“Jes? Sorry to take so long. I hope you weren’t bored.”
“Loitering in the market is a splendid luxury better than any sumptuous feast or treasure chest of rich jewelry!”
She laughs, thinking I am joking, although I’m sure Kalliarkos would understand. “I’m going on to see my family. Do you want to come with me? We’ll eat at dusk and then go back to the stable afterward.”
Among Commoners, to be asked into the house is a way of saying you are trusted. Her merry expression offers me friendship. I grasp her hand. “My thanks, Mis. I do want to meet your family but today I need to go see about my mother.”
“Of course you do! Next time.” She slaps me on the shoulder in a comradely way, and we part. The moment she can no longer see me I tuck my Garon badge under my clothes. I don’t want any random passerby to wonder why a servant of Garon Palace is walking where I’m about to go.
By now it’s brutally hot so I keep to the shade side of streets as I make my way from the Lantern District, which lies at the base of the King’s Hill, over to the skirts of the Queen’s Hill. I’m sweating and thirsty by the time I reach the compound where my family once lived in amity and trust. What I hoped for I don’t know but the gates are shut and barred with thick locks. Around the back I climb up my usual escape route, creep past the cistern on the roof, and look down into the private courtyard and under the archways into the rooms beyond.
All the furniture is gone. Even the marble pavement acquired at such expense by my father has been dug up to be sold off elsewhere. Nothing stirs except dust under the feet of a little flock of starlings probing for insects. They are the only family that lives here now.
The sun beats on my head like the hammer of grief. If I just knew where they were I could be easy, I could truly flourish in my new place. Not knowing is a festering worm gnawing at my heart. Surely Mother will have left a message for me somewhere she knows I might go.
Anise’s stable.
The starlings take wing in a rush, circling the roof once and flying away toward the warrens. Maybe it is coincidence, but maybe it is a sign.
I leave behind the house I grew up in and walk down off the wide avenues and sprawling compounds of the Patron-born into the close-packed, crowded lanes of the Commoners. I have walked this route many times on my way to Scorpion Fountain and Anise’s stable. There’s one little boy I see every time sitting on the steps of a shop that stinks of smoked fish. He has a clubfoot, but he’s well cared for, clean and neat and with a polished walking stick that he waves at me in greeting. I wave back. He’s not hidden like Maraya.
I’ve walked right through the heat of the day and am glad for a drink at Scorpion Fountain with its curved spouts. By the time I reach Anise’s stable, a flock of fledglings and experienced adversaries is pacing through a warm-up of menageries on the stone forecourt. This Fives court is said to be the oldest in the city, its walls and ramps worn to a shine by generations of feet and hands working across it. The furnishings around the courtyard look strikingly poor to me now compared to the fancy new architecture of Garon Stable. No baths, no barracks, no dining shelter, no warehouses for extra equipment to change up the obstacles. Instead of a viewing terrace covered by an awning there is just a dingy set of steps up to the ancient compound wall from whose height Anise can walk all the way around the court.
I know a lot of the people. I’ve exchanged casual remarks and friendly banter with many of them for years without becoming close enough to have to tell them who I really am. Now I pin the Garon badge where everyone can see it and, with a jaunty wave, saunter in. Anise cuts across the courtyard to meet me. She is taller than Mother, fat and powerful in the way of respected Efean women. Silver hair crowns her age. How old she is I do not know, and it is impossible to tell from her face because she has so few wrinkles.
“Honored Lady,” I greet her. “I wanted to know if my mother perchance left a message for me here?”
“No message. I’ve heard nothing from your honored mother.” She steers me into the shade by the gate, away from the others. “I heard your father now serves Garon Palace.”
I am almost bouncing on my toes because I am so excited to let her know my news. “He’s been made a general. I’m training at their stable. I’m finally going to be a true adversary.”
Her gaze drops to the Garon badge and then moves back up to my face. The silence draws out so long that I stop bouncing and wipe my forehead instead.
“Did you send that boy to me?” Her tone flicks me like a whip’s tip snapped in my face.