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We were on our best behavior the next week as well.
“There are six of you this time?” the tall soldier—whose name I deliberately hadn’t bothered to learn—asked when Mara, Appius, and I showed up at the gate with Leander, Darius, and Lucius as well.
“I trust this will not be a problem,” Magister Marcellus said, using his sternest frown on the two soldiers. “We’ve started a special class for advanced healers. They are the best of the best.”
The soldiers shifted anxiously. “It’s just that there are six of them and only two of us.”
I exchanged a glance with Leander. He clearly wanted to snap back at the soldier with something like, “Oh, good, you can count.” But it was imperative that we were all on our best behavior.
“They’re just student healers,” Magister Marcellus said with a sigh, rubbing his forehead. “They’ve taken a vow not to harm anyone. Are you really going to deny hundreds of noblemen the care and attention of trained healers because you’re squeamish about escorting a few young people up a hill?”
His attempt at shaming the soldiers worked. The two of them looked sullen, then gestured for us to follow them out of the gates and through the streets to the hills.
They did not check our satchels. I didn’t know if it was a one-time oversight or if they didn’t care enough to do their job as thoroughly as they’d done it the first time.
Or perhaps it was the fact that that as spring began to whisper through the air, the confinement imposed on everyone in Royersford was starting to chafe. Everyone wanted to break out of the prisons that the king had put us all in and to live a little. Even the soldiers.
We were all very careful to make certain nothing of note happened while the six of us were up on the hill. Appius paid a call on Old Gabe again, and he took Leander with him for reconnaissance. The rest of us moved through the estates, making ourselves as charming as possible so that the nobles would feel comfortable with us being around.
By the time we returned to the house later that evening, skipping supper at the college entirely, since we’d returned home late, we were all buzzing with possibility.
“I am astounded by how easy it will be to simply walk out the back door of Old Gabe’s house and down the hill to freedom,” Leander said, flopping onto the couch in our house’s common room and bringing me down with him.
I laughed, even though I wasn’t in the mood for teasing, but didn’t try to squirm out of his arms.
“It might be simple to walk out of Old Gabe’s house and down the hill, but it won’t be so simple to get to Aktau, let alone over the mountains,” I said.
“Especially since we’ll have to bring a vast amount of supplies with us,” Mara said.
I don’t know why, but her statement surprised me. “You’re really planning to come with me?” I asked, looking not only at her, but at my other housemates as well.
They all glanced at each other.
“It’s either attempt to escape with you or wait around here until General Reuben decides to choose us at random for execution,” Darius said.
“And he seems like the sort who would find it funny to kill one identical twin,” Leander added with more seriousness than I’d ever heard from him before.
I honestly couldn’t blame him for thinking that way. Whether they came all the way to the frontier with me or not, my friends needed to get out of the college and out of Royersford.
“Alright,” I said, squirming around in Leander’s lap until I was seated more comfortably. “So we agree that we’re all going to escape together, but what do we do when we get to the bottom of the other side of the hill?”
We were all silent for a moment before Appius suggested, “We walk?”
No one answered his suggestion one way or another. There was no answer. Or rather, walking might be the only answer.
Except that an alternative suddenly presented itself to me the next morning, as I finished up my student work duties in the kitchen by helping to unload a delivery of food stuffs. It just so happened that Horacio was the driver of one of the wagons.
“Horacio!” I dropped what I was doing to move to his wagon.
Horacio straightened from where he’d been bent over, shoving barrels that smelled like they contained fish and sacks of grain that looked a bit moldy to the back so that student workers could carry them inside. It was a good sign that he smiled at the sight of me.
“Young Conrad of the Frontier,” he said, stepping over a few sacks to hop down from his wagon to speak with me. “I see you’re still alive.”
I laughed humorlessly, then glanced around to see who might be listening in. There wasn’t time to ask what I needed to with finesse.
“I need to ask you a monumental favor,” I said, stepping closer to him and lowering my voice.
“Oh?” Horacio caught my serious mood immediately, thank God. “What sort of a favor?
