Gate to Kandrith (The Kandrith Series)

by Luiken, Nicole

  “Since there are no slaves in my country, it would be stupid to call it Slaveland. Your country is the true land of slaves.” He spoke rudely, trying to pick a quarrel. Once she revealed her shallow nature, his desire for that perfect face and bewitching body would cool.

  “I beg your pardon, I meant no offense.” She looked sincere, but Lance held tightly to his irritation. “Slaveland is all I have ever heard your homeland called.”

  “It’s called Kandrith.”

  “It means Freedom,” Felicia volunteered.

  Lance looked at her in chagrin. In the heat of his argument, he’d inadvertently left Felicia out of the conversation. “Yes. Freedom or Key.”

  “How did you know that?” Lady Sara seemed perplexed that her slave knew something she didn’t.

  Felicia’s face became guileless. “I heard it somewhere.”

  Lance snorted. “You can chain a slave, but not fetter their thoughts.” He tried to catch Felicia’s gaze, to let her know he would help her if he could, but her eyes slid away.

  “Felicia’s not a slave. She’s a cuorelle.”

  “Cuorelle means Heart Slave. There’s no difference.”

  “You’re wrong. Slaves are slaves for life, and all their children, too, with no hope of ever redeeming themselves,” Lady Sara said with distaste. “Barbarians take slaves. Felicia has only two years left on her slavechain and then her grandfather will have served his forty years and she and all her brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins and her father will be free citizens of the Republic, equitains.”

  Lance stared at her, unable to believe the tripe falling from her lips. “You speak of forty years of starvation and hard labor as if it were nothing. Most slaves never live to earn off their slavechain.”

  “Only someone who is cruel and stupid starves his workers. I admit most nobles believe that hard labor is necessary to keep their osseons—first-generation Bone Slaves—too tired to revolt. However, we were speaking of cuorelles. Felicia has never done a day’s labor in the field.”

  Lance could have told her that most Republicans were cruel, stupid bastards, but he concentrated on smashing down the second part of her argument. “And has Felicia also never been beaten? Never seen a loved one whipped or murdered?”

  Lady’s Sara spine straightened. “Never.”

  He had his doubts, but they weren’t worth arguing over. “And can you say the same for every cuorelle?” He watched her face, expecting her—daring her—to lie.

  “It is illegal to torture or murder a slave,” Lady Sara said instead.

  A law that was never enforced. She couldn’t be that blind. She had to know; she just didn’t care. “And rape, is that illegal too?”

  He used the word as a verbal slap. As expected, it created a silence and then—

  A soft, bitter laugh escaped Lady Sara’s lips. “I’m afraid rape is a crime that holds little hope of justice for any woman, slave or noble.” Her gaze met his, and he recalled the lordling chasing her through the mud.

  Yes, that was probably true in this miserable excuse for a country. Things were different in Kandrith, but he inclined his head in acknowledgment of the point. “Still, you have some protection. Felicia has none.”

  “I am Felicia’s protection.”

  Lance looked his skepticism. Oh, Lady Sara might have good intentions, but the second Felicia set foot out of her presence any noble with an itch could simply grab her and take her. Her maid was an attractive woman; she would have had to have led an extraordinarily charmed life to have escaped it.

  “You don’t believe me.” Lady Sara’s nostrils flared. She rapped on the carriage roof and called for the coachman to halt.

  Lance felt a surge of satisfaction. Now that he’d offended her, she would return to her own carriage, and—

  “Fetch Captain Marcus for me,” Lady Sara ordered the coachman.

  The legionnaire must have already been on his way to find out why they’d stopped, because in a matter of moments he opened the carriage door. “Lady Sarathena?”

  “Captain, could you please repeat the instructions I gave you regarding Felicia?”

  Captain Marcus stared straight ahead and recited: “That if any man lays a hand on her person without her express consent, you will see them disemboweled and hanged from the nearest tree.” His brows drew together. “Have any of my men—”

  “No, everything is fine,” Lady Sara assured him. “You may tell the coachman to continue.”

  The captain nodded and shut the door. In moments, the coach rolled back into motion.

  Looking pleased with herself, Lady Sara raised an eyebrow. “Well?”

  Lance was impressed, but he quickly pointed out, “That threat may work against legionnaires, but any man of your rank would laugh in your face.”

  “It’s the height of rudeness to abuse another’s cuorelles,” she informed him.

  Lance opened his mouth to tell her what a frail protection that was and then winced when he caught sight of Felicia sitting quietly. Here he was likely raking up old pains for the sake of an argument with a highborn lady, who was never going to change her mind because it would upset her notion of her superior place in the world. He addressed Felicia. “I’m sorry.”

  He couldn’t tell if she were upset or not; her face was a smooth mask. “I am fortunate in my mistress,” she murmured.

  “And yet not so fortunate that she’s actually freed you.”

  He aimed the dig at Lady Sara, but Felicia surprised him by answering. “She can’t.”

  Lance stared at her.

  “Lord Remillus, Lady Sara’s father, holds my family’s slavechain. When we were twelve, he transferred my chain to Sara, on the condition that she promise not to free me before my time. He was afraid,” Felicia glanced wryly at her mistress, “that she had too soft a heart.”

  Lady Sara grimaced.

  “So Lady Sara gave me a choice. I could continue as her father’s cuorelle with the hope that I might someday perform such a great service that I was freed early, or take service with her. Can you guess which one I picked?” Felicia asked mockingly.

  Lady Sara frowned. “I’ve never quite understood that. You could have had the best of both worlds by serving me while remaining in my father’s hands.”

  “I’d make the same choice again today,” Felicia said flatly. “If you died tomorrow, your father would sell me.”

  Lady Sara burst out laughing. “How reassuring! I guess I’m safe from being poisoned by you then.”

  Felicia made a face and then started laughing too.

  A strange thought struck Lance. Could Sara actually consider Felicia her friend? A friend who was also her servant, but still a friend?

  And how did Felicia feel about her mistress? Certainly there was ease and affection there, but he sensed that Felicia always stood slightly on guard. The barrier of Felicia’s status stood in the way of true friendship. He wondered if Sara realized that.

  Had she ever had a true friend?

  Now he was starting to pity her and that wouldn’t do. Lance summoned up the threads of their argument. “So you can’t free Felicia. You could have encouraged her to escape.”

  Lady Sara looked insulted. “I gave my word.”

  “And you didn’t want to be inconvenienced by being without your favorite slave.”

  Anger turned her eyes hot blue. Would they look the same in the throes of passion? Lance shifted on the seat.

  “You speak as if I enslaved Felicia personally, as if I invented slavery,” she said. “I’ve come closer to being chained myself, than chaining anyone.”

  “You?” Lance scoffed, his gaze running over her expensive gown and the soft, pampered body inside it.

  “Yes. When I was nine, Grassland barbarians attacked my father’s estate.” Her voice shook, whether from anger or fear he couldn’t tell, but, for the first time, her true emotions showed through that cursed light hauteur she cultivated. “One of them grabbed me by the hair and threw me
across his saddle. If he hadn’t been shot down, I would wear chains today. I was lucky. Felicia’s grandfather was unlucky, that’s all.”

  The incident explained why she was kind to her slaves, but he doubted it had done more than dent the sense of superiority that made most Republicans insufferable. “So it’s just a matter of luck?” he probed.

  She failed the test. “Slavery is what happens to the people on the losing side of a war—or else the same war will happen over and over again for the next hundred years. ‘It takes three generations to grow a citizen,’” Lady Sara quoted Primus Tembor, the founder of the Republic.

  Lance had heard that argument before. “How noble,” he sneered. “But the Republic doesn’t go to war to grow citizens. It’s greedy for land and slaves. That’s why it goes to war.”

  To his annoyance, Lady Sara shrugged. “War is the prerogative of Nir. If the Republic fell tomorrow, war and slavery would still exist.”

  “That doesn’t make it right.” Lance clenched his hands into fists, bearing the pain in his swollen knuckles.

  “Perhaps not,” she said, “but it’s the world we live in.”

  Her cool manners had returned. He’d probably imagined the glimpse he’d thought he’d caught of something deeper.

  He reminded himself that her lack of character didn’t change anything. He still had to deliver her pampered ass across the border.

  * * *

  Her father’s faith in her had been misplaced.

  The thought haunted Sara, but she could not deceive herself. Lance wasn’t tripping over himself in his eagerness to worship at the altar of her beauty.

  Under other circumstances she might have found that pleasing.

  As it was, Sara was exceedingly happy when the carriage finally stopped for the night in Jessary at the red-painted Temple of Jut, God of Travellers. While modest in size, the temple provided all a weary traveler could ask: a soft bed with clean sheets, filling food and drink, hot baths and, above all, a floor that didn’t rock and sway like a carriage. That alone was priceless.

  The temple treated all travelers as guests in the god’s house—but it was a rude guest who didn’t offer a gift in return. Sara would see that Julen made an appropriate donation. Even the horses in the stables would be curried and given hot mash tonight as they were considered travelers too. Jut’s twin sister, Jita, was Goddess of Horses.

  A priest showed Sara and Felicia to the temple’s best room, which opened onto a private garden. He acted very solicitous, but Sara disapproved of how young and plump he was. In Elysinia, retired older priests ran the temples, while their younger brethren followed Jut’s footsteps and wandered the wide world. She felt relieved when he finally bowed and left them to refresh themselves before supper.

  “Well,” she said to Felicia, “I think you’ve made a conquest.”

  “Who, the priest?” Felicia sounded startled.

  “No. Lance.” Lance had made a definite point of talking to Felicia, asking about her numerous brothers and sisters, and ignoring Sara for most of the trip. She sat down heavily on the feather tick mattress while Felicia unpacked a fresh gown for her.

  To her surprise, Felicia shook her head. “Oh, no. He’s only paying attention to me to spite you. He can barely keep his eyes off you.”

  Sara blinked at this interpretation and felt more pleased than she should have.

  How many times had she wished that she was plain of face, that Nir hadn’t noticed her, that Claude would keep his hands to himself? And yet when Lance ignored her beauty she’d felt slighted. Almost off-balance.

  Had she become vain then? Sara didn’t think so. Unbidden came the jazoria-hazed memory of sitting close to him, her hands on his chest. She didn’t want Lance to be immune to her, because she was not immune to him.

  The realization was unwelcome, but she couldn’t lie to herself any longer. Sara bit her lip, wishing that her unruly body, for once, would cooperate. She’d never felt even a flicker of attraction to any of the men her father had wished her to marry, but a rude foreigner who hated her? Him, she craved.

  As much as she’d like to avoid him, the grim political reality her father had laid out before her meant she couldn’t. She needed to discover the secret of slave magic as quickly as possible.

  Lance had made it painfully clear that he could never be friends with her, the daughter of his country’s enemy, but if he did desire her, it gave her a tool. Sara knew she lacked her father’s charisma and cleverness so she must use the one talent she’d been born with: her beauty.

  Her beauty was both her curse and her blessing. She hated the effect it had on men, but without it she would be useless. Worthless.

  She would be playing a dangerous game, trying to lure Lance into indiscretion with kisses and small touches and yet not get caught in the same sensual trap. She could not afford to surrender her virginity.

  As plans went, it was terrible, but it was the only plan she had.

  Accordingly, she had Felicia take extra pains with her deep blue gown and coiffure before the priest led them to a sumptuous private dining room. But it was all for naught: Lance was absent.

  Her mood worsened when Julen sat down on the burgundy leather bench across the carved walnut table from her. A fresh-faced acolyte set steaming bowls barley soup in front of them. To avoid looking at Julen, Sara studied the large mural of Jut and Jita fording a river on horseback, just ahead of a horde of Grasslander barbarians. The artist hadn’t painted the lead Grasslander quite right—his hair should be gathered at the back like a horse’s tail, not sprouting on top of the head like a plant—but she easily recognized the scene from one of her favorite childhood stories of the god and goddess.

  “Enjoying your time with the prince?” Julen asked snidely between spoonfuls.

  Sara stilled, but years of Evina’s training kept her expression smooth and untroubled.

  Unfortunately, Felicia spoiled it. “Prince? Lance is a prince?” she asked.

  “Why, yes,” Julen almost purred. “Didn’t you know? The ambassador is the Prince of Slaves.” He touched his goblet, and the acolyte instantly refilled it.

  “That’s not the correct title,” Sara said, trying to regain the upper hand. “The inhabitants prefer to call their land Kandrith and take offense at Slaveland.”

  “That’s not all he might take offense at if you haven’t been using his title.” Julen’s lips twisted in malicious amusement. “Is that why he’s not at supper tonight? Perhaps I should talk to him, smooth things over.” He actually started to stand.

  “Sit down,” Sara snapped.

  Julen sat down, but leaned back and crossed his arms in an attitude of lordly condescension.

  Sara continued, “You will not attempt to undermine my relationship with the ambassador. If asked, you will say the carriage still reeks so as to offend the delicate sensibilities of a lady—but that you are fine. You will not complain to him or even hint that I have treated you poorly. If you do, I will have you sent back to Temborium—in chains as a traitor.”

  Julen studied her with hooded eyes. “You don’t have the authority to have me arrested. But—” he held up a hand when she would have spoken, “—I’ll give you my promise not to undermine your relationship with the prince. It’s an advantage I don’t need.”

  “Advantage?” Sara frowned.

  He smirked at her. “Yes. I’ve decided it won’t do to return to the capital empty-handed, as it were. I’m going discover the secret of slavelander’s magic myself.”

  “And win my father’s eternal gratitude,” Sara said acidly.

  “Just so.” Julen waved a hand, and the acolyte who’d been hovering in the doorway removed their soupbowls and served the second course of roast duck and vegetables.

  Sara cut a bite of meat though her appetite had fled. A headache surged around her eyes. “And how, pray, are you going to accomplish this while riding in the other carriage?”

  Julen shook his head sadly, as if she were a slow child.
“The same way I convinced Lord Favonius to leave the capital and visit his estate: a little bribery here, a little blackmail there. The prince has been away from home for a long, lonely number of months. He’s sure to have developed some little weakness I can discover and exploit.” Julen applied himself to the duck with enthusiasm.

  Sara doggedly chewed her own sage-flavored mouthful. Maybe it was her pride speaking, but she didn’t think Julen’s methods would work as well on Lance as they did on corrupt Republican senators.

  Lance was an idealist. Julen would sneer at the thought that such a man could exist.

  * * *

  Lance had escaped Lady Sara’s distracting company by taking supper with the outriders in the common room the night before, but in the morning she tracked him down and sat across from him at the scarred oak table—much to the chagrin of the plump priest at her heels.

  Despite the early hour, she looked fresh and well-rested. And far too delectable even in a relatively modest purple dress.

  “Good morn, Prince Lance.”

  Lance frowned at her cheery greeting. “Don’t call me that. I’m not a prince.”

  Her forehead puckered slightly. “You’re not the son of the King of—of Kandrith?”

  Lance sighed and put down his hard-boiled egg. “I am the king’s son, but I am not a prince.”

  Lady Sara laughed, a too-sweet artificial sound. “How can that be? They are one and the same. The king’s son is a prince by definition.”

  Lance shook his head. “The title prince is not used in Kandrith.”

  “Then what title is used? Lord? Duke?”

  “No title,” he insisted. “I’m just the king’s son. Just Lance. We don’t even use the title king.”

  Lady Sara still looked confused. “What is your father then, if not the—” She broke off suddenly, staring at him, aghast.

  Lance looked down and saw a small spot of gravy on his tunic, but nothing to rate her alarm.

  “What did you do to your hand? It’s all swollen.” Before he could stop her, she reached across the table and picked up his hand—she was gentle, but he couldn’t prevent a flinch of pain.