by Beth Alvarez
“He didn't even have a purse on him, for one thing.” He flashed her a grin. “If you've got to pull a man's fortune from his pockets, he doesn't have enough to be worth robbing.”
She didn't appear convinced, but she didn't argue.
Several more deliveries passed before an old farmer paused to consider their offer. His lone ox as worn as he was, and he rubbed the beast's shoulder as if to apologize for the weight of its burden. Even the tongue of his wagon was heaped with bags of grain, forcing the farmer to walk on foot.
“Well,” the old man sighed at last, “I'd be grateful for the hand, full honest, but I haven't got a mite to spare.”
“We'll work for food, too,” Tahl put in before Nia could protest. “Has all your grain been paid for, or could we get a measure?”
The farmer trudged back to his wagon and slapped a sack. “Barley for the emperor's stables. I brought an extra, always do, in case one gets torn. Help me get all of it stored in the royal stables and I'll give you a half peck from what's left over.”
Unlike Tahl, Niada had no shortage of food, but her eyes lit up. She could be a convincing actor at times. “Really?”
The old man nodded and twitched the reins against his ox's back. “Long as we're done by sundown, I'd say it's fair.”
“No problems there, sir.” Tahl nudged Nia's arm and they fell in step alongside the lurching wagon. “We're stronger than we look.”
They paused at the gate for the guards to inspect the load. The armored men poked and prodded at the supplies while questioning the farmer. They gave Tahl and Niada a cursory glance, but didn't find them threatening. Good.
“Look close when we get inside,” Tahl murmured. “We may never have a chance to make a delivery to the palace again.” The hint of awe he injected into his voice earned a small chuckle from the guard who stood nearby. Nia nodded once, her eyes round. She got his meaning. Watch for vulnerabilities. Watch for information.
“All clear,” one of the guards announced with a wave of his hand. The gate behind him was open, and armed men moved aside to clear the path. The guard offered Tahl a wry smile as he returned to his post. “Enjoy your peek, farm boy. If you're lucky, you might get to see the horses.”
Tahl flashed him a grin as the farmer clucked to his ox. The wagon groaned as it set into motion again.
The shadow of the gate was cool enough that a shiver slid down Tahl's spine as they passed through. The walls were deeper than he'd thought. Not relevant, given he planned to escape over the top of them when all was said and done. Taking the gate out would have been idiotic. His gaze drifted to the top of the arched tunnel, where narrow slits stared back like accusing eyes.
They passed the second portcullis and the castle yard opened in front of them. The farmer turned his ox to the left. Smooth stone tiled the ground before the keep and to the far right, where men sparred and practiced archery outside what Tahl could only assume was the barracks. He took it all in with a carefully staged look of wonder on his face. Beside him, Nia's eyes were so big that he wasn't sure she was pretending.
“You get used to it after a while,” the farmer said with a pleasant chuckle. “I've delivered grain for the emperor's horses for close on thirty years now.”
“That's a long time. Atoras hasn't even been on the throne that long, has he?” Tahl ran a quick tally of guards in his head. The number was every bit as ugly as Nia had written down.
“Aye. It's been an honor to serve Emperor Atoras and his father both.” The farmer grinned at him. “Fine horses, too. Always a pleasure to see. Sometimes they have them out in the yard. Those are the best days.”
Tahl's thoughts were already elsewhere when he nodded. “I hope I get to see them.” The layout of the yard was different than what he'd expected from the outside. The northwestern corner hosted what had to be the stables. The ornate stone structure was surrounded by a green paddock half the size of Orrad's garden district. White horses grazed behind the fence, but it was an opening in the curtain wall behind the grass that caught Tahl's eye. “The horses have their own gate?”
“Emperor Atoras has three dozen horses, lad. Where did you think they go to graze?” The farmer stifled a laugh. “They've a large, private pasture on the promontory just outside the city. The emperor's farriers and smiths sit alongside it. Safest place for the finest horses in the Westkings. Easy to defend, impossible to get them out without passing the guard towers on the west side.”
“I never knew,” Tahl said, thoughtful. “Do you think the farriers would take an apprentice?”
“He's good with horses,” Nia added from behind him, reminding him of her presence at his back.
The farmer shrugged. “Couldn't say. Might be worth asking while you're here, though. Never a better chance.”
Tahl flashed him a grin and nodded his agreement. “What about you?” he asked, turning his attention to Niada. “See anything interesting?”
She hesitated and Tahl raised a brow. Was it that she hadn't seen anything, or was she trying to think of an inconspicuous way to frame it? “Laundry maids,” she said after a time.
Both Tahl's brows crept upward. Nia blushed so furiously, he thought for a moment the expression might be genuine.
“Well, it's something I can do,” she blurted. “Work's easier to find for strapping boys.”
The farmer listened to their exchange with a curious glint in his eye. “A bit young to be looking for work, aren't you, miss? You should still be on your mama's apron strings.”
Niada's face fell and this time, Tahl knew the expression was real. “Blackhead plague,” she murmured. “Four years ago, now. We were on Papa's farmstead then. I wasn't as sick as the rest. They sent me to the temple. The priestesses saw to me, but by the time I was well enough to take them back...” She trailed off, her head bowed.
Tahl reached back to grip her shoulder in a quiet show of solidarity. The truth was always easier to maintain than a fabricated story, but sharing the truth wasn't always easy. “I was in the academy then,” he added for the farmer's benefit. All of Nia's family had perished. He hadn't so much as gotten sick.
The farmer didn't hide his surprise. “The academy? What are you doing looking for work with horses, then?”
Now it was Tahl's turn to sober. Before he could say anything, the farmer raised a hand.
“Those soul-blighted rich mages,” the man grumbled as the wagon creaked to a stop outside the paddock gates. A man in stable livery came to let them in. “All that matters to them is wealth and class. I'm sorry, lad. I'm sure you saw the academy as your way forward.”
“My family made a lot of sacrifices to get me there,” Tahl said, a tinge of remorse in his voice. That was the hardest part of the truth to face. They'd pushed to send him, pushed to get him into the capital, then turned their backs the moment he'd failed. All he had ever been was another badge of honor, a bargaining chip in the political games noble houses played. The moment he'd been cast out of the academy, he'd become useless.
He changed the subject as the gate squeaked open and they rumbled toward the feed room at the end of the stables. “If you don't mind, I think I'll slip back and talk to the farriers when I'm done.”
“And I could talk to the maids,” Nia chimed in.
The farmer shrugged. “No business of mine what you do, so long as you do good work for me beforehand.”
“Thank you, sir.” Tahl's eyes flicked to Nia. She grinned back and nodded.
For the next fifteen minutes, Tahl pretended to be enamored with the horses and doing his best not to let them be a distraction. Niada climbed onto the wagon and pushed the sacks around for the men to take, and Tahl hefted two sacks at a time, earning a few appreciative remarks on his wiry strength. He resisted the urge to say he'd been stronger. Within a few weeks, he expected he'd be back to full strength again. Training in the woods had nothing on actually running the city's rooftops. Hauling himself up walls and over balconies for hours on end seemed like a tantalizing reward
ahead of him.
As he had so often in recent days, Tahl had to stop the small inner voice that said his lack of training had been self-inflicted. Not ideal, he reminded himself, but part of the plan. Now he was inside the palace walls. The first hurdle had already been crossed.
While they hauled sacks of grain out of the wagon and into the stable, Tahl let his eyes roam. He'd thought the walls challenging from the outside. Now he saw they were challenging on the inside, too. The ugly things were mortared smooth and meticulously maintained, not a ledge or handhold in sight. The only buildings that sat close enough to the walls to reach them were low, like the stable, and a leap from the roof's edge still would have fallen short of the walkway.
No wonder Orrad never fell in the Claiming Wars, Tahl mused. Every institute had weaknesses, but from where he stood, he couldn't see any. But most fortifications were designed to keep people out, not in. Right now, figuring out how to overcome the problem of getting into the castle was more important than figuring out how to scale the walls.
Visiting the farrier gave him an excuse to part ways with the farmer, and a believable one for the man to give the guards when he left without his assistants. Though Tahl was loath to let Nia involve herself too deeply in the trouble yet to come, he was willing to entertain her participation for now. Anything that helped his chances of getting inside was a boon.
Niada wrestled one of the few remaining sacks off the wagon by herself, hoisted it onto her shoulders and trotted it to the stables.
“Tough little thing,” the farmer remarked.
Tahl nodded. “She's had to be.” He dragged the last pair of sacks to the feed room by himself. They'd collect their payment first, he decided, then they'd split up and he would pray the rear of the palace offered some easy way in.
When he returned to the wagon, the farmer was already halfway through filling a small sack with their grain. Tahl waited patiently, thanked the man for his generosity, and allowed himself a fleeting moment to regret he'd had to expend any energy in something so menial as moving horse feed.
“Best of luck landing an apprenticeship.” The farmer clapped a hand to Tahl's shoulder. The corners of his eyes crinkled with kindness.
Someday, Tahl promised himself, I'll find a way to repay people like this. The people who had offered him kindness after he'd been expelled from the academy were few, but they were precious in his eyes. They'd helped change his fortunes, and with luck, someday he'd be able to aid theirs.
“Fair travels,” Tahl replied as he passed the sack of barley to Nia. She started to wrinkle her nose, but caught herself and her expression morphed into the grimace of someone unprepared for the weight thrust into their arms.
The farmer clucked at his ox, and the beast lumbered toward the front gate.
“Let's split now,” Tahl murmured. “I'll go around the back. You go back up front and see if you can find those laundry maids.”
She hefted the barley in her arms. “What do I do with this?”
“Hang on to it for now. If nothing else, it'll make a good breakfast when all this is over.” He waved her off and tucked his hands into his pockets as he turned toward the rear gate. “Stay safe.”
“You, too,” Nia said.
The back of the palace was no less defensible than the front, Tahl noted with a grim smile. The windows were few. There were none at ground level, and those in the middle were scarcely a hand wide. More like arrow loops than windows. The upper floors of the palace bore true windows, wide things with glass panes and curtains, and he suspected those were the suites where the nobles spent their time. But the walls were chiseled smooth, just like everything else. The joints between the large stones were so precisely mortared that he didn't think he could catch a ridge with so much as a fingernail.
A hook and rope could get me up to an arrow slit, perhaps, he mused, but I didn't bring those, did I?
Above him, the fortress glowed gold as the sun dipped into the late afternoon sky. The curtain wall cast long, cold shadows across the yard. More than once, his eyes darted to the gate that led to the promontory where the emperor's horses would be grazing. Instinct told him the horses were important to his mission, though he couldn't fathom how. The emperor's white horses were dangerously recognizable. Even if he managed to steal one for his escape, he wouldn't be able to evade attention with it.
There were still other peasants within the walls, so the guards ignored him as he explored. With a fixed look of purpose on his face, he was unlikely to be disturbed, but once the sun set and the gates closed to business, he'd no longer have any reason to be wandering about.
A door along the back wall opened and the noisy clatter of pans spilled out into the golden evening. A young man trudged out with a bucket, rubbing the back of his head. The sullen frown he wore and the way his feet dragged across the stone made it clear he'd rather be elsewhere. The bucket swung from his fingertips.
Tahl had noted the low, square stone wall that rimmed a well, but hadn't paid it much mind. He quickened his pace and swooped the bucket out of the youth's hand. “I'll get it.”
The boy—not much younger than Tahl himself—gave him a startled glance. A lack of recognition shone in his guarded eyes, but a moment later, he apparently decided it didn't matter. “Thanks,” he grumbled, still rubbing the back of his head as he slipped off to sulk.
Tahl leaned over the wall to scoop a bucket of water from the well. It was no more than an arm's length down, which surprised him, given the castle's altitude over the river. If the well was spring-fed, perhaps there were passages to explore under the castle proper. That thought lingered no more than an instant. If there were caverns under the palace, it was nowhere he wanted to be after the scrape with the bear. He ducked in the back door with a silent note of how the wood was girded with iron. Even the kitchens could be defensible.
Inside, the kitchens were crammed with people and Tahl had to lift the bucket overhead to keep it from sloshing over someone. Scullery maids scrubbed dishes buried under mountains of suds, a luxury he'd never seen elsewhere in the city. More sat near the hearth, scouring cast iron with handfuls of salt. Appealing fragrances graced his nose from every direction. A man worked dough with his fists while a woman beside him braided more into loaves. A half-dozen people manned spits and kettles above roaring fires, and in the middle of it all, a boy worked with a mop.
“Here,” Tahl said as he deposited the pail of water on a wooden counter beside a particularly surly woman and darted past before she had time to reply. He ducked under a tray and twirled behind a maid on his way to the door. The corridor beyond sported heavy traffic, but they were all serving staff, strangers in clothing similar to his. He thought it a blessing until a man stepped into his path and seized him by the collar, his face red with fury.
“What are you doing out of uniform?” the man bellowed, giving him a shake.
Tahl stumbled a step and gaped. “I was just—I spilled something, the laundry—”
“Get back into it!” The man shoved him into a passing page, who yelped and skittered away.
Fighting the urge to defend himself, Tahl put his head down and hurried onward. Laundry was a good excuse, and would get him back with Nia, assuming she'd found her way inside too. He didn't know who the man had mistaken him for, but a uniform seemed like a sound idea. More than one young man scuttled past him in some sort of livery. Blending in could only make things easier.
A few hallways away, Tahl paused and caught a boy by the arm. “Brant's branches, it's a maze in here! Where's the laundry, again? It's only my third day and if I'm late again, the stablemaster will have my head.”
The boy paled. “You're just getting into uniform now? Stablemaster Hammon will gut you like a fish, is what he'll do.”
“I know,” Tahl groaned. “The girl who took it, she gave me directions, but—”
Before he could finish, the boy caught his arm and turned him the appropriate direction. “Second hall, turn left. When you get to a st
aircase, take it down. The laundry pools are there. You'll hear the girls.”
“Thank you.” Tahl slapped the boy's shoulder in appreciation and lit off in a sprint befitting his supposed situation.
There were fewer people in the second hall and after Tahl had gone a short way, he noted his assessment of the palace's interior had been wrong. The boy seemed to agree with him, but the palace was built with corridors in utilitarian lines, a network of passages interconnected and arranged for efficiency. Despite the design's obvious intention to reduce foot traffic down certain paths, the workers had clearly developed preferences that kept them crowded. A desire for human contact, perhaps, or a need to be seen and acknowledged as they carried out their work. Tahl's lips twitched with amusement. He'd rather be invisible, even when he wasn't doing anything suspicious. Fewer eyes meant more freedom. He liked to feel his notoriety in other ways.
A staircase opened to one side. Tahl took the steps by twos. True to what the boy had said, the sound of laundry maids giggling reached his ears by the time he hit the hallway.
Before he could round the corner into the room from where the voices came, Niada emerged with a bundle of gray cloth in her arms. She froze when she saw him.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered.
“Looking for you. I wanted to make sure you got back out of the palace before I go any farther.”
A wrinkle of worry formed between her brows. “Do you know what you're doing yet?”
“Sort of. I need a uniform if I'm going to keep sneaking around.” He brushed a hand down the front of his shirt as if self-conscious.
Nia lifted the garments she held. “I just got you one. I was coming to find you.”
“I like that we both went straight to the uniform idea,” Tahl murmured as he took the clothing from her arms. His fingers rasped against the smooth material. Weeks of manual labor had given him new calluses and for the first time, he was made aware of their presence.
“This way.” She jerked her head to the side and led the way farther down the hall. A short distance from the laundry pools, she opened the door to a storage closet and ushered him inside. “You can change in here.”
