“I am but a slave, your grace. It is not possible to offend me.”
Arkady was quite sure that wasn’t the case, but she was more interested in the woman’s status as a slave. Human slavery in Glaeba was rare. “Are there many human slaves in Torlenia?”
“Quite a number,” the woman replied, looking at Arkady curiously. “Why?”
“In Glaeba, only the Crasii are permitted to be enslaved. We count human life to be more valuable than that of an animal and believe freedom is an inherent right of all men.”
The Torlenian woman frowned as she walked. “As do we, your grace, but neither do we have slums where the dispossessed and homeless gather for cold comfort while they slowly starve to death on the streets of our wealthiest cities.”
The woman’s hostility was astonishing, all the more surprising given she was a slave. “What are you implying?” Arkady asked. “That slavery is your idea of a welfare system?”
“Only the poor, the disenfranchised, those with a debt they cannot meet or a debt to society they must repay are enslaved, your grace,” the woman said as they reached the end of a long tiled hall and stepped into another vast chamber. “Slavery in Torlenia means these people are cared for, fed, and given an opportunity to redeem themselves through honest hard work. If you wish to call that a welfare system, then I suppose you’re right. It may not suit your delicate Glaeban sensibilities, but at least we have a system, which is more than you can say for your country.”
Arkady stopped and stared at the woman, a little appalled at her outburst. Such outspokenness was completely unexpected. Obviously the Torlenian definition of slavery varied a great deal from the Glaeban idea of the practice. Why hadn’t Declan warned her about that?
“You’ll have to forgive Nitta’s passion on the subject of slavery, your grace,” a voice said from behind Arkady. “She fancies herself something of a champion of injustice and doesn’t get nearly enough opportunities to vent her spleen.”
Arkady spun around to find a woman who could only be the Imperator’s Consort standing behind her.
“My lady!” she said, bending in a deep curtsey.
As she rose, her first thought was that Lady Jorgan had been right. The Imperator’s Consort was foreign. In this land of delicate women, dusky skin and dark eyes she was as tall as Arkady, blue-eyed, blonde and statuesque. She seemed to be about thirty, but her skin was so flawless, it was hard to pinpoint her exact age. Her Glaeban was perfect, her bearing effortlessly elegant, her white, sleeveless gown stylish but simple. Arkady felt overdressed and ungainly beside her.
“I heard rumours you were quite the Glaeban beauty, Lady Desean,” the consort remarked. “I see they were not exaggerated.”
“You flatter me, my lady.”
“Such was not my intention. Leave us, Nitta.” With a final glare at Arkady, the slave bowed silently and withdrew, leaving the women alone. “I also hear you’re very well educated,” Lady Chintara added, indicating with her arm that Arkady should accompany her to the couches on the other side of the vast room. Through the open doors on the other side of the hall she could see part of a lush garden, and the hall had a fountain trickling down from an outlet near the garden doors. “Perhaps that’s why Nitta felt the urge to berate you. Such a tongue-lashing would have been wasted on your predecessor.”
Arkady wasn’t sure how to answer that. “Yes…she’s very outspoken for a…”
“Slave?” the consort finished for her with a faint smile.
“Actually, I was going to say for a woman,” Arkady corrected, falling into step beside the consort, a little surprised by how pleasantly the woman was behaving. She’d heard Lady Chintara could be a terror. “I was under the impression education was something denied the women of Torlenia.”
“Then you are as sadly misinformed about our country as Nitta is about yours. What exactly is it that you are educated in, your grace?”
“I have a doctorate in history from the University of Lebec.”
Chintara seemed amused. “History? You have no history beyond the last Cataclysm, have you? Why would you want to study such a thing?”
“In truth? I had no desire to be a historian at the outset. I wanted to study medicine, and become a physician like my father, but I’m a woman so that meant they wouldn’t accept me into any other faculty.”
The Imperator’s Consort smiled. “So we’re not that different, Torlenians and Glaebans, after all. Please, be seated. I took the liberty of ordering breakfast. Have you eaten?”
Arkady had been too tense to eat this morning. She wondered if Chintara suspected as much. The table between the couches was laid out with a selection of chilled fruits and pastries, and there seemed to be enough food to feed a score of women, but there were only the two of them present and Chintara gave no indication they were expecting anyone else.
“Thank you,” she said, taking a seat on the reclining couch opposite Chintara’s. “I admit to being rather too busy to eat this morning.”
“Too busy or too nervous?” the consort asked. When she saw Arkady’s expression, she smiled. “It’s all right, your grace. I do know my reputation. I’ve no doubt your servants have you believing I eat raw babies for breakfast.”
Taking a huge gamble, Arkady smiled. “Well, they got that wrong, didn’t they, my lady?” she said, casting her gaze over the heavily laden table. “Or is this just the first course?”
Chintara laughed. “Thank the Tides! Finally, a Glaeban with a sense of humour. I’m delighted you’ve come to Ramahn, my dear. Your predecessor was a sour old hag.”
“So I’ve been told,” Arkady agreed, a little warily. This pleasant, disarming young woman was the last thing she’d expected and with all the lectures she’d been given before coming here about what a monster the Imperator’s Consort was, she was starting to worry that they’d taken a wrong turn and finished up at the wrong royal palace with the wrong royal consort.
“Don’t look so alarmed, Arkady,” Chintara said, reaching for the crystal wine jug that was beaded with condensation. “May I call you Arkady?”
“Of course.”
“You may call me Chintara.”
“I’m honoured, my lady.”
“Because I permit you to use my first name? My, you are starved for entertainment, aren’t you?”
Arkady leaned forward, accepting the wine Chintara poured with her own hand and smiled. “I admit, after having the freedom to do as I please in Glaeba, I find Torlenia’s rules about women rather…limiting.”
“But you just said you’re a historian because they wouldn’t let you be a physician, so you weren’t actually free to do as you pleased in Glaeba, at all.”
Arkady frowned. “I suppose, but I could walk down the street unescorted.”
“There are some women who find that prospect quite daunting.”
“Not in Glaeba,” Arkady countered, and then she smiled, hoping she hadn’t overstepped the mark. “I’m sorry. It’s rude of me to question your religious practices.”
“Religious practices?” Chintara scoffed. “The Torlenian rule about women not showing their faces in public isn’t about religion, Arkady, it’s about men being jealous and possessive.”
“But I thought…”
Chintara smiled and leaned back on her couch. “I think we shall have to educate each other, you and I, Arkady. I will tell you of Torlenia’s more idiotic customs and you can tell me of Glaeba’s.”
“I’d be delighted to learn more of Torlenia’s history,” Arkady agreed, not sure exactly what came under the heading of “Glaeban Idiotic Customs.” And then before she could stop herself, she added, “Particularly the myths and legends you have of the Tide Lords.”
Chintara eyed Arkady curiously. “Why do you want to know about the Tide Lords?”
“I’ve been studying them recently,” she replied.
“And what did you learn about them?”
Arkady’s brow furrowed at the question. “I’m not sure what you m
ean.”
“I’m curious,” Chintara said. “Did you learn anything interesting? Is the Tide returning? Do you know where they are?”
“You believe in the Tide Lords?” Arkady asked, mentally kicking herself for not assuming as much. Torlenians were quite passionate about their Tide Lords.
“Of course I do. Don’t you?”
She hesitated before answering. “I’m starting to think there may be some merit in the notion they exist.”
That reply made Chintara laugh out loud. “Then we have our work cut out for us, Arkady. I am clearly going to have to convince you the Tide Lords are real.”
Arkady smiled and sipped her wine, thinking she didn’t need any convincing at all, but she wasn’t sure—for the sake of diplomatic relations between Glaeba and Torlenia—if she should inform the Imperator’s Consort that not only did she know the Tide Lords were real, but she’d met two of them, and even slept with one of them.
She thought it prudent not to mention, either, that she had quite possibly fallen in love with the Immortal Prince and since leaving him buried alive in a mine collapse in the middle of the Shevron Mountains, had been recruited into the secret organisation whose sole function was to find a way to destroy them.
Chapter 7
Arkady was gone for an alarmingly long time; so long, Stellan began to wonder if she had somehow inadvertently offended the Imperator’s Consort and been thrown into a dungeon to await execution. It wouldn’t be the first time the consort had done something like that, and given the fragile relations between Glaeba and Torlenia at present, Stellan didn’t think his fears unfounded. He was pacing his office, trying to come up with a reason to visit the royal palace that wouldn’t look like he was worried for the safety of his wife, when the door opened and a shrouded figure stepped into the room.
“Tides, would you get me out of this wretched thing?” the spectre asked impatiently.
Almost faint with relief, Stellan hurried to her side and helped her lift off the shroud. Underneath she was wearing a gorgeous, multilayered, embroidered gold dress. By the look of her, she’d pulled out all the stops to impress the Imperator’s Consort.
“Thank the Tides you’re safe,” he told her, tossing the shroud over a nearby chair. “I was starting to panic about what might have happened to you. It’s almost dark. Did something go wrong?”
“On the contrary,” Arkady assured him, collapsing with a sigh onto the couch facing the marble-topped wrought-iron table that served as his desk. “The Lady Chintara and I got along famously. Apparently, I’m the first Glaeban she’s ever met with a sense of humour.”
“So it went well, then?”
Arkady eyed him oddly. “Isn’t that what I just said?”
“I’m sorry, it just seems so unlikely. The woman is reputed to be a terror.”
“Well, she’s nobody’s fool, I’ll grant you that, but she hardly struck me as being terrible,” Arkady assured him. “Were you really so worried about me?”
Stellan nodded and moved to the sideboard to pour them both a drink. “She imprisoned the Senestran ambassador’s wife a few months ago, apparently for wearing the wrong colour. It was only for a couple of days, but it almost caused Torlenia and Senestra to go to war.”
“That doesn’t sound like the woman I met today.”
“Perhaps she was on her best behaviour for the Glaeban ambassador’s wife.”
Arkady shrugged and accepted the wine he poured for her. “Actually, we spent much of the day discussing various customs unique to our homelands. She’s a very knowledgeable woman.”
Stellan took a seat beside her on the couch. “That could be why she liked you. Women of your talents are rare in this country.”
“Women of my talents?” she repeated with a raised brow. “I’m not sure I like the sound of that. You make me sound like the prize exhibit in a particularly expensive brothel.”
He smiled. “Trust me, it was meant as a compliment. Did you learn anything useful?”
“You mean other than the fact she’s definitely not Torlenian and doesn’t eat raw babies for breakfast? Not really.” Arkady sipped her wine and smiled at his expression. “She was the one who brought up the topic of raw babies for breakfast, by the way, not me, so you can stop looking so worried.”
Stellan shook his head, not sure he wanted to know the details of such a potentially offensive and diplomatically disastrous conversation. “Do you think she’ll invite you back?”
It was more than an idle question. If Arkady could gain favour with the Imperator’s Consort, the Imperator himself would be that much easier to deal with. It was no secret in diplomatic circles that Lady Chintara stood close behind the Torlenian throne and had a hand in most of the decisions her husband made.
“She already has,” Arkady told him. “Tomorrow. She’s invited me to join her for a bath.”
Stellan was flabbergasted. Such an honour was almost unheard of for a foreigner, particularly one who’d been in the country barely a week. The Torlenians treated bathing the way Glaebans treated intimate dinner parties. They were reserved for close friends, meant for relaxing among one’s peers and a sign of great favour. Although public baths were quite common in the city, only the wealthiest of men could afford private baths in their seraglium.
Only a most favoured courtier would be invited to share the palace baths with the Imperator’s Consort.
“Tides, Arkady! What did you say to her? There are diplomats’ wives all over Ramahn who’d kill for such an opportunity and they can’t even get in to see her.”
“I have no idea,” his wife said with a shrug. “I don’t recall doing or saying anything special, although—”
“What?” he asked, when she stopped mid-sentence.
She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “On the way to meet her I was subjected to something of a tirade by one of her slaves. I’m wondering now, if it wasn’t some sort of test.”
“What do you mean by a tirade?”
“The slave took me to task about the condition of our Glaeban slums.”
“How did you respond?”
She thought for a moment before replying. “I’m not sure I did respond, come to think of it. I was too surprised by her telling me off to say anything and in the middle of it, Lady Chintara appeared.”
Stellan tried to puzzle out what such a thing might mean. “Perhaps it was your lack of a response that pleased her?”
“I wish I knew. Whatever it was, we spent a very pleasant day together and she wants me to come back tomorrow.”
“You’ll go, of course.”
Arkady smiled. “As I’ve not much else to do here, lazing around the royal seraglium all day while being massaged, oiled, perfumed and generally waited on hand and foot is one way to kill the time, I suppose. Did you know they blind and castrate the males who work in the seraglium?”
“I’d heard rumours,” Stellan replied, wincing at the very thought of it. “What about his other wives?”
“If the Imperator has any other wives stashed about, Stellan, I saw no sign of them. And Chintara didn’t strike me as the type to bother with the politics of a cage full of ambitious women, no matter how pleasantly gilded. There were other women there, but they seemed to be servants, or the wives of other palace staff. My guess is, if the Imperator had any other wives before Chintara came along, she’s gotten rid of them. I doubt she’d tolerate the competition.”
“Perhaps that’s why she likes you,” Stellan suggested.
“Because I’m no competition?”
He nodded, sipping his wine, wishing it was chilled. “You’re foreign and married. Better yet, you’re married to someone over whom the Imperator has no direct control. Even if he took a fancy to you, he couldn’t order me to hand you over as he could one of his own subjects.”
“Would he though?” Arkady asked. “Adultery is a capital crime here, isn’t it?”
“The Imperator is above the law.”
“It’s a moot question anyw
ay, dear,” Arkady pointed out. “When is the Imperator ever likely to see me for long enough to take a fancy to me when I’m required to walk around wearing a bedsheet with eye-holes in it whenever I’m in his presence? Which begs another question—how does anybody manage to meet and fall in love in this country, anyway? Do the young men here swoon over a particularly well-worn sheet?”
Stellan smiled. “Tides, I hope you weren’t making comments like that to Lady Chintara.”
“No, Stellan,” she promised, sipping her wine. “I behaved myself. You’d have been most impressed by my tact and forbearance.”
He was relieved to hear it, although not really surprised. Arkady was a smart woman; too smart to endanger either herself or their position here in Ramahn with a frivolous remark to the wrong person. “I don’t think falling in love is an issue here. Arranged marriages are the norm, I gather.”
“Speaking of marriages, have you heard from Kylia or Mathu since we arrived?”
Stellan frowned and shook his head. “Not a word. I’m starting to worry a little, actually.”
“They’re probably too busy having a good time in Herino to think about writing to anybody,” Arkady suggested. “It’s only been a couple of months since the wedding. I’d not read too much into their silence, if I were you. Lord Deryon hasn’t said anything in his dispatches that gives you cause for concern, has he?”
“No,” he replied with a shake of his head. “But I still worry about my niece.”
She smiled reassuringly. “I think this is one of those no-news-is-good-news situations, Stellan. If there was anything really going on with the crown prince or his wife, we’d have heard about it by now, I’m quite certain.”
“You’re probably right. Will you join me for dinner this evening?”
Arkady nodded. “Provided there’s no law in this Tide-forsaken country against a husband and wife sharing a meal in their own home.”
“Well, technically here in the embassy we’re on Glaeban soil, anyway. I guess that means we can do as we please.”
“In that case, I’d be delighted to join you for dinner, minus that miserable shroud, of course.”
The Gods of Amyrantha Page 6