“Couldn’t hurt to keep looking over your shoulder though.”
It took hours to be herded inside the gates. There were so many penitents from both Sheridan and Carver, hundreds of wagons of people, small herds of livestock and horseflesh, dozens of folks who had been on foot the majority of the journey.
I was reminded that I was ignorant in the lay of the world. I only knew the wilds of Nyossa, the simple layout of Sheridan, and the fields of crops owned by Lord Torm. Griston had been a large city to me, but Skow was likely a hundred times the size of that place.
Every building was larger than the last, the farther I looked out from the driver’s seat where I sat between Ilsit and Jade. Though my vision was eclipsed by the tarps of other wagons, they could not shut out the sky full of spires and roofs. What was the most gigantic, the tower, was so massive that it seemed always in our vision no matter where we looked. It had to be the largest building in the known world. The first layer of it was as high as three houses and made of one continuous piece of white rock, almost bulbous. The walls of it were not quite square, more so rounded, a triumphant foundation for the circular, pillar-like edifice that was the renowned watchtower.
As we drew closer and the distance between our wagon and the tower grew smaller, I noticed Starling and Gerard standing outside one of the entrances, watching each wagon pass through. Starling wore a fresh version of his same apparel, his tunic and trousers dressed with his sash and the Perpatanian crest. When it wasfinally our row of wagons’ turn, I bent my head and tried to avoid their sight.
Marching up and down all along the procession were guards, many of whom were holding elaborate cresset torches to guide the wagons as the sunlight was weakening. I had only ever seen a few of the like before, used by guards of Torm’s keep. These cresset torches had the same polished iron-capped wooden handles that supported caged vessels made of iron, at the base of which must have been some kind of kindling to create the flames. I was amazed at the number of them, and it recalled to me that this country was nearly as big as Tintar and well funded by their gold and silver mines. A masterfully crafted torch that twisted from lit to not lit was nothing to their armies.
We were in a rich, powerful place now.
The tower had two openings on one side, also rounded and without doors. Each could fit two wagons side by side. The delay in our entering the Gates of Sound was due to the arrangement of so many wagons inside that first, white rock layer of the tower.
It stretched almost as far as my eyes could make out. The ceiling above loomed so high and wide, it was as if the blue sky had been replaced with white stone. Inside, it was similar to how we usually made camp. We were each allotted a certain place on the white stone of the floor, enough room to make a camp for a handful of people.
Our horses were unyoked and taken away from our wagons to a set of stables in the far back of the first layer. Kerchiefs with the numbers of their wagons were tied to their bridles. I fretted and complained when a soldier tied one to Zara and led her away.
The five of us stood next to our wagon, uncertain, waiting for instruction, wondering how we would eat and make a fire, where we would make waste. Our answers were delivered to us by way of more army men walking up and down the huge lines of wagons, calling out instruction. They told us there were privies all along the inside of the first level. Most important, there were spigots and founts littered along the wall from which the tower’s bottomless well of water randown in the earth below. There were large cuts into the stone where a fountain of the water would flow into a trough below that ran along the edge of the floor, making the entire inner first level trimmed with a small stream. People exclaimed at how clever and appealing this was, grateful for the access to water.
But also, we saw plenty of wooden signs that read “no flames.” Penitents who asked after cooked food, complaining of the rule against fire, were told the grace of King Pollux would provide and deliver cooked meat or jerky during their stay here.
“I mean it is a safe enough place to wait while we plan,” Tessa to me said when the army man had finished with us and was marching down the row to shout at the next few wagons.
“What bothers me,” Jade chimed in, “is that there are Sheridan folk that are not here. Did you notice that—that my brother, Kent, is not amongst us?”
“Nor is Wynne and his family,” scoffed Ilsit. “It’s all the folk who had lots of land and coin. Anyone who is friends with the Sheridans doesn’t have to stayhere. Just common people.”
“We’ve clean water and they’re feeding us, so I’m grateful for that,” Tessa pronounced. “We won’t be here forever. Just have to get my girl out.”
Ilsit looked at me. Under the noise of Tessa answering a question from Fox, she said, “You’re in Skow now. Think Starling will still try and kill you?”
“Reed says they’ll try and check on us soon,” I explained. “We reasoned a caravan no longer in motion provides plenty of witnesses, so they may not try anything.”
Ilsit chewed on her unlit pipe. “I don’t know how we’re going to get Adelaide and get out of here. I don’t like any of this one bit, Robbie. It’s been bad luck signs ever since the rain. I’m telling you. Something is off. They have not said a thing about what they’ll be doing with us.”
“What do you think it is? They’ll use us as slave labor?”
We did not know. Evangeline joined us, informing us that “theboys” were in an inn close to here and that they were making escape arrangements, assuring us we would not leave without Adelaide.
Nearly a week passed.
We rose in the mornings. We ate from a meager supply of our leftover rations, but those were soon supplemented with crates of jerky and pickled vegetables delivered by the army. The crates were stamped with a brand that read “by the grace of Saint Rodwin and his conduit, King Pollux.” We walked up and down the length of the first level, but if we neared either of the two entrances, army guards would step in front of us. No penitent was to leave the tower. The guards’ numbers increased, and they rotated in shifts twice a day. There were many of them among us, but none of them spent the night.
In those first days, I did not spot Starling, Gerard, or any of the Sheridan men, and I rested easier in that, though I wished for Thane to visit us and give us some word about Adelaide.
The smell of unwashed bodies began to wear on us all. Grateful for the steady lukewarm water of the wall spigots, we used our washing bucket by the privacy of our wagon’s cover and tried to keep clean, but the smell of animals that were not horses or cattle shitting on the stone floor, coupled with the sour stench of unclean people, was a misery. The water had a thickness to it, and it bubbled more than any water we were accustomed to, but we reasoned it may have had something to do with the deposits in the earth beneath the tower.
I was going out of my mind without word from either Reed or Thane, trying to trust in both, listening to Evangeline’s assurances that her brothers were at work on our aim’s behalf. Tessa and Ilsit, having gotten along ever since Ilsit came to me seeking shelter, began to bicker frequently and without their usual bantering. Jade would join in only to be snapped at, which frightened me as no one ever was harsh with our Jade. Jade, rightfully frustrated at her intervention being met with spite, would offer up a bitter retort. Fox was not sleeping well, and it showed on her face. Daisy seemed to ageovernight. She was likely elderly for a fox, but now her bones began to poke through her fur and her coat lost its luster.
While most of them took an afternoon nap, I decided to explore the back of the first level where the stables apparently were. They were immense, housing hundreds of animals, mainly horses. I worried that I could not find Zara, but I eventually did. What I saw appalled me. She was not underfed or abused, but she was spooked. She had always had a mild way about her, but this was not the horse of my heart, my oldest friend.
The whites of her eyes were exposed, and she flinched at my every word and movement, her withers jerking and her head tossing.
I stood in the stall with her for long hours, rubbing her muscles down, ducking every time I heard a man’s voice. I guessed I would not likely be allowed here, and I did not want to leave my Zara until she was settled. I was able to calm her somewhat, enough for her to begin to dip her nose into the grain in her feedbag.
The stables were cordoned off by a wall made of pale white stones that somewhat matched the first level’s continuous piece of god-sized rock. There were several hallways that led to rooms I imagined were full of supplies. I got turned around trying to find my way back to the expanse of wagons and people. When I passed a door with a flame carved into the wood, I tried it. I nearly broke my ankle. There was a pitiful landing, barely large enough to allow for one person to stand on it. And then a steep drop of stairs into inky darkness. When I scrambled back, scrabbling for purchase, I felt a key in the lock of the door. I had a sense that this door had been left unlocked by accident.
