The two attendants suspected nothing and simply sat beside the prison wagon to eat and drink. I saw Diya give Clytia in the iron cage a covert wink, as if passing along some signal.
“You knew it would go like this?” I thought, only to find that the confusion in Clytia’s heart was no less than mine—she even bristled at the other’s appearance.
“You don’t want to drag others in, and others will come drag themselves in… that’s how people relate.” I offered Clytia a useless admonition, since all we could trade were broad emotions, not intricate intent.
Looking again outside the iron cage: each attendant held a bottle of ale, and before long both had drained theirs.
One bottle remained, yet the two only looked slightly flushed.
“Told you… with that little alcohol, without something slipped in, how could you knock out two grown men?” I thought, just as the Red-Nosed Attendant stood up and beckoned:
“Hey, girl, come here—what’s your name?”
“My name is Diya…”
With one bottle left, the Mustached Attendant picked out the wooden stopper with a small knife, tipped it up, and took a long swig. Then he leaned toward Diya’s mouth.
“Diya, is it? Come on… you drink too—keep your betters entertained.”
“I…” Diya looked troubled. “Sirs, I don’t drink.”
“Drink! You have to drink!” the Mustached one barked, brows lifting in a drunken scowl. “Don’t stand there—sit here, sit by me and drink.”
As he spoke, he slapped the ground beside him.
“Ha! A yokel girl like that and you’ve got an eye for her? You’ve never seen the women on the docks in Romern—they can pour you a drink with their asses.” The Red-Nosed Attendant let out a leering laugh, already working himself into a drunken froth, and reached to yank off Diya’s headscarf.
“Sirs—don’t do that.” Diya put up a hand to shield the scarf and backed two steps.
CLANG!
Someone sprang out from behind the prison wagon, an empty bottle in hand, and smashed it against the back of the Mustached Attendant’s head. I saw blood surge through his hair; he toppled and went limp.
“You—y-you!”
The red-nosed one flinched, staring dumbly at Nolan who had appeared out of nowhere. He swung a fist to strike back, but his feet wobbled with drink.
Diya saw it, snapped up a kick, and drove it into his groin. His throat rasped a dry wheeze; he doubled over—only for Nolan to crown him with another bottle. He collapsed and blacked out.
“Diya, I told you, that little bit of drink wasn’t going to drop them.”
Panting, Nolan spoke; Diya, shaken, stammered:
“I—I hit someone—oh no.”
“It’s fine. Where’s the key, where’s the key?” Nolan crouched and patted down both attendants.
“They don’t have it…” Clytia said. A key, of course, would be on the Baron’s envoy.
“What do we do… use force?” Hearing that, Nolan slipped the axe from his belt and eyed the iron lock on the cage.
“Brother! Don’t—too loud!” Diya hurried to stop him.
“Then what? Go find a locksmith now?”
“Maybe pry it?”
“There’s no time. The banquet’s noisy and far—they won’t necessarily hear.”
As he spoke, Nolan swung the axe up and brought it down on the lock.
A deafening KLANG. The iron lock burst under the blow. Nolan dragged the door wide and reached a hand toward Clytia.
“Come—out!”
Clytia hesitated a moment, then took Nolan’s hand. I felt force through the arm; then we were hauled from the iron cage.
“Brother, didn’t you say you’d go get the horses? Where are they?” Diya glanced around, nerves taut.
“No getting horses there—we head for the river first—”
Nolan took Clytia’s hand and felt his way toward the village edge. Diya followed. We passed through a withered reedbed, and on the mudflat speckled with floating ice I saw a small wooden boat.
“Brother—where did the boat come from?”
“Borrowed it from Alex. We’re going by boat.”
Clytia stood quietly to the side, as if she had caught the sense of it.
“You’re leaving too?”
“Mm. We crossed the Baron—we can’t stay on his land.” Nolan smiled.
“There’s no need to go this far for me.” Clytia thought a moment. “You still have time to turn back.”
“You saved our lives. Do we look like the sort who repay grace with spite? Enough questions—on the boat.”
With that, the three of us waded into the icy water and clambered aboard. Nolan and Diya each took an oar; the little boat shouldered aside the thin scum of ice and slipped into the waterways.
Clytia looked back. I watched the village bonfires shrink and shrink, until they vanished into the misty dark.
…
“Romern is a Free City. Even nobles have to keep up appearances there. We’ll lie low a while.”
We followed the water all night, disembarked halfway, then went a stretch overland. By morning, at last, the gray stone walls rose high ahead.
“Brother, how do we get into the city?”
“No problem. I brought Grandfather’s letters patent.” Nolan patted his bundle—the luggage he had hidden on the boat beforehand.
“I mean Little Tia. She’s wearing shackles. Will the guards let her in?”
“Uh…”
The three of us were resting at the roadside, eating our rations. Nolan looked at Clytia and found her turned slightly to one side, grinding the hard bread slowly with the teeth on that side.
“We need a blacksmith, get the shackles off her,” Nolan said after a think. “Like this, everything’s a hassle.”
“But a blacksmith… we’d have to find one in the city, right?” Diya frowned.
“Yeah… so what do we do?”
I swallowed the impossibly hard bread and raised my arm to study the manacles on my wrists. Wrought from pig iron, the cuffs were fixed with rivets—clumsy yet stout.
How to open them? I wasn’t sure if any black magic would work on them, and forcing them might hurt Clytia.
“So then… do we stick with Nolan and Diya?”
As I was thinking it, I glanced at the siblings. Back on the boat, Clytia had given out and slept. Only when she lost consciousness could I control the body, so I had no way to know her mind now.
“In any case… get into the city first. In a big place like that, we might hear news from the Erandel Duchy.” I lifted my eyes to the mighty city ringed by a moat.
“I’ve got it!” Nolan clapped as if something had struck him and stood. “Wait here a bit.”
He hurried out to the road. About a quarter-hour later, I saw him returning with a length of dark-red cloth in his arms.
“I saw a traveling merchant pass by.” Nolan shook the cloth open and spoke to me. “We can use this as a cloak—cover it and no one will see.”
“Is that so?”
I stood, took the red cloth, gauged it, then wrapped it around me like a general’s mantle.
“Well? Impressive?”
“That’ll slip off easily—and it drags.” Nolan thought, lifted the edge in his hand. “Fold the collar over—cross it.”
I watched him bumble up close, fussing with the cloth on me, when Diya said:
“Brother, you’ve got two left hands. It looks awful.”
She shouldered Nolan aside and worked a flurry of folds. In the end she tugged out the ends and tied a bow at the shoulder blades.
“Well? Isn’t it nice?” Diya slipped an arm around my shoulders, pleased. I looked down and saw the square of cloth had become a proper cloak with a little cape.
I turned a slow circle to test how firm it was, and caught Nolan glancing over.
“What do you think?” I asked without warning.
“Mm… it looks good. Red suits you.” Nolan scratched his cheek. He was supposedly judging my outfit, yet his eyes slid off to the side.
“What are you talking about? I’m asking if it looks normal from outside—can you see the manacles?” I shook the iron chain on purpose to make it jingle.
“Ah! Sorry.” Nolan blinked. “No problem. I mean—looks perfectly normal from outside.”
I studied Nolan’s profile. Was it that this future hero, at this moment, would show such an awkward look just because of a few words from me, and that amused me? The lift in my mood spread until I almost forgot we were fugitives.
“Quit smiling. We’re on the main road—people are watching. You too, Diya—we should get moving.”
Grumbling, Nolan turned his head—only to find the silver-haired girl before him swaying the cloak from side to side. Those green eyes looked over, and in a bright, boyish tone she said:
“Anyway, Clytia will definitely like it. Thanks.”
“Mm… you’re the kind who uses your own name to refer to yourself?”
Maybe my twisted phrasing scrambled him. Nolan blinked, then smiled at me and started up the road to the city. Diya and I fell in behind, and the three of us walked slowly toward the mighty walls ahead.