Page 64 of The Summer Pass

“I will assist too,” said Halza.

“Not by going out and speaking on Lord Vanu’s behalf,” Auxshna reminded him quickly. “You will run into the same trouble that we had when we arrived—they will all think you’re a spy because you’re a lowlander.”

“Oh please, let’s not go through all that again,” Auxshna’s mother intoned. “Surely there’s some other way we can help.”

“No one will leave here if it is not safe for them,” Vanu signed firmly. “You are all under my protection, and I will not have anyone endanger themselves needlessly.

“There’s another passage out of the lord’s chamber that leads outside. It’ll be the safest way to go, but you can’t come back that way—you’ll see why—so you’ll have to return through the great house. I can draw you a rough map of the fortress before you go. When I know what we’re up against, I will plan our next move. But I can tell you now it will involve taking the Boar of Hawakhurta prisoner.”

Chapter 23

Not on the Stairs

Vanu sat on Lill’s couch and wrote his letters to the troops on ivory-bound tablets they’d found in the room upstairs, balancing a tablet on one thigh while Lill lay with his head pillowed on the other.

“I’m not in your way?” Lill asked for the second or third time. He knew he must be, really. He should move, but he didn’t want to.

“No.” Vanu carded his fingers slowly through Lill’s unbraided hair and frowned at what he had written.

“You can’t go out wearing that!” Gurti’s voice carried from halfway down the cellar.

Lill looked in that direction and saw Barda wearing a fur hat with horns on it. He wondered idly where that had come from. Firuduna was doubled over laughing.

“Listen to your mother,” he advised Barda between snorts.

“Here you go,” said Halza, stepping out from between the wine casks to pass a stoppered bottle to Tirtu. “Did you find any more?”

They were filling all they empty vessels they could find with wine from the casks so that Barda, Nakhana, and Firuduna could pass them around to the new friends they hoped to make out in the fortress. The casks contained Tagra Degra’s homemade wine, which was apparently not very good. They weren’t taking the bottles of wine from elsewhere that were stashed in a different part of the cellar. Lill had already heard them discuss all of this.

“I thought we could fill some more and stack them outside in the anteroom,” Halza explained to whoever was listening. “That way they can come back for more. Lord Vanu says we should barricade the inner door instead of the outer door anyway, as it’ll be more secure.”

“Everyone’s excited about their missions,” Lill remarked. He sighed. “I’m envious.”

Vanu looked down at him. “I hope you’re joking.”

“I am,” Lill admitted.

Vanu didn’t look convinced. “You’re an escaped prisoner, love. You’d be in more danger than anyone.”

Lill shifted on the couch. He was drowsy, but he felt … restless, somehow. Not that he really wanted to go sneaking around the fortress. It was something else that he was craving.

“How would you write to a princess?” Vanu asked.

“Oh. I think you start, ‘To Her Gracious Highness’ … ”

Vanu scrubbed out what he had written so far. “Don’t know her name.”

“Artayarasha’s daughter? Artamiya.”

“Really?” Vanu gave him a surprised look. “You know her?”

“No, of course not. They’re all called Artamiya. It’s the public name for the princesses of her family. Her Highness Artamiya Daughter of Artayarasha. She’ll have another name that her family and maybe some of her closest attendants use.”

“They all have the same name,” Vanu repeated. “You mean if she has sisters and cousins … ”

“And aunts on her father’s side. They’re all Artamiya. Most of the men in the family are Arta-something, too. It’s a religious thing … I’m not too sure what it means.”

“Sounds confusing to me,” Vanu said. “All the women running around with the same name.”