Chapter Eleven

The camp was in an uproar when I woke. Groggy, I fumbled my way back into my clothes, my body so stiff that I fell twice and finally sat on the ground to put my feet into the legs of my trousers. Only when I had them on did I realize how filthy they were. It was no wonder the sentry had asked if I was all right. I had to undress and find another pair in my trunk. I left off my tunic, which was almost as dirty, and went in my shirt to the council tent. When I reached the tent, it was already full, and when I tried to slip in among the other attendants, Ion eyed me with a wrinkled brow and then stepped between me and the king.

The pickets had been alerted, the camp had been searched, but there was no sign of my uncle or his means of escape. The king was enraged, not the cold fury we’d seen before, but the heat of a temper burning out of control. He shouted at Teleus and at Baron Anacritus, who had charge of the camp. Neither could shout back, but Teleus was sorely tempted. Anacritus was afraid. The king promised death to anyone who had aided my uncle. Too late, I was afraid for the men I’d tricked into drinking lethium-laced wine.

No one was certain which guards to blame or I would have lived with the guilt for their deaths on my conscience. Before the king could condemn them all, as he might have done at that moment, word arrived that Nahuseresh had rallied his army. The Medes were marshaling to attack, and the king was ready to fly to pieces with frustration.

Over the three days that he had slept, Attolia and Eddis had driven the Peninsular armies relentlessly. They had succeeded in pushing the enemy all the way to the pass. Part of the Mede forces were already in the narrow gorge of the Pinosh River and hemmed in, as we were, by the steep sides of the Leonyla Valley. Their superior numbers were no longer the advantage they had been. To force the Medes to retreat any farther, though, would be to push a stopper into an already full bottle. The task would only grow more difficult as the battle lines narrowed and our men grew more exhausted.

“I want Sejanus,” the king insisted.

“Gen,” said Sounis, very sharply for him.

War is never just about men killing with swords and guns. Time is a weapon, and so is hunger. The Medes had abandoned most of their baggage train when they were routed after the death of Bu-seneth. If the Peninsular armies held their ground—only a few days, perhaps just one day more—the Medes would have to withdraw or starve. No one could be spared to hunt Sejanus. All of the Little Peninsula’s resources needed to be committed to battle.

Grinding his teeth, the king gave in.

“Afterward, then,” he said to Attolia.

“Afterward,” she agreed. They both knew that Sejanus, with days to make good on his escape, would be impossible to find.

The queens issued their orders. Much had changed since the first contentious council meetings of the combined armies, and there was little need for discussion or even elaboration of their instructions. Sounis and one company of reserves would swing to one side of the valley; the king would take the other. All the rest of their forces would be committed to pushing the Medes back into the Leonyla Pass.

Neither Sounis nor the king would be risked in battle unless the main forces failed. If the Medes broke out, the two companies of reserves would fall on them in a pincer movement, their only hope to delay the enemy and give the queens time to escape. Teleus and a small company selected from the royal guard would see them safely to the mountains of Eddis.

Propelled by my words to my uncle the night before, in a desire to have a life that mattered, I followed the king out of the tent. Ion tried to pull me back. Pushing him away, I caught the king’s eye.

“Stop it, Ion,” said the king. “He is not the Erondites I’m worried about. What is it, Pheris?” His eyebrows shot up. He said, “No.”

Stubbornly, I stood my ground.

“You will stay with the queens.”

I had grown stronger over the previous year, strong enough to ride hard after the king and return with him from the Mede camp, strong enough to climb the steep sides of the Leonyla Valley and only be stiff and sore the next day. But the fundamentals had not changed. I could not ride hard, day after day, without rest. If our forces were defeated, as the queens fled, they would have to slow their pace or leave me behind. I would never make it to the mountains of Eddis.

“Get him his pony,” said the king.

While everyone else was making their preparations, I was hastily cleaning as much of the dirt off my tunic as I could. I had no breastplate to strap on, no sword to wear. As we assembled around him, the king gave me a long knife, kneeling to buckle it around my waist himself.

“In a lifetime of stupid things, this may be the stupidest thing I have ever done,” he said to me. “But if I am told to watch Erondites, by the gods, I will. You stay close, do you understand?” He knew he could not keep me safe, and he was afraid for me. He looked me in the eye and said, “To hell with Lader if he thinks I will not trust you.”

We rode into position, and I did stay close to the king. Ion was on one side of him and I on the other.

We could see across the valley to Sounis and his reserves, mostly Sounisians. His father was with him as well as his magus. On our side, except for the attendants, the soldiers were Eddisians. Eddis’s minister of war was there, and many of the men were the king’s close cousins.

We milled in place, some standing in their stirrups to get a better view of the battlefield through the thin trees downhill from us. The Medes were slow to enter the fight, the sounds of battle dim in the distance. The morning sun had burned off the mist that had come through the Leonyla the night before, and the sky overhead was cloudless. The grass was green, fed by the many streamlets of the Pinosh. A brown-and-white spotwing butterfly bobbled from the tiny yellow flowers of the chipweed to the larger blossoms of the trumpet grass.

There was a whistle in the air, like a hawk screeching over and over again, and someone must have finally turned to look for it.

It wasn’t a hawk. To my horror, Ion pointed at a figure waving from high up on the ridge.

“Does anyone have a glass?” asked the king. I didn’t need one. My back was bent, but my eyes were excellent.

“I think it’s Sejanus,” said Motis.

“Crossbow!” Ion shouted, and he leapt at the king, sweeping him off his horse. They both fell heavily to the ground while the rest of us, paralyzed, watched the slow arc of a crossbow quarrel against the sky. It landed some distance away. Cursing, the king shoved Ion away and got to his feet, holding his ribs.

“Damnation, Ion. Even if he’d hit me, which is next to impossible at that distance, the bolt would bounce off a linen shirt, never mind a breastplate. Someone go catch my horse.” Unlike poor Fryst, the horse had not dropped back to a walk and was some distance away.

Several men had pistols and raised them to fire at Sejanus.

“Don’t waste the shot,” said the minister of war. “What does he think he’s doing?”

Sejanus appeared to be waving the crossbow over his head and then pointing at us emphatically. I turned my pony toward where I’d seen the quarrel fall.

“Pheris?” I heard the king behind me.

I struggled to hold my reins and communicate at the same time.

“Find what?” asked the king.

Quarrel. Impatiently I made a long arc with my hand.