“And when they find the bodies?” Martiveht hissed to Yaendrid as we walked away from Loesohso’s Grove.

  Yaendrid sighed. “The prince will have to rely on his wits. He’ll be all right. He’s important to them.”

  Iyedraeka began to cry. Martiveht was leaning on her, and the shaking of the princess’s shoulders shook them both. “And the dog?” the sasturi asked.

  “The dog?” Yaendrid said the word so innocently. There was something of playacting in her response, and I didn’t like it.

  Martiveht breathed slowly as she hobbled along. The dead are hard to carry, even if you have a loom to tie them to. “There is a story that’s told in the Weaver’s Guild,” she said, “of a cache of spirit stones that was found in a river. Only they were half-made, and small enough to be eaten.”

  “One of your *exempla,* no doubt.”

  “It is sometimes used that way,” Martiveht said. Iyedraeka’s weeping was making her voice shake. She whispered, “hush, my sweet,” and kissed the top of the princess’s head.

  “I wonder what it’s supposed to prove,” Yaendrid muttered. “Your sasturi *exempla* are always so obscure to the rest of the world.”

  “I’m sure you studied them, in Haunts and Scribbles,” Martiveht told her, and her voice sounded very tired. But she persisted in her questioning. “Did it happen? Did the bandits feed a spirit stone to a dog?”

  “I am not a bandit,” Yaendrid said quietly. “I do not know all of their secrets.”

  Martiveht was relentless. “I am beginning to wonder if you led us to Loesohso’s Grove on purpose,” she said. “If you intended to give the prince to your bandit friends right from the start.”

  Iyedraeka lifted her head and stared at the seneschal. I was staring at her, too. She didn’t lower her eyes, but seemed to expand her gaze, so that she was facing down all of us at once. Her head swung back and forth slowly as she walked. “To what purpose?” she asked.

  “It is well known that the scholars of Libreigia are always dabbling. Many of them are no better than alchemists. We have heard stories of secret trade routes, ways to bring the poisons of Ordalamia to the library city.”

  “It’s been many years since I’ve been in Libreigia,” Yaendrid said.

  “And Basokume, of course,” Martiveht went on. “It needs snake venom as well. And strange tree bark, and the ichor of odd insects.”

  “Why would I have anything to do with Basokume?”

  “Let us imagine,” Martiveht said, and she was talking to all of us now. Only Vaenahma, walking ahead to scout our route, didn’t seem to be listening. “Let us imagine that there are rival routes to the rival cities. That one group of bandits supplies Libreigia, while the other supplies Basokume. Let us imagine that a bandit queen manages to snare a prince. She manipulates him, and convinces him to try to seize the throne in one of the cities that all these secret trade routes pass through. What if she were the ally of Basokume? What would Libreigia do? Wouldn’t their allies need a prince of their own?”

  It is good that the path we walked on was fairly even, as my gaze was locked on Yaendrid. Yaendrid, who often ate dinner at my house, who had a sharp but pleasant singing voice, and told wonder stories to my grandchildren. “I’ve never heard of any secret trade routes,” I said.

  Martiveht quirked a smile that I found offensive. “No, I don’t suppose you have,” she said.

  “Your robes are very white,” Yaendrid told her.

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  “I am carrying four dead youth.”

  “They have begun whispering to you, it seems.”

  “They have seen you several times before.”

  Yaendrid shrugged. “I am a scholar,” she said. “I came east to study bandits.”

  “You are a spy, and you have sold the prince of Rahasabahst to your friends.”

  “I am the Third Seneschal of the Chamber of Lilies and Gold. I left Libreigia eight years ago, and I’ve never returned. If anyone is a spy, it is you.”

  “No.”

  “You hear more whispers than most people do. But perhaps they don’t count. Perhaps the whispers of the dead mean nothing. But if that’s so, why are your kind always so eager to steal the ghosts of connivers and secret keepers?” There was something tight and angry in Yaendrid’s voice. Something I had never heard there before. In that moment, I knew that Martiveht was right. I could no longer trust Yaendrid. I should have never trusted her.

  “There’s a village up ahead,” Vaenahma called back, interrupting their combat.

  We fell silent as we approached, and I left the rearguard to join my lieutenant. I must tell you that at that moment I did not care if Martiveht and Yaendrid were set upon by assailants who snuck up behind us. I would protect the princess, of course, as was my duty. But I felt betrayed, and aggrieved, and I wanted to reach Nhadtereyba as quickly as possible.

  The village sat at the top of a rise, at a place where water tumbled over slick limestone outcrops. Little huts, with a bakehouse and a chandlery and a blacksmith. No inn, but a tower looming over the buildings. A squat little tower, really, and its imposing presence was do to nothing more than the insignificance of the other buildings.

  There was a well, and we stopped beside it and I drew up the bucket. The water sloshed, as I was angry, and jerked on the rope as I drew it up. The princess sat Martiveht on the edge of the well. Martiveht was starting to shake of her own accord. Iyedraeka saw me looking and said, “She’s been holding the spirits for too long. The weaving is starting to fray. She needs to find a weaver’s house soon. Or a shrine.”

  I glanced at Vaenahma, but they were peering at the shadowed doorway of one of the hovels. There was a woman sitting inside, with a babe at her breast. Another child, barely old enough to pull itself up, was clinging to her knee.

  Yaendrid came forward to get a drink and Martiveht hissed at her and gave a weak little shove. “They came from here,” she spat. And when Yaendrid didn’t seem to understand she repeated it. “They came from here. The boys I carry. They grew up here. They played by this well.”

  A trio of women came around the side of one of the hovels. Each was carrying a baby, and other children followed them, a line of ducklings. The lead woman was glancing up towards the tower. “You are strangers here,” she said matter-of-factly, coming to a stop before us. The children flowed around her like water around a stone. Then she lifted her head and shouted, “Malshaki, will you please come down?”

  She was answered by a call from the tower. “Now you want me?”

  The lead woman sighed. “You have a duty to perform.”

  The tower was silent. The lead woman looked at me. I looked back at her. After a few moments a door at the bottom of the tower opened and a guard came out. A woman, very tall, still buckling on her armor. She was followed by a pair of weedy youths.

  They stomped up to us, and the children shifted their attention to the youths. A little girl took one of the guard’s hands and held it as she sucked her thumb. It was oddly domestic, and it attracted Iyedraeka’s attention. She left Martiveht’s side and went to kneel down by a pair of grubby tots who regarded her with silent eyes. “There are so many children here,” she said with wonder.

  “Can’t have them growing up in the Singing Woods,” the lead woman said.

  “It’s a nursery,” Martiveht said. “Half of these are Oesair’s own offspring.”

  Malshaki, the guard captain, regarded us suspiciously. “And you are?” she asked, directing the question to me.

  “Refugees,” I said. “I am captain of the Garrison of the Courtly Palaces in Rahasabahst. We are trying to reach Nhadtereyba by nightfall.”

  The captain chewed the inside of her cheek and considered me. “Why?”

  “There has been a coup attempt. We need to warn the duke.”

  It was like she had been stung by a bee. She straightened and worried at her armor, looking down to see if she had been negligent in polishing it. The two weedy youths who made up her entire force came to attention. “Yes, yes, of course,” she said, and looked around as if wondering what to do. I had to admit that it filled me with despair. If this was the quality of the Duke of Nhadtereyba’s soldiery, we were truly doomed.

  Copyright KPB Stevens, 2025

  Sasturi Exempla Are a Secret Text

  “The Many Scholars’ Compendium” of Haunts and Scribbles entry by Klimmit Stav, Archivist of Haunts and Scribbles, in the year 876

  exempla. She teased me a little, of course. We are old friends. We both studied the exempla when we were young scholars, and she claims that they are full of merit. But always with a gleam of humor in her eye. And she has never opposed me when I’ve spoken of their foolishness. As if the world can be known through mere stories. Stories that refuse to point their meaning or come to any satisfactory conclusion.