Free The Orphan by Peter Lerangis

escaped. Which meant that at least some of them were heading into the woods with the rebels. To join Nico and Frada.
    My mission had succeeded.
    â€œMy king,” I continued, “if I am to be put to death, let it be quick. I am ready.”
    The king threw his head back and laughed as if I had tickled him with a giant feather. “Kill you and still the voice sweeter than all the flowers on Mother’s Mountain? I think not. No, you have so much to offer me still.”
    He kicked away the slave girl and motioned to his disfigured foot.
    â€œTake her place,” he said to me. “Massage my foot.”
    I recoiled. “The thought of it makes me want to vomit. I would no sooner touch your wretched flesh than dine on pig manure. And the only singing you will hear from me will be this chant: Down with the tyrant king !”
    Nabu-na’id sank back in his throne. “You know, I’ve been chatting with dear old Serug the Hunchback lately. He doesn’t say much, but he knows quite a bit—for example, the location of the place where you have been living, dear Daria. That wine shop whose libations have been poisoning some of my own courtiers. A shop that is run by a decrepit old woman who, by rights, I could have beheaded.”
    â€œZakiti has done nothing wrong!” I blurted out.
    â€œAh, I see. And would you say that about dear Arwa also? She comes from an awilum family and teaches the children of many other nobles. I don’t imagine she was involved in your plot, was she?” The king sighed deeply, absently digging his finger into his nose, then wiping the results of his excavation onto the shoulder of a nearby slave.
    â€œWhat are you going to do to them, you disgusting beast?” I demanded.
    â€œNormally I’d have them executed just for being associated with you,” the king replied, “but I believe they have their uses in this kingdom, and I am at heart a man of mercy. If you disobey me, if you fail to smile at me, if you call me by anything other than ‘my king,’ they are the ones who will suffer.” He thrust his foot forward again. I could see his pea-sized, rotted toes wriggling through his sandal. “Come now, you have a job to do. You will make an excellent slave.”
    I sank to my knees and placed a hand on the king’s foot. He let out a sigh.
    Closing my eyes, I thought of Zakiti and Arwa. Of Nico, Frada, Shirath, and the freed prisoners. Of the rebels gathering in the forest. Of the world of Sippar, hover­ing mysteriously on the edges of Babylon. Of loyalty and mystery.
    And family. Always family.
    Nabu-na’id would not rule forever. Babylon would have another future. One in which the old values, the real values, were restored. I felt a smile warming my face.
    â€œAh, there we go . . .” the king murmured.
    I was awash in happiness, and it mattered not what the king thought, or what I was doing. I began to sing. My voice took flight in the song that had helped Frada through her sickness, the song that people in the woods may have been singing at that moment, to give them strength.
    â€œâ€˜Hope is a seed . . .’” I began.
    The king sat up sharply. “What? Wait. That is the rebel song, is it not?”
    â€œâ€˜Love is a garden . . .’” I continued, louder, my voice filling the chamber, my hands working the soothing salve into the skin of the king’s foot.
    â€œStop that!” the king shouted. But his relief from pain was at war with his shock and anger, and he sank back into his throne with a satisfied snort. “Someone stop . . . that . . . girl . . .”
    As my song soared, I could see the goggle-eyed Bel-Shar-Usur running in from an outer chamber. But the king’s mouth was moving soundlessly, his eyes closed. No one interrupted the king when he was in this state. No one knew quite what to do.
    So I kept singing. I