“I think it likely it is my brother.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I did not know you had a brother, maestressa.”
“No. I expect you did not.”
A trooper ran past, carrying a bundle of clothes. He, too, vanished past the angle where the ramparts opened.
“He saved my life just today,” I added. “I wasn’t sure he was still alive—”
I pressed a fist to my mouth, unable to speak. My companion wisely held his tongue. Had he said one cursed sympathetic thing right then, I think I would have clawed out his eyes.
I heard men talking and talking, laughing and joking. It took forever and a day exactly as if they were conducting a party and had forgotten me entirely. I would have run to find out what was taking so long, but I thought of crossbow bolts and did not. At long last strode a half dozen men into view with Rory among them, limping a little—his feet were still bare but he was otherwise decently clothed—and his head thrown back as he laughed at some soldierly quip.
I might have moaned first, as despair fled my heart, entirely routed. Then I shrieked. “Rory!” I ran, and I flung myself at him so hard he staggered back at the impact and got an arm around me as I pressed my face into the coat he was wearing.
“You’re safe,” I cried like a player in the theater. “I thought you were dead.”
“They were too startled to manage an effective counterattack. And the remaining horses went wild. All but one bolted.”
I glanced up just as he licked his lips, looking suspiciously pleased with himself.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” I said with a glance at the soldiers now watching us with the sentimental expressions of men who pretend to be big and tough but in truth dandle babies on their knee with the greatest tenderness and affection.
“Neither did I!” he replied with a grin. “It just… came over me.”
We both started laughing, and I broke away and wiped my eyes. “Are you hurt?”
“A shard of bone cut one paw. Nothing important. Now who are these fine fellows who have given me these fine clothes? And is that beef I smell?”
I introduced him as my brother Roderic without offering a single detail more, and our hosts graciously had another platter of food brought as well as a fourth camp stool. Rory chatted and laughed with Marius and Amadou, ever so charming, pausing at intervals to try on boots that soldiers brought in, none of which fit.
I stared at him, scarcely able to believe he had survived. His features, his gestures, his long black braid: All these had become as familiar to me as if I had known them my entire life long, yet I had first encountered him only a few days ago. I did not understand it. Was this what kinship meant? A sense, deep in your bones, that the person next to you is part of you? Inextricable from what you are? That you could not be who you are without their existence as part of the architecture of your very self?
We are none of us one thing alone and unchanging. We are not static, or at rest. Just as a city or a prince’s court or a lineage is many people in one, so is a person many people within one, always unfinished and always like a river’s current flowing onward ever changing toward the ocean that is greater than all things combined. You cannot step into the same river twice.
“Philosophizing over there?” asked Rory, as if he could hear my thoughts. “You don’t usually stay silent for this long, Cat. Unless you’re deliberately ignoring me, I mean.”
I shook off my reverie. “Just worrying,” I said.
Lord Marius rose. “It will be a long night. I suppose the company pursuing you may take it into their heads to attempt a night raid, so I’ll keep half my men awake and half asleep in their boots.”
“I’ll take the second watch,” said Amadou.
“My thanks, Legate,” I said with what I hoped was a biting smile.
He had the grace to look shamefaced. He and Lord Marius left the tent to us.
“What is a legate?” Rory asked.
“A very important man in Rome. I cannot figure it. It seems true that he and his sisters and aunt fled from Eko—”
“Eko?”
“You don’t know anything, do you?”
“No,” he agreed cheerfully. “Not a thing! That horse meat was tasty, though.”
I laughed, and then grimaced, realizing he was not speaking of our supper. “You stopped to eat not knowing if I was alive or dead?”
“I discovered, dearest sister, that I am not entirely myself when I am in my natural shape here in the Deathlands. It took me a while to come to myself. Once I had, I followed your trail immediately. And am very glad to have discovered you alive and unharmed. What is Eko?”