Fall of a Kingdom (The Farsala Trilogy) (10 page)

Abandoned it might have been, but the farmhouse was built by miners. It had stone walls and a slate slab roof that only leaked in a few places, which Behras had assured Jiaan he and his sons could patch. It looked far better than it had when Jiaan had taken the family there just a few weeks ago.

Having lost their own farm to a flood that shifted a riverbed over their fields, they were delighted to do a favor for the deghan who’d supported them by employing Behras with odd jobs.

From the look on the lady Soraya’s face, this would be a job and a half.

“I can’t stay here.” Her eyes were wide with shocked disgust. “It’s a hovel.”

In fact, the farmhouse was much the same size as the house where Jiaan had grown up. Two big rooms, with a fireplace between them, and two rooms under the eaves that would be heated by the chimney. Behras and his wife, Golnar, had cleared away the signs of disrepair and had even painted the shutters red, with gold suns and dark blue moons on them. The privy, tucked into the grove to the right of the house, and the bathhouse in the yard to the left were built of clean, new wood. To Jiaan, it looked snug and almost prosperous…. But he wasn’t a deghass. Reluctant pity mingled with his exasperation.

Still, he had a duty to perform.

“Lady Soraya, these are Master Behras and Madam Golnar.” Their sons hovered behind them, but Jiaan judged it wiser not to push things. “They will share this place with you, protect you, and see to your needs.”

The girl said nothing.

Golnar smiled nervously. “Don’t you be worrying about a thing, Lady. We’ve supplies laid in to last two winters, with more promised in the spring, and soon as the ground thaws, we’ll be putting in a bit of garden.”

“Thaws,” Soraya repeated.

Had she ever seen snow?
Jiaan wondered.

“Aye, we’ll be growing our own, fresh, as soon as the season permits. We’ve made a room ready for you, upstairs. Proper stairs too, not a ladder. Quite separate and private from the boys.”

The lady looked at the boys in question, who stared back, wide-eyed.

She grimaced and slid from her horse to the ground, tugging free the straps that held her pack. Behras took a step as if to help but then stopped, warned off by a wall of anger as thick as any besieged city could boast.

She had the pack in her hands in moments. Then she stalked into the building, banging open the door and not bothering to close it. Jiaan wished she had more of her father in her. The commander asked permission before entering even the humblest peasant’s home.

“She’s had a bad week,” he offered Behras, whose face had darkened.

A man’s shirt flew past the open door, then a woman’s bright skirt, which settled in a crumpled heap on the floor. Evidently, the lady preferred the downstairs bedroom the older couple had claimed. A man’s boot thudded onto the skirt. Jiaan winced.

“If she’s wanting the lower room, she’s welcome.” Golnar sounded bewildered. “We thought she’d be happier upstairs. It’s more private, without noise coming through the fireplace and footsteps overhead and all.”

“She’s had a very bad week,” Jiaan repeated, knowing that it was true and that it still didn’t excuse her. “She’ll be…feeling better tomorrow. You’ll do fine.” He wondered if he was lying. Or, rather, how badly he was lying.

Still, he’d gotten her to safety, leaving the commander to fight with a clear mind and an easy heart. And the other aides would know it, know that Jiaan had been chosen and had succeeded. No full-blooded deghan could have done it better.

Fine or not, the lady would survive and be well, and that was all that was necessary. But Jiaan still felt sorry for her.

T
HE YOUNG MAN REPEATED
the deghan’s threats for the final time, possibly the sixth, and set off down the track to the lowlands. It was late afternoon now, and it would have made more sense to go up the road to the big mining camp—almost a small town—that worked a vein of tin only half a day’s ride from the deghass’ hideaway. But the youth, Jiaan, obviously wanted to report back to his commander; he was heading down the road at a trot.

Kavi was torn between putting all the distance he could between himself and the whole mess, and common sense, which told him that visiting the miners now would give him an excuse to come up this road again in six months’ time. It would take him out of his way, for he preferred not to venture this far into the mountains, but perhaps the deghan would follow through on his promise of a generous reward. And it could have been worse—he could have lost fingers.

Or, almost as bad,
he
could have been set to mind the she-bitch. Losing her temper with servants came as easy as breathing to that one.

Kavi sighed and turned Duckie uphill. It angered him, having his life preempted so casually, but when you worked for your bread, common sense had to prevail. Besides, this far into the mountains, the miners probably never saw a peddler. He’d picked up some salt and plenty of spices in Setesafon, but his load of ironmongery was light. Sometimes the miners did a bit of forging, and a few of them were as good as the better apprentices. If nothing else, they’d be glad to see a new face and hear news of the outside world. He could even tell the public tale of the sacrifice of the high commander’s daughter; it had been the talk of Setesafon when he was there. Kavi had been terrified when he realized what a dangerous intrigue he’d stumbled into, but he seemed to have gotten out of it with a whole skin.

Unlike his last encounter with a deghan.

Kavi forced the thought away with the ease of long practice. He could hate them into the pit and back—it would do him no good and them no harm at all. That was what his old master had said, and Kavi knew it for truth. Still, telling those miners the tale of a beautiful, courageous maiden offering her life for Farsala, when he’d just watched her expel honest folk from their own room, might challenge even a liar of his skill. He pitied her keepers.

Would living like the rest of the world for a while teach her some compassion? Probably not. And she really wasn’t living like the rest of the world. She still had servants to dress her and feed her and clean for her. She still didn’t have to pass her life away in work and see ten to thirty percent of her profit going to put gold and glass beads on the bridle of some deghass’ horse. She still wouldn’t see some arrogant noble stride into her master’s shop as if he owned it and pick up a newly forged sword…

No, Kavi didn’t feel sorry for her. He wished all deghans could share the same fate.

THE MINERS WERE GLAD of Kavi’s spices and even bought a set of glass game markers he’d picked up on a bargain and despaired of selling, since they were expensive and could easily be replaced with tokens of carved wood.

He told them Soraya’s public tale and managed not to snicker at their appreciative pity for the fate of the tragic heroine. He talked more seriously of the rumors that the Hrum were actually coming—and coming soon. But to the miners, in their mountain fastness, that mattered less than a good story. How many times had the deghans beaten back Kadeshi invaders? They’d defeat these Hrum, too.

Kavi left the camp pleased with his profit and not too unhappy at the prospect of returning. He was running almost a month late at this point, and he endured the good-natured gibes in the camps where he usually stopped with equal good nature. In some cases fear that “their” peddler had passed them by made the miners even more welcoming, though they bargained as hard as ever. Still, by the time he neared the western border, Kavi had sold almost all of his spices and many of the luxury bits he carried. And even better, the last few months of autumn had been drier than usual, so he’d made good time and caught up with his schedule.

Usually he cut up to Desafon from Bulak on the canal boats, which gave him and Duckie a welcome break from walking, and he returned to his route the same way. But with the roads this dry, and with his pack light of all but cutlery, might it be worth his while to take the Trade Road into Desafon?

That was the most pressing question on Kavi’s mind as he made his way to his usual campsite in the foothills and saw a wisp of smoke curling up against the dark pines.

He pulled Duckie to a halt, though her ears twitched in annoyance. She knew that this place, between the rocks and a bend in the stream, was where he took off her pack, and the grazing was good there.

But why was someone else there? It wasn’t far from the main road, and it was right off the track that led to the last mining camp, but none of the miners had mentioned that they were expecting visitors. Kavi knew that other people stopped there. It was just that he’d never encountered them.

A mule’s bray shattered the silence. Before he could reach for her nose, Duckie inflated her lungs and sang back to it, revealing their presence to anyone within leagues. Kavi sighed. But why should he care if their presence was revealed?

“Hello, the camp.” He and Duckie clattered forward, in the open way of honest travelers.

“Hello, the road,” came the standard reply. Just a beat too slowly? Nonsense.

There were eight of them, Kavi saw as he approached. Six men and two women, all wearing brightly embroidered vests over bright shirts and, in the case of the women, skirts.
Good, no deghan’s hunting party here.
A small herd of mules grazed in the rope-and-stake corral they’d set up by the stream, so Duckie would have company too.

“You’re a peddler, I see,” said one of the men, stepping forward to grasp Kavi’s wrist. His smile was friendly.

“Aye,” said Kavi cheerfully. “With a load of cutlery and iron goods, if you’re needing such things. I’m just back from a loop of the mining camps, and I picked up some of their work. It’s not city fancy, but it’s strong and serviceable.”

“Mining camps?” The man’s eyes narrowed with interest. “Yes, I’d like to see some of your goods.”

“Well, I’m pleased to be showing you,” said Kavi. “Though you don’t seem much in need of knives.”

In fact, every one of them bore a dagger, longer than the knives most men used for eating—four inches longer than the knife at Kavi’s belt.

One of the women went to help him put Duckie in the makeshift corral, but she didn’t say much. She might have been shy, but the few times her eyes met his, her gaze was bright and keen. She was surely a peasant, though, for her hands were callused, her whole body as strong and lean as a hunting wolf’s.

In fact, they were all lean. Lean and wary. They had no packs that Kavi could see, beyond their bedrolls and traveling gear. He might have wondered if they were fleeing a bad master, but with eight mules? And did none of them walk?

They had a pot on the fire; salt-pork stew, said the man who seemed to do all the talking. It was often made by travelers who had time to cook a hot meal, but the spices smelled odd to Kavi.

It was still early, so he sat down and told the spokesman the news of the mining camps: a tin vein playing out, a rich copper vein rumored to have been found, though no one seemed to know where. There was some concern that the snow would be too deep in the passes for supply wagons to get through, but they always worried about that….

The spokesman let the talk go where it would, but he never mentioned what he and his fellows were doing on the road or asked to see Kavi’s wares. Though, as Kavi had noticed, they’d no shortage of knives, and their bedrolls had a rigid look, as if they might have been rolled around short swords.

Kavi smiled through the ebb and flow of the conversation with the ease of a man who sold for his living, but the back of his neck prickled. If he’d been near the eastern border, he’d have taken them for Kadeshi bandits slipping over to raid. But Kadesh was on the other side of the realm, and Sendan was almost as orderly as Farsala was. Unless the rumored Hrum invasion had begun driving folk off their land? But why would Sendar refugees disguise themselves as Farsalan peasants? For it
was
a disguise, Kavi realized. The bedrolls, each wrapped around some long, rigid object, were all composed of similar blankets, as if they’d all been purchased at the same time. And all their boots were new, with just a few months’ wear on them.

He had to get out of here. Not too soon, though, or they’d become suspicious. Kavi made a casual comment on the warmth of the evening and how dry the roads were for late fall. He let the conversation turn again, but soon he would mention that adding a new camp had put him behind schedule. After sunset, when the nearly full moon rose in the clear sky—
please, Azura, please keep the clouds away
—no one would think it strange if he decided to press on to the next village. He hoped.

The stew pot took forever to boil, and the vegetables still had to cook. Kavi’s face was stiff with smiling. He told them the official story of the high commander’s sacrificed daughter, then the most recent rumor that someone had found superior iron ore in the Suud’s desert. The latter topic seemed to interest them more, though when Kavi told Soraya’s story, their gazes met in a look he couldn’t interpret.

The man who was tending the pot—and why was a man cooking, with women present?—went over to stir the thrice-cursed stew yet again and lifted a ladle to taste. To Kavi’s dismay, he wrinkled his nose, and after a bit of fishing in their supply bag, he pulled out an onion and drew his knife to slice it.

Sunset and firelight glowed on the blade, highlighting a pattern of rippling dark waves that flowed through the steel like captured smoke.
Watersteel? But only the—

The earth seemed to heave up and crash into his chest, but it was the spokesman, leaping onto his back, slamming him to the ground. For the second time in a few months Kavi’s arm was wrenched up between his shoulder blades.

“You idiot, Arius,” the spokesman—no, the leader—snarled. “He sells knives. You think he’s not going to notice your blade?” He still spoke Faran, but the accent was different. The other man replied in a language Kavi didn’t know, crisp and regular, not at all like the slithering rasp of Kadi.

The conversation went on in that language, oddly formal, for all its acrimony. The language wouldn’t have given them away—Kavi knew only a handful of words in that tongue—but their steel did. Only the Hrum made watersteel, and they never sold it or let it past their empire’s borders. Kavi had only seen one stolen piece, long ago, when the proud owner had showed it to his former master, but no one could forget the look of it.

The Hrum were here, closer than anyone had dreamed. They must have taken Sendan already or be on the verge of doing so.

Kavi had thought he was frightened when the high commander caught him, but he now realized that he hadn’t begun to be afraid then. The high commander would only have turned him over to the guards. There was no way these men would let him live, unless…

“I’ll talk,” said Kavi. “I’m a peddler. I hear everything. I know where all the villages are. Back roads. Trails. I can be telling you lots of things. And…” The qualm he felt startled him—he owed nothing to the she-bitch, and her father had taken over his life and threatened to have his fingers cut off if he didn’t obey! No, he owed nothing to any of
them.
“And I know what really happened to the high commander’s daughter! She wasn’t sacrificed. I know where she is.”

“Brave, isn’t he?” said one of the women in heavily accented Faran.

“Be quiet, Morra,” said the leader. “He knows courage will only get him killed.”

She replied in Hrum, but Kavi could guess what she said, and despair filled him.

“All right, maybe talking won’t save me,” he said. “But if you kill me, you’re playing the fool. You should never waste resources. Not in war. And you’ll be fighting a war here. Our deghans have never been beaten. Never. You’ll need all the help, all the information, you can get.” Even if they tortured him, as long as they left him alive, perhaps he could escape, even if only into slavery. He’d heard the Hrum kept slaves. He’d thought it the most horrifying fate short of death that could befall a man. He now realized that it was a
lot
better than dying.