Rise of a Hero (The Farsala Trilogy)

by Bell, Hilari

“This.” Hennic handed her a flat wooden disk with a thick edge designed for a grip. “I will hubar—will look close at the pots when you finish.”

  He turned and stamped off, leaving Soraya staring at the pile. She stepped closer, and peered gingerly into the nearest kettle. Bean paste of some sort. At least, she hoped it was bean paste. And if Sudaba would have fainted to see her doing this, well, so much the better. Soraya gritted her teeth, picked up the kettle, and hauled it over to the midden trough. The trough was half full of leaves and peelings and bits of bone and gristle, and already smelled rotten. Would she have to eat the food that produced this mess?

  She would eat it, and smile, and pretend to be grateful for it if she had to. A deghass didn’t let anything stop her.

  Scraping the pots took a long time, and when she was finished, her hands and arms were covered with things Soraya preferred not to think about.

  The hot-water tanks, set up in an open yard to the west, were quite ingenious. Eight bronze tanks, each one larger than a big horse’s body, perched on stone walls about three feet high. They each had a funnel at one end where water could be added, and a tap on the end of a long pipe emerged from the other. Beneath them, beds of embers glowed, and logs burned in the center of several fire pits.

  “Delfi emma quan, amas?” The man who came around the side of one of the tanks was even shorter than the cook, only a bit taller than Soraya herself. His hair was graying, but his face wasn’t too lined, and his smile was open and easy.

  Soraya found herself smiling back, despite her aching arms. “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Hrum.”

  The man’s brows rose. “Farsalan? You’re the first they’ve hired. At least . . .” Doubt shadowed his expressive face.

  “Yes, I was hired,” Soraya assured him. “But if I’m the only one, where did you learn such good Faran? Everyone seems to speak it.”

  “Well, it’s required,” said the man. “Put your kettle under the tap there. Out a bit more, that’s it. Whenever the army goes into a new country, everyone is required to learn the language—so the soldiers can understand what the people around them are saying.”

  He took a cloth, folded it several times, and used it to protect his hand as he turned the tap. Steaming water gushed out, and Soraya made a mental note not to touch any part of the tanks with her bare hands.

  “Of course, slaves aren’t required to learn,” the man went on, “but I like languages. Since I’m fluent, they send me to do the marketing, and I like that, too. Lets me see a bit of life outside the camp.”

  Soraya gasped, and stared at his rough tunic. It didn’t look like a Hrum army tabard, but neither had the cook’s clothes. She’d taken him for a servant. “You’re a slave?” she blurted out. “I’m sorry. That is . . .” Her voice trailed off as the man laughed.

  “Yes, I am a slave, but you needn’t be sorry. At least, you haven’t done anything to be sorry for yet. My name’s Calfaer.” He turned off the water tap as he spoke.

  “I’m So—Sani,” said Soraya hastily. She couldn’t lower her guard, not with anyone. She looked down. “I don’t know why I was so stupid. I know the Hrum keep slaves. I mean, they’ve taken enough of our people.” She reached for the kettle handle, intending to retreat.

  “Wait,” Calfaer told her. “I’ll get you some soap.” When he returned with a small mound of greasy-looking soap in a wooden bowl, he grasped the other side of the kettle’s handle. “Let me help you with this—it’s heavy. Trust Hennic to set you to scrubbing pots on your first day.”

  “Are pots a particularly hard job?” Soraya asked hopefully. The kettle was heavy, and water slopped onto her skirt.

  “Not particularly,” said Calfaer. “But usually two people do them together. I’d help you, but I’m supposed to be tending the furniculum today.”

  “That’s all right. I don’t want to get you in trouble,” said Soraya.

  “I’d get in no more trouble than you,” he assured her, setting the kettle down carefully. “The Hrum aren’t bad masters. They’ve even got laws about it. And since my master willed me to the army as a whole when he died, well, I hardly have a master anymore.”

  Soraya reached for the scrub brush, stalling for a moment to think. She didn’t want to make her interest in Farsalan slaves too noticeable, but surely it wouldn’t seem odd to ask a few questions. “So the Farsalan slaves aren’t likely to be—being treated too bad?” She’d all but forgotten her accent—and he spoke even better Faran than Reevus had. She bent over the pot and began to scrub, hiding her face.

  “No, they won’t be treated badly.” Calfaer’s voice was gentle. “Though they’re grieving, and angry, and afraid. I spoke with some of them, trying to help. And I noticed that an unusual number of them have hair like this.” His fingers brushed her face, tucking the long black strands behind one ear. But that was a question Soraya had prepared for. She looked up, meeting his gaze casually.

  “My mam was the first of our family born with it. And the master of her household found my greatmam a husband before Mam was born, so she wasn’t shamed.”

  Calfaer’s brows rose. “Wasn’t shamed? I’d think . . . Or do you mean she wasn’t forced?”

  Soraya stared at him in astonishment. “You mean raped? No!” She had based her story on the birth of her father’s bastard son—and he certainly hadn’t raped anyone! But was she so certain that the mothers of all the black-haired children she’d seen chasing birds out of the new-planted fields had been willing? Soraya’s gaze fell, this time in genuine shame. “My grandmother wasn’t raped,” she said. “But that’s not always the case, with ser—us servants.”

  She wondered fleetingly if her father’s bastard had survived the battle. He probably hadn’t, and in truth Soraya didn’t much care. She’d seen less of her father’s page, and cared less about him, than she did about the grooms who had cared for her horses. Not like Merdas . . .

  She plunged the scrub brush into the pot, hoping that if Calfaer saw her working he’d let the subject go. But the water was too hot, almost scalding. Soraya drew a breath, letting go of embarrassment and tension. Once she was centered, she reached out and touched the water’s shilshadu—it rolled in the kettle, mindlessly rejoicing in even that simple motion. The water liked being hot, but when Soraya reminded it of melting snow, and deep, cold ponds it liked that, too—the only difficulty was to stop it from cooling so quickly that it became frigid. No, she’d gotten it right; warm, but no longer hot. Water was too cursed agreeable. Soraya scrubbed industriously. Small waves slopped over the kettle’s brim.

  “Here,” said Calfaer. “Let me pour most of that into the next kettle. That way it can soak while you’re cleaning this one. Just put a bit of soap on the brush. And if you find a bit that’s hard going, pour some water back in and let it soak a while longer.”

  “Thank you.”

  His words were casual, but Soraya sensed some emotion behind them that he wasn’t revealing. She had learned, over the past few weeks, that touching another person’s shilshadu was still beyond her, but there were other ways. She found her own shilshadu again and . . . opened it. Not reaching greedily, but waiting, receptive to whatever chose to come. Yes. She could sense his spirit more strongly now. Curiosity and . . . suspicion? But why? Surely he hadn’t guessed she was working magic, or his emotions would be far stronger. Her accent? But whatever had caused that prickly suspicion, it was accompanied by sympathy and a desire to help. This was someone she could trust—at least a little bit. That knowledge felt like shackles falling away from her heart.

  “Thank you,” said Soraya again, smiling up at him. “I can manage from here.”

  Why did he look so astonished now? Still, he smiled in return. “I’m glad. But I’d advise you to stick with your first plan, girl, and hide that face behind your hair.” This time when he reached out, he pulled the strands forward. “The Hrum aren’t bad men, for the most part, and they treat rape as the crime it is. But a girl who looks like you, in an army camp, is
trouble on two feet.”

  “Oh.” Soraya closed her sagging jaw. She’d been thinking of those who might recognize the high commander’s daughter who had been displayed to the whole city last fall because of the political machinations of her father’s enemies. She hadn’t thought . . . “You’re right. I’ll be careful, with everyone but you.”

  “Good girl. I’ve got to get back to the furniculum now, but come to me if you need . . . more hot water.”

  Anything, he meant. He turned and walked out of the yard, and Soraya returned to her scrubbing, with a brush full of soap and a lighter heart. She had made a friend.

  SORAYA NEEDED FRIENDSHIP, in the next few days. Her pots passed Kitchen Master Hennic’s inspection, but her hopes that that would earn her a reprieve were instantly banished. One onerous task succeeded the next. Soraya hadn’t dreamed how much work went on in a great kitchen. She fetched wood, fetched water, hot and cold, fetched vegetables, and flour, and blood-dripping meat from the butcher’s shed. After one glance at the peelings that fell from her clumsy knife, Hennic had proclaimed that Farsalan kitchens were run by wasteful, dirty pigs, and sent her out to scrub off the big tables in the meal tent instead. At least the soldiers who lingered there, playing a noisy, complex game they called battle dice, barely glanced at the grubby girl who scrubbed around them. But it wasn’t Soraya’s fault—she’d never had to peel a turnip in her life! She simply didn’t have the skill that created the long, thin curls of turnip skin that fell from the others’ blades. Not all of them were girls, either—there were boys among the kitchen workers, just as there were women among the soldiers.

  Ordinarily, that would have interested Soraya, but now she barely had the strength to wonder at it before falling exhausted onto her pallet to catch a few marks of sodden, dreamless sleep. And then rising before dawn, to work to exhaustion again.

  Only two things made that first rigorous week tolerable. One was Suud magic. Soraya had learned to make magic while meditating in the warm peace of Maok’s hutch. Now she learned to apply those lessons in the midst of work, at a moment’s notice. Suud magic kept the water she washed with at the right temperature. Her fires lit swiftly and burned well. And at night, when she unrolled her straw pallet beside one of the kitchen fires, all lice, fleas, and spiders were suddenly seized with the notion that her bedroll and person were bad places to be. Reaching the shilshadu of animals, even insects, was easier than touching the spirit of inanimate things, for animals had minds that could be changed. Of course, shilshadu to shilshadu there could be no lies, but Soraya’s determination to squash any multilegged creature that took up residence near her was a truth so deep it sent them all scrambling.

  And magic helped in another way—not so practical, but perhaps more important, for even the smallest bit of magic working kept a core of peaceful memory alive in her heart.

  The other thing that allowed her to survive those first weeks was Calfaer’s friendship. He didn’t help her any more than the others, for that would have been noticeable. But whenever she tackled a new task he was there, with hints on how to do it faster or more easily.

  He had his own work as well—in fact, he seemed to be the one who filled in whenever anything needed to be done. Soraya had seen him polishing armor, herding livestock, and even helping the cobbler cut leather for an urgently needed pair of boots. So how did he always manage to be working nearby when she needed him?

  She’d also seen him helping the clerks inventory new supplies. A casual question had given her the information that the clerks kept records of everything that went into or out of the army camp, including slaves.

  After that, Soraya regarded the wood-sided tent where the records were stored with the most covetous desire she’d ever experienced. But the scroll boxes were locked, and because the tent that held them also held pay records and seals, there was a guard posted outside at all times. Even that might not have stopped her from doing something foolish, but there was one other problem—the records were written in Hrum.

  Patience. She had already begun to learn the language, from both Calfaer’s lessons and Hennic’s curses. She was a deghass; she wouldn’t despair. Besides, despair took energy, and if the kitchen staff hadn’t been required to wash themselves each night before bed, Soraya would have been filthier than the meanest beggar. In fact, begging was beginning to look like a better career choice than kitchen work. At least you wouldn’t have to scrub floors.

  But if kitchen work seemed to encompass an incredible number of backbreaking tasks, a surprising number of them took her outside the kitchen. When she had the energy to notice things, Soraya learned a lot about the Hrum camp. For instance, she was stoking the ravenous bake ovens that lay behind the meal tent, when she saw the peddler walking toward the square. Surely he couldn’t be the same young man her father had hired to bring news and goods to the croft where she’d been hidden? It was too great a coincidence, too . . . But it was him. What in the name of all djinn was he doing in the Hrum camp? Was he a trai—

  A hard yank on her hair made her yelp, and the stack of wood she carried scattered as she spun to face her tormentor. But her protest died at the sight of Kitchen Master Hennic, who reached out and calmly slapped her face.

  “You’re not paid to gawk at handsome officers,” he snapped. Soraya’s hands itched with the need to strike back, but . . . all the last week’s work for nothing? It would be, if she was fired. She knelt instead, to gather up the wood she’d dropped and hide her expression, ignoring Hennic’s snarling voice. She could take revenge later—there were things she could do. And the hair that fell over her face also let her sneak another look at the peddler.

  She hardly noticed when Hennic finished his lecture and stamped away.

  Yes, it was the same man. An officer had joined him, and they were chatting casually, ignoring the clumsy kitchen girl being scolded by the cook. The officer didn’t look handsome to Soraya, in his thirties, she guessed, with a narrow, stern face. By the way they talked, the peddler knew him well, and by the amount of bronze decorating his breastplate he held high rank. Soraya cursed herself for not having learned what the swirling insignia meant. Her first thought was that the peddler had come to betray her to the Hrum, but that was absurd, for he couldn’t know she was here. And he hadn’t told anyone about the hidden croft—at least, not while it mattered—or someone would have come for her, and no one had. So if he wasn’t here about her, then what was he doing?

  The officer shook his head ruefully and led the peddler toward the other side of the square where the officer’s quarters were located. Soraya’s next thought was that the peddler was selling Farsalan secrets to the Hrum, but what secrets could he know, besides hers? Perhaps he was simply selling his wares. He was a peddler, after all. No Farsalans had approached the camp for work, but Soraya knew that merchants were selling their goods to the Hrum. The young man she remembered would be perfectly willing to sell to the enemy, Borz take him. The djinn of greed owned all merchants anyway.

  Just a coincidence, after all—and she’d acted the fool, staring so openly. It was a good thing Hennic had come by when he did, or she might have been recognized. She should probably be grateful to him. Soraya’s mouth twisted; her cheek still stung from his slap. She wasn’t grateful, and Hennic was the spawn of Gorahz, so there!

  But her hidden smile died at a sudden memory, and both her cheeks were burning as she picked up the last piece of kindling and began stoking the fire. Had her own maids cursed her for the spawn of Gorahz, when she slapped them?

  CHAPTER SIX

  KAVI

  PATRIUS MET HIM BEFORE he even reached the square, which probably meant that Kavi’s services were still held to be worth something. Either that, or they didn’t trust him to walk around the Hrum camp unwatched. Though now it was beginning to look more like a town than a camp. Kavi eyed the elaborate bronze patterning on Patrius’ breast plate—it hadn’t changed. “Tactimian still? I thought everyone was getting themselves promoted, now that
Garren’s a governor and all.”

  “Not everyone, just the ones that don’t arg—why do I say things like that around you?” Patrius demanded.

  “Because you know I don’t like Garren any better than you do,” said Kavi. Because you trust me.

  The thought didn’t show in his expression. Kavi had been betting his life on lies for almost a year now. He could control his face. But something in his heart still ached at the thought. He liked Patrius. Betraying him hurt—far more than betraying the deghans had.

  Patrius turned, leading the way toward the officer’s quarters, and Kavi followed.

  Betraying Patrius hurt, because Patrius had been honest and dealt fairly with Kavi, and the deghans hadn’t. No, he felt few regrets for his part in casting the deghans out of power—but they hadn’t deserved to be taken into slavery, either. At least, not all of them. Kavi remembered the hatred in the eyes of the deghass—he’d never learned her name, for a deghass didn’t offer her name to a wandering peddler—who’d accompanied that lady-bitch Soraya when he first met her. Almost as plain as the other was beautiful, she’d been as decent as her class allowed her to be. His last sight of her had been in the slave pens, about to be shipped off to a strange land and sold. As if a girl—any girl!—was of no more worth than a goat.

  No, he had to get the slaves back. And to stop this madness of drafting peasant boys for soldiers as well. If that meant betraying Patrius in turn, then so be it. Kavi had long since decided that consistency was an overrated virtue, but by the time this was over, he’d be having everyone on both sides out for his hide. And as so many people had told him, a peddler with a crippled hand wasn’t hard to find. Kavi flexed the weakened hand that had cost him his true trade, and might betray him in yet another way if his part in any of this ever came out.

  So I’d better lie well.

  He’d already started, speaking quietly to the angry, adventurous young men. The same young men the Hrum were about to start drafting, though they’d only given their three-month notification in the cities so far. Just a few small suggestions that when the army came this way, it might be slowed a bit if this bridge was gone, those fields flooded . . . And of course, you couldn’t draft a man you’d never seen a sign of, now could you? Or tax grain that was no longer in the storage bins?