CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN DarknessI hate to admit it, but Awamutu’s careful tutoring on our makeshift canvas proved invaluable. The first time he led me from the room left me breathless with terror. A strange bandanna covered my hair and Eena knotted it at the back, so it met the ruffles of the collar in perfect alignment. I kept my head down as instructed and rounded my shoulders, indulging no form of eye contact with the other guards we met. Awamutu walked fast, his long-legged stride forcing me to run to keep up. A basket bounced in my arms, the bread rolls performing somersaults inside it. We hurried through the keep and the squires’ hall without disaster, my wares excusing my presence. But I had forgotten one important fact.
“A boy?” A guard halted Awamutu with suspicion in his narrowed e
