We Leave Together, стр. 62
“No, thanks.”
“Well, I heard when this is over, I’m going to get married to a rich woman.”
“Do you love her?”
“You care about that?”
“I was married once, I think.”
“Did you like being married?”
“I don’t know. I’d do it again if I could find the right girl, which I guess means I liked it. I don’t know if I have kids or not. I don’t think I do. I don’t remember any. You going to have kids?”
“Maybe,” said Jona, “Maybe, someday. I’d better head back.”
“Bye.”
“Hey, whatever you do, don’t kill Nicola. The guy I’m riding with? Don’t kill him, okay?”
“Oh, I’m no blood monkey,” said Salvatore, “I don’t kill people.”
“Right,” said Jona, “Right, I forgot. Well tell the others not to kill him for me, okay? He’s mine. I want him.”
Jona didn’t want Nicola to die when the time came. Jona didn’t want anyone to get hurt, but he knew blood was going to spill soon.
The last tower on the northern edge was the end of the way things were, for him. After that, he’d be a decorated officer, field commissioned, and marrying the future queen.
(Of course, he died in these woods.
He saw Rachel again before he died.)
***
We found the lair at last in the labyrinth of sewers underground. It was the same hammock, attached to a wall, replaced when it wore through from the acid sweating from his skin in this hot, damp tunnel. He had stale food hanging from bags in the ceiling, rigged to keep the rats out. He had lived like this before. He had tools for the job of living in sewers.
We disturbed nothing. We slipped into the darkness and into a dark corner that was free of his scent. He would return home. We would hear him.
We held very still.
Below the street, the muffled echoes of the city came down to us through the stones and the mud. It dripped like the water through the grates, and empty chamber pots and trash, that were the muted remains of a life, poured into the earth. Do you see the end of Salvatore’s life in all this noise? Do you hear it? I’m writing in the dark, and waiting. It’s hard to write, but I can see enough in the streetlight. I have the ink under my wolfskin cloak and the paper. I write, and I wait.
I can only imagine what he is feeling, now, so separated from the patterns of his life, with no one to guide him. He’s adrift, and hiding.
I can only dream of his life as Jona knew it.
I can write it down.
Wait, I hear him coming here to hide. I know it is him because Jona recognizes the sound of his footsteps inside of me.
It’s him.
CHAPTER 19
Calipari and Jona returned to the road. Calipari drove the cart during the day. Jona drove it into the night.
When the whip would no longer move the cart an inch, it was time for them to stop. The driver unhooked the donkey, and let the animal wander off into the woods. If it was after dark, Jona followed with the lamp held over his head. When Killer realized he was lost, Jona dragged the animal back to the cart where Calipari was sleeping like nothing had happened at all. Then Jona fed the animal hay and oats from the back of the cart, which usually woke up Calipari. Calipari was sleeping on the back.
The first night on the road, Jona was driving the cart and Calipari was sleeping on some hay piled in back like a bed.
Salvatore stood in the road in front of the mule. The lamp illuminated his boots first. They were shiny as patent leather. The mud hadn’t seemed to touch them at all. Jona saw his hands held up in the dark. Jona nodded at him. Salvatore had an envelope in his hands, too, with the official seal of the king. A forgery, of course, but a good one.
Salvatore walked around the mule. He handed the note to Jona. Jona pointed at Calipari. Salvatore nodded. Jona turned to his partner. “Hey, Nic, wake up. Hey, Sergeant?”
Sergeant Calipari bolted up fast, his hand on his sword. “What?” he said, “Why’d we stop? It isn’t my turn, is it?”
Salvatore bowed. “Rush message from the captain himself, for Sergeant Nicola Calipari and Corporal Jona Lord Joni. That you two?”
Calipari frowned. “What?” he snorted. He pointed at Salvatore in a muddy uniform. “Who in Elishta are you?”
“Private Salvatore Fidelio, Sergeant,” said Salvatore.
“Fidelio? Never heard of you.”
“Never heard of you either,” said Salvatore, “Are you the sergeant on patrol, inspecting watch towers?”
“I am,” said Calipari. Calipari adjusted his clothes until his twisted-up cloak and the clumps of mud and hay fell away to reveal his sergeant’s rank.
“Message from the captain, sir.”
Calipari snatched the letter. He looked over at Salvatore. “How’d you get it out here?”
“I walked straight from the city.”
“We had a cart and a mule.”
“I had no reason to stop and inspect a watch tower if you weren’t in it. I moved fast. Took long enough to catch you anyhow, all this way.”
“So, that’s it then. Off you go.”
“I’m supposed to come with you.”
“What? Why? Does the captain want me to send him a response? Captains don’t ask sergeants for a response. I can’t believe he wrote me a note at all!”
“I’m just doing what I’m told.”
Jona laughed. “Good morning, Sergeant,” he said, “Waking up in a cart is worse than a two-day piss gin banger.”
“I don’t need this, Corporal,” said Nicola. “I don’t need messages from the captain. I don’t. Bloody Elishta, but I don’t…”
Calipari tore open the envelope. He read the message. His brow furrowed. “Straight from the man to me, and sealed. Toss me to the Nameless. Roll me into the bay.”
The more he read, the more his brow furrowed.
“We got a bad bird, Jona, singing for the wrong city.”
“A bad bird? Who?”
“I don’t know. It’s one