Another good point.
“I asked you to stop the civil war and save my son. You asked me to wait for your plan and to help you acquire manpower. I’m doing both.”
Also a good point.
“Would you like to see my papers?”
A better person would’ve said no. I wasn’t that person. “Yes.”
He turned around and walked into the house.
I sat at my table. The sun was shining. Fat happy bees bumped into the wine tree flowers and crawled around the plump red petals.
The door swung open and Reynald emerged. He walked up to the table and placed a folded piece of paper in front of me. I opened it.
The Grant of Green Purse to Reynald Etir Karis . . .
“Does this help?”
It still nagged at me, but it was here, written in beautiful calligraphy and sealed with the stamp of the Scribe Chamber.
“Yes,” I said.
He picked up the paper, folded it, and slid it into his tunic. “We know who I am. Who are you, Maggie? Where do you come from?”
“Somewhere else.”
“Where would that be?”
I didn’t answer.
He leaned closer. It was an annoying habit that made him very difficult to ignore. I braced myself.
His voice was quiet, almost intimate.
“Do you have any papers to show me, Maggie?”
“No.”
“Then we must remedy that. The sooner the better because no one in the kingdom can escape the Seventh Chamber.”
He saidthe Seventh Chamberin a way most people would saythe Spanish Inquisition—when they weren’t being funny about it. Rellas had seven chambers of government. The Justice Chamber oversaw the criminal justice system, the War Chamber dealt with the military, and so on. “The Seventh Chamber” was the common people’s code for the Treasury. It collected taxes. No force in Rellas was more feared.
“At the end of the summer, after Derog fails to report his yields, the Treasury will come knocking,” Reynald said. “We have three months to procure an identity for you, forge a deed of sale for this house, and account for every noma in your purse.”
I blinked at him.
“I leave you to contemplate how we can accomplish that,” he said. “I’m sure you will come up with something.”
He turned around and walked away.
Had I hurt his feelings?
He had trusted me, he had put himself in harm’s way for my sake, and I had demanded to see his papers. When we were in Derog’s horrible basement, instead of looking for the best position, he’d blocked the way to me and the kids, making sure nothing would get past him and hurt us. That told me everything I needed to know about who he was. If I screamed right now, he would come running and he would kill all threats he found. Because he had decided to protect me, and he kept his word.
You don’t look thirty-eight . . .Ugh.
The Book-Reynald was a man of few words and lots of thinking, and all of that thinking was laid out in detail on the page. I’d spent so much time in his head, our interactions should’ve been easy. It should’ve been like hanging out with an old friend.
