by Kate Elliott
“Tss! You’ll just sell it yourself and pocket the profit.”
But he faltered as Nekkar caught his gaze and stared him down.
“Think you so, ver? If you think so, say it louder to all these folk waiting here so I can be sure I’m being accused in public, and not in whispers.”
But the man could not speak such a lie out loud. Maybe it was Nekkar’s steady gaze, or the simmering anger of people forced to buy at outrageous prices; maybe it was the restless presence of soldiers loaned him by the sergeant in charge, big burly lads recruited from out of town.
“Give the woman twenty tey of rice for the silk, ver, and I’ll go on.”
“You’ll go on,” said the merchant, rising belligerently, “because otherwise I’ll have these fellows escort you to the well and toss you in.”
The murmur that spilled outward from this threat flowed quickly through the crowd, but quieted when the soldiers spun their staffs, looking for a bit of excitement.
“The gods judge, ver,” replied Nekkar. “If you cheat others to enrich yourself, then you are already dead.”
Yet words did not feed starving people. He walked with a heavy heart down Lumber Avenue to the rations warehouse on Terta Square, for his morning cup of tea with the sergeant in charge of Stone Quarter. This ritual took place on the porch, in full sight of the square. Laborers were adding on to the barracks yet again, hammering on the roof and sawing planks. A pair of older men hoisted buckets from the public well, while several anxious lads brought ladles of water around for the thirsty workers. In another time—how long ago it seemed now!—the well would have been surrounded by chatting women, and handsome girls would have commanded the ladles with a smile and a tart word, but they were all gone now, hiding in their compounds.
A young woman wrapped tightly in a best-quality silk taloos brought cups of steaming tea to the sergeant, who slapped her on her well-rounded bottom. Three other young women peeped at him from inside the sergeant’s quarters. One he knew by sight, a girl from the masons’ courts who had been forced weeping into the sergeant’s rooms.
“We had some trouble over in the masons’ courts last night, uncle,” said the sergeant, smiling. The day looked good to him, and in truth he was easier to deal with than the last sergeant had been. For one thing, he pretended to a modicum of respect for Nekkar’s authority. “Three young criminals throwing rocks at the patrol. If not reined in, these hotheads will disturb every peaceful night with their violence.”
“Where are they now?” Nekkar had learned to keep his tone even so no feeling spilled.
“The one that fought had to be put down, like a frothing dog. The other two are in the pen out back. Maybe you can talk some sense into them before they’re cleansed.”
“Perhaps they might be whipped and given a sentence of labor in the brickyards. Lads will lose their temper.”
“One of my men got a big cut on the head and a concussion from getting grazed by a brick. If I let that go, more will come out. They brought it on themselves.”
The cup trembled in Nekkar’s hands. The pretty girl in the expensive silk was clutching one of the porch pillars so hard her hand had whitened at the knuckles, but she had such a bland smile on her face that she looked stupid. He’d not seen her before, nor had she the familiar features of any of the local Stone Quarter families. “I’ll speak to them, Sergeant. What of the rations chits for today?”
“We’ve got nothing for you today.”
“Folk who don’t eat, can’t work.”
“Folk who don’t work, can’t eat. No wagons came in yesterday, so there’s nothing to distribute.”
This blatant lie Nekkar let pass, even as he thought of the sacks of rice and nai in the market being offered at prices no one could afford. “Perhaps men might be allowed to work in groups in the fields, to prepare the ground for the rains. Each clan can grow rice for its own needs.”
“Neh, I doubt Captain Parron will agree. He’s got laborers on the fields already.”
“Yet we are always short of food, Sergeant.”
“There have been enough incidents outside the walls—fights, runaways, all manner of trouble—that the captain will not allow it, and you know he’s in charge, not me.”
“If folk are not allowed to plant fields, then what will there be to eat a year from now?”
The sergeant shrugged. “I’ll be transferred on by then.” He beckoned to the lass and, when she hurried over, pinched her behind and afterward handed her the cup. “Take this inside.”
She hurried inside, not looking back.
“I haven’t seen her before,” said Nekkar cautiously.
“Good breasts and ass, but a bit of a stammering lackwit. Look how she forgot to take your cup. She’s a village girl from upcountry Captain Parron was keeping, but he got in new girls last night and passed this one on to me. Tasty enough, eh?”
Nekkar thought of Seyra, of all the young female novices and envoys under his protection. He might have raged or wept but instead sipped at the dregs of his tea, the leavings like ashes in his mouth.
“I can’t keep four women. I’ve had that girl Fala the longest. She’s from around here, isn’t she? I’ll send her on to the barracks.”
If the sergeant heard Fala’s gasp from the shadows, he did not show it by expression or comment.
Nekkar felt his face burn with anger and fear, but he kept his voice calm. “Fala is from the masons’ court. I’d wager you could make those mason clans whose lads are giving you trouble a bargain. Let the girl go back home, and they’ll rope in those stone throwers. Keep things quiet there.”
The sergeant scratched the stubble on his head. Like most of the army, he kept his hair trimmed short against lice. “I’ll think on it, but there’s been some complaints at the barracks for want of recreation, so I need to shift new hierodules in there.”
For all that Nekkar bound his tongue every gods-rotted day, that he paced out the pattern of his days with deliberate speed so as not to attract unwanted attention, this was too cursed much. “Hierodules! Hierodules serve the Merciless One of their own will! They are not forced onto men’s pallets!”
Anger creased the sergeant’s mouth, and he drew the whip he carried from the belt and smacked it so hard against the nearest pillar that Nekkar flinched. Then the man laughed, and he whistled three short notes, and the girl Fala came hurrying out like a dog called to heel. She crouched, head lowered, shoulders trembling.
“Yes, Master,” she said, the words so soft Nekkar barely heard them. That the sergeant made her address him as slave to master only made it worse.
“You’ve a hankering to be a hierodule, don’t you, lass?” said the sergeant with a grin, gaze flashing to Nekkar.
Hers flashed to the ostiary as well, her eyes black with desperation.
“Look at me!” He pressed the whip against her cheek.
She raised her chin, tears winding down her dark cheeks. “Yes, ver. I apprenticed to the Witherer, but I always wanted to be a hierodule.”
“Well, then, take your things and get over there, report to the barracks.”
She tried to rise, but her legs would not lift her.
Nekkar rose, cup clenched in his right hand. “Truly, Sergeant, let the girl go home. She’s done enough, surely, served you for three months by my reckoning.”
The sergeant drew his whip along Fala’s neck. She was a pretty girl, alas for her in these times; her clan always made the proper offerings; she’d been betrothed to a young man from Flag Quarter, but Nekkar did not know if he still lived.
“Surely I can do that,” said the sergeant with a smile lingering on his arrogant face, “but I need another girl in the barracks lest my soldiers grow restless. So if you’ll send along one of those young novices you keep gated up in the temple, that lass—or lad—can take the place of this one. As soon as you send her, Fala can go home.”
For the space of a breath, for the space of a bell, a day, a year, Nekkar lost sight and hear
ing, every sensation except the stink of failure and the rotting sweetness of a pain he could not describe or touch but could only taste like vomit on his tongue.
The sergeant laughed heartily, and Nekkar had to squeeze his walking staff with both hands to stop himself from slamming its haft into the man’s face. His weak ankle shifted, and he tottered sideways. The poor girl had to steady him.
“Forgive me, Holy One,” she whispered as he swayed.
For what she thought she was apologizing he could not fathom. As if his distress was her fault! What manner of holy one was he? She had endured for months while he had kept his novices and envoys protected behind the temple walls. And yet how could he throw any one of them to the beasts to be ripped and rended?
“The gods are cursed useless now, aren’t they, Holy One?” sneered the sergeant.
Was it true? Had the gods abandoned them? Was this a test?
Neh. It was not true. The people of Toskala were not trapped by the gods’ indifference but by human action.
“You speak lightly, Sergeant, because it is not a woman of your clan who will be abused every night by multiple men, none of whom will come to her with the respect and awe due to an acolyte of the Devourer. When Ushara’s temples closed their gates to your soldiers, you knew then that the gods did not approve of what you did.”
“And what happened to Ushara’s temples, eh? We broke down the gates and took what we wanted. They should not have refused us.”
“What you do is wrong. You know it, and I know it. You present me now with a terrible choice not because you want me to make a choice but because you want me to suffer for having to make the choice. Therefore, it is no choice you offer me. It is not my responsibility, but yours.”
The sergeant’s expression had grown tight in a way Nekkar knew presaged danger, but he could not stop speaking. “Please allow Fala to return to her clan. If the provision wagons have come in, let rations chits be distributed. I ask you, by the agreement made when the army first occupied the city, to remember that the people of Toskala must eat in order to work. Please allow me to take chits representing a fair portion of rice and nai, and I will distribute them to the clans and compounds in Stone Quarter as I’ve been doing for almost six months now.”
“Get out, before I whip you,” growled the sergeant. “Fala, get your things and go to the barracks. Neh, leave the silks. You’ll not need them there. If you’re still here after I’ve finished my morning meal, I’ll whip you.”
“Let her come with me,” said Nekkar.
The whip’s snap laid open his cheek.
Fala screamed and stumbled away into the interior. The women who had been watching from within scattered like mice.
Nekkar let the blood drip as he hobbled away, his bad ankle wobbling, while the sergeant shouted angrily at his women and his slaves and his attendants. No whip, no arrow, no spear followed the ostiary to the gate that opened into the courtyard in back, but the cursing, laughing guards refused to let him in to check on the lads imprisoned in the pens.
With such dignity as he could gather, he set off on his usual resting day round, only today he had to tell each compound expecting a rations chit that today there would be nothing and that he did not know when the next rations chits would be available. He did not tell them that the sergeant was hoarding all the provisions and handing them out to a few select merchants to sell at inflated prices.
Folk certainly saw his bleeding cheek and marked the whip’s slash, but none asked. He was glad of that, because had they asked he would have to tell them the truth: He was whipped because he could not spare a young woman from abuse, a grandfather from starving, young men from being enslaved to the army or cleansed on the post, rice and nai from being stolen, children from dying in the brickyards.
He walked his round as always. Today, empty-handed.
He returned before the curfew to the temple, and Vassa cleaned the dried blood off the cut but did not ask him how he had come by it. He counted his people, and on this evening every single one came home, all except Kellas. He led the dusk prayers, then sat on his porch as the night bell tolled.
“What humiliations is Fala enduring?” he asked Vassa, who sat cross-legged beside him shaping a basket with her cunning hands. She needed no light to do this work, having woven all her life. If she did not keep her hands busy, she often said, she would go crazy. “Will Grandfather’s spirit pass the gate tonight? What will happen to those sent south?”
“They have come to love cruelty because it feeds them,” she said.
“Must I ask one of mine to go to the barracks and offer herself in place of Fala?”
Her handwork did not cease. “What makes you think they will honor the bargain? They may just take the other one as well, and then two will suffer.”
“That is a story we tell ourselves. So we can sit here, and eat what we have, and listen to our young ones sleep at peace. Yet if we opened our ears, we would hear nothing but weeping.”
“True, but it doesn’t change the truth of what I say,” said Vassa. “When people see you in the street, they discover their hearts are still strong. Thus they can endure another day.”
Another day. Even another month. For how long before they succumbed to despair and obeyed while telling themselves it was for the best? Yet to voice such thoughts aloud was to start down that terrible path, so he kept silence.
33
CURSED ROCKS.
Nallo could not imagine a more idiotic training regimen, yet here she was flying sweeps with her new wing hauling a cursed basket of cursed rocks, each rock about the size of her fist. Poor Tumna took most of the strain, although the motion of banking or rising caused the basket to bump so heavily against Nallo’s legs she was sure she’d end up mottled with bruises.
As if hauling a gods-rotted basket of rocks to lob at miscreants would do any good.
They flew out in wings of six: From her position she could see Warri and his eagle Dogkiller out on the right flank of the wing. She was next, flying at slightly higher elevation, and inside of her but lower flew Pil with Sweet in the second striker position. First striker, and head of the wing, was Peddonon with Jabi, flying yet lower beyond and in front of Pil. The third striker and left flank were Kanness with Lovely—a worse-tempered raptor than Tumna—and Orya with lazy Candle. The eagles tolerated each other—they had to, or no reeve hall could function—but Peddonon had had to try several different formations with the eighteen reeves left to him at Law Rock in order to send out wings whose eagles wouldn’t take territorial swipes at one another. Even so, Tumna was cursed suspicious of Candle, enough that Nallo felt a tug whenever the raptor looked that way.
They had taken off from Law Rock midmorning and pushed south, practicing maneuvers and resting between times on powerful high thermals. That the land should look so peaceful astonished her. With the sun shining above, the river flowed like a spill of light away to their right. The variegated colors of the dry season gave the landscape an intense texture: fields stubbled with gold stalks not yet turned under; ponds fringed with a wrack of withered weeds and cracked dry soil where the waters had retreated; orchards and woodland seeping green. Dusty irrigation ditches and empty paths and minor roads netted the land, seeming almost to have some deeper pattern when seen from on high.
A whistle caught her ear. Pil was flagging with an orange cloth: Alert! Follow close! She tugged on the jesses, and Tumna, sighting an object on the ground, followed Sweet and Jabi. Nallo grabbed her own orange flag on its stick, thumping a knee against the basket while she was at it. Eihi! Pain throbbed, a lump blossoming beneath the skin.
This new formation was total rubbish, a cursed stupid plan.
Pil flagged with the orange and white stripe that meant: Attack!
The hells!
Tumna dropped, wings outstretched, and they sailed over woodland broken with clearings, unturned fields, and distant villages in the midst of rings of cultivated land. When she saw what Peddonon was aiming for, her
heart seemed to rise up into her throat so she could not breathe. A heavily loaded cart pulled by two dray beasts was being coaxed across the ford of a substantial stream, a tributary river that wound toward the River Istri, now out of sight to the west. The dray beasts had decided they would rather wallow in the water, because they were trying to pull off the gravel bar that sliced partway across the ford and on into deeper waters where they could relax. One soldier was whipping the dray master; two others were whipping the animals. Another pointed at the eagles, alerting his fellows. There were too many to attack, twenty at least.
Yet Peddonon cut low, Kanness approaching from behind. Pil climbed, circling back.
Were they really going to try to hit this cadre?
Peddonon swooped over the ford as the dray beasts took advantage of the soldiers’ distraction to pull hard for the wallow. The wagon began to slide off the gravel bar.
Peddonon upended his basket. Two arrows flashed upward through the hail of stones. Unlike the rocks, the spent arrows fell harmlessly back to earth.
Splashes, shouts, and the panicked blundering bellows of the dray beasts marked the impact of the first volley. Kanness came right behind, dumping his basket. A stone struck a dray beast right on the head, and the animal staggered violently, snapping its yokes as it collapsed to its knees. The cart yawed, tipped, teetered; the ox toppled, and the second, still bellowing, thrashed to try to break free and keep its head above as the cart tumbled over and into the deeper water.
Nallo had overshot. She tugged so hard on the jesses that Tumna objected with an outraged chuff, but the raptor had her hunting blood up; she banked sharply, returning for the kill.
The dray master was chest deep in water, trying to free the beasts. One soldier floated facedown in the water as Orya’s basket, cut loose, spun earthward in the wake of a spent volley of rocks. Another man fled toward the far shore, his bow arm dangling limply, his weapon lost as he tried to drag his sword free with the other.