Just as I was at my wit’s end, a man entered the courtyard, none other than the wine merchant I had followed around Ianna-Ir. His trade must have brought him upriver.

“Master,” I said in a whisper.

“You don’t—”

Gods, I asked, how stupid was he?

“Master,” I repeated more firmly, and he remembered where we were and the story I had given the innkeeper.

I leaned close to him and whispered, “There is a man here who will know me if he sees me. He has done business with Nahuseresh.”

He began to turn his head to look, and I hastily cleared my throat to stop him.

“You are certain?”

“I am certain,” I said. “We should go up to the room.”

He nodded and hastily finished the last bites of his stewed lamb. When the wine merchant’s back was turned, I signaled the Attolian. Then he stood and walked to the stairs while I kept his bulk between me and the wine merchant, should he look our way.

Once safely in our room, I waited, hiding my impatience, for the Attolian to lie down. It seemed like hours that he sat on the small stool by the bed, lost in his thoughts—or whatever he had in his head that approximated thoughts. Finally, he did lie down, but each time I checked, his eyes were still open. The third time I checked, he looked back at me, curious, and I hastily closed my own eyes.

I woke with a start to find the room full of sunlight. It was not only morning, it was late morning, and the Attolian was gone. I leapt up and looked all around me while berating myself. I’d thought the Attolian was thickheaded the night before, but I was so much more stupid. I couldn’t imagine what had come over me, not just to oversleep, but to oversleep when the Attolian was up and moving around. I had already grown spoiled and blamed the Attolian for it. I could very clearly imagine what my master would have done if such a thing had happened while I was with him.

Wherever the Attolian had gone, he’d taken my purse, and gods alone knew what he might be doing to give us away to the local population. I combed my fingers through my hair and straightened my shift, then hastily headed downstairs to speak to the innkeeper. My stomach sank when I saw his expression; we were no longer honored guests, that much was clear.

“The guard,” he said, emphasizing the word, “has gone to the caravan site on the west side of the river to see about a job that will carry both of you back to your master in Zabrisa,” he said in a stony voice. “Now that the goods whose transport you were overseeing have been lost.” He sounded quite vengeful. He was probably pleased to think of me facing a disappointed master with my invented failure to explain.

I bowed and thanked him. I would need to leave immediately, even without my money. We had been memorable, the Attolian and I, and the Attolian had offended the innkeeper by making him feel a fool for believing my story about a rich merchant. The innkeeper would jump at the chance to describe us to any slave catchers who looked for me here, and for all I knew, they would look for me here when they had no success finding me downriver. I sent up a quick prayer that the emperor would be satisfied to have me just disappear and turned to go back up to the room. I hadn’t thought to look to see if the Attolian had left his armor. If he had, I intended to sell it.

“Ahem,” said the innkeeper, and I turned back. The innkeeper pointedly presented me with my clothing, washed and dried after my immersion in the river. He wanted back the shift he’d generously offered me the day before. I smiled obsequiously, taking the bundle, and hurried upstairs to change. The armor was gone.

Once dressed in my own clothes, I went right back down to find the innkeeper standing with his arms crossed and a sour look on his face, speaking to the Attolian. The Attolian, dressed in his armor, had a pack at his feet and a self-satisfied expression on his face.

“Our innkeeper is our long-lost brother no more,” he whispered to me in Attolian.

“It has come to him that you are not the son of a wealthy merchant,” I answered in the same language.

“Well, so long as he doesn’t tell anyone that I have signed on as a guard for a caravan headed toward Zabrisa, I don’t care if he is my dear brother or not.”

I didn’t wince. The innkeeper—who didn’t need to speak Attolian to understand what he’d just heard—already knew we were headed to Zabrisa, after all. I nodded serenely instead. At least the Attolian was going to Zabrisa, not I.

“I’ve paid our bills,” said the Attolian. He bowed to the innkeeper, who bowed stiffly back. The worked-gold ring of Miras was gone from the Attolian’s finger. If he had used it to pay our fee, he had been cheated, and no clearer trail could have been left of our presence here. The Medes do not worship Miras, and anyone who saw the ring would know it came from an Attolian. Outside, we headed toward the river, but after only a short distance, the Attolian pulled me aside into a narrower street and led the way between houses until we were alone.

“Take off your shift,” he said as he lifted the pack I’d been carrying from my back. He opened the pack to pull out a smaller bundle and handed it to me. Inside were a free man’s clothes. “Quickly,” he said.

I kicked off my sandals and pulled on the loose trousers, the fabric against my legs making me shiver. Then I removed my shift and pulled on the sleeved shirt he’d given me—anyone observing this moment would know my secret—and then the moment passed. I was dressed. My hair was a little short, but no matter. So long as I had the clothes and the bearing of a free man, no one would give me a second look. I still had no money, though, and I laced the shirt tightly closed over the slave chain before the Attolian could suggest again that we get rid of it. He, meanwhile, had folded my shift around a rock and tucked it somewhat awkwardly under his breastplate. When he saw I was ready, he gestured to me to walk at his side, and we proceeded to the bridge over the Ianna.

The bridge was provided by the emperor to carry his road across the river, north toward Menle and then west to Zabrisa. It was built of white stone in arches that grew higher toward the center, but they were not high enough to let through the masts of the larger riverboats. The center part of the bridge was wooden and could be raised to allow those boats to pass through. The drawbridge was down when we arrived, but the Attolian dawdled, looking at the blankets spread with cheap merchandise in the shadow of the bridge railing. Trinket sellers with no money for a stall in a marketplace displayed their wares there. The Attolian looked at various armbands as we moved across the bridge, and by the time we’d gotten to the center, the wooden deck had been raised to let a boat through. As we stood waiting, the Attolian smoothly pulled the shift out from under his armor and dropped it into the river without anyone around us the wiser—the thumping of the gearing of the drawbridge and the noise of the riverboat working its way through the narrow opening covered the much smaller splash of the rock covered in cloth hitting the water.

Once on the far side of the river, we went about halfway to the caravan site and then again turned off the imperial road into the side alleys. I followed, curious but not alarmed, until it seemed that the Attolian had lost his way and was turning back on his path. The Attolian showed no hesitation, only checking the sun before he chose another wrong turn, but I grew more and more anxious. We were heading back east toward the river, and I was afraid that by the time we reached the caravan site, the Attolian would have lost his position as guard. I was counting on that distraction, as well as the crowds at the caravan site, to give me a chance to slip away from him.