“That Ezari slavers honor your laws.” Benjmur dipped his chin. “If they defy you, they should face censure in Ezar, and a law-abiding man or woman should replace them.”
“My pardon, Empress,” Azalus said, “but the laws need strengthening, so our citizens are not subject to the terrors faced by Nallea. No one should have the power to indenture free citizens against their will.”
“Lord Azalus, the laws of the Vales were negotiated by Lord Benjmur and endorsed by your father.”
“To end the rampant slavery of our people,” Azalus said. “A beneficial law we embraced, but laws are rarely perfect at the outset, and this one too can be improved.”
A flood of pride for his brother welled in Raze’s chest. Lord Rydan was wrong about Azalus. He needed no guidance from his older brother; he was exceptional all on his own.
“What of criminals?” Ezalion asked.
Azalus paused. “An exception. They surrender their freedom when they commit a crime.”
“And parents selling a child to enhance the lives of their other children?”
“Empress, all children in the Vales should be born free, equal in dignity.”
She tilted her head. “In Ezar, the children of slaves are born as slaves.”
“We have no slaves in the Vales,” Raze reminded her. “Our laws only permit indentured servitude for limited terms.”
Her eyebrows arched. “Ai, true. I cede the point, Lord Raze.”
“Empress,” Benjmur drew her gaze, “I wish simply to advise you that these recommendations will reduce the number of servants available from the Vales.”
Raze frowned at the comment, spoken as if a reduction in the number of indentured servants was worthy of regret. Danzell gave less indication of her opinions than her sister, and Kyzan yawned.
“We also believe,” Azalus continued, “that the killing of runaways is little different than murder and serves no one.”
Nallea joined her husband. “I was terrified during my abduction, incapable of rational decisions. Empress, I fled in sheer panic, and the slavers hunted me down like an animal, without mercy. They shot an arrow through my back.”
“I’m pleased that you survived.” Ezalion smiled. “What do you suggest my slavers do to discourage runners?”
Nallea blinked at her. “I’d no choice but to run. They abducted me.”
“I sympathize,” Ezalion replied, “but my question stands.”
Azalus cleared his throat. “We might add a year to their bond. Killing them for panicking is, in my view, unnecessarily cruel.”
“I’ve no objection,” Benjmur said as though any alteration of existing laws required his permission.
The conversation had become a negotiation, and Raze steeled his jaw. Whether intentional or not, Azalus was being maneuvered into rapid decisions that for all he knew, Ezalion would agree to, ending the discussion. Raze wanted more than that, at least an opportunity to air his disapproval of any kind of ownership of people whatsoever.
“Empress,” he said with a bow, “may I speak freely?”
“You may.”
“Ten years ago, in an act of wisdom, you outlawed slavery in the Vales, and the rebellion against Ezari rule ended. But the servitude left in its place is simply another version of bondage. In fact, we call it bondage, the people owned, those who participate in the trade slavers, and the people themselves property. Words are powerful. They convey meaning, and the words are the same.”
Ezalion leaned forward. “Some would argue bondage is little different than ordinary toil, merely a matter of when one is compensated. Indentured servants are paid before they work; free women and men are paid after. A more notable difference is that servitude guarantees food, shelter, training, and retirement. Employers of free women and men, on the other hand, might discard them on a whim, leave them to fend for themselves when their usefulness comes to an end. Is that preferable?”
“Ai, it is.” Raze clasped his hands behind his back. “Because such freedom exists both ways. A free man or woman may also leave on a whim. If a person is threatened and forced to perform services, if one may not refuse without losing their lives or all they possess, if one is obligated to others without their consent, they are slaves. Better to be free, even if, for a time, that entails going hungry.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Danzell’s nod. He drew in a breath and continued, “The Vales are not faultless, Empress, but we honor a long history of individual freedom. On my freehold, I employ no indentured servants. Every soul who works there is free, treated with dignity, and considered a partner in the success of the farm. They stay and work because they are invested in the outcome, not because I force them to. Every man, woman, and child deserves that opportunity.”
Ezalion Tegir’s eyebrows rose, eyes alight. “Despite your success, Lord Raze, your view is over simple, wouldn’t you agree? How do you regulate altruism, respect, kindness, personal investment, and cooperation? Your vision functions admirably in the absence of sloth and avarice, competition and coercion. All those human frailties, including rape and murder, existed in the Vales before the arrival of the Ezari.”
“True, Empress.” Raze smiled. “But in servitude, we unavoidably exploit and degrade human beings by denying them the privilege of choice. We assume the worst of people, that they are incapable of wise decisions, or are lazy or untrustworthy, when in fact, they are often the ones who make our world function. I would rather have faith in the integrity of most people and endure an occasional disappointment than stifle a person’s humanity.”
“Tell me, then.” Ezalion leaned on one arm of her throne. “What do you plan for your criminals, your desperately poor, your orphans and elderly, your indebted?”
“I haven’t an answer,” Raze admitted.
“Then this audience has run its course.” She raised a hand. “Return when you can offer a reply. Until then, I wish you well in my Challenge.”
~10~
Raze froze before the throne, stunned by the dismissal and disappointed in his failure even though the invitation to return extended a fragment of hope. But he had no more desire to repeat the visit than he fancied a flaying. This life wasn’t his. This mission had pulled him from the place he belonged and pried apart the man he’d become.
Ezari soldiers ushered him out with the rest of his party.
“An eloquent speech, Lord Raze.” Benjmur touched his arm with fatherly approval as they descended the palace steps. “You put into words what I could not, and your argument impressed the Empress.”
“But not enough.” Raze replayed the conversation in his head. In expanding the debate to include all levels of bondage, he’d distracted them from making the most visible and essential changes. They would wander away with nothing.
“For the day,” Benjmur said. “We shall request another audience before our stay in Tegir ends.”
Raze appreciated the confidence though the optimism eluded him.
“Well done, Brother,” Azalus said, Nallea on his arm. “You were right to speak for all people. We may not achieve our loftier goals this visit, but you planted a seed for the future.”
“Neither of you needed any help from me.” Raze smiled at the couple and waved them to their carriage. “Take Terrill with you. You’re his charge, and I’d prefer to walk.”
“Are you certain?” Nallea asked. “It’s a long way.”
“And all downhill.” He slipped his surcoat over his head, determined to keep it clean should they manage a second visit to the palace. He handed it to her before she climbed into her seat. “Hold that for me.”
Footsteps descended behind him. “If you’ve no objection, Lord Raze, I’ll join you.”
He pivoted to find Danzell at his back, the indigo sash replaced by her belted sword. Though he’d wanted the time to brood, he couldn’t very well refuse. “My pleasure, Lady Tegir, but is it safe for you to walk the city unguarded?”
“You may call me Danzell. And I go where I choos
e.” She pulled her cowl over her head. “And I’m not entirely unguarded. My sister insists I tolerate two shadows, and of course, there’s you.”
“I’m afraid I’d be of little help in a confrontation,” he confessed. “You’d end up protecting me.”
She smiled at the remark. “I saw you stand against Sajem after your father’s wounding. You aren’t entirely helpless. But today, I need your other skills. There are new horses for sale at a pavilion about halfway down, and I’d relish your opinion.”
“That I can help with.”
His brother’s carriage set off, and instead of the coiling road, Danzell led him to a narrow set of stairs built into the stone hill and descending between the buildings. “Are you disappointed?” she asked.
He glanced at her, unsure how to reply. “Your sister is a skillful debater.”
“She’s a woman,” Danzell said with a matter-of-fact shrug and started down.
Raze chuckled and followed. The Ezari deference to women frequently startled him, but in truth, it wasn’t any stranger than the Vales’ deference to men. “I know slavery and servitude are wrong, Danzell. The people on my freehold are capable of reason and conscience, of self-governance and all the choices it entails. No one holds the authority to steal that away from them.”
“Your arguments are personal.”
“Those are the most powerful, aren’t they? The ones igniting our passions? The trouble is I can’t provide the perfect answers to your sister’s questions. She will bore holes and find flaws in everything I present.”
“You assume she expects perfection?”
He stopped, hands on his hips as he stared at the view. “Doesn’t she?”
Danzell looked up at him from the steps below. “You realize perfection is impossible in the human world, don’t you?”
“Ai.” The word sounded tentative to his own ears.
“What would be the point of expecting something unachieveable?”
“Um.” He frowned.
“Imperfection doesn’t mean something shouldn’t be attempted. We would never advance, never learn, never take risks or achieve anything.”
“So…” He scratched his jaw. “Why send me away for answers?”
“I believe she asked for a reply. That is vastly different than a solution. She may simply wish you to consider the implications of your request with additional breadth and depth.” She started down again.
His thoughts churned as he tromped after her. The woman had reframed his impression of the Empress and bolstered his hope. “I think my reply is that the answers to those questions don’t matter as much as the choice. Sometimes we must make choices and do things simply because they are the right things to do.”
“And how do you come to your conclusion?”
He sighed. “For all the reasons I mentioned. Because I would want the freedom to choose my path.”
“As do I and as does my sister.”
“I suppose that’s why there are no wealthy slaves.” The stairs intersected a road before continuing their steep descent, and he waited for her to indicate the way.
“A detail worthy of contemplation.” Danzell pointed down the cobbled slope. “As well as the fact that it perpetuates the abuse of children and women. There are those who argue that no one—”
An arrow flew between them and clattered across the road ahead.
“The alley!” Danzell shoved him, breaking through the shock that glued his soles to the road. In four paces, they pressed their backs against a stone wall in a sliver of midday shade.
His heart pounded against his ribs and sweat beaded on his forehead. He clenched his fists to keep his hands from trembling. “Where are your guards?”
“I don’t know. Follow me.” She drew her sword and led the way up the narrow alleyway. They paused, hooked a corner, and loped uphill. “Is your blade truly for show?”
Without breaking his stride, Raze drew the jeweled dagger from its sheath. He’d rarely feared a fight, but knives were deadly, and the prospect of killing someone punched the air from his lungs. “It’s not mine, and ai, mostly. I’ve more practice with my fists or a stick. Who’s after you?”
She didn’t glance back. “Are you certain it’s me they seek?”
He left the question unanswered though he doubted anyone cared enough to kill him. Voices ahead halted her, and she veered into another alleyway, this one heading steeply upward in bursts of stone steps rutted and strewn with loose cobbles. He charged uphill beside her, feet struggling for purchase on the rough terrain and hampering his speed. Danzell stumbled, and he caught her arm.
“There!” a woman yelled from below and whistled an alert.
Raze sucked in a breath and peered over his shoulder. Four flights down, a woman and man pursued, bounding up two steps at a time. They dressed as commoners though nothing about their costly blades matched their plain attire. Neither of them carried a bow. “There are more than those two,” he warned Danzell, his wits returning.
“This way.” Danzell split from the rubbled stairs, rounded a corner, and slammed into a body. The string in the bow-woman’s fingers released and an arrow sliced by Raze’s ear. With a grunt, Danzell smashed her hilt into the archer’s face, knocking her from her feet. The woman’s head bounced on the stone alley, and her arrows spilled.
An Ezari man almost tripped over his accomplice. His sword chopped the air in front of Danzell and reversed for a lateral swipe. Danzell’s blade met his with a sharp clash and vicious peal as the steel scraped. She ceded, guiding his edge with her flat, her strength outmatched. He drove her back onto the steep stairway, and her balance deserted her, boots slipping on the litter of cobbles, spoiling her rhythm. The tip of his sword narrowed in for a lunge, and she growled with her parry. “Raze, help me!”
The dagger in Raze’s hand shook, the hilt slick with sweat. The pair of assassins who’d first spotted them continued their charge up the steps, sunlight glinting off their weapons, blades far longer than his. The woman with the bow staggered to her feet, wiped her bloodied face, and nocked an arrow.
“Raze!” Danzell ducked her assailant and leapt toward the archer, the greater threat.
Raze swung at the swordsman, well out of reach but an adequate distraction. The man advanced on him, backing him up.
An arrow pounded into the bow-woman’s back, and she screamed, hands flailing for the shaft she couldn’t reach. Her ally spun from Raze and crouched, eyes traveling the steep hillside for the hidden archer.
Danzell seized the advantage, rotated, and sliced the distracted man across the thigh. He roared, long blade lashing out. She parried and he pressed, driving her toward a building’s wall. “The stairs!” she yelled.
Raze shook off his horror and faced the two assassins bulling up the steps and rapidly closing the distance. He grabbed a loose cobble from between his feet and flung it, striking the man’s forehead and sending him backward in a perilous stumble. Raze pelted them with one stone after another, and though he failed to stop them, he stalled their approach. Behind him, steel rang, and voices grunted with effort. He groped for loose rocks among his dwindling supply, the pair on the steps storming upward as his assault faltered. Out of options, he picked up his dagger, steadied his nerves, and planted his feet for the inevitable fight.
“Thank you,” Danzell panted behind him. “Now those two.”
“Move,” a male voice ordered, brushing Raze aside.
Raze backed up and grimaced at the new face, a flash of anger tightening his grip on the dagger. Johzar’s cowl had slipped to his shoulders, his pale eyes spearing the duo on the stairs as he limped down to meet their charge. His sword crossed steel, and with a twist of his wrist, he ripped the woman’s weapon from her grip and pierced her chest. Her eyes rolled up, and her corpse tumbled like a sack of laundry to the bottom of the stone flight.
The last assassin backed down the way he’d come, mouth grim and eyes calculating the odds. He turned to run.
“Draeva,�
�� Johzar beckoned. A tattooed woman with a bow, the same one who’d accompanied the slaver to Benjmur’s wedding, nudged Raze aside. The fleeing man descended in a panic, tripping and lurching as his feet fought for purchase. Draeva slowly nocked an arrow, licked her fingertips, and raised her bow. As if she had all the time in the world, she relaxed her draw, and adjusted her stance. The man was three flights down and approaching a corner where he’d disappear.
“It’s too far,” Raze said, the shot already impossible.
Draeva ignored him, drew her arrow, and let fly over Johzar’s head. The tip penetrated the center of the man’s back, knocking him down the next set of stairs. She bobbed her eyebrows at Raze with a smug grin that clenched his gut.
Johzar grunted, the glint of satisfaction in his eyes lasting a mere heartbeat. “We need to run. There may be more.” He wiped his blade on the dead swordsman.
“Follow me.” Danzell jerked her head uphill. “You too, Raze.” Blood speckled her face, and though she narrowed her eyes at him, any censure hid behind her lips. Johzar and the female slaver inspected the nearby bodies and then trailed Danzell as she led the way higher into the city. Raze followed, uncertain of the choice but too flustered to make his own decisions.
The route carried them south toward the Temple of Souls but downslope of the sacred tower and its halls. Danzell traveled as fast as Johzar could manage with his compromised gait. They loped through the alleys and crept through a stone doorway into a walled courtyard where spindly weeds grew between the pavers.
A row of gloomy arches and derelict doors stood at the end of the narrow space, and whatever lay behind them had been cut into the hillside’s rock. Far above, the Tower of Souls soared into the white sun. Danzell led them into the shade beneath the arches, and before she knocked, she issued her warning, “If you breathe a word of this place, I shall destroy you, your families, and everything you hold dear.”
~11~
Johzar had little to lose but his own life, and the chance the Empress’s sister would make good on her homicidal threat bordered on slim. He expected to die on an edge of steel someday anyway. His back to the outer wall, he glanced at Draeva. His second seldom mentioned family, and if she had one, never revealed their location, even to him. She knew how to keep secrets, both her temperament and reason within her control.
Legacy of Souls (The Shattered Sea Book 2) Page 6
