At first he’d thought to stow away on one of the boats in the harbor, but with the blockade he was certain to not get far. And it would not take long for Lysias to spread a net for him, putting guards up at the city gates and along the river bridges.
In the end, he crawled into the sewers and followed them out of the city. Then he worked his way along the coastline until he found the barn.
He stood slowly, mindful of the blisters on his feet and the sharp pain in his ribs and shoulder from last night’s hard landing in the garden.
He’d hoped to sleep here, but his mind wouldn’t stop racing. Where would he go? What was left for him now? And where had the document pouch gone?
Less than a handful knew about the Rufello box. And its cipher had been passed from father to son for generations. No one else could’ve possibly known.
Unless.
It had to be Li Tam’s bitch-whore of a daughter. But it made no sense. If she had the cipher, why hadn’t she taken the documents months ago? She’d shared his bed enough, the pouch tucked safely away. Why would she wait so long? And certainly, if she’d read those documents, she’d understand full well what kind of hero Sethbert truly was.
She’s a thousand leagues away, some saner part of him interjected. She’d been gone for months now, working in the far northeast with that damned fop Rudolfo and his paper Pope.
If not Tam, then another Androfrancine lap-slut. But who it was-and how they broke into the ancient lockbox-mattered little. What counted now was survival. Because with the documents now gone, it was clear to Sethbert that there was no place for him left in the Named Lands. They would hunt him down wherever he fled. The weight of that realization caught in his throat.
The Gulf would be at the mercy of the iron armada, cutting off any escape south to the Isles or west to the Emerald Coasts. But east, Sethbert thought, there was a line of small fishing towns along the forested shores of Caldus Bay. Perhaps from there he could steal a boat far frul aButom Li Tam’s blockade and follow the ragged edge of the Keeper’s Wall south, around the Fargoer’s horn and into the Churning Wastes.
Sethbert went to the barn door and looked out. He saw nothing between the field and the river’s edge. The sun was bright, and the few rain clouds left in the sky were drifting slowly east.
Stomach gurgling with hunger and fear, Sethbert followed the weather.
Rudolfo
Rudolfo rode south alone over the protests of his men. Had Gregoric been alive, he would have never gotten away with it. He’d have disobeyed directly, or at the very least followed from a distance under magicks. Even Aedric might have intervened in some way, but he was already south. The new first captain was working with the Rangers of Pylos to shore up Meirov’s eastern and western borders and keep her neighbors’ problems in their own backyards.
So he rode alone, his horse magicked for speed and stamina, and he leaned into the slanting rain. He’d sent word before he’d left, carefully coding notes to Jin Li Tam, his head physician, and Aedric. And Petronus had informed Vlad Li Tam on Rudolfo’s behalf, asking him to keep watchful eye on the Delta’s waterways for the renegade Overseer, and letting his future father-in-law know that he rode to rendezvous with Aedric. He meant his Wandering Army to hunt Sethbert, and he meant to parade that murderous pig-bugger through the towns of the Named Lands on the long route back to the Ninefold Forest.
He smiled at the thought of it, and whistled his horse faster. If he pushed, he’d only need four days. With the magicks his horse could take that abuse, but no more. Once he reached Aedric and his men, he’d have to trade out for a season. He patted the horse’s side. With all he’d been through since Windwir’s pyre, this one had earned a break.
We all have.
Hours behind him, the last of the gravediggers’ camp was down by now, and the caravan no doubt wound its way northeast. He could have brought some of his men, but he’d not wanted to leave the Pope any more exposed than he already was. Even if the war was all but over, he couldn’t afford to take any risks with Petronus’s safety.
But deeper than that, something else prompted Rudolfo to solitude. He’d felt a darkness gnawing away inside of him, stirred to life that night he ran with Gregoric on his shoulder. And when that that cloud came over him he found that he couldn’t abide anyone’s presence.
He was certain it had something to do with the Francine’s Fivefold Path of Grief. And he would walk those paths again and again until he finished. It wasn’t as if he were a stranger to them. He’d been down these routes before with his brother and with his parents.
But Gregoric. It still stabbed at him.
He shook his head, hoping to clear it. He thought about the work ahead, but found it bored him. He turned his mind instead to Jin Li Tam and their time together, but the memories of that couldn’t hold him, either.
But when he thought of Sethbert, he found a white, hot point of light to focus on other than the past.
It was the future. And in it, Sethbert screamed beneath the salted knife.
Rudolfo
Rudolfo dismounted and handed his reins to a Gypsy Scout. There at the edge of Caldus Bay was the shack with its boathouse, surrounded by soldiers of the Wandering Army, his scouts and a squad of Pylos Border Rangers.
They’d received dozens of birds with dozens of reported sightings. Rudolfo had divided his force and scattered them to follow up on each lead. It had paid off.
When they’d first found Sethbert here, the Rangers had inquired around the town and learned that the boathouse Sethbert hid in was none other than that of a certain fisherman, Petros, who was away on business.
Sethbert hadn’t put up a fight, but he had insisted that he would only surrender to Rudolfo. The Rangers had quickly sent word to the Gypsy Scouts with Sethbert’s demand.
Rudolfo had left immediately, riding with the wagon that his Physicians of Penitent Torture had driven south. It was a large, enclosed structure with wooden sides that could be dropped to properly display the black iron cage furnished with the various tools of their redemptive work.
Rudolfo approached Aedric, the new first captain of his Gypsy Scouts. He was Gregoric’s oldest boy-nearly twenty. He would teach his friend’s son how to be a strong first captain, and perhaps, if the Gods did not grant him an heir, he would offer his fatherhood to the boy. He wondered how Jin Li Tam would feel about that. He suspected that she would see the value of it, but he realized suddenly that the days of making decisions of such magnitude without speaking with her were gone now. Not because he worried that she would take issue with his decision-he knew she would not. But rather, because he knew her now, knew that she had eyes that could see around corners he never dreamed of. She was a valuable ally.
“First Captain,” Rudolfo said, inclining his head slightly.
“General Rudolfo,” Aedric said?/fo, bowing. “The fugitive Overseer of the Entrolusian City States awaits you.”
Rudolfo nodded. “Is he armed?”
“I’m certain of it.”
He stroked his mustache. “And do you think he means to harm me?”
Aedric’s eyes narrowed. “He means to try, Lord.”
Rudolfo unbuckled his sword belt and handed it to a waiting aide. “Lend me your knives,” he said to Aedric.
Aedric handed over the belt of scout’s knives, and Rudolfo buckled it around his narrow hips.