“A tasteless observation about one of their mothers and her goat, which I will not repeat. One suggested they allow themselves to drop farther behind tomorrow. ‘Out of sight,’ he said. But the tall one—Franco?—said, ‘We have to keep her in view. She’ll make a move soon enough.’”
I loose a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. “So we can reasonably conclude that they follow us, most likely on the conde’s orders.”
“I think so, yes.”
I lie back down and pull the blanket up over my shoulders. “Go get some sleep. We’ll let the others know in the morning.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” He turns over on his knees, no longer bothering with stealth.
“And Belén?”
“Yes, Your Majesty?”
Maybe I do want to talk about him. A little. “Humberto would be proud of you, too. He always believed you’d come back to us.” Saying his name aloud doesn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. Humberto, I practice silently. Humberto.
A soft catch of breath. Then: “He had a way of believing in people long before they believed in themselves, didn’t he?”
The entrance to my tent flaps closes, and he is gone.
As we breakfast on corn cakes fried in olive oil, Ximena and Hector argue about whether or not to split the group apart. Everyone else listens to their discussion, shifting awkwardly in the sand, trying to be invisible.
Only Storm has not joined us for breakfast; he does not dare leave the carriage in daylight.
“There is safety in numbers,” Ximena insists. “Five men against our guard and Conde Tristán’s warriors? It’s no contest. And I’m not convinced they’re out to cause trouble. It’s likely the conde just sent them to keep an eye on Elisa. This journey does not play into his plans, and he’s desperate to feel like he has some sort of control over the situation. The best thing we can do is stick together. Go to Selvarica as planned. The more expectations we meet, the less suspicious we become to observers. But if we separate, Elisa is even more vulnerable.”
Conde Eduardo is not the only one desperate to feel some sort of control, I muse as I chew on my corn cake. Ximena seethes with the frustration of being stuck in the carriage with the decoy queen, unable to keep close watch over me. She hates ceding complete responsibility to Hector.
“I hope you’re right, Lady Ximena,” Hector says. “But if he merely wanted to keep an eye on the queen, why didn’t he insist on letting his own delegation travel with us? It doesn’t make sense. And the presence of Franco has me concerned. He’s a shadow adviser. No one knows anything about him. My instincts say all is not as it seems.”
“We should have traveled with a larger party,” Ximena says.
Hector shakes his head. “I don’t trust enough people to form a larger party. Better the enemy out there than here among us.”
Tristán has been listening quietly, sipping from a waterskin at regular intervals. He ties it off, sets it in the sand, and gains his feet. He does it gracefully, in such a way that all our eyes are drawn to him. His beautiful face is grave when he says, “My father was killed on a journey such as this. It’s the perfect opportunity, you see. Anyone can be blamed. So no one ever really is. I still don’t know who killed my father.”
Everyone is silent. I say, “What do you advise?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. Caution, I guess. I think the Lady Ximena is overly optimistic to hope the conde merely wants you observed. But I’m also not convinced that splitting off would be safer for you.”
I take a deep breath. I have to make a decision. And it’s one that could lead to someone’s death. Mine, or decoy Elisa’s, or someone I care about. I used to make these kinds of decisions all the time, when I was only a desert rebel. I would have expected to become accustomed to it.
“We have a plan for splitting the group if necessary, right?” I say.
Hector nods. “We do. But we can’t do it in open desert. We need to reach a village or trading post. Better yet, a large port like Puerto Verde.”
“Then we continue on as we are for now. Belén, you will observe them every night, so long as you feel you can get there and back undetected.”
He ducks his head obediently. “I can do it.”
“I’ll reevaluate when we reach a trading post.”
We break off to pack up camp. Ximena glowers as she returns to the decoy carriage.
As I’m rolling up my tent, Hector comes up beside me. “Tonight,” he says, “I’ll sleep outside your door. We’ll see if Belén can get by me.”