Tracato: A Trial of Blood and Steel Book Three

by Shepherd, Joel

  “Back soon,” she told Daish and Beled, and left to follow the young woman. Steep steps led to a walkway around the rim of the theatre, guarded by a railing. Leaning on the railing a small, blonde woman watched the play with fascinated eyes. Sasha’s breath caught in her throat. “Aisha?”

  Aisha looked at her. Pretty, pale blue eyes within a softly rounded face, she’d always looked like a little girl. Save now, when she smiled, and the emotion in her eyes spoke of things no child had ever known. Sasha hugged her fiercely, and was relieved that Aisha’s grip was just as strong. Some serrin had not forgiven her. Perhaps it was because Aisha was half-human herself. Or perhaps it was just that she was Aisha. When they pulled back to look at each other, both were crying.

  “I’d heard you were well,” Sasha told her. “You look well.”

  “You too. City life has not turned you into an old hag yet.”

  “Not yet!” Sasha laughed. “I went riding the other day. Spirits it was beautiful, I’ve missed horses so much. If I must spend another season away from them, I might just shrivel up and die.”

  “Me, I’ve been riding rather a lot lately.”

  Sasha nodded, wiping her eyes. “The war. How was it?”

  “Victorious, happily. It was a war. They have their moments.”

  “They do.”

  They held hands, leaning on the railing and looking down at the stage.

  “Oh it’s been so long since I’ve attended a play,” Aisha said wistfully. “Whose is this?”

  “Some man named Deshirei,” Sasha replied.

  “Oh Deshirei. He’s wonderful. A little tragic, though. I’m sure this will end badly.”

  “It does seem to be heading that way,” Sasha agreed. “It began far too happily, and everything since has been a brewing storm.”

  “He does that,” said Aisha. “It is rather the way of things, is it not?”

  “Not always, surely?”

  Aisha looked at her, and smiled. “Not always, no. Dear Sasha. I’m so glad you’re well.”

  Sasha kissed her. “Why did you come tonight? I’d heard it was rather busy at the Mahl’rhen?”

  Aisha looked back down at the stage. Evasively, Sasha thought. “Is your sister here tonight?”

  “Alythia? No, with the company she keeps these days, I’d have noticed. Why?”

  “How are your relations with her lately?”

  “Good,” said Sasha without hesitation. “Much to our mutual surprise. We’ve merely accepted our differences. It’s amazing how much improves when you stop trying to convert other people to your own opinion.”

  Aisha nodded. “I think perhaps we should find her.”

  “Why?” And, in the cold trepidation that followed, “What, now?”

  “Now.”

  They walked uphill from the amphitheatre. Daish had decided to join them, having more interest in meeting the Princess Alythia than watching a play. And probably, Sasha guessed by the young man’s lively dark gaze, having more interest in Aisha, too. Perhaps he thought Aisha as young as she looked, and wondered if he were a chance. With serrin, provided one was somewhat good looking, well presented and agreeable, one was always a chance.

  “Things are well with Errollyn?” Aisha asked.

  “Oh not you too,” Sasha groaned. “Everyone asks when we’ll marry. It seems an alarming fashion amongst serrin in Tracato.”

  “Most serrin who live among humans for a long time do so from a sense of fascination.”

  “Born of horror,” Sasha added.

  “Perhaps. But talmaad in particular are always keen to try strange human customs. It’s less alarming here because unlike in some other human lands, here divorce is also common.”

  “Oh it’s still seen as a sin,” Daish countered, “I wouldn’t say it’s common simply because the educated serrinim and the Tol’rhen think so. Ordinary folk are a different matter.”

  “Well, we educated serrinim can avail of it, at least,” said Aisha. “But your relationship with Errollyn intrigues, it’s no surprise everyone asks questions.”

  “Serrin and human bed all the time in the Saalshen Bacosh!” Sasha protested. “I’ll bet no one asked your parents so many questions.”

  “Yes, but my father was a farmer, and my mother had no interest in politics. The uma of Kessligh Cronenverdt, the daughter of King Torvaal of Lenayin to boot, and Saalshen’s most scandalous dissenter from the serrin unanimity, make rather more of a stir.”

  “Especially in Tracato,” Daish added. “Everyone loves a scandal.”

  Sasha glared at him. “Exactly how are Errollyn and I scandalous?”

  “You’re not,” Daish said. “You just seem like you ought to be.”

  “And what of you, Aisha? You’re more familiar with humans than most serrin, yet I don’t recall you ever claiming a human lover.”

  “Oh no,” Aisha said adamantly, “serrin women don’t do that nearly as much as men. Serrin men like to see themselves as virtuous knights rescuing poor human women from their misery…or like Errollyn, are drawn to the thrill of the wild and dangerous otherness. Women here are treated like doormats, I don’t think many serrin women consider the prospect of tying their lives to human men particularly attractive. My father is a remarkable exception.”

  “But that’s only to say that you’ve not yet found a human man to suit your taste,” Daish cut in. “It’s not to say that serrin women are not as adventurous as men, merely that you dislike what’s on offer.”

  “That’s very true,” Aisha conceded, giving the young Tracatan a curious look. “Please elaborate.”

  “I mean,” Daish continued, “what if you were to meet a particularly handsome human man, who was kind and courteous, and who found no difficulty in treating with…with beautiful serrin women who…who did not wish to be treated as doormats?”

  “An interesting proposition,” said Aisha, walking a little closer. “And where do you think I might meet such a man? They are in my experience quite rare. Even your master playwright Deshirei only considers romantic scenarios where the man courts, and the woman swoons.”

  “Well…” Daish was considering how far to push it. “I may happen to know such a man, in fact. I may indeed.”

  “Would you now?” said Aisha, walking closer still. “Sasha, is it not our blessing to be in the company of a man with such fortunate acquaintances?”

  “Indeed!” said Sasha, and she whispered in his ear, “Careful lad, this one’s nearly twice your age and can read every book in the Tol’rhen library in its original tongue.” Daish, to his credit, did not look dissuaded, only intrigued. “Daish is currently studying the principle volumes of Giraud,” she added more loudly.

  “Oh Giraud!” Aisha exclaimed. “I love Giraud. Tell me, what do you think of his philosophy of original value?”

  It was not a long walk from the amphitheatre to the walls of the Ushal Fortress. To Sasha’s surprise, the guards at the fortress’s main gate were not Family men but Steel, with their shields and full armour.

  “Something’s wrong,” said Daish, as they approached across the lower Council House courtyard. “The Steel would not guard the fortress unless there were something wrong.”

  “I can get us through,” Aisha reassured them.

  “Aisha, what’s going on? Why do we need to find Alythia right now?” Sasha’s eyes swept the battlements above, but saw no sign of movement.

  “I can tell you more when we’re inside,” Aisha replied calmly, leading them across a wooden drawbridge over an abbreviated trench that reached until the defensive wall began to climb the slope. She produced a medallion from her pocket, and presented it to a Steel lieutenant who stepped forward from his line. The man examined it, then nodded, and waved them through.

  Sasha considered them as she passed. They were positioned not so much to guard as to defend.

  Within the gate, there was a wide courtyard, stairs ascending the defensive wall, a broad stable and various buildings beyond. Perhaps twenty
soldiers were pressed to a wall, all in silence and awaiting a signal. Ahead, past this courtyard and into the next, Sasha saw more moving silently, in orderly lines.

  “Aisha?” she said warningly, and aside to Daish, “Don’t touch your blade,” as the young man moved to do so, in alarm. “We’ll not pick a fight with the Steel if we can help it.”

  “Rhillian moves fast,” Aisha said grimly. “Sasha, best you fetch your sister, quickly.”

  “Or what?” Sasha asked. Aisha did not reply. “Aisha? What does Rhillian do?”

  “She moves against the nobility,” Daish said quietly, staring about at the soldiers’ preparations. “She’ll need the Steel with her, and the Steel are angry at General Zulmaher. Speed will give her surprise.”

  “Surprise to do what?” Sasha hissed.

  “Best you fetch your sister,” Aisha repeated, quietly. “Before the soldiers do.”

  Sasha turned and ran, Daish and Aisha close behind. She’d only ventured within the Ushal Fortress once before, a quick tour with several Nasi-Keth who had had friends inside and knew the way. But she thought she could remember.

  Yells and crashes split the night, as soldiers armed with small shields for the lesser space of hallways broke through the doors, and poured within. As she ran, Sasha wondered where all the fortress guards had gone, and recalled that while some were loyal family, most were merely paid. Surely Rhillian had offered a larger sum.

  Across the second courtyard, soldiers were already clustered at the entrance to the grand hall. Sasha skirted them, heading toward where memory told her there should be…there, the kitchens. She ran down a narrow lane and found to little surprise that the rear opened onto the outer wall, beneath which were animal pens.

  Sasha hammered on the kitchen doors, but received no answer. “Friends of the nobility!” she called. “We’re friends! Let us in, I seek my sister the Princess of Lenayin!” A metal plate scraped aside, an old face peering out through lantern light. “I’m Sashandra Lenayin! I have to reach my sister before the soldiers do, let me in!”

  “Gods help you if there’s soldiers with you…” the old man muttered, and there came the clank of a latch withdrawn. The doors scraped open and Sasha squeezed within.

  “Thank you!” she told the old cook, seeing commotion in the kitchen beyond, men rushing to hide things, others taking up carving knives as weapons. “Which way is fastest to her quarters?”

  “Back stairs,” said the cook, pointing. “They’re too narrow for men in armour.”

  Sasha ran past the confusion in the room, Daish and Aisha at her heels. She’d seen enough royal kitchens to know the back stairs where maids could carry food directly to lordly quarters above, and sure enough the far kitchen wall had stairs cut into the stone in a tight spiral. She grabbed a lantern off a bench and scampered up it.

  She passed the first level and kept climbing, recalling Alythia’s claim in conversation that her quarters were on the same level as Alfriedo Renine’s very own. Alfriedo’s would be at the top, surely. She leapt stairs by lantern light two at a time, trusting that her fitness would not see her too exhausted to fight at the top.

  She reached the final, fifth storey, and darted from the hole in the wall to find herself confronted by a nobleman in a hallway, his blade unsheathed, in an expensive gold-trimmed jacket and long hair in black curls.

  “My sister Alythia!” she demanded of him as he readied his blade. “Where is she?”

  “You are…?” he ventured, blinking as Daish and Aisha arrived at her back.

  “Yes, I am! Where is she?” The nobleman pointed, and Sasha ran about a bend in the hall, and found a pair of large, ornate doors thrown open, to reveal a grand expanse of lordly quarters within. Several huge rooms seemed to occupy most of this building’s level. All now were crowded with nobility and servants, brandishing weapons, shouting instruction as they bustled to retrieve jewellery and coin from boxes, thrust family artefacts inside their jackets and collect sheafs of papers. Several now clustered about a fireplace, throwing many papers onto the flames.

  Sasha thrust her way through, eyes searching, and finally found Alythia in conversation with Lord Elot. Alythia stared in astonishment as Sasha came running over.

  “Sasha! Goodness gracious, what are you doing here?”

  “I can get you out ’Lyth! There’s no soldiers on the rear stairs. I can get you out through the kitchens, but you have to come now!”

  Alythia blinked at her. “Sasha, I’m not running anywhere. I shall stay here with my friends.”

  Lord Elot bowed his head to her. “Your Highness’s loyalty and honour are as great as her beauty.”

  “’Lythia, this is Rhillian’s doing, you understand?” Sasha pressed desperately. “She’s mad at General Zulmaher…hells, half of Tracato is mad at General Zulmaher—”

  “And half are not,” came a female voice. Sasha turned, and found an elegant woman in a blue dress, with refined features and neat, blonde hair, perhaps aged forty. Following to her side was the young Alfriedo Renine. “The Council shall not stand for this outrage and neither shall Tracatans. We shall go quietly to our dungeons if we must, for we cannot fight the Steel. The outrage of the city shall free us soon enough.”

  “Sasha,” Alythia added, “this is the Lady Tathilde Renine, mother of Lord Alfriedo.”

  “There’s not going to be a council for a while,” Daish told them. “It will be suspended for sure.”

  Lady Renine looked at him with mild surprise. “My dear boy, why ever so?”

  “Feudalists have taken over so much of the Council, they’ve made it a laughing stock,” Daish replied. Sasha wondered if the enthusiastic youngster actually recalled to whom he was speaking. “And the Council appointed General Zulmaher. I’d guess they’ve arrested the general, and now they’re after his supporters.”

  “Well if they do suspend the Council,” Lady Renine countered, “it shall be a complete outrage, the first time that such a thing has happened in two centuries in Rhodaan! The people shall never stand for it.”

  “Actually,” said Daish, “it was suspended three times between 682 and 690, when the serrin were…” Sasha jabbed him in the ribs.

  “’Lyth, this isn’t a good idea!” she pleaded. “If Rhillian’s doing this it’s because she thinks feudalists are a threat to Saalshen. We saw in Petrodor how she’s come to deal with threats to Saalshen!”

  “Tracato is not Petrodor, Sasha,” Alythia said firmly, as shouting echoed near, and clattering armour. “Tracato is altogether more civilised, and we nobility have great support in the city. The powers are balanced here; Rhillian has less authority than she supposes.”

  Sasha looked to Aisha, who merely stood aside and watched, venturing nothing. Had she given this warning out of friendship? Had she gone against Rhillian’s wishes? Certainly she did not completely disagree with Rhillian’s actions. That alone gave Sasha pause. Rhillian’s judgement she did not trust, but Aisha was another matter.

  Soldiers burst into the grand chambers, shouting and lining men against the walls, but with no use of force save their tongues. Several pushed the men back from the fireplace, and retrieved those papers yet unburned. A captain emerged, and was confronted by the Lady Renine, all cool, unarmoured dignity before shield, breastplate, sword and crest.

  “Dear Captain,” she said graciously, “I welcome you to my home. May I have your name?”

  The captain looked uncertain, as though suddenly unsure of his place. Sasha flicked a glance at Alythia, and found her attention rapt, eyes wide with adoration upon the Lady Renine. Ah, thought Sasha. Now she understood, this dangerous attraction to Rhodaan’s most powerful noble family.

  “M’Lady,” the captain said gruffly, and removed his crested helmet. A big man, dusky and square jawed, he seemed unwilling to meet the Lady’s gaze. “I am Mieren, Captain Mieren.”

  “Of the farmer Mierens of lower Pathan?”

  “Related, M’Lady.”

  “Oh a delight, my dear C
aptain. Such a distinguished family, I hear the villagers of those lands speak ever so highly of them.”

  The captain took a deep breath. “M’Lady, I have orders to escort all residents of the Ushal Fortress to the Justiciary.”

  Lady Renine inclined her head, gracefully. “On what charge, Captain?”

  “Treason, M’Lady.”

  There were outraged shouts from several noblemen, and soldiers’ hands tightened on the hilts of their swords. Lady Renine held up her hands.

  “Please, my dearest friends and family,” she said soothingly, “your outrage is just, yet it is indeed pointless to direct it at our noble soldiers of the Steel. These are good and honourable men, merely obeying their orders, as all good Rhodaani soldiers will. If you please, Captain, we shall accompany you in just a moment. If we first might be allowed to gather some things?”

  “No possessions, M’Lady,” said Captain Mieren, uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, M’Lady.”

  “Indeed,” said Lady Renine. “Come, Alfriedo, we shall go.”

  “Yes, Mother,” said the young lord, walking to grasp his mother’s hand, as cool and dignified as she.

  “Fear not, my friends,” said Lady Renine to those surrounding, “this thing has merely begun. Our serrin friends appear to have forgotten exactly whose land this truly is.” With a cold stare at Aisha that had none of her previous, gracious warmth. And to Sasha, her charm quickly returning, “Dearest Sashandra, Alythia is fortunate to have such a dedicated and loving sister as you. Please give my regards to your noble uman; we have had the opportunity to meet on two occasions, and I hold his wisdom in the highest regard. Please ask him to consider the Nasi-Keth’s position on this matter, and that of the Tol’rhen. That position could, I feel, become the pivot upon which rests the future of Rhodaan.”

  She walked to leave, accompanied by others, watched by wary soldiers. Alythia walked first to Sasha and embraced her. “Thank you for coming so fast,” she said, with real emotion. She pulled back to look Sasha in the face, and her eyes were shining. “I’m very touched.”