The Queen's Assassin (The Queen's Secret #1)(27)

“He’s afraid we’ll see how soft he is,” one of the other boys offers. They all laugh and begin adding their own insults.

“His soft widdle baby belly,” another calls out.

I clench my jaw and control a jolt of fury. I’m tempted to go after them. Pummel them until they beg forgiveness.

Jander turns toward the horse stalls, so I take a deep breath and follow him. I’m more than happy to put some distance between myself and the others.

It’s not a terribly cold morning, but my wet clothes make me shiver. Jander disappears around a corner and returns seconds later with a folded wool blanket, which he holds out for me. It belongs to the horses, but it’s clean, so I don’t mind. I wrap it around my shoulders. “Thank you, that was very kind of you,” I tell him. I think I see a bit of a smile around his lips before it evaporates.

Cleaning the stalls is easy work. I never did so many at once, but I’m accustomed to taking care of animals. I reach down to grab hold of a wheelbarrow when a wave of guilt rushes over me. I left my aunts with all the work. No doubt they’re furious that I’ve gone—but I’m not worried about furious. What upsets me is imagining them distraught or terrified, not knowing if I’m all right. Selfishly, I hadn’t considered that side of it. And I must stop thinking of it now. I bite the inside of my cheek to distract myself.

I bite down again, hard, and think of Caledon and the Guild. “Not too bad, huh?” I say to Jander, referring to the clean stalls we’ve already done. He nods but doesn’t look up.

We shovel out the manure and replace the hay for each horse while they’re being exercised in the field. With two of us, it doesn’t take too long.

Jander doesn’t speak, but I don’t know if it’s because he’s shy or because he’s mute. I realize I haven’t heard him talk at all to anyone.

“So, how long have you been here?” I ask him. He just shrugs. I try again. “My name’s . . . Shadow,” I say, holding out my hand. I don’t want to start out by lying to him. He hesitates but then shakes my hand weakly before going back to shoveling.

By the time we finish, my clothes are almost completely dry. Things could have gone differently this morning—I’ll have to be a lot more careful from now on. If I’m caught, not only will I lose the opportunity to rescue Caledon and get to the Guild, I’ll face charges of trespassing, forgery, and treason—all punishable by death.

We each take a wheelbarrow full of manure and push it out to the gardens. I see a few prisoners wandering the gated castle yard and try to see if Caledon is among them. I don’t see him. They all look bigger and older than he is.

“An hour a day,” a guard says. He noticed me looking. I hadn’t even seen him standing by the fence. “We’re not barbarians.”

I nod. Did disapproval show on my face? I stop myself from telling him that I never accused him of such. The less I talk to anyone, the better.

We dump the wheelbarrows and head back to the stable for another load. When we return to the garden, the prisoners are gone. I need to find a way to warn Caledon about the Montrician prisoner.

The rest of the first day isn’t too awful; Jander leaves me to go do whatever else he does, and I avoid the pack of stable boys— especially their leader, who I discovered is named Luce—and keep busy weeding the gardens. As long as I look occupied, nobody bothers with me. I look for a way to snoop inside but can’t find an excuse to go into the building.

When the sun starts to set, I hide in some bushes behind the stable buildings and wait, the wool horse blanket keeping me warm. I don’t want to go to bed until the rest of them do. I wonder if there’s someplace better I can sleep. But the only options I can think of don’t sound any safer than staying where I am.

The final beam of sunlight disappears over the horizon when the truth dawns on me that I didn’t think this plan through. I hadn’t considered exactly how dangerous Deersia is. On some level, I suppose I knew, but it wasn’t until actually getting here that I realized it will be near impossible to get out again. The road down the mountain will be bad enough without a posse of armed prison guards chasing us. I have to think of a way to find Caledon, release him, and leave without being detected, which means we’ll need a long head start. So we’ll have to leave at night. That solves one of the three problems, but not the other two.

I don’t have much time to figure this out either. The longer I’m here, the greater the chance I’m going to be exposed. Lessons with my aunts never included acting—I have barely a clue about how to seem like a boy. And soon I’ll have a fourth problem on my hands—what my aunts liked to call “Deia’s monthly gift.” I have supplies but it’s better if I’m not here when it starts. Tomorrow, I need to focus solely on finding Caledon.

Once I hear the boys snoring in the barn loft, I go in and find a dark corner to curl up in. I toss all night, worried that Luce will get up before I do. But I’m determined to get outside in the morning before anyone has a chance to douse me with water again.

When I get up, it’s still dark, closer to night than day. I go behind the stable into the tall grasses and squat down, listening for anyone nearby. The boys relieve themselves wherever and whenever, but obviously that’s a problem for me.

I sneak out of the grass and go to the water pump to splash some water on my face. I don’t have a tooth stick or even a clean cloth to wipe the fuzz that’s accumulated on my teeth. I’ve never felt so grimy in my life. I’ve always had access to fresh baths and mint pastes to freshen my mouth, and though I didn’t grow up with dressing maids and fancy silks, I guess I’m more accustomed to certain comforts than I realized. I cup my hands and swish some water around in my mouth, spit it out into the grass. That relieves the worst of my dry mouth but doesn’t take away from the dirty, itchy sensation that’s spread all over me, from my scalp to my feet.