Fall of a Kingdom (The Farsala Trilogy) (3 page)

“Father!”

A second later she was in his arms, a big man’s hug that lifted her off her feet.

“How’s my girl?” he growled into her hair.

“Angry with you,” Soraya muttered into his shoulder. “And if you think I’m going off to rot in some hole while all the other girls my age make the good marriages, then—”

“Hush.” Her father let her go; his expression was so serious that she did fall silent. Thunder rumbled. He glanced around the deserted garden, looking for all the world as if he feared to be seen with her.
What in the name of all the djinn…?

“This is too open.” Taking her arm, he led her toward a small shed—no more than a lean-to with a thatched roof, half-buried in the trees. “Besides, we’re about to get wet. Still, I’m glad the storm brought you out. With the inn this busy, I’d have had to wait till nightfall to sneak in without being seen.”

Soraya felt a chill that had nothing to do with the storm. “Why don’t you want to be seen talking to me? And who would see us?”

“I’m pretty sure one of the armsmen with Jiaan is in Garshab’s pay.”

A gust of wind sent leaves whirling, and her father reached into the shed and began pulling out hoes and pitchforks, making them a place to sit, since the roof was far too low for them to stand. Soraya pulled her overrobe around her. She knew that Garshab headed the House of the Raven, one of the twelve great houses, just as her father was head of the House of the Leopard. This made Garshab one of the most powerful men in Farsala, and a powerful commander in her father’s army too, but…“Why would Commander Garshab care if you talk to me? Why should anyone care? You out-rank him—in the army, anyway.”

“Ah, but he’s trying to change that.” Her father crawled into the dusty shelter without any visible thought for dignity or spiders. “That’s the point of this whole ridiculous mess. How much did Jiaan explain to you?”

“That I’m supposed to be sacrificed to propitiate the djinn,” said Soraya, scowling down at him. Thunder cracked and fat drops began to fall.

“And…,” said her father patiently.

“And that I’m supposed to hide out somewhere to avoid it, until you win the war. Which could take years! It’s ridiculous. The temple never asks for blood sacrifice—not for centuries. I won’t…”

The rain thickened suddenly, and she gave up and scrambled in to sit beside him.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to,” said her father. “Garshab’s cozened the priests into demanding your sacrifice, and they’ve stirred up the soldiers. Even some of the deghans. I’ve been trying for years now to convince the gahn and the others that the Hrum are a real threat; now it looks like I may have succeeded too well. Anyway, if I don’t agree to sacrifice you or Merdas, Garshab will argue that I’m unfit for command. He’s got enough support in the deghanate that the gahn will be forced to agree to him replacing me.”

For the first time Soraya felt a chill of real fear. The heads of the twelve great houses formed the gahn’s council. Technically, they were all equal, but Soraya knew her father had the support of the majority there. The deghanate, on the other hand, was comprised of the heads of all noble houses, even if they owned no more than one village and a single charger. They quarreled constantly among themselves, but when they pulled together, they could overthrow gahns. If the majority of the deghanate supported Garshab, the gahn wouldn’t dare ignore them.

“Don’t worry,” said her father, reading her expression. “I won’t allow any harm to come to my leopard cub. Unfortunately, Garshab knows that. His plan—his real plan—is to catch me in the process of saving you.”

“But wouldn’t Commander Garshab have to make some sort of sacrifice too?”

“He’s probably prepared some way to get around it.” Her father’s lips twisted in disgust. “But I swear, Garshab might sacrifice one of his children for real, if it was the only way to get command. He has a hunger for power that…Well, I wouldn’t want him in command at the best of times, and now—”

“Now, if the Hrum come, he’ll get the glory of defeating them,” said Soraya indignantly.

“I’m sure that’s what he thinks,” said her father. “And by Azura’s arm, if it were just the glory, I swear I’d give it to him. But the Hrum have conquered every land in their path for almost two centuries, leopardess. And despite what Garshab believes, he isn’t Sorahb reborn—not even close. I don’t think he can beat them. So I
have
to retain command, and that means you—”

“Have to be sacrificed.” She understood; she just didn’t like it. “But if Garshab has the temple and the deghanate behind him, how can you—”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll see that no harm comes to you, and as soon as the Hrum are defeated, none of this will matter.”

“But the Hrum might not come for years!”

“They’re in Sendan now.” Her father’s voice was very soft. “Some of the deghans think they’ll need time to conquer it, but Sendan is hardly putting up any resistance. The Hrum army mostly consists of infantry. The soldiers won’t want to campaign in the winter, but when spring comes, they’ll come for us.”

Soraya decided to blame her shudder on the leaking thatch. “All winter in exile? And then the time it will take to fight a war as well? Besides, there’s a wall between us and Sendan. We can stop them at the Sendar Wall.”

“The Sendar Wall is Sendan’s wall,” said her father dryly. “Now it’s the Hrum’s. We can’t exactly turn it around and use it against them.”

Soraya frowned. “Why not?”

Her father laughed softly. “Sometimes I forget that you’re a girl.”

“Woman.” Soraya scowled. “An
unwed
woman. Isn’t a wall the same on both sides?”

“Not this kind of wall.” Her father was still grinning. “The arrow slits, all the defensive structures, face the other way. Don’t worry. The defense of Farsala lies in the strong arms of its deghans, and against the Hrum those arms had better be strong and well wielded. Because, frankly, looking at the Hrum, I wish the previous gahns had built us a few walls.”

“But you can beat them?” The Hrum might have conquered half the world in the last few centuries, but no one had been able to conquer Farsala for thousands of years. And many had tried. And her father was the best commander—

“Of course I can.” His frown vanished in a grin. “Don’t fret about that, girl. You’ll have enough on your plate, trying to act like a proper sacrifice.”

“I have no clue how to act like a sacrifice,” Soraya told him gloomily. But she knew protest was useless. And Merdas was too young. She wouldn’t sully her dignity by even mentioning his name.

“You’ll bring it off, when the time comes,” her father told her. “You’re no fool, girl, any more than your mother is. You can lie better than any scheming deghan, if you put your mind to it.”

Soraya sighed. “I’ll try.” But she wasn’t happy about it.

Her father laughed. “Just keep sulking, like you have for the last few days, and that’ll do.”

“I haven’t been…How do you know what I’ve been doing?”

“I started following you late this morning,” her father confessed. “I had to catch up with you before you reached the capital. We’ll both be watched there. My aides are covering for me now, but I wore out three good horses getting here, and I’ll wear out as many more getting back to the city before dawn.”

“I haven’t been sulking,” said Soraya. “How are you going—”

“Soraya?” Her mother’s voice sounded, not quite an unladylike shout, but loud enough to carry. Soraya’s absence had been discovered. And the rain was letting up. The maids would begin searching for her soon.

“Time to go,” said her father. “I only came to be sure that you weren’t fri—that you knew what was really going on.”

“But I don’t know what’s going on! Not nearly enough.” Soraya grasped his sleeve. “Doesn’t Mother know you’re here?”

“She knows all she needs to. And so do you now. Don’t worry.” Her father kissed her temple. “I won’t let any harm come to you.”

“I know you won’t,” said Soraya. “But what about—”

Her mother’s summoning increased in firmness, if not in volume. This would cost her another set of trousers.

“That’s my leopardess.” Her father pulled free of her grip, crawled out into the rain, and departed, amazingly quiet for so big a man.

If she had nothing to fear, why did he keep reassuring her? Could she really be in danger? Of being sacrificed? Nonsense. She was a deghass of the House of the Leopard, and her father would protect her. Still, she wished he’d had time to explain more. Soraya suppressed a shiver and raised her voice to answer her mother’s call.

T
HE PERFECT GOLD SURFACE
of the bronze pot glowed under Kavi’s hands. He studied it with his fingertips, as much as with his eyes, seeking shallower spots in the new coating, places in the design where he’d not quite…Ah, there was a section that should be a bit sharper. He reached for the stylus with his right hand, then switched it to his left and pressed the blunt iron point into the gold-filled indentations, working them just a bit deeper. The soft gold spread and then flattened as he tipped the stylus to smooth it. Cold, and still it yielded to the muscles of hand and arm alone. Kavi despised gold—no strength, no temper, no worth but to adorn things. Like the deghans who wore it.

It was the only metal he could work now.

“Be done with it, lad,” said Nadi. “It’s plenty fine.”

“Can’t be too careful,” Kavi replied placidly, continuing to refine the pattern. “Some look closer at a bargain.”

And some looked at a pretty little maidservant, selling her poor, impoverished mistress’s valuables, and thought of nothing but how far they could bargain her down. Hama, who posed as the maidservant, liked cheating them.

“I know, I know. But at least you’re finished layering?” At Kavi’s nod Nadi began boxing away the wafer-thin sheets of gold. He knew it was hard for her, watching him apply coat after coat of leaf, knowing what her girl had risked to get it.

Kavi grinned. “Craft, Nadi. You never skimp on craft—it’ll bite you on the ass every time. Stealing a bit more melting gold is a far smaller risk than if any little dagger nick showed bronze. And as it is…”

He held up the pot he’d been working on, giving it another inspection. It was heavy, for Kavi purchased only hollow shells and then filled them with lead so their weight would feel right to potential buyers. The undercellar in which he was working was as well lit as lamps could make it, but he’d take a look by sunlight, too, before handing it over to Hama. Time’s Wheel spun all things, from the Tree of Life down into the Flame of Destruction, but there was no sense in tempting it to turn.

“…as it is, this’ll pass any test and wear like solid gold for centuries, like as not. By the time the fraud’s found out, if it ever is, we’ll all be long dead. And we’ll have died fat, and of old age, too.”

The sound of the door banging open echoed down the chimney and silenced Nadi’s chuckle. Kavi frowned. Only a deghan, a family member, or the guard would burst through a door like that, without asking permission to come in. And Hama and Sim would have taken care for the little ones sleeping in the loft. Unless…

Rapid footsteps pounded down the stairs. Nadi’s husband’s family had been stonemasons for generations. The chimney in this hidden cellar was linked to the ones above it so cleverly that you couldn’t possibly tell by looking at the hearths that it even existed. But sound from all the upper rooms came down clearly—and traveled up as well.

Kavi’s heart was beating faster, but he softened his breathing as he listened to the light footsteps cross the floor of the laundry in the cellar above. They went straight to the well-concealed trapdoor.

“It’s Sim,” said Nadi just before the trap lifted and a young, freckled face peered down.

“Mam, I think there’s trouble. A guard got Hama, but he’s a new one, and he says he wants to deal with the man of the family.”

“What, you’re not man enough for him?” Kavi started to reach out as Sim came down the ladder, but he stopped. Sim, at eleven, felt he was too grown up to have his hair tousled.

Nadi looked grim. “Well, he’ll have to be making do, won’t he? Wonder why he wants a man. I’d think if he wanted to bargain, he’d be happier with a child—or a woman.”

“Maybe he knows that women bargain best,” said Kavi. “Stop looking so worried. You’ve got the bribe money put by, don’t you?”

“Fifteen gold eagles,” Nadi confirmed.

“More’n double the going price. Otherwise, I don’t let Hama go out.” She knelt to press the pivoting floor stone as she spoke. One of the pivoting stones. Who knew what there might be in a house built by generations of master masons?

“That’s half a year’s salary for a town guard,” Kavi reminded her. He gave the pot a final rub and picked up his cape. “Don’t fret—all fishermen throw the sprats back in so that they can catch them again when they’re bigger.”

The purse clinked as Nadi lifted it. Her frown grew deeper. “Then why didn’t he just send Sim back for five eagles? Seven, if he’s being greedy or if Hama bit him. But she knows better than that, unless—” She turned and saw Kavi fastening his cape, and her eyes widened. “You’re not the man of this family, lad, however much kindness you’ve shown us. There’s danger here. Suppose this one’s honest?”

Kavi snorted. “Suppose fire’s cold. What’s the matter?” He nodded at the purse. “Don’t you trust me?”

He did his best to sound huffy, with a bit of hurt beneath it, but Nadi smiled. “With my children’s lives, and you know it. But you shouldn’t be putting yourself in harm’s way, after all you’ve done for us already.”

Kavi shrugged. “He wants a man. I’m the only man you’ve got.”

“You’re nineteen.”

“Man enough,” said Kavi. “If he doesn’t like it, Flame take him. Besides, peddlers bargain even better than women.”

Nadi scowled.

“Who else do I have to put myself in harm’s way for?” he added softly.

Nadi’s eyes filled. She handed him the purse. “Be careful.”

“Ha. I thought that’d get you.” Kavi dodged a clap on the ear with the ease of a lifetime’s practice and climbed the ladder to the laundry, then the stairs to the big room. He let himself out into the early-autumn night, Sim following at his heels. It had been dark for several marks now, but the moon was rising.

Kavi had left Nadi snickering instead of worrying, but he knew that wouldn’t last. In truth, he was concerned himself. The town guard’s willingness to look the other way for a small (or large) consideration was so well established that there was almost a set price for it. And why “the man of the house”? Faking gold pots was a lucrative sideline, but Kavi was a peddler by trade—he knew that women bargained better than men, but he’d yet to meet the man who’d admit it.

No, he wanted to find out what was going on himself. He wasn’t responsible for Nadi’s family, but he’d been in business with them ever since the day, three years ago, when a twelve-year-old Hama had tried to cut his purse.

After a brief…discussion of the matter, she’d led him back to the newly opened laundry to meet her mother, a pregnant widow with three small children of her own and two more she’d inherited, the younger brother and sister of the apprentice who’d died in the same quarry accident as her husband.

Kavi made his living on the road—not that he had any inclination to adopt the small family, even if he could have. But even at sixteen, he’d spun around Time’s Wheel often enough to know that many crimes were safer, and more profitable, than cutting purses. And he knew gilding, though it wasn’t his favorite craft.

So one stolen gold pot became a heavy coating of gold over several other pots or bracelets or buckles. And a cutpurse became a young servant selling family goods…and, unfortunately, a burglar.

Mind, Hama was a better burglar than she’d been a cutpurse. She’d case a house for weeks, even months, learning the routines, befriending the dogs. She had a gift with dogs. And if the guard did catch her, Nadi, on Kavi’s advice, had money on hand to pay them off. But if the scheme went awry…

It was pure luck he’d been here. He stopped at Farsala’s capital only twice a year, to do the metalwork none of Nadi’s family were trained in.

Passing one of the sewer grates, he almost wished he’d come at another season. The sewer system was one of Setesafon’s marvels, and in the winter rains, even in spring and midsummer when it rained occasionally, it worked as it should. But during the long dry spell at the end of summer, when the river levels dropped, the lesser drains frankly stank. Yet the smallest, poorest village, where the people hauled their dung out to the fields each morning, smelled as fresh in the dry time as in the rains.

The other marvels of Setesafon—the wide paved streets, the fountains and statues that decorated the public squares—were conspicuous by their absence in this dark suburb of shops and work yards. As was yet another boast of Setesafon’s worthy citizens: the honesty of the town guard.

Sim led Kavi through the warren of twisting lanes with the ease of an urchin who’d grown up in this city. Not half a candlemark later, in an alley so dark that Kavi had to slide his feet forward to keep from tripping, Sim went up to a door and rapped three times, then twice.

It opened immediately.

“We’ll talk outside.” The heavyset man who’d opened the door looked grim and authoritative, but he stank with nervous sweat. The shadow of stubble on his chin showed he hadn’t shaved this morning. Too worried to take care of himself? Or too broke to afford even a few tin foals for the public baths? Kavi’s concern deepened.

The guard station’s common room looked bright after the inky darkness of the alley. A couple of men, their scarlet tabards tossed over an empty bench, diced idly at one of the tables. In fact, it could have been the common room of any tavern, aside from the lack of a bar—that, and the fact that the row of wooden doors along the far wall had iron bars crossing their small windows.

“I see the girl before we talk,” said Kavi. Both Sim and Hama knew better than to give the town guard their names.

The guard stiffened, studied Kavi’s face, and then shrugged and led the way across to one of the cells. The other guards barely glanced up from their game.

The cell was almost as dark as the alley outside. Kavi could barely see the small form huddled in one corner. “Hey, girl,” he called softly. “You all right in there?”

The huddled form shot upright with all of Hama’s usual awkward energy, and Kavi’s worst worry faded.

“What are you doing here?” Close up, the window shed enough light for him to see her face. She looked tense and angry, but there were no tears. Not from Hama.

“Come to buy you out. But I wanted to make sure you were all right first.”

“Of course I’m all right. I know better than to be fighting the—oh, no, nothing like that. But, Kavi…curse him with all the djinn in the pit, have you heard what he’s asking?”

“No.” Kavi suppressed a qualm. How much could it be, after all? “Don’t worry. Whatever he’s asking, we’ll get it.”

He turned away, nodding his satisfaction to the guard, who looked indignant. “You think I’d rape a child? Or anyone? You think even if I wanted to—which I don’t!—the others would let me?”

“Not at all, good sir,” Kavi lied easily. “But her mother told me to ask. You know how mothers are.”

“Humph.” The guard was herding him back toward the door to the alley. “Well, she’s in no danger of that, but she might be getting a flogging—even lose a finger or two—if the magister’s feeling nasty.”

“That’s a terrible thing for a girl so young,” said Kavi, stepping out into the alley’s cool darkness. “Surely a man like you, a good man, has enough compassion to keep a child like that from the magister’s clutches.”

It was the standard, reassuring opening to bargaining situations like this one. Depending on how deep a veneer of respectability the guard wanted to put up, he might bemoan the conflict between his compassion and his duty for quite some time before he named his price.

They’d reached the alley’s entrance now, and the guard stopped. Moonlight glimmered on his perspiring face. “I want forty gold eagles.”

“
What?
Forty
eagles
?” For once the outraged shock in Kavi’s voice wasn’t feigned. “That’s absurd. That’s insane! If her family had that kind of money, she wouldn’t be needing to steal!”

“To support her poor starving mother?” The guard snorted. “Well, I got a poor starving mother too. I can give you nine days to raise it, but if I’m not seeing forty eagles by the fourth day of Ram, the girl takes her chances with the magister.” His voice was inexorable with panic. And why nine days?

“Your poor starving mother has a fondness for the dice, does she?” Kavi guessed. “Or did she bet too much on the last flags-and-lances match?” A hiss of indrawn breath told him he’d struck the mark. “Azura’s eyes, man! You must have been possessed!”

“Yeah, well, that makes no difference, does it now?” said the guard grimly. “Forty eagles by fourth day is the price.”

Sim tugged frantically on Kavi’s sleeve. “We don’t have that,” he whispered. “We don’t have it!”

“The boy speaks true,” Kavi told the guard slowly. “Suppose you catch someone else in the next nine days—you could charge twenty eagles for them, and if we give you twenty for the girl, you’d be having your sum. Catch two, and you needn’t ask more than thirteen. Folks might be able to pay that.”

“Yeah, and suppose I don’t catch anybody,” said the guard. “It’s not like fishing, you know. There’s weeks, months sometimes, when no one happens along. Besides, there’s this ceremony coming up in just a sevenday—sacrificing that commander’s daughter, so the djinn will let us beat the Hrum. There’ll be lots of people coming to the city for that. For the blood and all. Surely there’ll be a way for you to get the money, all those new folks in town.”