The guards removed the manacles this time as well as the waist and ankle cuffs. There were no clanking noises to accompany us as we walked down the gallery past the row of cell doors to the guardroom. The only sound was the tramp of feet, the guards’, not mine, and the creaking of the leather jackets that they wore under their steel breastplates. We crossed through the guardroom to the door to the courtyard between the prison and the megaron. When the door opened, I learned in an instant that the light of the lamps the night before had been nothing to compare with the sun itself.

It was nearly noon, and the sunlight dropped directly into the courtyard. The pale yellow of the stones in the walls reflected it from all sides. I howled and swore as I covered my head with my arms and hunched over in pain. Burning at the stake couldn’t have been worse.

It’s a funny thing that the new gods have been worshiped in Sounis since the invaders came, but when people need a truly satisfying curse, they call on the old gods. I called on all of them, one right after another, and used every curse I’d overheard in the lower city. “Gods damn, gods damn,” I was howling as the guards led me, completely blind, down the stairs. I still had my hands over my eyes, and they held me firmly by the elbows. My feet hardly touched the stone steps.

At the bottom the magus was waiting. He told me to pull myself together.

“Gods damn you, too,” I said through my hands. One of the guards gave me a brisk shake, and I almost cursed him as well but decided to concentrate on the pain in my eyes. It didn’t fade much, but after a few minutes, when I tilted my hands a little away from my face and looked down, I could make out the flagstones through my tears. I sniffed a little and wiped the tears away. As soon as I could manage, I pulled my hands farther from my face and tried to see what was happening around me in the courtyard. I had plenty of time.

There was an incredible amount of noise as horses crashed back and forth across the flagstones and the magus shouted at people. Not far away someone was unpacking a brace of saddlebags and scattering the contents under the feet of a nervous horse. The horse kept sidling away from the mess and was dragged back by the groom holding its head. Evidently something was missing from the saddlebags. With more swearing the magus sent the unpacker back into the castle to fetch whatever it was.

“Look for it on the bench next to the retort,” shouted the magus at the disappearing figure. “That’s where it was when I told you to pack it the first time. Idiot,” he muttered under his breath.

By the time the idiot returned, I could see he was carrying a small square leather case, which he dropped into the saddlebag. He then shoveled the waiting piles back in on top of it. The noise in the courtyard diminished as the magus stopped shouting and the horses calmed down.

I was still looking at the world through tears and the narrowest of slits between my eyelids. I counted the hazy shapes in front of me. It didn’t seem like a large party, only five horses, but all of them had humped baggage behind their saddles. It was going to be a long trip. I grinned with satisfaction. Beside me the magus looked up at the sky and said to no one in particular, “I had planned to leave at daybreak. Pol,” he shouted, “get the boys mounted. I’ll load the thief.”

I didn’t appreciate the way he spoke of me as another parcel to be dumped into a saddlebag or, in my case, a saddle. He walked over to a horse, and I could see that he gestured to me to join him, but I didn’t move. I hate horses. I know people who think that they are noble, graceful animals, but regardless of what a horse looks like from a distance, never forget that it is as likely to step on your foot as look at you.

“What?” I dissembled.

“Get on the horse, you idiot.”

“Me?”

“Of course you, you fool.”

I didn’t move, and the magus got tired of waiting. He stepped to my side, grabbed me by the back of the neck, and hauled me over to the horse. I set my heels in and resisted. If I was going to climb onto an animal eight times my size, I wanted to plan the attempt first.

The magus was a good bit stronger than I was. Holding me by the cloth at the back of my neck, he shook once or twice and my head swam. I heard the cheap cloth tear. He grabbed for a firmer grip on my neck.

“Put your left foot in the stirrup,” he said. “Your left one.”

I did as I was told, and two of the grooms stepped over to lever me into the saddle before my brains had settled. Once up, I shook the hair back out of my eyes. As I tried to get it to hook behind my ears, I looked around. Being six feet off the ground does give one a sense of superiority. I shrugged my shoulders and crossed my arms, but the animal underneath me lurched sideways, and I had to uncross them in order to snatch at the front of the saddle. I held on while I waited for the others to mount.

Once the others were up, the magus directed his mount toward the archway at one side of the courtyard. My horse obediently followed, and the others came behind me as we passed under rooms of the palace and hallways that I had been in the night before. My eyes had a few moments of relief before we reached the outer gate. There was no fanfare, no shouting crowds to wish us luck on our journey—just as well. The only time I had been the focus of shouting crowds had been my trial, and I hadn’t enjoyed that at all.

We weren’t leaving through the main gate of the megaron, so we emptied out into a narrow street, only a little wider than the horses. My feet brushed against the whitewashed walls on either side. We twisted through more narrow streets until we reached the Sacred Way, which we followed down to the gate out of the old city. The gate was made out of blocks of stone bigger across than I am tall. Something else supposedly built by the old gods, it was topped by a solid stone lintel with two carved lions that were supposed to roar if an enemy of the king passed beneath them. At least they were said to be lions. The stone had been weathered by the centuries, and only indistinct monster figures remained, facing each other over a short pillar. They remained silent as we passed under.

The King’s Route was wide and straight, crossing the more circuitous Sacred Way twice again before reaching the docks. When first built, the route had been bordered by stone walls that defended this road that connected the city to its harbor and its ships. The Long Walls were later dismantled to provide building materials for each new wing of the king’s megaron as it grew from a one-room stronghold to a four-story palace.

As we rode onto the avenue, the sound of our horses’ hooves was muddled with the other noises of the city. It was just before midday, and we were in the middle of the last surge of activity before people withdrew into their homes to wait out the afternoon heat. There were a few other horses on the road, and many more donkeys. People traveled on foot and in sedan chairs carried by servants. Merchants brought their goods up the avenue in carts and then led loaded donkeys down the narrow alleys to the back doors of the great houses, hoping to sell their vegetables to the cook, their linen to the housekeeper, or their wine to the steward. There was jostling and shouting and noise, and I relished it after the perpetual smothered quiet of the prison.

We threaded our way through the traffic, drawing curious looks. My companions were dressed in sturdy traveling clothes. I was still in the clothes I had worn to prison. My tunic had started life a cheerful yellow that I’d thought was dashing when I’d gotten it from a merchant in the lower city. It had faded to a greasy beige color. In addition to the smaller tears in the elbows, it had a larger one across my shoulders, thanks to the ministrations of the king’s magus. I wondered what he thought I was going to wear if he persisted in shredding my clothes.