Petronus crested the last hill and climbed down from his saddle to stretch his legs. Below, the flat, wide river moved sluggishly south, and on its farthest shore the town of tents had shrunk to more of a small village. A few figures moved between the last of the tents and a fleet of wagons. Beyond the tents, the expansive plain that had once been Windwir stretched out, a soup of mud and ash.
Rudolfo dismounted beside him. “It looks quiet,” he said.
Of course it was quiet. The work had been done for nearly a week. The Entrolusians had been gone for some time now, retreating south to deal with problems within their own borders. Petronus looked at Rudolfo and then back out over the muddy waste. “He’s done good work here,” he said.
Rudolfo nodded. “He has. There’s a captain hidden inside that boy.”
Or a Pope, Petronus thought, feeling his stomach sink. The wind stirred, and a few drops of rain spattered on his cheek and hand. “Indeed,” he said, glancing again to the Gypsy King.
Behind them, he heard the sound of a small bird rustling as a scout cooed and whispered to it. The brown war-sparrow entered his line of sight with a flutter and shot down the hill to cross the river.
Climbing back into his saddle, Petronus carefully nudged the horse along the muddy track that wound them downhill. When they were halfway to the bottom, Petronus noticed the workers gathering on the far shore. A handful of men boarded the barge they had rigged with ropes and pulleys to serve as a makeshift ferry. Slowly it made its way across the water, and when Petronus and Rudolfo reached the river’s edge with their escort, Neb stood waiting.
He’s not smiling. This surprised Petronus. The boy-young man now, he realized-seemed taller and more broad-shouldered, but those weren’t what caused him to fill out the Androfrancine robes he wore. No, Petronus realized. It was confidence. A quiet confidence, to be sure, but that was the strongest kind.
The boy’s face was flat and hard, the jaw set. “Father,” Neb said, bowing slightly. “Windwir is laid to rest.”
But there is more. Petronus dropped from the horse. “You’ve done excellent work, Neb.” Neb nodded. “Thank you, Father.”
Rudolfo climbed down as well and clapped the young man on the shoulder. “I was telling his Excellency that you have the makings of a fine captain.”
Sheight="0em" width="1em" align="justify"›With a howl, Sethbert threw himself toward the window, catching the heavy curtains and pushing the thick cloth ahead of him to shield him as the glass and latticework shattered. Plunging into the midnight rain, he leaped from the small balcony and into the Whymer Maze below.
That had been hours ago. He’d used the passages beneath the maze-the ones his father had shown him when he was a boy-and made his escape. The tunnels dropped him into the more colorful quarter of the city, where he’d rolled a drunk for his tattered clothing and a pair of shoes that were too tight for his feet.
At first he’d thought to stow away on one of the boats in the harbor, but with the blockade he was certain to not get far. And it would not take long for Lysias to spread a net for him, putting guards up at
the city gates and along the river bridges.
In the end, he crawled into the sewers and followed them out of the city. Then he worked his way along the coastline until he found the barn.
He stood slowly, mindful of the blisters on his feet and the sharp pain in his ribs and shoulder from last night’s hard landing in the garden.
He’d hoped to sleep here, but his mind wouldn’t stop racing. Where would he go? What was left for him now? And where had the document pouch gone?
Less than a handful knew about the Rufello box. And its cipher had been passed from father to son for generations. No one else could’ve possibly known.
Unless.
It had to be Li Tam’s bitch-whore of a daughter. But it made no sense. If she had the cipher, why hadn’t she taken the documents months ago? She’d shared his bed enough, the pouch tucked safely away. Why would she wait so long? And certainly, if she’d read those documents, she’d understand full well what kind of hero Sethbert truly was.
She’s a thousand leagues away, some saner part of him interjected. She’d been gone for months now, working in the far northeast with that damned fop Rudolfo and his paper Pope.
If not Tam, then another Androfrancine lap-slut. But who it was-and how they broke into the ancient lockbox-mattered little. What counted now was survival. Because with the documents now gone, it was clear to Sethbert that there was no place for him left in the Named Lands. They would hunt him down wherever he fled. The weight of that realization caught in his throat.
The Gulf would be at the mercy of the iron armada, cutting off any escape south to the Isles or west to the Emerald Coasts. But east, Sethbert thought, there was a line of small fishing towns along the forested shores of Caldus Bay. Perhaps from there he could steal a boat far frul aButom Li Tam’s blockade and follow the ragged edge of the Keeper’s Wall south, around the Fargoer’s horn and into the Churning Wastes.
Sethbert went to the barn door and looked out. He saw nothing between the field and the river’s edge. The sun was bright, and the few rain clouds left in the sky were drifting slowly east.
Stomach gurgling with hunger and fear, Sethbert followed the weather.