Ruins

she was in her sectioned-up timeflow, she lived through only one second for every three or four or more seconds that passed for everyone else.

She’s younger than me, thought Umbo.

And with that thought, he felt himself filled with such rage and despair and . . . and longing that he wanted to cry out from the power of it; it could not be contained, yet he had to contain it . . .

By all the Saints, thought Umbo, the first princess I meet, and I fall in love with her.

So this is love, he said to himself, trying to examine his own overwhelming feelings with the rational fragment of his mind. This is the powerful, horrible longing that made Mother marry that miserable tyrant I had to call Father. How many unbelievably stupid heroes in stories did insanely dangerous things because they were in love?

More to the point, how many insane things am I going to do because of it?

Now all of Umbo’s feelings made sense to him. Yes, Rigg had made too many decisions, but the main reason Umbo resented him was the easy, comfortable way Param behaved with him. They had been together in the same house for months, and they were brother and sister and they had planned their escape together and had saved each other’s lives and . . .

I saved her life too! And she mine!

But only the once, only this morning as they leapt from the rock. She had taken Umbo by the hand and pulled him to his feet and then jumped off the rock with him. Then, holding his hand, she had taken him across the Wall.

He could still feel her hand in his. Or, rather, the tingle of the memory of her hand. She isn’t two years older than me and Rigg, not really. She’s my age, more or less, and who cares if she was born a princess? Her mother the queen tried to kill her over and over—if that doesn’t constitute getting fired as princess, what does? She’s a commoner like me, now. It’s not impossible.

A commoner by law, but still royal by breeding. She must think I’m a filthy ignorant unmannered low-speaking vulgar privick, while Rigg knows how to talk just like her, with all that high, fine language. Rigg has lived in her house, has eaten at table with her, he knows all the right manners. While I have journeyed with her, lit fires for her at night, but mostly I’ve behaved like a menial. As if I were Rigg’s manservant. And not some lofty valet who knows all the correct manners—no, I’m like a boy Rigg hired for the afternoon, to help do the work of their journey from the city to the Wall.

No, thought Umbo. I can’t let myself go back to resenting everybody. I’m in love, and so, as the Wandering Man—no, Ram—once explained, I have the instinct to fight any potential rivals for the woman I covet. Not that Rigg is a rival, exactly—he’s her brother, not her lover—but he has her trust, her affection. She talks to him, little secrets and asides, all the things I want her to have with me. Only with me.

What made Umbo so angry was the knowledge that she must despise him, that she was out of his reach no matter what he did. And yet he knew that he didn’t know that, couldn’t know it. They were both so young, what did he expect?

This is insane, he told himself. I’ve got to get my mind off her, now that I know that she’s what’s been on my mind.

He reached into his pocket and took out the thing he had picked up when he came into the grove of trees.

It was a stone. Specifically, a jewel. Even more specifically, a jewel that looked exactly like the one that Rigg had tried to sell in O, and which was now in the possession of a bank in Aressa Sessamo. The stone that Umbo and Loaf had tried repeatedly to steal back, so that Rigg’s collection of nineteen stones would be complete.

That was what he had seen at a glance, when he was picking it up from among the fallen leaves. But since it could not possibly be that stone, Umbo tried to make sense of it another way. He drew it from where he had tucked it into the waistband of his trousers and tried to study it by ringlight.

It wasn’t the sight of it that mattered anyway, except to confirm that it was indeed the right size and color to be the missing jewel, which he’d realized the moment he saw it. Now he examined it by heft and texture. It was as hard as any of the jewels, as smoothly polished, and its weight felt right.

He tucked it into his trousers and rolled over onto his back. He recalled the moment of finding it. The jewel was not so much amid last year’s fallen leaves as atop them. Resting right on the surface, as if it had been left in order to be noticed and found.

But who could have left it? Rigg sounded absolutely certain when he said no human had come near this grove in a long, long time. The jewel could not have been sitting there so long—it would have been buried under leaves and probably deep within the soil.

The lack of paths suggested that the jewel must have been left by an expendable like Vadesh and Ram. They left no path that Rigg could see. But why would Vadesh leave it lying there, when he could just as easily have handed it to Rigg?

Maybe it was some kind of test, to see what Umbo would do with it. But no one could have known in advance which of them, if any, would enter the grove exactly where Umbo did. And when could Vadesh have done it? Wouldn’t they have seen him? There was no place to conceal himself between the empty city and this grove. There were no footprints or other woodsy signs of his passing—the leaves on which the jewel rested looked completely undisturbed, exactly like all the leaves surrounding them.

And why this jewel? Even though it could hardly be the very one that Rigg had once carried and tried to sell, it was certainly just like it in appearance. Suppose Vadesh had an identical set of nineteen here in this wallfold? How did he know to pick the one jewel that was missing from their set? Rigg had laid out the eighteen for him to see, but when had Vadesh had a single moment in which to fetch his own jewels to replace the missing one?

“You awake?”

The whisper came from just above his head. Umbo didn’t flinch or startle, but his heart raced. Olivenko’s voice. How had he gotten from his watch position to here without Umbo hearing?

“Your watch,” said Olivenko.

Of course it was Umbo’s watch. And the reason he didn’t hear Olivenko coming was because Umbo must have fallen asleep. And the reason he didn’t feel as if he had slept at all was because he took so long with his thoughts before falling asleep that all he got was a nap at best.

Bleary, Umbo got up. Loaf stirred—he slept lightly and woke at every change of watch. Rigg and Param remained oblivious. The sleep of royalty.

What an unfair thing even to think of, Umbo told himself. If there’s anyone in the world who can’t sleep peacefully, it’s royalty. When rebels aren’t trying to kill them, or warlords who think they should be king, then royal families are always killing each other.

Just how stupid are my resentments and jealousies going to make me?

“Speak to me,” said Olivenko. “If you’re sleepwalking, you won’t keep much of a watch.”

Umbo opened his eyes fully and stretched. “I’m awake,” he whispered.

“Keep moving until you’re really awake,” said Olivenko. “You only fell asleep a few minutes ago. I felt bad waking you, but . . . your turn.”

And we can’t change turns around if it might mean waking one of the royals.

No, Umbo told himself. Stop thinking that way.

He got up and walked briskly out of the center of the grove, not caring how much noise he made among last year’s fallen leaves. Then he was on the closely grazed meadow, where his steps made almost no noise at all, and where the breeze was unimpeded by the trunks and leaves of the trees.

What animals keep this grass so close-cropped? Why aren’t they all here now, with their faces covered by facemasks? Maybe Vadesh comes out and mows it himself. Or grazes it. Who knows what these machines can do, if they put their minds to it?

Umbo circled the grove, which was quite a wide circuit, though the grove did not seem large or thick. He stayed well beyond its verge, which took him down a slope on the side beyond the city. Only when Umbo heard the gurgling of water did he realize how foolish he was to have strayed so far from camp. From here he couldn’t even see the sleepers, though he could see the tops of the trees under which they lay. But to go near the water—what if he stumbled in and got his own facemask?