“Yes, Adelis has taken service with Duke Jurgo,” said Nikys.
“He’s better? But what—” She broke off as Nikys started yanking her hair into a bun.
“His eyesight is restored, though his face is scarred.”
“That hardly seems possible.”
“It was magical.”
“Yes, but—”
“I mean actually magical. Pen is a sorcerer as well as a physician.” She added as he opened his mouth to object, “In all but final oath.”
Idrene rolled her eyes toward Pen. “Wherever did you find him?”
“He found us. Long story, which I will tell you later.” She made her mother sit on the cot, and knelt to fit the raised clogs.
“Oh, mustn’t forget this,” said Pen, drawing the thong of his coin purse over his head. He advanced to fit it over Madame Gardiki’s, and she cast him up a look of surprise, fingering the leather bag and testing its heavy weight in her palm. “If you should get separated from Nikys, gods forbid, you shouldn’t be without resources.”
“But what will you have?”
“I’ve a coin belt around my waist.” The narrow cloth band held the rest of Duke Jurgo’s largess. “Nikys has another. We did come prepared.” And what a huge difference that had made, although it helped that they had not been sucked dry by need for bribes. Yet. “Might be wise to hide the thong under your scarf. I did.” He handed her the blue cloth, which she draped around her neck, tucking the purse in her bodice.
At last the dual transformation was completed. Nikys walked around her mother. “That’s not bad, really.” She frowned at Pen. “She can pass as you, at a distance. I’m not so sure you can pass as her.”
“That is not your problem. You have enough on your plate. Get yourselves to Orbas before Methani even knows you’re gone.”
“Oh, you think it was old Methani behind all this?” said Idrene, eyes narrowing behind the green spectacles. “Plausible.”
Pen herded them both toward the door. “Madame Gardiki, so good to have met you. I trust I will see you again soon.”
She made a vague protesting noise, then threw up her hands, muttering, “ ‘Over the wall, boys, follow me.’ Yet again.” Plainly a quote of some personal significance. He hoped he’d get its story later.
Nikys stopped in front of Pen, glowering up at him. She bit her lip. Drew breath. “I absolutely forbid you to get yourself killed, either, you know.”
Was that how a woman said I love you without saying I love you? Pen thought it must be so.
He grinned and touched his hand to his heart, echoing her echo. Then tapped her lips twice with his thumb, for whatever blessing he could muster. “Our god guard you on your way. And the rest of His kin.”
When he closed and locked the door behind them, the cell felt very silent and empty.
XII
As she guided her mother into the dim blue corridor, the goddess’s blessing still seemed to bubble in Nikys’s veins like some fizzy wine. The elated confidence in which it cloaked her should not become overconfidence, she reminded herself sternly, because that would be to take more than was offered. She still had to control an irrational urge to smile.
Idrene pulled the green spectacles down her nose and peered over them. “How does he see in these things?”
“They will be better outside, which is where they are intended to be used,” Nikys whispered back. “Although Pen can also see in the dark. One of his handier skills.”
Idrene glanced back to her door at the click of its lock latching, apparently by itself. “I must hear more about that strange young man.”
“You shall,” Nikys promised with certainty, “when we get to a place we can talk. For now, don’t speak to anyone if you can avoid it. Don’t rush and don’t linger. Pen said—or maybe it was Ruchia—we should move as though we had bespoken dinner in the village tavern, and didn’t want to be late.”
Idrene nodded. “Who’s Ruch—never mind. Later.”
Nikys led back the way they had come in, minus the wrong turns. In the court of the sacred well, a last few pilgrims had arrived and were occupying the attendant’s attention. The only signs of the woman with the four daughters were the puddles left around the trough, drying more slowly as the afternoon shadows moved across the tiles. They sped past the tapestry in reverse order. Idrene eyed it sideways, reaching out for a bare touch. “Hm. Maybe it’s as well it wasn’t Adelis to come to my rescue.”
In the forecourt, while Nikys signed them out in the ledger, the silky dogs sniffed Idrene indifferently. Nikys received many tickling licks on her sandaled feet. She wasn’t sure if it was for Pen’s lingering geas or some scent of the goddess, but the dogs whined in disappointment as she left.
Then across the drawbridge, under the benign eyes of the armed male dedicats guarding it. This wasn’t the end of their escape, Nikys reminded herself, just the first stage, though Idrene vented a long exhalation as they stepped onto the gravel.
Nikys made straight for the top depot of the donkey livery. As they were led down the winding road once more, Idrene adjusted her spectacles and stared around, concealing tension. The time it took to descend the hill seemed unnaturally longer than it had taken to ascend. Doubtless an illusion. The whole east side of the island lay in its own shadow by the time they found Bosha, sitting with their luggage in the lee of the same house as before.
He rose as they approached and gave them a polite bow, though his hand did not touch his heart. Apparently that enigmatic gesture was reserved for Tanar and Lady Xarre.
As Idrene stopped warily, blinking, as one tended to do at first sight of the albino’s singular features, Nikys hurried to introduce them. “Mother, this is Master Surakos Bosha, Lady Tanar’s secretary. He’s been helping us, by the kind courtesy of Lady Xarre.”
“Madame Gardiki. A pleasure.” The light voice was smoothly cultured, and Nikys wondered again at his origins.
“Oh.” Her mother relaxed, returning a nod. “Yes, I see! A few of Adelis’s letters from Thasalon mentioned you, Master Bosha.” She added aside to Nikys, “Not that he wrote that often. I’m sure his fingers weren’t broken, though in that case he could still have dictated something to a scribe.”
“I know he wrote you from Patos. I made him.”
“Ah, that accounts for it. Thank you, dear.”
Bosha glanced up the hill toward the just-visible blue roofs of the Order, reflecting the last gleams of sun. How soon would the gaolers be bringing the prisoner’s supper? “I suggest we get off Limnos first. All else can follow.”
“Yes,” agreed Idrene, fervently.
Bosha took charge of their luggage servant-fashion, and they followed him to the dock.
As the boat heeled in the soft evening breeze, they were again surrounded by strangers within earshot. Still no chance to talk. The late afternoon light was warmer in color, but not much of an improvement for Bosha, who pulled down his hat and sought what shade the deck provided. While the crew moved about them, exchanging cheerful calls, and the rigging creaked and the waves slapped, Nikys and Idrene held hands in silence.
Nikys wondered how far the blessing of the goddess extended. Her Order? The island? Or, as Penric had claimed, the width of the world?
With the sea light in her eyes that he so plainly loved, Nikys meditated on Penric. After that overwhelming moment of prayer in the well court, the validation and valediction he had so casually bestowed on her had stunned her almost as much. It was the most outrageous claim she had ever made in her life: to be, however briefly, god-touched.
He believed me.
If he had not… she still would have known. But he believed me. It seemed an intimacy strangely deeper than a kiss.