Forging the Sword (The Farsala Trilogy) (14 page)

If you didn’t know about the siege, Soraya thought, the cobbled streets, with their shops, houses, and work yards, would look quite ordinary. But even someone not trained in the Suud’s magic might have picked up the underlying tension that escalated the quarrel between a woman who’d thrown a bucket of wash water out the door and the man whose boots she’d splashed. The bargaining at the butcher’s shop lacked its usual aggressive good cheer. The price they settled on as Soraya passed seemed high to her, leaving the buyer sullen and the butcher himself not very happy for a man who’d just gotten a whole brass foal for a pound of chopped … something. The name of the meat was never mentioned, and Soraya thought that odd too.

Compared to the governor’s mansion the house attached to the smithy seemed small and shabby. When the woman who answered the door saw the subdued gleam of Soraya’s robe under the fur-lined cloak she stiffened, but when she recognized Soraya her alarm faded into a smile.

“Come in, Lady, come in. Master Tebin told me you’d be coming to check on your friends.”

“Are they doing all right?” The Suud were more capable of looking after themselves than Soraya had admitted to Nehar’s family, but she did worry about them.

“Well, one of them, that lad Marib, picked up a minor burn the other day. But that’s common around here, and it wasn’t bad enough
to be sending for a healer. They’re getting on well with the other men.” The woman led Soraya into the house and back to the kitchen as she spoke. “And Kavi explained to the younger apprentices that playing tricks that would lure the Suud into the sun could really hurt them, so even those imps are behaving better than usual. Can I offer you bread and tea, Lady? Both are made, since it’s all we’re having for mid-meal. The commander asked the townsfolk to start rationing themselves, voluntary-like, and Master Tebin agreed.”

“I just ate,” said Soraya, and watched the woman’s face fall. “But tea would be welcome. Did your daughter get her clothes back? I asked the servants to return them.”

“They did, and thank you for thinking of it, Lady.” She handed Soraya a steaming mug. “I’ll go and get the master for you now.”

Tebin was awake? But when the woman returned, it was the peddler who accompanied her.

“Tebin’s attaching a hilt and can’t be interrupted,” he said, coming in and taking a seat across from her. His gaze rested on the rich silk of her gown, and his lips tightened. His own clothes were sweat-stained and dirty.

“I thought you were going to work when the Suud did,” she said. “What are you doing up this early?”

“We’ve found the Suud are all right on their own at night—we’ve just set a few journeymen to help them. For making swords it works best if the rest of us start the blades in the afternoon, so
they can work shilshadu magic on them in the evening. Then we can attach hilts and do the sharpening the next morning.”

Soraya’s eyes widened. “You’re actually making the swords? Watersteel?”

“Of course.” He was trying to sound casual, but a smile tugged at his lips, and crept into his voice as he went on. “We’ve the beginnings of a fine armory. It was only a matter of getting the lads who can … can talk everything into swimming the right way while the blades cool, and putting them together with lads who can actually make a sword. In fact, I’m beginning to think there’s a trick to the cooling that would make things swim the right way even without someone Speaking to the steel.”

Since he couldn’t make swords, the search for that secret was probably why he was up early—but his presence would save Soraya some time. She had thought she’d have to write the commander a letter.

“I think that Governor Nehar has promised his eldest daughter in marriage to a high-ranking Hrum officer,” said Soraya. “That’s what I came to tell you, so you could pass it on to Commander Siddas.” She went on to describe what she’d heard and what she’d deduced.

“That’s it?” said the peddler when she finished. “That’s all you’ve got?”

“I’ve only been there for six days,” Soraya protested. “And what do you mean, ‘all’? He plans to marry his daughter to the Hrum—to make a blood alliance!”

To a deghan there was nothing more binding, more important, than a blood alliance. But she wasn’t talking to a deghan.

The peddler snorted. “We’re still getting news from the outside, you know. Peasants in villages all around Mazad are sabotaging the Hrum every way they can, despite Garren’s taxes and his threats. Commander Jiaan is fighting battles with the Hrum in the desert. And you’ve telling us wedding gossip about Nehar allying with the Hrum? That was obvious the moment we learned he was going to betray Mazad!”

“What do you mean, ‘we learned?’” Soraya demanded, “I was the one who learned he was a traitor in the first place. I told you about it!”

Astonishment swept over his face. He’d forgotten that—Golbad, djinn of envy, take him.

“Yes,” he admitted. “You did. I suppose it’s different now that you’re back with your own folks.”

“What do you mean by that?” Soraya demanded. “I said I’d spy, and here I am. With news!”

“Not much news,” said the peddler. “Seems to me that when you were spying on the Hrum you were willing to take a chance or two.”

“I spent the whole summer with the Hrum, learning their language and blending into the camp, before I did anything but listen—and the moment I started taking chances I got caught!
Besides, I don’t see you taking any chances. You’ve not spying on anyone!”

Which wasn’t entirely fair, since it was more important for him to make swords than anything else he might have done. But he wasn’t being fair either. She’d only been there—

“Ah, lost your taste for risk, have you?” The peddler’s voice was mostly controlled, but anger blazed in his eyes and burned against her shilshadu senses. Anger and … grief? Curiosity tugged at Soraya, but she was angry herself by then.

“I’ve done what I came for. Report it to Commander Siddas.” She stood, knowing she looked and sounded regal enough to make Sudaba proud. But she found she was too furious to depart in dignified silence. “Or perhaps,” she went on, “you’ll use the information to buy some safety from your other
friends
. It wouldn’t surprise me.”

His expression didn’t change, but his raw emotions were open to her. The surge of shame and pain surprised her, for she’d never before sensed any remorse for his betrayal—at least not much. But whatever had touched him, it was swallowed by fury.

“Deghass bitch.” He all but hissed the words, and only the pride of twenty generations of the House of the Leopard kept Soraya from stepping back. He might not be tall, but he was far stronger than she was.

“Arzhang-spawned traitor,” she replied.

That insult didn’t move him, but he too rose to his feet. Before
she had a chance to feel more than the beginning of fear, he turned and stamped back to the work yard, leaving Soraya to find her own way out to the street.

Clouds were building for the afternoon rain, and a cold wind tugged at the hood of Soraya’s cloak, but she barely noticed. What in the name of Gorahz was the matter with the man? It was clear that the djinn of rage was driving him. But she’d only been there a week! He could hardly expect Governor Nehar to suddenly reveal all his treacherous plans to a strange girl thrust into his household by accident. It was completely unreasonable! And that, Soraya realized as physical activity slowly drained her own anger, was odd in itself. Although she’d avoided him whenever she could, she’d spent enough time with the peddler to know that he wasn’t unreasonable. Not really. Could he have been … no, it was ridiculous to expect her to have learned anything of importance after so short a time. She’d done well to discover as much as she had! But it did occur to Soraya, as the high, carved walls of the governor’s manor loomed before her, that she really hadn’t taken many chances.

F
OUR NIGHTS LATER
S
ORAYA
crawled out onto the roof tiles. They were damp from the afternoon’s rain, but they’d dried enough not to be slippery, for which she was grateful. Looking up at this roof—only two stories above the ground—it hadn’t seemed nearly as high as it did looking down.

It was the night after her quarrel with the peddler that Soraya, unable to sleep, had opened the shutters on her bedroom window and looked out over the rooftops to the distant walls where the guardsmen patrolled—only visible as dots of darker shadow moving against the dark horizon. She stood and watched them for some time before she realized that farther down the manor’s wall, lamplight glowed around the shutters of another window. Leaning out to count the windows between them, Soraya deduced that the light was coming from the bedroom of the governor and his wife.

Couldn’t they sleep either? Had they retired late? Soraya had thought they’d gone to bed at the same time as the rest of the household, but perhaps they’d been working in the outer room, which opened off the second-story landing that circled the courtyard. All sections of the long rectangle that formed the house were two rooms deep, but only the family and noble guests had the two-room suites that fronted the street. The servants, who slept on the other side of the courtyard, had only one room each—sometimes shared with one or even two of their fellows.

Yes, the governor and his wife could have been conducting private business in their outer room long after everyone else was abed—but they’d have had to conduct that business quietly, for those windows opened onto the landing where anyone walking past could overhear. Bedrooms on the outer wall were prized because they gave a couple privacy … so what were they doing with the lamp lit?

Even as Soraya watched, the light vanished, leaving the edges of the shutters in darkness. Whatever the governor and his wife discussed, there was no way she could learn about it, for the wall was sheer, voices wouldn’t carry as far as the street below, and the door to the outer room would be latched from the inside. There was no way …

Soraya looked up at the eaves jutting over her own window. The dark beams were barely visible on this overcast night, but she knew what they would look like: big and thick to support the tile roof above them. Easily strong enough to support the weight of one slim girl as well. Could that possibly work? Perhaps it could. After all, there had to be some reason the activity she was considering had earned the name “eavesdropping.”

The next morning Soraya told the others that if she couldn’t ride, she needed to walk at least. She found a used-clothing shop where she traded an old vest Nayani had given her for a boy’s shirt, britches, and a warm sheepskin vest. They were much like the clothes her father had provided for her exile to the croft. Soraya swallowed the lump in her throat and traded without complaint, though she knew that the exquisitely embroidered silk was worth far more than the clothes she purchased. But even she noticed that after all this time under siege, the shop’s wares were running low. In Mazad these days most people wore their clothes to rags before discarding them. Food might trickle in, but wool or flax for
spinning simply wasn’t to be found. Soraya wondered how the weavers were surviving—but that, at least, wasn’t her problem.

She smuggled her “new” clothes into the house by tucking them under her skirt. It was easy to steer her conversation with the maids to the question of how a chimney sweep would get onto the roof—easy because Soraya had been chatting with the maids about all manner of things since her arrival. In truth, she preferred their company to that of Mitra and Nayani—the work of caring for a great house wasn’t so very different from that of caring for a great army, and those were tasks with which Soraya was very familiar.

Thus armed, with proper clothes and the knowledge that the hatch to the roof opened out of a storage closet not far from the room where she slept, Soraya spent the next three nights watching the lamp in the governor’s bedroom go out almost exactly when those of the rest of the household did—sometimes before.

But tonight the lamp had stayed on … and on. Soraya eased over the tiles with the patience of the hunter her father had taught her to be. She tried to keep her weight spread as evenly as possible, to prevent the planks from creaking, but she soon realized that the manor was old enough that the heavy boards had settled into their final resting places.

Still, she held her breath as she crawled down the fortunately not-too-steep slope and edged her head over the side. She hoped she wouldn’t overhear anything … intimate. She really hoped she
wouldn’t get caught! It was embarrassing enough that she was spying on her hosts in their bedchamber, even when they didn’t know she was there.

“Come to bed, Mitra,” Nehar was saying. “You’ve already gone over those things a dozen times.” His voice sounded distant, but the words were clear.

“Well, there isn’t much space,” said the lady Mitra. From where Soraya crouched on the cold tiles, her voice was louder but less distinct. The lady must be near the window, speaking toward the room, while her husband, when he spoke, was looking toward the window.

“You say the groom can only carry what we’d need for one evening, and that doesn’t leave much room,” the lady went on. “I still don’t see why we can’t take our maids.”

What groom, carrying what?
And why couldn’t they take maids? The governor’s wife could take a maid anywhere she wanted.

“We’re only supposed to be going for an afternoon and a state dinner,” said Nehar. He sounded as if he’d said it many times before. “We can’t take a chest. A small bundle of fine clothes at the most. Though with all the buying I’ve been doing, we may need a chest. Prices are incredibly low, now that no one has any use for luxury fabrics.”

Buying?
Fabrics?
What would Nehar be doing with fabrics? Was he entering into business like a common tradesman?

“But if we‘re supposed to be dressing for a state dinner, then I
should
have a maid,” said Mitra, her voice a little louder.

If they weren’t going to a dinner, where were they going?

“And my girl is the only one who ever gets my hair exactly right,” Mitra continued. “You know how hard it is to find someone who can handle fine hair.”