Please don’t rely on me, Shella silently begged her sister.
When Obli had finished, she looked up and beckoned Shella and Sami over.
‘Listen friends,’ she said to the crowd in front of her, as Shella positioned herself by Obli’s side. ‘This is my sister Shella. She is my most trusted mage and counsellor, and stands to my right at the very heart of this holy migration. And bear witness to me now, as I hereby appoint Shella as my deputy and second in command. You will listen to her words, and obey them as if they were my own.’
She turned, smiling at Shella, who felt a weight the size of a mountain range form in the pit of her stomach.
‘I present to you Shellakanawara,’ Obli said to the crowd, who fell to their knees, their heads bowed. ‘The Most Holy Migration’s High Mage!’
With that, Obli stood aside, to allow Shella to bask in the adulation of the kneeling crowd.
Oh fuck, she thought.
Chapter 7
Bars Between
Rahain Capital, Rahain Republic – 26th Day, First Third Summer 504
Daphne tried to imagine herself as a killer. True, she had taken the lives of many in the Sanang forest, and during her escape from the Holdings, but that was as a soldier, or in self defence. What she was being asked to do now was different. Murder.
Douanna and Teolan had filled her head to bursting that first night in Jade Falls, trying to persuade her of the righteousness of their cause. They had targeted several key members of the war coalition for their greed, arrogance and aggressive natures. They had no interest in creating the conditions for a coup, they had told her. They merely wanted to nudge Rahain back onto its proper course, as they saw it.
She looked around the brightly-lit restaurant, filled with lunchtime customers in their rich robes, jewels and finery, while servants in brown tunics rushed to fulfil their every whim. If Douanna and her husband had wanted real change, Daphne thought, she would have had no qualms about joining them. However, they were not interested in abolishing the institution of slavery in the republic, and had smiled patronisingly at her every time she had brought it up. It was much too embedded, they had told her, with four out of every ten in Rahain a slave, and a further four in ten an indentured peasant farmer or labourer. The small elite at the top were privileged because they belonged to the families that held the mage bloodlines, and carried them forward into the next generation of rulers. It was a wise system, perfected over millennia, and it was futile to argue that such traditions could ever be over-turned.
Douanna had insisted that Rahain society was fair, pointing out that anyone from the servile or peasant classes who exhibited even the slightest signs of magery would be whisked out of their environment, along with their entire extended family, and brought into the comfortable embrace of the elite, where they would be re-housed, educated, and given every right and privilege that their abilities had earned them.
The most convincing argument that they had used on her was to raise the possibility of a new war between Rahain and the Holdings, which, they had suggested, might occur if the war coalition got its way. Intoxicated by their success in the Kellach Brigdomin tribal lands, their ambition seemed boundless, and unless they could be restrained, a future conflict was likely, if not inevitable.
To prevent the Rahain Republic from going to war with the Realm of the Holdings – this was to be her motivation to kill, but she wasn’t convinced it was enough. It was too abstract, and her feelings for the Holdings were mixed. She hadn’t shared her reservations with Douanna, preferring to keep her thoughts to herself while deciding what to do. At the same time, her trust in the Rahain trader had taken a blow. When she had helped Daphne escape from the Holdings, it had seemed out of honest friendship, but now she worried if perhaps Douanna had held an ulterior motive the entire time.
‘I’m sure you would agree, Miss Daphne?’ Douanna said, snapping her out of her thoughts.
Daphne glanced around the table, smiling at the assorted merchants, politicians and socialites present.
‘As you say, my lady,’ Daphne said, hoping this would be an appropriate response, her attention having drifted away from the conversation some time before. It was the same sales pitch she had heard Douanna deliver several times, during the ten days since their arrival in the capital. Although Jade Falls was more than two hundred miles away, they had made the journey in hours, transported in a giant carriage through the air by enormous flying reptiles. Like an excited child, Daphne had stared through the small windows, gazing down at the view of the Rahain mountains and valleys from hundreds of feet up, judging it one of the most wonderful experiences of her life.
Seeing the capital of the Rahain Republic for the first time was somewhere near the top of that list as well. As much as Jade Falls had a soft and delicate beauty to it, the capital dwarfed it in scale and grandeur. The enormity of its central caverns defied belief, and the structures within seemed to have been built by an act of divine creation, rather than by the labour of thousands of Rahain over millennia.
Compared to Jade Falls, the disparity between the elite and the lower classes was more apparent in the capital. The ubiquitous brown tunics were everywhere, performing the laborious and menial tasks essential to the running of the great metropolis. Daphne saw them wherever she looked, and marvelled that Douanna didn’t seem to notice them at all, as if they had become invisible to her.
On her fifth day in the capital, their private salon had been visited by an official from the Holdings embassy, who had come to greet Daphne, and to remind her that the warrant for her arrest remained valid. Douanna had been very polite with the young Holdings man, and very firm. Under Rahain law, foreigners had no legal rights, unless they were being sponsored by a respectable citizen. Douanna had shown the official the paperwork proving that she was Daphne’s sponsor, laying it on the table for everyone to see. He had smiled, seeming almost relieved, and he and Daphne had chatted amicably for an hour about news and gossip from the Realm. She had liked his smile.
‘Daphne,’ Douanna said, ‘you’re day-dreaming again.’
She looked up. The seats around the table were empty, and Douanna was packing her samples away.
‘What were you thinking about?’ the Rahain woman said. ‘No, let me guess. It was that young Holdings man from the embassy again, wasn’t it?’
Daphne laughed. ‘Am I that obvious?’
‘Well, my dear,’ Douanna replied, raising an eyebrow, ‘it has been a while, hasn’t it?’
‘Maybe you could use your contacts to find out if he’s seeing anyone?’
‘Do you think that’s wise, Daphne dear?’ Douanna asked. ‘Dating a man who wants to arrest you?’
‘Would make it interesting.’
‘Sometimes, Daphne,’ Douanna said, ‘I think that everything you’ve been through has affected your mind, made it a little peculiar.’
‘Well, I’m not going out with a Rahain,’ Daphne said. ‘No offence.’
‘None taken.’
‘And, as he’s probably the only Holdings man my age in the city, it’s not as if I’m left with much of a choice.’
‘But you can’t settle for just anyone, Daphne.’
‘I’m not looking to marry him,’ she said. ‘Just, you know…’
‘Daphne Holdfast!’ Douanna cried. ‘And to think I was worried about my morals offending you.’ She stood, gathering her coat, and her shoulder bag. ‘I shall make some discreet enquiries.’
Daphne smiled, and they walked to the door of the restaurant.
‘Now, my dear,’ Douanna said as they reached the street, ‘I know I’ve said it before, but I really wish you’d let me buy some new dresses for you, something more befitting a lady.’
‘But I like my Holdings clothes,’ she said, looking down at her dark green tunic, leggings and riding boots. ‘I like to feel as if I could jump onto a horse any time I needed to.’
‘But dear, your animal is being cared for back in Jade Falls.’
‘Unfortunately,’ Daphne replied. ‘I miss him.’
They walked through one of the more moderately-sized caverns, its curving walls lined with cafes and bars, laid out around an elegant square with a marble fountain. The underground street lamps were lit to indicate mid-afternoon, and Rahain ladies and gentlemen strolled, or bought cake and iced drinks.
‘What do we have planned for the rest of the day?’ Daphne asked.
‘We’re going to visit someone I have heard some interesting things about,’ Douanna said. ‘His name is Laodoc. He is a politician in the City Council, a rather successful one until recently. It appears that his party of misfits and schemers have deserted him, seemingly because he was too close to the Liberals, and kept up strenuous opposition to the war coalition, long after the war itself was over.’
‘Are you hoping to enlist him?’
‘Oh, much too early for that,’ Douanna said. ‘No, I just want to sound him out, see where he stands on things. His hatred of the war coalition has made him quite unpopular in certain quarters, yet several days ago he disbanded the peace coalition, earning him the contempt of the Liberal Party as well.’
‘Sounds like he’s good at annoying people,’ Daphne said, as they left the cavern, and entered a wide tunnel.
‘I fear you may be right. My little spies tell me that he’s working in his science academy today, which is close by, so I thought we’d chance a visit. While we’re there Daphne, you should take a look around the place. It’s one of the most expensive schools in the city for the youngsters of the better families, specialising in geology, biology, that sort of thing.’
‘Maybe I should enrol in a few classes.’
‘That’s not such a bad idea,’ Douanna said, laughing. ‘I had been pondering how best you could improve your knowledge. Although I daresay the biology professors would be more interested in you as a specimen, rather than as a student. I don’t imagine they’ve had the chance to examine many people from the Holdings recently.’
Daphne snorted. ‘Well, they’re not starting today.’
They followed a branch of the tunnel into a smaller cavern, which was occupied by a single three-storey structure, surrounded by a high wall. The building’s pink granite shone in the afternoon lamplight.
‘Laodoc’s academy,’ said Douanna, sweeping out her arm.
They went through the outer wall’s main entranceway into a courtyard, with long, wide steps leading up to a massive set of double doors. Many of the tall windows on the upper storeys were open, and the sound of students and teachers at their lessons filtered down to them as they climbed the steps.
The doors opened with a gentle push, and they walked into the reception hall. At the front desk, they were informed that the school’s patron was working in the animal section down in the basement, and were given visitor badges and directions.
At the bottom of a staircase, they found a long carpeted corridor, its walls adorned with diplomas, certificates and prizes won by the students. They passed by doors marked ‘Archives’, and rooms filled with boxes of rocks, labelled and stacked against the walls. At the end of the corridor, they heard the cries of birds and animals, squawking and calling. Douanna pushed the door open.
Ahead were rows and rows of cages, filled with a wide variety of birds, small mammals, snakes, and other reptiles. Students were gathered at the back of the room, clearing away chairs.
Daphne gazed at the animals, most of which were unfamiliar to her. She caught the sound of people talking, and smiled at a group of young students in front of her, as they looked up in surprise at the sight of the Holdings woman walking towards them.
Movement beyond the group drew her attention, and she saw a large cage taking up most of the rear wall. Behind its bars stood three people.
Daphne frowned as she approached. Three people. In a cage.
Her mind jolted as she recalled her own time in prison, in a cage with no privacy, exposed in front of mocking guards, starved, tortured, and beaten. She halted, her right hand moving unconsciously to her crippled left elbow, the old pain remembered.
She closed her eyes and controlled her breathing. She was free now, she reminded herself. Free.
She looked up. The three people behind the bars were tall, and well-built, and their skin was pale, as pale as the Sanang had been. They didn’t look like Sanang though, they looked more like her.
There were two women, and a man. The man was coming closer to the bars, just as she was approaching from the other side. He was large, the tallest man she had ever seen, with long dark hair, bearded, and dressed in rags.
She looked at him, he looked back, and their gazes caught.
His gaze turned into a stare, and they mirrored each other for a long, slow moment, as they stood two yards apart, staring at each other, thick steel bars between them.
He was beautiful, she thought, though also frightening. A savage, the Rahain claimed. An untameable beast, who knew nothing but violence. Passion gripped her, exhilarated her, made her feel more alive than she had felt in a long time. She maintained her gaze, drinking him in, unwilling to break away first, wanting to remain in the moment.
She felt a hand touch her shoulder, and she blinked.
‘My dear Daphne,’ Douanna said, laughing. ‘Quite shameless, the way you were staring at that barbarian. Please don’t tell me your desires now include the Kellach Brigdomin. I shall have to make enquiries into that embassy boy right away.’
Daphne looked away from her, saying nothing, and turned her attention back to the cage.
The man had shifted, and was looking over at the two captive women. The shorter, dark-haired Kellach woman was standing with her hands on her hips, smirking in bemusement. The taller woman with red hair was staring wide-eyed at Daphne, a look of shock on her face. They were all dressed in tatters, and the cage stank, filthy straw littering the floor.
Tears came to Daphne’s eyes, surprising her, and she looked away, sobbing.
The dark-haired woman approached. She reached her arm out through the bars, and took Daphne’s right hand.
‘Who are you?’ she said in Rahain, her accent thick.
Daphne gasped.
She noticed that the students had gathered round her, watching and listening, and she heard their young voices murmur in excitement.
‘I am Daphne Holdfast,’ she said, looking the Kellach woman in the eye.
She was young, Daphne thought, younger than she, and her eyes shone with a deep, sad longing that Daphne recognised. She felt guilty that she was free, while they were caged, and almost turned away in shame, but the yearning in the Kellach woman’s eyes kept her drawn in.
‘Where are you from?’ she asked Daphne.
‘The Holdings.’
‘I am from Brig,’ the woman said, smiling. She released Daphne’s hand, and pointed her thumb at her chest. ‘I am Bridget.’
Daphne smiled back, hot tears spilling down her cheeks.
‘My dear,’ Douanna cut in, ‘it appears that Councillor Laodoc has not been down to the animal room today. The students here tell me he is working in his personal study upstairs.’
A rage started to build in Daphne, and she kept her eyes on Bridget.
‘Shall we go and meet him there?’ she said, keeping her voice calm.
‘Yes, let’s,’ Douanna replied, taking Daphne’s hand, as if reclaiming it from the Kellach.
‘I will see you again,’ Daphne said to the caged prisoners, as Douanna turned her towards the door.
As they climbed the stairs to the upper levels, Douanna looked Daphne in the eye.
‘Are you quite all right, my dear?’ she asked. ‘Those slaves seemed to have affected you deeply.’
Daphne stayed silent, not trusting that she would remain calm if she started to talk about how she felt.
They reached a landing at the top of the stairs, where the governors of the academy had their personal offices.
Douanna knocked on the door marked Patron.
‘Can I help you?’ the young woman asked.
‘Yes, my child,’ Douanna said. ‘We are looking for your master, Councillor Laodoc. We were hoping to have a few words, if he could spare the time.’
The woman looked embarrassed for a moment. She cleared her throat. ‘If you are here to request a financial contribution for your charity, then master Laodoc would prefer you to send your submission by post.’
Douanna sniffed. ‘We’re not here to beg, child.’
The woman relaxed.
‘Who is it, Simiona?’ said a voice from behind the door. ‘If they’re after money, then…’
‘No, master,’ the woman replied. ‘They’re not.’
‘Then show them in, girl,’ the voice said.
She opened the door and Daphne and Douanna entered a luxurious office, with ornate armchairs, a massive darkwood desk, and thick carpets. Paintings and bookshelves covered the walls. Behind the desk, with a mountain of paperwork in front of him, sat an old Rahain man. He had an impatient expression, as if he loathed meeting visitors, which he tried to hide with a forced smile.
‘Good afternoon,’ he said. ‘And what can I do for you?’
‘A glass of wine would be most wonderful,’ Douanna replied. ‘May I?’ She pointed at an armchair by the desk, and sat in it before the man had a chance to respond.
‘Of course,’ he stuttered. ‘Sit, please. Wine, yes, let me see. Simiona?’
‘Yes, master?’
‘Wine for our guests,’ he said, recovering his composure, ‘and for me as well, I think. Paperwork is such a chore. I judge I’ve done quite enough for today.’
Simiona placed a tray of slender-stemmed glasses onto the desk, and started to open a bottle of wine.
‘I am, as I assume you know, otherwise why would you be here, but anyway, I am Laodoc, patron of this little school for the scientifically gifted young folk of Rahain. And who might you be?’
The Queen's Executioner Page 10
