Chapter Forty-Three
Aren
“Die? But I’m already dead if you’re here. You can’t be real. I’m still dreaming,” he murmurs.
“I’m real,” I say, gripping his fingers until he winces. “Listen, this is going to kick you in the ass,” I tell him, nodding at the poisoned biscuit in his hand. “I’ve put something in it that’ll make it feel like you’re dead…and look like it, too.”
He glances skeptically at the biscuit, and I don’t blame him. I also have my doubts. The plan is straightforward, but sometimes simple things are the hardest to execute.
I just have to hope I put in the correct dose. “This is our only option,” I say. “If there were any other way…”
He nods. “I trust you.” And then, without hesitation, he crams the whole thing in his mouth.
In a short while, when the guards wake, they’ll find his lifeless body.
…
During Namreth’s noon meal, my heart pounds so loudly I’m afraid others can hear it.
My hands shake. I try to compose myself as best I can.
At breakfast, the king devoured my biscuits, but now, he hardly eats.
I know he’s lost his appetite because he’s just come from the morgue where he stood over Dietan’s lifeless body, inspecting it before Arnfried sealed it up in a rough cloth sack with a needle and thread.
Just like all the other bodies that come through, which he told me are numerous.
Another bagged body of similar size and shape will be burned in its place in the morning.
I couldn’t take the chance that Namreth might suspect the Rings were on his person as the king would surely order him dissected.
So I gave Arnfried another herb that, when he applied it to Dietan’s eyes and tongue, would make his body look diseased.
It did the trick. Namreth hastily left the morgue as soon as he confirmed that Dietan was truly dead.
Namreth’s face gives nothing away, but the way he picks at the biscuits sets me on edge. The seconds feel like hours. Does he suspect anything amiss? Can he guess the part I played? Maybe he’s just angry about being deprived of his plaything.
Then, abruptly, he slams his fork down. He stands and strides out of the chamber. “Get back to work,” he snaps, dismissing the servants.
As I make my way back to the kitchen, I envision the hidden chamber off the morgue where Arnfried hid Dietan’s body.
He rests there cold, alone, and unguarded.
Dietan sleeps, mere inches from death, his heart beating so slowly that it can’t be felt.
His breaths are so minute that they can’t be heard.
Harvest Mother, what if he’s actually dead? What if the dose was too strong? What if he’s dead and I find him pale and lifeless when I tear open the sack?
The terrible image runs through my head for hours as we go through the motions of our jobs, pretending it’s just another monotonous day of servitude.
This could easily be the day I’ve led all of us to our deaths, including Dietan.
So far, the plan has gone perfectly, but the most dangerous part is still ahead.
…
When the moon is at its zenith and the castle is quiet, I sneak through the hidden door behind the oven to meet the others.
Bing and Rosamond are handing out clothes Rosamond stole from her laundry shift.
An assortment of muted, everyday garments, most taken from the numerous dead.
They look nothing like the work uniforms the castle servants are forced to wear.
They will blend in with the garb of the commoners outside the castle. They’ll do well for what I’ve planned.
We dress in silence. We are all acutely aware of the risk. If any of us makes one mistake, we all die. As I look into the faces of these brave people I now consider friends, I wish we could turn back, achieve our ends some other, safer way. I wish I hadn’t thrust them into danger.
Too late for that now. It’s time to take our lives back. Time to get the hell out of this terrible place and take Dietan with me.
I cast aside my recognizable kitchen frock and apron and slip on a drab beige blouse and loose brown skirt that hangs well above the tops of my boots.
It’ll be easier to move and run. I tuck my hair under a cap that street vendors wear.
Then I stuff clothes for Dietan into an empty flour sack as Bing goes over the plan one more time, mostly for my sake.
They’d been plotting this escape for months before I arrived.
Dietan and I are merely interlopers. Bing carefully lays out the details as he distributes hand-drawn maps to the group.
“Aren, Nelson will be waiting for you at the wall with the carriage. All you’ve got to do is get the prince there.
You’ll take some back streets to be certain that no one follows.
Then you’ll transfer to another conveyance, just in case someone notices the carriage leaving the castle grounds.
You’ll all meet up at the designated safehouse, then leave with the group.
Once you make it outside the city gates, it’s a day’s walk southeast to the nearest village.
Maybe two, depending on your pace. Stay off the trail and head directly east, toward the sun.
Don’t stop until you can’t see the palace behind you.
If something happens and you can’t make it out of the city, look for the House of Healing. They are friends of the cause.”
“Hold on. You’re not coming with us?” I ask.
Everyone stares at him grimly, but Bing just smiles, eyes glassy. “I’ll stay behind. Do whatever I can to make sure all of you get out safely.”
“Bing, you can’t—”
“We won’t let you—”
Bing raises his hand to quell our protests.
“Somebody needs to be here to set off the distraction we put together. This is part of the plan, and I’ve made my decision.
Go.” He looks at each of us in turn. “Let me do this one last thing for all of you. I don’t have family out there.
Osian took everything from me. So let me do this. Go now. No more time to waste.”
He’s right. We’re out of time. This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for—our escape. No one says a word. One by one, we each go our separate ways until it’s just Bing and me.
“Here,” he says. “We found this in the king’s linens. I think it’s your prince’s.”
I glance down and see that Bing is holding Dietan’s royal knife in its well-worn sheath.
We lock eyes, mine becoming misty, and I take the knife from his hand. He wraps his fingers around mine. “I wish you speed and safety, Aren of Evandale.”
“I…” I almost repeat his words back to him, but Bing will find no safety. A crushing ache settles in my heart, and I try to smile. “Thank you, Bing. You are a good man.”
He gives my hand a squeeze before releasing it. I slip the knife into my shoulder bag as I watch him shuffle down the passage in the darkness back to the kitchen that he will never leave alive again.
…
It takes all my strength to yank open the door that leads from the servants’ tunnel to the morgue’s overflow chamber, where Dietan has been hidden in a secret room. I’ve studied the map that Arnfried drew for me, but now that I’m here, I feel woefully unprepared.
I lift my candle higher, widening its flickering circle of light. The chamber is dark and empty, save for the rows of bodies laid on stone shelves on either side, stitched into their bags.
Even with a kerchief tied over my nose and mouth, I gag. My eyes water at the rancid stench of death.
As I reach the center of the room, a chill crawls over my skin and my pulse pounds in my ears. It feels like the corpses are watching, waiting in the oppressive silence, as dread coils tight around my chest.
In the darkness, I can’t see the latch for the hidden door depicted in Arnfried’s drawing.
With one hand clutching the candle and the other over my mouth, I slink silently across the room in my soft-soled slippers until I reach the back wall and spot the iron hook protruding from the mortar between bricks.
A drawstring sack hangs from the hook, full of sewing supplies for stitching the corpse bags, just like Arnfried indicated.
I pull down on the hook as instructed. Just like the door behind the oven, it reveals a passageway. For a moment, I hesitate, terrified of what I’ll find.
Is he here? Is he even alive? Or did they find him when he woke up? There are a thousand ways this could have gone wrong, and I picture each of them as I stand frozen in the doorway.
Move! I tell myself.
I step inside the cramped, dark space, candle held high. Dietan’s body lies on the floor, taking up the entire length of the chamber. The bag has fallen off his face, and his arms are limp across his body.
My stomach lurches. He looks truly dead. His face is swollen and purple, with more bruises since I saw him this morning. My heart beats frantically as I kneel at his side and place the candle on the floor next to me.
Every fiber of my being is shaking in agony, as I feel his wrist for a pulse. Panicked, I keep searching, but there’s nothing. His skin is cold, and his face is gray.
Dear goddess, I’ve killed him.
I move my fingers over his neck, searching for a pulse probing the tendons and muscles, my palms clammy with perspiration. I feel…
Nothing…
Harvest Mother, forgive me, I didn’t mean to—
Then I find it—the slightest hint of a pulse, slow yet steady. I sit back on my heels and huff out a breath. He lives.
Thank the goddess.
“Dietan,” I whisper, pressing a hand to his cheek. His skin is so cold. How can it be so cold? “Dietan, wake up.”
He doesn’t move. I rummage around in my pocket for the vial of essence of hartshorn that Rosamond stole for me from the laundry chamber. I hold it to his nose.
I jerk the vial back when he startles violently. His face flushes, eyes wide as he sits bolt upright at the pungent odor that could wake the dead, which it appears to have done.
Batting my hand away, he groans the most miserable, profane utterances I’ve ever heard leave his lips.