The Plains of Kallanash (57 page)

Mia spent the morning in the kitchens helping Tenya. The five women from the top of the tower had settled in to their new, larger domain with no hesitation. Two of them took over the laundry room without a word, while the other three prepared soups, stews and puddings for the mid-day meal, and later set up spits and ovens for the roasts with practised efficiency. Four female prisoners who were also cooks had been allowed out to help, and the warriors gratefully retired from the domestic field. The baker was the sole remaining man in the kitchens, a situation Mia found odd.

“Cooking is women’s work,” one of the prisoners told her, when she mentioned it.

“Not where I come from,” Mia said at once, “and not beyond the border, either.”

The day’s meals being taken care of, she and Tenya began an inventory of the storerooms. Tenya wanted to estimate how long the food would last, with the increased numbers now living in the tower. They soon realised they would not starve anytime soon. Long corridors behind the kitchen led to a vast number of rooms, all filled with food of every description. The meat alone would feed them for a year, with care.

“Why is there so much?” Mia said.

Tenya shrugged. “It doesn’t go off, does it? I mean, look at this fish, as fresh as if it were just out of the water.”

“Do they bring a year’s supply at a time, then?”

“No, they come every month with supplies, apparently. Every darkmoon barges arrive, laden with stuff.”

“Maybe they once had more people here, and they never reduced the amounts.”

“Maybe,” Tenya said. “It’s good for us, though. If things go wrong, we can hide out here for a long time.”

Mia shivered at the calm way she spoke. “Do you think things will go wrong?”

Tenya laughed. “No idea. We’ll know more at this assembly.”

They walked from room to room in silence for a while, no longer bothering to count, or to write notes on the paper Tenya had brought.

“Look at this flour,” Mia said, running her fingers through an open sack. “No weevils, no rodents, nothing. It’s astonishing.”

“A great deal about this place is astonishing,” Tenya said, stopping and turning back to face her. “You, for instance.”

“Me?”

“We’ve known each other a long time, haven’t we, Mia? I thought I understood you pretty well, but suddenly you’re a warrior, and there’s this mind-reading business…”

“I don’t read minds!” Mia laughed, brushing flour off her hands.

“No? You can’t tell what I’m thinking, then?”

“Not at all. It’s feelings, really, and generally only if I consciously allow it. Except that really intense feelings break through, somehow, whether I want it or not.”

“Can you tell what I’m feeling?”

Mia focused her mind for a moment, then shook her head. “I’m not getting anything much. Curiosity. Nervousness, maybe.”

“Hmm. But it only happens here? In the tower?”

“I’m not sure. The tower amplifies it, somehow. I never noticed anything before we came here. I was aware of very strong emotions, perhaps, and especially here at the Ring, but no more than that. Now that I’m aware of it, I can call on it whenever I want.”

“But those –
things
in the tunnel, the
moro
– whatever…”

“Morodaim.”

“Yes, those. They knew there was something odd about you.”

“Odd? I just imagined they didn’t see many women down there.”

“Well, they took no notice of
me
,” Tenya said tartly.

~~~

In the afternoon, Mia was called to Tanist’s office. He planned to interview some more of the prisoners and wanted her to take notes, but he also hoped she would use her new ability to discern which of them were still hostile beneath a genial manner.

“Some of them just snarl at us, which doesn’t take any special skill to interpret, but quite a few seem eager to please, and I’d like to know if they mean it.”

“I’ll do my best,” she said. She was glad of the distraction. She had missed Hurst leaving for his visit to the tournament, and Dethin was escorting a party of scholars and some of the Nine up the tower to see the books. She had never been apart from both of them before, not since they began the journey through the tunnel, and she felt unexpectedly bereft, in addition to the prickles of concern for Hurst’s safety.

Tanist had discovered that there were two factions amongst the prisoners, the Trannatta, who were mostly there to be healed, and their bonded servants, who were healers and workers. Only one of the healers, the most senior, was Trannatta. The two groups treated each other with uneasy courtesy.

“And these servants can’t marry or have children, ever,” Tanist said, shaking his head, as they waited for the first of the afternoon’s interviewees to arrive. “Mind you, they’re all of them tightly controlled, in that respect, even the Trannatta. They have a carefully planned breeding program, matching the parents very precisely. They get sent back to the north coast to be paired off, apparently. The babies are born there, then they bring them back here to raise. So Keyramon says. They have no say in it at all. Dreadful people.”

Mia said nothing, wondering how different their own practices were. How much choice had she had when she married? It had all been arranged by her father and the Voices, and her only options were yes or no, nothing more. Such glib judgements made her uneasy. Perhaps these strange northern people had different customs, but that didn’t necessarily make them wrong. She had already had to come to terms with the very different ways of the barbarians, which were harsh, perhaps, but effective for their circumstances. She would judge people by their behaviour, not their beliefs.

Tanist had already seen the most important of the prisoners, or rather, those who regarded themselves as more important.

“Well, we can’t tell one from another,” he shrugged. “We let them decide who goes first. Then, after the interview, they go into a different room, so we don’t get anyone twice or miss one out. I’ve been on the border for long enough and dealt with enough prisoners over the years to know all the tricks they get up to.”

The interviews were tedious. One after another sat in front of Tanist and told them nothing at all. No, they couldn’t give their names, that was forbidden. No, they knew nothing of the tower, or how it worked. No, they knew nothing of the organisation of the Ring, or who was really in charge.

“It’s all so amorphous,” Tanist said in frustration, after the sixth interviewee had been led away. “The entire hierarchy we thought we knew
– with Those who Serve the Gods at the top, then the Voices and so on – may not be how things work at all. The Nine are a sham; maybe everything else is, too. These Trannatta have a ruler here, a sort of king – the
drash’alon
, they call him – and they have a base at some craft town in the northwest. Metalwork is their speciality, apparently, and engineering.”

“Tunnels,” Mia said, smiling.

“Yes, most of their craft town is underground. They like living that way, it seems. But they are also clever with mechanical things, like the sky ships.”

“So all the gates are their idea, and the strange locks. But the stick men who appeared from nowhere
—?”

“Ah, that’s magic, part of the defences of the tower. The Trannatta just added their own layers of security. But the craft town is no more than a local base. The real power is away on the northern coast. That’s where the orders come from. We can identify the Trannatta here from their tattoos, but which of them are important and which are just doing what they’re told
– it’s impossible to tell. And no one will explain it.”

“I think these ones didn’t know,” Mia said. “It’s obvious they’ve been told some of what to say. So the whole business about names and where they come from
– they all tell the same story, both the Trannatta and the others. But these people are all from the craft town, just here to be healed, or working here. They know nothing about the administration of the Ring.”

“You can tell that?” Tanist asked, with sudden interest.

“They weren’t lying when they said so. I couldn’t feel any guilt in them as they answered.”

“So how are we to find out who we have to get rid of?” he said in frustration. “We can’t simply send every single Slave away, the whole Karningplain would come to a standstill. It seemed so simple when we planned this
– cut out the top layer of governance and replace it with our own version. But if we can’t identify it—”

“Do the scholars know?”

“Not much, it seems. The Slaves have always been secretive. And the Nine don’t know much more than us, and they devised the whole system. But it’s changed over the years. No one really knows who’s in charge.”

“We know that some of these Trannatta are also Slaves
– Those who Serve the Gods.” Mia said. “They tell the Voices and the Karninghold Slaves what to do, don’t they? So they must be at the top – or know who is.”

“But where are they? We expected the tower to be full of them, but not a one to be found! The only Trannatta we’ve seen are from this craft town, not Slaves at all.”

“Or so they say,” Mia said. “Maybe they become Slaves when it suits them, and melt away into the population afterwards. It’s not as if they shave their heads. Put a gown on any one of these, and they would be a Servant immediately. But we do have one known Servant, at least.”

“Your friend Cristo
– of course. Would you like to see him again?”

“Not really, but he might be useful.”

A tap on the door revealed Tenya, pushing a small wheeled trolley laden with coffee things and a plate of little seed cakes, still warm from the oven.

“Dethin asked for these for you,” Tenya said with a smile. “How did he know they’re your favourites?”

“I must have told him sometime,” Mia said, reaching for one. “Mmm, these smell so good. Want one, Tanist?”

He shook his head. “Thanks for the coffee, Tenya.”

She disappeared with a wave of one hand.

“She seems very settled here, but then she has Walst,” Mia said. “These are so delicious, I’m going to have another. Dethin’s so thoughtful, isn’t he?”

Tanist grunted, and she looked across the desk at him in surprise.

“Do you really like him?” he said.

“Of course, don’t you? You trusted him with this expedition up the tower.”

“Trust him? I don’t know about that. To be honest, I just wanted to get him away from you for a while. He’s always following you around, Mia.”

She stopped chewing, and put her cake down. She hadn’t opened her mind to Tanist, but nevertheless she was aware of his hostility as a quick flash, like an eye blink.

“Hurst asked him to look after me,” she said carefully.

“In the tunnel, yes, while Hurst was otherwise occupied. That made sense. But he’s still hovering around you now. It’s not normal to be so – so clinging.”

“I’m not sure that Dethin really knows what’s normal, as far as women are concerned,” she said. “He’s not had the chance to learn.”

“Oh, I know he’s had a rough time, but still… He’s an odd sort of man, Mia. His men respect him, certainly, but they’re not friendly with him. He keeps them at a distance. He’s cold, yet there’s an intensity to him – it’s disturbing. I worry about you, letting him get so attached to you.”

“Not sure I let him, exactly. It just happened. And he’s not cold at all, not inside. It’s just a wall he’s built around himself, a protection.”

“You can see that, I suppose? What he feels? So it’s genuine?”

“Oh, yes.”

“But does he love you more than Hurst does?”

She thought about that. It was hard to describe the difference, and she wasn’t even sure she should try, not to Tanist. He had no right to know such things. But he was Hurst’s father, and she supposed, as leader of the expedition, he had some right to ask about personal matters.

“I can’t compare them that way. They’re different, but one isn’t greater than the other. With Hurst, it’s like—” She scrabbled for an analogy. “—like a fire in a hearth, a well-tended fire, warm and steady and constant. But Dethin is more like a midsummer bonfire, blazing to the sky. It’s impossible to dislike a man who feels like that about you.”

Tanist eyed her impassively. “I suppose it’s no use pointing out that bonfires are more likely to get out of control than well-tended hearths? I hope you’ll be careful, Mia. Your Warlord is not a man you want to cross, and Hurst isn’t quite as easy-going as he appears, either. It’s asking for trouble, frankly. But it’s your affair, I suppose. Shall we have Cristo in?”

She was glad to drop the subject. She knew his view was the common one, for Tenya had told her so, but she didn’t want to think about the future. Time enough for that when everything else was settled. For now, she was content, and she thought both Hurst and Dethin were, too, and that was enough for her.

Cristo’s companion had already been interviewed and dispatched to the second room, but he had given them nothing of interest. He was a researcher of sorts who had been permitted to come to the tower to talk to the Nine and ask them some questions about the past. Cristo himself had been uncooperative, so he had been left in the hallway, bound hand and foot, and secured to one of the giant hinges in the outer door with some of the kitchen’s pot chains. Apart from periodic visits to the water room and the provision of basic food and water, he had been left to himself.