He didn’t quite run away. Or rather, he did, but not before kicking at young Cloehen with a vicious boot. And on his way back down the road, he stopped beside the stream and stabbed the elephant. Which meant that he had been watching, and had seen us arrive.

  It caused an immediate commotion. The elephant reared onto its back feet and let out a roar. It stumbled out into the water, its giant feet slipping on the slick shale of the stream bottom, and it almost fell over. This was enough to confuse it and make it forget its rage, if only for a moment. The horses and hill ponies were stampeding off in every direction. The pilgrims were being knocked down. One of them fell into a stall that was selling meat pies, collapsing a table and wiping out the day’s profit for the poor vendor.

  Up on our rise, Martiveht took a step forward, as if she could do something. When I didn’t move she glanced back at me, surprised. But a guard’s duty is to guard, and I was guarding the princess, not the shrine market.

  The elephant had turned in the stream and was facing us. Its head was lowered and its trunks were lashing out everywhere. One of them was hardening into a tusk. As soon as it was sure of its footing, it would charge up the road. I started hollering in my loudest captain’s voice. Hollering at the pilgrims, who were milling about in confusion. “Get off the road! Get off the road!”

  And then Cloehen appeared on the bank, facing the elephant and blocking its charge. He was such a little fellow. Grimy, and probably bearing many hidden bruises. The kind of boy you would expect to kick small dogs and torture insects, just to get some of the anger out. But he loved that elephant. It was clear in the way that he faced it, as if daring it to kill him. He trusted that it wouldn’t. The hours spent braiding its delicate hair had created an alliance that could not be broken.

  The elephant watched him warily. Cloehen took a step forward. The elephant’s tusk softened into a trunk again and stretched out with its other two trunks to weave around him. I worried that they might grab him and toss him aside. But instead they guided him to its side, where blood was seeping from the wound that Pertrahn had made in its thigh. Cloehen cupped stream water in his hands and cleaned the wound, and there was something so gentle in his demeanor that I almost wanted to weep. Then he took off his grubby robes and bandaged the beast with them. He was naked except for a loin cloth. I couldn’t imagine that the dirt and grime from the robes would be good for the injury, but the boy had nothing else at hand.

  I turned to one of my guards and said, “Go fetch Vaenahma.”

  As we were waiting, Martiveht said, “Who was that man?”

  “That man,” I said, “is an evil bastard named Pertrahn. He’s one of the King’s Rangers.”

  “Aren’t rangers supposed to like horses?”

  “Do you think the elephant is a horse?”

  “Captain, you saw the horses scatter, just as I did.”

  I sighed. I was being snide because I was angry. And because I felt useless, keeping to my guard post while a slave boy was saving everyone around him. “I hope that one of them was Pertrahn’s own. Might mean that he’ll have to walk back to wherever he came from.”

  “Do rangers often travel by themselves?”

  “Most often in twos or threes.” But I caught her drift. I studied the people in the marketplace. They were pulling themselves back up, gathering together in small groups, keeping a wary eye on the elephant. There was a curious number of brawny men among the old grandmothers. Grandsons, I had supposed. But if that were the case, why weren’t they in the city, registering for the corvee?

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  Vaenahma descended from where they had been lurking at the top of the ridge. “Go down and help the boy with the elephant,” I told them. “I suppose you have something that could serve as a clean bandage.” They nodded. Vaenahma is the one we all go to when we need stitching up. They have very careful hands. “And lieutenant,” I said, “when you go past those bruisers with the grandmas, try to see if they’re carrying weapons.”

  Vaenahma nodded. “If they are, I’ll signal you by ruffling the boy’s hair.”

  “Good signal,” I agreed.

  We watched them make their way down the road. Some of the pilgrims had decided that the threat was past, and had returned to haggling with the vendors. The man whose table of meat pies had been upset was sadly trying to salvage what he could. “They say that the people around Aroiba Gorge use the heat of the sun to cook bread,” I said, watching him scoop filling back into broken crusts.

  “They do,” Martiveht assured me. “They make a thin dough and put it on a rock to bake. It tastes very gritty when you eat it.”

  “Well, I suppose he could claim that his remaining pies are Raensapal delicacies,” I said.

  “Captain,” she asked, “are we in danger?”

  “I don’t know,” I told her. Then I turned and looked at her directly. “Will you tell me why the princess was so anxious to come to the shrine on her own?”

  Martiveht looked down. She frowned. “It would be breaking a confidence.”

  I nodded. “Then you’ll have to decide about the danger for yourself. If you think that we’re in danger, you’ll tell me. Let’s wait to see if Vaenahma ruffles that boy’s hair.”

  Vaenahma had come to the side of the stream and was picking their way carefully among the horse patties. They stepped out into the water and the elephant watched them warily. Cloehen half turned and regarded them. Vaenahma called something and went closer. They bent to study the elephant’s wound. Then, very casually, and as if in approbation, Vaenahma reached out and ruffled the boy’s hair.

  I glanced at Martiveht. “Well?”

  “But it doesn’t make sense,” she said. “Why would it be a member of the King’s Rangers?”

  “You’ll have to expound on that.”

  She sighed. “She got a message from Prince Dasuekoh. A love letter, I suppose. It was full of remorse. He said that his heart was broken because of his own actions. He was very cruel when he left her, you know. The king had just banished him from court, and he came to her house and took it all out on her. And then nothing. No message from Kaikoelahtu. No invitation for her to join him there. Until this letter.”

  “And the letter asked her to meet him at the shrine?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “He said that he was trying to make things right. That he had to make things right with the ancestors, first, and he wanted her to be there. To support him. Then he would go and make amends to his father.”

  “And she had some reason for wanting to help him?”

  She looked at me with cool gray eyes. “She was raised with stories about him. Before we came from Raensapal. Most of her lessons were about the Sarangbaus, and Rahasabahst. She knows your history better than you know it yourself. And she was told that her purpose was to be a good wife to him. A good queen, eventually. She has a little cameo that she’s carried around since she was seven years old. A little painting of her prince. Of course she’d try to reconcile with him.”

  “You seem to know her well.”

  “I am a Sasturi of Raensapal Weaver’s Guild. I was assigned to her, to keep the ghosts away.”

  I nodded. “But you suspected that this might be a trap of some sort.”

  “Yes. But it seemed so unlikely. Why would Dasuekoh want to harm Iyedraeka? Surely the alliance with Raensapal is important enough for him to tolerate her, even if he doesn’t love her.”

  I turned to face her, and I couldn’t keep the anger out of my voice. “You have neglected an obvious fact,” I said. “Prince Dasuekoh is an idiot, and he cannot be expected to act in his own best interests.”

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  Copyright KPB Stevens, 2025

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