Anxious at being hemmed in by so many strangers, especially dirty strangers, she picked one who looked extremely old and frail and thus less likely to try any tricks. She pulled him aside, leaving the others grumbling, and handed him a small copper coin with a crab on it. “Go to that household,” she pointed back up the road toward the broad eaves of her family’s house, “and ask for Eril the steward. Speak to him only. Tell him Pelaya says he is to meet her at the Sivedan Temple on Good Zakkas Road, and that he must bring his sword. If you do this properly, I will bring you two more of these tomorrow, right here. Understand?”

The old beggar gummed the coin reflectively, then nodded. “Temple of Siveda,” he said.

“Good. Oh, and tell Eril that if he brings my mother or anyone else I don’t want to see, I will hide and they will never find me, and it will all be his fault. Can you remember all that?”

“For three copper crabs? Half a seahorse?” The old man laughed and coughed, or it might have been the other way around—it was hard to tell the difference. “Kura, I’d sing the Trigoniad from stem to stern for three coppers. I’ve ate nothing but grass for days.”

She frowned, wondering if he was making fun of her. How could an old, toothless beggar know the Trigoniad? But it didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting King Olin to safety.

In fact, Pelaya thought, if this worked, Olin Eddon would almost certainly invite her to his own court someday out of gratitude. She could tell her family, “Oh, yes, the king of the Marchlands wishes me to come for a visit. You remember King Olin—he and I are old friends, you know.”

She set off for Good Zakkas Road, half a mile away in the Theogonian Forum district. She had thought of bringing a knife herself, but hadn’t known how to get one without risking her plan being discovered, so she had decided to do without. That was why she needed Eril and his sword. It had been years since he had fought in her father’s troop, but he was big enough and relatively young enough that no one would try to rob her in his company, at least not in daylight. Still, robbery might be the least of the dangers.

Am I mad? The streets were full of soldiers, but most of the rest of the citizens had returned from their scuttling morning errands and were locked in now, terrified of the cannons, of the foul smoke and fire that fell from the sky. What am I doing?

Doing good, Pelaya told herself, and then remembered the Zorian injunction against self-importance. Trying to do good.

The rag had slipped from his mouth down to his chin and the dust was getting in again. Count Perivos spit out a mouthful of grit and then pulled the cloth back into place, but he had to lay down his shovel to tie it. He cursed through ash and dirt. When you had forty pentecounts of men at your disposal, you didn’t expect to be wielding a tool yourself.