And so, a few hours later, I found myself laying flat on a tiled roof, with Vaenahma beside me. I am too old to go climbing on roofs. We had stayed for the beginning of the banquet, and I must admit that one part of me had wavered. There was food, there was drink. There was Martiveht, restored after her visit to the shrine, the strange, mosaic aspect of her face rearranged into a look of quiet calm. There was Iyedraeka beside her, given clean robes, eggshell blue with a sparkling pattern of silver thread. She smiled and nodded, although I could see from her every gesture that she was in distress, worrying about Chahsaeda, fretting over Martiveht, trying to make sense of all that had happened over the last two days. My heart went out to her. We had something in common. We had both been betrayed.

  But Vaenahma and I didn’t linger long. Just time enough to swallow some food and drink off a cup of ale, and then we were gone, unnoticed and not missed. Vaenahma knew the city well, and I commented on this as we made our way through the narrow streets. They were surprisingly empty and peaceful. All the hard-eyed youths were in the castle, feasting, being charmed, being turned, quickly, into an army. All the women and old men had been seconded as cooks and dish washers for the night. The castle loomed over the little city, drawing everyone like a magnet. Everyone but Pertrahn, I hoped.

  The Jahnadee compound was a large, traditional structure, with a central courtyard and cistern. Bigger than a normal house, but designed along the same lines. The entrance tunnel was very wide, to allow for the passage of wagons. Bearing fruit from the orchards, perhaps, or pelts and snake skins from the Singing Woods. Or the secret cargo of poisons and illicit plants, the disguised and traitorous custom that Martiveht had told us about. Vaenahma slouched in an alleyway, inspecting the entrance and the seven guards who stood about, bored and playing dice against a wall. Vaenahma was plotting a route into the compound. I was counting my grievances.

  As we had made our way through the darkened streets I had chewed over a single obsessive thought. Pertrahn was right about me. He had always been right. I shouldn’t have been promoted over him, all those years before. What qualities did I have that made me a better captain that he would have been? He could walk into a room and tell you who had just left it, gaining this knowledge by sniffing the air and noting a crushed seat cushion. He could glance at a man and tell you where he was from. Pertrahn was savvy and observant. Cruel enough to be feared, arrogant enough to be unimpressed by flattery. A better man than I was in every way. At least better for the position of guard captain. So why had I been promoted?

  I was a lump, a plodder, someone who just wanted to get through the day and return to the comforts of home life. The kind of man who wouldn’t notice a secret trade network, because he had decided on the shape of the world and it was useful to disregard anything that fell outside of that shape. No wonder Slaedrin never treated me as an equal. No wonder my own troops had betrayed me. Perhaps my night lieutenants, Boebdan and Fritkaemar, were involved in the secret trade. Did they laugh behind my back? Did they exchange amused looks when they received their orders?

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  My internal confusion must have shown on my face. Vaenahma turned and regarded me in the shadows of the alley. “Captain?” they asked.

  I couldn’t put it all into words. My sense of foolishness. My exhaustion. My fear that Vaenahma was secretly mocking me, just like everyone else. I wished that my sons were there. And my daughter-in-law, and grandchildren. Is it so wrong for an old man to wish to be loved and admired? To want to hide away with the few people who truly do love and admire him, and never go out into the sneering streets? I could say none of this aloud, so I said, “Let’s get on with it.”

  We skirted away from the entrance of the compound and into a side street, where we picked the locks on the door of a house that sat across from the Jahnadee walls. The house was empty but smelled of curry, a stale scent left over from the midday meal. Up a narrow set of stairs to the roof, where there was a white awning set over a small domestic scene. An old woman was seated on a carpet, and a couple of small children were lounging around her. She had been telling a tale, and stared at us, her toothless mouth half open. Vaenahma squatted at the edge of the carpet and laid a couple of coins down on its soft pattern. The woman looked at them, then nodded. We went to the edge of the roof.

  The leap across the narrow street wasn’t very challenging, even for me. Vaenahma went first and clung with one hand to the peak of the Jahnadee roof, turning and extending their other hand. I landed and caught my balance on the roof’s slope, and ignored the hand. We crept together over the peak, keeping our bodies flat to the tiles and going slowly. The Jahnadee had not done much to maintain their roof. Loose tiles shifted beneath us, and I was afraid that they would all go tumbling off, taking us with them.

  We crept to the edge and looked down. Pertrahn was in the courtyard, seated on the edge of a cistern two stories below. He was lit by a lamp on a stand, whose light also glimmered on the cistern water. He had captured a kitchen maid and was fondling her on his knee. I couldn’t understand why she hadn’t been sent to the castle with all the others. Then I saw the glint of metallic embroidery on her sleeve, and realized that she wasn’t a maid, but a daughter of the Jahnadee. How proud it must have made him, to disport with his social betters. It said a great deal about the hold he had over them.

  My outrage and annoyance caused my body to tense, and I moved a hand inadvertently. I dislodged a roof tile. It went tumbling down into the courtyard and shattered a few paces from Pertrahn’s feet. The girl jumped off of his lap, and he looked up, straight into my eyes.

  Copyright KPB Stevens, 2025.

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