tear the houses down and risk turning an already divided populace against him. So Gavin had decided to build his own wall.
Unbelievable. How must it have been during the Prisms’ War, when people had to choose which brother to fight beside? It would have been like fighting beside giants, knowing that their slightest move might crush you, but knowing that standing in the no-man’s-land between them would be even worse.
Kip found his way back to his rooms and packed what he guessed he’d need. Cloak and food, and more food, and short sword, and a stick of tin danars in a money belt. It was more than he thought he’d need—he hoped they’d forgive him for that, but he might need money for bribes. Then he decided he’d need to leave a note so they didn’t waste precious time searching for him.
There was a quill and parchment on the desk in his room, so he scratched out the letters laboriously. “I’m Tyrean and young. More help as a spy than here. No one will suspect me. Will try to find Karris.” He signed the note, folded it after the ink dried, and stuck it under the covers in Liv’s bed.
Then he scratched out another one. “Went to buy some food and watch minstrel shows. Shaken after drafting. Will be back by midnight.”
That one he left on the desk. They would find it first and give him a head start. They wouldn’t find out he was truly gone until after nightfall. At that point, they’d know he would be too far gone for them to catch him.
With what he felt must have been suspiciously overloaded saddlebags, Kip made his way past the gate guards and to the stable.
“I need a horse,” Kip told the stableman imperiously.
The man returned his gaze, not moving from his position leaning against one wall. “Right place,” he said.
Kip had a sinking feeling. The man wasn’t buying that he was anyone who could give orders. If Kip couldn’t get a horse, he couldn’t do anything. It would be the shortest attempt at running away in history. He hadn’t even gotten out of the house. “Uh, I need something not too ostentatious, and not too… spirited.”
“Not much of a rider, huh?” The man’s tone said, Must not be much of a man.
Confess your ineptitude and fall on his mercy, Kip. “What’s your name, shit shoveler?” he demanded instead. Oops.
The groom blinked and stood up straight unconsciously. “Gallos… sir,” he added uncertainly.
“I don’t ride these stinking meat barrels much, but I need one that’s reliable, that can handle my fat ass, and that won’t panic when I use magic, you understand? And I don’t have time for your superciliosity.” Was that even a word? Kip bulled forward. The groom probably didn’t know either. “There’s a war on. Get me my damned horse and save the shit-packing for your stable boys.”
The groom moved with alacrity, saddling an old draft horse. “Best I got for what you’ve asked, sir,” the man said.
A draft horse? I’m not that fat.
“Sorry, sir, only one I got.”
“It’ll do,” Kip said. “Thank you.” No need to press his luck. The stirrup did look impossibly high, however. Instead of humiliating himself by trying to mount and most likely failing, he took the reins and led the beast out into the city, taking care to tip the groom.
Orholam, I really was an asshole. Kip didn’t know what made it more disconcerting: that being an asshole had promptly gotten him his way, or that he had enjoyed exerting mastery over another man. Back home, he would have been whipped, and he would have deserved it.
In the streets, he kept his eyes peeled until he found a man roughly his own size, wearing a coat despite the heat. It looked old, worn, and cost maybe as much as one of Kip’s coat’s pockets. Kip traded with the man. Then he bought wine and water in one of the streets leading to the water market and was convincing a shopkeeper that he really did want to trade his fine cloak for a plain woolen one when he heard loud voices. He turned.
Some old man was standing in the back of a wagon, exhorting the crowd heading into the water market, most of whom were ignoring him. “—to have our own nation again. With our own king! You all want to writhe under the bootheel of the Parians again? Do you remember what they did last time? Have you no memory?!”