No, better… he knew, as she had. She thought she’d plumbed his depths—she could, after all, list every one of his demon’s former sorcerous riders by name, in order, and was slowly gathering their biographies, but… What other mysteries did that packed blond head hold? If you let him sail back to Adria, you’ll never find out, now will you? She sighed.
Aside from one slightly seasick passenger who almost tottered over the gangplank, saved by the conducting sailor-girl, they landed without incident. Nikys looked back at the distant hump of Limnos, dark against the glowing sunset. Had Pen brought off his plan of passing for her mother at dinner, or were the Order’s residents just now starting to search for their missing prisoner? And if so, had Pen escaped arrest or not? Firmly, she reminded herself of his victory over the bottle dungeon. The memory didn’t help that much.
“Should we take some of that?” asked Idrene, as Bosha hoisted their belongings once more.
“No, Madame. I’m going to fetch the cart. You’ll best serve by picking up some food and drink we can eat on the road. Meet me where the south shore road leaves the village.” He glanced west. “I’m loath to lose any light we have left.” Though full dark would still overtake them long before they reached Akylaxio, and the new moon would be no help. That town was walled, thus the gates would be shut at dark and require some negotiation for admittance, or else a wait till dawn.
The Guza street markets were deserted at this hour, so Nikys returned to the same inn where they’d stayed before. She was made to pay a gallingly stiff price for the basket that she would not be returning. Idrene stayed outside on the bench. But the two women wearing the blue scarves and weary demeanors of pilgrims returning after their long day’s outing drew few glances.
Bosha arrived at almost the same time as they did where the houses straggled off along the south road. He jumped down and handed them up into the cart. It was a small, light, open vehicle, with an oiled sailcloth hood that might be raised to protect passengers from the elements, and well-sprung. Bosha, hat now not shielding him from the sun so much as concealing his memorable white hair, played driver with bland assurance, clicking Lady Xarre’s well-bred horse into a trot. Nikys and Idrene settled back into the padded rear seat with near-matching huffs of relief.
“I can’t believe we’re really doing this,” said Idrene.
“I’ve done it before, with Adelis and Penric. I can’t say I’ve become used to it.”
Idrene turned to her, the public mask dropping from her urgent face. “Tell me everything that befell you!”
“You first.”
“Hah. I imagine that will take less time.” Her hand clenched on her knee. “I had no warning, just a troop of imperial soldiers pounding on our door, shouting for admittance. They told me they had an order for my arrest, but didn’t even say where I was going. They may not have known. I’d barely time to pack a few necessities and tell off the servants. The boys were reasonably restrained—perhaps your father’s shadow daunted them—but they ransacked the house for papers and correspondence. Thank goodness there are copies of my most important documents at the notary’s.”
“It was the same when the governor’s men came to our villa in Patos, after Adelis was arrested at the barracks,” said Nikys. “They seized every paper they could find, including all my old letters from Kymis. I was so furious about that. But they didn’t steal much, and no one was raped, not even the maidservants. Although most of them quit right after. I couldn’t blame them.”
Idrene nodded. “I have no idea what’s left at home by now. It’s been three weeks.” She blew out her breath. “Such a bother. I believe if they’d burned the place to the ground, it would be less a burden on my mind.”
Nikys, who’d thought her mother would be as hard to extract from the house she’d shared with Florina as a whelk from its shell, was startled at this assertion.
“I wonder if I’ll ever get anything back,” Idrene went on. “If we’re in Orbas for long, the house will surely be stripped, confiscated, and sold.” She scowled. “After that, they hauled me out to that island, and then it was three weeks of pacing the cell staring at that sea-moat, and to think I used to like sea views, and no one telling me anything. Mend that, I beg you.”
Bosha’s back was very straight, but Nikys fancied that if he could swivel his ears like the horse, they’d be pointed their way. He had a very good memory, she recalled Tanar bragging.
Nikys began to recount the tale from Adelis’s arrest to their arrival in Orbas, in much greater detail than she’d confided to Tanar. It ended up more scrambled than she’d hoped, as her mother kept interrupting with muddling questions that made her lose the thread. She began to have more sympathy for Tanar when she realized that every other name out of her own mouth wasn’t Adelis either. She glided very lightly over their interlude in Sosie, which had revealed some truly unexpected skills on Penric’s part. She dwelt more on the frightening injury he had taken in the uncanny fight with that other sorcerer. Less on how frightening it had been when his magics had brought down half a hillside.
“The poor fellow, what a welcome to Cedonia!” Idrene commented. “First he gets his skull cracked, then tossed into a bottle dungeon, then this!”
“He can turn his healing on himself,” said Nikys. “Fortunately. Or his demon does. She seems to favor him greatly.” Her frequent backtrackings trying to explain Desdemona to her mother were responsible for much of the muddle. Appropriate for a chaos demon, Nikys supposed.
Gleaming reflections from the sea, glimpsed to their right, were keeping the road visible well into the long twilight. Bosha pulled the cart off at a sheltered spot, tended to the horse, then climbed in to sit backward on his seat as Nikys shared out the food and drink from the basket. Idrene made polite inquiries into the healths of Lady Tanar and Lady Xarre, about which Bosha as politely assured her, as though they were sitting down in some gracious dining room.
“I hope I may yet get a chance to meet them, someday,” Idrene sighed.
“You would quite like Lady Tanar,” said Nikys. “And she, you. I should write when we reach Orbas, to tell her of our safe arrival.”
Bosha sat bolt-up. “I would beseech you not to, Madame Khatai! This has all been dangerous enough. Vile suitors I can fend off. I did as much for Lady Xarre, when she first employed me in her early widowhood. The imperial government outmatches me.”
Nikys took in the well-hidden implications of that, and slowly swallowed her mouthful of dried apricot. “Surely Lady Xarre’s wealth buys some protection?” Or was Bosha the protection that it bought? No… She didn’t imagine he was underpaid, yet that sort of loyalty wasn’t bought with coin, but rather, kind.
Bosha, a trifle self-consciously, eased back. “But it draws down greater dangers. Men may strive to marry a fortune if they can, but are willing to try less pleasing methods to secure it if they can’t. A charge of treason, no matter how contrived, makes a fine shield for stripping the accused of his property. Or hers.”
“As even my son lately found,” Idrene agreed grimly. “And him a general.”
“I once thought his rank might be enough to make him safe,” said Bosha, “and safe for Lady Tanar, but the events in Patos proved otherwise, if they blinded the man on the basis of one forged letter.”
“Learned Penric says he’s very sorry about that,” Nikys put in. She had been forced to reveal Penric’s Adriac origins to her mother, and therefore to the listening Bosha, or there would have been no explaining him at all. “The reply he carried from Adria was in good faith, he claims, but Adelis’s enemies had it off him within half an hour of his setting foot in the country. He thinks their agent was watching him the whole time.”