But who is “us”? Warlock wanted to demand. Was Tilly talking about his being sent to Caelum to spy for the Cabal? Was she merely repeating Jaxyn’s wish to send him to Caelum to spy for Glaeba? And does anybody care that my mate is about to whelp and I want to be gone from this place?
The uncertainty of it was driving him mad.
“To serve you is the reason I breathe,” Warlock replied mechanically, unable to think of anything else to say.
“The problem is that the Caelish are expecting a breeding pair,” Jaxyn said.
“But I have no mate,” Warlock said, determined to give this immortal monster no leverage over him.
“I know,” Jaxyn said. “Lady Ponting was suggesting she might have a solution to that problem.”
“I have a pregnant female in my kennels,” Tilly explained, after taking another sip of tea. “No idea who fathered her pups. One of the males got over the fence, I suppose. Anyway, I was just suggesting to Lord Jaxyn that he send Tabitha Belle along as your mate.”
Behind that guileless smile was the sharp mind of a woman who commanded an organisation whose roots went back several thousand years. Tilly affected a daft exterior, but it was no more real than the facade of the Tide Lord sitting across the desk from her posing as Lord Aranville. Warlock stared at her, not sure whether to thank her, or tear her throat out. To involve his family in such a fashion was monstrous.
But he knew what she was telling him. This is your only choice, Warlock. You work for the Cabal now, and if you want our protection for your family, you will do as we bid.
But what sort of protection could he offer Boots if she was sent to Caelum with him? His mate, posing as his mate? How was he supposed to treat her? How would he be expected to treat her? For the Caelish to believe she was his mate, he would have to act as if she was. But if he did, then would Jaxyn realise Tabitha Belle was someone he cared for? Someone he’d die for?
That was something he would never risk any immortal learning about him.
Which brought up a compelling reason to refuse this ludicrous plan outright—Jaxyn knew who Boots was. She’d grown up in the Lebec Kennels. Worse, because she’d clashed with him in the past, he knew she was a Scard. If he so much as lay eyes on Tilly’s “Tabitha Belle” the whole tottering house of cards this subterfuge was built on would come tumbling down.
And if I refuse?
Then Jaxyn would know he was a Scard and the even shakier foundation underpinning this raft of lies would be exposed.
Tides, just thinking about it is enough to make your head explode.
“To serve you is the reason I breathe,” he repeated, certain any other response would betray his true feelings. “When would I…where would I meet up with this…female? My understanding is that Lord Torfail and his sister are planning to leave in the next few days. Will that be time to bring this…female…to Herino?”
Tilly smiled broadly and looked at Jaxyn. “You see, he’s a clever one, this boy. Uses his head. But you’ve no need to fear on that score, Cecil. I’ll have Aleki ship her straight across the lake from Lebec. There’s no need for her to come anywhere near Herino.”
It was a shaky reassurance at best, but he was relieved to discover Tilly realised the danger if Jaxyn saw Boots and recognised her for the escaped Lebec canine who’d killed a feline guard during her escape.
“Just try to look happy when you meet up with her in Caelum,” Jaxyn advised. “We don’t want the Caelish getting the idea you’re there for any other reason than to serve them.”
“They’ll be suspicious, anyway, won’t they, my lord?” Warlock asked.
“Lord Torfail might be, but the queen is making a gift of you to the Lady Alysa. She’s much less…discerning.”
Gullible is what he really meant, Warlock knew, but it was some small comfort, nonetheless. Of the two immortals visiting from Caelum, Elyssa was by far the lesser evil.
“Then I look forward to serving Glaeba and Queen Kylia, my lord, in whatever capacity you deem most effective.”
Jaxyn nodded, his belief in the infallibility of the Crasii magical compulsion to obey the Tide Lords making every compliant word Warlock uttered sound plausible.
“It’s settled then!” Tilly declared happily, placing her empty cup and saucer on the cart beside Jaxyn’s desk. I’ll send a message to Aleki and have him arrange to ship Tabitha direct to Cycrane.”
“And what’s this breeding female going to cost?” Jaxyn asked.
“You just keep me on the guest list at Lebec Palace, dearest, and it won’t cost you very much at all.”
“Really?” The Tide Lord studied her suspiciously. “And all this time, I thought you were Stellan’s friend.”
“I am the friend of whoever is in power, Jaxyn,” the old woman said, rising to her feet. “That used to be Stellan. Now it’s you. I do not intend my estates, or my son’s future, to go the way of the Deseans out of some misguided notion of loyalty. I am loyal to Glaeba and to those who support her king. Last I heard, Stellan was on trial for high treason just before he so fortuitously perished. Seems to me the sensible thing to do, in a case like this, is to ally oneself with the faction doing the prosecuting, not the faction imprisoned and on trial. I wouldn’t like to fortuitously perish, either.”
Tides, Warlock thought. These people lie so smoothly, you’re never sure when they’re telling the truth.
“You’re a very pragmatic woman, Tilly,” Jaxyn said. “How do you think Arkady is going to take your change of allegiance when she gets back?”
“Unless she’s on the guest list at the palace, Jaxyn, I don’t really care.”
Jaxyn smiled. Tilly’s cold-blooded willingness to drop friends under a cloud for those who were in favour didn’t disturb him in the slightest. He seemed to accept it without question, probably because it was precisely what he would have done, had he been in her shoes.
Where there is no difference, Warlock asked himself with some concern, as he watched the head of the Cabal verbally fencing with the Tide Lord, between the actions of two opposing forces, how does one ever really tell who is good and who is evil?
Chapter 68
The “Senestran batch” turned out to be a group of five Torlenian women of varying ages, waiting in a holding cell on the other side of the compound. Arkady could just make them out in the fitful light from the torch across the hall. Two of the women were younger than Arkady, one seemed about the same age, the other two were well into their thirties.
Still faint from the pain of her branding, Arkady staggered as she was shoved into the cell with the other women. None of them showed much interest in her. The two older women returned to the game of stones they had improvised on the sandy cell floor, the younger pair seemed completely disinterested, and the woman who seemed about Arkady’s age glared at her with such venom, she recoiled from her in shock.
She turned, instead, to the guard who was locking the gate, forcing back the tears of pain that choked her. The man had seemed almost sympathetic as he held her down while she was branded. Perhaps there was something left in him. Some shred of decency she could appeal to. “Please! Can you get a message to someone for me?”
The guard looked at her for a moment without answering. He took so long to answer, in fact, that Arkady was starting to wonder if he understood what she’d said to him.
“How much?”
“I’m sorry?”
“How much to deliver your message?”
Tides! He wants to get paid. But he hadn’t said no. That was a start. “My friend will pay you when you tell her where I am. Anything you ask.”
He shook his head. “I don’t work on promises. You want me to deliver a message? You pay up front.”
“With what?”
“Tides, you silly bitch,” one of the women behind her remarked. “You have to ask?”
Arkady glanced over her shoulder. It was one of the older women who had spoken. “What does he want?”
“You are new, aren’t y
ou?” the other woman remarked with a shake of her head.
The woman who had spoken first laughed. “Get down on your knees, stick your face through the bars, and open your mouth, lass,” she suggested, not taking her eyes off the game she was playing in the sand. “You’ll find out what Strakam accepts as payment, quick enough.”
Arkady turned to look at the guard. Strakam—presumably that was his name—grinned at her, and thrust his groin forward until it was up against the bars. Disgusted, Arkady stepped back, not sure she was quite that desperate.
The guard shrugged, a little disappointed perhaps, but not surprised. “You got three days to change your mind, sweet thing,” he told her. “After that it won’t make a difference.”
He turned and headed back down the corridor, leaving Arkady staring after him. After a moment, she turned to the other women, wincing as the fabric of her shift rubbed against her injured breast, which had settled down to a dull throbbing pain. Whatever was in the paste the farrier had slathered on the wound, it seemed to be numbing the agony somewhat. “What did he mean?”
“What did who mean?” the older woman asked.
“The guard. Strakam? He said I had three days to change my mind, didn’t he? What did he mean?”
“He meant you’ve only got three days to change your mind,” the woman replied. She smiled at her companion. “Not real bright, this one, is she?”
“Are we to be auctioned off, then?”
The woman shook her head. “We ain’t up for auction. They only auction off something a person’s likely to want to bid on. You, me, the rest of us here…we ain’t worth the worry.” She looked up, squinting a little at Arkady in the gloom. “You might have been all right if you’d been a bit younger, I reckon. You’re probably a looker when you’re cleaned up, but not enough to tempt the men of Elvere.”
“Then what’s going to happen to us?”
“We’ve been batch sold to the Senestrans.”
“Batch sold?” she asked, unfamiliar with the phrase.
“Means we’ve been bought in a bulk lot,” her companion explained. “The Senestrans just put in an order for slaves…you know, certain sex, certain height…weight…colouring…whatever—I don’t know exactly how it works—and the slavers fill the order. We ship out in three days’ time.”
Three days. Three days for Tiji to find her, assuming she had any idea Arkady was now a slave waiting to be shipped off to Senestra. Three days for Arkady to decide if she was desperate enough to give Strakam what he wanted, with no guarantee he’d even attempt to deliver her message, and she was willing to risk catching something disgusting from him in the process.
Three days for Cayal to learn of her fate and come looking for her. Assuming he cared enough to come looking for her.
There was no guarantee of that, either.
In pain, filled with despair and lost in a world full of people she didn’t understand—either their language or their customs—Arkady sank to the floor, her back against the bars. She gave in to her tears for a time, telling herself it was the pain of her burn, but knowing it was much more than that.
There had never been a time in Arkady’s life when she’d felt as desperate as this. Not the night they arrested her father, not even the first time she knocked on Fillion Rybank’s door when she was fourteen years old. Then she had been younger, more easily persuaded to hope. Less able to see the consequences; less harsh in her judgement of the reality of her situation.
The truth was, Arkady had now been enslaved. Worse, she’d been branded as a slave—which meant nobody in Torlenia would believe she had ever been anything else—and the only four people on Amyrantha who might care enough about her to come to her aid were completely out of her reach.
Stellan was imprisoned, possibly even executed by now, falsely accused of killing the Glaeban king and queen. The Tides alone knew where Declan was, with the frightening spectre of him being the one responsible for fabricating the charges against Stellan a real possibility. Cayal was off looking for another Tide Lord in the mistaken belief his old enemy had agreed to help him.
And Tiji…the clever, resourceful little Scard might only be several streets away, but to get a message to her, Arkady would have to give Strakam what he wanted, and then hope the guard would keep his word. And hope his offer wasn’t just a ploy to get himself pleasured at the expense of a desperate slave.
The older woman glanced up, noticing Arkady’s shuddering despair. “If you’re that desperate to get out of here, lass, give Strakam what he wants.”
Arkady wiped away her tears, sniffing loudly, and turned her head to look at the woman who had spoken, wincing as the movement once again made the fabric of her shift brush against her burn. “I don’t think I’m that far gone, just yet.”
“See how you feel three days from now,” the other woman advised. “Strakam’s cock may start to look a mite tastier than spending the rest of your life underground in a Senestran copper mine.”
Three days. Tides, this can’t be happening to me.
Arkady didn’t sleep much that night, nor the next night, either. The pain from her branding would have kept her awake, even if the dire nature of her circumstances didn’t make her afraid to close her eyes. The other women in the cell showed little interest in befriending her, except for the older woman who’d advised her so pragmatically to give Strakam what he wanted to get a message out to her friend.
Her name, it turned out, was Saxtyn. She was a debtor slave, sold into servitude when she couldn’t pay her late husband’s debts. She’d been a slave for more than a decade, she informed Arkady, and was resigned to whatever the fates might bring.
When Arkady asked her how far she’d be willing to go to escape this place, Saxtyn smiled sadly and shook her head. “Not that far, Kady. But then, I ain’t as desperate as you, neither.”
“You’d do it, then? If you were me?”
The older woman laughed harshly. “Puttin’ Strakam’s cock in my mouth on purpose is way past the point I’d be willing to go, I’d reckon, even if it meant a pardon. Tides. Who knows where it’s been?”
In the end, the decision was taken from her. The guard changed the following morning and the new man showed no interest in any of the women. He did bring them news, however. Their departure had been moved up and they were to be loaded onto the Senestran ship later that morning.
With her burn still throbbing in time with her heartbeat, Arkady began making plans, this time to flee as soon as they were out of the compound. Her plans were dashed once again, however, when later that morning, the guards returned with shackles for the women. Arkady was chained between Saxtyn and the youngest girl in the cell, a dark-haired young woman of about twenty, with a lazy eye and drooping eyelid that distorted her face and made her seem quite vapid. She was not, however, Arkady decided, judging by the stream of invective she unleashed on the guards who tried to shackle her. They slapped her for her temerity and after that she quieted down and allowed them to chain her.
The women were marched from the cell, through the compound, and then loaded onto an ox-drawn wagon for the journey to the docks. Every movement caused Arkady pain and the bright sunlight beat down on her like a relentless weight as they rocked along the crowded, potholed streets of Elvere. Adding to Arkady’s surreal feeling was the realisation that this journey was the first time since arriving in Torlenia she had appeared in the streets unshrouded. To be able to see everything, and not just the small view of the world afforded by the narrow eye-slit of a shroud, was a strange and unsettling experience. And she didn’t like what she saw, through her tear-misted eyes. The place was crowded and dirty and smelled like raw sewage.
“Your grace!” she imagined someone calling, wondering if the heat and the pain were making her delirious. “Over here!”
Arkady closed her eyes, wishing the pain was bad enough to make her pass out, rather than this agony that bordered on intolerable.
“Arkady!”
Her eyes snapped
open. She hadn’t imagined that. Arkady twisted around, trying to determine where the call had come from.
“Tiji?” she called out, certain the little Crasii was the only person in Torlenia who would recognise her. Certainly the only female in Torlenia likely to seek her out. And the call had definitely been a woman’s voice. “Tiji!” she cried again, trying to climb to her feet, but Saxtyn pulled her down.
“Tides, woman, do you want to get us all beaten?”
“But I heard my friend! She called to me!”
Saxtyn rolled her eyes impatiently. “Then she’s seen you and she can follow you to the ship and try to buy you back from the Senestran captain. Now sit down and shut up, you silly bitch, before you get us all into trouble.”
Saxtyn probably had the right of it, and in the crowded streets, Arkady had no hope of finding Tiji. She could be looking at her right now, camouflaged against a wall somewhere, watching as the wagon inched past, and she’d never know it.
Arkady turned and settled herself down again, filled with hope. Tiji was somewhere out there. Tiji had seen her. Tiji would follow them to the docks as Saxtyn suggested and with the resources she had at her disposal—provided she hadn’t lost her diplomatic papers—she would be able to buy Arkady back and set her free.
Arkady dared not think beyond that moment, afraid she would jinx her imminent release if she allowed her excitement to run away with her.
But she had hope now. A future.
Arkady clung to that hope for the next few hours. She clung to it as they were marched aboard the Senestran freighter. Clung to it even as she was led below decks, freed from her shackles, and then shoved into a narrow, foul-smelling compartment in the hold with the other female slaves.
It wasn’t until she felt the ship lurching beneath them, and she realised they were pulling away from the dock as the amphibians towed the freighter out into open water, that Arkady was forced to let the hope go.
Only then was she willing to admit that she was on her way to Senestra as a branded slave and nobody was going to save her.
The Gods of Amyrantha Page 49
