“Sorry,” Cithrin said, pulling back. One of the mules snorted and looked back at her. She had a hard time not imagining annoyance in the slant of its ears. She moved them forward again more slowly. The caravan master shook his head and cantered back to the next wagon. Cithrin held the reins in a fierce grip, but there was nothing she had to do. The mules knew their work, following the cart before them. Slowly, with many shouts and imprecations, the caravan took form. They moved from the wide streets of the Old Quarter, past the canals that led down to the river, across the Patron’s Bridge, the prince’s palace high above them.
Vanai, the city of her childhood, slipped past her. There was the road that led to the market where Cam had bought her honey bread for her birthday. Here, the stall where an apprentice cobbler had stolen a kiss from her and been whipped by Magister Imaniel for his trouble. She’d forgotten that until now. They passed the tutor’s house where she’d gone to study numbers and letters when she was just a girl. Somewhere in the city were the graves of her mother and father. She had never visited the corpses, and she regretted it now.
When she came back, she told herself. When the war was over and the world safe, she’d come back and see where her family was buried.
Too soon, the city wall loomed up before them, pale stone as high as two men standing. The gate was open, but the traffic on the road slowed them. The mules seemed to expect it and stood patiently as the caravan master rode to the front to clear the way, whipping at whatever was in the ’van’s path. High on the tower gate, a man stood in the bright armor of the prince’s guard. For a sickening moment, Cithrin thought it was the same grinning face that had looked up at her the night Besel died. When the guard called out, it was to the captain.
“You’re a coward, Wester!”
Cithrin caught her breath, shocked by the casual insult.
“Die of the pox, Dossen,” the captain sang back, grinning, so perhaps the two were friends. The idea made her like Captain Wester less. The prince’s guard didn’t stop them, at least. The carts rolled and bumped and creaked their way out of the city and onto the road where they left the stone cobbles for the wide green of dragon’s jade. Carse lay far to the north and west, but the road here tracked south, echoing the distant curve of the sea. A few other carts passed, traveling in toward the city. The low hills were covered with trees in the glory of their autumn leaves; red and yellow and gold. When the sun struck them at the proper angle, it looked like fire. Cithrin hunched on her bench, her legs growing colder, her hands stiff.
Over the long, slow miles her anxiety faded, lulled by the rumble and rocking of the cart. She could almost forget who she was, what was behind her, and what was in the cart with her. As long as the world was her, the mules, the cart before and the trees beside, it was almost like being alone. The sun tracked lower, shining into her eyes until she was as good as blind. The caravan master’s call slowed the carts, then stopped them. The Timzinae rode down the line of carts as he had in Vanai, pointing each of them to a place in a low, open field. The camp. Cithrin’s place, thankfully, was near the road where she didn’t need to do anything fancy. She turned the mules, brought the cart where she’d been told, and then climbed down to the earth. She unhitched the mules and led them to a creek where they stuck their heads down to the water and kept them there so long she started to grow nervous. Would a mule drink enough to make itself sick? Should she try to stop them? But the other animals were doing the same. She watched what the other carters did and tried not to stand out.
Night came quickly and cold. By the time she’d fed her animals, scrubbed them, and set them in the ’van’s makeshift corral, a mist had risen. The caravan master had set up a fire, and the smell of smoke and grilling fish brought Cithrin’s stomach suddenly and painfully to life. She joined the carters laughing and talking in the line for food. She kept her head bowed, her eyes downcast. When anyone tried to bring her into the conversation, she grunted or spoke in monosyllables. The ’van’s cook was a short Timzinae woman so fat the chitin of her scales seemed ready to pop free of her sausage-shaped arms. When Cithrin reached the front of the line, the cook handed her a tin plate with a thin strip of pale trout-flesh, a heaping spoonful of beans, and a crust of brown bread. Cithrin nodded in a mime of gratitude and went to sit at the fire. The damp soaked her leggings and jacket, but she didn’t dare move in nearer to the warmth. Better to keep to the back.
As they ate, the caravan master pulled a low stool out from his own cart and stood on it, reading from a holy book by the light of the fire. Cithrin listened with only half her attention. Magister Imaniel was a religious too, or else thought it wise to appear so. Cithrin had heard the scriptures many times without ever finding God and angels particularly moving.
Quietly, she put down plate and knife and went out to the creek. How to visit the latrine without giving herself away had been a haunting fear, and Magister Imaniel’s dismissive answers- All men squat to shit -hadn’t reassured her. Alone in the mist and darkness, leggings around her ankles and codpiece stuffing in hand, she felt relief not only in her flesh. Once. She’d gotten away with it once. Now if she could only keep the charade up for the weeks to Carse.
Coming back to the fire, she saw a man sitting beside her plate. One of the guards, but thankfully not the captain or his Tralgu second. Cithrin took her seat again and the guard nodded to her and smiled. She hoped he wouldn’t talk.
“Quite the talker, our ’van master,” the guard said. “He projects well. Would have made a good actor, except there aren’t many good Timzinae roles. Orman in the Fire Cycle, but that’s about it.”
Cithrin nodded and took a bite of cold beans.
“Sandr,” the guard said. “That’s me. My name’s Sandr.”
“Tag,” Cithrin said, hoping that between mumbling and her full mouth, she’d sound enough like a man.
“Good meetin’ you, Tag,” Sandr said. He shifted in the darkness, hauling out a leather skin. “Drink?”
Cithrin shrugged the way she imagined a carter might, and Sandr grinned and popped the stopper free. Cithrin had drunk wine in temple and during festival meals, but always with water, and never very much. The liquid that poured into her mouth now was a different thing. It bit at the softest parts of her lips and tongue, slid down her throat, and left her feeling as if she’d been cleaned. The warmth that spread through her chest was like a blush.
“Good, isn’t it?” Sandr said. “I borrowed it from Master Kit. He won’t mind.”
Cithrin took another drink then reluctantly handed it back. Sandr drank as the caravan master reached the end of his reading, and half a dozen voices rose up in the closing rite. The moon seemed soft, the mist scattering its light. To her surprise, the wine was untying the knot in her stomach. Not much, but enough that she could feel it. The warmth in her chest was in her belly now too. She wondered how much of the skin she’d have to down to bring the feeling to her shoulders and neck.
She couldn’t be stupid, though. She couldn’t get herself drunk. Someone shouted out Sandr’s name and the guard leapt to his feet. He didn’t pick up the skin.
“Over here, sir,” Sandr said, walking in toward the fire. Wester and his Tralgu were gathering up their soldiers. Cithrin looked out into the grey and shifting darkness, in toward the fire, and then carefully, casually scooped up the wineskin, tucking it into her jacket.
She walked back to her cart, avoiding the others as she went. Someone was singing, and another voice lifted to join the song. A night bird called out. Cithrin clambered up. Dew was forming on the wool cloth, tiny droplets catching the glow of the moon. She wondered whether she ought to lower the tarp, but it was dark, and she didn’t particularly want to. Instead, she snuggled into among the bolts, snuck the wineskin out of her jacket, and had just one more drink. A small one and only one.
She had to be careful.
Abraham, Daniel
The Dragon’s Path
Dawson Kalliam Baron of Osterling Fells
The sword’s arc changed at the last second, the steel blade angling up toward his face. Had Dawson been as young as his opponent, the move would have had its intended effect: he would have flinched back from it, turned, and left himself open. But he had been dueling for too many years. He shifted his own blade an inch to the side and pushed the unexpected thrust a hair’s breadth wide of its mark.
Feldin Maas, Baron of Ebbinbaugh and Dawson’s opponent in this little battle as in everything, spat on the ground and grinned.
The original slight had been a small one. Despite Dawson having a greater landholding, Maas had demanded to be served before him at the king’s court three days before on the strength of having been named Warden the Southern Reach. Dawson had explained Maas’s mistake. Maas had made an insult of his concession. The pair of them had come near blows there in the great hall. And so the question was to be resolved here, in the fashion of
