“Here, Kamet, take a seat,” said the Attolian, gesturing to the stools facing each other across the narrow table. I was glad to perch on one, bitterly amused that it had taken him so long to realize that I wouldn’t sit until he told me I could. What I failed to understand was that in his mind I was a free man, had been since the moment he met me, and as my host he wouldn’t sit until I did.

We remained there, without another word, until Xem, the ship’s boy, came back and knocked at the doorframe. He stayed only long enough to set his tray of nuts and cheese on the table between us. The Attolian scrupulously divided it in half and, when Xem left, motioned to me to eat at the same time that he did, aping the manners of a free man to a free man. He still didn’t speak, though, having no more to say to me than I to him. We continued on in silence.

I looked around the tiny cabin, unable to believe that I had come to this when I had woken that morning on my cot in my office so certain of my place in the world. I could hear the faint slap of water against the boat. The commonplace sounds of the dock. I was listening for the sound of running feet, my death coming by way of a fleet-footed messenger or the tramping feet of the palace guard or the Ianna-Ir’s enforcers of the peace. I knew from long experience how tiring fear is, and was not surprised to be suddenly exhausted. Let the Attolian kill me if he would, I didn’t care. I just wanted to lie down.

The Attolian nodded then, as if I’d said something and he was merely agreeing. He stood and divested himself of his shirt and sandals. He unrolled the bedding set out for us and gave me one of the blankets, then rolled himself up in the other and lay down on the single bunk. I was glad we hadn’t had to go through any pantomime of his offering the bunk to a lowly slave and my declining. I pulled the blanket over my shoulders and, without taking off my sandals, lay down on the floor. I’d thought the Attolian was a talker, but I’d been mistaken.

The floor was hard, the blanket unpleasant in both smell and texture. There was a lump under my hip, the key to my master’s cashbox, which I would never use again. I lay there awake as the boat was warped away from the quay and we began to make our way upriver. I hadn’t gotten around to sorting out Rakra and the steward who had hired him. Gessiret would never get the money for the two robes he was making for my master. No one would need the rugs and furnishings I’d ordered from the palace’s tradesmen. I missed my far more comfortable bed, but I knew what circumstances my master’s other slaves faced that night. I thought of them as we slowly left the city of Ianna-Ir behind. If there was any unease on my conscience about the Attolian’s potential punishment for being deceived by a slave, I wasn’t much worried about it. All the slaves of my master would soon be dead, and they might not die easily. Whatever happened to the Attolian would be mild in comparison.

Shifting on the unyielding floorboards, I thought of Laela and prayed for her. I would light candles on the altar of Shesmegah and I would leave honey cakes, I swore, for her to feast on in the afterlife. Keeping my tears silent, I wept.

I woke to find I had not been murdered in my sleep. Perhaps the Attolian did indeed mean to take me to his king to be paraded around the court as a trophy. I lay looking at the wooden plank ceiling above my head for a moment and then sat up. The Attolian immediately did so as well, and I assumed that some noise outside the cabin had woken us both.

“I’ll get you something to eat,” I said, and scrambled to my feet.

“You don’t have to do that,” he protested.

“Indeed, master,” I said, but he held up a hand—no need for the “master.” “They know me as a slave,” I explained. A dead giveaway if I stopped saying “master” now.

He grimaced, but conceded.

“And you as a Mede,” I added.

That problem he dismissed at first. “There is no one they can tell when they see otherwise.”

Treading carefully, I pointed out that the boat would make many stops. “We are not yet very far from the city,” I said, “and the crew may mention an Attolian on board to those on the shore.” At any stop, the crew might hear a rumor about a slave who had murdered his master, which was why, even if the Attolian did intend to take me back to his king, I needed to abandon the Anet’s Dream as soon as I could. Once the crew realized that the Attolian was pretending to be something he was not, they would become suspicious of me as well. When they heard the rumor, they would put two and two together quickly. And of course, if the rumor came to the Attolian’s ears, I’d be dead.

Twice I had corrected him. Nothing so hateful as presumption in a slave, as my master’s cousin had only recently reminded me. I waited, on edge, to see how he would react, but the Attolian was amiable. He agreed to stay in the cabin for the time being, and I went out to get him some food.

Dawn was breaking. The ship was still moving north, pushed up the river by the light breeze catching in its oversized sails. If the breeze dropped entirely, the crew would row, probably tying up in the middle of the day and then moving on in the evening. The indeterminate banks were empty of everything but rushes. In the distance there were mud houses, built up on whatever ground would be above water during the yearly flood. The wealthy had homes in the hills on the far side of the plains or farther up the river where the banks were higher and more defined. Here, where the banks were low, the boat would anchor midstream and I would be trapped on board.

I went to the midship, where I had seen a rudimentary galley area, to arrange for food and to make the acquaintance of the others on board. Xem, it turned out, was the captain’s youngest son. In charge of the galley, he told me that a merchant was traveling alone in one cabin and the other two were empty. I made it a point to avoid any interaction with the merchant. Slaves too easily become beholden to any free man in need of a servant. I would be fetching and carrying for the Attolian, and I didn’t want to give some nobody merchant any ideas. The only others on board were the captain and his crew, most of them his sons or other relatives.

I carried the tray back to the Attolian, and again he divided the food scrupulously in half, and again we ate together. Rather than giving me a more elevated sense of myself, I’m afraid his behavior lowered my opinion of the Attolian. I had lost everything, I suppose, but my pride. I should have had more respect for his quick thinking when he had come upon me at the docks, but I credited myself instead with our safe arrival on board the Anet’s Dream, focusing on our meeting with the captain. Like a sailor clinging to the wheel of a sinking ship, I wanted to believe I steered the course of my life.

When the food was gone, I carried the tray back to the galley and then wandered the ship. It had a hold, but a fair amount of cargo seemed to be ceramic cooking stoves stacked on the deck and tied down with mismatched lines. I moved between the cargo and the cabins, identifying places I might like to sit out of the sun and out of sight of the other paying passenger in the front cabin. At the stern, I found a rowboat trailing behind on a long line. I could climb down into it if necessary, and I thought I could navigate it to shore if I had to, though I hoped I wouldn’t. I looked over at the rush-lined bank of the river—too shallow for the Anet’s Dream to come near. Farther upriver, that would change. The ship would tie up at the shore and it would be easier for me to slip away.