Fall of a Kingdom (The Farsala Trilogy) (23 page)

“I’d tell them to stop living in the swamp,” said Maok, and shooed a laughing Soraya out of her hutch.

Soraya wandered between the fires. The signs of the coming move were subtle. When she’d first arrived, at the beginning of the winter that was now so near its end, she wouldn’t have seen them at all. But baskets that had been scattered in friendly groups around the various work areas were now beginning to gravitate toward their owners’ hutches. The game squares the children had marked in the sand with stones and sticks were falling into disarray, neglected by their small creators. A stew pot, supported by three carefully leveled stones, bubbled over the central fire. It had been stew more and more lately, as the game thinned out. They might be here for another month but probably not two.

The croft was going to seem very boring now—and restricted, even if Golnar was afraid to argue with her. She would have to become a deghass again. Of course, it would be nice to sit in a chair instead of on the ground.

Soraya strolled to the central fire and poked the stew with the wooden ladle. Not only short on meat, but the vegetables were fewer than they had been. A double handful of the dried beans she’d given them made up the difference, but still…

She dipped up a ladle and tasted, wrinkling her nose. She’d never liked—

A stinging slap on her wrist sent the ladle splashing into the pot.

“Ow!” Soraya glared at Rumok, the homely camp cook. “Why did you do that?”

“If you take food without the cook’s permission, you get your hand slapped, just like any baby,” said Rumok smugly.

“You let other people taste,” said Soraya, rubbing her hand. “I see them taste much times.”

“They ask permission first.”

“No, they don’t. Not…”
Not often. Very seldom. Hardly at all.
She didn’t know how to say any of that in Suud, and Rumok spoke no Faran. “Ask little much,” said Soraya. She hated sounding so stupid. Most of the Suud spoke at least a bit of Faran, but Rumok never even tried.

“If they didn’t ask permission, they had probably gotten it earlier.” Rumok stepped up to the pot, made a great show of tasting the stew, and then added two pinches of belish.

“You are doing that because you know I not like belish,” Soraya snapped. “It tastes plenty much bad of belish before.” And the cook hardly ever adjusted the seasonings after she added them. Anger surged. Rumok had disliked her from the day she arrived, and Soraya had never done anything to deserve it.

“You are mean, a selfish bitch.”
And very ugly, too.
Soraya even knew the Suud words, for once, but she didn’t say them.

“And you are a nasty, spoiled brat, with no more manners than a toddler,” Rumok replied. She turned her back on Soraya and stirred the pot. She loved the power of being the camp’s chief cook, of being the one who determined how the roast would be seasoned, what vegetables would go into the stew. Abab, who often got on her bad side too, had once told Soraya that if Rumok was angry and knew there was a spice you didn’t like, it would turn up in every dish served for days.

Perhaps it was good that Soraya was leaving. She contemplated overturning the pot into the fire, but that would punish more people than just Rumok. People she wanted to think well of her. People she was going to miss.

Hissing with frustration, Soraya stalked away. If the cook had understood Faran, Soraya could have vented her rage, but her stupid, halting Suud just wasn’t sufficient. She could have hurt her anyway! She could have told the bitch how ugly she was, with her thin mouth and her lumpy nose and her fish-belly-pale skin, pocked with the scars of some long-ago disease.

But Rumok was aware of all those things. It was probably why she disliked Soraya, for being beautiful when the cook wasn’t. But that wasn’t Soraya’s fault!

Still, she had no desire, even at the height of her fading anger, to hurt someone in a way that would…well, hurt. She had a hot temper (unladylike!), but she never…
Hot. Hurt.
Could she somehow make the fire’s shilshadu understand pain? Make it reluctant to hurt her?

Soraya hurried back to Maok’s hutch and crawled inside. The coals she’d used before had burned themselves out, so she swept them into Maok’s ash jar and took a pot out to collect new ones. Returning to the hollowed stone Maok had given her for this exercise, she tipped out the new embers. Away from the fire, their glow was already fading from brilliant gold orange to deep red.

Soraya shut her eyes and took a deep breath, letting her anger, her sadness at the tribe’s departure, flow out with it. It took several breaths before she felt calm enough to reach within herself, into the bright darkness where her spirit dwelled. When she opened her eyes again, the plain, clay ash jar and the light blankets of Maok’s bedroll had become objects of marvelous complexity and wonder.

Maok had only to reach out with her mind to see the world like that. Maok could do it for marks, even days, at a stretch if she wished. Soraya couldn’t hold the trance and walk at the same time. But she could reach out to the coals, to their heat and their need, and the will that struck chords against the heat, need, and will of her own spirit.

She offered the concept of pain, in all its varied forms, physical and emotional. The fire’s shilshadu held no response. Fire knew no pain, even when water doused it. Only hunger, unsatisfied, and darkness, and the end of the dance.

Soraya reached deeper.
Doesn’t the end of the dance hurt?

No, it only ended.

Does the hunger hurt?

No. The fire’s hunger was need, not pain.

Death? The cold end of the spirit itself?

No. It was. If it was not, it would not know. Pain was a thing of food. A human thing.

But you are mine. You should know my pain.

Soraya started to reach deeper yet…then stopped. She already owned the fire. It wasn’t working. Suppose she let the fire own
her
?

She opened the gates of her spirit to the fire, and it flooded in—hot, greedy, seeking. Its dance was her, and she was the dance. Its hunger was her hunger. Its joy, her joy. And her pain would be its pain.

Slowly, she reached out and touched an ember with the tip of one finger. Its texture was that of rough paper, and she could feel the heat wiggling under her touch.

Soraya laughed and gathered all the embers into her hands—as alive as newborn kittens.

“I knew you could do it,” said Maok quietly behind her. “I’m glad it was now. This isn’t something you should try without supervision until you’ve mastered it, no matter how well your shilshadu speaks with fire.”

“I can’t imagine not doing this,” said Soraya. But speaking, even in Faran, made the melding of spirits ripple like disturbed water. Fire didn’t talk.

She returned the embers to the hollowed stone, gently, as if they were as alive and fragile as they felt, and brushed her hands together. The skin of her palms was hot, but of course there were no burns. Fire doesn’t eat itself.

“You could come with us,” said Maok. “You’ll miss us, and I’ll miss you.”

The trance was sliding away. Soraya’s heart pounded out a dance of triumph, but…

“Why did you teach me?” How many times had she wondered this and not dared to ask lest Maok change her mind? She knew she hadn’t been the easiest pupil, lashing out even at her teacher in frustration at her own ineptitude.

Maok shrugged. “In part, because I wished to learn from you. But mostly because you remind me of my sister.”

“Your sister?” Soraya frowned. Among the Suud it was the men who moved on to other tribes. The women stayed.

“She was not quite a year older than I,” said Maok reminiscently. “But we were as different as darkness and daylight. Her spirit, like yours, spoke best to fire and storms and predators. And she was always flirting with the boys.”

“I don’t flirt,” said Soraya.

“Of course you don’t.” Soraya’s eyes fell, and Maok grinned. “But my spirit spoke best to stones and trees, and neither of us had any luck mastering the other’s abilities…until we taught each other. I wouldn’t be an All Speaker if it wasn’t for her.” The old woman fell silent.

“Did she die?” Soraya asked softly.

Maok snorted. “She loved drama too. Especially at your age. No, she fell in love with a widower with young children who was fixed in another tribe. She’s a good All Speaker herself and has four children and grandchildren coming soon. The point of the story is not that I’ll miss you, but that you, too, have something to teach.”

“Something to teach?” Soraya blinked in astonishment. What had she to teach anyone? The thought enticed her, but still…

“I can’t go with you,” said Soraya. And if the part of her heart that had learned how not to be a deghass regretted it, she didn’t let it show. “Staying here for a few days, even weeks, is one thing—a messenger from my father would wait that long. But months on end…No. It’s spring now. The snow is melting on the roads. My father will defeat the Hrum and come for me. And when he does, I’ll be there.”

I
T TOOK
K
AVI EVEN LONGER
to work his way through the guards to Patrius this time. The first set he encountered, as he approached the Hrum camp at dusk, almost skewered him before he could show them his tattoo. He couldn’t blame them. They were in enemy territory, after all.

He’d known the invasion was coming for months, but somewhere in his heart lurked the childish belief that Farsala could never be conquered. Even though he’d been working toward that end himself, Kavi had been astonished when he heard from a frightened carter that the Hrum had crossed the border. “Came right through Sendan’s northern gate, they did. Set up camp in the fork of the Trade Road. Arrogant bastards. They’ll be paying for it when our army reaches them.”

Instead of taking Kavi to Patrius’ tent, the final set of guards had chosen to detain him and send for the substrategus. Kavi felt conspicuous, with his hood raised on this mild spring evening, but the busy men who passed the alley between tents where they waited paid no attention to him. The fewer who could identify Kavi as a spy, the better—even among the Hrum. Perhaps especially among the Hrum. Captured soldiers might offer any information, to appease their captors.

Kavi noticed that all the tents around the square held the same positions as before: the surgeons’, the cobbler’s, the smith’s, but the Hrum’s mania for order wouldn’t save them if the Farsalan chargers broke their ranks. Kavi might have shivered if his cloak hadn’t been so warm.

Patrius hurried across the square, without escort in the midst of his own camp. Kavi thought that was sensible—why drag men around at your heels just for the show of it? But several of the guards shook their heads, and one muttered something about “not proper,” and “not caring about…”
Rank?
Kavi guessed.
Dignity?

“I’m glad to see you, peddler,” said Patrius, walking up to them. Even in the dim light, Kavi could see the fine lines that had formed between his brows. “It hasn’t rained for over a week now.”

And not much in the weeks before. Never, even after the wettest winters, the muddiest treks between villages, had Kavi been so aware of the earth drying underfoot. There was no mud now, except in the hollows and in a few seeps that were soggy year-round. Planting had already started, but these men had something else in mind.

“I have the information you’re wanting,” said Kavi. “But I had to offer up all you paid me and most of my wares to pay the bribe to get it.” He wished he’d been able to offer more, for his heart still flinched at the sickened guilt he’d seen in the foot soldier’s eyes.

He’d been raised by his aunt and uncle, he told Kavi. He’d told Kavi everything, desperate to justify what he was doing. His aunt had been injured in an accident—had almost died and had needed temple healing to save her life. The neighbors had offered what they could, and the village women had pitched in to care for the children, but his uncle had fallen so deep in debt to the temple that his farm would be forfeited at the year’s end. A landless farmer with an invalid wife and three small children…His uncle had gone south to the swamps, to harvest silk cocoons, and hadn’t returned. Whether that was due to fever or to the lawless men who ruled the area hardly mattered. The soldier was the only adult family member left besides his aunt, who still walked slowly, with the aid of sticks. He didn’t dare take his uncle’s path.

Kavi understood that. He also understood that selling his comrades and his honor for gold would destroy this man…unless Kavi made good on his promise. If good healing was priced so that all could afford it, if peasants got the same justice as nobles, then the soldier would see that Kavi had been right. Then his guilt might become an endurable burden instead of poisoning his soul.

The Hrum’s avowed intention was to keep the land, and the people who worked it, intact and taxable. But Kavi knew that the conquest of Farsala would hurt at least some people who weren’t deghans. He had resigned himself to that. He’d told himself that it would be worth it in the end, for everyone. He just hadn’t realized how badly seeing another man’s pain, causing that pain himself, would hurt him.

But the deghans would get what was coming to them. That was what truly mattered.

“You’ll be reimbursed,” said Patrius indifferently. Kavi felt a flash of pure hatred.

“He told me the where and when.” Kavi kept his voice level. “The how and why I got in pieces from several people.” One of them had been the commander’s aide, Jiaan. He’d actually told Kavi less than most, but the deghans’ inability to subdue their arrogance enough to work as a team frustrated him—and who cared what the commander’s domesticated peddler might learn? Blackmailed with the threat of maiming, Kavi was helpless…or so Jiaan must have thought.

“Come with me,” said Patrius. “The command council is assembled. You might as well report to all of us at once.” He turned to the guards. “I’ll take him,” he said in Hrum. “On my own avoporos.”
Recognizance? Authority?

Whatever it was, Kavi was allowed to cross the square to the command tent with only Patrius escorting him. He’d have thought that a bit trusting of them if they hadn’t already searched him for weapons from his scalp to his toenails.

The command tent’s big front room was full of men this time. Garren sat in the comfortable chair at the head of the table, and Kavi guessed that the highest-ranking officers occupied the rest of the chairs, while lesser men stood. There was no empty chair for Patrius, he noticed. His mentor might have some power, but other men had more. This would be a very good time to keep his smart mouth under control.

Patrius stepped forward and saluted in the Hrum fashion, clenched fist over heart. “Sir, the spy is returned with information on the enemy’s plans. I thought it dideri that he come here and report to all of us.”

Kavi might not know what
dideri
meant, but he noticed the exchange of glances around the crowded room. Was there some disagreement here? Something Patrius thought his report might influence?

Garren’s eyes narrowed. “Have you heard his report, Substrategus?”

“No, sir.”

A glint of amusement lightened the cold eyes. “Evenhanded as ever. Very well, bring him forward.”

Was Patrius arguing with the strategus? Joy
.
But Patrius’ expression showed nothing as he gestured Kavi forward. “Kneel,” he murmured in Faran.

No smart comments,
Kavi reminded himself. And if the half step he took before kneeling put his knees on the softness of the rug instead of the cold canvas floor, no one could construe that as disrespect, surely.
The rug is new,
he thought. As was the beautifully carved and polished chest that held goblets and a wine pitcher. It looked like work from Desafon. Had the looting started already?

Time’s Wheel has to dip before it can rise,
Kavi told himself. And only the deghans owned anything worth looting.
No clever little comments.

It was a promise that became harder to keep when Garren rose and paced forward to tug down Kavi’s hood, exposing his face to every man in the lamplit tent.

“You may speak.” Garren reseated himself. His Faran had improved.

“The Farsalan army is moving, even now,” Kavi began. No one translated his words into Hrum. Had they all learned his language? And was that a good thing for Farsala or a bad one?
Never mind. Go on.
“Their intention is to camp at the west end of a large field that lies north of the village of Sindosh and perhaps a league south of the Trade Road. It—”

“How big is this field?” The speaker was a deep-voiced man with a ruddy beard. Kavi wondered why he was the only man in the tent who wasn’t clean-shaven.

“It’s about a quarter league long and half as wide at the widest,” Kavi answered.

“About an imperial mile by half a mile,” Patrius translated.

“The terrain isn’t completely flat, of course,” Kavi went on, “but there aren’t any hills there—just slopes, I guess you’d call them. And it’s grassy, with almost no rocks to trouble a charger.”

For they intend to use their chargers. Are you listening to this, you arrogant, near-noble bastards?

“By stopping there,” said Kavi, “they hope to lure you to take up position near the other end of the field.” This was the part the foot soldier hadn’t known, so Kavi had had to press deeper, dangerously deep into the structure of the Farsalan command.

“There’s some ground there that they think you’ll like,” Kavi continued. “A low hill on the western end that’s got some steep faces behind it and a lot of big, scattered rocks. Defensible. A couple of streams. But most importantly, about a quarter of the way across there’s a small creek. It’s only two or three feet across, and in some places the west bank is about two feet higher than the one on the east. They’re hoping you’ll bring your army up to the other side of the creek, assuming that when their chargers have to jump it, their battle order will be disrupted and the riders thrown off, or at least unbalanced. In fact, the chargers can take something like that without breaking stride. And I’ve never seen a deghan who’d fall off at a small jump. You’d be lucky if they were unbalanced. And even if some did fall and their order was disrupted, it still wouldn’t matter because the rest of them would hit you like an avalanche.”

Again looks passed among the officers, but they didn’t look worried, not nearly worried enough. Garren looked downright smug.

“They have a basic battle plan for wherever they encounter you.” Kavi looked from one calm face to another. “They’ll start out at a canter, with the archers riding in front—firing to soften you up if they can, but mostly their job is to keep your archers shooting at them instead of at the chargers. As they draw near your lines the commander will order the horns to signal, and the archers will stop, spaced so that the deghans can charge between them. When the deghans have passed through, the archers are supposed to ride around and hit your flanks, but at that point they’re just a distraction. The charge will break your formation, but the deghans will go on, cutting as deep as they can. The foot soldiers will follow after them to take care of anyone they leave standing and make sure you can’t regroup behind the deghans.”

“Perfect,” said Garren. “I think we’ll meet them on the field they chose, just to be obliging.”

Kavi set his teeth.
No sarcasm. But still…

“Have you ever seen the charge of deghans? Their horses are trained to trample men. Horses are bigger than men. Horses are stronger than men.” Irony leached into the last two sentences, despite his caution, and Garren’s eyes grew cold. Kavi stopped talking. An ominous silence stretched.

“Oh, leave it,” said one of the officers who stood. He spoke in crisp Hrum. “We have other things to deal with. And he’d be right, if it wasn’t for the paregius.”

Garren stiffened and glared, and several of the other officers hissed for silence.

The officer who’d spoken looked chagrined. “Sorry. But he doesn’t understand Hrum, anyway.”

Kavi did his desperate best to look uncomprehending, but it wasn’t easy.
Paregius. What in the name of all djinn were paregius?

“Don’t concern yourself,” Garren told the officer. “Though I don’t need to say that, do I? You obviously have no concern for our military secrets.”

The officer flushed.

Garren turned his gaze to Kavi and spoke in Faran. “I believe you’ll enjoy our hospitality for the next few days, young spy. Until the first battle is past.”

“First battle’s not all of it,” said the officer with the beard. It was hard to tell, in Hrum, but Kavi thought he spoke with a faint accent. “First battle may be the least of it, if you persist in taking the way of fear.”

“It’s faster,” Garren replied curtly. “I’ll take this land swiftly, and I will hold what I take.” The cool voice hardened to iron on the last words. Kavi’s heart sank at the thought of unloosing this man on Farsala. But Farsala had survived bad gahns before, and Garren would be checked by the Hrum’s own laws.

“I’m just saying that a bit of mercy might be surer, in the long run.” The bearded officer’s voice was mild. “Not to mention more profitable.” Kavi was impressed—he wouldn’t have dared to argue with Garren just then.

“This has been settled,” said Garren. “I will hear no more of it.” He sounded just like a deghan himself, djinn take him.

The bearded officer shrugged and sat back, but he didn’t look happy.
Fear and mercy?
Kavi was certainly afraid.

“You don’t trust me?” Kavi asked in Faran, responding to the last thing said in that language.

“If you lose, if the deghans even suspect what I’ve done, they’ll kill me in a heartbeat. No, they’d condemn me in a heartbeat. The killing would take a long, long time. And sooner or later, the significance of this is bound to become known.” He touched the tattoo on his shoulder. Sometimes it still seemed to ache.

“All the more reason for you to stay here,” said Garren, “until after the first battle. If it goes as you promise, you’ll be richly rewarded. If it doesn’t…” He shrugged.

Kavi’s blood ran cold. He should ask
How richly?
like a proper, mercenary spy. But “We’ll have just laws?” was the question that fell from his lips instead. “Based on local custom?”