Court of Fives (Court of Fives #1)

“If your belly hurts maybe you shouldn’t eat so much,” I say.

“But I’m hungry!”

I turn away to see Coriander eyeing the food.

“Eat what you want, and afterward feed the oracle.”

“Why should we feed her?” she objects.

“It isn’t fair she be punished for what others did to us. Gag her after so she can’t call out to the priests.”

Getting food into Mother takes half the morning. Never in my life has Mother not nursed others, coaxed smiles out of tears, and settled every sour dispute in the household. She made Father laugh and encouraged him to sing in his melodious voice. She convinced him to give us rides on his back when we were little. When we were older she flattered him into tutoring us in reading and writing. By such means he, a man without sisters whose mother died when he was young, got to know his daughters.

Now her bloody smell permeates the chamber. It stinks like the life draining out of her. When she closes her eyes I press a hand to her chest to make sure she is sleeping, not dead. I am so afraid she will die and be buried in this Saroese tomb forever. She doesn’t belong here. We girls have never belonged in the Patrons’ world, although we pretended we did. The harsh truth surfaces like a sea serpent rising out of the ocean to devour proud ships sailing the wide water.

As Polodos makes his farewells I interrupt. “How soon is Lord Kalliarkos coming?”

“Doma, I do not know. One day? Two days? More? I will bring an offering tray every day until you are free.”

Mother could be dead in two days!

Coriander stands under the air shaft, a hand on the rope. “You are so sure your Patron lord will help you, yet here we still are,” she says with an ugly laugh.

“I would like to see you do better!”

Cook looks between us and briskly says, “Come hold your sister, Doma Jessamy. What a sweet mouth she has.”

I cradle the baby in my arms. She closes her eyes with a sigh that brings a little bubble to her precious lips. Her tiny face squishes up, and her belly makes a sound as she expels a load of soft waste into her linen wrapping. Cook chuckles and takes her away. We will have to ask Polodos to smuggle in fresh cloth. But what will we do with the soiled cloth? Word will get out to Lord Gargaron that people are alive in Ottonor’s tomb. A priest will hear the baby cry. The priests have to be Gargaron’s accomplices. As long as we are trapped in here we are at their mercy.

My agitated thoughts propel me as I pace the limits of our world: three chambers, the offering and waste troughs, a few slits for air, and the stone bier with the coffin on top. A sweetening scent of putrefaction has begun to germinate within the coffin, blending with the musky odor of the many amulets and magic-sewn sachets hung around the sealed wooden lid.

“Jes, you must eat and rest too,” says Maraya. “You’re no good to us if you get weak.”

I crouch beside her, forcing myself to eat. “What will you do when we get out?”

“Take care of Mother,” she says. “We will leave the city and start anew elsewhere.”

“What about the Archives exam?”

“Without Lord Ottonor to sponsor me I can’t sit the exam.” She grabs hold of my forearm. “Can you truly get us out, Jes? Polodos says so but he wants it so much that I think he is just trying to make the misery endurable.”

I whisper into her ear. “I can get you and Coriander and Amaya out. But Cook and Mother won’t fit in the shaft, not unless they lose a great deal of flesh.”

Merry begins crying. “I can’t leave her, Jes. I couldn’t bear it.”

My face must look like Father’s did as he stared into the truth of Lord Gargaron’s offer. “We won’t abandon either of them. But Mother’s lost so much blood. We have to consider the worst. Can you raise the baby, if need be?”

She leans against me, weeping silently.

Arm around her, I hold her close until she falls asleep. I shut my eyes. The wind moans down the shaft like a harbinger of death. Slowly its wail quiets as the breeze drops outside. The tomb’s presence enfolds me. My awareness walks along its walls, tapping for the best place to anchor my thread. Another presence nags at me, a niggle of sound. Fingers are scratching again.

Probably it is just rats, although that is bad enough. I shift away from dozing Merry and tiptoe to the arch. The dim light hazes the chamber. The bier shudders as in a slight earthquake but I feel no rumble through my feet. Rubbing my eyes, I decide I am imagining things.

With a soft thump the coffin jolts a fingerbreadth sideways, and I jump back, slamming into the wall. My heart beats like a riot as my shoulders throb from the impact. Lord Ottonor’s flesh is going to shove its way out of the coffin and stumble around the tomb groping and grabbing.