by Bell, Hilari
“I had this one in my hand when I started to run,” Soraya lied. “I don’t even know what town it’s for.”
Every instinct screamed in protest as she held it out to him, praying for belief, for forgiveness. And if he was willing to tell the Farsalans who had been captured, and where they were sent, could she get a list of names from Setesafon’s townsfolk, and slip Sudaba’s and Merdas’ names in among them? After all, the scroll would say that they were taken in the village.
Marcellus took the scroll, but he was staring at her face . . . no, at her hair. The long, straight, black hair that was the mark of pure deghan blood.
“ ‘. . . jeopardize your job,’ ” he said slowly, and his accent on the word was the same as hers had been—a deghan’s accent. This was a man who had dealt with many Farsalans: merchants, peasants, deghan captives, slaves. Soraya closed her eyes in sudden despair.
“ ‘. . . rumor has it . . . ’ You don’t sound much like a kitchen girl . . . Lady?”
“I’m not being a lady,” Soraya protested, trying to sound frightened instead of betraying her sudden fury. She’d been so close! “My grandmam worked in a deghan’s household. That’s where Mam and I got the hair.”
“And the accent? Did you get that from your ‘grandmam’? Oh, don’t bother. We’ll find out, one way or the other. Take her to the holding pen. We’ll send for someone who may be able to identify her.”
“The holding pen? Where the slaves are being kept?” It wasn’t hard to sound appalled at that. “Please, sir, won’t you just send for Master Hennic? He’ll be punishing me proper. I promise—”
“Don’t bother,” Marcellus repeated. “I wouldn’t dream of letting this pass without investigation. But I will give you a word of advice . . . Lady. It’s not that your deghan’s accent shows, it’s that your peasant accent’s so exaggerated. The lowest hick from the smallest village doesn’t talk that broadly.”
Soraya gazed at his calm, shrewd eyes. He knew, and he wouldn’t let it go. If nothing else, catching her would look good on his record. “Arzhang take you then,” she said, dropping into her own, clear, deghan’s speech. It felt strange on her tongue after so many months, but good. Like walking into a familiar room after a journey.
THEY TOOK HER TO THE holding pen. There was no real building there, just a shed filled with straw, open on one wall so the watch could see in.
The soldiers seized her wrists and searched her clothing for weapons before they thrust her through the gate in the high fence. Their touch had been utterly impersonal, but it was still an insult, and Soraya gritted her teeth. The open ground had turned to mud, but at least the rain was finally lessening, and by heaping the straw around her, Soraya was able to keep warm. Despite her fear, and the furious frustration of her shattered hopes, she had actually fallen asleep when rough hands pulled her out of the straw and swept her tumbled hair away from her face.
Blinking in the torchlight, Soraya could see nothing beyond the fence that surrounded the pen, for the Hrum had threaded boards through the iron ribs that curved inward at the top. But she heard voices, one Hrum and one with a Farsalan accent—the clearer speech of the city, she thought, though she couldn’t make out most of the words. On the other hand, the clink of coin changing hands was unmistakable.
She’d been identified. All Setesafon had seen her last year, and of course the Hrum had paid informants in the city—men who wouldn’t want to come to this camp in the daylight.
Fine then! She was glad to be rid of that humble, pathetic Sani. Of scrubbing, and fetching, and avoiding Hennic’s slaps. She’d had to pay attention to the temper of a cook! No more. For better or worse, she was the lady Soraya. And the lady Soraya would never dream of missing the warm bulk of Casia’s body between her and the hearth, or the comforting drone of Ludo’s snores. Or the wry laughter of a slave . . . a slave, for Azura’s sake! The lady Soraya needed no one.
The lady Soraya cried herself to sleep.
IT WAS AFTERNOON WHEN they took her to the governor’s quarters. No breakfast, no midmeal. Soraya had done her best, combing straw from her hair with her fingers and braiding it back—so good to have it off her face, instead of hiding behind it—but she still felt grubby, unkempt, and very tired. The kitchen girls were allowed to wash . . . but evidently not the prisoners.
She stepped through the door, head lifted proudly, and every officer gathered in the big room turned to stare at her. She knew a moment’s longing for the time, only yesterday, when men’s eyes had passed over her as if she wasn’t even there. But that time was gone, so she stiffened her neck and stared back, not even flinching from Ordnancer Reevus’ angry astonishment.
The guards pushed her forward to the cleared space before the governor’s chair. Garren rose and walked around her, studying her with appraising eyes, like a man considering the purchase of a pig.
“Remarkable,” he said. “From what I’ve heard of deghasses, I wouldn’t have believed one would lower herself to pass as a servant, not for any cause. You must be very devoted to this ‘Sorahb,’ Lady Soraya.”
She’d expected him to use her name, to throw her off balance. “I already knew you’d iden . . . Devoted to who? There is no Sorahb. That’s a legend.” Surely Garren’s spies had told him that.
“I refer, of course, to the man who calls himself Sorahb. Though it might be a woman, I suppose.” He watched her face closely, as if he expected her expression to give something away. But if it accurately reflected her feelings, Soraya’s face would show nothing but confusion.
“I know someone’s using the name,” she said. “The whole camp was talking about it when he attacked Mazad. But what does that have to do with me?” It felt good to speak firmly, after so long in Sani’s humble skin.
“Ah.” Garren shook his head in mock sorrow. “I feared you wouldn’t admit it.”
Soraya began to be afraid. “Admit what?”
“That you’ve been spying for Sorahb, of course. I knew he had a large organization, but I must say, it surprised me that he was able enough, and bold enough, to slip a spy into my own camp.”
“I’m not a spy!” Soraya protested. She gazed around the room in search of support. Reevus’ face was tight with fury, and the others showed nothing but varying degrees of anger or interest. Barmael’s face, as usual, had little expression at all.
“Really?” Garren’s quiet voice drew her gaze back to him. “Then perhaps you’d care to explain where you learned to speak Hrum? Since we’ve only just begun teaching it to our new recruits.”
He was speaking in Hrum, she realized, and had been since she entered the room—she had replied in the same language without even thinking. Soraya closed her eyes in despair. A few marks’ sleep in a pile of cold straw, and a day without meals, was poor preparation for matching wits with a snake like Garren. But she’d had no reason to expect traps, much less this absurd accusation.
“I’m not spying for Sorahb,” she said, opening her eyes to face Garren squarely. “I’m not here to spy for anyone.”
“Yet you haven’t told me where you learned our language—and so swiftly too, though your accent leaves a bit to be desired.”
She’d learned it from a slave, who’d departed just yesterday morning, and who could easily be returned for questioning . . . and be detained, perhaps on a permanent basis. She didn’t dare to so much as whisper Calfaer’s name. So what could she say?
“My father had me taught,” said Soraya. They knew who she was, so it might seem plausible . . . barely. “He thought you should learn all you can about your enemies, including their language.”
There! At least they couldn’t disprove it. She glared at Garren defiantly.
“Hmm. But to teach it to you means he must have realized his army would fail to stop us, or at least he knew it might, and he had already planned a second line of defense. Is this Sorahb carrying out some plan of your father’s?”
I wish he was! “I don’t know,” said Soraya honestly. “I know noth
ing about Sorahb, whoever he is.”
“Yet your father taught you Hrum, so you could spy for him.”
“Not to spy—for anyone! It was because . . .” Now what? There was no plausible reason for her father to have taught her Hrum. “I was curious,” she finished lamely.
Several of the officers snickered, but Garren simply watched. “You know, Lady Soraya, once we knew who you were, it wasn’t hard to figure out why you wanted this.” He picked up a scroll from the clutter on the table, and turned it so she could see the name of the village written on the outside.
Soraya suppressed a gasp, but she couldn’t keep her hands from twitching toward the scroll. She had wanted it so badly, for so long. She still did. She clasped her hands behind her back and said nothing.
Garren smiled. “Your mother evidently wasn’t privy to her husband’s plans. She put up quite a fight. Pity she was hurt so badly.”
Soraya’s heart lurched. But no, that peasant, Marlis’ husband, had assured her that Sudaba and Merdas were both well and whole.
“Ah, so you already know she survived her folly unharmed. But you don’t know what happened after she left Farsala. Probably not even where she and your brother were sent.”
He was clever—too clever for her, as weary as she was. “Please.” Begging this man for information would cost her any scrap of pride she had left, but Soraya cared more about Merdas than her pride. “Please, Governor Garren, I implore you—tell me where my mother and brother were sent.” The effect might have been somewhat marred by her grinding teeth.
“Why?” Garren asked mildly. “So you can follow? Buy them? Free them? You’re a slave now yourself, Lady. You’ll go nowhere but where you’re sent.”
“But I haven’t resisted anything!”
“You’ve spied for the resistance,” said Garren. “And you’re resisting now, refusing to reveal this Sorahb’s identity.”
“I don’t know who he is!” Soraya wailed. “Truly!”
Garren smiled again—Soraya thought she’d never seen a smile so cold. “This gets us nowhere. Let’s change the tenor of the discussion. If you tell me who Sorahb is—or if you truly don’t know, tell me how you’re contacting his people—then I will not only tell you where your mother and brother were sent, I’ll have you sent to the same city, the same slave market! Your odds of finding them would be very good, and under our laws slaves who work hard enough can buy themselves free, though they’re not allowed to return to their own land.”
Soraya’s breath caught. Sent to the same city! She wouldn’t have to travel, alone, across the strange and hostile lands of the empire. In the same city surely she could find them—arrange some escape. But . . .
“I’m not a spy.” She meant to say it firmly, but her voice came out in a whisper. “I can’t tell you anything, because I don’t know. But surely this Sorahb can’t cause you too much trouble. The soldiers say that all you have to do to take Mazad is send for enough troops.”
She hated herself for saying it, but if the common troopers knew it, then every man in this room must know it too. Mazad was strong, yes, but not invincible.
“I’m not concerned with Mazad,” said Garren. “I’m concerned with Sorahb. And telling me at least the identity of your contact is your only chance of finding out where your family was sent. Certainly your only chance of getting there. Slave.”
The word chilled her, as it was meant to, but why wasn’t he concerned with Mazad? He had to take all the cities, or the Hrum’s own laws would set Farsala free. And all the slaves they’d taken would be returned. Could she run some bluff of her own? Give him the name of some hapless resident of Setesafon? But she didn’t know anyone in Setesafon, and even if she did, or if she simply gave them a description . . . Her father would never have forgiven her. She would never be able to forgive herself.
“I don’t know who this Sorahb is,” said Soraya, making up her mind. “But even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you. No deghass would, not even to save her family. Besides, if he wins, the slaves will be returned anyway—I’d rather bet on him than on you!”
Garren actually laughed. “No deghan would? Tell that to the gov—never mind. You’re making a mistake, girl. There’s nothing in the way of our conquest but this sorry fool Sorahb, and we’ll certainly catch him sooner or later. The only reason I’m offering you this opportunity is that we might find him sooner with your help. I admit that. And in exchange for your help I’m offering you a chance, the only chance you’ll get, to see your family again. What’s left of your family, that is.”
Soraya flinched. This was the man who’d led the army that killed her father. But she’d been watching him for weeks now, and cold as he was, he wasn’t gratuitously cruel. He was trying to rattle her, to throw her off balance, to distract her from . . . From what? Tell it to the gov—
“You’ve suborned the governor of Mazad,” Soraya whispered. “He’s going to betray—”
Garren moved as fast as the snake she’d called him—Soraya barely had time to see the blow coming, before it knocked her off her feet.
She lay on the carpet looking up at him, trying to hear through the ringing in her ears—to think through the pain that radiated from the left side of her face.
“Pick her up and take her back to the holding pen,” said Garren. “No, to that other slave’s quarters. She may as well begin her new duties tomorrow. The rest of you may go, all but Tactimian Brathat.”
The guards hauled Soraya to her feet and dragged her, stumbling, from the room. Brathat was in charge of the camp’s security. No doubt Garren would put a guard on her. No, not a guard, a subtle watcher, so her supposed allies would be tempted to make contact. If there was anyone Soraya really hated, she could wait a week or two and then try to get in touch with them. But she hated no one . . . except the Hrum!
She should have been grateful they were civilized enough to make torture illegal, or this might have been a very different interview—but she wasn’t. Garren had suborned the governor of Mazad. What was his name . . . Nazahb? She tried to remember what her father had said of him, but she remembered nothing except that he was the gahn’s cousin. It hardly mattered. She hadn’t been working for Sorahb before, but she was now! She had to get word to him, to the city of Mazad, that their governor planned to betray them. Mazad’s resistance through the Hrum’s time limit was her only chance of seeing her family—what was left of it—again. It was a good thing she was working for Sorahb now. Spies didn’t cry.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
KAVI
KAVI WADED THROUGH the aqueduct into Mazad, water soaking his stockings, expecting an ambush at any moment.
He’d been surprised to find the tunnel’s entrance unguarded, but a moment’s thought made him realize that a crowd of men in the bushes along the riverbank were more likely to attract the Hrum’s attention than anything else. There were certainly enough patrols around to notice them. Kavi had lost over an hour eluding them before he reached the entrance. So it made sense to him that only the scrub oak’s thick dusty leaves guarded the unobtrusive cut where the great hatch was located. Apparently that was enough, for if the Hrum had found these tunnels they’d surely have tried them. Even as Kavi turned the wheel that opened the door the old masons had used to cart in their supplies, he was listing the sudden turns in the corridor, the sheltered niches, the high ledges, all connected by hidden passages behind the aqueduct walls, designed to let Mazad’s defenders turn their aqueduct into a death trap.
No, they were right to set their guards in the tunnel, instead of outside. Kavi, born, raised, and taught a craft in this town, knew the tunnels well. He remembered half a dozen good places for an ambush—and they’d already passed two of them. But aside from a creeping sense of anticipation, he wasn’t afraid. Two dozen mules followed him up the passage, laden with grain, dried vegetables, and salt meat. They would be sufficient proof of his good intentions, even without the local farmers who now accompanied him.
It was the mule
s that forced them to wade, or rather, the fat bundles they carried, for the mules themselves were thin enough to manage the walkways that lined both sides of the tunnel. But if the aqueduct’s floor was covered in sand and gravel carried in by the river, it was also level enough that he needn’t fear tripping, and Duckie carried his dry boots. At least this was the inflow, bringing water from the Sistan River into the city, for washing and industry, instead of the outflow that carried the city’s sewage back—
Half a dozen lances whispered into the water in front of his feet, and Kavi leaped back, swearing. “Hey, watch that! I’m barefoot.”
He waited, letting the torches the farmers carried show that he had no weapons. A few moments later a man popped out of one of the nearly invisible niches and came down the walkway toward them. He carried another lance in his hands, but the tip was politely lowered.
“What goes on here?” He looked to be in his late twenties, his face tight with nervousness. Despite the passage of almost five years, Kavi recognized him as a journeyman carpenter—at least, he’d been a journeyman when Kavi left.
“So, are you a master carpenter now? Or do they still have you cutting kindling? Though your master claimed that was all your work was good for, as I recall.” He wished he could remember the man’s name, but he’d been almost ten years older than Kavi, training in a different craft. It probably didn’t matter, for the man’s face lit with sudden recognition.
“Kavi! I thought you were still palming off failed ironmongery.”
“Not failed,” Kavi protested. “Maybe not city-fancy, but still sound goods. And you know those farmers—nothing to pay in but food. So I thought I’d dump some of it on you.”
The carpenter’s gaze, taking in the line of laden mules stretching out behind Kavi, brightened even further. “The supplies? Commander Siddas said he’d arranged for them, but he didn’t know when the folks outside would be able to get the shipment together.”
Four other men appeared on the walkway as he spoke, but Kavi knew that several others would be lingering behind the tunnel walls to keep watch, or if it proved necessary, raise an alarm.