Empire of Avarice (37 page)

“No, ma’am, by looking like you,” Lalaas indicated her
face. “Anyone can see you’re a woman of quality, just by the way you look and
by the way you talk. You’d stand out like a sore thumb.”

Amne reddened slightly. “Well, I’ll keep quiet, and you
can dirty my face.”

Lalaas sighed. “And rough up your hair, and put dirt
under your fingernails?”

“Do what you must, Lalaas; I have to see this for
myself.”

“Whatever you say ma’am,” Lalaas said woodenly,
wondering how he was going to disguise Amne sufficiently to pass the keen eyes
of the slavers.

____

Jorqel was washing himself in the early morning sun when
a messenger came running up to the entrance to the farmhouse. Gavan took the
message and came in excitedly. “Sire, the enemy wish to negotiate a truce!”

Jorqel paused, then continued to wash his face. As he
dried himself on a towel, he chuckled out loud. “Do they now, by the gods? And
what is there to negotiate? When they surrender? I see no other subject for
negotiation.”

“It may be interesting to hear them out, sire.”

“Yes, you’re right. I may get some idea of how desperate
they are. How cold is it outside?”

Gavan scowled and breathed in deeply. “Could be better;
it’s clear so it’ll be a bit chilly now, but it promises to warm up later.”

“Then set up my breakfast table outside. I want to eat
in front of these wretches. I want them to see proper food. They however are to
be offered nothing.”

Gavan chuckled wickedly. “Aye, sire, it shall be done.”

So it was. Jorqel sauntered out into the bright light of
spring, blinking in the sun, and made his way to the temporary table that had
been set up hurriedly, a white table cloth thrown over it and food set down on
metal and wooden plates and bowls. The lowing of bovines in the background
provided a surreal accompaniment to the meal. Jorqel waved to the guards to
allow the two representatives of Alfan Fokis to seat themselves before him, on
smaller chairs and ten paces from the table. Jorqel took his time in selecting
a sizeable portion of fruit, bread and wine. He peered at the two negotiators
from time to time, noting their eyes and their mouths as they almost slavered
over the table’s contents.

“So,” Jorqel began, taking a deep draught of wine and
wiping his mouth delicately with a pressed white napkin, “you are here to –
negotiate – with me?”

“Sir, my lord Alfan Fokis is prepared to offer a fair
exchange in return for your lifting the siege and returning to your borders.”

Jorqel regarded the speaker, a man with a large chin and
deep black curled hair, for a moment, then proceeded to chew slowly on some
bread. After he swallowed, he replied. “Firstly, your lord is in no position to
offer anything, except his surrender. If that is not the case, then he’s free
to try to do something about it. Care to attack us?”

The messengers shook their heads. Jorqel smiled briefly,
then continued. “Secondly, there is no ‘border’ of which you speak. This is my
territory, I am the governor of Lodria, and I am only going to take back what is
mine by right. Your lord Alfan Fokis is a dead man – it only remains to be
decided when I kill him. But speak, what are his generous terms?”

“Sir, my lord instructs me to offer you one third of all
income from Lodria for the next ten years in return for recognizing his right
to rule the province, and to recognise Lodria as a separate kingdom.”

Jorqel almost choked on his wine. “Oh, ho! Really? Such
a generous man. And how am I to trust this offer? How am I to know he’ll keep
his side of the bargain?”

“He offers guarantees, sir.”

“Guarantees?” Jorqel put his wine goblet down. “The word
of a traitor and rebel? I think not. Anyone who takes the step to turn on his
own people and steal land that is not his away from those who rightly possess
it is not someone whose word is to be trusted. And one third? What an insult! It
is not money I am here for, let me tell you. I am here to take possession of
Slenna. Slenna is mine, not that fatherless runt’s who struts around within
your very thin walls!”

The two messengers looked at one another in dismay. “Sir,”
the leader spoke again, “my lord may be prepared to offer one half.”

“He can offer his first born to the temples for all I
care,” Jorqel waved a dismissive hand, “go tell him that my terms are surrender
now and his men will be spared. He of course, will die at my hands. Failure to
surrender will mean that when the walls do fall – and someone in there will
betray you for a decent meal in time – we will enter and slaughter everyone
holding a weapon. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.” The messengers were dismissed and they left,
casting longing looks at the table.

Gavan came up slowly and watched their departing backs
thoughtfully. “They must be desperate.”

“Yes,” Jorqel agreed. “I doubt it’ll be long now.”

The winds from the Balq Sea came laden with moisture,
and the mountains to the east caused them to rise, hitting the cold air. The
air backed up and, laden with moisture, formed into clouds and began to fall as
rain. Lalaas hunched miserably into his cloak and looked back at the figure of
Amne, head bent, her hood hiding her face. Lalaas looked ahead again and gently
encouraged his tired steed on. Up by the side of the track were some trees and
these would provide some shelter. It would be a good time to begin disguising the
princess too.

They stopped underneath the newly leafed trees and
hobbled the beasts. They happily set about grazing and eating some of the lower
leaves of the shrubs dotted in between the trunks where the canopies hadn’t
blocked out the light. Lalaas looked about and spied what he wanted – a small
pool where animals came to drink.

“What are you going to do here?” Amne asked, looking
bedraggled.

“Start the process of turning you into a peasant woman,
ma’am.”

Amne looked at Lalaas with interest. “What are you going
to do?”

The hunter stood in front of the princess, arms on hips.
“You asked me to do what was necessary, so now I shall. This may not be proper
behaviour by either of us but for the purpose of disguising you, we need to
stop you being a princess. You need to stop thinking like one or acting like
one. That’s down to you – what I can do is make you look like someone
different.”

Amne nodded. This was scary, and also exciting. Lalaas
sighed, took a deep breath, and began. “Take off your cloak and outer
garments.”

“What?”

“If you want to look plain and lowly, then you’ll have
to do as I ask.”

Amne hesitated, then shrugged off her cloak and hung it
on a low branch behind her. The dress she was wearing was tied around her
waist. “Is this really necessary?”

“I’m afraid so – and I’m going to have to drop the
‘ma’am’ and ‘your highness’ phrases too. The sooner we get into our roles the
better.”

Amne was outraged on one hand, but excited on the other.
Taking off her dress in front of a commoner would set tongues wagging like
flags in a breeze back in Kastan – and the last man to see her so – apart from
Lalaas – had been that foul Mercos. Her dress hung from another branch, wet and
muddy. She hugged herself, dressed only in her white undergarments. It was
cold. Lalaas nodded and turned round, bending down to reach for the mud at the
edge of the pool. “Here, rub your hands in this and don’t wipe it off.”

Amne did as bid. As she did, Lalaas smeared more mud on
her arms, causing her to gasp. Their eyes met and held for a moment, then she
looked away and concentrated on making her hands as muddy as possible. A memory
came to her, one from her childhood of playing with mud somewhere – she
couldn’t quite remember where it had been – and she had received such a
scolding from her nanny.

“Right – now your face. Look up at me,” Lalaas said
softly.

Amne did so and Lalaas gently smeared mud on her face,
working it round her skin, avoiding the eyes and mouth and ears. Amne tingled
at the intimacy of it. Lalaas smiled and continued. “I’m putting dirt into your
skin and this will stop you looking like nobility. Only nobility don’t have
dirt in their skin, as they have the time and money to be able to keep
themselves clean. Also your fingers – having dirt in them and under your nails
will show you work the land, something no noblewoman would ever do.”

Amne smiled.

“Right,” Lalaas leaned back. “We’ll wait a while, then
wipe the worst of it off. Once we do that we might as well carry on. It won’t
be dark for a while yet and hopefully this rain will abate.”

“I’m freezing,” Amne commented.

Lalaas put his cloak about her and held her against his
body for warmth. Amne snuggled in and shut her eyes. Her heart was beating
furiously and she hoped he didn’t notice. It simply would not be right for her
to show affection to this lowly hunter. But she couldn’t keep her body from
tingling as they maintained contact. “Tell me, Lalaas,” she eventually said so
that her mind was taken off improper thoughts, “what will you do once our
journey is over?”

“I shall return to Bragal and Frasia and carry on
scouting for the army. There’s always work here, at least as long as the war
continues, that is.”

“But if my father ends it?”

“Ah. If that happens, then perhaps he may need my
services elsewhere. There again maybe he won’t. I would have to leave his
service, regrettably as its well paid, and do some private work, hunting,
trapping, looking for lost family members, that sort of thing.”

“Do you do that?”

“Oh yes,” Lalaas nodded, looking down. He looked away. She
was so vulnerable looking and he didn’t want to allow his feelings to show. There
was no future in that, not with Amne anyway. “Sometimes people lose loved ones.
They might have run away, or fallen down holes or been taken by beasts. I have
to track them and find them. Sometimes they don’t want to be found.”

“What do you do if that happens? Surely the family wants
them back?”

“I can only inform the family what I find; if the
missing man or woman – or sometimes boy or girl – doesn’t want to go back, I
leave it at that. Its not up to me to reunite families that have problems, I
leave it for them to sort out. Other people pay me to track down those who have
done them ill; that is a little more dangerous.”

“Aren’t you doing the job of the city militia?”

Lalaas chuckled. “City militias are interested only up
to the limit of the city walls; my territory is out here in the countryside,
away from centres of civilisation. I go wherever I please, and am not
restricted by local rivalries or regulations or job descriptions. And I always
deliver. I have yet to fail, which is probably a good reason why your father
picked me to guard you.”

“And you’re doing a wonderful job; thank you,” Amne
beamed, looking up at him again, her face filthy with mud. Lalaas looked at
her, then burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Amne asked sternly.

“If only your father could see you now! What would he
say?”

“I think he’d strike you down, Lalaas, for being too
intimate with a woman of royal blood.”

Lalaas nodded in agreement and broke away. “Time to
rinse off the worst of the mud; but I’m going to keep some of it on your face
so the skin takes it in.”

“Will it be hard to get rid of?”

“After a few hearty baths with soap you’ll come up
cleaner than ever. Come on, let’s get that mud off.”

They resumed their route after Amne had redressed. The
rain persisted and the greyness of the sky depressed Amne. She much preferred
the sunshine and bright colours. Valchia looked a grim and depressing place. Lalaas
followed the muddy track along the side of the hill they were traversing. At
the bottom there was a watercourse bordered with marshland, something to avoid.
As night approached they crested a rise and before them stretched a wooded
valley with smoke spiralling lazily up from the fires of hearths inside houses.
A village stood amongst the trees, and tracks ran left and right into fields
where animals grazed. People were moving about, herding the animals and
collecting wood.

“What is this place?” Amne asked.

“No idea; I’ve never been here before. Some village,
obviously. Must be new, the people here are mostly nomadic, migrating with
their herds and flocks. Maybe Valchia is beginning to transform into a more
settled society? Might be interesting to speak to them, if they understand our
language and we theirs.”

Amne looked dubious. “Isn’t that risky? I mean, we’re
not supposed to be here.”

“These are farmers, not nomads or pastoralists; they’re
not thieves who can run away and hide somewhere. Look, there are children.”

“So close to Bukrat,” Amne said slowly “won’t they be
sold to the slavers?”

“I hope not,” Lalaas said. “Come on, let’s go see if
they’re hospitable. I’m wet through anyway and need to dry out.”

“Me too. I’m dying for a hot meal.”

Lalaas patted the box on one of the pack animals. “We can
buy one with this.”

They entered the village, a collection of rough and
basic wood and thatch huts set amongst the trees. Animal pens stood at the rear
of many and one or two were set well back from the one and only street which
itself was only a gap in between the two main rows of huts. It was a basic and
dirt-poor place.