Ethrian demanded, "Where is my father?"
"Be quiet, Ethrian. Go stand outside the door. Warn us if anyone comes." The messenger had chosen the perfect day to appear. Almost everyone was out of the house.
The courier produced a sealed packet. "I am to give you these letters. Read. Then we will talk."
Nepanthe ripped at the packet, fumbling in her eagerness. Finally, she got to the first letter.
It was not written in Mocker's hand. She wasn't surprised. Her husband could write, but unless he worked with uncharacteristic patience his penmanship remained impenetrable even to himself. Anything he wanted understood he would have someone write for him.
The letters were crazy. Bizarre, paranoid, unbelievable. Rambling, tortuous, and only partially coherent.
He flatly accused Bragi and Haroun of plotting against his life. He was in hiding in the middle east, where he had friends. He wanted her to slip away and join him before Bragi took the next logical step and imprisoned her and Ethrian.
It made no sense. He'd never mentioned having friends in the east. And what reason would Bragi or Haroun have for trying to kill him?
The messenger asked, "Have you finished?"
Startled, she looked up at his cold assassin's face. "Yes. What's it all about?"
"Lady, I am sorry. I was not told. I was sent to bring you to him. I have two friends with me. We are to guard you during your journey to Throyes. We are to avoid notice by local authorities. That is all I was told."
"But... "
"I am sorry. Will you come?"
"Yes. Of course." She rose, surprised by the haste with which she had made her decision. It was as crazy as Mocker's letters.
"Pack quickly and lightly. We will travel by horseback, in haste, lest our enemies discover us and give pursuit."
"Yes. Of course." Of course. That was Mocker's way of life. Travel in the shadows, work in the shadows, always moving fast and light. Live and die in the shadows. Don't look back because something might be gaining.
She burst out of the library. "Ethrian, pack some things. We're going to your father. No. Don't ask questions. Just do what you're told. And hurry." She left him looking baffled.
She threw things together with little thought for the journey she faced. Her mind was wholly taken with the puzzle of what was happening.
"Keep up, boy!" Scar snarled. In all the weeks of travel Nepanthe had learned no name for Mocker's messenger. He was in a vicious temper today.
She didn't blame him. His wounds had to be hurting him terribly.
Two days earlier they'd had a brush with bandits, just when Scar was beginning to relax because they were nearing Throyes. His comrades had both been killed.
"It'll only be a little while longer, Ethrian," she promised. "We're almost there." They were among the farms which supported Throyes. A hazy patch of horizon lay ahead. "We should spot the city walls any minute now."
"No walls at Throyes," Scar said. It was one of the few times he'd said anything remotely conversational. "Three hours, we be there."
He was close. Only a few minutes over three hours later they were dismounting before a home as stately as any Nepanthe had known in Lieneke Lane. A grossly fat man met them. He did not seem pleased to see them. He and Scar argued, then Scar terminated the discussion by mounting up and riding away. The fat man fumed and sputtered and threatened his back.
Nepanthe asked, "Can we see him? Is he here?"
The fat man frowned. He thought for a moment. Then, in Wesson worse than Scar's, he said, "Not here. Gone now. On to Argon. You go there too. Yes?"
Nepanthe sagged. "Oh, no. Really? I can't travel another foot."
"You rest. Yes? One, two day maybe. Arrangements to make. Trustful guards." The fat man spat on Scar's backtrail. "Unable to do simple job. Two men lost."
"You're lucky any of us got through. Bandits were after us for days."
The fat man spat again. "Inside. You stay out of sight. Eyes of enemies everywhere these days."
Eager as she was to see Mocker, Nepanthe was disappointed when it took only two days to assemble a new escort.
"My god," Ethrian said. "Mother, it's huge." They were wending their way over pontoon bridges and low delta islands, slowly approaching the city Argon, which stood on an island near the mouth of the River Roe. The high city wall reared in the distance, and just grew more massive as they drew nearer.
Nepanthe came out of her preoccupation with weariness, heat, and humidity long enough to be properly awed. She tried distracting herself by telling Ethrian what she knew about Argon. That didn't help.
The wall was sixty feet high where they crossed a last pontoon and entered a city gate. Ethrian was so bemused he lost all thought of his father. Nepanthe was too miserable to feel more than the smallest flutter of excitement.
Their escort guided them through densely peopled streets to a huge fortress-city within the city. Nepanthe guessed this to be the Fadem, the citadel from which the Queen who called herself Fadema ruled the great city-state. Mocker seemed to have found powerful friends.
They were expected. A platoon in livery met them. The gentleman in command spoke flawless Daimiellian, the lingua franca of the western educated classes. "Welcome to Argon and the Fadem. I hope you find our hospitality warmer than that of the road."
"Just point me toward a bath and a bed."
"Can we see my father now?" Ethrian demanded.
The gentleman looked puzzled. "I know only that you're guests of Her Majesty, young sir, nothing of your business here. Someone closer to the throne will deal with that. My Lady? If you'll accompany me? An apartment has been prepared. I've been bid tell you that once you've bathed, eaten, and rested, dressmakers and tailors will be sent to help you form a new wardrobe." They all walked while he talked. Nepanthe soon became lost in the complexities of the fortress.
Ethrian asked another impertinent question. She hissed, "You behave yourself. Understand? We're guests here, and this isn't the Quarter." The Quarter was the slum where Bragi had found them living before he'd dragooned Mocker into undertaking some harebrained mission.
The apartment was high in a squarish tower. It reminded Nepanthe of her childhood. She'd had her own tower then. This apartment, though, came with a staff of five servants, one of whom was a cook and none of whom spoke any language Nepanthe knew. The gentleman commanding the escort bowed his way out. The servants closed in, using gestures to indicate that a bath was waiting. Nepanthe told Ethrian to go first.
She stood at the one window and stared out over the city's sprawl, now splashed all orange and red and shadow with the light of a setting sun. She was eighty or a hundred feet above street level. In an apartment with its own staff, none of whom spoke a familiar tongue. It was almost as if she were a prisoner.
She slept only a few hours. Awareness of a subtle, unidentifiable wrongness set her to pacing the floor.
Someone tried the door, pushed through. Nepanthe settled onto the edge of her bed. The visitor stepped out of shadow, proved to be a woman.
"Good evening, Madame. I'm sorry you had to wait so long." The woman's Wesson was abominably accented.
Nepanthe rose. The words gushed. "Where is he? When can I see him?"
"Who?"
"My husband."
"I don't understand."
"The men who brought me to Throyes. They said they were taking me to my husband. That he sent for me. They had a letter."
"So that's how they managed it. They lied." The woman smiled mockingly. "Permit me. I am Fadema, Queen of Argon."
"Why am I here?"
"We had to remove you from Vorgreberg. You might have embarrassed us there."
"Who is us?"
"Madame." Another visitor entered.