Page 90 of The Summer Pass

Looking at Vanu now, Lill thought he didn’t look alarmed, though he must have been able to tell what was coming from the noise. He’d anticipated this as one possible outcome, because he knew his people.

Above Vanu, the shutters on the window of an upper chamber burst open, and Susami leaned out. She waved to catch Lill’s attention, and he looked at her in dismay. What was she doing?

“Nakhana came back,” she signed. “He says Darma has been telling people Da will betray us to the Zashians. Auxshna says Prince A says Da should tell them about your marriage. If you’re willing.” She looked across at him doubtfully, as if hoping her message made more sense to him than it did to her.

Lill nodded. He understood what Artayarasha was suggesting, and he thought it would work.

He had only a few seconds to act. It would be better, of course, more convincing, if everyone could hear about a marriage and imagine some absent Zashian princess, perhaps a lavish wedding in Suna, something worthy of Vanu. Better that than seeing Lill, in his borrowed clothes, with his arm in a sling, looking nothing like a princess.

But these were people who knew Vanu. Would any of them really believe in the princess anyway?

He snatched up a couple of the knives and tucked them into his sash. He pulled his arm out of the sling and scrambled forward to the edge of the roof, deliberately noisy. Vanu glanced up.

“Tell them you made a marriage alliance,” Lill signed.

The sign for “marriage” demanded more movement of his left arm than was comfortable, but he managed to keep from wincing. He didn’t want Vanu to think he was reluctant. He wasn’t.

Vanu glanced toward the oncoming crowd and back up at Lill and nodded.

Lill waved at Susami, still standing in the window. “Tell Prince A to come down,” he signed. Ouch. “Prince” was an even harder word.

Susami nodded and disappeared from the window, and Lill scooted along the edge of the roof to the ladder where he had climbed up.

“You know we should be helping instead of just sitting up here,” Barda had said, as they watched the scene play out in the yard below.

“I was trying to help!” Tirtu cried indignantly. “You stopped me!”

“He doesn’t mean help by shutting the shaman up,” said Firuduna. “He means help him do what he’s doing.”

“What is he doing? Other than going completely off his head—what, in your opinion, is⁠—”

“Shh-shh!” Barda slapped a hand over Tirtu’s mouth. “He’s telling them where Vanu is—did you hear him just now, over the sound of yourself being an ass? He just said he saw Lord Vanu at the back of the great house by the dungeon stairs.”

“Get your dirty hand off my face,” Tirtu sputtered.

“It’s a trap,” Barda explained urgently. “They’re setting a trap. It’s probably all Lill’s plan. Assassin shit, you know?”

Tirtu frowned. “All right, yes, I see what you’re saying. He’s probably setting a trap. Even Padunu wouldn’t be this much of an idiot.”

They crouched on the walkway and watched as Darma, below, ordered his flunkies to go to the back of the great house and surprise Vanu, and Padunu blustered and squawked and did a decent job of acting like he’d made a giant mistake.

“Vanu wants Darma, though, doesn’t he?” Firuduna remarked. “And Darma’s not going.”

Barda nodded. “That’s not good.”

“What should we do?” said Firuduna. “If it’s part of Lill’s plan … ”

“We don’t even know what the plan is,” Tirtu pointed out.

“You up there!”

They all started guiltily at a shout from below. It was directed at them, and it was Darma himself.

“Get back to defending my walls, you lazy sons of lowland bitches!”

“His walls?” Barda muttered.

“Hsst!” Tirtu shushed him, scrambling to his feet and looking busy. “We don’t need to draw attention, remember? He knows we’re with Vanu.”