“Me?”
“We’ve known each other a long time, haven’t we, Mia? I thought I understood you pretty well, but suddenly you’re a warrior, and there’s this mind-reading business…”
“I don’t read minds!” Mia laughed, brushing flour off her hands.
“No? You can’t tell what I’m thinking, then?”
“Not at all. It’s feelings, really, and generally only if I consciously allow it. Except that really intense feelings break through, somehow, whether I want it or not.”
“Can you tell what I’m feeling?”
Mia focused her mind for a moment, then shook her head. “I’m not getting anything much. Curiosity. Nervousness, maybe.”
“Hmm. But it only happens here? In the tower?”
“I’m not sure. The tower amplifies it, somehow. I never noticed anything before we came here. I was aware of very strong emotions, perhaps, and especially here at the Ring, but no more than that. Now that I’m aware of it, I can call on it whenever I want.”
“But those – things in the tunnel, the moro – whatever…”
“Morodaim.”
“Yes, those. They knew there was something odd about you.”
“Odd? I just imagined they didn’t see many women down there.”
“Well, they took no notice of me,” Tenya said tartly.
~~~
In the afternoon, Mia was called to Tanist’s office. He planned to interview some more of the prisoners and wanted her to take notes, but he also hoped she would use her new ability to discern which of them were still hostile beneath a genial manner.
“Some of them just snarl at us, which doesn’t take any special skill to interpret, but quite a few seem eager to please, and I’d like to know if they mean it.”
“I’ll do my best,” she said. She was glad of the distraction. She had missed Hurst leaving for his visit to the tournament, and Dethin was escorting a party of scholars and some of the Nine up the tower to see the books. She had never been apart from both of them before, not since they began the journey through the tunnel, and she felt unexpectedly bereft, in addition to the prickles of concern for Hurst’s safety.
Tanist had discovered that there were two factions amongst the prisoners, the Trannatta, who were mostly there to be healed, and their bonded servants, who were healers and workers. Only one of the healers, the most senior, was Trannatta. The two groups treated each other with uneasy courtesy.
“And these servants can’t marry or have children, ever,” Tanist said, shaking his head, as they waited for the first of the afternoon’s interviewees to arrive. “Mind you, they’re all of them tightly controlled, in that respect, even the Trannatta. They have a carefully planned breeding program, matching the parents very precisely. They get sent back to the north coast to be paired off, apparently. The babies are born there, then they bring them back here to raise. So Keyramon says. They have no say in it at all. Dreadful people.”
Mia said nothing, wondering how different their own practices were. How much choice had she had when she married? It had all been arranged by her father and the Voices, and her only options were yes or no, nothing more. Such glib judgements made her uneasy. Perhaps these strange northern people had different customs, but that didn’t necessarily make them wrong. She had already had to come to terms with the very different ways of the barbarians, which were harsh, perhaps, but effective for their circumstances. She would judge people by their behaviour, not their beliefs.
Tanist had already seen the most important of the prisoners, or rather, those who regarded themselves as more important.
“Well, we can’t tell one from another,” he shrugged. “We let them decide who goes first. Then, after the interview, they go into a different room, so we don’t get anyone twice or miss one out. I’ve been on the border for long enough and dealt with enough prisoners over the years to know all the tricks they get up to.”
The interviews were tedious. One after another sat in front of Tanist and told them nothing at all. No, they couldn’t give their names, that was forbidden. No, they knew nothing of the tower, or how it worked. No, they knew nothing of the organisation of the Ring, or who was really in charge.
“It’s all so amorphous,” Tanist said in frustration, after the sixth interviewee had been led away. “The entire hierarchy we thought we knew – with Those who Serve the Gods at the top, then the Voices and so on – may not be how things work at all. The Nine are a sham; maybe everything else is, too. These Trannatta have a ruler here, a sort of king – the drash’alon, they call him – and they have a base at some craft town in the northwest. Metalwork is their speciality, apparently, and engineering.”
“Tunnels,” Mia said, smiling.
“Yes, most of their craft town is underground. They like living that way, it seems. But they are also clever with mechanical things, like the sky ships.”
“So all the gates are their idea, and the strange locks. But the stick men who appeared from nowhere—?”
“Ah, that’s magic, part of the defences of the tower. The Trannatta just added their own layers of security. But the craft town is no more than a local base. The real power is away on the northern coast. That’s where the orders come from. We can identify the Trannatta here from their tattoos, but which of them are important and which are just doing what they’re told – it’s impossible to tell. And no one will explain it.”
“I think these ones didn’t know,” Mia said. “It’s obvious they’ve been told some of what to say. So the whole business about names and where they come from – they all tell the same story, both the Trannatta and the others. But these people are all from the craft town, just here to be healed, or working here. They know nothing about the administration of the Ring.”
“You can tell that?” Tanist asked, with sudden interest.
“They weren’t lying when they said so. I couldn’t feel any guilt in them as they answered.”
“So how are we to find out who we have to get rid of?” he said in frustration. “We can’t simply send every single Slave away, the whole Karningplain would come to a standstill. It seemed so simple when we planned this – cut out the top layer of governance and replace it with our own version. But if we can’t identify it—”
“Do the scholars know?”
“Not much, it seems. The Slaves have always been secretive. And the Nine don’t know much more than us, and they devised the whole system. But it’s changed over the years. No one really knows who’s in charge.”
“We know that some of these Trannatta are also Slaves – Those who Serve the Gods.” Mia said. “They tell the Voices and the Karninghold Slaves what to do, don’t they? So they must be at the top – or know who is.”
“But where are they? We expected the tower to be full of them, but not a one to be found! The only Trannatta we’ve seen are from this craft town, not Slaves at all.”
“Or so they say,” Mia said. “Maybe they become Slaves when it suits them, and melt away into the population afterwards. It’s not as if they shave their heads. Put a gown on any one of these, and they would be a Servant immediately. But we do have one known Servant, at least.”
“Your friend Cristo – of course. Would you like to see him again?”
“Not really, but he might be useful.”
A tap on the door revealed Tenya, pushing a small wheeled trolley laden with coffee things and a plate of little seed cakes, still warm from the oven.
“Dethin asked for these for you,” Tenya said with a smile. “How did he know they’re your favourites?”
“I must have told him sometime,” Mia said, reaching for one. “Mmm, these smell so good. Want one, Tanist?”
He shook his head. “Thanks for the coffee, Tenya.”
She disappeared with a wave of one hand.
“She seems very settled here, but then she has Walst,” Mia said. “These are so delicious, I’m going to have another. Dethin’s so thoughtful, isn’t he?”
Tan
ist grunted, and she looked across the desk at him in surprise.
“Do you really like him?” he said.
“Of course, don’t you? You trusted him with this expedition up the tower.”
“Trust him? I don’t know about that. To be honest, I just wanted to get him away from you for a while. He’s always following you around, Mia.”
She stopped chewing, and put her cake down. She hadn’t opened her mind to Tanist, but nevertheless she was aware of his hostility as a quick flash, like an eye blink.
“Hurst asked him to look after me,” she said carefully.
“In the tunnel, yes, while Hurst was otherwise occupied. That made sense. But he’s still hovering around you now. It’s not normal to be so – so clinging.”
“I’m not sure that Dethin really knows what’s normal, as far as women are concerned,” she said. “He’s not had the chance to learn.”
“Oh, I know he’s had a rough time, but still… He’s an odd sort of man, Mia. His men respect him, certainly, but they’re not friendly with him. He keeps them at a distance. He’s cold, yet there’s an intensity to him – it’s disturbing. I worry about you, letting him get so attached to you.”
“Not sure I let him, exactly. It just happened. And he’s not cold at all, not inside. It’s just a wall he’s built around himself, a protection.”
“You can see that, I suppose? What he feels? So it’s genuine?”
“Oh, yes.”
“But does he love you more than Hurst does?”
She thought about that. It was hard to describe the difference, and she wasn’t even sure she should try, not to Tanist. He had no right to know such things. But he was Hurst’s father, and she supposed, as leader of the expedition, he had some right to ask about personal matters.
“I can’t compare them that way. They’re different, but one isn’t greater than the other. With Hurst, it’s like—” She scrabbled for an analogy. “—like a fire in a hearth, a well-tended fire, warm and steady and constant. But Dethin is more like a midsummer bonfire, blazing to the sky. It’s impossible to dislike a man who feels like that about you.”
Tanist eyed her impassively. “I suppose it’s no use pointing out that bonfires are more likely to get out of control than well-tended hearths? I hope you’ll be careful, Mia. Your Warlord is not a man you want to cross, and Hurst isn’t quite as easy-going as he appears, either. It’s asking for trouble, frankly. But it’s your affair, I suppose. Shall we have Cristo in?”
She was glad to drop the subject. She knew his view was the common one, for Tenya had told her so, but she didn’t want to think about the future. Time enough for that when everything else was settled. For now, she was content, and she thought both Hurst and Dethin were, too, and that was enough for her.
Cristo’s companion had already been interviewed and dispatched to the second room, but he had given them nothing of interest. He was a researcher of sorts who had been permitted to come to the tower to talk to the Nine and ask them some questions about the past. Cristo himself had been uncooperative, so he had been left in the hallway, bound hand and foot, and secured to one of the giant hinges in the outer door with some of the kitchen’s pot chains. Apart from periodic visits to the water room and the provision of basic food and water, he had been left to himself.
His hands were still tied with slender rope, intricately knotted, as he was brought in, half dragged and half carried. The warriors escorting him dumped him onto a wooden chair, and tied each leg to one leg of the chair, and then wrapped more rope around his waist and behind the chair back. He had a vivid bruise on one cheek, and a long cut across it, with a jagged trail of blood down his fine shirt. His head drooped, and Mia detected nothing but dull resentment in him. When he caught sight of her, there was a flare of fear which amused her, but it quickly died away.
Tanist had told her exactly how he intended to manage the interview. “You play the warrior girl to perfection,” he had said with a grin, “so I’ll be gentle with him. Between the two of us, we may get some response.”
“Well, Cristo,” he said in a genial tone, “how are you today? That cut has been seen to, I take it? Are you in pain? Some amber juice, perhaps?”
An almost imperceptible nod. There was something in his eyes – relief or perhaps hope, Mia thought, mingled with suspicion, of course. Tanist got up and unstoppered the bottle sitting on a low shelf, pouring the golden liquid into a measure and then into a small cup. He pushed it into Cristo’s bound hands. After a moment’s hesitation – Mia supposed he was weighing up the likelihood of poison, and perhaps deciding that he didn’t care – he lifted it to his lips, awkwardly with his hands tied, and drank it in one swift movement. A little spilled out of the cup and dribbled down his chin, which Tanist gently wiped away.
“There, you’ll feel better soon,” he murmured, removing the cup. “Are you hungry? Would you like a seed cake? Some wine?”
Without waiting for an answer he bustled about arranging three cakes on a plate, and pouring a generous goblet of wine. He held them out towards Cristo, who made no move to take either plate or goblet. Tanist grunted and put them down, hopping about the room on his good leg until he found a suitable table to set at Cristo’s elbow, so that the food and drink were within reach. Cristo eyed them, and Mia felt a burst of desire in him, but he sat unmoving.
For a while, Tanist asked him questions, gentle probing questions, which he either ignored or answered monosyllabically. She felt his anger building – dulled by pain before, she guessed, but now rekindled as the amber juice took effect. She wasn’t consciously opening her mind to him, but she could detect his feelings in little staccato bursts, without effort. And all of a sudden, like a shape coalescing out of a fog, she was aware of the jagged irregularity of it in her mind, just as Dethin had described. Without a thought, she reached out to smooth away the erratic peaks, and was astonished when his anger began to reduce a little. It was easy! She was ecstatic, and repeatedly teased at the anger until it was dulled again, as it had been before.
“Well, then, Cristo,” Tanist began, “if you won’t answer my questions, is there anything you would like to ask us?”
A silence, but his head was raised now, looking from one to the other, still suspicious of a trick. He licked his lips.
“What happened to Dondro?” he said, his voice slightly hoarse. That was a surprise. Was Dondro a friend, then?
“I’ll tell him, shall I?” Mia said, playing her part. Tanist shook his head, but his version of the tale was almost as bald as hers would have been. He held nothing back. Cristo’s eyes widened, and again she felt his fear. Almost she felt sorry for him. Almost.
A longer silence.
“Are you going to do that to me?” Straight to the point.
“Only if you oppose us,” Tanist said quietly. “We – I didn’t want to hurt Dondro, but I wasn’t in charge out there. Here, I have more say. It won’t be entirely my decision, but I will propose that those in government here be sent away, not harmed. Those that co-operate.”
“Sent where?”
“Away from the Karningplain. Your people come from the northern coast, don’t they? So you have somewhere to go.”
A sharp spasm of fear. That was interesting – more fear of exile than torture and death? Strange.
He was silent again, thinking. Weighing up his options, perhaps.
“What about those not in government?”
“What?”
“You said those in government would be sent away, but what about everyone else?”
“Ah. True, we only want to remove those in power, the real decision-makers. When we can find out who they are, that is. We always thought that Those who Serve the Gods were in charge. They lived in this tower, we were told, communing with the Gods, and handing down edicts to the Slaves. But when we arrived – no Servants. So we have to assume that everyone – all those with the tattoo on their palm – are involved.”
Cristo made no answer. Abruptly he se
emed to remember the cakes and wine beside him, and reached for the goblet, taking a long draught. Then a cake – a more difficult manoeuvre with bound hands, leaving a scattering of crumbs. Then more wine. He seemed to relax, somehow. Maybe it was the amber juice, for his eyes seemed brighter and he held his head more upright. He took a deep breath.
“I am a historian, really,” he said, his voice stronger, the accent muted a little, so that he was easier to understand. “Most days I do research – reading old documents, legal papers, mainly. Some of them date back to the Petty Kingdoms – border treaties, trade agreements, marriage contracts, that sort of thing. I am supposed to be looking for signs of magic – that is what we are here for – but I pursue my own interests as well. But occasionally I am called upon to do – other things.” A quick flick of the eyes towards Mia. “I do not ask why, I just do what I am told. Those who question orders get sent back to Dunallan West pretty quickly, and it suits me to be here.”
“Dunallan West? Is that your craft town?”
“Yes. I am not supposed to mention it by name, but you will find it out before long. The place itself is not secret, only what is below the ground.”
“So who gives you your orders?”
“Someone different every time. Always another Tre’annatha, but never the same one twice. They give me a written message. I read it, memorise it and destroy it while they watch. Then I have to do whatever it is. Twice I have been asked to give a message to someone myself. I do not enjoy what I have to do—” Again a quick glance at Mia. “—but I have to obey.”
“You enjoyed it well enough, as I recall,” Mia said sharply. “You smiled at me, you bastard.”
“That is just – how I deal with it. And you were – are – a criminal, after all. I was removing you from society. The others – your Companions – I could pity them. But not you.”
Mia felt her stomach twist with rage, but Tanist waved a warning hand at her.
“I was sorry about your baby, though,” Cristo went on, oblivious. “That was quite wrong – to kill a child like that. It nearly killed you, too. I regret that.”
The Plains of Kallanash Page 59
