Godekker wouldn’t come near the Attolian. He said he’d sleep outside, so the Attolian and I had the place to ourselves. As the sky darkened, I ate the cooked vegetables, leaving their broth in the pot. The Attolian hadn’t opened his eyes all day. I lay down to sleep, reassuring myself that I’d wake if Godekker tried to drag the gate open to leave the yard.

In the morning I drank the broth and made more. The Attolian had tossed and groaned in the night. When I spoke to him, his eyes opened and he seemed to hear me. When he tried to talk, he made no sense. I spooned a little broth into him, but the liquid just dribbled out of his mouth again, and I was beginning to be afraid he was dying.

I was just wiping up the mess I’d made when the light in the shed dimmed. Godekker was in the doorway. He leaned over the Attolian, his eyes narrowing—he’d seen the ring in the Attolian’s ear, and I couldn’t pass it off as something we’d stolen in a tavern.

“He’s not a slave,” Godekker said. “You’re a slave. He is not.”

“He is helping me escape.”

Godekker’s face suffused with rage. “Patsy,” he snarled. “Dog. Whimpering, bootlicking dog. Why do you need Godekker for a friend? Why be here in Godekker’s shed? Go find an inn for your master.”

“I told you.”

“He isn’t helping you escape. He’s stealing you. When he gets you far enough away from your old master, you’ll find out what that means. You’re nothing, you’re a horse ridden by whoever holds the reins.”

“No.” I denied it with a weak shake of my head.

Godekker pointed to a pile of debris near the doorway. “Take a rock from the pile and beat his head in. Then you’ll be free.”

He stormed off. Holding the pot in one hand, the spoon in the other, I listened for the sound of the gate, and relaxed when his anger didn’t seem to have carried him farther than the yard. I couldn’t help but wonder if Godekker was right. I was glad I’d gone back to the mill, but why stay with the Attolian when he was ill—when it might be my best chance to leave? I could go down to the docks, find any Attolian ship, and tell his countrymen where the Attolian lay. They’d come for him. Godekker wouldn’t slit the Attolian’s throat if he knew there would be a reward—and there surely would be a reward from the Attolians. Meanwhile, I would be well aboard any ship that could carry me across the Shallow Sea to the north, farther from any retribution from the empire. I could go all the way to Oncevar, which I’d heard was civilizing itself. My skill as a scribe would keep me fed, and no one would pursue me there.

On the other hand, I would never know if the Attolian lived or died, and after all that worry getting him out of the well, I would spend the rest of my life asking myself a question I couldn’t answer. I decided to wait just long enough to see if he lived. If he did, I would get him to an Attolian ship and then slip away. If he died, I would leave immediately for the north. It was a reasonable decision—I wasn’t just rationalizing—unless I was. Maybe I was a patsy, as Godekker claimed. I had been a slave for most of my life. Was I incapable of acting as a free man?

I put the spoon and pot down and reluctantly went to talk to Godekker.

“Does he only have eyes for you?” Godekker called to me when I came out through the doorway of the shed. He sneered. “Does he tell you how much he loves you? Does he tell you how pretty you are? Just wait. His father will send a tidy sum to your master as compensation, and when he tires of you, they will sell you on to some new master. If you are that lucky.”

I had misjudged Godekker. I’d thought money was all he cared for, but I could see that he had taken pride in the idea of helping fellow slaves. Now he felt betrayed, and for good reason.

“I’m sorry, Godekker,” I said. “We have been bad guests.”

“I should have passed you by, should have left you for the enforcers to pick up, but I thought I could help. I could hide you, and why not? Why not do a good turn? Because we don’t, that’s why. We don’t do favors, do we?”

It was true. We don’t do favors. I have in my time—for Laela and a very few others, but only because I was, or had been, powerful enough not to need those favors back, and the obligation to repay me was tempered by that. Even so, when I arranged for my master to make Laela mistress over the other girls in his household instead of selling her, I had kept it a secret at first, concerned that she would be angry at me. When you have no freedom, the last thing you want is some other slave who holds a debt over you. We don’t do favors. Now I was indebted to Godekker, and I knew that was part of the reason I didn’t like him.

“You are right, he is stealing me, but not because he loves me.” I thought I might as well be as honest as possible. “He is taking me to his employer, and he will free me.”

He snorted in disbelief. “You are an idiot if you believe that.”

I admitted that was probably true. “I am not a fool, and if my old master catches me, I am a dead man. If I end up a slave because of this, well, I was a slave before. We don’t get to choose much, do we, Godekker?”

With obvious reluctance he nodded in agreement, but then he said, “A well-placed knife thrust would buy you your freedom faster.” He stood up and looked me in the eye—as much as someone even shorter than I am could. “Kill him,” he said, his chin jutting out. “Bash his head in with a rock and be free. I will be your friend then.”

I shrugged weakly. “He’s valuable if he lives,” I said. “He’ll reward you, Godekker, and he’ll get me out of here.”

Godekker turned his back, and I retreated to the shed.

The Attolian woke in the afternoon. I heard him say my name and rose to check his fever. It had broken, and he was covered in sweat—I was able to give him some water from a cup.

“Where?” he asked after a sip, his voice hoarse.

“In the city,” I said. “Zaboar. In a safe place. How are you?”

“My throat hurts,” said the Attolian. “Not as much now, though.”

I asked if he could drink the broth, and when he said yes, I lifted him and held the pot to his lips.

The pot was too wide to easily drink from, and he ended up with a fair amount spilled on himself. As he drank I explained in a low voice about the rumors of plague and the closing of the trade house, about Godekker and our hideaway. “When you are up to it, we can go down to the docks. There may be a ship to carry us to another trade house.”

The Attolian settled back into the mattress and lay looking at the ceiling not far over his head. I sat on the floor beside him with my arms around my knees.

“Kamet, what is troubling you?” he asked, though it was obviously painful for him to speak.

“Nothing. Nothing at all. We are safe here.”

With effort he lifted his head to throw me a disbelieving look.

“Everything is fine,” I said.

I hadn’t realized Godekker was listening from just outside until he thrust his face into view. “I told him to hit you on the head and be free of you. And if he doesn’t, I’ll turn you both in to the guard.” Then he was gone again.

Horrified, I tried to reassure the Attolian. “Don’t worry,” I said.