“I have left messages, Credola,” he said, tone heavy with reproach. “It has been days. I have sought audience with the Chancellor but am told, over and over, he is too busy.”
“Our sincerest apologies, Lord Ectar. With the evacuation, I’m afraid there aren’t enough hours. The Chancellor is overseeing so much. As are we all, I fear; there is so much to do.”
“My man Geog is missing still,” he carried on. “It has been three days, Credola. I am concerned. I inform your Order Guards, but they give me nothing.”
Ectar was a problem we didn’t know how to solve; his servant’s actions notwithstanding, we still had no proof of his involvement in a grander plot, so we avoided and spied on him in equal measure. If Ectar meant us no ill, admitting to him that we had killed his servant would not help our relations with the Empire. So we played out this strange game, each wondering what the other knew. If Geog had acted on his orders, had Ectar guessed we had foiled the plan, or did he believe Geog had safely left the city, and his concern was all a ruse?
“That is concerning,” I agreed. “But be patient, I beg you. The city is in a state of great turmoil. It’s hard to find anyone at the moment. He wouldn’t be the first servant to abandon his master in a foreign city.”
Ectar bristled. “He was a deeply loyal servant. He would not have run away.”
“Then I am certain he will turn up soon, Lord Ectar.”
“I tell you…” he began, grabbing my arm with some violence; I recoiled and he dropped it like a burning coal, recognizing his mistake.
“I’m late for an appointment,” I told him coldly. He mumbled a response and I swept away, grateful to have been given an excuse to feign insult. My path eddied along with the flow of people moving up Red Fern Avenue and into the upper city.
“There are rumors about that one,” someone said in my ear.
I jumped but kept walking without glancing around. An-Hadrea’s voice was distinctive, though we’d only spoken briefly. Jov had told me she had followed him for some time before approaching him; had she been following me, too? “Which one?”
A glimpse of An-Hadrea’s profile beside me, her voice soft and low. “The pale man. Ectar. People are talking. They say he tried to flee the city.”
I stiffened. Her family was helping us, but perhaps some of Jov’s suspicion had rubbed off on me. A contrast to her sweet-tempered mother, An-Hadrea appeared to hold us in contempt. And yet, this was at least the second time in the last few days that she had approached one of us with information. Perhaps she was just showing off how easily she could follow us undetected. Jov had told me, with some frustration, that she had dropped into his path like a shadow from nowhere a dozen times already. He seemed incapable of detecting her. “How could anyone flee the city? We’d have tried that if it was an option.”
Ahead, a cart full of some kind of assorted metal objects had spilled, and people jostled to get around with loud complaints. A few weeks before I’d seen something similar; then, passersby had immediately stopped to help. The difference made my heart hurt.
An-Hadrea swerved to avoid the spill and the ensuing scuffle. Reluctantly, I followed as she peeled off to the side, down a lane. She leaned against a wall and regarded me frankly. “The rumor is that someone saw the body of one of his servants at the hospital. But he is all around town asking people about him.”
It wouldn’t take long for the rumor to reach Ectar’s ears if people were already talking about it. “What else?” I asked.
“People are saying he infected the Chancellor with a fatal disease. Or poisoned him.” She looked at me with her peculiar directness. “Is this so?”
Glad to be able to give an honest answer, I shook my head. “We don’t think so.”
“Hmm. Well, you should know, your people will turn on your Talafan neighbors as easily as they turned on us believers, you will see. Already they mark out differences. Who is to blame. Who is like me, who is worth protecting.”
“Everyone in our city is worth protecting.”
She scoffed. “Listen to what is being said, if you are so foolish to think that. It is not just my people they will blame, if you let them have a target. There are not enough of us to satisfy them. Your Chancellor says pretty things, but even if I believed him and believed you, you do not control your city. You are just a few people.” Then she suddenly patted my shoulder, her manner shifting to something almost maternal. “I just say, you should protect him, if you do not wish to start another war. You need all the allies you can get.”
Perhaps so. So far, having Darfri allies had not proved any great advantage. Salvea was a fascinating source of information about their customs and etiquette, but while she could doubtless have spoken persuasively to any individual in the army, she had no more capacity than us to make herself heard. Her daughter offered intelligence about what the city Darfri were doing down in the catacombs, just not without some biting criticism alongside it.
I’d never met anyone quite like An-Hadrea, with her strange, blunt manner of speaking, and the way she smiled at the end of an insult and somehow took the sting from her words. One moment I thought she wanted to murder us all, and the next she would offer a random kindness.
“I’ve got to go to the Manor,” I told her, sensing in the glint of her eye that another tirade might be waiting. “But thank you. We’re watching Lord Ectar.”
She nodded and ducked around the corner; by the time I’d returned to the street, there was no sign of her. I thought I knew how to be unobtrusive and unnoticed, but she had a superior game.
I could guess what I’d missed at the Council meeting by the conversations of exiting Councilors: more arguments about billeting, a few protests about the destruction of the bridges—did Lazar really think that we could hold both bridges, or did he just not truly understand that the lower city could fall soon?—some secretive whispering. Varina trailed well behind Bradomir, speaking to no one. Only Marjeta, Budua, and Javesto acknowledged me as we passed.
“They’re all angry,” Jov told me, inside. “Angry and frightened.”
“Aren’t we all,” I murmured. “I saw An-Hadrea. She says that people are starting to target other foreigners now that they can’t find anyone openly Darfri. We’ll need to be careful when we evacuate that we don’t make things worse.”
“Maybe we should billet the Darfri—those who aren’t in hiding, anyway—and anyone else who needs protecting in a separate section of the city,” Tain suggested. He pulled out a city map and circled a section to the south. “We could use these buildings here—we could fit hundreds of pallets in that hall, there—and we could allocate Guards to protect the area. Just in case.”
“We’ll need to tell Marco’s watchers to keep an eye out for hostility against Lord Ectar, too,” I added. “Someone saw the servant’s body at the hospital and rumors are spreading fast. People are saying the Chancellor was murdered. And I don’t know who’s been talking, but An-Hadrea already knew there was an escape attempt.”
Tain frowned. “There were too many people involved the other night. We should have known they wouldn’t all be quiet about it.”