by Clare Smith
Pellecus shrugged and she felt the slight movement. “A man learns such things.”
“Men in Athens don’t. They learn how to talk well enough to sway a crowd and how to twist others to their way of thinking. The men play at politics and lie and cheat, but you don’t. You know practical things like hunting and keeping a camp safe from predators. Those are the things a warrior might know.”
Pellecus gave a noncommittal grunt and moved uncomfortably, but didn’t respond to the bait she’d laid, so she tried again. “If you don’t come from Athens, then perhaps you come from the north where men till the ground and raise pigs.”
“I’m no farmer,” snapped Pellecus irritably. “I come from the south.”
“Do you come from the island kingdoms where sons bed their mothers or from the warring states?”
To be thought of as an islander with their strange ways was more than any man could stand. “Neither, I come from Sparta.”
Amalaya nodded; she’d guessed as much. “Is that what makes you so sad, Pellecus? A Spartan warrior, perhaps even an officer, exiled from his home and reduced to the role of a nursemaid.”
Pellecus sighed and wondered if this priestess could see into a man’s heart as well as his future. He didn’t need her to look too deeply, not with what he had to do. “I was a warrior and an officer once.”
She waited for him to continue, but he seemed reluctant to do so. “What happened?”
It was something he didn’t want to talk about, but he knew that Amalaya wouldn’t give in until he told her. “My men and I were scouting across the border looking for cattle which might have strayed, but we became lost and ended up in a strange forest where the trees were covered in trailing strands of fair hair which floated on the breeze. The place was full of shadows which flickered and moved and sounds like whispered words which put our nerves on edge.
“Then a golden ray of sunlight lit up a clearing where a white doe stood, and without thinking I threw my spear and killed it. I thought the kill had changed our luck as we quickly made our way out of the forest and recognised where we were, but then my men started dying. One tripped and broke his neck and one was bitten by a snake. Another was swept away by a sudden flood when he crossed a stream and another was struck by lightning. By the time we returned to the barracks, I was the only one left alive.
“An officer who loses his men without blood being spilt is a disgraced man, and usually the penalty would be death, but Artemis took pity on me. In recompense for the spirit I stole from her, for such was the doe I killed, she set me a task and only when that is completed can I return and wear my officer’s plumes with pride.”
“What was that task?” asked Amalaya quietly, although she was certain she knew the answer.
Pellecus hesitated whilst he thought through his lie. “I was to find a young and gifted priestess who needed my help.”
“So you found me?”
“Yes, I found you.”
Amalaya smiled, feeling happier than she had for a very long time. “I’m glad you did.”
Pellecus didn’t smile but just stared down at his hands. “So am I,” he lied again wishing that Amalaya hadn’t increased the burden that was already weighing him down.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
CHAPTER TWELVE
Worried Men
Kallisan and Assimus Passonia
Collquin was having a bad day. It was one in a long line of bad days, which stretched back to the first day the seekers had come to him to tell him that the ice that had crushed the Northlands beneath its weight, was going to do the same to Kallisan. He hadn’t wanted to believe it then and had sent them back to check their calculations before he took them seriously. He still hadn’t wanted to believe it right up to the moment the outer islands, which were thankfully uninhabited by anything but birds, had been engulfed by the slowly advancing ice wall.
Then he’d acted, and had done everything that the senior elder and leader of his people could do. He’d set every seeker onto the task of looking for a way to stop the ice, and when a possible solution had been found, he’d sent the most talented of that group to Assimus to relight the fires beneath the earth. That should have been enough, and he should have had faith in his seeker, but he disliked having only one option.
Being a cautious man he’d also written to the Passonians requesting the use of ten barrels of Devil’s Fire so he could melt the ice if it came too near. It had shown them a weakness, of course, but it was better to be safe than sorry. As a further precaution, he’d sent his only son to intercept a cargo of Devil’s Fire on its way to Assimus, and finally, he’d prayed to the great god, Jurro for his intervention.
Yes, he was a careful man and had tried everything possible, but the truth of the matter was that he’d failed. The fires beneath the earth remained dead and cold, the Passonians had refused his request and his son had disappeared. On top of that Jurro, to whom he’d always been a faithful and obedient servant, had completely ignored his plea for a helping hand. What was a man to do? Now this new message had come and they had taken one more step towards the annihilation of his people.
It had been a simple message saying that the Diamond Isles had succumbed to the ice but there had been no loss of life. For that he was thankful, although he’d always known that the people there would obey his command and leave. The only people who lived there were miners, and none of them had families on the three inhospitable rocks which rose almost vertically from the sea floor. Whilst no one had died, the loss of the Diamond Isles gave him yet another problem. The diamonds which were mined from the rocks were a major source of Kallisan’s income and without it trade would cease and the people would eventually starve.
That thought made him give an ironic laugh. If things continued as they were going, his people would be dead a long time before they knew what hunger was. The idea that his race with all its rich culture and learning should disappear without a trace saddened him beyond belief, and forced him to once again take the small, round cylinder from the draw and place it on the desk in front of him.
He’d lost count of how many times he’d done the same act, sitting and staring at the object and then replacing it without re-reading its contents. For that he’d put his resistance down to his faith in Jurro, certain that the great god wouldn’t let the people who worshiped him pass from existence. Then, of course, he’d always hoped that Collia or Bassalin would succeed, and at the last moment his people would be saved.
There was no escaping the truth though, the reason he hadn’t acted was because he was a coward. Within the tube, which was engraved with the Passonian royal crest, lay the salvation of his people and yet he’d taken no action to ensure that the thousands of people who relied on his judgement survived. How could he take such a decision, when it meant selling his people into slavery or at least something very close to it? On the other hand, what right did he have not to take this last opportunity for their survival and condemn his people to death?
He called himself a coward because he’d avoided making a decision one way or another, but it wasn’t really cowardice. In reality the decision was just too big for one man to take. If his life-long friend, Elder Stoham hadn’t stayed on Caspin when it was crushed beneath the ice, then he would have discussed it with him and they would have shared the burden, but now only Elder Lancon remained.
Fitten’s elder was a good servant of Jurro and a strong leader, but they had never seen eye to eye about anything, so he doubted that even if he did discuss the issue with Lancon, they were unlikely to agree on a course of action. He’d prayed to Jurro for guidance as a good Kallisian should, but as usual the god was silent on the matter. That left him to choose whether he would forever be known as the leader who sat back and let his nation die, or the one who sold his people, their children and their children’s children into indentureship with the Passonians.
It was an impossible choice but one that he had to make, so he picked up the tube, pulled out the rolled parchment and flatten
ed it out onto his desk. He’d read it only once, but the words were indelibly written into his mind. In exchange for their safety, his people were to be indentured to the Passonians for four generations. It was a monstrous and inhuman charge, but he had no other option but to accept.
He could try and negotiate the terms as Kallisians were traders and were good at that, but to trade you needed something the buyer wanted. The only thing he had to trade was his people, and it didn’t take a genius to guess that the Passonians really didn’t need thousands of refugees, unless they brought with them their unpaid labour. The scroll in front of him almost said as much, so there was little point in him responding with a counter offer or even trying to haggle.
There was, of course, one way out of his intolerable situation, and as Jurro had no objection to self-destruction, he could end his life without incurring the great god’s displeasure, and leave the decision making to Lancon. He couldn’t do that though; despite his dislike of the self-important and bumptious elder he couldn’t burden him with that. No, the decision was his and the only thing he could do was explain the reasons why he’d decided to accept the Passonian’s demands in the hope that, when his people found out they wouldn’t forever condemn him as a traitor.
With a sigh he took a piece of parchment and his best quill and began writing. He wrote slowly and carefully, choosing his words until the parchment was covered in his neat script and the beams of sunlight through the room’s window had moved across the length of the floor. When he’d done he folded the parchment into a neat square and sealed it, pressing the seal of Kallisan’s leader deeply into the soft, black wax.
Then he took another piece of parchment and with a few, brief words, sealed the fate of Kallisan’s people. When he’d finished, he propped the two letters up on his desk in front of him and sat back staring at them. It seemed strange to him that two such simple, innocuous items could change the course of history and determine the fate of thousands of people, himself amongst them.
Even now he could change his mind and tear them up so that no one would ever know how close he’d come to betraying them. Alternatively he could put them in his draw, hidden from view beneath some other papers and defer his decision to another day. That wouldn’t do though; time was running out and nothing was going to change so he rang the bell by his side, closed his eyes and waited for Sillin to attend him.
Sillin was his steward and had been his servant for many years. He trusted Sillin above all others, and knew that the man would diligently carry out his orders to send his letter to Passonia on the next available ship, without being tempted to look at the contents. His faithful servant would also deliver his instructions to Lancon when the time came to evacuate the last island.
That was important as he had no intention of being here when his people found out the future he’d decided for them. Yes, a knife across his wrists would be a coward’s way out, but he hoped they would find it in their hearts to forgive him.
*
Mirralet scowled and looked down at the list of figures in front of him which Captain Gannard had provided. When he’d first seen them he thought that the Captain couldn’t count correctly. That wouldn’t have surprised him knowing that the man was of mixed blood and lacked the superior intelligence of a Passonian. Just to prove his point he’d added the columns up twice, but had only come up with the same answer.
The answer he wanted would have told him that the breeding and holding pens were over half full of suitable stock. He also expected to find that their selection had created plenty of spare room in the Enclave to hold the Assimusians who were being herded there from the provinces. Instead, only twenty of the sheds had been filled, and he was having to provide extra shelter for the Assimusians coming from the provinces who were sleeping in the Enclave’s streets.
That wasn’t his only problem. His estimates of the amount of food and water the Assimusians would need to sustain them before he was ready to put his plan into operation had been far too low, whilst the amount of waste they were producing was way above his reckoning. The results were that the inhabitants of the Enclave were beginning to starve, and there had been several outbreaks of sickness and the flux which made sanitary conditions worse and killed the young and the old.
If that was all that the lack of food, water and hygiene caused then he would be happy to let it continue, After all the young and the old were scheduled to die in any case, and their early deaths would reduce the amount of ashes which would need to be removed when the Enclave burnt down. Unfortunately the appalling conditions inside the Enclave had already resulted in one riot, and whilst it had been put down and the rioters executed, it was unlikely to be the last.
On top of all that, the weak-hearted Captain Gannard had reported that his men were refusing to go inside the Enclave in case they were mobbed or caught the plague. If they weren’t needed to carry out his final part of the plan, he would arrange for them to be inside the Enclave too when it was set on fire, but he needed them and their sharp knives. They were the ones who were going to ensure that the thousand or so Assimusians they were going to retain as slaves would never again be able to breed like the vermin they were.
If only he could hurry the selection process on a pace it would be the perfect solution, but with the Superiors no longer under his control that was unlikely. Another solution would be to bring the completion date forward and then mop up any late arrivals as necessary. That idea appealed to him, so he pushed the disagreeable figures aside and began working on some new ones, until someone had the audacity to walk into his room without knocking and made him look up in annoyance.
If it had been anyone except Cavanagh he would have told them to get out in no uncertain terms, but despite his dislike of the Chief Councillor the man did outrank him. Instead he stood, gave the briefest of bows and did his best to hide his irritation. For his part Cavanagh gave a disdainful look around the room and the briefest nod of his head before helping himself to a seat.
“Captain Gannard has told me that the Enclave is bursting at the edges and there have been riots which have caused his men considerable problems. Is this true?”
Mirralet cursed the Captain and his wagging tongue under his breath and made a mental note to have it cut out when a convenient time arose. “There was some disturbance, but that was inevitable with so many strangers being housed in the Enclave.”
“You know that I cannot allow anything to happen which might spill over into the streets of Phillos and disturb the lives of our peaceful citizens?”
That was an understatement. Only that morning he’d been summoned into the King’s presence by an armed escort of guards. The King had heard the rumour about fighting in the streets and had demanded an explanation. He had then spent an uncomfortable half hour reassuring his majesty there was no way any Passonian was going to be disturbed, let alone harmed by an unruly mob from the Enclave.
As unpleasant as that had been, it was nothing compared to the way the guards outside the audience chamber had glared at him, and had frog-marched him down the corridor to reinforce their sovereign’s displeasure. He’d seen them do that before and knew that the next time the King was displeased, the guards were likely to march him all the way down the corridor and out to where the headman’s axe waited.
“I’m aware of that,” snapped Mirralet, breaking into his thoughts, “and I’m doing everything I possibly can to contain the situation.”
“But?” questioned Cavanagh. “You were going to add a ‘but’?”
Mirralet bit back his tongue; he’d meant to make his comment sound more reassuring than that, but as the cat was out of the bag he might as well tell the Chief Councillor the truth and pass on a little of the blame at the same time. “There is a slight issue with your superiors, who have been unable to select sufficient numbers of suitable Assimusians to fill the breeding and holding pens, thus causing the overcrowding in the Enclave.”
Cavanagh stroked his chin in annoyance. “I see, and what hav
e you done about it?”
“Nothing as yet, after all they are your men and it isn’t my place to interfere.”
Now he could see what Mirralet was up to, but he’d had enough of the King blaming him for things going wrong without this provincial upstart doing the same. “My dear Mirralet, Mirralett’s Masterpiece is your project so you must make any changes which are necessary.”
“Any changes?” Mirralett asked in surprise, wondering how much scope that could give him.
“Of course, but within reason. Now I suggest that you remedy this situation by visiting the Enclave yourself and selecting those Assimusians which have slipped through my men’s fingers and who would be suitable for breeding or cutting.”
Mirralett looked at him aghast. Surely he didn’t really think he was going to set foot inside that awful place. “I don’t think that will be necessary, just a simple instruction to your superiors not to be so picky would suffice.”
“Are you sure that would remedy the situation? After all we only want the best breeding stock and those most suited to menial labour to remain after the project has been completed.”
“Reasonably so, after all one Assimusian is much the same as another. As long as your superiors pick the ones who look as if they can work all day without stopping there shouldn’t be a problem, and if there are a few who are unsuitable, we’ll just have to dispose of them later. However there is something we could do to be absolutely certain there won’t be any problems.” Cavanagh raised his eyebrows in question. “We could bring the date for the bonfire forward a week.”
Cavanagh slowly nodded as he considered the proposition. “What about those from the provinces which haven’t yet arrived in Phillos?”
“A simple cull on the outskirts of the city and a mass grave to dispose of the bodies should do the trick, a task your superiors should be able to undertake without any mishaps.”
“Yes, that would be a good solution.” It would also appease the King and put him back in his majesty’s favour. He stood with a smile on his face. “I will leave the arrangements to you then.” He gave a brief bow and had made it as far as the door before he turned back. “Oh, and do tell the Pyromaster of the change so that he has plenty of time to prepare the devil’s fire.”