Honor-Bound [ Lore of Penrua: Book III ]

5

"He should have been here by now," Ealin said. She paced, twisting her fingers together before her stomach.

"Sit down. You're driving me mad," said the man who had accompanied them out of the courtyard. He was stripping off the blue and silver livery that marked him out as a palace guard. Beneath, he wore a roughspun tunic. They were in a dank, dark room someplace underground, filled with barrels and crates and shadows. Uarria sat on the floor against the wall, her arms around her knees, watching wide-eyed as this stranger took up a long iron tool lying by and began to lever up the lid of a barrel. He looked inside, muttered a curse, and lowered the lid, pounding the nails back in with a few taps of the tool. Then he moved on to another barrel, crouching down to examine it before he worked on the lid.

"He could have met with some misfortune. We haven't enough power to go on our own."

"Be quiet. We've been waiting less than an hour. He's being careful. Isn't that what you want?"

"I want to get out of the Holy City as fast as we can. We're in danger—more danger every second."

"You said the nurse and that stripling were lovers. They'll keep one another occupied." He had managed to open the barrel and was now sorting through its contents. He pulled out a pair of leather packs and threw them onto the earthen floor; then he produced a bundle of clothes and shook them out, sorting through them.

"Not all night," Ealin said, turning to regard the man with a frown. "They are not fools, Telai. They've no doubt returned to her chamber by now, and they must know that something is wrong."

"Well, your fretting is not going to help matters. He'll be here, and then we'll be on our way and out of the bastard king's reach."

Ealin shook her head, beginning to pace again, and Uarria, who could not understand what was happening, hugged her knees more tightly and lowered her head. Apparently unabashed at having company, Telai turned his back on Ealin and Uarria and stripped off his fine trousers. He replaced them with a pair of serviceable brown ones from the barrel. Then, he knelt on the dirt floor and began to sort through the rest of the clothes.

"Here, woman." Telai tossed a bundle to Ealin, who caught it clumsily. "There are shoes, too. Get her changed."

Ealin moved toward Uarria, already separating the clothes she had been given. "Put this on, child," she said, shaking out a plain blue dress. "There's a shift here, too."

Uarria looked up at her in confusion. "I don't want—"

"Now. We must move quickly, and you must be a good girl and do as I say."

Shaking her head, Uarria shrank back against the wall. Looking past Ealin, she saw Telai, whose mouth was set into an unpleasant line.

"Stand up." Ealin took Uarria by the upper arms and jerked her to her feet. Uarria stepped back from her again, but she bumped up against the wall behind her, and Ealin already had a fistful of her nightgown. Telai turned his back just as Ealin wrenched the garment up over Uarria's head, pulling her hair. He began pulling shoes from the barrel.

Uarria began to cry. She was scared, she was cold, she was with strangers, and now she was being made to change into someone else's clothes. These were not her things. The rough linen shift was unfamiliar against her skin; the blue dress hung loosely on her frame, as if it had been made for a girl a year or two her senior. When Telai threw two pairs of leather shoes to Ealin, Uarria flinched. Ealin took her pretty, embroidered slippers, which had been given to her by Grandmother Rhea, and made Uarria put on the hideous leather shoes instead. They, too, were large on her.

Once Uarria had changed, she sat down on the dirt floor again, her head in her hands. Ealin ignored her tears, quickly stripping off the plain dress she had always worn for palace work and putting on the clothes Telai had given her: a loose, embroidered tunic and a skirt, plain leather shoes. Her hair was short now, although it was still blonde, and she tied a scarf over it, then gave Uarria one for her hair, too.

A few minutes later, the sound of a creak cut through the tense silence, and Uarria sat upright, a chill of fear sweeping down her spine and raising gooseflesh in its wake. Then came the sound of footsteps and Ealin's sharp exhalation of relief. "Goddess above, Neshar, what kept you?"

"The alarm at the palace. The emperor discovered her absence sooner than we anticipated." Another strange man in palace livery had stepped into the room, swinging shut the heavy wooden door behind him.

"Do you have them?" asked Telai. He had bundled another set of clothes and boots together and passed the things immediately to the newcomer, who turned out his pockets before taking them. He passed something to Telai, then snatched up the clothes and began to quickly change.

"How many?" asked Ealin.

"Four of them."

"It will get us out of the city. We must not go too far. She's only a child." Ealin threw a worried glance at Uarria.

"Where are we going?" Uarria asked. She scrubbed her sleeve over her eyes. "I want to go home. I want Mother."

"Be quiet." Telai hefted what Neshar had given him in his hand. Whatever it was rattled, like the pieces of Father's cross-the-sea game set. He glanced at Neshar, who was just shoving his feet into his boots. "Do we have everything?"

"We had bloody well better. There's no time to go seeking anything else. Not if we want to keep our heads."

Ealin had knelt and opened one of the packs that Telai had taken out of the barrel. "If there's anything missing, we can find it on the road. Are there—"

"Waterskins are here." Telai dipped back into the barrel and produced two sloshing skins. He tossed one to Neshar, who caught it out of the air, and slung the other over his shoulder. "That's the last of it."

"Take the packs. I'll take the girl." Ealin fastened the flap of the pack closed and stood again, turning to Uarria. "Come, sweet. It's time to go."

"I don't want to go!" Uarria shrank back into herself, putting her arms over her head. She did not understand what was happening to her; she did not know where she was, nor who these people were, nor why Ealin had taken her away from her family. She wanted to go home. She wanted to see her mother and father.

Ealin approached her, looking grim. She reached down and took hold of Uarria's arm, pulling her to her feet and all but dragging her over to the two men. Then she leaned down, scooping Uarria into her arms. Uarria struggled at first, bucking and pushing away from her, but the look on Telai's face made her afraid, and she quieted.

The two men had each taken up one of the packs. Now, they approached Ealin, and each of them laid a hand on her shoulder. Telai held out his other hand, palm up. In the gloom of the subterranean chamber, the stones he held in his palm glowed with an eerie red light. Uarria could not look away; even when Neshar laid his hand over those stones, the light seemed to permeate the edges of his hand.

The grown-ups closed their eyes. Uarria, uncertain what was happening, closed hers too and lowered her head. She had no one to comfort her, and so she leaned into Ealin's embrace, tears streaking down her cheeks. By the time the spell was underway, the roar of the wind whipped away the sound of the little girl's screams.