Page 2 of The Boy Bride

“I’ll be fine,” said Lill. “But how do I get out again?”

There was a short, awkward silence.

“I don’t think you do,” said Halza apologetically.

“I, uh … ” That certainly complicated matters.

The apple-eating soldier shook his head. “You’re Urártu’s bride. Why would you think you’d be getting out?”

“Unless he doesn’t want you,” Halza suggested hopefully.

The first soldier snorted. “He’s not letting you out. He hasn’t had any fresh blood in there in three years. You can run for it now if you like,” he offered generously. The apple eater nodded. “We won’t chase you—or at least we won’t chase you very fast.”

Lill looked up at the stark, yellow-grey walls, the sealed gate, the bare grey sky beyond. Did Arsha know they didn’t let anyone out? Why had he not mentioned it, if he did? It made this considerably more complicated.

Halza was speaking, something about his horse. Offering to let Lill ride it down the mountain, Lill realized. What would he want in exchange for that?

“Thank you,” Lill said, pinning a sad smile on his face. “But I won’t turn back now. Lord Davanu has taken good care of my family, and I must do this in return.”

That was a motive both the guide and the soldiers could understand, and they nodded solemnly. They didn’t need to know that it was entirely made up.

The “ladder sort of thing” the soldiers had spoken of was a tree trunk with notches carved in it for footholds. It was lying on the ground by the guard house, and Lill gathered from the discussion as it was fetched and positioned to be propped against the wall that it had not been used since the blocking-up of the fortress three years ago. It must have been lying in the grass since then, because the wood was grey and weathered.

“I suppose you’re sure there are still people alive in there?” he said conversationally as they watched several soldiers struggling with the cumbersome weight of the ladder.

“Sure,” said the soldier with the spear. “We see smoke sometimes.”

“And you send in food and so on,” Halza prompted.

“We would, but they’ve never asked for any. We haven’t seen anyone put a head above the walls since the day they were sealed in.”

Halza stared in horror. “You can’t be serious. Three years and they’ve had no provisions from outside? What are they eating in there? The smoke—what are they burning? You can’t go.” He seized Lill’s arm. “You don’t know what’s on the other side of those walls!”

Lill’s stomach was beginning to crawl. The desolation of the place, the blocked-up archway, the panic in Halza’s eyes—he felt it settling on him like ash after a fire. The offer of the horse to ride back down the mountain and the slow pursuit seemed tempting for the first time.

“My family … ” he mumbled, looking at the ground. “I must … ”

Must he? He had no family; he didn’t owe Lord Davanu anything, didn’t even owe Arsha very much. He was doing this so that Arsha would owe him. But if he didn’t go over that wall, where would he go?

“He’s resigned to his fate. Let him go.” The apple eater sounded both impatient and grudgingly admiring. “If he was a girl, it would be different.”

“He might as well be a girl!” Halza protested. “Look at him, the delicate flower that he is—you thought he was a girl yourself.”

The soldiers returned stony looks. Lill did not care for being called a “delicate flower,” but it was not the time to protest.

“Is he taking anything with him?” the spear carrier asked. “You know, a dowry? We’ll have to inspect it to make sure there’s nothing on the list of things that aren’t supposed to go in there.”

The other soldier had finished his apple and tossed the core over his shoulder. “Do you even know where that list is?”

“No, but I think I remember some of it. Rope, weapons, uh … ”

“I don’t have a dowry,” said Lill. “They told me it’s not the custom in the mountains.”

“Mm, maybe not. They are savages up here.”

The tree-trunk ladder had finally been propped against the top of the wall. Lill stepped away from Halza and the soldiers toward the base of it and looked up. It would be a tricky climb even for someone not wearing layers of skirts. He took off his shoes and stuffed them into the back of his outer sash, then put one bare foot on the first notch in the log.

Vanu Urártu deserved to die. For more than ten years he had stood against the Great King’s advance into Hawakhurta. He had held the only two passes through the mountains, and unlike any previous chief or warlord or whatever they called themselves up here, he’d united the raiders of the highland villages. He’d turned them from a disorganized nuisance into an implacable force, holding back the Great King’s army like a stopper in a bottle.