A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner Read Free Book Online Page A

heading
downhill moved the dirt shovel by shovel into the space behind the
newly built walls, creating flat terraces to hold a tree. Those
uphill had a more difficult job, cutting through the roots of the
dried grasses into the rocklike soil to gouge a space for a wall to
fit. I grabbed a shovel and headed downhill before I could be sent
upward.
    In terms of my freedom, I may have been no different from the
other slaves around me, but in other ways more significant to the
job at hand, I was as unlike them as it was possible to be. The
first time I swung the shovel into the dirt pile the newly healing
skin split under the scabs on my back, and my muscles burned like
fire. My hands slipped along the shaft of the digging tool. I
gripped harder, strained at the load, and tipped a pathetic half
shovel of loose dirt, dry as dust, into the empty space behind the
stone wall.
    The man beside me looked at the results of my effort and then at
me. I could hardly excuse my performance by telling him of my
sheltered childhood as the nephew of the king of Sounis. All I
could do was scowl and wait for his contemptuous comment. To my
surprise he only shrugged and moved away to work somewhere
else.
    I tipped another tiny shovel’s worth into place. Ignoring
all the others, feeling more and more humiliated by my own
performance and more sullen every minute, I worked stubbornly until
the sun dropped to the horizon. When I heard a shout from above, I
looked uphill to see the overseer resting on his shovel. He was a
worker as well, and he was calling it a day. All around me, the men
moved slowly to the rock piles, where they left their tools.
Together we made our way to the barracks. My back hurt so much I
was afraid that if I took a misstep on the rutted path, I would
drop like a sack of oats. I watched every step as if it were my
last, but I made it to the sleeping quarters and to my own pallet,
where I fell, without a thought of dinner, into a dreamless
sleep.
    I woke in the morning starved. I was also, I found, when I
levered my body into a sitting position, chained to the wall by a
bracelet around my hand. I was looking at the smooth iron ring,
remembering Eugenides once in a similar position and wishing that I
had his pluck to deal with the situation, when Ochto squatted
beside me to unlock it.
    “Not used to that, are you?” he asked.
    I shook my head.
    “Better this than a galley, though, right?” He
watched me through narrowed eyes as he spoke, and continued to
observe me even after I nodded my agreement. He popped the lock off
as the potboy brought breakfast. My whole body protesting, I was
still first in line for the food.
    I dragged myself through the next days, working, resting in the
afternoon, digging until the light was going from the sky. I ate
and then slept dreamlessly. Slowly I grew stronger and was awake
longer. During rest periods I watched the other men as they
wandered in and out of the barracks. I began to wait with them when
we came in from the fields for my turn to rinse myself at the
wellhead instead of going directly to my pallet of blankets in
anticipation of my next meal. I was still first in line to eat.
    Every night the men entertained themselves under the
overseer’s watchful eye. They talked until by mutual consent
someone’s offering of poetry or song was chosen, a different
man each night, in a subtle order of rotation I didn’t
understand. Some knew only one piece, others had a broader range,
and they were careful, in an unscripted way, not to overuse
anyone’s limited repertoire. One evening, as I lay on my
pallet, with my right hand chained to the ring in the wall, I heard
a man across the room reciting Eacheus’s speech from the
ending of the Eponymiad .
    I hadn’t really listened before because I’d been
falling asleep as they started. I was falling asleep then, but a
mistake caught my ear: “laughing-eyed chorus” instead
of “doe-eyed Kora.”
    Without lifting my head, I recited the line