“Game pieces, game pieces,” the stranger cried, grabbing the bridle of Sandry’s mount. “See the pretty game pieces, the ladies and the mages, two in one, a nice long game of capture the pieces.” He had bright, dark eyes, and dark, wiry hair that looked as if it had been cut with a cleaver. “Who will play the game, and who will keep the lady trophy? You, huntmaster, a pretty heiress for your mantelpiece? Best two out of three? Best man wins? So many games to play!”
Daja couldn’t believe her eyes. “Wait!” she called as Shan dismounted. From the look on the nobleman’s face, she didn’t think he meant to send the scarecrow along with a coin and a kind word. “It’s all right!”
“It is not!” barked Shan. “He mocks a member of the imperial family—”
“No,” Daja said impatiently. “I’m pretty sure I know him, and he’s just addled.” She guided her horse around Sandry until she had a clear look at the man. “Do I look like a game piece to you?” she demanded. “Take a good look. I was dressed a little differently, the last time we met.”
The man stared up at her, wide-eyed, then covered his gaping mouth with bony hands.
Daja sighed. Trader guide me, it’s him. The last time I saw him, I was about to walk back into a burning building, and he’d just helped me get a clutch of crazy people out of it. “Is that the robe I gave you?” she asked him.
He nodded, hands still covering his mouth.
Daja looked at the rest of their group. “Go on. I’ll look after my friend, here.”
“You know this man?” demanded Shan, startled.
Daja smiled, though she hadn’t taken her eyes from her crazy helper. “We met when I lived in Kugisko,” she replied. “We did rescue work together in a big fire.” She looked at the others. They still remained motionless, staring at her. “We’ll be along. Shoo. You’re frightening him.”
“Not as bad as he frightened us,” grumbled Briar. Sandry looked at Shan and nodded. With a grimace the nobleman swung back into his saddle and rode with her, Briar, and Tris on down High Street. All around them the foot traffic that had come to a halt resumed, though they kept well away from Daja and her new companion.
Daja swung out of the saddle and waited until her friends were out of earshot, holding her mount’s reins in her metal-plated hand. “Sandry is the empress’s cousin,” she told her companion softly when the others could no longer hear. “You’re lucky that Shan didn’t cut you in two with his sword.”
“I know she’s the cousin, but she’s a game piece, you’re all game pieces, and the great lady thinks she knows the rules to play with you. She doesn’t, she doesn’t at all, and I went to see you in Kugisko but the servants made me leave because you were ill.” He spoke quickly, but his voice was crisp and his eyes were clear and direct.
I don’t understand what exactly he’s trying to say, but I know a genuine warning when I hear it, she thought. She looked him over. He’s ragged and dirty, but his nails aren’t bitten down, and he’s only trembling a little. “They never did tell me your name,” she remarked.
“Zhegorz. I had a last name once but my family doesn’t like me to use it, because they say I don’t belong to it like they do so I never even remember it now it’s been so long—”
Daja cut him off by resting her hand on his arm. “When did you eat last?” she asked. Cupping his elbow in her free hand, she steered him down a narrow side street, away from the gawkers and any spies who might report his ravings to the crown. Her horse followed calmly when she tugged on his reins. “And where in Hakkoi’s name have you been sleeping?”
“Beach caves,” he replied, watching everything but the street in front of them. Daja braced him when he nearly tripped over a mound of horse droppings, and maneuvered him past hazards after that. “Sand’s good for scrubbing clothes, and there’s a stream, but I had to come because of the game pieces—”
“You can tell me about the pieces later, Zhegorz. When did you eat?”
He shrugged. Daja had the peculiar notion that if she looked into his eyes she would see comets and whirling stars where common sense ought to be. With a sigh, she pulled him around the corner onto Kylea Street, where she found a strawberry vendor’s cart. She grabbed a woven reed basket filled with strawberries and flipped a silver argib coin to the vendor who sold them, then thrust the basket at Zhegorz. “Eat those,” she ordered. She had to spend the next several minutes showing him how to remove the leafy crown after he ate one strawberry whole. He was silent as he worked his way through the basket, popping fruit after fruit into his mouth.
He’s starving, thought Daja as she continued to steer him along the back way to the town house. The Namornese gods are cruel, to make someone like him mad. For all his raving, he’s got a good heart. Most crazy people would have run off on their own in that fire, or never even offered to help. Not that he offered, but he did as I told him when I ordered him to. And he didn’t want me to walk back into the burning hospital. That was sweet.
The servants’ gate at Landreg House was open. Gently, Daja guided Zhegorz inside and turned her mount over to a hostler who came for it. Then she looked at her charge. “If I put you in a hot tub in the bathhouse, will you stay there?” she asked him.
Zhegorz ran a quivering hand over his chopped hair, his eyes scuttling back and forth. “Is the tub hot or the water hot?” he asked. “Specifics, what’s to be heated and what’s not—”