by Wren Handman
“You’ll stay alive, that’s what,” he said sharply.
“And what if I say no?” she demanded.
“Taya. Don’t be like that,” he said impatiently, and she glared, real anger replacing her petulance of moments before.
“Like what?” she asked, steel in her voice. Darren seemed to recognize the mistake he had made, because he sighed and leaned his head back against the pillow.
“Please, Tay. I need ya to be safe. Ya won’t be safe here, and ya sure as Weeping Woman won’t be safe with me. Alahai’s balls! There I go cursin’ again. I’m tryin’ to change it…Jer says it ain’t right for a king to be swearin’ so much. There’s so many things a king’s supposed to do…I ain’t real good at it, Tay. I ain’t much good at any of it.”
“You’ll be a fantastic king,” she said gently, but in her heart she wondered if it was true. He was a good man, and he would do good by his people, it was true, but being a king was about more than that. It was about appeasing people, and smoothing rough feathers. About diplomacy, and ceremony. How would he survive in a world like that?
“D’you know…Labaci has no ocean?” he whispered. “S’landlocked. Got an inner city where the noble folks live, an’ an outer city for the common folks, an’ there’s a big river runs along the outer wall…But the wall’s so tall, ya can’t see the water…”
She didn’t know what to tell him, so she tried an empty lie, but they could both hear it in her voice. “You’ll get used to it.”
“Ashua won’t be able to find me there.”
“Ashua will find you anywhere,” Taya said, gripping his hand tightly in hers. “It may be Yariel who is worshipped in Sephria, but it is his mother who watches over Midvalen. She will not turn her face from you, no matter how far from Her waves you travel.”
“How can you be so sure?” he pleaded, tears in his eyes.
“Because. You taught me so.”
Chapter Eight
THEY WERE TO LEAVE as soon as night fell, which meant that once again Taya would be forced to spend the evening somewhere other than between two sheets on a comfortable mattress. In fact, it would be some time before she slept in a bed again, but by the evening meal Taya would have given her left leg for even a blanket and the main hall’s cold floor. It was her pride that kept her from sleeping. She could have begged exhaustion, and she was sure someone would have found her a cot, or at least a bedroll and a quiet corner. But she couldn’t afford to seem weak in front of these seasoned veterans. There might come a time when their good opinion of her could mean the difference between remaining a part of this adventure and being left behind.
When she had left Darren and returned to the common room she found that the meeting seemed to be have broken up. Jeremy was nowhere to be seen, but David and Ryan where at one of the benches in the back. They invited her to join them, and taught her a complicated game of dice they were playing with a few others. She had wondered at first at the large number of Sephrians to be found in Novosk, but David explained to her that they were exiles, gathered from all the corners of Miranov. The new laws in Sephria had barred many innocent men from their homes, and they were all eager for a chance to earn revenge and clear their names.
Before they found Darren, David and Jeremy had been in the process of traveling around Miranov and gathering up small knots of Sephrian refugees, then finding ways to smuggle them back into Sephria. This had been going on for over a year and there were now close to five hundred exiles now amassed safely on the other side of the border. This last group assembled around her were those whose profile as rebels was high enough that they would have trouble booking passage on a ship, or crossing the border legally, plus Darren’s personal guard, the friends and compatriots who never left his side. They would have to make a quieter and more dangerous sprint, across the river Sirrin in the dead of night and over the Opannine Mountains. At that point they would meet up with a small elite group. David wouldn’t tell her the whole plan, as it was shrouded in secrecy, but indicated that it involved their small sally force accomplishing something secret while the larger mass of rebels moved through the countryside, picking up resistance cells in each city, swelling their number; everyone agreed with Darren as a figurehead, victory was assured.
“It wasn’t Darren who gathered the exiles,” one man pointed out. He was older than the rest, nearly fifty, with long graying hair and a rough beard, but the smooth hands of a rich man. “It was you.”
“And Jeremy,” David reminded him.
“They didn’t go back home for Jeremy,” the man muttered, and David gave him an oddly sharp look.
“Taya, I believe it’s your turn. You roll one die, and if it’s a six you roll the red but if it’s a three you roll the black.” And that killed the discussion of politics.
After several hours of playing and talking about nothing special, with those strange comments still on her mind, Taya finally gathered the courage to ask David how he had become a member of the revolution.
“I am like the others,” he told her with a simple shrug.
“You’re nothin’ like us,” a red-haired boy insisted. “He’s the founder of it all.”
“Jeremy is the founder of it all,” David corrected. “I just got swept up in his fervor.” To Taya, he said, “I was from one of the largest and oldest noble houses. A duke’s son. I thought I had enough family connections to keep me safe, preaching about the evils of the new king’s laws. Turned out I was safe enough from public reaction, but the unlawful king sent a dagger to slay me in the night. I lived, and Jeremy persuaded me that the time for speech was past. The revolution had begun.”
“It must be terribly hard, to be so long away from home,” she said sympathetically, and there were murmurs of agreement from the five men gathered around her. Ryan, unsurprisingly, remained mute.
“We get by,” David said, and that was that.
The conversation turned to more lively subjects, and Taya lost piles of imaginary money to the fickle dice.
The only event worth remembering during the long day was the moment when she heard Ryan speak for the first time. It seemed all the more momentous for the fact that it was such an inconsequential thing. There were five people, plus Taya, playing cards, and Ryan was sitting on the table behind David, sharpening his knives and preparing his equipment for the journey. They had moved on from dice to cards, and Ryan had been invited to join but had declined with a mute shake of his head. It was the last turn of the game, and there had been some confusion. Someone had skipped a turn, and everyone needed to take back their cards in order to redo the round, but David and another man couldn’t remember which cards they had played. David was sure he had played the seven, but the other man insisted that he had played the seven, and David had played a three. No one else in the circle could remember who had played what, and the argument was beginning to grow heated when all at once Ryan spoke up, not even looking up from his whetstone.
“David played the seven,” he said calmly.
The decision was instantly accepted, and the game moved on. Taya was so shocked to hear him speak that she almost missed her next turn. She had expected his voice to be somehow momentous—the breathy whisper of the dead of night, or the cold high scratch of metal against a scabbard. Something silly and romantic, that spoke of his deadly strengths and his strange secrets. Instead, she heard a completely normal voice, not even husky from disuse. It was the kind of voice that would not be out of place in a market, that she could picture coming from any farm boy just off the wagon. A trace of country twang, not a hint of Sephrian in his accent. Was he from Miranov? Or Marabor? His skin was dark enough, but his hair had hints of red in it. More mystery instead of answers.
When the evening meal was finally served, it was announced by a breathless youth, barely out of boyhood, who darted into the room and happily cried out, “Food’s here!” The company responded like a well-oiled wheel, clearly used to this daily routine. There was a general exodus in the direction of
the benches, where Taya and her companions were already seated, and the cards were quickly gathered. Some ran to get plates and cups while others ran to the doors, where they met with men carrying sacks which they tossed to their waiting comrades. Seeing the sacks, Taya’s stomach dropped. There couldn’t be anything warm in them, and nothing that might soak the bags—dried and cold, then.
After a brief scuffle everyone ended up seated and fed. Dinner turned out to be as bland as Taya had feared, though it was at least recognizable as food. Dried meat, a handful of dried fruit, and ale to wash it down. By the time a full plate was handed to Taya, David had already begun to eat his portion.
“Does someone not say a prayer to Ashua?” Taya asked in surprise. It was the first time she had ever seen someone eating without first saying a brief prayer in thanks for the meal. Her own family often gave very short ones, but they had never once foregone it altogether.
“Why would we pray to Ashua?” an older man seated across from her asked with a laugh. His name was Jake, she thought, or perhaps James. He had been a member of the game earlier, but she had forgotten his name five minutes after they were introduced. He saw her confusion, and grinned even more widely. “We worship Yariel in Sephria, miss.”
She blushed, embarrassed to have something that significant slip her mind, and good-natured laughter greeted her discomfiture.
“Well, then a prayer to Yariel. Does no one give thanks?” she asked, trying to cover up her mortification with a quick question. The older man shrugged.
“I haven’t been caught up on those things for a long time, miss,” he replied.
A younger man with a shock of bright red hair piped up from two seats down. “We always used to pray at home. Mother led, and Father used to edge his fingers closer to the plate, trying to see how near he could get before she’d slap his hand away.” Everyone laughed and smiled in fond remembrance of their own traditions. Another man called an anecdote from down the row, and soon the air was filled with bittersweet reminders of what had been left behind, and what was being fought for.
David remained silent, as did Ryan, but suddenly it didn’t seem to Taya such a surprise that these two had ended up here, with this ragtag band of rebels. Was it such a stretch, to imagine that well-educated men might love their countries so strongly? Who knew what atrocities had fired their hatred, but it seemed that hatred was not the real thing that brought them here. It was love, an honest yearning for their country to be better than it was. She could see it in David’s eyes, a sort of lurking, hopeful sadness. They had lost something, and she knew how that felt. She too had lost her home, had seen it engulfed. For the first time she felt like she could almost be one of them. The life of a rebel wasn’t so distant from her own.
She was almost finished with her meal when she felt a warm hand on her shoulder. She turned to see Jeremy smiling down at her. He had eaten his meal with Darren, she assumed, because she hadn’t seen him at table earlier.
“Is everything all right?” she asked.
“Oh, yes, of course. Everything is coming together. We should be ready to leave on time. I just wanted to check in with you, make sure there wasn’t anything you needed,” he explained.
“That’s very kind of you. I’m all right. I have good people watching out for me,” she said, catching David’s eye, and he smiled at her.
“That’s right, we’ve got her well under control,” he said.
“I don’t think anyone ever has Taya under control,” Jeremy said with a laugh.
From across the table Matt, another of the players in the game of cards, picked up the conversation. “You can say that again! She played dumb at the beginnin’, but she was jus’ playin’. Good thing we’re all dead broke, or she’d ’a cleared us all out ’a our nobbles!”
“Aye, and your barries and dukes too,” she told him with an impish grin.
Jeremy laughed. “Well, I am glad to see that you are fitting in here, Taya,” he told her politely, the warmth in his eyes belying the formal words.
“I’m well used to the company of ruffians and cards, Jeremy. How do you think I met Darren?” she asked with a twinkle in her eye, and he chuckled.
“Ah, and he always wins, I know. I have played him a number of times myself, and I must say it puts great confidence in my heart to know that the king has such experience with gambling and strategy. It suits him well to the work he has before him,” Jeremy replied.
Though his tone was jovial Taya thought she caught a hint of reproach meant only for her. She hadn’t realized the anecdote might be inappropriate until she had said it, and then it was too late. To put Darren in a frame with gambling and women was fine, but to put a king in the same light? That would not do, especially once he reached the court and faced his most dangerous foes—the nobles of his own country. They would not take kindly to an ill-bred, common-raised man taking the reins of power, she was sure.
“I agree. There is no man I would trust more with my life, or my money,” Taya said with a smile, and received a faint nod from Jeremy. Once again, she doubted anyone had noticed except, it went without saying, for Ryan, who was sitting placidly beside David and seeming to pay attention to nothing but the small bit of meat he still had on his plate.
“I regret I cannot stay longer, but there are some last minute details to see to. David, may I steal you away? Enjoy the rest of your evening.” He gave Taya a very formal bow, and then a wave that seemed somehow formal and friendly and managed to encompass everyone who might be glancing his way. David followed with Ryan close on his heels. It seemed like even here, in their stronghold, he thought David needed a bodyguard.
“Thank you,” Taya called as he left, and then slid back to face the table.
The older man (she was fairly sure his name was Jake and not James) gave her a sly look as she caught his eye. “That Jeremy’s a fine-lookin’ fellow,” he remarked.
He was, at that. He looked to be about the same age as Darren, somewhere in his mid-twenties. His light beard added gravity to a face that might otherwise have seemed gentle, and the effect reminded Taya of an actor she had seen once as a child. He had been playing the role of a king in some romantic tale, and she remembered leaning over to her father and announcing quite loudly, “I’m gonna marry someone just like that, Daddy! D’you see ’im? Just like that!” Her father had been mortified, and had forced her to leave without seeing the end just to escape from the imagined stares of their fellow audience members. That had been a time before she had understood the realities of the world, of course, when she still believed in knights in shining armor that swooped down and rescued fair maidens, and that happily-ever-after was the way all lives went, and not just three words strung together to explain a future too complicated for bedtime stories.
“Is he?” she asked airily. “I hadn’t noticed.”
Chapter Nine
IT FELT LIKE AN ETERNITY before they gave the signal. The evening crawled by, dropping moment by moment in a string of endless time. Men became restless, packing and unpacking their meager supplies, standing and sitting and pacing and sitting again. A game of cards began and was abandoned, the players too anxious to concentrate on the complicated rules. Taya sat quietly on a bench, feeling herself drowse in and out of wakefulness, never passing into slumber but never entirely with the waking world. David and Ryan sat close by, speaking in hushed tones. At one point she noticed Ryan put a hand on David’s thigh, and he touched it lightly before it trailed back to the bench. Her curiosity at what might pass between them was almost enough to rouse her from her dormancy, but she felt the obscure desire to protect their privacy, and so she made no move toward them.
When the signal came, it was not quite what she had expected. Jeremy stood up on top of one of the tables and rapped his boot loudly against his chair for attention. When what little sound there had been subsided, he called out in a clear voice:
“Sarah tells me the moon has risen—it is waxing, but there is enough light that it may prove dang
erous, so be on your guard. We have divided the group into four companies, and each company has a captain. We will make the crossing at separate locations on the river, so as to ensure that we do not incur any unwanted attention. Marce will read the roll and yell out your company, so listen carefully. The company captains are King Darren, Jacqueline, Samuel, and Beckett.”
She heard a murmur of dissent, but couldn’t pinpoint it. One of the men at the table stood up, holding a piece of sacking left over from dinner. On it he had scrawled the names of the assembled company, and he cleared his throat and read them out in a powerful projecting voice. Taya guessed that he had a past as an army member, but when she asked David she was shocked to learn that he was a child of Yariel.
“He’s the company’s unofficial scribe,” David explained. “No one knows his story for sure, but the rumor about the place has been that his monastery was razed because it was suspected of harboring fugitives.”
“King Octarion would burn children of Yariel?” Taya exclaimed in surprise.
“Aye, but shh. We must listen for our names,” he admonished, and Taya fell into silence.
When the roll had been called, Taya was relieved to hear that her company contained not only Darren and Jeremy, but David and Ryan as well. All told, there were five soldiers and one captain to each group, plus one extra in her own company and one extra in another. Counting herself, that made twenty-six rebels trying to cross the river from Miranov to Sephria. The river Sirrin was a large, deep expanse, with dangerous rapids and heavily patrolled bridges. Though Sephria and Miranov were peaceful allies, there had been war recently enough that the guards on the border would be numerous, if not alert. Each of the four groups would leave by one of the four city gates, and cross the river using rafts which had been hidden during the day. The crossing would be dangerous, especially in the dark, but it was the only way to get by unseen. Even then, there was a possibility of discovery, and the groups would have to be prepared for battle.
