They circled around to the south, following a small and barely passable rocky road through the apple orchards, then approached the gate in the city's walls nearest the inner bailey, where Madia's carriage had always entered. One of the most secluded, this was also the gate Madia was most familiar with. The only drawback was that the guards were quite familiar with her, but Frost insisted she should not concern herself with that. As they neared the wall, the wizard stopped, planted his staff and turned to her, reciting twice over four words not meant for her to understand. Then he closed his eyes and slowly opened them again.
She felt no different, and the Subartans showed no reaction at all, but Olan and Delyav looked quite surprised.
"What is it?" she asked. "What has he done?"
"You have a different face," Olan explained.
"And a different figure," Delyav chuckled. "Quite plump. You could be the wizard's daughter!"
She glanced at herself and saw only the body she was used to, a body grown leaner and harder than when last she had passed this way. She shrugged and looked at Frost.
"You see nothing because you of all people cannot be fooled as to who you are," Frost said. "Something you would do well to remember." Then he turned again and continued toward the city. Madia frowned and followed him.
The gate sentries asked after their business, and Delyav and Olan vouched for everyone—friends they had made while touring northern Ariman, they said. All were allowed to pass. The castle, Madia thought, would prove more difficult.
She felt a strange sensation as she passed unnoticed among the people on the streets, the very same laborers and tradesman, beggars and squires who had lined the streets when her carriage had passed not so long ago. But they did not look quite themselves to her, either. Each face stood out, especially the poorest of them, lines and expressions that told their sad stories. She felt almost as if she truly were a ghost, and only these people were real.
Frost asked her to lead the way now. She did so, taking the shortest routes until they reached the end of a narrow street and emerged onto a wide crossroad. Smooth, flat stones spanned the distance from the shops and houses to the castle walls, some fifty paces across the way. Madia began to notice the quiet—the usual clutter of citizens and carts was not there.
"It's as if everyone is hiding," she told Frost. "This way is normally a popular one."
Frost nodded, then motioned to the two Subartans. They took up defensive positions on either side of him while Frost pulled Madia close. "Whatever your plans, you are pledged to be my Subartan, for now," he said, reminding her of it.
She nodded, then did as he asked and stood by while the wizard put himself in another focussed trance. A faint greenish sheen shimmered briefly about him. She watched it spread to her, surrounding her as well. The green seemed to brighten momentarily, and then it was gone, leaving no visible trace at all.
Frost came to again, then paused to gather himself. "A warding spell," he said, "quite useful," then gave the signal.
"We will go first," Delyav announced, looking at Madia, Olan nodding along with him. "We cannot allow you."
She smiled at them, letting it slip. They were very good men, she thought, in just the right ways. The Subartans found new positions, one behind and one ahead of Frost, and they all started off again. Madia went just in front of the trio, following Olan and Delyav.
"There is an entrance to the lower levels," Madia said.
"One that leads into the storage rooms."
"That will lead us to the kitchens and the lower banquet hall," Delyav said, nodding at her plan. "From there we will have many choices."
"If we get in," Olan cautioned. "We're bound to meet someone there."
"We will get in," said Madia. "If there are guards when we reach the entrance, you two will say you caught me hiding from duties in the kitchens. We can dispose of the guards as they let us pass, if they are not too many, and they should not be." She turned around to face Frost and the others. "You three will have to wait out of sight."
"Suppose these guards are friends of these men?" Rosivok asked, talking to Madia, but watching Olan and Delyav carefully.
"That is possible," Olan said. "But if they are truly our friends, then they will help us pass." Delyav seemed to agree. Rosivok quietly nodded, and again the two knights led off.
Madia followed along as they entered Kamrit Castle through a small oak-and-iron doorway, then turned to the left. The storerooms were well stocked but deserted.
In a moment Frost and the Subartans came out to join them. Cautiously, silently, they approached the kitchen and found it empty, too. Madia couldn't recall this ever being the case.
"They know," Frost said.
"They must," Madia agreed. "I had hoped to make surprise an ally."
"If we are met by many troops, be wary of my lead," Frost advised. "I have prepared one or two surprises."
"We must go further," Madia said. "I've not come all this way to leave with nothing."
"I know," Frost said, leaving it at that. They made their way across the kitchen to the dining hall door. Madia tested the door, pushing it partway open with little effort. She couldn't see anything in the huge dim hall beyond.
"Wait out of sight again," she told Frost, and he moved slightly back. She turned and pushed the door fully open with her foot and stepped through. At once the doorway filled with a burst of thick orange flames that rushed in from all sides, enveloping Madia, turning instantly red then changing again, violet, saffron, and finally yellow-white as she held out her arms and looked at herself. The heat forced the others back with hands over their faces, though she felt nothing at all. Then she was through the arch, and as quickly as they arose the colored fires died back to a dim glow that traced the doorway opening for an instant, and was gone.
"You are yourself again," Delyav said, staring at her as everyone was.
"The warding spell as well as the false glamour I provided you has been neutralized by the spell that protected the entrance," Frost said in a somber tone.
"A fine defensive effort," Rosivok remarked, looking the doorframe over.
"The equal of Vasip, or even Montiby," Frost replied, stoking his chin.
"What does that mean?" Olan asked.
"That we are off to a poor beginning," Frost responded.
"Good, I feel much better," Madia moaned, still a little dazed, her heart pounding. The image of the quick inferno still blazed in her eyes.
"The magic is spent," Frost said. "We may continue safely."
Delyav led the way again, though he seemed to use great caution. They started across the dining hall, a huge open room hung with ample tapestries and set about from wall to wall with four long, wide tables. Only a few of the room's many torches burned, making details hard to see. But again, there seemed to be no one about. Olan lit an extra torch from the wall nearest the door and held it up, then went on. When they were nearly halfway across the room, the tapestries came to life, bustling with movement as men wielding crossbows came from behind them and opened fire.
Madia felt hands upon her back, felt herself being thrown to the floor, and realized it was Sharryl. Rosivok was rolling away on the floor just to the other side of her. She looked up to find Olan and Delyav faring far worse, arrows bristling from both of them, blood running from too many places as they stumbled forward and fell to the floor. She turned as she heard Frost shout from behind, repeating a short exotic phrase. Arrows impacted on the greenish air all around the wizard, but none seemed to reach him. Then the image blurred as the wall torches gurgled and puffed and filled the room with thick, gray smoke. Madia smelled a faint whiff of sulfur, nothing more; her eyes did not water, but everything had disappeared.
"I can't see," she whispered to Sharryl, feeling the other woman's hand still on her back.
"We don't have to," Sharryl said. "Listen."
She heard bows firing, arrows flying, bouncing off the stone walls above her head, then men screaming and cursing and dying all around her.
"They're killing each other," she said.
"Yes, a few anyway. Now, crawl!" Sharryl told her.
She heard Frost moving behind her again as they started off and decided he was on the floor as well, crawling as she was. The warding spell had protected the wizard from the initial barrage, but such things had limits; by now he too was probably vulnerable—and enormously unhappy about it.
"We're near the room's north wall," Sharryl said, after navigating a stout table leg, then pulling Madia after her. "Where would you like to go?"
"There should be a stairwell just ahead of us."
They crawled a few more yards until they encountered the wall, then Sharryl followed Madia, tracing the stone, until their hands found the raised stone of the steps. Sharryl paused then, waiting for Rosivok. She rose and stumbled up, then out, through the doorway at the top of the stairs into a wide, empty corridor. The others quickly followed, pulling the door shut behind them.
Rosivok and Sharryl stood guard while Frost renewed the warding spells on both Madia and himself, though he left her appearance alone; there was at least a possibility that she might find herself among friends, he explained, and she was inclined to agree, though she was by no means certain.
"We will not be caught unawares again," Frost said after that. He held his staff close to his breast and whispered to it, moving his hands over it as he did. When he finished, he turned and held the staff toward the door just behind them. The thick end in his hand began to quiver. As he moved the staff away again, the motion subsided. Without another word, he turned and set off down the hall, leading with the staff.
"Which way?" Frost asked, slowing as they neared a junction. "The shortest route to Lord Ferris' chambers?"
"Through the courtyard, this way," Madia said, taking the lead again. Another two hallways and the group found themselves in a private courtyard filled with flowering shrubberies and stone benches. "There," Madia said, pointing to the balconies above the far side of the yard.
They paused, watching Frost's staff, then continued when all seemed well. Halfway across the yard, Frost's staff nearly leaped from his hand.
Across the yard a cluster of swordsmen burst through a row of arches, trampling shrubs and low hedgerows as they came. Frost stood pat, already engrossed with his spells. Madia followed Rosivok and Sharryl as they moved forward to meet the attackers.
She took on the first man she came to, fending off a clumsy thrust and countering with a messy but deadly blow to the throat. She looked left and saw Rosivok already standing over three dead men, saw Sharryl cutting the middle out of her third kill. Impossible to keep up with, Madia thought. Then she found three soldiers confronting her, and a fourth joining in, and she began backing off, deflecting a flurry of blades as the soldiers closed in.
Suddenly they each stood back and froze in place, wearing looks of surprise and anguish. As they tried to move, Madia saw them wince, and heard their muffled moans. She chanced another glance sideways and saw that all of the attackers were so afflicted, all standing as still as possible.
Rosivok and Sharryl advanced on them, scything them like an unwanted thicket. Madia followed, cutting first one man down, then going after a second. Most went hobbling away, backward at first, getting themselves turned around as they went, groaning through gritted teeth with each step they took. She looked back and saw Frost leaning easily on his staff, just watching.
"Enough!" he called out. "We will go and have our visit with the grand chamberlain without further delay." He looked at Madia and she nodded. Then a voice, loud and echoing among the courtyard's stone walls, called out from somewhere above them: "He awaits you now!"
Madia looked up to see a figure high on a balcony, staring down at them: Lord Ferris.
"You appear to be a formidable mage," Ferris said. "Able to embarrass my guard, and conjure the image of our dead princess upon this poor girl, so to fool the court, no doubt. And such a large, strong fellow, capable of great endurance, surely. You will be remembered well . . . by some."
"And known to many!" Frost replied.
"Your legacy ends here," Ferris said. "You are also a formidable nuisance. I would ask of one so wise in years and magic, such as yourself: what is it you hoped to gain by these incredible actions?"
"Justice, perhaps," Frost replied, holding himself erect by clutching his staff in both hands.
"You feel your death will represent some sort of justice? Then tell me, who have you wronged?"
"Madia has been wronged, my lord, and her father, and the memory of her grandfather, as have the people of this realm. It is that legacy I champion, and your right to it which I contest."
"This made-up girl you bring makes no difference to anyone. And my legacy is my own. As for you, I had thought to make you perform for my court, payment for sparing your life, but I can already see that you are far too confused to honor such a bargain."
Madia noticed both Subartans moving at the right edge of her vision, keeping low, ready stances. They faced a creature no more than a yard or so tall, a thing with black eyes and dirty crimson flesh, a naked, knobby, pointy-faced imp that seemed almost humorous at first glance, though much less so as it came closer, growing more distinct, baring deadly black teeth as it grinned and opened its generous mouth. It leaped abruptly and landed exactly between Rosivok and Sharryl.
"No!" Frost shouted, and the Subartans stepped back and stood still, each still facing the thing. It glared at them, features twisting, then it turned to Frost and its expression changed. The wizard pointed his staff and shouted a single sound, and the creature shrieked, then leaped again, howling and screaming as it went. It landed halfway across the courtyard and began rolling about, still howling: a high-pitched shredded sound, like a wild dog being horribly maimed.
Madia glanced back up at Ferris and saw that his expression had changed as well, had become one of agitation. He raised his arms and moved his lips, and the air within the courtyard seemed to ignite. The flash was blinding, the sound deafening. An invisible wave of air rushed against Madia like the slap of some great hand, knocking her hard to the ground, stunned. Her body ached everywhere as she tried to move, but she raised her head enough to see that her companions were laid out as she was, including Frost.
Fresh movement called her attention. Soldiers were edging back toward them, their paralysis apparently receding, their temerity restored. Rosivok seemed to notice, too, and began pulling himself up; Sharryl was slower, but in a moment both Subartans were largely on their feet again.
They helped Frost up, and Madia saw the look in his eyes: a ferocious, blazing indignation, all traces of balance and reason vanished now. He reached up toward Ferris and spoke a series of rapid commands. The balcony itself began to shake, threatening to give way as bits of stone and mortar crumbled and fell.
Then Ferris shouted back strange words of his own, and the shaking and crumbling stopped.
Frost was already adding new phrases, waving his arms and staff about, a wild man now, as Madia had never dreamed he could become. He took his eyes off the balcony and looked about, then pointed his staff. With a shout he raised one of the yard's many stone benches off the ground and sent it hurtling at Ferris. But before it arrived, Ferris somehow managed to blast the object into dust and gravel, all of which fell to the ground below, sending soldiers scurrying to get out of the way.
"Madia!" Rosivok shouted. She turned to find the two Subartans engaging the approaching soldiers. He was calling for her help.
As she gathered herself and started forward, she heard Frost scream like a man being brutally tortured. Madia looked to see him staggering backward, shaking, clutching his staff tightly in both hands as he held it out horizontally before him. Ferris had his own hands held out and up over his head, his eyes closed, his mouth open. She could hear a sound coming from him, too: a long, low tone that hardly seemed possible for a human voice, a steady note that carried on without a single breath of interruption.
The smaller demon-creature was up again, recovering now; it circled Frost, getting closer and apparently getting excited about it. Rosivok broke off suddenly and lunged at the thing, which made it leap as it had before. But to his credit, Rosivok, seeming to anticipate the move, bounded up to intercept the imp's trajectory. He sliced through one of the creature's knobby legs as it passed over his head and the demon screamed again. It fell in a misshapen heap a few yards away and began flopping about, its head thrashing as it continued to scream, black blood running from the stub of the severed limb.
But already the soldiers were closing, working their way toward Frost, bold, as though he were no longer a threat. Madia looked at him again and saw that this was true—saw Frost's arms drop suddenly. He turned and fell to the ground where he lay breathing but motionless, beaten. On the balcony above, Ferris had opened his eyes again and lowered his hands. The terrible intensity on his face was already softening, being replaced by a growing calm.
"They come!" Rosivok shouted. Madia turned her attention back to the soldiers as they rushed in. She dropped further back, nearer Frost, joining the two Subartans as they moved in close to where the wizard lay. The attackers were not great fighters, but there were at least two dozen of them now, and no amount of prowess was a match for so many. Some of them held back, still cautious, but most found courage enough. Madia heard Sharryl shout out to the Greater Gods and glanced left to see blood running from her right arm. She moved still closer, and the three of them found themselves nearly standing on top of Frost.
Run, Madia thought, seeing this as their only choice, but she knew the two Subartans would not; they would stand and fight over his body until they were dead.
Then the light of day was gone.
Madia looked about frantically, blinking her eyes. The sun! She could see nothing at all in the total blackness. But it was not just the absence of sunlight, she guessed, for even a moonless night was filled with stars. I am blind, she realized. Completely. And then, just as suddenly, she was not.
She saw the courtyard exactly as it had been, the soldiers pressing in all around her, but they did not attack. She thought they might still be blind as she had been, then noticed that their eyes seemed to work well enough. Several of the soldiers looked directly at her, but then they looked away as if she were not there. She looked at Sharryl and Rosivok and saw that they had changed, that they were not exactly themselves. Their own images remained, barely visible in a jumble of images, but what she saw for the most part were two of Ferris' own soldiers. More illusions of some sort, she decided. False glamors, like the one she had worn into the city.
Frost!
She looked down and saw a very large soldier lying behind her, rolling over and struggling to get to his feet. . . .
"The knaves must have run while we could not see," Rosivok said abruptly, playing out his new role, apparently aware of the implications.
"Which way?" one of the "real" soldiers asked.
"Up, to the lord's chambers!" Rosivok shouted.
"Aye!" another man said. "Assassins, and they are up to it still!"
"Aye!" half the other men chimed, most of them making their way back toward the arches through which they had come, the way to the king's chambers—Lord Ferris' chambers, Madia corrected herself, a knot growing in her stomach as she weighed the thought.
"Now," the man that was Frost said from behind her, in a voice almost too soft to hear, "we will go that way." He nodded to indicate a retreat. "Rosivok," Frost added, "tell them a good lie."
"We will go down the way the intruders came!" the Subartan shouted, indicating Sharryl and Madia, and Frost. "To be sure they did not run out instead."
"Very well," one of the men, a sergeant, agreed. But then he indicated two other men to go along as well. Rosivok nodded, and the six of them made their way back out of the yard. Madia kept watch on Frost, who was clearly having trouble keeping up. He seemed devoid of energy, barely able to navigate the courtyard's walkways. She could see just enough of his true image to notice that his clothing hung on him now, as though he had lost a great deal of weight—as though it wasn't Frost at all.
The instant he passed through the archway, Frost stumbled and fell against the stone wall of the corridor beyond. Rosivok and Sharryl quickly turned their blades on the two soldiers. In an instant, both men lay dead.
The Subartans took one of Frost's arms each and continued down the hall, back toward the lower banquet hall and the storage rooms beyond.
When they finally reached the stairwell that led to the street, Madia made the others pause.
"We can't leave," she said. Then, "I can't leave."
"I know," Frost mumbled, hoarse and fading, but rallying himself somewhat. "I know how you feel, but we must leave. All of us. The creature we faced is not the grand chamberlain as he pretends, nor a man of any kind. I have never encountered anything . . . to compare." He closed his eyes, breathing heavily, then looked at her again. "Ferris, the thing that he is, commands great powers, more than the greatest of sorcerers, more than any creature of this world.
"I did not believe, not until I saw the imp he set upon us." Another pause. Madia waited.
"None but a demon prince could command such lesser demons," Frost went on. "I know what I felt, the power he brought to bear against me." He faded yet again, hanging like a dead man in the arms of his two Subartans. Then the eyes slowly opened once more. "Trickery saved us once," he said, "but do not count on it again."
Madia was swept by a wave of implications, both future and past. What Frost was saying could mean many things. "Then my father," she said, feeling a chill as she realized it, "never stood any chance at all."
"None," Frost replied, eyes closed.
"And neither do we," Rosivok said, his voice edged with the first real sense of doubt, perhaps even fear, that Madia had ever felt from the Subartans. More than the soldiers and the imp, more than Ferris himself, this frightened her. Their confidence, and Frost's, had been an inspiration, a foundation on which to build. She felt something within her coming completely apart, and knew of nothing to stop it.
"Come!" Rosivok said, moving again. "Come now!" Madia complied.
The false glamors on each of them had already begun to fade as they hurried up and out into the city's streets, into the waiting shadows across the stone way—helping Frost along at first, carrying him entirely after that.
"Who do you know here?" Rosivok asked. "Who can we go to for help?"
Madia looked about her at the many houses, the peasants and beggars and freemen and others, their numbers scarce as night approached. She felt something immensely heavy inside of her now, a burden, terribly old and awkward and consummate, which the truth had forced upon her. She stared at her feet, fighting the sway. "There is . . . no one," she confessed.
The Subartans looked at each other silently. "Of course," Sharryl said. Madia had no response.
Then they turned and set off again, carrying Frost, who was now clearly a hundred pounds lighter than he had been when he'd first arrived at Kamrit. In a few minutes, they entered a small square ringed with shops and a scattering of guild halls. There was still a fair sized crowd here, apparently on hand for a public execution. A platform had been erected in the center of the square, and an axman's block stood at its center. Guards waited there with a man in irons, all standing to one side.
Madia followed Sharryl and Rosivok as they hastened along the back edges of the crowd, largely unnoticed. In the streets beyond the square, they finally found a place to hide—a small stable, filthy for lack of attention and empty but for a single horse. They settled in a stall and waited for nightfall. In the stable's utter darkness, they let Frost rest, and began to discuss how they might get out of the city without his help—whether, with the guards alerted now, it was reasonable even to try.
"Perhaps I can help," a new voice said, a faint silhouette that spoke from just inside the half-open stable door; a woman, though her form grew invisible as she entered further. Madia did not need to see the woman's face. She knew the voice, and this time it took her only a moment to place it.
"Anna?" she asked.
"Yes, my lady. Yes."
"I saw you in the square," Anna said, her form barely visible where she sat on the stable's floor close to Madia. "I followed you here."
"Others may have recognized you as well," Rosivok said. "We must get away from Kamrit. The master must heal. No more battles for now."
"I know," Madia said.
"I have never before spoken to the dead," Anna whispered. "Tell me you are real."
"I live," Madia said, "though it nearly wasn't so. I was set upon by robbers, then by a knight from this castle, then by soldiers from Lencia, perhaps lead by Prince Jaran himself, and all because—because someone betrayed me to my father, dear Anna. But how much of this do you already know?"
"I've told you Madia, I did not betray you! Someone else must have told your father of your plans that evening. Lord Ferris, no doubt."
"Perhaps," Madia said, seeing it now, how simple it was.
"He has taken over the throne with such zeal, I can't believe he didn't plan it all along," Anna continued. "I think he somehow made your father ill. He tried to kill him, and may have done it, but—but I think he did not."
"What do you mean by that?" Madia asked.
"I saw Ferris' own serfs carry your father's body out of his chambers, but they did not go to the vaults. They took him to the old dungeons. I think the body that went to the vaults belonged to someone else, and your father is still alive, or at least he was when they carried him away."
"Please, don't tell me my father lives, for if he does not and I believe you . . . "
"I swear, my lady, what I say is true!"
"But why?" Madia asked. "Why feign his death? If Ferris was intent on taking the kingdom from him, why not simply kill him and be done with it?"
"I don't know, but I know that Lord Ferris is an evil man, Madia. I know it. You have not seen the change in him since you and your father were declared dead."
"Oh, yes, I have! We met—briefly—in the castle just this afternoon."
"The master says he is a force from the nether regions, a demon prince," Rosivok explained. "One that commands powers not seen in this world for ages."
"Many have said he is not mortal," Anna told Madia. "Most fear him. He has had so many people killed these past months. Those who would speak against him. And many more have suffered. I made the mistake of questioning him about the imprisonment of a squire, one of my young nephews, and I was put out into the streets for it!"
Anna's voice cracked, then the sound of sobbing followed, and Madia thought of the things she had accused Anna of, the doubts she'd already had—another on the list of mistakes you have made. "I am sorry," Madia said, "for many things. It has been so hard to know what to do and what to think. And now you tell me my father may still be alive." She fell silent, waiting for the thoughts in her head to slow their terrible spin. Even as they did, the weight already gathered in her stomach seemed to grow heavier.
"I must avenge my father, Anna—and all the people of Ariman," she said. "I will learn the truth of what has happened. Ferris will not go unchallenged."
"He will for now," Rosivok said, moving in the darkness, a shuffling sound. "We stand no chance against him."
"What's happened to you?" Madia asked, finding Anna's sobs affecting her, fighting the urge to join in. "You were all so sure of yourselves before, so extraordinary! The great Frost and his Subartans! Masters of all, servants to none! How can it be that there is nothing to be done, no hope at all?" She stopped herself, realizing how it sounded, knowing that it was not that simple.
"We face not a man but a thing," Frost said, whispering from somewhere deep in his throat. "I know of nothing that can be done against him."
"How do you feel?" Madia asked.
"He nearly died," Sharryl said. "He may yet. Leave him alone." She moved near him, stroking his head, Madia guessed, listening more than seeing. His breathing seemed to soften.
"We must leave this place," Rosivok said. "There will be time to talk of this later."
"He is right," Sharryl said. "For now."
"I know," Madia muttered. "I know. I just find all this so hard to accept. I've never felt so awful about everything, not even when I was starving in the countryside. I want to find my father, dead or alive, and . . ."
"Do not dwell on that, my lady," Anna said.
"I came here to try and do something right, for once, and everything is going so wrong!"
No sound touched the darkness for a time. Madia felt an aching in her head, the weight in her gut turning solid. Nothing made sense anymore.
"You must come with me," Anna said, a very quiet voice. "There are dung wagons that leave the city each night. One of the drivers is a close enough friend. No one will look for fugitives in his cargo."
"With good reason," Madia replied.
"It is better than being found within the city by Ferris' mercenaries," Rosivok corrected.
"Much better," Sharryl agreed.
"Then you will let me help you?" Anna asked.
"Of course," Madia said, still more softly. "Yes."
"I will prove to you, Madia," Anna went on, "that I am worthy of—"
"Anna, I was wrong about many things, especially you, I think. It is I who must prove myself. I am in your hands."
"Yes, my lady. Please, all of you, come."
She led the way out into the darkened streets, using no torches, staying well out of sight. Not far from the stables, they came upon the wagons. Anna disappeared for a time, then returned with an armful of clothing and rolled burlap.
"Use these to wrap yourselves," she said, then helped them with the job. Madia joined the others, wrapping herself up first, then struggling to get into the back of the wagon.
"I will come back, no matter what," Madia mumbled, trying to talk through the material. "I swear it."
"I know," Anna said. "Now shut up."
Madia held still while Anna and the driver wrapped her face and shoveled extra straw and manure over her. She felt the wagon being covered, then felt motion as the driver urged the horses on. There was a brief pause, then the wagon was moving again. The gates, Madia thought—they aren't even going to check.
She kept silent, fighting the urge to vomit as the heavy odor in the wagon caught in her throat with each breath. After a time, the smell didn't bother her. Finally the wagon stopped again, and the driver called everyone out.
As the cloth was removed and she looked about, Madia saw that the moon was high in the night sky, but barely a quarter full. Still, its light revealed a small dirt road that wound through grassy fields and disappeared into a vast stand of woods ahead. The driver was alone. He was back in the wagon even before the Subartans had finished getting Frost unwrapped.
"Thank you, and tell Lady Anna again how grateful we are," Madia told the man. The driver looked at her, eyes hidden in the shadow of his hat, an old man, she saw, and a kind man, certainly. He nodded without a word, as if he were afraid to speak, and Madia realized that many in Kamrit must be that way, in the habit of being afraid to say anything at all. He swung the wagon around and drove away north, back up the road toward home.
Madia turned and followed the others south—walking away from home again.