With a careful motion Alpheo opened his palm and let the others glimpse the prize.
Jarza was the first to speak.
"How did you manage to get your hands on this, and so soon at that?" he asked, his eyes bright with barely contained excitement.
Alpheo only shrugged. "Let us say that I have my ways," he replied, as though he had not spent that afternoon playing with fire and getting his face slapped for the privilege.
But the others went on staring at him expectantly, and after a moment he gave in, the way he always did. Usually wizards do not give their secrets away. Luckily for them, however, Alpheo did not believe in magic.
"I might have accidentally broken one of those urns, or whatever it is they call the thing they keep the wine in. Took a few slaps for it, and a boot in the ribs I had not budgeted for. But in exchange, I got this." He flicked the object between his fingers and made it dance in the dim light of the moon.
Every eye in the cell followed the trick, tracking each shift of his hand as though he were dealing cards for money.
"You're one of a kind," Egil muttered, scratching at his dirty head in disbelief. "If we make it out of this, I swear I'll have a statue made of you. A big one. In the square, where the pigeons can get at it."
The praise spread quickly. Clio and Jarza joined in, their voices overlapping in gratitude, all of them staring at the little shard as though it were the road out laid down flat in a man's hand. Alpheo listened to it in silence and felt a quiet pride take root somewhere in his chest, and did not let it show on his face.
"With this, that makes four," Clio murmured, glancing at Alpheo the way a man glances at the anchor rope in a storm.They all knew what that meant.
"But who's going to hold on to it?" Egil asked, cutting neatly through the moment. "We each already have one, and Alpheo's out of the question given how they watch him. Volunteers?"
"I'll keep it," Clio offered without hesitation.
Before anyone could agree to that, Jarza spoke up. "No. I will. I've the easiest position for keeping my mouth shut. I carry the loads on the march and nothing else. I never have to open my mouth except to eat or drink, so I can keep it hidden in the cheek of my mouth, just beside the others and no one will ever think to look."
The group turned to Alpheo, seeking his judgement. Most decisions fell to him whether he claimed the role of leader or not, for the simple reason that he was the brain of the group and all four of them knew it.
After a short pause he gave a nod. "It's settled." He broke off another piece of bread and chewed it slowly, with great ceremony, as though he were feasting.
Egil grinned and shared the dry toast. "We've a real chance at last. So. Next night, we slip away, yes? We leave this hell behind us for good and all."
Jarza and Clio's faces lit up with hope, that spark in the darkness, that dream too precious for any of them to set down.
But Alpheo's expression did not change. The faint smile he had been wearing slid off and left behind something hard.
They were not going to like what came next.
Jarza noticed first. He leaned closer, his tone careful, the way a man speaks near a sleeping dog. "Is there a problem?I don't like the look on you."
Alpheo met his gaze with a steady and almost pitying look. "I am no longer so sure about the plan," he said, each word coming slow, as though it cost him something to get out.
That was not taken well.
"But you were the one who came up with this plan in the first place."
Alpheo's jaw tightened. "That was three months ago. Circumstances have changed as you can notice. We were not marching into a war then. The plan we had before is no longer possible."
A flicker of anger lit in Egil's eyes. Years of toil, years of swallowing despair down whole and clinging to the hope of freedom like a man clings to a plank in deep water, all of it came boiling up at once. He had finally seen the door crack open.
And now the very man who had put the key in his hand was the one leaning on it to shut it again.
"Did you get cold feet?" Egil's voice carried a bitter edge that had not been there a moment before. "We'll die if we don't act. I'd sooner die free than rot as someone's property.'' He breathed ''We can't wait, gods know who will remain breathing in a few months. We are being pushed to the limits here!They scarcely care if we survive since they are going to make fucking whole with new slaves.They'll cut the rations even more!"
Jarza's deep voice cut through the air before the argument could catch properly alight. "Enough, Egil. We're all on the same ship here. We sink or we sail together, and I'm certain he has his reasons.Don't get ahead of yourself" His tone held a quiet warning underneath it, and the warning was about the volume.
It would be disastrous if anyone outside the bars were to hear a word of this.
Egil's anger faltered, though his shoulders stayed tight as a bowstring.
They all knew one thing well enough: when Alpheo said a thing could not be done, he was not speaking out of fear.
If he told them the sky would come down tomorrow afternoon, they would start praying for their souls before it ever occurred to any of them to look up and check.
"Why?" Clio asked finally, putting the question for all of them, turning toward Alpheo.
Alpheo leaned back against the cold wall and exhaled heavily.
"The plan was to cut our bindings at night with those shards of pottery we found. Slip away in the dark while the garrison slept. It would have worked well enough back home, where the defences go lax after dark and half the watch drinks itself half-blind. But here? In the middle of a campaign? There are eyes everywhere. Too many guards, too many fires burning all night long, too much risk in every direction at once. Where will we slip? There are guards on the walls. And if they catch us, they will take a great deal more than our freedom.I honestly don't favor to die like a stuck pig on a stick" He paused, and his voice went to iron. "That plan is dead. As dead as we will be if we go through with it."
Silence followed, heavy and suffocating. Jarza opened his mouth and found nothing waiting in it, and closed it again.
So much for their happy moment.
Egil broke first. "So we simply give up, then? Keep breaking our backs until we drop dead in the road and they roll us into a ditch?"
"Why don't you stop blaming him, h—" Clio began, and Alpheo cut him off.
"Egil." His voice was low, and it carried the weight of a blade laid flat against a throat. "Do not ever say that to me again. I have not toiled and bled and risked my life for years on end only to let them bury me as a slave in the dirt with no name over me. I will not die at the hands of these mongrels, unburied like a damn dog."
Jarza shifted uncomfortably. Clio looked away toward the bars. Even Egil, who a moment before had been brimming over with defiance, found himself gone quiet under that steady unblinking stare.
"Do you have another plan?" Jarza asked at last.
Alpheo allowed himself a small, almost amused smile, as though none of the words before this one had ever been spoken at all.There was no use getting angry, especially with them.What else did he have to look forward to, but these few moments at night, where he could resemble being a man?
"Of course I do."
He scanned the corners of the cell first, making certain no prying ears sat close, then drew a slow breath.
"If a quiet escape is no longer possible, then we will go the other way."
Clio leaned forward. "And what way is that?"
"It's simple." Alpheo's voice was calm, very nearly casual. "We break out. We seize the camp, we take everything in it worth the taking, we kill every soldier who puts himself between us and the gate, and then we vanish into the lands of the free with every man willing to follow us.Hopefully putting enough ground between us and the army as we can."
He said it as though it were no more troublesome than stealing a loaf of bread. As though cutting a path through the army of the strongest empire in the world were simply an errand a man might run before supper, and be back in time to eat it warm.