‘A few things might,’ he’d said gravely, ‘eventually But not at first, no. The Strategos, whatever his name is, would be here by summer.’
‘Leontes. Yes. By summer. I must live, must stop this. I do not want Batiara to fall, I do not want it drenched in blood again.’
‘No man or woman could want that last, Majesty.’
Then you will help me,’ she’d said. She was being dangerously frank, had already decided she had next to no choice. ‘There is no one in this court I trust. I cannot arrest all three of them, they each walk with a small army wherever they go. If I name any one of them my betrothed, the others will be in open revolt the next day.’
‘And you would be negated, rendered nothing at all, the moment you declared it. They would kill each other in the streets of every city and in the fields outside all walls.’
She had looked at him, heartsick and afraid, trying not to hope too much. ‘You understand this, then?’
‘Of course I do,’ he had said, and smiled at her. ‘You should have been a man, my lady, the king we need .. . though making us all the poorer in another way, of course.’
It was flattery. A man with a woman. She had no time for it. ‘How do I get away?’ she’d said bluntly. ‘I must get away and survive the leaving so I can return. Help me.’
He had bowed, again. ‘I am honoured,’ he’d said, had to say. And then: ‘Where, my lady?’
‘Sarantium,’ she had said baldly. ‘There is a ship.’
And she’d seen that she’d surprised him after all. Had felt some small pleasure then, amid the bone-deep anxiety that walked with her and within her as a shadow or half-world spirit through all the nights and days.
She’d asked if he could kill people for her. Had asked it once before, when they had raised the plague mound. It had been a casual question then, for information. It wasn’t this time, but his answer had been much the same.
‘With a blade, of course, though I have little skill. With poisons, but no more readily than many people you might summon. Alchemy transmutes things, my lady, it does not pretend to the powers the charlatans and false cheiromancers claim.’
‘Death,’ she had said, ‘is a transmutation of life, is it not?’
She remembered his smile, the blue eyes resting on her face, unexpectedly tender. He would have been a handsome man once, she thought; indeed, he still was. It came to her that the alchemist was troubled in his own right, bearing some burden. She could see it but had no room to acknowledge the fact in any way. Who lived in Jad’s world without griefs?
He’d said, ‘It may be seen that way, or otherwise, my lady. It may be seen as the same journey in a different cloak. You need,’ he had murmured, changing tone, ‘at least a day and a night away from these walls before they discover you are gone, if you are to reach Mylasia safely. My lady, that requires that someone you trust pretend to be the queen on the day of the ceremony.’
He was clever. She needed him to be. He went on. She listened. She would be able to leave the city in a disguise on the second night of Dykania when the gates were open for the festival. The queen could wear the heavily veiled white of full Rhodian mourning in the sanctuary, which would allow someone to take her place. She could declare an intention to withdraw from public view into her private chambers the day before the consecration, to pray for her father’s soul. Her guards- a select, small number of them-could wait outside the walls and meet her on the road. One or two of her women could wait with them, he said. Indeed, she would need ladies-in-waiting with her, would she not? Two other guards could, in festival guise themselves, pass out through the walls with her amid the night chaos of Dykania and join the others in the countryside. They could even meet, he said, at his own farmhouse, if that was acceptable to her. Then they would have to ride like fury for Mylasia. It could be done in a night and a day and an evening. Half a dozen guards would keep her safe on the road. Could she ride like that, he asked?