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Her hands feel so dry and hot when I grasp them. “Mother, we are taking you to a refuge. Polodos and Maraya intend to marry. They will take care of you and the babies. We’ll find Bettany. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Her half-unfocused gaze rests on me for a drawn-out while. “I dreamed we had been buried for so long,” she answers in a tone so weightless I fear it will float away and take her life with it.Advertisement

“You need to rest and heal, Mother,” I say sternly.

When Kalliarkos reappears, Inarsis studies him with the sort of frown Father would use when he examined ranks of soldiers who hadn’t prepared their kit correctly. “What of the poet?”

Kal sweeps an arm heavenward with the same gesture an actor would use to flamboyantly indicate the Path of Honor. “He has fulfilled his part. Let us be on our way.”

Inarsis transfers his gaze to Mother. Her face has none of the luster that normally makes people stare at her, nor does her kind smile light the room like an offering of peace to soothe the world’s ills. Does he see beneath the grief and exhaustion to the beauty he expects from a woman whose Patron lover kept faith with her for twenty years? Or is he looking for something else? After a moment he approaches her with a dip of the knee, cupping his left hand so his little finger touches his breastbone.

“Honored Lady, with your permission I will convey you to the inn. I have arranged for a healer to examine you and the newborns.”

“We need a doctor,” says Cook, who has not the slightest compunction about contradicting an Efean man she cannot imagine might be a general.

Inarsis glances at the floor with a pinch of his lips, then up again. “I have already sent for a dame much experienced in midwifing.”

He does not rebuke her as a Patron man would a woman speaking out of turn, but he does not back down as Efean men normally must in the presence of Patrons. Cook looks to me, and I nod to show it is all right.

Mother relaxes into the sure embrace of his command. “Thank you, Honored Sir. I accept.”

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I step back to allow the general to carry out his arrangements. With a frown Cook follows him into the garden. Amaya is still eating but Maraya is looking from Kal to me and back.

Lord Thynos slaps Kalliarkos’s shoulder. “Well done, my nephew. There should be another attendant, though. And what of the oracle?”

“The poet took his sister, as we agreed beforehand.” Kal’s glance warns me to keep my mouth shut. “The oracle is dead.”

“I have never approved of this barbaric practice of burying living people in tombs,” Thynos mutters.

“Is it more merciful to kill oracles as they used to do in old Saro?” I retort.

When Thynos is agitated, his old-country accent gets stronger. “Only emperors ever had oracles. The custom was given up when the empire fell. Here it has become a disease, nothing more than a fashion. Every clan must bury their head of household with an oracle so as to be seen as important and honored as the next clan. It is a foul pollution.”

The outburst silences me. But Kalliarkos nods as if he has heard this tirade a hundred times and takes it no more seriously than an offer of a trip to the legendary oasis of the winged snakes and gossiping trees. “It’s done now, Uncle. One tomb is empty.”

“Yet you will tell me nothing of how you got them out?”

“I gave my word of honor that I would respect Efean secrets.”

Most Patrons would scorn the idea of their honor being subject to any oath given to a Commoner, but Thynos makes a gesture of acceptance.

Out in the courtyard Inarsis courteously assists Mother into a curtained carriage.

“Jes, aren’t you coming with us?” Maraya asks. Amaya pauses with a hank of flatbread almost in her mouth, and she looks questioningly at me too.

I hurry over to the carriage for fear they will blurt out words that embarrass me. “No. I have to go back to Garon Stable.”

Maraya frowns as she whispers, “Don’t think I haven’t noticed the way Lord Kalliarkos has been touching you and looking at you. If he’s hounding you, we can come up with a way to be rid of his attentions.”

“It’s not like that.” Possibly the lamplight is bright enough for her to see the way my cheeks grow hot, but she has already guessed by the cool edge in my tone.

“Jes, don’t be a fool. He’s a prince.”

Amaya lowers the bread. “I think it’s the funniest thing I’ve seen in forever, just like in a play. Be a fool, Jes. Why not? It’ll be the first time you ever lost your head over a person instead of your beloved Fives.” pqdm.com