this lovely ride through the countryside on our way to your sister’s wedding feast?”

  The view here just outside the city is not that lovely. Regimental camps sprawl alongside the Royal Road, each surrounded by a wall. Every gate has a company badge painted on it: a looped cross, a triangle finned with two bars, a hatched circle. By these marks soldiers can know their own company and form up again in the disarray of battle, so Father taught me. He praised me for memorizing the name of every regiment in the king’s army. I see some of them now: the Striking Fours, the Bronze Blades, the Old Spears.

  Beyond the last camp of the king’s army lie the temporary camps of mercenaries eager to take the king’s coin. Their flags fly but I do not know their names or origins or even what languages they speak. All I know is that such people fight for money instead of honor and loyalty.

  Inarsis stirs beside me. “As the man hired by your grandmother to protect you, Lord Kalliarkos, it would be prudent of you to inform me what your intentions are this evening so I may plan for every contingency.”

  I tense, waiting for my secret to be exposed, but Kalliarkos does not hesitate. “Is it so surprising that for once I wanted to choose my own company for the journey there and back? It took years to convince my mother that it was humiliating for me to have an ill-wisher at my side at all times, like I was still a little child. Now I have you two nursemaids following me everywhere. I have decided to act as a man instead of a boy. Does that content you, General Inarsis?”

  The na
me jolts me. “General Inarsis? The victor of the battle of Marsh Shore during the Oyia campaign?”

  “The same, Spider. As for you, Lord Kalliarkos, your explanation does not content me.”

  “How did I not know who you are?” I mutter, partly because I am stunned and partly to distract him while I think.

  “Inarsis is a common name among Efean men,” he says with an amused smile.

  “I know it is!” I should have guessed that a man of Commoner ancestry who walks like an equal beside a Patron lord must have an exceptionally distinguished reputation. “You are the only Commoner to ever command the king’s army.”

  “We call ourselves Efean,” he says in a mild tone that rebukes me.

  “Yes, but—” His quiet confidence flusters me. “But all the high officials and lords in Efea are Patron-born. For instance, no matter how well a Commoner—I mean an Efean—learns Saroese, they cannot become an Archivist, only an Archivist’s assistant. I thought it was the same in the army.”

  “I assure you that I began the day as a junior officer in the only Efean regiment, which itself was commanded by senior officers, all of whom were Patron men. The battle was a bloody, violent conflict with massive casualties on both sides. I had to step forward after all the senior officers were dead or incapacitated.”

  “Did you actually kill King Elkorios of Saro-Urok? With your own hand?”

  “I did. For my service I was generously recompensed in money and given the fine and mighty title of general so they wouldn’t have to say that a noble king was killed by a lowly foot soldier. Immediately afterward I was relieved of command and replaced by officers of Saroese ancestry. Some of them as young and inexperienced as Kalliarkos here.”

  “But you were fortunate to be in the army at all. My father served in the Oyia campaign. He said yours was the first company of Efean soldiers assembled and commissioned in the king’s army.”

  “That is correct. Before the reign of Kliatemnos the Fourth, Efeans were not allowed to serve in the military.”

  It seems shameful to remind such a courageous man of what he already knows so I change the subject. “Father often spoke of your company’s bravery and skill. My mother liked to hear of your exploits.”

  “Did she?” His features are obscured by night, but I sense he is suddenly fascinated. “We all knew of her. Not because Captain Esladas spoke of her—he never did—but because we all knew he was living with an Efean woman as if she were his wife. We knew he had four daughters and no sons. It is a measure of his skill as a commander that he continued to rise past higher-born Patron men. The Patron officers saw his loyalty as a sign of weakness but we Efean soldiers knew it for a sign of strength that he kept faith with a woman he cared for.”

  “Until ambition poisoned him,” I mutter.

  Inarsis replies in a low voice, “Sometimes in battle a man must choose between two bad outcomes. Please do not think your father had a choice once Garon Palace became involved. I am sure it pained him deeply to set her aside.”

  I do not want his sympathy. But I will use it to get what I need. The quaver in my voice gives my words the ring of truth. “I asked Lord Kalliarkos to sneak me in to see my father so that I can tell him I have passed muster and will train as an adversary in the Garon Stable.”

  “I am sure General Esladas knows that already,” remarks Thynos.

  “Not from my lips,” I say. “Please, Lord Thynos. General Inarsis. Just this one favor.”

  By now we’ve left the encampments behind. The road cuts through land divided into fields with a network of canals. Burning lanterns recede before and behind us like gems strung on a wire necklace. The beauty of the lit road catches in my heart: the pathway of these glimmering lights could lead to triumph or disaster. Yet I can’t truly appreciate the scene as I sit poised to bolt and run if the hammer falls.

  For the longest time no one speaks.

  Suddenly Thynos taps Kalliarkos on the shoulder. “The twin sycamores mark the servants’ lane. We’ll drop her off in the palm grove and come around by the back.”

  All my breath gusts out of me as I sag in relief. “Thank you,” I murmur.

  Kalliarkos easily maneuvers the carriage off the main road and onto a hard-packed earth track. In the distance a firefly string of lights marks the main entry road through square fields of barley and wheat. A cluster of lights reveals the villa near the seashore.

  We cross four canals before we enter a village surrounded by sycamore, fig, olive, and date trees. The locals stare from their verandas. Every house is connected to the others by raised walkways. The children run naked but their faces are clean, and the women wear long linen sheaths like mine while the men wear the short keldi that covers only from hip to knee.

  Is this the kind of village my mother came from?

  We continue along a path between vineyards, smoke coiling out of pots to keep insects away. Ahead rises an orchard, trees like persimmon, pear, and cherry brought from old Saro. We come to rest off the lane, hidden among the thick pillars of date palms. The gentle slope of the ground toward the sea gives us a view of the villa. Night makes it hard to see but by the way lamps are placed I can tell there is an outer and an inner compound, and that the inner compound has two wings, two squat towers, a garden, and a courtyard at the center of the sprawling house.

  “Now, Kal,” begins Thynos, “here’s what we’ll do.”

  Inarsis coughs. “Perhaps you should let Lord Kalliarkos devise the plan.”

  “Here’s what we’ll do,” I interrupt. “You three will attend the feast as expected. I can easily get inside.”

  “Gar doesn’t allow Efean servants in Garon Palace,” says Thynos.

  “I know that! I thought I would climb inside, if Lord Kalliarkos will explain the layout to me.”

  “You don’t need to,” Kalliarkos interrupts. “Out here in the country, we do use Efean servants, especially when we need to hire in extra help from the village for a feast like this one.”

  “So if I wear a servant’s mask, no one will look twice at me.”

  He nods with a triumphant glance at Thynos. “That’s right.”

  “Excellent. That’s settled, then. You three go about your business as usual. I will return here after I see my father and wait for you. Where am I likely to find my father before the feast? Is there a private chamber of some kind where he may be preparing for the evening?”

  “There you go, Nar, the daughter you always wished for but never had,” says Thynos with a laugh. “Gives orders like her father, doesn’t she?”

  How can he know how my father gives orders?

  “The eastern tower is set aside for the husband.” By Kalliarkos’s pleased expression, he is enjoying the way we are running Rings around the men assigned as his minders. “It was my father’s before he died. You will find General Esladas there before he comes down to greet the guests.”

  “Is there anything else you can recommend, Lord Kalliarkos?” I ask.

  Inarsis smiles, obviously amused by our interplay, but Thynos frowns.

  Kalliarkos glances up at the starry sky. “We will meet here when the Four Sleeping Sisters rise in the east, about midnight. I have no desire to linger at the feast while my sister ornaments herself in the flattery and congratulations of the courtiers and guests. We can return to Garon Palace long before dawn.”

  He looks at me, his gaze smoky and intense. A spark leaps between us, as if he is promising another adventure before sunrise. I am so taken aback by the challenge that at first I don’t move.

  “Go on,” he says, daring me. “I will be waiting.”

  24

  It’s easy to be a Commoner. I just have to keep my head down, never look any Patron in the eye, and always step out of their way. When I reach the servants’ gate with its trio of bored soldiers standing guard, I ignore the way they ogle me. The hardest part is trying to copy the way most Commoners pronounce the Saroese language.

  “Domon, I am hired for the laundry. I was ri
ding in a wagon but it broke down so I had to walk.” As I speak I pat the Garon badge pinned to the shoulder of my dress. One of the men is smirking, one looks as if he is wondering if he can get away with squeezing my breast, and the third frowns suspiciously.

  Smirker gives a wheezy laugh.

  “Guess your mother didn’t want to whore you out like she did herself, eh, mule?” says Squeezer as his hand drifts toward my torso.

  “Leave it.” Suspicion slaps the other man. “Look at her arms. She’s wrung plenty of laundry and maybe a few men’s necks. Go on, mule. Just as a favor this once, if you are ever caring to return it.” He winks, expecting me to be grateful.

  I fix my gaze on the ground lest I betray myself by looking him right in the face with the pride and dignity I deserve. When I curve my shoulders down to make myself seem smaller, they let me go.

  The villa boils with activity. In the outer courtyard a quartermaster and his company are readying high-slung military coaches and cargo wagons. In the inner stable yard people load twenty wagons with chests and furniture while others prepare carriages fitted with gold-threaded curtains and cushions. I walk briskly through the commotion. Once inside the servants’ wing I snag a featureless leather mask and fasten it over my face.

  A trip through the bustling kitchen nets me a precious lacquered tray complete with a covered cup. A crisp word to a harried girl fetches a pot of hot water and a little basket of pungent herbs. I have helped my mother prepare this mix of dried petals and needles a thousand times. It is one of the niceties she loves to comfort him with after a long day. I used to think her devotion to us all made her a little dull. My hands tighten on the tray: she will never again serve him a cup.

  The modest, boring household life I once complained of and wished to escape seems the most golden and treasured memory now.

  I approach the main building from the back through the rear garden. The central building rises two stories high, flanked by square towers. Lights burn in both. From the western tower floats the laughter of women; shapes move within the upper chamber. In the eastern tower a person stands at the window looking over the garden. Being lit from behind obscures his face, but I would recognize my father’s posture and the cut of his shoulders anywhere.