Page 106

Flavia brought the heavy cart to a slow halt and looked from Valentina to me. Her eyes came to rest on my face, widening slightly under their heavy, wrinkled lids.

“Flavia,” I said quickly, “Can I take some of those items down to the laundry room for you? I will do it right now. Immediately.”

Flavia raised one eyebrow. After a pause of a few seconds she said, “Valentina, aren’t you supposed to be at dinner? You’re very late, and the matron will not be pleased.”

Valentina opened her mouth and closed it, then lifted the hem of her flowing skirt, whirled around, and strode away.

The minute she was out of sight I said, “Flavia, please help me. I need to get down to the laundry room without being seen. Those soldiers are looking for me.”

She put her fleshy arm around my shoulders and led me toward the wall. “By the Goddess, what are you doing here? Soldiers, looking for you? What do you want with the laundry room, of all places?”

I followed her along the corridor, which turned, putting another breath of distance between us and the soldiers. “How old is the shrine down there? The one you showed me once?”

“What? My little shrine?”

“You said yourself it was tended by the laundress who came before you, and by the woman before her.”

She grabbed my hand. “Is this really important now?”

“It is. I’ve been to Mareus. I went looking for my mother, and I found a statue of the Goddess there. That one is ancient, and I think this one is too. I think they’re a pair.”

“It’s certainly old,” she whispered. She looked back over her shoulder.

We could hear a commotion at the end of the hall.

“Come with me.” She pulled the heavy cart around. “Take some of these.”

I lifted a stack of rumpled white sheets off the pile and held them so they concealed my face. I followed her stooped back as she set off the way she had come, the cart rattling over the stone floor.

Over the noise of the wheels I heard her say, “Your mother fled for Mareus not long after you were born. Her heart was broken when she had to give you up.”

We reached the little wooden door that led down to the laundry room.

“Here you are,” she said. “The door isn’t locked.”

“How do you remain here,” I asked, “knowing what you know?”

She grabbed my hands in her soft, wrinkled ones. “Who else do these women have besides me?”

“But why did you never tell me about Mareus in the first place?”

She shrugged. “I thought you would survive without it. That’s not true of everyone. And I was right, wasn’t I?”

“It could have saved Kyra.”

A look of sadness crossed her face.

“Please do what you can to help Valentina. She needs a way out.”

Flavia looked surprised, but she nodded.

Sebastianus peered cautiously out through a nearby doorway.

I waved him over.

At that moment we heard once again the thud of booted feet. Blue-cloaked figures moved quickly up the passageway.

“Go on then, the two of you,” Flavia said. “Whatever you’re up to, get to it. I’ll deny ever having seen you.”