by Bell, Hilari
“I spent the whole summer with the Hrum, learning their language and blending into the camp, before I did anything but listen—and the moment I started taking chances I got caught! Besides, I don’t see you taking any chances. You’ve not spying on anyone!”
Which wasn’t entirely fair, since it was more important for him to make swords than anything else he might have done. But he wasn’t being fair either. She’d only been there—
“Ah, lost your taste for risk, have you?” The peddler’s voice was mostly controlled, but anger blazed in his eyes and burned against her shilshadu senses. Anger and … grief? Curiosity tugged at Soraya, but she was angry herself by then.
“I’ve done what I came for. Report it to Commander Siddas.” She stood, knowing she looked and sounded regal enough to make Sudaba proud. But she found she was too furious to depart in dignified silence. “Or perhaps,” she went on, “you’ll use the information to buy some safety from your other friends. It wouldn’t surprise me.”
His expression didn’t change, but his raw emotions were open to her. The surge of shame and pain surprised her, for she’d never before sensed any remorse for his betrayal—at least not much. But whatever had touched him, it was swallowed by fury.
“Deghass bitch.” He all but hissed the words, and only the pride of twenty generations of the House of the Leopard kept Soraya from stepping back. He might not be tall, but he was far stronger than she was.
“Arzhang-spawned traitor,” she replied.
That insult didn’t move him, but he too rose to his feet. Before she had a chance to feel more than the beginning of fear, he turned and stamped back to the work yard, leaving Soraya to find her own way out to the street.
Clouds were building for the afternoon rain, and a cold wind tugged at the hood of Soraya’s cloak, but she barely noticed. What in the name of Gorahz was the matter with the man? It was clear that the djinn of rage was driving him. But she’d only been there a week! He could hardly expect Governor Nehar to suddenly reveal all his treacherous plans to a strange girl thrust into his household by accident. It was completely unreasonable! And that, Soraya realized as physical activity slowly drained her own anger, was odd in itself. Although she’d avoided him whenever she could, she’d spent enough time with the peddler to know that he wasn’t unreasonable. Not really. Could he have been … no, it was ridiculous to expect her to have learned anything of importance after so short a time. She’d done well to discover as much as she had! But it did occur to Soraya, as the high, carved walls of the governor’s manor loomed before her, that she really hadn’t taken many chances.
FOUR NIGHTS LATER SORAYA crawled out onto the roof tiles. They were damp from the afternoon’s rain, but they’d dried enough not to be slippery, for which she was grateful. Looking up at this roof—only two stories above the ground—it hadn’t seemed nearly as high as it did looking down.
It was the night after her quarrel with the peddler that Soraya, unable to sleep, had opened the shutters on her bedroom window and looked out over the rooftops to the distant walls where the guardsmen patrolled—only visible as dots of darker shadow moving against the dark horizon. She stood and watched them for some time before she realized that farther down the manor’s wall, lamplight glowed around the shutters of another window. Leaning out to count the windows between them, Soraya deduced that the light was coming from the bedroom of the governor and his wife.
Couldn’t they sleep either? Had they retired late? Soraya had thought they’d gone to bed at the same time as the rest of the household, but perhaps they’d been working in the outer room, which opened off the second-story landing that circled the courtyard. All sections of the long rectangle that formed the house were two rooms deep, but only the family and noble guests had the two-room suites that fronted the street. The servants, who slept on the other side of the courtyard, had only one room each—sometimes shared with one or even two of their fellows.
Yes, the governor and his wife could have been conducting private business in their outer room long after everyone else was abed—but they’d have had to conduct that business quietly, for those windows opened onto the landing where anyone walking past could overhear. Bedrooms on the outer wall were prized because they gave a couple privacy … so what were they doing with the lamp lit?
Even as Soraya watched, the light vanished, leaving the edges of the shutters in darkness. Whatever the governor and his wife discussed, there was no way she could learn about it, for the wall was sheer, voices wouldn’t carry as far as the street below, and the door to the outer room would be latched from the inside. There was no way …
Soraya looked up at the eaves jutting over her own window. The dark beams were barely visible on this overcast night, but she knew what they would look like: big and thick to support the tile roof above them. Easily strong enough to support the weight of one slim girl as well. Could that possibly work? Perhaps it could. After all, there had to be some reason the activity she was considering had earned the name “eavesdropping.”
The next morning Soraya told the others that if she couldn’t ride, she needed to walk at least. She found a used-clothing shop where she traded an old vest Nayani had given her for a boy’s shirt, britches, and a warm sheepskin vest. They were much like the clothes her father had provided for her exile to the croft. Soraya swallowed the lump in her throat and traded without complaint, though she knew that the exquisitely embroidered silk was worth far more than the clothes she purchased. But even she noticed that after all this time under siege, the shop’s wares were running low. In Mazad these days most people wore their clothes to rags before discarding them. Food might trickle in, but wool or flax for spinning simply wasn’t to be found. Soraya wondered how the weavers were surviving—but that, at least, wasn’t her problem.
She smuggled her “new” clothes into the house by tucking them under her skirt. It was easy to steer her conversation with the maids to the question of how a chimney sweep would get onto the roof—easy because Soraya had been chatting with the maids about all manner of things since her arrival. In truth, she preferred their company to that of Mitra and Nayani—the work of caring for a great house wasn’t so very different from that of caring for a great army, and those were tasks with which Soraya was very familiar.
Thus armed, with proper clothes and the knowledge that the hatch to the roof opened out of a storage closet not far from the room where she slept, Soraya spent the next three nights watching the lamp in the governor’s bedroom go out almost exactly when those of the rest of the household did—sometimes before.
But tonight the lamp had stayed on … and on. Soraya eased over the tiles with the patience of the hunter her father had taught her to be. She tried to keep her weight spread as evenly as possible, to prevent the planks from creaking, but she soon realized that the manor was old enough that the heavy boards had settled into their final resting places.
Still, she held her breath as she crawled down the fortunately not-too-steep slope and edged her head over the side. She hoped she wouldn’t overhear anything … intimate. She really hoped she wouldn’t get caught! It was embarrassing enough that she was spying on her hosts in their bedchamber, even when they didn’t know she was there.
“Come to bed, Mitra,” Nehar was saying. “You’ve already gone over those things a dozen times.” His voice sounded distant, but the words were clear.
“Well, there isn’t much space,” said the lady Mitra. From where Soraya crouched on the cold tiles, her voice was louder but less distinct. The lady must be near the window, speaking toward the room, while her husband, when he spoke, was looking toward the window.
“You say the groom can only carry what we’d need for one evening, and that doesn’t leave much room,” the lady went on. “I still don’t see why we can’t take our maids.”
What groom, carrying what? And why couldn’t they take maids? The governor’s wife could take a maid anywhere she wanted.
“We’re only supposed to be going for an aft
ernoon and a state dinner,” said Nehar. He sounded as if he’d said it many times before. “We can’t take a chest. A small bundle of fine clothes at the most. Though with all the buying I’ve been doing, we may need a chest. Prices are incredibly low, now that no one has any use for luxury fabrics.”
Buying? Fabrics? What would Nehar be doing with fabrics? Was he entering into business like a common tradesman?
“But if we‘re supposed to be dressing for a state dinner, then I should have a maid,” said Mitra, her voice a little louder.
If they weren’t going to a dinner, where were they going?
“And my girl is the only one who ever gets my hair exactly right,” Mitra continued. “You know how hard it is to find someone who can handle fine hair.”
Soraya stifled a sigh. In ballads, when the bold young deghan went to spy on the Kadeshi warlord—or in older tales on the demons’ council—their enemies had the courtesy to discuss their battle plans when the hero showed up. But what was Lady Mitra doing? Soraya had thought that her maids did everything for the woman except eat and defecate. And wherever she was going, why couldn’t she take a maid to help her dress? It was common practice for deghasses to bring their own maids when they visited other great houses. Was this a visit to the home of some wealthy weaver or fabric merchant, whose family the governor didn’t want to embarrass? A dinner with—
Soraya barely managed to silence a gasp. You wouldn’t take a maid to a dinner—a state dinner—in a Hrum siege camp!
“You’ll find another girl to do your hair, my dear.” Despite his sympathetic words, the governor sounded bored. “Perhaps you’ll be able to keep her after … well, afterward.”
After what? And even more important, when? Soraya was already leaning forward as far as she dared.
“It’s the waiting that’s worst.” Lady Mitra’s voice was so soft, Soraya could barely hear it. “Everyone is so tense. I just … I just want it to be done. Finished.”
“Not much longer,” said Nehar. “A few weeks at the most. Probably less than that. Come to bed now.”
Mitra must have turned toward the window, for her sigh was audible. The lamp went out.
Soraya waited on the roof until Nehar began to snore, and then she waited longer. Her feet were cold, her hands were frozen, and blood pounded in her lowered head, but somehow she knew that Lady Mitra was lying open-eyed in the darkness beside her husband. She would hear Soraya’s movement. Soraya thought that if she tried to open her shilshadu to Mitra’s emotions, in the still darkness the lady might detect that as well.
What did Mitra think of her husband’s treason, deep in her heart? It was clear she wasn’t prepared to betray him. And she’d have a much better chance of getting a maid who could properly dress her hair as the wife of a high-ranked Hrum official than as a Hrum slave. But still …
Nehar was a coward and a fool, but Mitra, for all her propriety, was neither. She was a deghass. A deghass wouldn’t, couldn’t betray her people!
What was Soraya doing now, if not betraying Lady Mitra?
Yes, Nehar was a traitor, but Mitra had been kind to Soraya by her own standards. Kind by any standard.
But they’d turned traitor first! Were they still her people? And if they weren’t, then why did betraying them feel like treason?
It had seemed so simple, in Tebin’s warm kitchen, agreeing to spy on a traitor and his family. But when you met the people in question, came to know them, earned their trust …
Had the peddler once faced this conflict? Felt like she did now? Soraya thrust that thought aside.
I am a deghass, she told herself fiercely. A true deghass. That’s the difference.
Besides, her decision had been made long since, when she first agreed to spy.
Eventually, moving as if the stag she hunted were grazing in the brush beside her, Soraya crawled up the roof and made her way back to her room. She hadn’t learned much. Probably not enough to satisfy the peddler, and certainly no battle plans. But if something was going to happen in the next few weeks, she thought Commander Siddas should be warned about it. Soon.
“I’M SORRY, LADY, but Kavi’s quite busy now, so I hope you can be making do with me.” Master Tebin’s polite words were belied by the twinkle in his eyes.
“You mean he didn’t want to talk to me,” said Soraya. “Which is fine, because I don’t want to talk to him either. I haven’t learned much that’s new, but the governor told his wife that something is supposed to happen—that the waiting will be over—in just a few weeks, at most.”
“A few weeks?” Tebin’s eyes widened.
“At the most,” Soraya confirmed grimly.
“I don’t … I’m not in Siddas’ confidence, but I don’t think he expected anything that fast. I don’t suppose you know what’s going to be happening?”
Heat flooded Soraya’s cheeks. “They said something about a dinner.”
“A dinner?”
“A state dinner. With the Hrum, I’m guessing. I know how it sounds, but I assure you that’s what they said.”
“Don’t sound so stiff, lass,” Tebin said absently. “I’m believing you, no matter how odd it sounds, and I’ll pass it on to Siddas at the council meeting tonight.”
Tension Soraya hadn’t realized she felt eased out of her muscles. “I wondered, last time, if he even bothered to pass on my report.”
“Oh, he’d never neglect something like that.” Tebin waved his hands in vague apology. “You caught him at a bad time, is all. He’d a friend who was wounded in the Hrum attack last week, and he’d just died the day before. Kavi was angry with the Hrum, with all the world, I think, and it … well, it woke the old anger as well. Not that it ever needs much waking.” Old sorrow filled the sword-smith’s open face, and Soraya frowned.
“Why does Kavi hate deghans so much?” The name felt odd in her mouth, but it would sound strange to Master Tebin if she called him “the peddler.” She had used his name, in something approaching friendship, before she’d known what he was.
“You don’t know that story?” Tebin sounded startled. “Well, I don’t suppose you could, for Kavi wouldn’t be telling it. Not to you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Soraya hastily. “I just—”
“You’re wrong about that. It matters a lot.” But before he continued, Tebin went to the stove and poured two mugs of tea, setting one before her. It tasted weaker than it had the last time.
Soraya wasn’t even sure she wanted to learn the peddler’s history, but somehow the offer of tea trapped her there. Had Tebin known it would? He was a kind man, but he wasn’t a fool.
“Kavi was the best apprentice I ever had,” the smith began. “One of the best I’ve seen. At least, the best at his craft. In some ways he was one of my worst apprentices.”
“Why did the butcher set dogs on him?” The question had been nagging Soraya.
Master Tebin threw back his head and laughed. It was an easy, well-used sound, and Soraya smiled.
“Hmm,” said the smith when he finished. “I should probably let Kavi choose whether or not to tell that story. I’m likely sharing more of his business than he’d care for as it is.”
Soraya’s brows rose. “Let me guess—the butcher had a daughter?”
“Ah … no. In fact, the butcher had a son who fancied the daughter of one of our journeymen. She didn’t fancy him, but he couldn’t accept that, so he kept coming around. Made a nuisance of himself. And you needn’t feel sorry for him—he was an arrogant lad, who couldn’t believe that any girl he cast his eye on wouldn’t want him. In fairness, he’s a good-looking man who will come into his father’s shop. But Lalia had the good sense to want none of him. I was about to speak to his father about it, but Kavi and a couple of other apprentices took it on themselves to … discourage him. Though you shouldn’t feel too sorry for them, either. Their motives might have been good, but … well, let’s just say that if I was Feroz Butcher, I’d have set the dogs on them myself. And Kavi played ple
nty of pranks when his motives weren’t noble in the least. He was a mischievous boy, and took longer than he should have to outgrow it. Indeed, I’m not certain he’s completely outgrown it yet! But skill at his craft, and the love of it, those he had in plenty. Maybe that shilshadu thing he’s got has something to do with it.”
“Maok, my teacher, said that the gift might have grown out of love of the craft,” Soraya told him. “But what happened?”
The lingering humor left Tebin’s face. “What happened is that I took on a job I shouldn’t have. A man, a deghan, commissioned a sword—demanded the best I could make and said he’d pay only if the blade was ‘worthy.’ You could see he was trouble.” Tebin sighed. “But the truth is, I didn’t mind making a fancy sword. I thought that when he came and found it unworthy—which I figured he would, no matter how the blade turned out!—he’d offer me a fraction of the price, and I’d teach him a lesson by turning it down. It might take me a while to find another buyer, but I’d sell it eventually, and meanwhile it could serve as a showpiece. If he surprised me and paid fair, well, I’m in the business of making blades. And it’s not the best idea to refuse a deghan. If you’ve a worthy cause the guild will back you, but to refuse just because I didn’t trust him? I should have, though.”
“It’s not your fault,” said Soraya. “No matter what happened.”
“Isn’t it?” said Tebin. “A job I agreed to, and a lad—a fifteen-year-old boy—who was in my charge?”
“So this deghan claimed your sword wasn’t good enough?” Soraya already knew that Tebin’s sword would have been magnificent.
“No. No, he’d a worse scheme than that in mind.” The smith’s voice was so soft that the low crackle of the fire almost drowned it. “I was out of the shop that week, gone up to the mining camps to buy iron. We’d finished the blade early—the man was supposed to come for it days after I got back. Most of the lads were working in the yard, and Kavi was minding the shop. He said the deghan didn’t even try to sneer at the blade. He tried it on the post and it tested out—it was a lovely piece. But the man said he’d one final test for it, and he’d pay when the sword passed that.”