Free Dark of the Moon by Tracy Barrett

barrel.
    "Now, sir, if you're ready for bed?" I look around.
    "Where?" I ask.
    "Why, right there!" He points to a kind of platform raised about knee height from the floor. There's a sleeping-pallet on it. "Most comfortable bed in Hellas." He puffs out his chest like a dove. "Raised off the floor out of the way of drafts, and to keep the bugs away. Not that there are any bugs here," he adds a little too quickly.
    I don't care if the mattress holds a herd of lice the size of sparrows. I'm suddenly so tired that I nod my thanks and tumble into the bed. It wobbles, and I fling myself upright, gripping its edges. I've never slept off the floor before (it has never occurred to me that you
could
sleep off the floor), and I feel as exposed as if I were on a mountaintop.
    "Sorry, sir!" He shuffles forward, a wicked-looking blade in his hand. "If you'll step down for a moment?" I'm only too glad to comply, and he hacks off the bottom of one leg and tests the balance of the bed. Now another leg is too long. He trims that one, too. He tests it again, and the bed is still unstable. I'm about to tell him that it doesn't matter, that I prefer a pallet on the floor, when he's finally satisfied. "There's always one either too long or too short," he says as I settle myself in cautiously. "But once they're even, there's no more comfortable bed—"
    "In Hellas," I finish for him. "I know. I thank you."
    And while he's thanking me back I fall asleep, with Artemis curled on the floor beneath my head.

Chapter 12
    TELL MY FRIEND here what you just told me." The guard's pimply face indicates that he is no older than I am, and the mirth that stretches his mouth wide makes my hand itch to strike him. Artemis senses my anger, and a low rumble issues from her long throat. Instead of punching the palace guard, I drop my hand to her head. She falls silent, but I can feel that her every muscle is quivering.
    I turn to the older man indicated by the youth. "I'm the king's son," I repeat. "I've come to meet him and to take my place at his side."
    "The king's son?" The heavyset man doesn't seem as amused as his companion, but he doesn't move from his spot in front of the door, where he's planted like a tree trunk.
    I'm tired. I want to go in and meet the man who supposedly sired me. I'm filthy and I'm hungry, and Artemis is even more worn out than I am. The trip was uneventful, except for the pig that I killed the first day out. A few days later I met a man I thought was a thief, but since I carried nothing of value with me except my sword and my hand rested on its hilt during the whole of our short conversation on the edge of a cliff, I'd had nothing to fear from him.
    I should be disappointed by this lack of adventures, but secretly I'm pleased to have made it to my destination in such a short time and with no injuries or loss of more of my meager property than the blanket I had given to the pig-woman. I finished my food quickly, though, and I'm hungry. I can feel Artemis's ribs through her thick coat.
    And now that I've come all the way here, and when the man I seek is finally just on the other side of the door, this officious boy and his large friend are blocking my entry. The injustice of it swells my chest, and I want to shout at them. I know it would do me no good and might cause them to throw me out in front of all the people passing on the wide street.
    The older man pulls thoughtfully at his lower lip. He lets go of it and it snaps back into place. "What makes you think you're his son, boy?" His tone isn't unfriendly, and even Artemis seems to relax a little.
    "He left me something. He wanted me to come to him once I found it."
    "Oh, so he left you something, did he? What was it, a golden crown?" The pimple-faced boy's sneering voice is the sardine that broke the pelican's beak, and before I know what I'm doing, I haul back and punch the smirk off his face.
    A big hand claps me on the shoulder. I wince, resigned to being tossed out, but instead the