finally oriented herself with the chamber pots. Her initial task.
Straton had positioned them in a valley beside the River Zan, as far from the mountain’s shadow as they could manage, and Evadne carried the brass pots to the bank. She was drawing water from the rapids, preparing to scrub the pots clean, when the commander startled her. She had not known that he had followed her to the river.
“Lord?”
“Put that down,” he ordered.
Evadne stepped back onto the moss, lowering the water bucket. A note of dread reverberated through her as she waited for him to speak, wondering why he had sought her out. When he spoke at last, his words were a surprise, like a splinter catching in her palm.
“You are not to scrub the chamber pots, but to serve my family’s wine.”
She might have gaped at him. “But, Lord, I thought—”
“I know what you thought,” he interjected with a sigh. “But I have spoken to my wife, and she has agreed that you will be the best replacement until Amara’s arm has healed. Do you agree?”
Evadne swallowed her shock. “Yes, Lord. But . . .”
He arched his brow, waiting. “What is it, Evadne?”
“If I should die of poisoned wine . . . what becomes of my sister? Does she still have to settle the five years of servitude?”
“I am not going to let you die,” he said, as if he truly were a god, holding the threads of life and death. “Now leave those pots for Toula and come prepare the wine.” He turned and strode back to the camp.
Evadne hesitated for a breath before tracing his steps. She quickly braided the hair away from her eyes and brushed the wrinkles from her tunic, washed her hands with water and a drop of spikenard—fragrant oil harvested from a plant. She struggled to understand why the commander had made this arrangement for her as she arrived to taste the wine and tend to their cups.
Again, the family did not speak. They reclined on cushions of every color—indigo, saffron, olive, ochre. They rested beneath their hanging oil lamps, the firelight gilding the golden hues of their skin and their hair and their eyes. They gathered around a dinner they hardly touched, their hands holding empty cups, waiting for Evadne to fill.
It was only when Evadne poured Cosima’s wine, when she felt her hard gaze, that Evadne finally understood. This had not been a test of wills, a spar between a husband and a wife to see who would prevail over the assignment of the new servant girl’s task.
This was a tactic.
Because, Evadne was beginning to learn, when you had an enemy in your house, you did not make them scrub the excrement from your chamber pots.
You gave them a position of honor, of trust.
You kept them close.
You kept them just within your reach.
XII
Evadne
Mithra exceeded Evadne’s expectations, and her breath caught at the sight of the city’s magnificent sprawl across the land.
The royal city was built around a small summit, where the queen’s palace sat on the mountaintop. One main road led to the palace, branching into streets that flowed east to west and north to south, pooling about markets and temples, stretching as far as the eye could see. From a distance, Mithra gleamed like tarnished silver, trees and greenery blooming from private gardens. Divine pennants waved in the breeze with lazy flashes of color. The great River Zan cut through the eastern quadrant of the city like a blade, and on her wide banks rested docked vessels and barges. It smelled of smoke and moss and fish and incense.
Mount Euthymius was now out of sight, nothing more than a hazy nightmare to the south. But the common quarry, Evadne noticed, was visible; it lay to the west of Mithra, a wound in the Dacian foothills. There was a road winding from the western gate of the city, through fields of barley, all the way to the quarry outpost, a tall narrow building surrounded by an impenetrable wall.
Only a matter of miles would lie between her and her sister, Evadne thought, studying the place where Halcyon would soon arrive. It was as comforting as it was disheartening.
They entered the eastern gate of the city through the clamorous fish market, steadily wending their way on wide streets. But the noise and bustle became reverent and quiet as the people took note of the commander and his family, and the wagon that carried a coffin. The somber silence followed them all the way