‘I have news,’ Agang said, ‘though I suspect that Gadang or Echtang might have already told you. Can’t keep their mouths shut, those boys.’
‘The chiefs?’ Daphne said.
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘They are due to arrive here before nightfall, so the messenger said.’
‘And then what?’ Chane asked.
‘There will be a complicated reshuffling of the hierarchy,’ he said. ‘In other words, I’ll be moving up a few places. Next year, I shall command the Sanang defences.’
‘Congratulations,’ Chane said, raising her coffee cup.
‘Thank you, Lieutenant.’ He smiled at her. ‘I will also be in a position to formally announce your existence. Of course, word has got out that I took prisoners at the outpost, but now I’ll be able to assert that you are on my staff, and therefore inviolable.’
‘I’m not on your staff,’ said Mink.
‘You have no say in the matter,’ Agang replied, relaxed. He had long passed the stage of getting annoyed at the lieutenant’s intransigence. ‘Under the common law of Sanang, you will be elevated from chattel slaves to body slaves, and as I am the body in question, you will come under my direct protection, almost as if you were one of my wives.’
Mink looked away, disgusted.
‘This means,’ Agang continued, ‘that you’ll be able to leave the attic at last, though you two will have to be dressed appropriately.’ He looked at the women.
‘Not sacks again?’ Chane said, her face falling.
‘I’m afraid so.’
Chane glanced across at Daphne, and they frowned.
‘Within the compound,’ Agang went on, ‘and this goes for the men as well, you will at all times be escorted by two guards. You are not to leave the compound without my direct permission, and you must ask in advance, so that I can prepare the necessary force to be sent out with you for your protection. The first time you leave will be in my presence. After Autumn’s Day I intend to visit the new slave market that has opened by the bridge, and you will accompany me there.’
‘To a slave market?’ Daphne said.
‘These particular slaves may be of interest to you.’
‘They’re Holdings folk?’ Weir asked, a vein in his neck twitching.
‘They are. It seems I set a precedent at the outpost, and not all Holdings soldiers who were captured this summer were killed out of hand. I’m looking for a slave with metal-working experience, and you will assist me in their selection. And, if you happen to see others who interest you, you can point them out to me.’
They stared at him.
‘I am a fair master,’ he said. ‘Not all Sanang slave owners are like me.’
‘How much are they selling for?’ Weir asked.
‘Anything from a few pigs for the weaker slaves, up to a bundle of swords for those in the best condition, or the most attractive ones.’
Daphne felt sick.
‘Think on it,’ he said. ‘I’m a rich man; I can afford a few extra slaves. But try not to be guided by pity alone. Everyone I buy must prove their worth to me.’
He put down his cup of coffee, and stood.
‘Remain out of sight when the chiefs get here,’ he said. ‘They’ll most likely stay for a few days, so I won’t be visiting, but I’ll send my nephews to keep your tuition going. Enjoy the tobacco.’
He lifted the trapdoor and climbed down the pulley rope, disappearing into the kitchen below.
‘So Agang is taking his pets along to see the wild animals?’ Mink said. ‘So you can each choose a new puppy to bring back to your cage.’
‘Shut up,’ said Weir.
‘And,’ Mink laughed, ‘just wait until they realise they’ve been bought by the bitch that betrayed them all.’
Once that would have bitten, but Daphne had heard it before, many times.
‘We’ll have to save as many as we can,’ she said to Chane and Weir.
‘But how will we choose?’ Chane asked.
Daphne shook her head.
They stayed indoors for the rest of the evening, sickening themselves with tobacco, until the common room was a fug of smoke. They had missed sword practice, and were bored and listless.
Daphne was thinking of going to bed early, when Echtang and Gadang arrived. They looked cheerful, and their breaths were tinged with alcohol as they panted, following their clamber up the rope from the kitchen.
Echtang coughed. ‘Such smoke,’ he said in the Holdings tongue. ‘Give me one.’
He held out his hand to Chane. She looked at him.
‘Please,’ he stammered, remembering the Holding customs, which he found foolish.
‘Of course,’ Chane smiled, passing him a cigarette.
‘We’ve been drinking with the chiefs,’ Gadang said. He sat, stretching his legs out. ‘We heard the whole story from the front.’
‘Yes?’ Daphne said, her attention fixing on the young men.
‘The Sanang have won a great victory,’ Gadang said. ‘Our warriors surged through the gap in the enemy lines and attacked a big supply base, before the Holdings had withdrawn, and caught them by surprise. There was a battle, and the Sanang captured the base, and drove off the Holdings soldiers, killing and capturing many. The chiefs said that the Holdings were in full retreat, running back to their wall.’
‘One supply base?’ Mink muttered. ‘Doesn’t sound like much.’
Echtang looked at him with contempt. ‘The chiefs said that more swords and armour were captured, than there was in the whole Sanang army. Uncle Agang’s reward is that every one of his warriors, all sixteen hundred, will get his own sword.’ He beamed with pride.
‘And over two thousand slaves were taken,’ Gadang added. ‘As many as were killed.’
‘The Holdings lost four thousand?’ Daphne said.
‘Yes. And Uncle Agang is getting much of the credit, after his victory at your outpost. On Autumn’s Day, the chiefs will announce that he will be commanding the Sanang armies next year, and if the Holdings do come back, they’ll get a big surprise.’
Daphne blinked. This was the first usable piece of information that the nephews had supplied, something that she could take back to the Holdings, to warn them, if somehow she could get out.
‘It certainly was a great victory at the outpost,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ Echtang said. ‘Everyone in Sanang is drinking to uncle’s name.’
‘I’m sure,’ she continued, while Weir raised a surreptitious eyebrow at her. ‘Tactically, it was genius. Were you there at the planning?’
‘We were,’ Echtang said. ‘Uncle showed us the plans the night before he left.’
She nodded along.
‘He told us where his warriors would be,’ Echtang continued, gesturing, ‘and all about the main attack on the gate, and how two hundred of his best would sneak around the side to climb a tower, and about how no reinforcements could reach you in time, because all of the other Holdings soldiers had already retreated.’
‘How clever of Agang to have known that,’ she said, her heart racing.
‘It wasn’t his cleverness, well, not that bit,’ Echtang said. ‘The young war god told him.’
‘Really?’ she said. She knew a little of the Sanang religion. They had an ancient trinity of old deities, and a new, younger warlike god.
Gadang shuffled in his seat and half raised his hand, but Echtang was in full flow.
‘Yes, it’s amazing. The young god came to Uncle Agang in a vision, and told him that the outpost was isolated, and vulnerable to attack. That’s how he knew he would win, he had the god on his side.’
‘That is indeed amazing,’ she said.
Gadang said something in Sanangka to his brother, too quickly for Daphne to understand, and the younger nephew closed his mouth, and quietened.
‘We’d best be leaving,’ Gadang said, standing, and pulling a crestfallen Echtang up by his elbow.
‘Good evening, then,’ Daphne said.
The nephews cli
mbed back down to the kitchen, the trapdoor falling shut behind them.
‘A fucking god told him?’ said Weir.
‘Or, at least that’s what he told his nephews,’ Daphne said.
‘So, we’re still no closer to finding out how he knew?’
‘Looks like it,’ she said, but a dark thought was forming in the back of her mind. She tried to dismiss it, but it refused to leave. Being the only captive with any vision skills, she knew she was party to a certain field of information that was deemed secret by the Holdings government, concerning the powers possessed by a small group of mages. These servants of the realm had the ability to put visions into the minds of others, even at a great distance, and their existence was whispered about in the academy. It made sense that the Holdings would place at least one mage with inner-vision in Sanang to monitor the war effort, but that was as far as her logic would take her. To get from there to the notion that one of them had planted an idea into Agang’s mind was a leap too far.
‘Four thousand,’ Mink whispered.
She glanced at him. His face was grey with shock.
‘Imagine what they’re saying in the capital right now,’ he continued, his voice hoarse. ‘Imagine the scenes in Holders Square when it is announced that four thousand soldiers will not be returning home. Imagine what the priests will say at the Autumn’s Day services, and imagine the queen’s face as she has to sit in the cathedral and listen to the prophet denounce the war, and lay the dead at her feet, and at the feet of her advisers.’
The room went deathly silent.
‘The church,’ he went on, ‘and the mob, will be looking for a scapegoat to blame for this catastrophe.’ He looked Daphne in the eye. ‘Who do you think that will be?’
She stared back at him.
‘Who cares what they think?’ Chane said. ‘They don’t know the truth.’
Mink shrugged at her. ‘The truth is irrelevant. The church has been waiting to strike at the queen, and the captain has handed them the opportunity. And, Lord Holdfast’s good name may not last the season, implicated as he is in his daughter’s refusal to obey orders.’
‘But I didn’t get any orders, Mink.’
‘You know,’ he said, ‘you’ve stuck to your story so long that I’m starting to believe you, but what I think doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is how your actions are perceived back in the capital, especially as you’re not there to deny anything.’
Knowing he had struck home, Mink smiled, but it was bitter, as if the price of victory had been the loss of four thousand, and he took no pleasure in Daphne’s defeated expression.
He got up, and left to go to his room.
‘Pay that idiot no attention, Captain,’ Chane said, standing. ‘He’s been trying to rattle you all summer, don’t let him get under your skin.’
She nodded, putting on her calm officer mask, the first time she had used it on Chane in a long time. ‘Of course,’ she said.
Chane looked at her for a moment, then smiled and left.
‘Weir?’ Daphne said, as soon as the door was closed. ‘Come to my room. Bring coffee, and something decent to smoke.’
‘What are you telling me?’ said Weir. ‘That you think one of our own high mages told Agang to attack?’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘I don’t know. Just that it’s a possibility. I can’t believe they would have done it.’
‘No servant of the crown would. The church?’ He shrugged.
‘They wouldn’t dare.’
‘What, bring down your father, embarrass the queen, and tarnish the war effort?’ He half smiled. ‘It sounds like something they might consider.’
‘I thought you were a religious man.’
‘I am,’ he replied, ‘but my humble faith is far removed from the power struggles going on in the upper courts of the prophet’s palace.’
‘Then you think they might have done it?’
‘I don’t know. Just because they’d benefit, doesn’t mean it was them. It’s more likely, I think, that Agang found out some other way, and his whole vision story is just a smokescreen.’
Daphne leant back on her chair, and flicked ash into a saucer on the table. They were smoking some mixture that he had concocted, and it was starting to have an effect on her.
‘I have to escape, sergeant,’ she said. ‘I have to get home to defend my father’s name. And my own.’
Weir broke out into a large grin.
She frowned. ‘What are you smiling at?’
‘About time, Captain,’ he chuckled, ‘about fucking time.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve been waiting so long for this conversation I was starting to think it would never happen, that you’d turn like Chane has.’
‘Chane hasn’t turned!’
‘Come off it,’ he snorted. ‘You know she has. She’d happily stay here, and Agang would happily keep her. If you weren’t here to stop her, she’d already be teaching them our sword drills. Fuck, she’d probably be bedding him by now.’
She doubted that.
‘And Mink?’ she said.
‘He’ll be ready to go as soon as I give him the nod,’ Weir said. ‘I’ve talked to him, made him understand that I wouldn’t leave without you.’
‘You’ve prepared an escape?’
He shook his head. ‘Had it prepared for over a third, Captain.’ He picked up his drink, coffee with a shot of Sanang spirits, and took a swig.
‘And you never thought to tell me?’
‘I figured that if I tried to push you, I might end up shoving you into the arms of Chane and Agang, and then they’d find out about the plan, and we’d be screwed. Mink wasn’t happy about it but I knew, well I hoped, that you’d come to your senses on your own.’
‘You and Mink, you’ve been conspiring behind my back?’
‘Don’t get me wrong, Captain,’ he replied, ‘Mink will never be my best friend, but he’s one of us, and he’s loyal to the Holdings. We can’t leave him behind. And I need him to help me get you out of the forest.’
She looked down at her crippled arm.
‘Your injury,’ he said. ‘To be blunt, it’s going to be a problem, but I’ve thought of a few ways we can get round it. And you’re fit and strong otherwise, we all are.’
‘And the plan?’ she asked.
He grinned. ‘The security around here is nowhere near as tight as Agang likes to think. Our guards believe us cowed and obedient, and they’ve got lazy. I first slipped out at night not too long after we got here.’ He looked at her. ‘Did you never wonder how I always managed to have something to smoke?’ He held up his lit stick and laughed. ‘I was a thief in my boyhood, guess some habits never change. Anyway, their entire defence looks outwards, towards the forest, and once you’re clear of the main hall you can pretty much sneak about anywhere, as long as you don’t get too close to the front gates, which they guard properly. The side gate, on the other hand…’
‘There’s another way out?’
‘Yes,’ he replied, his eyes shining. ‘A postern door, beyond the low building with the workshops. It’s barred from the inside, but not guarded.’
‘When?’
‘Tonight,’ he replied. ‘Agang and the chiefs will be drinking for days to come by the sounds of it. The guards will no doubt be enjoying themselves too. No one’s going to be paying any attention to a bunch of slaves in the attic.’
‘My dear Sergeant Weir. I don’t know what to say, or how to thank you.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘it would be wrong of me to say that I haven’t thought of a few ways you could thank me, once we get back and you’re exonerated and all. Maybe use your contacts to hook me up with a nice veteran’s farm, somewhere warm, some horses maybe? You get the picture.’ He winked.
She nodded, and almost smiled, when a thought struck her.
‘What will we do about Chane?’ she asked. ‘We can’t leave her here.’
‘I’m sorry, Captain, but her heart is with Agang and
his cause. She might refuse to come, she might even tell him. We can’t take the risk.’
‘But she’s my friend,’ Daphne said. ‘When she wakes up tomorrow, and realises we’ve gone…’
‘I like her too, Captain,’ he said, ‘and to be honest I’d rather have her along than Mink, especially if it comes to a fight. But she doesn’t want to go back to the Holdings.’
Daphne lowered her head.
‘I get it,’ she said, ‘I just wish we could say goodbye to her.’
‘Write her a note,’ he said. ‘Say you’re sorry and all that. She’ll probably appreciate it, after she’s finished cursing us.’
‘I might do that.’
Daphne felt her eyes starting to close.
‘A bit strong for me,’ she said, raising the weedstick. ‘Not used to it.’
Weir smiled and stood.
‘Get some rest,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back for you later. I have a few things I need to be doing, if we’re to get this plan in motion.’
After he had left, Daphne reached into the drawer under the table, and pulled out some Sanang paper, lighter and thinner than the Holdings version.
She prepared a quill, and started to write.
To Lieutenant Chane, my dearest friend.
I am sorry.
She paused, a tear forming in the corner of her eye. What could she write? That she believed her friend was a traitor in her heart, and that they couldn’t trust her?
She left the paper as it was, and stumbled off to bed.
Chapter 10
Into the Forest
River Tritos, Sanang – 22nd Day, Last Third Summer 503
The dead crowded round Daphne in the darkness, saying nothing. They stared, their fingers pointing at her, their ragged cavalry uniforms filthy with blood and dirt. There were so many of them, pushing her, reaching for her, clawing at her with broken fingernails. Please, she whispered. It wasn’t her fault, please…
‘Hush, Captain,’ came a low voice, along with a gentle shake of her shoulder.
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