The sound of the soup cart approached them along with the scent of hot tang.
Vita trundled into the clearing by the cave. She looked from one child to the other and then back again.
“Oh, my dears,” she said, holding her arms out to both of them. Though Julien had never officially met Vita, her offer of comfort was too great, and they both flew into her arms where the three of them cried together, holding each other tightly. “I’m so, so sorry. My soup wasn’t right when I gave it to your father. It should have been right. This is all my fault.”
“He’d been sick for years,” Julien said through his tears. “I don’t think your soup could have saved him.”
Vita wiped her face with a brightly colored handkerchief. “He won’t suffer any more, but that doesn’t make it any easier for you.” She squeezed Julien’s shoulder, then folded her handkerchief and put it away. “You both need some soup,” she said. “Soup will help.”
Una and Julien obediently drank a bowl of her fiery broth, because neither had the heart to refuse her. Surprisingly, it did help. When they finished and returned the bowls, Vita asked, “What will you do now?”
Julien looked away, very much uncertain about his future. He could go back to his home, but he hadn’t been endorsed by the other collectors yet, so he wouldn’t be allowed to sell to the makers in the market. He didn’t have Baba’s knowledge about negotiating, anyway. Julien wasn’t sure where his daily meals were going to come from.
As if reading his mind, Vita said, “My soup pot will always be full for you. You too, dear girl, but I suspect there’s someone with a much more elegant soup pot waiting for you.”
For the first time since leaving home, Una felt guilty and wondered if her father had noted her absence. Would he be worried? Ovid surely knew that she was gone; he had sent supplies with Julien. But unless Ovid had told him, her father knew nothing. She flushed. “How did you know?”
“I came across someone looking for you.”
Startled, Una looked at Julien. “Cassius?”
“Yes?” a voice called from above the waterfall.
And there he was once again, along with the other marauders. Una, Julien, and Vita were surrounded.
Under different circumstances, Una would have run. She would have run as fast as an archangel’s wings could beat. She would have vanished like a scent blown by a whirlwind. But Julien’s father was dead, and Julien needed her. So Una stayed put.
Julien was still so wrapped up in his grief that it didn’t even occur to him to run.
Vita took one look at the marauders and knew deep in her very old bones that these were men to avoid. But she, herself, was too old to run, and she was not going to leave these children at their mercy. The only weapon she had was her soup.
“Would you like some soup?” she asked with a slight waver to her voice. “It’s life-giving soup. Soup of life has spice and lime, chiles, garlic, luck, and time.”
Cassius snorted.
Vita knew he wouldn’t want her soup, but she needed a simple distraction.
It didn’t work.
Cassius jumped down to them. “You should not have left,” he told Una. “I have spent a great deal of time looking for you. What would my mother and father think if they knew you had rejected my invitation and their hospitality?”
Una said nothing, for what could she say? That she no longer trusted Cassius? That his brothers frightened her? That she knew she was simply a pawn to them?
Cassius began walking toward her, and his scent—now threatening—preceded him.
It was only then that Una truly recognized the danger she was in—the danger all three of them were in. For she had put Julien and Vita in harm’s way, too.
Cassius look another step toward her. “So what shall we do? Will you come with us now? And your young friend there—he can go look for the silva flower.”
“We already found the silva flower,” Una said, pointing to the sack lying forgotten behind them.
But the sack wasn’t entirely forgotten, for someone else was pawing through it—someone who had once been clean and fine smelling with expensive clothes, but who now was filthy, smelly, and swollen by hornet stings.
Florian gave a squeak and backed away from the sack, looking from Cassius to Brutus and then to Una. Una didn’t even try to stop him.
“I know you want money from the Magister Populi in exchange for me,” she told Cassius.
“Smart girl.”
“He won’t give it to you, Uncle Cassius. You got the wrong child if you expect money. I’m not a boy. He doesn’t care about me.”
A powerful voice came from the woods behind them. “On that point, you are wrong. I care very much.”
The Magister Populi emerged from the trees, sitting astride a huge beast of a horse. He had a small army flanking him, drawn there by the trusty wind bearing the scent of Vita’s soup and the telltale tracks from the cart’s wheels. Their approach had been disguised by the sound of the waterfall at the edge of the cave where Baba lay.
Cassius took off running, but he had to get past Vita to avoid the Magister Populi’s men. Vita wasn’t about to let him get away. She pushed the soup cart. The sturdy wheels were true, and the corner of the cart connected with Cassius, hitting him square in his side. He fell hard.
The guards restrained him, and with the other marauders surrounded, they were tied up within seconds. Even Florian couldn’t escape. It was over so fast that Una didn’t have time to blink.
The Magister Populi dismounted and went to Una. “My dear child, how could you think I didn’t care?”
Una looked down at her feet, dried mud encrusted on her boots. Though Cassius was no longer a threat to her and she wanted to feel relief, she only felt empty. Nothing essential had changed.
Her father took a step closer to Una. “Did you really think that I didn’t care?”
“You never came to see me. After Mum died. You never left your rooms.”
“Oh, Una, I’m so very sorry. Your mother’s death was extremely hard for me. But I should have been there for you.”
Una smelled the sorrow coming off him and saw the sincerity in his face. “I wish you had.”
“I wish I had, too.” He opened his arms, and she fell into them and wept as if she’d never be able to stop. She cried for her lost mother, for Julien’s lost father, for her lost hope, for lost time, for the great gulf of emptiness that she held within her. As she wept, she found herself breathing in her father’s scent—a scent like lightning and thunder, so different from her mother’s, but, maybe, almost as dear.
