Sterling (30 page)

O
nce on the
streets of Muscan, we were uncertain of even the most basic directions. I stopped the first passerby. “Horses,” I murmured in the Imperial tongue. “Horses to let for travel?”

The man looked down at me. “Near the west gate, up there,” he replied, waving us on.

“I doubt they rent horses for a border crossing,” I said to Erich, thinking about the cold relations between Vhimsantyr and Lethemia.

Erich took my arm. “It doesn’t matter. We won’t be returning the beasts.”

Amassis! Who knew Erich was such a thief?

We left Erich’s
shir
as surety at the posting station, though Erich was loath to lose it. I patted on another layer of cosmetic from the bottle I’d stolen from Nadea.

As we set out following the groom’s directions for the border town of Valnis, Erich complained, “It will take us forever at this pace.” The horses were not the blood-breeds Erich and I normally rode, but rather a plodding eastern variety.

“It’s faster than walking,” I said.

Riding into the night with saddle lanterns aglow, we cut southwest to Valnis, which was little more than a street lined with the usual border shops, official buildings, and a garrison. The town was our final obstacle before home—and not insignificant. We had no legitimate papers, and we would have trouble leaving the Empire without them.

We reached Valnis around dawn, with a blue sky rising and Shankar’s skyline visible from afar. My apprehension grew as we proceeded up Valnis’s single street. Even this early, restless undercurrents tautened the air.

Erich slowed his horse as I drew even with him. “They are fearful.” He jerked his head at a group of huddled Imperial soldiers outside a rough-looking barracks.

“Perhaps there is news from Shankar.” I spoke in a whisper, as the Lethemian tongue felt a liability under the circumstances.

Erich winced. “I doubt the border will even be open.”

I feared the same, but we had to investigate. We were so close. My heart thumped against my ribs.

The border consisted of a long fence, a small gatehouse, and many milling Imperial soldiers. No travelers sought to cross on either side. Half a league beyond the fence, a cohort of Galatien Guards stood in formation on their side of the border. Obviously the boundary remained tense, although I was cheered to see our soldiers still held this position, and that there was no open action raging between the two countries right here. I suspected both sides were waiting for news of the battle in Shankar.

“Damn.” Erich surveyed the scene. “It’s a bloody cold stand-off.” He dismounted.

I did, too, less gracefully, and followed him into the shade of a shuttered building.

“We could try riding north,” I ventured. “To cross at an unpopulated location.”

“It will be nearly as dangerous. Both sides must have sentries lining the border from here to Orvia.”

“Then what do you propose?” I curtailed the annoyance in my voice.

“I’m thinking,” Erich snapped. I leaned against the brick building and closed my eyes, imagining my bed in Shankar, swathed in diaphanous silks and smooth sheets.

We could not present ourselves to the Imperial soldiers at the border gate and request to cross to Lethemia; no pretense would disguise such an action. We had to use stealth or nothing. We had to head north.
How would I convince Erich?

Erich walked, reins in hand, without saying a word. He went up a side street, which, as it angled away from Valnis’s main avenue, turned into a dirt track leading up a small rise. Shankar sprawled on the horizon. I could discern the rising spire on the Temple of Amassis and the hill where our garrison stood. The surrounding land appeared calm and peaceful, but even so, I worried about my city. Had there been a great deal of destruction? Were the Imperials looting and robbing abandoned homes and shops? I thought of the Emerald Ophira. Of all my possessions, that was the one I could not stand for them to take.

“We must hurry,” I murmured.

“No, I hate it, but we’ll have to wait for nightfall. We’ll cross up here.” Erich pointed to the fence that angled north into the empty moor above Valnis. “We’ll have to watch for a while to get a feel for the guards’ rhythm, how often they patrol. Let’s get rid of the horses.”

After returning the horses at the nearest posting station, we had a few jennars left from what we’d stolen from Diali, so we found a tavern and shared a silent, tense meal of soup and ale.

When Erich gestured for his fourth refill on the ale, I put my hand on his arm. “I don’t think you should drink so much. We need to remain …agile.”

Erich glared at me, but he set down his mug.

I stood up, and Erich followed me outside.

We still had a few hours before darkfall. “Perhaps we can rest in the local basilica.” I looked up the street for a telltale minaret.

“I’ve a better idea.” Erich pulled me up the road to the basilica’s steps. “Are there always priests on duty in these things?” he asked.

“I believe so. Why?”

We stepped into the basilica. A priest in long white robes approached, looking rather like a Lethemian mage. “May I help you?” he asked in Vhimsantese.

“Tell him we want to marry,” Erich muttered.

“What?” Alarmed, I turned to the priest, who eyed us suspiciously. I had no doubt he recognized our speech as Lethemian. “A moment,” I said to the priest. I glared at Erich and prayed his parents had insisted he at least learn Lysandrene. “Are you mad?” I said in Lysandrene. “He will recognize our language!”

“Just ask him,” Erich bit out in clipped Lysandrene syllables.

“No,” I said. “I will not.”

“Ask him to marry us! Ask him, or I’ll start confessing everything in Lethemian. Now do it!”

Despite my mounting terror, I smiled at the priest. “I’m sorry. We are travelers from afar. But we would like to be married in the way of the Empire. Of course we are already married in the Lysandrene fashion, but my husband insists that while we are here in the Empire we are recognized also by your laws. Is this something you can do for us?”

“You wish me to marry you?” the priest asked.

I pasted a vapid expression on my face. “Yes. I know it’s silly.” I threw up my hands. “My husband—”

“It is not silly,” the priest cut me off. “Any wise husband would be certain his wife belonged to him by law while in a foreign place. But we get few wise foreign husbands here in Valnis. Of course I can do it. Come, follow me.”

Erich took my hand. “What transpires?” he asked in Lysandrene.

“He will do it,” I said, amazed. “He will marry us. But Erich—I don’t think—”

“Hush.”

The priest led us into a smaller nave off the main chapel. He pointed to a spot before the altar. “Stand there, side by side, if you please.” He moved behind the altar. “I will recite the vows, and when I ask you, you must reply that you agree to them.”

I explained to Erich and told him how to agree in Vhimsantese. He nodded.

The priest recited the rather long list of promises that a wife made to a husband in the Empire. As he finished, I said, “
Va-maniah
,” the formal agreement in the Eastern tongue.

Next he turned to Erich. “This will be your woman,” he said. I translated.

“
Va-maniah
,” Erich said seriously.

I shook my head and whispered, “Not yet.”

The priest listed the four promises of the husband. “Do you, husband, promise to keep your wife in good stead, to feed her, clothe her, and provide four walls around her, for all of your days?”

“Now,” I added, for Erich’s benefit.

“
Va-maniah
,” he said again.

The priest pronounced us married by the laws of the Empire. He produced papers, which I took with shaking hands. “We must sign both copies,” I explained to Erich. “He will keep one for the basilica’s records, and we take one for proof of our union. You are—” I suppressed a manic giggle. “You are now responsible for me here in the Empire. Women have no legal standing. You will be tried for my crimes or speak for me in court.”

The priest handed Erich a stylus. He wrote his true name in a broad script, far too easy to read. Then he took a ring from his finger—his House signet—and dabbed it in the ink to make his mark beside his name. The sigil, a coursing dog, was a recognizable mark that any worldly person of any nationality would recognize. I cast an anxious glance at the priest, but he showed no perturbation.

I took the stylus with clammy hands. The priest might not recognize Erich’s family name, for Talata lay far from the Empire. But Shankar stood but a stone’s throw away, and I had no doubt that everyone in Valnis knew the name of the family who ruled the neighboring city.

“You must put your real name down,” Erich hissed in Lethemian, reading my hesitation correctly. He meant the statement in our language as a blackmail—he’d continue to speak Lethemian unless I acted quickly.

Twice I scrawled my name in the messiest cursive I’d ever created.

“And your sign,” Erich demanded, this time in Lysandrene. I removed my father’s ring and stamped the stone warrior sigil next to my scrawls, hoping the priest would not look too closely.

“Thank you, sir,” Erich said in flawless Vhimsantese as he collected our copy of the marriage certificate. Then he hauled me from the basilica so quickly my feet barely touched the floor.

“What was all that about?” I asked as we hurried to our lookout point north of Valnis. The priest had let us go, but I could only imagine he was examining our two signatures on his papers and seeing that Sterling Ricknagel had just gotten married in his basilica.

“Hush,” Erich said. “Sit down. We need to stay quiet and observe the fence guards’ patterns.”

I applied some more cosmetic, anxious that no one should see any sign of a mark. I’d make Erich explain everything as soon as we were safely ensconced in Ricknagel Manor. Presuming it still stood.

We tracked lanterns as they moved along the border fence. I doubted the Lethemian guards expected any illegal crossing, an attitude to our advantage. They would be less vigilant.

The Imperial border guards might have received warnings from Vorisipor about Erich and me. The Governor and his people would assume Valnis to be our likeliest crossing. How long until the priest sent to the authorities about that marriage certificate? What had Erich been thinking?

“Let’s do it now,” Erich said out of the blue. “The patrols are easy to see with their lanterns. We’ll creep down, wait at the bottom of the hill, and take the fence after the next guard passes. Climb swiftly, Sterling. And once over,
run
. If I say to get down, you drop into the grass. They may try to shoot us, either side. Who knows what the Galatien Guards might think before we can speak with them.”

I nodded. “All right.” My body trembled with anticipation, as though facing a jumping course on a horse, a whole series of difficult obstacles spread out before us. To make a mistake would seal a nasty fate. Erich was an athlete. Though more robust than some women, I did not have the same skills.

Erich slithered down the hillside on his belly. Grass and burrs wormed into my clothing as I followed. Erich remained pressed to the ground at the bottom of the hill, only the faint spark of his eyes showing me how carefully he watched the fence.

A bitter taste filled my mouth. My legs quivered. My hands, arms, and neck fluttered with energy. Scaling the high fence seemed impossible.

“Now!” Erich whispered. He surged to his feet and sprinted silently. A flying leap brought him halfway up the fence before he’d even begun to climb. I ran after him, hindered by my clothes and my less efficient legs.

He had already landed on the other side as I found my first handhold on the fence.

“Come on!” he urged from the safe side. “Hurry!”

His words did nothing to calm me. I grabbed at a cross piece and lost my grip.

“Damn it, Sterling!” Erich whisper-barked. I caught the cross piece again, got purchase, dug in my toes, and
hauled
.

“That’s it,” Erich encouraged as I swung a leg over the top of the fence. “Just drop. I’ve got you.”

I let go before I even had my legs facing the ground. The Esani shawl snagged on the fence and tore. Erich caught me against his chest, and all at once the jitters and quavers left my body.

“There’s a light,” Erich murmured. “We have to run. When I say drop, do it.”

Releasing me, he took off in a powerful lope. I tried my best to imitate him.

“Down!”

I landed on all fours in the moorland grasses.

I smelled the wild lavender that grew on the moor—the fragrance of Ricknagel Province.
Home
. That lavender was one of our best exports. I could have rested there for days, basking in its miasma.

Erich’s voice broke the quiet. “Let’s move.”

Back on our feet, we ran again, although Erich set a less desperate pace, as if he held himself back for me. We raced towards the black hulks of the Galatien Guards’ war tents.