I lean over the shaft. Gilded by lamplight, Coriander stares up into a darkness in which she cannot see me. “I’m coming down in a moment. Stand away.”
I secure the climbing rope around the air shaft and slip on the harness, then rappel down the tomb wall to the outside alcove to gather up the bundled clothing and the jug. I lower it all down to Coriander. Although it is a risk to have the rope tied around the air shaft, where someone might see it from outside, I need to be able to show Coriander she has a way out in order to ensure her cooperation. As I descend hand over hand down the narrow shaft, my shoulders bumping the bricks, a muffled cry drifts eerily out of the tomb like the lament of the dead. Its timbre agitates me until I realize it is a newborn’s startled wail. The baby’s cry ceases just as I reach the floor.
Cook speaks in a voice of such calm cheerfulness that I marvel at her generous courage. “That’s right, Doma. See how strongly she suckles!”
“What happened up there?” Coriander’s gaze sears me. I never understood that her blank servant’s expression hid so much dislike.
“We have to keep quiet until Lord Kalliarkos returns. He’s going to free your brother.”
“I should just climb the rope and leave,” she says, chin jutting forward as if to dare me to forbid it.
“You still can. But I hope you will wait and help me get the others out.”
She frowns at her hands, then glances into the central chamber. “For Doma Kiya’s sake I will.”
Maraya continues to support Mother against the stone bier. She has rallied enough to become absorbed in the baby suckling at her breast.
Cook now has the knife and is cutting the afterbirth into small pieces. “Mistress, you must eat a bit of placenta to strengthen yourself.”
“I’m too tired to eat,” says Mother in a murmur that dies away as her eyes flutter closed.
Maybe I gasp at this sign of her intense weakness. Coriander touches me on the arm with a flash of unexpected compassion, then pulls back her hand and rubs it over her scalp. I wonder who gave her the scars on her head.
“How did my mother rescue you?” I ask.
“That is not your story to know since you never bothered to ask before now.” She sets the lamp beside the oracle’s chest and like a tomb robber opens it and begins rifling through its contents.
Chastened, I go into the central chamber.
The oracle huddles in a corner, still rocking the dead infant in her arms. I cannot forget the words she whispered to me any more than I could forget scars on my body. Even now she mumbles phrases that make no sense and yet flow with a poem’s music.
“The stars fall from the sky as blooms of fire… the infant bloomed with blood under the knife… the bird-haunted ship carries his sleeve of roses away from me… hope withers in a dying flower… poison has killed the flower that bloomed brightest.…”
Maraya grabs hold of me as soon as I am close enough. Her shaky voice worries me. “I thought I was dreaming when I saw you before, Jes, because then you vanished again.”
“I am really here, Merry.”
My voice jolts Mother’s attention.
“Jessamy?” She looks so worn and broken that I want to pour all my determination into her.
Kneeling, I press my face against her sweaty cheek. “You must drink some of this broth and eat, just as Cook tells you. We’re escaping tomorrow. We have to hide here tonight.”
“Hiding” sounds better than “trapped.”
“Is Esladas coming?” The way her voice quavers cuts my heart to pieces.
To lie to the ill or dying when they know you are lying is the worst kind of dishonesty. “No.”
“First Lord Gargaron poisoned Lord Ottonor to take Esladas away from me. Then your father threw us away.” She begins weeping bitterly.
“Mother, he has to fight in the war. Efea depends on the courage of its soldiers.”
Her eyes are all shadow. Blood is smeared along her upper lip, and a scratch reddens her left cheek near her ear. Yet for the first time, as her sobs fade, she speaks almost normally. “How like your father you sound, Jessamy. You always did.”
“He couldn’t defy Lord Gargaron,” I add.
“Oh, Jessamy.” Her gentle gaze makes me love her so much. I would do anything to protect her, she who has always protected me. “That is sweet of you to say even if we know it is not true.”
“Of course it’s true!” Maraya wrinkles her nose as at a bad smell but I forge on because I must give Mother the heart to live. “When he found out you’d been trapped here he sent me to rescue you. Everything is going as planned. Now you must eat.”