“Don’t be condescending. You know what I did as well as I do. If she’s dead it’s because I abandoned her. I have a new family now.”
She stalked away to the huddle of Shipwrights, who had kept their distance from the fighting since it wasn’t the job they’d been hired for.
A new family. One that couldn’t include him.
And yet he started after her anyway. He’d find the right words so she didn’t have to suffer this misery alone… only to find his path blocked by Sunny and Flint.
“Murderers like you don’t get rewarded with treasures like that, but I might have a try at her when we get back to the coast,” Sunny said with a sneer meant to goad Agalar into trying to hit him. But Agalar valued his hands too much to bother.
“Let me pass.”
“No. We’re getting too close to the end now. For the last part of the journey you’ll stay under direct guard.” Sunny pointed to a carriage marked with a captain’s badge of the East Saroese army.
A cold sense of foreboding squeezed his chest. “But I fulfilled my part of the bargain!”
“That’s not for you to decide, is it?” Sunny grasped him by the arm and, with a coarse grin, force-marched him toward the carriage. “Think of it as being under arrest for murder.”
8
“Stick close to us,” said Pearl as they rolled into the huge army encampment, a noisy, dusty, chaotic sprawl of tents and people and livestock. “Many a youth has come to grief in a place like this. If you get separated from us, go to the army hospital and say you’re ill.”
“They might refuse to treat me because I’m Efean, even if I show them this.” Bettany touched the cloth pouch that hung around her neck in which she’d secured the manumission document.
Pearl shook her head. “I’m glad you understand a bit of writing doesn’t protect you. There are plenty of people in the world who only respect the law if it serves the end they seek. Also, anyone can burn that piece of paper if they wrest it from you—”
“Then they won’t wrest it from me.”
“I do appreciate your resolve.” Pearl cracked a laugh as she guided her team behind the captain’s carriage in which Agalar rode.
They had been eating the dust of that carriage for six days and Bettany was grateful they were almost at the end of their journey. She could finally smell the sea. The sight of its glimmering waters reminded her of all the afternoons she had spent seated on a wall overlooking the harbor in Saryenia, wishing she could sail as far away from her home as possible.
And now here she was, with a chance to actually do it. The ache in her heart had a pressure both of pain and of joy.
They rolled up to a makeshift gate set amid temporary canvas walls that formed a large enclosure within the vast encampment. The royal hawk flag of the kingdom of East Saro flew from the center-post of the central tent. The two supply wagons were guided away to one side with Ash, Lark, and the other four Shipwrights keeping guard over them while Pearl followed Lord Agalar into a tent whose banners displayed stylized owls with gold coins for eyes.
Since no one forbade her, Bettany followed Pearl. She’d long ago learned that because people thought her beautiful, they questioned her less and often gave way without protest. And indeed the guards looked at her curiously, even appreciatively, but did not attempt to block her.
“Why have you tagged along?” Pearl muttered in an undertone as they were shown into a chamber within the tent, empty but for a table and chair at one end.
“Ever since Crags Fort, Sunny and Flint have treated him like a prisoner they think will try to escape.”
“Yes. There’s a lot about his story that doesn’t add up.”
“You don’t know his whole story?” Bettany had assumed Pearl knew all the details of the mission, considering the way Agalar quietly deferred to her.
“I do not. Among the Shipwrights we make it a habit to judge people on how they act now, not on what they may have been in the past.”
Agalar had made an effort to tidy himself. His straw-colored hair was combed; it had grown long enough to be pulled back into a tiny stub of a tail that made her want to laugh because it looked ridiculous. They hadn’t spoken since their last conversation at Crags Fort.
He glanced back just then. Seeing her, his eyes crinkled, but after a moment of some complicated thought tangling in his mind, he frowned and made a shooing gesture with one hand.
She shook her head.
He sighed.
“All kneel for the lord treasurer.”
Bettany had never knelt in her life, nor seen her mother do so. But Pearl tugged on her arm and spoke under her breath. “Play along.”
She wasn’t willing to set knee to ground in submission, so instead she crouched, ready to spring up if need be. The captain of the raiding troop entered beside a lord dressed in such an elaborate drapery of embroidered robes that she wondered he didn’t faint from the heat. Soldiers carrying a small but heavy chest set it on the table. The captain raised the lid. From where she knelt, Bettany could not see inside the chest but she could see the lord treasurer’s satisfied nod.
“There are twenty other chests like this one?”
“Yes, my lord,” said the captain. “Although I confess we expected more gold. The rest of the cargo was dates and natron.”
“Natron is valuable as well. This is more gold than our mines in the Orak Hills produce in five years. Very good. This is Lord Agalar of Nerash, the famous physician?”
Of course Agalar still stood, an act that for another would have signified defiance, but which he managed with a casual stance as if he had never been instructed to kneel at all. “Now that I have done as I said and delivered Efean gold into your hands, I expect my payment as well as safe conduct for myself and my associate to the port of our choosing so we may continue our pursuit of medical knowledge across the Three Seas.”
“We cannot persuade you to stay at our army hospital? Your associate has been doing exceptional work there.”
“Not today.” The edge in his voice she had mistaken for arrogance, but it was an anger similar to her own, one that had steeped for years and simmered on the brink of boiling over.
The lord treasurer picked a document up off the table, perused it with raised eyebrows, then lifted his gaze to examine Agalar. “I hold here in my hand a letter from Lord Rakonis, the justicar of Nerash. He is the one who recommended you to me for this mission.”
Agalar’s tone grew even tighter. “Yes. I met Lord Rakonis quite unexpectedly in a foreign port while on my travels, for I thought he never left Nerash. He sent me to you.”
“Yet while you’ve been gone I have received a second letter informing me that you are not in fact Lord Agalar of Nerash. Rather, you are an impersonator who has been traveling for the last year with the intent to deceive all you meet and improperly accept hospitality and payment under fraudulent circumstances.”
The insolent tilt of Agalar’s head dipped, his chest sagged, and he swayed on his feet. But he caught himself and stiffened, chin up, gaze again capturing the imperious scorn that made everyone fall over themselves to please him. The gap between the shock hitting him and him shoving it aside was like a window swiftly open and shut that offered a glimpse of a different man: a youth not much older than she who had gambled with the desperation of the hopeless, and lost his bet.
“More gravely, Lord Rakonis accuses you of murdering Lord Agalar.” The lord treasurer grimaced as he read an unpleasant detail written on the document. “You must be made an example of. Accordingly you will be shipped to Nerash to answer for your crimes before Lord Rakonis himself, and be executed by the will of the gods and for the good of us all.”
He gestured. Sunny and Flint grabbed Agalar by either arm. He did not resist, not even when Sunny wrenched his arm up behind his back, meaning to cause him pain.
The lord treasurer’s gaze flicked over Bettany with an instant’s puzzlement before he addressed Pearl. “I am given to understand you are chief of t
he Shipwright mercenaries who were hired to assist in this operation.”
“I am, Your Lordship.”
“Did you know this man is accused as a murderer and imposter?”
“He represented himself to us as Lord Agalar of Nerash, Your Lordship. We worked with him according to the terms of the contract we signed, under your auspices.”
The lord treasurer turned to an aide, seeming not to have noticed that Pearl had not directly answered his question. He turned to one of his aides. “Settle the contract with the Shipwrights. And put the accused in the prison wagon.”
Agalar’s jaw tensed the way it did when he examined a particularly grievous injury that he knew he could not heal. Yet he did not plead his case. “Before I am taken away, let me transfer my earnings from the mission into the hands of my associate.”
“You have forfeited all right to earnings. Frankly, your associate is fortunate he is not named as an accomplice.”
Agalar shut his eyes before slowly inhaling and then slowly exhaling. Only when Sunny and Flint began hauling him away did he open his eyes. He caught Bettany’s gaze and held it with all the urgency of a man who desperately needs help and can’t ask for it out loud.
She dipped her chin, not taking her eyes from his. To the last instant, even turning his head, he kept his gaze fixed on her, and then he was thrust out of the tent and vanished from her sight. Sunny’s mocking laughter hung in the air a few breaths longer before it faded into the distance. The lord treasurer took his leave; no need to acknowledge hired mercenaries.
The instant they were outside, Bettany said, “He told me he was traveling with a sister. Maybe he left her in the care of this associate he speaks of. Do you know the man’s name?”
“I do not, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll come with us and leave that trouble behind. There’s going to be a battle here any day and we intend to sail out before it starts.”
“I can’t leave him. He saved my companions—and me—when he didn’t need to. Even if I were so callous as to feel no sense of debt, the gods would judge me poorly for such a breach of honor.”
Pearl’s hesitation gave Bettany the opening to plunge on.
“You still have to secure passage on a ship. I’ll find a basket to carry, and Ash can come with me. If people think we’re servants running an errand, then no one will question us while we look for him.”
“Where will you even start looking in an encampment this huge?” Pearl demanded.
“At the army hospital,” Bettany said. “If we can’t find Sorshia, then hopefully we can track down Agalar’s associate.”
* * *
“Out of the way! Out of the way!”
Ash pulled Bettany aside as men rushed past bearing empty stretchers. The hospital area consisted of five large tents, wall flaps raised to allow air in, and a sixth tent set away from the others behind a makeshift barrier of shields. As she passed the wagons with Ash walking mindfully behind, she quickly studied the wounded men: a raw gash to an arm, the stub of an arrow stuck in a man’s shoulder, a bloody abdomen that probably not even Agalar could salvage.
“Has the battle started already?” she asked Ash in a low voice.
“No, not enough commotion and casualties. You’ve never been around a campaign or a battle, have you?”
“Only heard about them from my father. Have you?”
“Yes. That’s why I joined the Shipwrights, to get away from all that.”
Lark had come with them, using her command of five languages to chat with all manner of people. She trotted up. “Nobody knows of a cook or laundress named Sorshia.”
“What about a doctor or orderly of that name?”
“The Saroese don’t allow women to be doctors or orderlies. Do Efeans?”
“There are women healers among the Efeans. And you Shipwrights aren’t like that either.”
“I wasn’t born in Shipwright country and I never fit in in my hometown,” said Lark. “Now perhaps you understand why I joined this crew when I had the chance.”
Maybe the Shipwrights were restful to be around because they had chosen their own place in the world rather than accepting their lot in life, Bettany realized. Death ran at their heels but a life of risk surely meant you knew you were really alive. She was ready to go with them. But how could she leave without knowing what would happen to Agalar? What if it was true he was a murderer?
“I don’t know where else to try,” she admitted. The basket filled with folded clothes that she was carrying to disguise herself seemed to grow suddenly heavier, and she shifted it to her other hip.
“I was told there are foreign doctors working in the isolation tent,” Lark added. “They had just left the tent I was asking around at. Ah! There they are.”
A clot of four men walked past drivers watering horses at a muddy stream and toward the barrier of shields that surrounded the outermost of the hospital tents. They were laughing and talking together: two wore military garb and were obviously of Saroese birth, with long straight black hair twisted up into a bun, golden-brown skin like her father’s, and what everyone in Efea called “Saroese eyes.” The other two were foreign men, neither Saroese nor Efean, and not dressed in uniforms: one was a short, clean-shaven man with wavy black hair and skin almost as dark as her own, and the other a tall, gangly fellow with sand-colored hair and sun-reddened skin as pale as Agalar’s.
Breaking away from Ash and Lark, she ran after them and caught up as they reached the shield-fence.
The soldier on guard saluted the two military doctors and greeted the two foreigners with a more relaxed expression. “Doctor Vayalu, I hope it is not too hot for you today. You’ve got a bit of a burn, I see. Doctor Soras, everyone is talking about how you saved that man with the head injury.”
As the men passed inside the enclosure Bettany called out, “My lords, please, if you will, I am looking for a woman named Sorshia with a message for her of great urgency. I am wondering if you know of her.”
The four men kept walking as if she hadn’t spoken, although the tall, pale one named Vayalu glanced back. Maybe Pearl had been right: it would be impossible to find Agalar’s sister without giving up their plan to try to help him. But as the other three went on into the tent, the short, dark man—Doctor Soras—halted and beckoned. His stare had a disconcerting intensity that made her suspicious, but she had come too far to stop. So she walked forward to meet him.
Being taller than many men wasn’t unusual for her; Efeans were in general taller than the Saroese, who often had stockier, shorter frames. But Soras showed no uneasiness as some men did who could not abide her height.
“What did you say, just then?” he asked in a low, pleasant voice.
“My lord—”
“I’m no lord, just a physician.”
“I’m looking for a woman named Sorshia. She would have pale skin and light hair—”
“There is no woman in the hospital division by that description. Why are you looking for her?”
She saw no point in dancing around the truth. “Her brother has just returned from a journey but he’s been arrested. I thought she should know. Maybe she can help him.”
“What is in it for you?”
“Nothing is in it for me. I owe him for…” Her fingers brushed the outline of the pouch tucked away beneath her tunic. Soras’s gaze traced their journey. Safer not to expose her own situation. “I am in his debt, so it seems fair to return the favor. He has no one else to help him.”
“What crime is he accused of?”
Why lie? The lord treasurer had read out the charge in front of witnesses.
“Murder and impersonation. He was taken away to a prison wagon although I don’t know where.”
By not a flicker did Doctor Soras display surprise. “Come with me.”
He gave the guard a tip of the hand in acknowledgment as he led Bettany past. The man chuckled in a knowing way, but Soras had already shifted his attention to Ash and Lark, now hurrying over.
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After studying their braids, he addressed Ash. “Are you part of the Shipwright crew Lord Agalar hired out with?”
“I’m Ash. This is Lark. We are under the command of Chief Pearl.”
“Let’s go.” Soras had a choppy stride that ate ground through sheer speed. “I’m Doctor Soras. What do you know of the business?”
“Nothing more than what happened today, Doctor. Lord Agalar had his… peculiarities, but he was fair and respectful to us, and a fine doctor. We never suspected he might be a murderer.”
“Do you suspect it now, just because of an accusation made by an unnamed source?” Soras had a tone as sharp as a scalpel.
“To be honest, we’re not sure what to think,” admitted Ash, sharing a glance with Lark. “We didn’t even know he had a sister until Bett told us.”
“Do you think the charges might be true, Doctor?” Bettany demanded.
“Why would I think anything?”
“Because you must be the associate Agalar mentioned to the lord treasurer.”
“Why do you think so?”
“I never said his name but you did.”
Soras had a mercurial smile, as at a joke that raised as many sour memories as sweet ones. “I’m well caught out. Yes, we have been associates for some months.”
Bettany studied him as surreptitiously as she could. He had a strong, good-looking face, and while he was almost as dark complexioned as she, he didn’t look at all Efean. Three old raised lesions ran from his right jawline down his neck, as if he’d survived a nasty injury many years ago. His handsome brown eyes were rimmed with thick lashes, and he caught her admiring them and stared back boldly.
“Do you know where they keep prisoners?” she asked, not giving way.
That quicksilver smile flashed again, barbed as with the kiss of poison. “Doctors who come from places where dissection is allowed always know where the criminals are kept. Their crimes may bring some good into the world if they lead to greater medical understanding.”
“Agalar talks like you do,” said Bettany.
“We have similar philosophies, it’s true.”