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“I’m the only thing holding him up!” Rigg shouted savagely, using his authority voice, and sure enough, the soldiers and rivermen obeyed him instinctively and took the weight of Talisco. At that point, Rigg scrambled back up onto the deck almost without assistance, so he was able to watch as they dragged Talisco over the rail and laid him on the deck.
Talisco obviously wasn’t breathing.
“Take that boy inside again!” ordered General Citizen.
“Not till I get that man breathing again!” Rigg counter-ordered, and again his voice of command worked well enough that the soldiers who had been reaching for him hesitated. In that moment, Rigg flung himself onto Talisco’s unconscious body and started working on him as Father had taught all the children in Fall Ford to do.
The rivermen had their own method, which involved turning a drowned man upside down and hitting his back with oars or poles. Apparently the victims of that process recovered often enough that the men up and down the river kept on doing it. What Rigg was doing—pressing on Talisco’s chest to eject the water and then clamping his mouth over Talisco’s and forcing air down his throat—was not something they had seen before. Some of the rivermen were shouting for him to get out of the way so they could paddle the man back to life.
A bloody wound on Talisco’s forehead attested to the strength of the blow Rigg had managed to land on him. He wondered if the blow had already killed Talisco—but for Rigg’s purposes it didn’t really matter. As long as everyone saw him save, or try to save, the man’s life, that was the story that would be told; the blow to the head would be seen as an accident, and probably not even ascribed to Rigg, since nobody would think a stripling boy would have the strength to inflict a fatal blow.
And they would be right—Talisco was not dead. It took only a few moments before he was coughing and sputtering and breathing on his own, in short quick gasps.
“I’ve heard of that sort of thing,” said one of the rivermen.
“I never have,” said another.
“Can you teach us that, boy?” asked a third.
But by then General Citizen was back in control, furious and anxious—and showing it, for once. “Get that boy back into the cabin!” he ordered, and this time Rigg meekly let himself be half-led, half-dragged back to his prison.
In moments Citizen was in the room with him and they were alone together. Citizen kept his voice low as he asked, “What, by the Wall, did you think you were doing?”
“Not escaping,” said Rigg.
“Why not?” asked Citizen. “What’s your game?”
“My father’s last words were for me to find my sister. If I’m really Rigg Sessamekesh, then my sister is Param Sissaminka, and I need to get to Aressa Sessamo to meet her. Since that’s where you’re going, I thought I’d stay aboard.”
Citizen grabbed him by his drenched shirtfront and put his mouth against Rigg’s ear. “What makes you think you’ll ever be allowed anywhere near the royal family?”
“Well, obviously I won’t be if I’m dead,” said Rigg. “But it’ll be harder to get people to believe it was an accident after this failed attempt.”
“What attempt?” asked Citizen. “I saw what happened—you did this from beginning to end.”
“Who else saw it that way?” Rigg shook his head. “Talisco told me he planned to kill me, make it look like an accident, and convince people by dying himself in the process. All I did was rush the process and turn it to my own advantage.”
Citizen seemed genuinely dumfounded. “He told you?”
“He told me that it was his duty. He assumed that’s why you manacled the two of us together, so he could pay for having let Loaf and Umbo get away by dying as he murdered me.”
“I gave no such order,” said Citizen.
“Of course you didn’t,” said Rigg. “You ordered us into irons and he took it from there.”
“I mean it was not what I wanted. Are you really that stupid?”
“How stupid do you mean?” asked Rigg. “I think I just did rather well. I took down a man twice my weight and strength, got free of the irons, and saved him from drowning.”
“Very theatrical. I’d applaud, but the men listening outside would think I was hitting you.”
“Maybe you’re of the royal party—the royal male party—or maybe you were testing me. It’s beyond my knowing. But I believe Talisco meant to kill me, whether it was your plan or not. And I didn’t intend to die without meeting my sister.”
“Your sister,” said Citizen. “Not your mother?”
“It was my sister that my father spoke of. For all I know, Param Sessaminka is not my sister, and Hagia Sessamin is not my mother. But he said my sister was in Aressa Sessamo so that’s where I’m going. And if anything happens to me now, the story of Talisco and me going into the water will be told in a different way—as your first attempt to have me killed.”
“I do not want you dead, you fool. I want you alive.”
