The Lotus Thief novel · Chapter 3 of 32
Chapter 3: The Road Out
Ton leaves the city at dawn; at the first checkpoint a royal party overtakes him and Bua rides up beside his cart. Bua has followed him.
Ton left before the bells.
He had a canvas bag with three days of food, a waterskin, a knife, and every herb he owned wrapped in cloth.
He left the rest. Nothing in that room was worth carrying.
The room was one bed and a shelf and a window facing a wall.
Fon had slept in the bed for eleven months while he took the floor.
He stood in the doorway a moment before he went.
She was asleep with her hand under her cheek and her braid loose on the pillow.
He didn't wake her. He set the brown bottle on the shelf where she'd find it.
It was empty. He had washed it clean and filled it with honey water.
She would know what it meant. She always knew.
He closed the door without a sound.
At the gate the night watch was changing and nobody looked at him twice.
He walked north until the walls were small behind him, and then smaller.
By the time the sun came up he was sitting on the back of a farmer's cart, between two crates of salted fish.
The farmer was going as far as the first checkpoint and didn't ask questions.
He talked about the weather instead, and about a cousin who had married into a family with a well.
Ton nodded in the right places and watched the road.
The road was white dust and dry grass on both sides, and the grass moved in long slow waves.
The heat came up fast. By mid-morning the dust was sticking to his neck.
Ton unwrapped a root and chewed it. It kept the thirst down.
He had walked this road once before, at fifteen, with his mother.
She had carried a basket of ginger to sell at the north market and held his hand the whole way.
She had died the winter after. Fon had been eight.
The checkpoint was a wooden gate across the road with a shed beside it.
Two guards. One old, one young.
The old one was asleep on a stool with his chin on his chest.
The young one waved the cart down.
"Name?"
"Ton. Herb-buyer. Hills."
"Where's your load?"
"Sold it. Going back for more."
The guard looked at the bag.
"Open it."
Ton opened it.
The guard poked through the cloth bundles and found nothing but roots.
He picked one up and sniffed it.
"What's this one?"
"Bitter root. For the stomach."
"Tastes like dirt."
"It is dirt, mostly."
The guard dropped it back in and wiped his hand on his trousers.
"Go on."
Ton climbed onto the cart.
The farmer clicked his tongue at the ox.
Then Ton heard hooves.
A lot of them.
He turned and looked back down the road.
Dust. A line of it, coming fast.
Six riders in palace colors, and behind them a bigger party with a canopy and a banner.
The farmer pulled the cart off to the side and got down to kneel in the grass.
"Royal," he said. "Get off."
Ton got down.
He kept his face turned toward the field and his hand loose at his side.
The riders came up to the gate and the young guard snapped upright and saluted.
The banner came level with the shed. The old guard woke and slid off his stool onto his knees.
And then one horse broke out of the line and came straight at the cart.
Ton looked up.
Bua.
He was in a light riding coat, no crown, no guard around him, hair tied back with a plain cord.
He pulled the horse up beside the cart and looked down.
"You walk fast," he said.
Ton's hand went to the knife under his sash, casual, like he was fixing his belt.
"Your Highness."
"You left before dawn."
"I had business."
"You had a bag with roots in it and a road north."
Bua swung down off the horse.
He was taller standing than Ton had remembered from the bath house.
"You went out the west gate and doubled back," Bua said. "That's four hours wasted."
"You had me followed."
"I followed you."
"The guard at your bath said he'd keep me."
"He did. Until I told him to stop."
Bua handed the rein to nobody and let the horse stand.
"Where are you going?"
"The hills. For stock."
"There are no hills north of here for forty li."
"There are hills."
"There are hills," Bua agreed. "But the herb-buyers don't go there. The soil's wrong."
Ton said nothing.
"You were in my bath house with a lockpick in your hair and a map in your hands," Bua said.
"Now you're on the north road with roots in a bag and no load to sell."
"Either you're a bad thief or you're going somewhere specific."
The young guard was watching them both now.
"Your Highness," he said. "Do you know this man?"
"He's my servant," Bua said.
The guard blinked.
"He ran off this morning without my leave. I've been chasing him since the west gate."
Ton's jaw worked.
Bua didn't look at him.
"Sir," the guard said, "we'll hold him for you. There's a shed. We can put him in the shed."
"You'll do nothing of the kind."
Bua took the horse's rein and started walking it toward the gate.
The farmer stayed on his knees in the grass and kept his eyes down.
Ton picked up his bag and followed.
Then the young guard reached out and grabbed Ton's collar.
"Come on, then. Back of the shed."
Ton didn't move.
The guard pulled harder and the collar bit into his throat.
"You heard me."
Bua turned around.
He didn't shout. He didn't reach for a weapon.
He took two steps, put his shoulder into the guard's chest, and drove him backward into the shed door.
The door came off one hinge.
The guard went down on his back in the dust with his helmet rolling away.
The old guard got off his knees and stood there with his mouth open.
Bua stood over the young one.
"He's mine," he said.
Then he turned and looked at Ton.
"Get on the horse."
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