There were a fig, a pomegranate, and two orange trees as well as the mango, the biggest of them all. Then, shaking his head like a dog, he surveyed the fruit trees. He plunged his head under the water, soaking himself in the delicious coolness, and drank his fill. At the far end was a cloister leading into a grand house and Hem scanned it swiftly for anyoccupants, before making a dash for the fountain, which fell back into a mosaic-floored pond in the center of the garden. A vine offered him a ladder, and he climbed warily into a walled garden, a lush oasis of greenery planted with fruit trees and flowering oleanders and climbing roses and jasmine. He had wandered about the winding alleys behind the School, hot and bored and thirsty, until he spotted a seductive glint of orange fruit behind a high wall. Instead, he had had a furious argument with his mentor about something he couldn’t now remember and had run away. He should have been in the Turbansk School, chanting some idiotic Bard song or drowsing through a boring lecture on the Balance. Not, he thought sardonically, that it had been much of a day. These mangoes were certainly the high point of the day. He leaned back against the trunk and let the sweet flesh of the fruit dissolve on his tongue.

He couldn’t see any from where he was, perched halfway up the tree on a broad branch that divided to make a comfortable seat, but their shrilling was loud enough to hurt his ears. As if to make up for the wind’s inaction, the cicadas were louder than Hem had ever heard them. There wasn’t the faintest whisper of a breeze: the leaves hung utterly still. Even in the shady refuge of the mango tree, the air pressed around him like a damp blanket. He wiped it away and reached for another mango. A drop of sweat trickled slowly down Hem’s temple.

The crow by alison croggon