“He wants me to run the Fives, my lord,” I say in a squeezed voice.
“There is more to this than that. Does Kal know you’re the girl?” He releases me and his gaze narrows. “Of course he knows. Who exactly are you? That you’re a mule I can see. What else? Don’t lie.”
If he kills me right here he will never be called to account for my death.
Yet because I run the Fives I cannot help but sort through the implications, just as I analyze Rings before I go in. Will telling him about my father give me an advantage, or will it hurt my tenuous status? Can I lie convincingly? Will Lord Gargaron tell him the truth, if Thynos asks because he is dissatisfied with my answer? Are he and Gargaron allies or enemies in whatever internal politics trouble the peace of Garon Palace?
I have to make a decision, so I leap.
“My father is Captain Esladas, the hero of Maldine.”
“By the gods!” He rocks back as his chin comes up. “Does your father acknowledge you? Was your mother his youthful concubine? A whore, perhaps?”
As if Bettany’s shadow slips inside me, all the helpless rage I have had to hold in claws out. My arm comes up, hand in a fist.
“He kept faith with her, and she with him!”
I have betrayed too much. With every particle of my being I breathe calm back into my shadow. The blaze of fury cools as I lower my arm and uncurl my fingers.
He catches both the move and my restraint, and his brows draw down more in curiosity than in affront. He is too powerful to fear me.
“The hero of Maldine. My niece’s new husband. A man about forty years of age who, so the story goes, was wedded to the army and never to a woman, for he served the king and queen with his whole heart. But the story that was sung at my niece’s betrothal feast missed a few verses, did it not?”
“Her betrothal feast was last night?” I blink as the words sink in. Lord Gargaron hadn’t even asked Father before he announced and celebrated his niece’s forthcoming marriage. He was that sure Father would agree.
Lord Thynos lifts a hand to command my wandering attention.
“I ask again. What does Lord Gargaron want with you?”
“I could not say what is in the lord’s mind. But surely my presence at this stable will improve its reputation.” I hold his gaze for just as long as I dare before dropping mine.
“No wonder Kal likes you. You have the confidence and the spine he lacks.”
I want to defend Kalliarkos but I know better. I keep my mouth shut.
“Now we shall see if you can pass muster,” he adds with a heartless smile. “Your first two runs were just a warm-up. This is your test.”
18
Once, and only once, Father told us about the battle in which he won his captaincy.
At that time, twelve years ago, he had already risen to become a sergeant in command of a cohort of thirty-six spider scouts. Sergeant is the highest rank to which a man of his birth could aspire. The desert garrison was part of a string of small forts put in place to guard against the incursions of barbarians, desert bandits, and the merchant-mercenaries called Shipwrights who raid villages for slaves and supplies. One day, outside an isolated village on the edge of the Sand Desert below the Bone Escarpment, the vanguard of an unknown force brushed the web of scouts.
A hundred years ago, when the last emperor was murdered, the empire of Saro splintered into the three kingdoms of Saro-Urok, West Saro, and East Saro. Many rival princely clans fought among themselves across the imperial homeland, each hoping to claim a kingdom.
After surviving an assassination attempt, Prince Kliatemnos heeded the advice of his wise elder sister, Serenissima, and set sail across the Fire Sea. With their three younger sisters and many ships full of soldiers and refugees, they made landfall in the dusky and mysterious land of Efea with its beautiful women and magical masks. Kliatemnos married the last living daughter of the old Saroese imperial house, but it was his elder sister he named as queen to rule beside him. Together they overthrew the luxury-loving Efean monarchs who did nothing but drink beer and write poetry all day, and they buried the temples of the fraudulent Efean diviners and their vile superstitions beneath mounds of dirt and crushed rock.
Five generations later, Father identified the advancing army as the Silver Spears, elite forces under the command of the king of West Saro. Like the king of East Saro and the king of Saro-Urok, he was a descendant of one of the rival clans, all of them cousins of the royal family of Efea and still squabbling over the corpse of the old empire like jackals over bones.
Father’s captain dismissed the report as impossible, for before that day, armies from old Saro who invaded the new kingdom of prosperous Efea always came from the Eastern Reach through its rich agricultural lands. They never attacked out of the north through the bone-dry desert. He ordered Father to strike aggressively at the enemy because he was sure they were bandits who would be easily driven off.