Eona (6 page)

A good plan, especially as most of Haddo's men would be busy with their own needs for an hour or so. We met one another's eyes, silently acknowledging the risk.

“Here is your cloak, mistress,” Vida said, forcing brightness into her voice. She handed me the garment. “You must wrap up against the night air.”

Dela was waiting for me as I clambered out of the cart. She offered her hand, in her role as husband, and frowned with concern as I sagged against her body.

“Are you all right?” she whispered in my ear, bracing me.

“It's just travel cricks,” I said. Then I caught the aroma of meat and rich gravy. My empty stomach clenched into a growl. All nausea gone. “By the gods, I'm hungry.”

The magnificent smell was coming from the inn's tavern across the courtyard. The two-story building formed one side of the large cobbled compound, a space that could easily take eight of our carts side by side, and just as many lengthwise. Out in front of the tavern were three rows of wet eating benches, all empty. Red paper lamps were strung under the eaves, and the ground floor shutters were open to catch the cooler night air, showing a few patrons eating at long tables inside.

I pulled toward the promise of food, but Dela stood firm.

“We cannot eat in there,” she said.

Of course: a rich merchant couple would take a private room, especially if they were on pilgrimage. I slumped back against Dela.

A thickset man—the innkeeper, by his striped outer robe— had emerged from the tavern and was making his way toward us. He paused every now and again to brusquely direct soldiers to the two low-set buildings on either side of the gateway. From the blessing flags that hung across the windows, I could tell the buildings were normally used as pilgrim dormitories. Now they were barracks.

“We need to move the cart,” I murmured to Dela.

She grunted assent, then nudged me back a step. I winced at such a basic mistake—a good wife always stood behind her husband. The innkeeper approached and bowed, his eyes registering Dela's heavy waist pouch and my fine linen robe.

“Greetings, good sir, and welcome,” he said. “It is a relief to see at least one paying customer.” A wry smile softened his words. “Are you seeking rooms? I can offer you as many as you want for an excellent price.” He lowered his voice. “This trouble in the city is dreadful for business. And coupled with these bad floods and earthshakes, no one is traveling if they can help it.” His eyes found my white robe again. Realizing his blunder, he quickly added, “Your wife's devotion to her duty, even in such dangerous times, does you great honor.”

Dela nodded at the tacit apology. “One room will be enough, thank you.”

The innkeeper bowed again. “And dinner? My own wife makes an excellent pilgrim meal. We can serve it in your room.” He tilted his head at the passing soldiers. “You'll not want to venture downstairs once they get into the rice wine.”

“Yes, we'll take dinner,” Dela said. “My servants can have whatever is being served in your tavern.” She looked around the compound, then motioned the innkeeper closer. “I mean no offense, my good man, but is there somewhere safer I can put my cart? My servants will stay with it, of course, but I would prefer to have it out of this main thoroughfare.”

“Out of harm's way,” the innkeeper agreed. “I have a stable around the back with room enough for your oxen and cart. For a small fee I can feed the beasts, too.”

“Accepted,” Dela said, touching forehead and heart to seal the bargain.

The innkeeper repeated the gesture, then nodded at Vida standing quietly behind us, a traveling basket in her arms. “A word of warning: I wouldn't make your girl sleep in the cart, even if your man does.” He rubbed his forehead. “I can put a pallet in your room for her.”

“For a small cost?” Dela asked blandly.

The innkeeper laughed. “No cost, good sir, no cost. I would not have any female at risk in my establishment. She can eat in the kitchen, too.”

“That is very kind,” Dela said, bowing.

“You,” the innkeeper called to Solly. “Take the cart around the back to the first stable.” Then he motioned for us to follow him to the lodging house.

I stayed one step behind Dela and kept my head down. Even so, I managed to see Solly lead the oxen and cart along a narrow alley between the main house and the compound wall. It seemed our luck had finally changed; with the cart hidden in a back stable, Solly would have plenty of time to help Ryko slip away to find the Pearl Emperor.

Yet a small voice inside me whispered that it was too easy. My disquiet doubled at the sight of Lieutenant Haddo watching us from across the courtyard, a still figure among the industry of his men. If he discovered Ryko, I had no doubt he would put the puzzle together and realize we were his quarry. There was a keen mind behind that youthful façade. And if he did unmask us, then it would come down to a fight. Five against twenty. His eyes met mine, a sweet concern in his face. I looked away—the modest goodwife—my heartbeat hard in my chest.

The innkeeper held aside the red door flags of the lodging house and ushered us inside. I hurriedly followed Dela over the raised threshold into a foyer that was little more than a corridor and stairwell. Gone was the rich enticement of stewed meat and gravy. Instead, the smell of rancid matting soured the air, the burn of fish oil from two dirty wall lamps adding to the stench. At the end of the passage, a back doorway opened to an outside area—judging from the tang of manure on the slight night breeze, it led to the stable yard. Somewhere out there Solly was stabling the oxen, waiting for a chance to free Ryko.

Vida and the innkeeper entered the narrow space, and I was forced back against the edge of a steep staircase, its handrail patched with mismatched wood. I caught Dela's eye; she had covered her nose and mouth with her hand, trying to hide her disgust. Beside the luxury of her palace home, this place was a hovel. Still, it was good compared to some of the inns my master and I had endured five years ago.

The unwelcome memory cut through me like acid. Even though my master was dead, his betrayal was still raw. That long-ago journey was before he had deliberately had me crippled; I was newly delivered from the slavery of the salt farm, learning to act like a boy, and reveling in the freedom to move without the bite of a whip or the weight of a salt bag. Then my master secretly arranged to have my hip broken to hide my sex and make me untouchable. All in the pursuit of the power and money he craved. In the end, he regretted causing me such pain—he told Chart as much—and even came to love me in his own way. Perhaps now that I was healed and had the power of a dragon, I should forgive him. Yet my rage was as hollowing and hot as ever.

The innkeeper unhooked one of the oil lamps and climbed the stairs. We filed up behind him, me struggling with my long gown, Vida straining under the weight of the traveling basket.

The air was no better on the second floor; the day's damp warmth had carried the fishy stink throughout the house. The innkeeper led us along a short passageway that ran between the sleeping chambers, each divided from its neighbor by paper walls. There would be no unguarded talk tonight.

“My best room,” he said, sliding open a flimsy screen. “Since there are no other guests, I've put you at the back of the house, so you won't get the tavern noise.”

It was surprisingly spacious. Two bedrolls rested against the far wall, ready to be laid out, and a low eating table stood in the center. There was no rancid straw matting—a godsend— although the large gaps in the bare planked floor let in weak lamplight from the foyer below. A stained screen in the corner shielded a night bowl from the sleeping area, and a shuttered window promised fresh air.

The innkeeper hung the lamp on a hook just inside the doorway and bowed us into our accommodation.

“I'll have your dinner and the extra pallet brought up by next bell,” he said.

Another pleased bow took him from the room. We waited in silence until his footsteps descended the stairs and were lost in the lower level of the house.

Finally judging it to be safe, Dela murmured, “Vida and I will go and help Solly.”

“What about me? What can I do?”

“You'll have to stay here. No merchant woman would enter a stable, let alone wander an inn by herself.” She saw the rebellion in my eyes. “I know it is frustrating, but only a whore or a servant girl would venture downstairs, especially with these soldiers about. You must stay in character.”

“I know, Respectable Woman Overcome with Grief,” I said sourly. “Maybe I can keep watch for you.” I crossed to the window and pushed open the shutters, but the view was of a ramshackle building beyond the compound wall, lit ghostly by the three-quarter moon. The room did not overlook the stable yard.

Dela patted my shoulder. “Don't worry. We'll be back soon.”

Reluctantly, I nodded. “Tell him ‘good fortune,' then.”

With one last squeeze of my shoulder, Dela headed into the corridor. Vida dumped her basket on the ground and, without a backward glance, followed. Their two shadows moved along the paper wall and disappeared.

For a mad moment, I wanted to run after Dela and tell her she should wait until the inn was asleep to free Ryko. Then again, perhaps this was the right time, when Haddo and his men were setting up their camp, and a bondservant cleaning out a cart would blend into the background.

I slid shut the screen door and surveyed the room again. The place suddenly felt like a prison. I counted my paces across the room: eighteen. Twelve took me its length. For almost five years I had lived as a boy, and even as a lowly candidate I'd had more freedom than this role as a woman. I should be downstairs, helping Ryko, not measuring a room with my feet. I grabbed a handful of my long gown; even the clothes were designed to hinder movement. With the hem tucked into the sash, it made walking easier, but I still had nowhere to go.

I pulled off the mourning headdress and dug my fingertips into the tight coronet of braids; either Dela or Vida had taken care to weave my hair into the style of a grieving mother. At the salt farm, I had seen my friend Dolana do the same for a woman whose son had died from the Weeping Sickness. Although we had tried to comfort the poor woman and observe the death rituals, her grief had grown into madness until she had torn out her own hair and blinded herself with salt.

My thoughts returned to Lieutenant Haddo. A kind man, obviously touched by a son's death himself, but still a soldier with orders to capture me and kill my friends. I tossed the headdress onto a bedroll and crossed the room again. Our pilgrim masquerade seemed like a flimsy shield against such ruthlessness. One mistake, one tiny moment of inattention, could destroy us all. Still, I was practiced in pretense; lying for my life was second nature.

My restless pacing was interrupted by the arrival of a serving girl. She hauled in the promised pallet and murmured a timid reassurance that our food was on its way.

When she was gone, I squatted under the lamp and unwound the pliant black pearls from my arm to release Kinra's journal. There was no use dwelling on the threat of Haddo and his men. It merely stoked my fear. Instead, I forced myself to study a page of the precious folio, recognizing only one of the faded characters:
Duty
.

In the few days of recuperation at the fisher house, Dela had started to teach me Woman Script. It was usually passed down from mother to daughter, but I had been sold into bond service before I was taught its secrets. My progress with it was painfully slow, the task of reading the uncoded parts of the journal complicated by the ancient form of the script. Even Dela was having trouble translating it, and I still knew only ten or so characters, not enough to discover what I desperately needed to know: how to control my power and ward off the ten bereft dragons.

The soft sibilance of voices broke my concentration. Were Dela and Vida back already? I strained to hear who was talking— two men, in the foyer below. Not my friends, then. I pushed the folio back under my sleeve. The pearls slithered up behind it and held the small book tightly against my forearm.

On hands and knees, I pressed my eye to a generous gap in the planking. Below me, all I could see was the dimly lit foyer wall and floor. Whoever was talking was out of my sightline, and too far away for their words to be distinguished. Did I dare creep to the stairwell and listen? Dela would be furious if she found out I had left the room. But there was no real danger— I could run back to safety if anyone mounted the stairs. And maybe I would hear something useful rather than just waiting for the others to return.

Gathering my skirt, I stood and carefully slid the screen door open. The corridor was clear. As I edged closer to the top of the staircase, one of the muffled voices sharpened into Haddo's crisp authority.

“… and I'll need to restock with rice and some of that salted fish. Same as before.”

“I haven't been paid for the last lot.” It was the innkeeper, his tone rising into peevish complaint.

“You'll get it on our next pass over the mountain,” Haddo said. “Right now, my problem is hungry men, so have the supplies ready. We're moving out at the dawn bell.” There was a pause and then Haddo asked, “Tell me, do you know the whereabouts of the merchant who arrived with us?”

“I think he's out back overseeing the stabling of his animals.

Why, is something amiss? They don't bring more misfortune with them, do they? I gave them my best room, too.”

“Don't worry, I'm sure the lady's misfortune will not taint you or your inn.” The lieutenant's voice was wry. “I just want to offer them an escort tomorrow. That door leads to the stable yard, doesn't it? Or must I go round?”

My heartbeat quickened. If Haddo went outside now, there was a chance he would see Ryko. I tried to estimate how much time had passed since Dela and Vida had left the room; not even a quarter bell. It was possible that Ryko was still being freed. We could not risk it; just a glimpse of the islander would give us all away. I had to stop Haddo. A few short steps took me to the top of the staircase, Dela's warning loud in my head. She was right. I could not go downstairs; no respectable woman would approach two men by herself. I had to stay in character.