To Stand Beside Her (3 page)

Anatolio pushed gently on her arms to force her to begin walking. This time around
Leila
did not test his resolve. He would take her to exactly where she wanted to be. Leila took no notice, though, of the change in her guard’s
mood
which was now more gentle
. She was caught up in her own thoughts.

Why did he tell me these things?
What does he know of my future? Can I really be happy again without Erich?
Leila
questioned herself.
She
tried to get their conversation out of her head.
I need to focus. Plan an escape. What does it mean?
Leila
began to trail off with her thoughts from the seer again.
How did he know about Erich?

“We are almost
t
here,” Anatolio said to Leila breaking her thoughts. “I can get you into the same cell, but that is it. I don’t have any more authority than that.” Leila was shocked to hear him speak.

“There are two guards on shift at one time inside the jail and two guards outside the gate,” Anatolio
continued to explain
. He let go of her arms, and she turned to face him. “The guards only change one person at a time so that there is always someone here. Right now there is only your friend in the jail
and
no other prisoners.” Gently,
Anatolio
turned
Leila
back around and took hold of her arms again. “Good luck,” he whispered in her ear as they approached the guards at the gate.

“Open,” Anatolio ordered. “I have one prisoner here to be placed with the other prisoner.” The gates opened. Two men playing cards immediately jumped up as Anatolio approached. The portly guard’s mustache failed to hide the smile that crossed his face. He was always fond of having beautiful lady prisoners under his watch
in his section of the jail
.

“She is to be housed with the other prisoner,” Anatolio commanded.

“I will take her there,” the prison guard offered.

Anatolio replied, “I will take her myself.” He changed his grip to hold back Leila’s arms with one hand. Leila played along like she could easily be held with one hand. Anatolio took the keys and led her down the hallway. He approached a room and unlocked the door. Leila walked through the door.

“You are on your own now, so be careful,” Anatolio warned before locking the door behind her.

Leila walked into the dim room. Though she had not noticed, it was already dusk. The room had no light in it except for the last rays of sunlight streaming in one window.
This is bad
, she thought, noticing they were not in the women’s quarters of the jail. Through the dim light she surveyed the room. The room was sparsely furnished. There was one window, a bed with
a
blanket in one corner, and in the other corner
,
staring at Leila with a tear-
streaked face propped on her knees
, sat Kay.

Chapter 2

Kay was happy to see Leila, but at the same time, she was disappointed in herself. She failed the mission.
Kay
sat in the corner staring at her feet ashamed to be caught in the jail when everything had been planned so well. Kay was just a child when she ran away from her home and wandered into Leila’s family’s vineyard.
Kay
met Leila and her life changed forever. Leila’s parents took Kay in and raised her alongside Leila and her two older brothers. When Kay got married, Leila’s father walked Kay down the aisle. When Kay had given birth to her son, it was Leila’s mother that taught Kay how to calm the crying baby. The only person in the whole world that Kay feared disappointing was
her best friend, who she considered a sister,
Leila.

Leila sat down next to Kay. She studied her friend’s face. Kay had been crying. Leila felt a strong need to protect her, and Kay kn
o
w
ing
this bec
ame
even more disappointed in herself. Kay hung her head.

“I’m sorry,” Leila said, “if I had known the papers had been marked, I would have thrown them away.” Leila hugged her friend.

“It’s all my fault. You told me not to take those papers,” Kay blurted out while Leila hugged her.

“I have been doing this longer; I should have been better prepared,” Leila took the blame again. Growing up together, they were always complete opposites.

This current mission was far beyond Kay’s abilities, but she had traded for the assignment without Leila knowing
;
the
higher
pay that came with a
harder
mission
was too enticing to pass up
.
Kay had tried to leave undetected, but
b
eing the better courier, Leila caught up with Kay before she reached Lexia. Kay begged and pleaded with Leila to let her finish the mission
, and
Leila only agreed after Kay agreed to follow the
exact
plan Leila had made.

“So now what do we do?” Kay asked without looking Leila in the eyes.

“We leave and go home. I will return in a couple weeks and finish everything then,” Leila concluded.

“But this jail is not how you described it,” Kay commented.

“That is because we are not in the women’s jail,” Leila responded. She had been in these jails once, many years ago. They seemed to have upgraded everything since her last escape from the men’s jail. “I was here once with Erich,” she explained to Kay. Kay flinched at the sound of Erich’s name. This was a very hard subject to talk about with Leila. For over a year after he died, Leila had not once said his name to anyone.

“This might be a bit tricky, but we have to leave separately.” Leila walked over to the door and listened to the men outside. “Since we are the only people in the jail, if we both leave, they will know right away. You will leave first pretending to be sick and wait for me outside the gate.”

“Won’t you have a harder time leaving if I am escaping?” Kay asked.

“This place will not be hard to leave; I will go right out that window there,” Leila motioned to the window above the bed.

“But we are over four floors up,” Kay said in disbelief.

“Yes, and they seem
to not have bars on the window,” Leila laughed to herself. “
We
will be heading home tonight.”

Leila took one last look. “Now is as good of a time as any.
Pretend you are really hurt.
” Kay gave a blood curdling scream and the guards came running.

“What happened?” asked the younger man.

“I don’t know,” Leila replied. “We were just sitting here, and now she is screaming.”

“Help me pick up this girl,” the older guard ordered. The younger guard helped the older guard pick up Kay. She continued to howl in pain. “Stay here,” he ordered the young guard.

Leila stood in the doorway of her cell and watched as the older guard carried the crying Kay
away
. The startled young guard turned around and looked at her. The
pale
ness in his face told Leila he was not one for taking care of sick people. He cautiously walked back over to Leila.

Leila led herself back to the jail cell and closed the door. From what she could hear, Kay was in the infirmary and they were going to try to treat her
there
. She quietly crept over to the bed and moved it slightly so that she would be able to use it to easily reach the window. In the dimness of the moonlight, Leila pulled herself up into the window. Kay was right: they were four stories above the ground. Slowly, she lowered herself out the window. The nice thing about being so high was no one would notice if she climbed out the window.
S
he searched the wall
with her feet and
found a small ledge.

For any male, the climb down would be extremely hard
,
if not impossible, but for Leila, with her much smaller feet, it would work
just
fine. It was slow going, but after fifteen minutes she was down to ground level. She decided that she preferred the women’s jail after all
;
she’d
do her best next time to not get thrown in the men’s jail. She quietly ran from shadow to shadow until she was near the gate. Looking around she ran to a cart loading up to leave and wedged herself tightly under it. The cart
had been packed and was moving
to the gate.
The cart stopped at the gate
.

“Let us pass,” a man said gruffly. “I found this girl coming out the window by the servant’s quarters and will be taking her to the king. She has to be the ghost courier.”

Leila looked closely at the legs beside her. Kay had been caught
again
. The man holding Kay was the other newbie tracker from the tea house. He must have been waiting outside the palace to catch Leila.

This is getting ridiculous
, Leila told herself.
I am never letting Roger put her on another mission again.

Leila waited for the cart to move again as the cart driver received his stamp from the gate guard. She watched as Kay was marched back inside the palace compound walls. When the cart
was
out of
the
sight of the palace
,
Leila exited from beneath the cart.
Leila
quickly walked down the street towards the palace. She was back to the same position as before, but this time it was just a bit later during the night
.
T
he palace would not be so easy to escape.
Leila
tried to decide whether to just return or be caught again, but by now they must have noticed that Leila
was gone so she would not be able to return unnoticed. She would have to go directly in and figure things out from there. Leila marched to the gate. The young man from before was gone, but another man was there in his place.

“Hello,”
Leila said to the gate
keeper who ignored her,
“I just escaped the palace jail
but have decided I would like to go back in,” she told him honestly.

The gate
keeper laughed
.
“
L
ittle girl, go back home. Going around
tell
ing lies like that and someone might actually believe you.” He turned away from her. They must not have noticed she was gone yet from the jail.

“I am giving you the chance to be the hero here. They soon will notice I am gone, and when they do
...
” Leila trailed off. The guard still had no interest in her.

“Fine,”
Leila
said. “I will be sitting right here next to the wall. When you finally get the report that a girl has escaped from the men’s jail, come over and get me.”

Leila marched over to the wall, still within view of the guard
,
and sat down on the ground. She leaned up against the cool wall and closed her eyes.
It could be a while
. The older jail guard seemed like the type that would be too proud to quickly report that she had escaped. As the cool night air blew, she undid her hair and rolled her sleeves back down. In Lexia, the days were always hot and the nights always cool.
It made her miss her mountain home even more.
Leila closed her eyes and tried not to think about her frightened friend
.
Leila waited over an hour before the gate guard came over to her. She looked up at him.

“Um,”
the gatekeeper
stammered.

“Do you believe me now?”
Leila
asked.

“Miss, could you come this way with me,” he asked offering her his hand to help her stand up. Leila took his hand and stood. It was then she noticed she was taller than the man. No one would believe he caught her, but it didn’t seem like he was going to
pretend
. He led the way
,
and she followed behind him. As soon as
Leila
crossed through the gate, two more men, larger men, fell in behind the two of them.