We Leave Together, стр. 68

Rachel heard his voice, up against the guard tower where she was bound separated from the rest of the prisoners.

She cocked her head. “Hello?” she said.

Jona cursed again. He scurried back down the ladder, into the darkness of the tower, and Calipari tied to a chair.

These raiders were going to kill most of the people on the chain. Jona wasn’t supposed to save all of them. No one would believe a miraculous rescue, only a desperate rescue.

Back in the room with Calipari, Jona paced furiously. Then he looked down at Calipari. Jona pushed Calipari awake. Calipari didn’t flinch. He snorted from behind his rags.

Jona thrust his fist into the wall next to Nicola’s face. The punch was weak. Jona sat down in a corner. “I know you don’t believe me,” said Jona, “but I hate this more than you do. I hate it so much. The woman I love could be killed. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t want to hurt anyone, Nic. I really don’t. Sabachthani will be queen. There’s nothing we can do to stop it. We just have to stay out of the way, or help it along. I’m helping it along, all right? Bloody Elishta, but Rachel’s out there, and they might hurt her. They might take her off somewhere and… Nic, I don’t know what to do!”

The sergeant said nothing. He couldn’t with the gag.

“Do you think she might foresee her death, and escape somehow? She’s Senta, right? She can do that, can’t she?”

He mumbled a grunt.

Jona yanked the gag out.

“Nicola, say something. I’m trying to keep everyone alive over here.”

“You brought this on yourself, and on me,” said Nicola, at last. “I got nothing to say to you, Jona. Corporal Lord Joni, I don’t think we have anything to talk about again.”

“Nic, I’m trying to save your life, here. I can bribe you. You swear to sing the song we give you, and you retire and take a parcel with all the coin Sabachthani can muster. You and I both know that the Pens was never where anyone cared about anyone. We had to make our own way. My father was killed for treason, his lands taken, and it wasn’t true. We have to fight to get along. I had to fight, Nic.”

“I got nothing else for you, Jona.”

“Lady Sabachthani is the one running all the demon weed. I opened a shipment and saw it with these eyes. Dogs with their tongues cut out, chewing on demon child bones and infected with some kind of vine growing out of their bodies. It’s her ship. She wouldn’t deny it.”

“So what if it is? Arrest her.”

“You arrest her.”

He snorted. “You dropped good boys like nothing, and you won’t drop a bad noblewoman?”

“If I hadn’t done it, you’d all be dead.”

“This is your grand scheme. You kill king’s men right here, and think I’ll help you do anything. How many of my good boys have I watched die, huh? I’ve lost so many boys didn’t deserve it in the Pens, and you drop two like nothing.”

“I need your help, Nic.”

“You will hang,” he said. “If I don’t kill you first, you’ll hang.”

Jona paced. “I can offer you money. Be a tavernkeeper, not a farmer. Be anything you want.”

Calipari closed his eyes.

“Be a nobleman, for all I care. I can make that happen.”

“You just tell Franka how I died, and who did it. You look her in the face and tell her you betrayed me and the king and everything we’ve lost so many good boys over. How many coffins burning in the bay? How many boys don’t come back for morning muster? How many good people hooked into the sewers with no one to claim the corpse? Ain’t you seen enough death? I haven’t. Not until I see your death. Dropping two good boys like they’re animals. I heard things about you, Lord Joni… Terrible things. I didn’t think you was so deep in the pinks. I didn’t think you was so deep.”

Jona sat down. He grabbed at his stomach, feeling it flip and turn.

“I’m not like you, Sergeant. I can’t sleep at night. I never could.”

The two men sat until nightfall, feeling sick. One more day, then another. Then, when the king’s soldiers came calling, Jona would have his great victory.

***

Nightfall, he walked carefully on the balls of his feet through the grass at the edge of the guard tower. He felt the mortar stones scraping away the mud like jagged fingernails.

Rachel was asleep, and the rope around her wrist attached to the wall of the guard tower. The rope along the guard tower extended all the way around, resting in the mud and grass where the building met the dirt.

Jona crept until he saw her. She was on her side in a small patch of grass. Her hands remained bound against the main rope. Her eyes were covered in a cloth torn from the bottom of her own dress. Jona cut her blindfold first, with one swift cut of his knife. Her eyes were half-open. They rolled back in her head like broken marbles. Her mouth hung limp in sleep.

He placed his hand over her mouth. Undoubtedly, the taste of mud filled her dreams. She woke up, gasping for air.

Her eyes focused on Jona’s muddy face in the dark.

“Hush…” he whispered.

She nodded. He cut her hands loose from the main rope. He took her hand and led her into the tower.

***

Calipari was drifting in and out of uncomfortable slumber, strapped into his very uncomfortable chair. He told me about it, but he couldn’t remember words.

He told me he saw Jona covered in shadows. He saw a woman, wrapped in filthy cloth. He heard voices, murmuring softly as if an invisible wall muffled the sound between them and him.

He couldn’t tell me what they said.

I must rely on Jona’s memory.

“Jona, I don’t know what’s happening. What are you doing here?”

“It’s complicated. I don’t have