They had only stopped that at the very end, when they wanted her unmarked, smooth as a sacrifice, for death in the forest.
From her room at the inn Kasia could hear the noise from the Hippodrome. A steady sound like the cascading waters north of home, but rising at intervals-unlike the waters-into a punishing volume of sound, a roar like some many-throated beast when a turn of fortune, terrible or wonderful, happened over there where horses were running.
The zubir had made no sound at all in the wood. There had been silence, under and over leaves, shrouded and gathered in fog. The world closing down to the smallest thing, to the one thing. Something terrible or wonderful, and her own existence given back to her, leading her from the Aldwood to Sarantium which had never even been a dream. And to freedom, which had been, every night of that year.
There were eighty thousand people over in the Hippodrome right now. Carullus had said so. It wasn’t a number she could even get her mind around. Nearly five hundred thousand in the City, he’d said. Even after the riot two years ago and the plague. How did they all not tremble?
She’d spent the morning in this small room. Had thought to have her meal sent up, reflecting on the change that embodied, wondering what girl, beaten and afraid, would appear with a tray for the lady.
The lady with the soldiers. With the man who was going to the palace. She was that lady. Carullus had made certain they knew it downstairs. Service was a function of status here, as everywhere, and the Bronze Gates opening were the doorway to the world in Sarantium.
Martinian was going there. Or, rather, Caius Crispus was. He’d said they should call him Crispin in private. His name was Crispin. He’d been married to a woman named Ilandra. She was dead and his two daughters were. He had cried her name aloud in the country dark.
He hadn’t touched Kasia since that night after the Aldwood. Even then, he’d had her sleep in his cloak on the floor again at the beginning. She’d come to the bed herself, when he cried out. Only then had he turned to her. And only that one time. After, he’d made certain she had her own room as they travelled with the soldiers through the autumn winds and blowing leaves, Sauradia’s swift rivers and silver mines becoming Trakesia’s harvested grainlands, and then that first appalling sight of the City’s triple walls.
Five hundred thousand souls.
Kasia, her world spinning and changing too quickly for even a clever one to deal with, had no idea how to sort through what she was feeling. She was too caught in the movement of things. She could make herself blush-right now-if she remembered some of what she had felt, unexpectedly, towards dawn at the end of that one night.
She was in her room, hearing the Hippodrome, mending her cloak- his cloak-with needle and thread. She wasn’t skilled with a needle, but it was a thing to do. She’d gone down to the common room for the midday meal, after all. She was erimitsu, the clever one, and she did know that if she allowed herself to become enclosed within walls and locked doors here she might never get out. Hard as it was, she’d made herself go down. They had served her with casual efficiency, though not with deference. All a woman could ask for, perhaps, especially in the City.
She’d had half a roasted fowl with leeks and good bread and a glass of wine she’d watered more than halfway. It occurred to her, eating at a corner table, that she’d never done this in her life: taken a meal at an inn, as a patron, drinking a glass of wine. Alone.
No one troubled her. The room was almost empty. Everyone was in the Hippodrome, or celebrating the last day of Dykania in the streets, snatching food and too much drink from vendors’ stalls, waving noise-makers and banners of guild or racing faction. She could hear them outside, in the sunlight. She forced herself to eat slowly, to drink the wine, even pour a second glass. She was a free citizen of the Sarantine Empire in the reign of Valerius II. It was a public holiday, a festival. She made herself accede when the serving woman asked if she wanted melon.