of frowns creeping across his brow. “Are you sure it’s all right?”
Aiko knelt once more, formal as a courtier in her acrobat’s clothing and the bright ribbon tying back her hair.
“We are your people, my lord,” she murmured. “Even if the current climate would have you believe otherwise.”
Overcome, I found that I could not have put it better myself.
“We must go while the play still holds their attention,” I said, to remind myself as much as to remind Mamoru.
It was with no small amount of regret—as well as with two blankets, wrapped around a pillow for Mamoru taken at my insistence—that we left. As my lord and I crept around the far side of the inn, leading the Volstov diplomat’s horse, we could hear the raucous tones of the audience that had gathered to watch Goro’s play.
Mamoru hesitated a moment, so that I nearly walked into him before I noticed and stopped myself.
“I do wish we could at least stay through the first act,” he said, turning his face up to smile at me in a way that I knew meant he was joking with me, but that he was also serious.
He might have been surprised to learn that he was not the only one who felt that way. That Aiko had surprised me as much as anyone, and that if I’d been about to trust anyone but myself with Mamoru’s well-being, I might have up and asked her to come with us.
I put a hand on his shoulder, not quite able to shake the idea that perhaps it was not too late to learn a life of juggling and acrobatics. My lord had the sort of face that would draw crowds of hundreds, even thousands, and he liked the theatre well enough. He was a very excellent wife.
The horse snorted, as though he could hear my thoughts and knew as well as I did how ridiculous they were.
The sad facts of the matter were that I could never entrust our safety to such chance circumstances. In such a large group, the truth was bound to come out sometime, and even if we were fortunate enough to not be turned in, it would mean treason for every man and woman in the troupe should someone else discover us and notify the proper officials. We were damned either way, and while I knew that I might be able to bear the guilt of putting a friend in danger, my lord was not as thick-skinned as I. I would protect him. That was my pleasure, duty, and burden.
Exile was a lonely existence, and one I dearly wished to shield Mamoru from as long as I could. I’d spent a great deal of my life doing such things at the palace, after all. Perhaps I might manage it in other places just as easily.
“I’ll tell you all about the play,” I promised, shifting my newly weighted pack against my shoulder. “Though my memory is poor, and I may require some help in putting together the complete tale.”
“Of course,” Mamoru said, drawing close to my side as we’d grown accustomed to walking. The evening had a certain chill to it that made me doubly glad for the blankets we’d taken. Soon we would have to start riding to cover more ground, but I saw no reason to speed us along just yet.
“I am especially poor with endings,” I confessed. “And this one in particular I cannot recall.”
“How terrible,” said Mamoru. “You were always very good with the endings of the stories you told me. I remember them all!”
“That is because you liked only happy endings,” I told him. Above our heads, a bat took flight in crazed, looping circles. I hoped it was feasting on mosquitoes.
My lord shook his head. “Then I suppose this story too will have to have a happy ending. Otherwise, I won’t permit its telling.”
“But Goro will be so disappointed,” I said, feigning horror. That made Mamoru laugh, and soon I found myself joining him, though in a quieter tone, still unable to shake my caution on the open road.
“Do you suppose…” Mamoru began, then seemed to lose himself in thought.
I myself became lost in trying to guess what he was asking. There were a great many possible directions for his question to take, each equally valid in its own right. Did I think there were more commoners sharing in Aiko’s sentiment? Was it possible that we had become something like local folk heroes and not traitors at all? Or