“Smarter than you,” said Ambiades, coming up beside us.

“I never heard of a horse that could steal a king’s seal,” I pointed out with a smirk of my own.

“That’s what I meant,” said Ambiades.

“Why don’t you eat hot coals?” I walked over to where Pol was taking food out of the bag. I noticed Sophos staring after me.

“What?” I snapped at him, and he looked away.

Ambiades put the words in his mouth. “He wants to know if you really are stupid enough to bet a man that you could steal the king’s seal and then show it as proof the next day in a wineshop.”

It had been a professional risk, but there was no point in saying so. I turned my back on them both.

We had more bread and olives and cheese for lunch. When I wanted more, the magus said no. “I can’t be sure that we will have more provisions until we get through the mountains.”

I looked at the packages still tied to the horses. “You didn’t bring enough.”

“We should pick up a little more tonight. You won’t starve.”

“No, that’s true,” I said. “You can always give me some of Ambiades’s food.”

The magus gave me an ugly look. “You’ll get your share and nothing else. No one’s going hungry so that you can eat.”

“I don’t see why not,” I said as I lay down in the grass for a nap. It had dried in the summer sun to crackling stalks that poked me in the arms and neck. “I’m a lot more important than anyone else here,” I told the blue sky above me.

No one replied, and after a few minutes I fell asleep.

CHAPTER FOUR

WE STOPPED AGAIN EARLY IN the evening. Earlier than the magus wanted. He grumbled but agreed to look for a campsite after watching me nearly slide over the back end of my horse at one steep spot in the trail. As soon as he chose a place to stop, I dismounted and collapsed in the prickly grass. I lay there while the magus directed the unpacking of the horses and listened as Ambiades carefully and condescendingly instructed Sophos in the construction of a cooking fire. I turned my head to watch.

“Haven’t you ever stayed out overnight hunting?” Ambiades asked, looking at kindling tightly stacked in a poor imitation of a campfire.

Sophos cast an embarrassed look at Pol. “Not alone,” he said.

“Well, Your Highness,” Ambiades teased, “if you stack all the wood one piece directly on top of another, it won’t burn. The fire suffocates. Imagine how you would feel if you had all that wood stacked on top of you. Watch.” He dismantled the pile and built a pointed hut of sticks with the skill of much practice. “Make a house and the fire lives in it; make a gravepile and the fire dies. Understand?”

“Yes,” said Sophos humbly, and stepped aside to allow Pol space to cook. I didn’t move until the food was ready and Ambiades came to nudge me with his boot. “Magus says get up and eat something, O scum of the gutter.”

“I heard him,” I said as I rolled over and pulled myself to my feet. “Tell me,” I said over my shoulder, “O source of all knowledge, have you figured out the difference between a fig tree and an olive?”

He reddened, and I went to eat my dinner satisfied.

After dinner, which was skimpy, the magus pointed to a bedroll and said it was mine. The sun was still high in the sky. It wouldn’t reach the horizon for several hours, but I rearranged the blanket and lay down. There was a heavy cloak to cover me while I slept. I ran my hand across the finely woven wool. It was dark blue on the outside, like the magus’s, and was lined with a creamy gold color like a barley field before harvesting. There was no embroidery, but it was carefully made. I would need it as the heat of the day faded. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the magus watching me finger the wool, like a tailor assessing its value—or like scum from the gutter touching something he knows he shouldn’t. I turned my back on him and let him think what he wanted.

The other four continued to sit around the fire. The magus had left plant classification behind and was quizzing his apprentices on history when I fell asleep.

The next morning before noon we reached a small farmhouse that was sitting in near ruin at the end of the trail. Its whitewash had faded, and its plaster had dropped off in chunks, revealing the lumpy stone walls underneath. A man came to the doorway as we arrived in its weed-grown yard.

“I expected you last night,” he said to the magus.

The magus glanced at me. “We moved more slowly than I expected,” he said. “Did you get the provisions?”

“Everything,” said the man. “There’s fodder in the shed for the horses, enough for two weeks, and if you don’t come back this way, then I’ll take them back down to the city.”

“Good enough,” said the magus. He opened one of the saddlebags and raised himself on his toes to look inside. He pulled out the leg iron I’d slept in at the inns and then sent Ambiades and Sophos off with the horses. Pol and I followed him into the house, through the empty main room to a back room that had windows on three walls and held several narrow beds.

“It’s too late to start up the mountain today,” the magus said to Pol as we went in. “We’ll stay here and start tomorrow morning. You,” he said to me, “should be able to rest to your heart’s content.” He had me sit on one of the beds and knelt to lock the cuff around my ankle. He tested with two fingers to make sure that it wasn’t too tight.

“I forgot to get any padding,” he said. “You’ll have to live without it until the boys bring in the saddlebags.” He looped the chain through the bed frame and pulled on the cuff to make sure that it wouldn’t slip off my heel. Then he and Pol went away. I shifted the cuff into a comfortable place and wondered if the dent formed in my ankle would be permanent.

The room was cool, none of its windows faced south, and by the time the magus returned to wrap my ankle in one of Pol’s shirts, I was asleep. I spent the day dozing. Sometimes I sat up to look out the window above my bed at the sunlight falling bright and hot outside. Once I saw Pol teaching Ambiades and Sophos to fence with wooden swords, but it could have been a dream; the next time I sat up they were gone.

After dinner I lay and listened to the voices in the other room. The sky grew dark, and the stars came out. I was asleep again before the moon rose and didn’t stir until Sophos told me that breakfast was waiting. There was an overfull bowl of cooked oats and another bowl of yogurt as well as bread and cheese and olives and several oranges, the small, lumpy kind that are hard to peel but juicy and sweet.

“Enjoy it,” said the magus, seeing that I was. “You won’t eat so well again for a while.”

I ate what I could and didn’t complain about anything. When the magus asked me if I could please not chew with my mouth open, as I had been doing assiduously since our first meal together, I obliged him with a visible effort. Pol worked on my wrists, pulling the stained bandages off, cleaning the blisters, and rubbing more salve into them. I didn’t try to wiggle away, and I produced only enough curses to let him know that I could have made more noise but was refraining. The sores were already much better, and I concurred when he decided to leave them exposed to the air for the day, although I could see that it didn’t matter if I concurred or not.