Words on Fire

He whistled. “Too bad. Your friend there just claimed you were cousins. You two should get your lies straight for next time, if there is a next time. Get into the w

agon.”

Lukas looked at me apologetically while I climbed in and sat on the coffin, reminding myself that at least here, we were protecting the books. The man followed me with a length of rope provided to him by the woman who I guessed was his wife.

He tied one end to my left wrist and then began wrapping the rope around me. I inhaled to expand my chest and widened my arms as much as I dared, hoping he wouldn’t notice. While he wound the rope, he said, “We were there at the border when your friend spoke with the Cossack officers. They said he looked familiar, and my wife thought he did too. Your friend said he used to work in the home of a Russian landowner, but so did my wife. Except she truly was a servant there.” He turned to Lukas. “She was one of your servants, boy. You are one of them.”

I looked over at Lukas for confirmation of what she had said, or a denial, but he was looking down, refusing to acknowledge them or me. Which was probably its own confession.

By then, the man had finished winding the rope around me, and now he knotted it on my right hand. I slowly exhaled but kept my arms widened.

“Come morning, we’ll take you both back to those same Cossacks, offer you in trade for our son, who they arrested a week ago. They’ll get back one of their own, and we’ll get our own back.”

“They won’t honor the trade,” I said. “They’ll take us, then arrest the two of you as well.”

“Look who knows so much about the Cossacks,” his wife said with a wicked grin. “Maybe we should ask what it is she smuggles.”

He held up a lantern and stared directly into my eyes. “Medicines? Drinks? Food? Books?” My eyes must have widened because he smiled and turned back to his wife. “They’re book smugglers.”

“Books. Absolutely worthless,” his wife said.

“That’s what they must be hiding in the coffin.” The man rubbed his hand over his beard. “We’ll take this before we turn them in tomorrow. We could use this too.”

“Please let us go,” I said. “I promise that you will receive no reward for our capture—we’re not that valuable. And you risk being caught yourselves.”

The man rapped Lukas on the back of his head. “You might not be valuable, but this is their boy and they’ll want him back. All the blame for the books in the coffin will rest with you. Rest in peace with you, I should say.” He laughed at his joke, but his wife didn’t seem to understand it and Lukas and I weren’t playing along. So he added, “You’ll fit in nicely with the Cossack plans. We overheard them talking about a demonstration in a couple of days, as punishment for that town’s love of books.”

“What town?” I asked.

“Kražiai.”

My heart sank. That was the last place we had been, where the priest had warned us of rumors of trouble. But they weren’t rumors. It was going to happen two days from now, and there was nothing we could do to help them, or to stop it from happening.

At this point, I wasn’t even sure we could save ourselves.

After double-checking the knots on my hands and Lukas’s, the man jumped from the wagon and began a muttered conversation with his wife. I kept my head down but listened carefully, trying to pick out any useful words.

There wasn’t much. She was tired and wanted to sleep, but he insisted they had to keep watch over us. I took that as a signal that we should look as nonthreatening as possible, so I nodded off, closing my eyes. I hoped Lukas did the same.

He must have, for in a louder voice, the man said, “They’ll sleep through the night. You and I can trade off checking on them.”

“You can check on them,” she said. “I’ll be useless tomorrow if I don’t sleep too.” I heard her footsteps pad away from the wagon and shuffling sounds as she prepared a bed for herself in the back of their own wagon.

The man seemed to be walking around our wagon, a slow constant circle that was beginning to irritate me. I was cold and uncomfortable in this position in which I was faking sleep, and I had to keep my arms out so the rope looked tight. Meanwhile, I thought it was possible that Lukas actually was sleeping. I heard his light snoring.

After what might’ve been a hundred rounds, the man sat on the back of our wagon. With one eye, I peeked at him, saw him facing away from us but resting his arm on the far side of the coffin where we sat. Twenty minutes later, he was resting his head there. After another twenty minutes, he was snoring too.

I slowly raised my head and was pleased to see Lukas do the same. He shook his head at me and shrugged as if to say there was nothing he could do to escape. But I sat up straight to make my body as lean as possible, pulled my arms in tight to myself, and the rope went slack. Both of my wrists were still tied, but if I was quiet enough and patient in my movements, I could escape this rope.

This was another trick of my father’s, borrowed from a young magician who was quickly garnering fame for his escape acts. My father used to tell my mother that if he could perfect the same escape tricks, perhaps he’d become famous too.

I didn’t know any of the special tricks he had for untying knots, but I did know enough to keep my arms close to my body as I wiggled to loosen the rope. When it had gathered at my waist, I quietly stood and let the rope fall.

The wagon creaked when I did and the man stopped snoring. I froze in place and waited breathlessly until he started again, then I stepped out of the first loop of rope to fall at my feet, making the rest of the rope even more slack, and in less than a minute, all that remained was my tied hands. With so much rope now available, I had no trouble bringing them around front where I could untie them with my fingers and teeth.

Lukas had been slowly shifting his body to face away from me so that I wouldn’t have to move much in order to untie his ropes. Once I did, we gestured to each other about the best way to escape.

I pointed to the coffin, silently asking what we were supposed to do about our books. Lukas shook his head, pointing the direction he wanted us to run.