The Dragon’s Path (7 page)

“Sir,” she said in a soft, low voice. Master Will didn’t answer, and so uncertainly she tugged at his sleeve.

“What?” the old man said.

“My name’s Tag, sir. I’ve come to drive Magister Imaniel’s cart.”

Master Will’s eyes went wide for a moment and he glanced around to see if they’d been heard. Cithrin cursed silently. Not Magister Imaniel’s cart. The bank didn’t have a cart. She was driving the wool cart. It was her first mistake. Master Will coughed and took her by the shoulder.

“You’re late, boy. I thought you might not come.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“For God’s sake, child, try not to talk.”

He led her quickly through the press to a deep, narrow cart. The weathered wood planks looked sturdy enough, and a canvas tarp over the top would keep the rain off the bolts of tight-packed grey cloth. The axles were thick iron, and the wheels bound with steel. It looked to Cithrin like obviously more of a wagon than mere cloth would need. The two mules in harness hardly seemed enough to pull a thing that big. Surely,
surely
they could all see through the sham. The prince’s guards hardly needed to glance at her to understand everything. Her gut tightened harder, and she thanked the angels she hadn’t been able to eat that morning. She didn’t know how well her false whiskers would survive vomiting. Master Will leaned close to her, his lips brushing against her ear.

“The first two layers are wool,” he said. “Everything beneath that’s in sealed boxes and casks. If the tarp fails and things get wet, just let them stew.”

“The books—” she muttered.

“The books are in enough sheepskin and wax you could drive this bastard into the sea. Don’t worry about them. Don’t think about what you’re hauling. And do not under any circumstances dig down and have a look.”

She felt a passing annoyance. Did he think she was stupid?

“You can sleep on top,” Master Will continued. “No one will think it odd. Do what the caravan master says, keep the mules healthy and fed, and keep to yourself as much as you can.”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“Right, then,” the old man said. He stood back and clapped her on the shoulder. His smile was forced and mirthless. “Good luck.”

He turned and walked back toward his shop. Cithrin had
the powerful urge to call after him. This couldn’t be all there was. There must be something else she was supposed to do, some preparation or advice she should have. She swallowed, hunched forward, then walked around the cart. The mules met her eyes incuriously. They, at least, weren’t frightened.

“I’m Tag,” she said into their long, soft ears. And then, whispering, “I’m really Cithrin.” She wished she knew their names.

She didn’t catch sight of the soldiers until she’d climbed up to the driver’s bench. Men and women in hard leather, swords at their sides. They were Firstblood, apart from one Tralgu with rings in his ears and a huge bow slung on his shoulder. The captain of the troop, the Tralgu, and an older man in long robes and tightly knotted hair were talking animatedly with the Timzinae caravan master. Cithrin gripped the reins, her knuckles aching and bloodless. The captain nodded toward her, and the caravan master shrugged. She watched in horror as the three soldiers came toward her. She had to run. She was going to be killed.

“Boy!” the captain said, his pale eyes on her. He was a hard-faced man younger than Magister Imaniel and older than Besel. He wore his sandy hair too short for Antean style, too long for the Free Cities. He leaned forward, his eyebrows rising. “Boy? You hear me?”

Cithrin nodded.

“You aren’t dim, are you? I didn’t sign on to guard boys who are likely to wander off on their own.”

“No,” Cithrin croaked. She coughed, careful to keep her voice husky and low. “No, sir.”

“Right, then,” the captain said. “You’re driving this cart?”

Cithrin nodded.

“Well. Good. You’re the last to come, so you missed the
introductions before. I’ll keep it brief. I’m Captain Wester. This is Yardem. He’s my second. And that’s our cunning man, Master Kit. We’re guard on this ’van, and I’d be obliged if you did whatever we said, whenever we said it. We’ll get you through safe to Carse.”

Cithrin nodded again. The captain mirrored her, clearly not yet convinced she wasn’t dim.

“Right,” he said, turning away. “Let’s get going.”

“Anything you say, sir,” the Tralgu said in a deep, gravelly voice.

The captain and the Tralgu turned and walked back toward the caravan master, their voices quickly lost in the cacophony of the street. The cunning man, Master Kit, stepped closer. He was older, his hair more grey than black. His face was long and olive-complected. His smile was surprisingly warm.

“Are you all right, son?” he asked.

“Nervous,” Cithrin said.

“First time driving on a ’van?”

Cithrin nodded. She felt like an idiot, nodding all the time like a mute in the streets. The cunning man’s smile was reassuring and gentle as a priest’s.

“I suspect you’ll find the boredom’s the worst thing. After the third day seeing just the cart in front of you, the view may get a bit dull.”

Cithrin smiled and almost meant it.

“What’s your name?” the cunning man asked.

“Tag,” she said.

He blinked, and she thought his smile lost a degree of warmth. She bent her head forward, her hair almost covering her eyes, and her heart began to race. Master Kit only sneezed and shook his head. When he spoke, his voice was still comforting as soft flannel.

“Welcome to the ’van, Tag.”

She nodded again, and the cunning man walked away. Her heart slowed to a more human pace. She swallowed, shut her eyes, and willed her shoulders and neck to relax. She hadn’t been found out. It would be fine.

The wagons started out within the hour, a great wide feed wagon lumbering along at the head, then a covered wagon that clanked loud enough Cithrin could hear it from her perch three back. The Timzinae caravan master rode back and forth on a huge white mare, tapping wagons and drivers and beasts with a long, flexible rod, half stick and half whip. When he came to her, she shook the reins and called out to the mules the way Besel had taught her back when he’d been alive and smiling and flirting with the poor ward of the bank. The mules started forward, and the caravan master shouted at her angrily.

“Not so fast, boy! You’re not in a damned race here!”

“Sorry,” Cithrin said, pulling back. One of the mules snorted and looked back at her. She had a hard time not imagining annoyance in the slant of its ears. She moved them forward again more slowly. The caravan master shook his head and cantered back to the next wagon. Cithrin held the reins in a fierce grip, but there was nothing she had to do. The mules knew their work, following the cart before them. Slowly, with many shouts and imprecations, the caravan took form. They moved from the wide streets of the Old Quarter, past the canals that led down to the river, across the Patron’s Bridge, the prince’s palace high above them.

Vanai, the city of her childhood, slipped past her. There was the road that led to the market where Cam had bought her honey bread for her birthday. Here, the stall where an apprentice cobbler had stolen a kiss from her and been
whipped by Magister Imaniel for his trouble. She’d forgotten that until now. They passed the tutor’s house where she’d gone to study numbers and letters when she was just a girl. Somewhere in the city were the graves of her mother and father. She had never visited the corpses, and she regretted it now.

When she came back, she told herself. When the war was over and the world safe, she’d come back and see where her family was buried.

Too soon, the city wall loomed up before them, pale stone as high as two men standing. The gate was open, but the traffic on the road slowed them. The mules seemed to expect it and stood patiently as the caravan master rode to the front to clear the way, whipping at whatever was in the ’van’s path. High on the tower gate, a man stood in the bright armor of the prince’s guard. For a sickening moment, Cithrin thought it was the same grinning face that had looked up at her the night Besel died. When the guard called out, it was to the captain.

“You’re a coward, Wester!”

Cithrin caught her breath, shocked by the casual insult.

“Die of the pox, Dossen,” the captain sang back, grinning, so perhaps the two were friends. The idea made her like Captain Wester less. The prince’s guard didn’t stop them, at least. The carts rolled and bumped and creaked their way out of the city and onto the road where they left the stone cobbles for the wide green of dragon’s jade. Carse lay far to the north and west, but the road here tracked south, echoing the distant curve of the sea. A few other carts passed, traveling in toward the city. The low hills were covered with trees in the glory of their autumn leaves; red and yellow and gold. When the sun struck them at the proper angle, it looked like
fire. Cithrin hunched on her bench, her legs growing colder, her hands stiff.

Over the long, slow miles her anxiety faded, lulled by the rumble and rocking of the cart. She could almost forget who she was, what was behind her, and what was in the cart with her. As long as the world was her, the mules, the cart before and the trees beside, it was almost like being alone. The sun tracked lower, shining into her eyes until she was as good as blind. The caravan master’s call slowed the carts, then stopped them. The Timzinae rode down the line of carts as he had in Vanai, pointing each of them to a place in a low, open field. The camp. Cithrin’s place, thankfully, was near the road where she didn’t need to do anything fancy. She turned the mules, brought the cart where she’d been told, and then climbed down to the earth. She unhitched the mules and led them to a creek where they stuck their heads down to the water and kept them there so long she started to grow nervous. Would a mule drink enough to make itself sick? Should she try to stop them? But the other animals were doing the same. She watched what the other carters did and tried not to stand out.

Night came quickly and cold. By the time she’d fed her animals, scrubbed them, and set them in the ’van’s makeshift corral, a mist had risen. The caravan master had set up a fire, and the smell of smoke and grilling fish brought Cithrin’s stomach suddenly and painfully to life. She joined the carters laughing and talking in the line for food. She kept her head bowed, her eyes downcast. When anyone tried to bring her into the conversation, she grunted or spoke in monosyllables. The ’van’s cook was a short Timzinae woman so fat the chitin of her scales seemed ready to pop free of her sausage-shaped arms. When Cithrin reached the front of the line, the cook handed her a tin plate with a thin strip of pale
trout-flesh, a heaping spoonful of beans, and a crust of brown bread. Cithrin nodded in a mime of gratitude and went to sit at the fire. The damp soaked her leggings and jacket, but she didn’t dare move in nearer to the warmth. Better to keep to the back.

As they ate, the caravan master pulled a low stool out from his own cart and stood on it, reading from a holy book by the light of the fire. Cithrin listened with only half her attention. Magister Imaniel was a religious too, or else thought it wise to appear so. Cithrin had heard the scriptures many times without ever finding God and angels particularly moving.

Quietly, she put down plate and knife and went out to the creek. How to visit the latrine without giving herself away had been a haunting fear, and Magister Imaniel’s dismissive answers—
All men squat to shit
—hadn’t reassured her. Alone in the mist and darkness, leggings around her ankles and codpiece stuffing in hand, she felt relief not only in her flesh. Once. She’d gotten away with it once. Now if she could only keep the charade up for the weeks to Carse.

Coming back to the fire, she saw a man sitting beside her plate. One of the guards, but thankfully not the captain or his Tralgu second. Cithrin took her seat again and the guard nodded to her and smiled. She hoped he wouldn’t talk.

“Quite the talker, our ’van master,” the guard said. “He projects well. Would have made a good actor, except there aren’t many good Timzinae roles. Orman in the Fire Cycle, but that’s about it.”

Cithrin nodded and took a bite of cold beans.

“Sandr,” the guard said. “That’s me. My name’s Sandr.”

“Tag,” Cithrin said, hoping that between mumbling and her full mouth, she’d sound enough like a man.

“Good meetin’ you, Tag,” Sandr said. He shifted in the darkness, hauling out a leather skin. “Drink?”

Cithrin shrugged the way she imagined a carter might, and Sandr grinned and popped the stopper free. Cithrin had drunk wine in temple and during festival meals, but always with water, and never very much. The liquid that poured into her mouth now was a different thing. It bit at the softest parts of her lips and tongue, slid down her throat, and left her feeling as if she’d been cleaned. The warmth that spread through her chest was like a blush.

“Good, isn’t it?” Sandr said. “I borrowed it from Master Kit. He won’t mind.”

Cithrin took another drink then reluctantly handed it back. Sandr drank as the caravan master reached the end of his reading, and half a dozen voices rose up in the closing rite. The moon seemed soft, the mist scattering its light. To her surprise, the wine was untying the knot in her stomach. Not much, but enough that she could feel it. The warmth in her chest was in her belly now too. She wondered how much of the skin she’d have to down to bring the feeling to her shoulders and neck.