The note was brief but informative. Sealed with blank wax and unsigned. The news within delicate enough to require all of those precautions plus a cipher. Though this was one Koldo had learned long ago.
The girl has run away. The boy may come home.
Koldo read the rest one time over, her face kept blank only because of decades of practice.
The general reached into her saddlebag and pulled out a small flask. She took a long pull of sagardoa, reveling in the burn on her throat for a quick moment before turning the acidic cider on the parchment’s ink.
Just a few good drops and the words withered into black tears on the page. It would be enough until she could put it to flame.
CHAPTER
17
THEwater stop was at a furrow of trees that ran like a stubby scar along a mostly dry creek bed. Mosquitos clung to the spotty stream right along with other travelers, all squint-eyed and haggard from the pervasive sand and too-bright sky as they navigated the trickling waters.
The relative shade was nice, but what Luca really appreciated was the idea that there were people here. Surely someone would notice his predicament and realize something wasn’t right. Though he wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that the pirates hadn’t taken any care to hide that they were carrying a hostage.
The tall boy untied Luca from Ula but left his hands bound. After he took a few good swallows and had one extended coughing fit from the silt in the water, the dried blood was washed from Luca’s mouth. The water seemed to have a pleasing effect on all of his injuries—the knot on his head pounded a little less; the pain at his midsection seemed to ease the tiniest bit, though he was sure he had at least one cracked rib.
Another swallow and he finally felt he had enough refreshment to spend a moment looking around. His pirates were filling waterskin after waterskin as their horses grazed on thin shoots of grass. Beyond them, other travelers were doing the same. There were no children here, and only one girl besides Ula. The kidnappers’ attention had wandered her way at first, but when it became obviousthis girl was of Basilica—dark hair, skylight eyes—and that she was with a party of men, the worry (or hope) that she could be the princess in disguise dissolved. Everyone kept clustered to themselves and no one seemed to bat an eye that they were in the company of a bound and bruised boy.
“Do you come here often with hostages?” Luca asked the group as he wormed sand and silt from his teeth.
“Why?” the tall boy spat back, swallowing down a whole cheekful of water from his newly filled waterskin.
“Because you’re parading me around with my wrists tied together and no one seems to think that’s strange.”
“We’re in Torrent. Prisoners aren’t unusual. There’s probably one or two among them,” the short boy answered, wetting down his white-blond hair before wrapping his whole head in a length of linen borrowed from Ula to deter the sun. Too little, too late. “No matter who they are, they likely think you’re either a criminal or a penance, and either way you’re being escorted to the Warlord to meet the fire pits.”
“If anything, they’re surprised that we’re letting you drink,” Ula added, something in her tone like a memory. The hint of it was gone as soon as it came and she turned her back, shifting the ropes that had bound him to her from her gray mare to the one ridden by their leader.
Luca took another draw of water before continuing. “And why exactly are you letting me drink?”
“Because it’s not time to kill you yet,” the tall boy answered with a ferocious grin.
Luca returned the grin in kind. “I’m no good to you dead. If you kill me too soon, my princess won’t have any reason to marry your man.”
“I said ‘yet.’”
“What my friend means to say,” the blond boy started, “is thatif your princess doesn’t do as was requested in that letter, we’ll give her a nudge with your head on a pike.”
Luca stood from the creek bed. He knew his full height was impressive to most people, though he wasn’t in the habit of using it to intimidate anyone except maybe the occasional opinionated horse. He drew himself up, chin up and shoulders back, and leveled his gaze on the leader boy. “And what will you do when my princess comes for me?”
The short boy made a show of looking around at the decidedly uninterested travelers, the pounding sun and barren cargos and steep plateaus beyond.
“It’s been eighteen hours since we stole you away. That’s plenty of time. Where is she, stableboy?”
Luca didn’t let his gaze waver, though the number of hours that had passed rattled through his mind. Longer than he’d thought.
“My princess will come.”
The Eritrian boy waved a ringed finger and snatched a rope from Ula, latching it around his horse’s undercarriage—Luca was to ride with him after this break. “Sure she will, right after she finishes her tea and cake. Or perhaps her embroidery calls first?”
Ula stopped short of what she was doing and glared over the horse’s back at the blond boy. “Spoken like a man who has never been with a woman.”
The tall boy snickered, drawing the ire of both Ula and the short boy.
“Can it, Urtzi,” the short one snapped.
