Think, Charlie, think.
What I thought of was the stadium, once the Field of the Monarchs, now the field of Elden. There was no electricity to light it—not from the rickety, slave-powered generator Aaron had shown me—but lit it was, at least when the Fair One was happening, by banks of jumbo gas-jets mounted all around the stadium’s circular rim.
I had a thousand questions and only one scrap of paper. Not an ideal situation, especially since getting any of them answered was extremely unlikely. But I also had one idea, which was better than none. The problem was it wouldn’t even come close to working unless I could think of a way to neutralize the night soldiers.
If I could… and if this providential red cricket, to whom I’d once done a good turn, would return a message to Claudia…
I folded over my one precious scrap of paper and tore it carefully in two. Then, very small, I printed this: Alive. Watch for next night Field of Monarchs lights up. Come if you are many. Not if you are few. I thought about signing the note as she had, C, then thought better of it. At the bottom of my half-scrap, smaller than ever, I printed （not without embarrassment） Prince Sharlie.
“Come here,” I whispered to the cricket.
It sat on Hamey’s pallet without moving, the joints of its oversized back legs sticking up like bent elbows. I snapped my fingers and it took a leap, landing in front of me. It was a hell of a lot spryer than the last time I’d seen it. I gave it a gentle push with my tented fingers and it fell obligingly on its side. The glue-stuff on its belly was still plenty sticky. I attached the note and told it, “Go on. Take it back.”
The cricket got up but didn’t move. Iota was staring at it, his eyes so big they looked in danger of falling out of their sockets.
“Go,” I whispered, and pointed at the hole above the dangling gas-jet. “Go back to Claudia.” It occurred to me that I was giving instructions to a cricket. It further occurred to me that I had lost my mind.
It looked at me with its solemn black eyes for a moment or two longer, then turned and squeezed back through the bars. It hopped to the wall, felt the stone with its front legs as if testing it, then scampered up as neat as you please.
“What the fuck is that?” Stooks said from the cell next door.
I didn’t bother answering him. It was red, and it was big, but if he couldn’t tell it was a cricket, he was blind.
The hole was a tighter squeeze than the space between my cell bars, but it got through with my note still attached. Considering who might have read the message if it had fallen to the floor, that was also excellent. Of course there was no way of telling if it would stay on while the red cricket made its way back through whatever twists and turns had brought it here. Assuming it did, there was no way of knowing if it would still be stuck on when the cricket reached Claudia. Or if it would go to her at all. But what other option did I—we—have?
“Stooks. Eye. Listen to me and pass it on. We have to wait until the second round, but before it happens, we’re getting the fuck out of here.”
Stooks’s eyes lit up. “How?”
“I’m still working that out. Now leave me alone.”
I wanted to think. I also wanted to stroke the little bundle of hair Claudia had sent me, and wish I could stroke the dog it had come from. Yet just knowing Radar was safe had rolled a weight from my shoulders I hadn’t even been aware I was carrying.
“I don’t understand why that red bug came to you,” Eye said. “Is it because you’re the prince?”
I shook my head. “Do you know the story about the mouse that pulled the thorn out of the lion’s paw?”
“No.”
“I’ll tell you sometime. After we’re out of here.”
3
There was no “playtime” the next day, and no banquet, either. There was breakfast, however, and because Pursey was on his own, I was able to pass him a note on the other half of the paper he’d given me. There were only five words on it: How go from Officials’ Room? He didn’t read it, just tucked it away somewhere beneath the baggy blouse-like shirt he wore and kept rolling his cart down the corridor.
The word spread: Prince Charlie has an escape plan.
I hoped that if any night soldiers came to check on us—unlikely in the daytime, but it had happened—they wouldn’t sense the new energy and alertness in their captive gladiators. I didn’t think they would; most of them were pretty dull, it seemed to me. But Aaron wasn’t dull, and neither was the Lord High.