Heir's Revenge (Return of the Aghyrians Book 4)

by Patty Jansen

  In a chapter on rights, she came across a section with old-fashioned language that spelled out the responsibilities of the Foundation families. She was astonished to find many things that she’d never known before.

  Like this:

  Heirs of Foundation families shall, at all times, maintain their neutrality in the council. They shall not encourage divisive reasoning and shall not take part in garnering votes for their preferred causes.

  Well, they had failed on that score.

  Or this one:

  If a sufficient misconduct has been perpetrated, the Heir of a Foundation family may, when circumstances justify and when accompanied by the right protocol, invoke the Right of Veto in plenary sessions of the council, specifically related to the matter of voting.

  She didn’t even know that law was still current. What did this mean about Lihan Ilendar and Iztho Andrahar, the heirs of those families? What even was “the right protocol”?

  And this:

  Foundation family members shall carry equal responsibility for the wellbeing of all in Miran. This includes the care of the sick, the injured and the disadvantaged.

  Fancy that, the work of the Endri women was written into the law, but they got no vote in return?

  Even Nikala families had more say. Each registered family had a vote, but Nikala families were more likely to be headed by a woman.

  And then this one.

  Foundation families shall monitor education and the quality thereof, and shall make sure that children of the population are treated fairly and equally and are educated free of political agendas.

  Who ever did that anymore?

  Then again, Miran had been very small in the beginning, and in return for being allowed to make money off land and property, the Foundation families had been assigned tasks. Those jobs had been distributed over all Endri and had later also included some Nikala, although they never swore to uphold Foundation Law like Endri did.

  Miran was much bigger now. Education was no longer monitored by the Endri.All this was interesting, but brought her little closer to what she was looking for. Although to be honest, she wasn’t quite sure what she was looking for anymore. Her list of obsolete little rules and tasks that applied to Endri that no one cared about anymore was growing fast. Did the council really want to abolish all of them?

  Fortunately, no further snow fell overnight and Ellisandra had no problems going to the theatre the next morning. Sariandra was already in the drawing room, tracing shapes on huge sheets of waxy paper for patterns.

  “If you give me a list of what you need, I’ll go shopping for fabrics.”

  “Can I come, please?”

  “Do you think that’s all right with your father? I don’t really want to get into any more trouble with him.”

  “I’m . . . sorry about that. He can be really silly about things like this.” That was an oddly light-hearted remark given Asitho Bisumar’s heavy-handedness. “But the merchants are all Nikala. They don’t care about me or my father’s rules.”

  That was true, and it was going to be inconvenient not having her there.

  “Well . . .” She hesitated. “It is a work trip.” She should probably risk Asitho Bisumar’s displeasure and take her. “All right, you can come.”

  “Oh, thank you, thank you! Let me get my cloak.”

  Sariandra ran into the open wardrobe and then back into the drawing room, where she deposited something in one of the cabinets under the large table. Leaving the tracking device here again?

  To be honest, the strictness of Asitho Bisumar’s rules annoyed Ellisandra beyond pale. His daughter was not a little girl. She could think for herself. Somewhere under that shyness was a certain resolve that Ellisandra thought she could like, if only she found out what bothered Sariandra so, because being caught by her father was obviously not one of those things.

  “Here I am, all rugged up.” She was, too. Not in her mottled cloak today, but wearing a cloak of lighter fur that had a hood, which she had pulled over her head. Hmm, she’d even thought about going onto the streets without being recognised. That was something to be admired.

  “All right then, let’s go.”

  It wasn’t far to the markets and fortunately the snow from the previous night had been dealt with. On the way, they talked about costumes, their designs and styles and faithfulness to period.

  “And we must also see if we can fit you for a dress,” Ellisandra said.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, we’re going to be the stars of the night when the play is performed.” At least she hoped that they weren’t going to be throwing wet snow and no one was going to walk out because of wrong buttons on the actors’ costumes, or about too much blood on the floor. Damn, she still hadn’t decided whether she’d go ahead with that gory scene or go the safe route.

  “You mean, we go onto the stage?”

  “Yes, we do. Usually one of the actors tells us to come up.”

  “Do we need new dresses for that?”

  “I have a couple in the stores, but you may need to get one made if there is nothing suitable. We have to look our best.”

  “Oh.” She looked terrified.

  “Don’t worry, the theatre will pay for it.”

  “Oh, all right.” But she looked far from relieved. “I don’t know that I can . . .”

  “Of course you can. I know it’s scary facing all these people, but you don’t have to say anything. I may have to say something, but you just stand behind me on the stage and smile. That’s all.”

  Sariandra nodded and still didn’t look convinced.

  They arrived at the markets where they spent a good amount of time looking at fabric and a variety of stalls.

  Then they went to merchant Faludin’s stall, who sold strong and plain linens. Then merchant Elomin who had a selection of felt and synthetic materials. The cheaper fabrics were out.

  “You should consider that you’re making these costumes for the rich of Miran,” Ellisandra explained. “After the performance, the costumes will be auctioned off.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know that.”

  “It’s how we raise a fair bit of money. The lead actress gets to decide where that money is spent. Tameyo tends to like schools. But the way these costumes are made determines their price. This is why the whole button incident happened, because the rich merchant wives tend to bid a lot more if the costumes are more modern. They tend to dislike laced-up bodices.”

  Sariandra’s lips formed the letter “o”. “Changing Fate is from the early period. Does that mean you want me to have buttons instead of laces?”

  “Well, I wished that we could, because they do sell better. Also, I wish that some people got over their issues with buttons, because we use synthetics for the ladies’ dresses, where they would have used silk back in those days. But we can’t have silk, because it comes from Barresh, and you can’t talk about imports unless you want to create even more trouble than if you use buttons. Don’t ever mention the term felt either.”

  “Because of forbidden imports?”

  “Yes. You had no idea that costume-making was a dance in diplomacy, right?”

  Sariandra looked at her with wide eyes.

  They bought a good number of fabrics, but there was not much choice when searching for cheap leather to make the prisoners’ costumes—those weren’t auctioned off. If the play had been performed recently, there would have been prisoners’ costumes in the stores, but it hadn’t and there weren’t, which was a nuisance, on top of everything else.

  “You should go to the animal markets,” a merchant said. “The tiyuk herders usually have a lot of cheap leather for sale.”

  So they asked the delivery sleds to take all their purchases from the markets to the theatre and went to the animal markets, which were at the lower end of the commercial quarter. Animals meant mainly tiyuk. The building’s main function was to provide a base for the pack animal herds and their nomad handlers when they came down from the mountains in the
snow months. The building took up an entire block with stables surrounding several courtyards on the ground floor and living quarters above them.

  The first courtyard held the public markets where the citizens of Miran could buy animals. There were barking lizards that were said to scare maramarang, egg-laying snakes, and a variety of brightly-coloured butterflies in thick glass cages to protect them against the cold. There were also fish of all sizes, decorative ones and ones for eating. The large commercial fish farmers, of course, would not buy here so these were animals for backyard farmers and for the rich to keep as pets.

  There were also a couple of temporary pens with young male tiyuk. Sometimes the farmers on the slopes below the city wanted an animal to get to the steep fields where their machinery could not come. But tiyuk were strong herd animals and tended to mope when they were by themselves, so sometimes they only rented the animal and returned it to the nomads the next time they were in town.

  These tiyuk, mostly young males with their neck plates poorly developed, were nosing around in a stack of hay, rattling their neck plates at each other if one got in the way of the other. You did not put female animals with the males, because then they all started fighting.

  Ellisandra asked one of the attendants for leather and was sent to the next courtyard, where a number of people were stacking parcels onto sleds. They were mountain nomads, a type of people more ancient than the settlement on Miran. They were fairly short and quite dark-skinned to protect themselves from the harmful sunlight at high altitude. They could climb to heights where a city person died, and spent the summers grazing with their animals, to come to the city when snow fell and there was lots of work in town. They also came to sell their wool and leather and dried meat.

  Sariandra stared at all the activity in the courtyard with wide eyes as if she saw all this for the first time.

  The leather department was in the far corner of that courtyard, under the overhang of the upstairs gallery.

  A woman was working stacking big piles of pelts, mostly the light-coloured variety that belonged to the young animals.

  While they crossed the courtyard, Ellisandra noticed someone familiar: Vayra stood talking to an older nomad woman.

  She ducked into the shadow of an overhanging gallery. It was probably better if he didn’t talk to her or Sariandra, if this expedition was to stay a secret from Asitho Bisumar. But it was too late. Sariandra had already seen him.

  “Hey, that’s the man who came to play the flute.”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s he doing here?”

  “Organising to get something delivered for his building project?”

  That’s what she would normally have thought, but Vayra was laughing and the older woman clapped him on the shoulder. She said something and he laughed even harder. He looked completely at ease, not at all the stiff person she had seen.

  “He’s rebuilding the Andrahar house, isn’t he?” Sariandra said.

  “I think so.”

  He didn’t seem to have noticed them. Ellisandra wanted to wait until he was gone, but the two were deep in discussion as if they were the best of friends.

  And then another thought occurred to her: she knew how Vayra could have entered Miran unnoticed: with the nomads. Every winter, the caravan of animals with their owners walked in from the mountain slopes: a long train of shaggy beasts pulling sleds with men, women and children seated on bales of wool and pelts. The children from the city would often run out and meet them at the high gate. The only other people who used the high gate were funeral processions and sometimes casual walkers and herb collectors. Guard checks at the gate were pretty lax. In fact she didn’t think there were guards on that gate at all a lot of the time.

  Then another thought: Vayra had planned this. He had researched the best way to come into town without being noticed. He had learned Mirani and Mirani custom. Maybe he had even become a Masterbuilder just so that he could rebuild the house.

  If Nemedor Satarin was to be believed, he also held a Trader’s Licence and had studied law.

  What was the chance that all these things he was doing in Miran amounted to a cunning plan that he had spent years working out?

  He was still talking to the woman.

  “Need any help there?” This voice was another woman’s, a bit younger, but already with lines around her eyes from exposure to dry mountain air.

  “We’re looking for some cheap sheets of leather.”

  “Cheap ones or good ones? They’re two different things.”

  “Cheap. It’s for the theatre.”

  She frowned.

  “Costumes, only to be worn for one night.”

  “One night only? You city folk are so wasteful.” She tsked, but went to rummage in her wares. She pulled out a pile of cured skins from under the display table and spread out a few over the top of a stack of glorious thick furs. Most skins had faults or were uneven in colour or texture.

  “Our rubbish pile,” the woman said. “That cheap enough?”

  “That will do perfectly.”

  Ellisandra chose a few of the darker-coloured skins. “We need to make them black,” she explained to Sariandra.

  The nomads didn’t use Mirani’s credit system, so she had to pay for the purchases in tiran tokens.

  “Is he a friend of the nomads?” she asked while digging in the pocket of her cloak.

  The woman returned a deadpan stare.

  “He’s not a local. We can’t work out where he’s come from. You people seem to know him well.”

  “I don’ make a habit of talking gossip. Either you want to buy these skins or you don’t. I’m not here to talk rubbish.”

  All right, all right. Ellisandra handed over the money, and handful of little triangular tokens.

  “Why not ask him?” the woman said.

  “We have, rest assured.”

  “Ha, maybe he doesn’t like your asking.”

  Well, obviously.

  “You know, you’re all so afraid in this place. You tremble like a newborn calf when someone does as much as look at you. You worry about what people think. You worry about what people know about you. You worry about what people will do with that information. You worry about what people will tell other people and what they will do with that information.” She spread her hands. “By the heavens, how can you live like that? You’re very young. Your companion is even younger.”

  She pointed a crooked finger at Sariandra, who took a step back, her eyes wide. Ellisandra was sure that this woman didn’t meet the “Approved Companion” guidelines set by her father.

  “You know what you youngsters need to do? You’re good girls, and you mean well, but you have to say enough’s enough. I’ve come here many years, and every year I turn up, things have gotten a little worse. When I first came here, as a little girl, I remember staring my eyes out at all the foreign delicacies. Fruit I’d never seen before. Silk! Wood! Someone had to explain to me what that was. And then all the glorious food that you could buy. It was cheap, too. And sometimes it would even be sold by someone from elsewhere. Nothing of that is left. One by one, all the merchants stopped selling the interesting stuff. One by one, all the foreign merchants left. You people don’ notice it. You live like the mountain hare stuck in the freezing cave, not noticing how cold it gets until it’s too late.” Her gnarled finger pointed at Ellisandra. Other shoppers had stopped to stare. “Stop before it’s too late. Get off this caravan to madness. Start living again.”

  Ellisandra quickly gathered her purchases and shepherded Sariandra to safer ground, the anonymity of the street.

  “What was all that about?” Sariandra asked.

  “Nothing important.”

  Only a lot of politics. Maybe one day, a long time ago, she would have discussed the nomad woman’s opinion, and she would have been able to do so without being afraid to be spied on and have her opinion reported back to the council by a Citizen’s Group.

  The woman was right, of course
. Everyone in Miran was afraid. There was no more pride and no more honour. It was everyone for themselves. Foundation was already dead. It had been dead for years.

  16

  “I’M SORRY about that,” Ellisandra said when they were back in the upstairs drawing room.

  “Sorry about what?” Sariandra frowned at her. She seemed to come out of some kind of deep thought to say that. She had taken off her cloak and hung it over the spare chair, but hadn’t sat down yet.

  “I only meant for you to come shopping. If I’d known that woman was going to go on a political rant, I wouldn’t have taken you.”

  “I’m familiar with political rants.” It sounded a little prim.

  Yes. Of course. She would be. Ellisandra hated to think what dinners would be like at Asitho Bisumar’s house.

  “I’m sorry. Would you get in trouble if someone reported it to your father that you were there? Because I don’t want to cause you any trouble.” Moreover, she didn’t want to have to face Asitho Bisumar again.

  “Nothing you could do could cause me any more trouble than I already have.”

  “But I promised him—”

  “You don’t understand,” Sariandra said. She was hugging herself and not meeting Ellisandra’s eyes.

  “You left that thing upstairs again, didn’t you? The thing that’s supposed to tell him where you are.”

  Sariandra nodded and then looked over her shoulder.

  “Why is he so afraid of what you do and who you speak to? These are all just merchants and other workers. You’re a big girl. It’s not as if they are going to make any difference to your life or will change your mind.”

  “Look, it’s not really important. I’m getting married soon and—”

  “Yes, let’s talk about that. Did you know you were getting married when you came to join us?”

  “I didn’t. It has only been arranged recently.”

  “When is this happening?”

  “Soon after the play.”

  “So soon?”

  Her father really wanted to get rid of her.

  “It’s only big weddings that you need to organise long in advance. We’re just having a small one. But you should be happy about it.”