by Sarah Dalton
The Sister exhaled in derision. “Well call me Queen Serena, our little lady is a joker. Do you expect me to believe that a merchant’s daughter was travelling through Estala with a handmaid?”
“She was my sister,” Reva snapped. “She was not handmaid to me, but Lady Ximin in Irrinthia. She had leave to visit us when Prince Stefan’s men attacked outside Unna.” Reva could not help the sly smile spreading across her lips. “Your Majesty.”
She did not need to be gazing into Valeria’s eyes to know that they had narrowed into hard little slits. Valeria’s hands balled into tight fists, too. “Get to work, Raina. Show us how hard a merchant’s daughter can work, or I will give you to the guards for servicing.”
Reva looked at Valeria for the first time and her stomach lurched with hatred. This woman was no Sister to God. She was evil. Corrupt. Reva’s mother and father had taught her that the Brothers and Sisters of the Enlightened God were good people in possession of great knowledge about the world. They told her how they used their knowledge, along with logic and reason, to make pure and just decisions in the name of God. How could this woman wear her robes and say these things?
Sister Valeria had turned away and Reva had held her tongue, but unspoken words of protest burned at the back of her throat. At one time, Reva would have spoken up for anyone, no matter what the consequences were, but not now. In the early days of her marriage to Francis she had spoken up many times. When Francis beat the servants she stepped in. When he berated a handmaid in front of her, she berated him right back. She got the back of his hand for all those occasions. Soon enough she stopped speaking up.
It was on the second day when the girl with honey hair helped her clean the pig excrement from the animal enclosure. They wore roughspun from head to toe, with dirty footwraps for shoes. Reva had not bathed for days. She stunk of pig dung, sweat, and rotten slops.
“It’s not so bad,” the girl announced. “I’ve done worse jobs. I’ve slaughtered chickens before. That’s not an occupation you want for the rest of your life. So you’re Raina? That’s a pretty name. I’m Karine.”
Reva felt a jolt run up her spine at the mention of the girl’s name. She had not wanted to know it. Now she was drawn in. The girl with honey-coloured hair knew her name and she had a name. She was rounded and whole now, not the caricature of an annoying pest who talked too fast that Reva had built up in her mind. Reva knew too much about this girl. It was already too late to protect her heart.
“It’s admirable, this silent treatment. You’re getting rather good at it. But it won’t work, y’know.” Karine shut her mouth and carried on sweeping up the pig muck. She pushed it into a pile in the corner of the enclosure.
Reva got on with her work, too, turning her back on Karine. They had almost completed the job. After scooping up the mess from the corner and heaving it onto the cart, they had just one more task to finish. The cart would then be wheeled to the outer fields, where all the muck would be spread on the soil to make it rich.
Finally Reva caved. “Why will it not work?”
Karine grinned and leaned against her sweeping brush. “Because I hate silence. And also, because you’ll be miserable if you spend the entire time you’re here not talking or doing much else except scowling at the pigs.”
Reva eyed the nasty little one with the sharp teeth. “The pigs deserve to be scowled at.”
Karine burst into laughter at that. It was infectious enough to get a smile from Reva. “That they do, Raina, that they do.”
“And what are you two laughing at?”
Neither girl had seen Sister Valeria enter the enclosure. Reva lowered her eyes to the pigsty floor and felt a rush of heat course through her body. She hated to admit that it was partly fear as well as disgust.
The crack of Valeria’s whip came as fast as lightning, so quick that Reva hardly knew what was happening until it was done. Karine screamed as the whip sliced into her back. Reva’s body froze as the whip came down again, cutting Karine’s already tender back. With her voice clogged inside her throat, Reva could do little except stand and watch as Valeria brought the whip down again and again until Karine collapsed to the ground. As soon as Valeria turned and left, Reva dropped down to help Karine up. Both girls were crying as Karine took Reva’s hand and climbed to her feet.
“I… I did nothing,” Reva stuttered. She could not believe she had stood there and allowed Karine to be whipped like a misbehaving dog. Who am I? she wondered. Am I not Reva Avalon, daughter of Isabella and Martin Avalon? Am I not just and fair, as my mother and father were just and fair? There was a sour taste at the back of her throat, the same throat that had betrayed her when she needed her voice.
“And I would have done the same,” Karine said.
But Reva did not believe it. Karine would never have stood silently if Reva had been whipped.
“There’s nothing to be done,” Karine continued. “Valeria is the law here and her way is what we must obey.”
Reva could not help but notice the way the bright life had gone out of Karine’s voice. She was not as animated as she once had been. She sounded empty.
“Let me help you back to the hall,” Reva said. “I will tend to your wounds. Is there a healer here?”
“I don’t know,” Karine said weakly. “Maybe one of the other prisoners…” She sucked air between her teeth, wincing at every step as they struggled through the courtyard.
The girls passed stony faces on their way to the prisoners’ quarters. None jumped up from their task to help them. They are too afraid, thought Reva. All of the women and girls were afraid of the guards who prowled the grounds in their mail and swords, and the Sisters with their whips.
Their living quarters took up the stretched space between the guard towers. It was a long, thin hall covered in patches of straw. At night, the Sisters walked up and down the lines of bodies checking each space was filled, then they filed out and slammed the great doors shut, locking them in. There were no windows in the hall, only darkness, unpleasant smells, and little air. Reva helped Karine down onto the straw and removed the shredded tunic from her back. Half a dozen bright red gashes spread from shoulder to hip. Her skin looked like it had been clawed by an animal. The welts were raw, tender, and red enough to evoke a stirring of rage.
Karine looked at Reva with swollen eyes. “Is it bad?”
Reva shook her head, afraid that speaking would betray her lie.
“The wounds need cleaning.” The silhouette of a girl emerged from the doorway to the hall. When she stepped forward, Reva saw that it was Lottie, a scrawny girl in charge with organising the cleaning. Reva had already spent many an hour scrubbing floors with Lottie, despite being kept in the prison for mere days.
Lottie disappeared from the hall and returned a few minutes later with a bowl of water and rags. “It’s cold,” she warned, before gently dabbing the wounds with the cloth. “Raina, we need bandages. There are piles of clean footwraps with the clothes.”
Reva hurried to the back of the hall where roughspun was piled high on the uneven shelves. The Sisters kept a small pile of clothing at the back of the hall during the day for spares. They were not supposed to take the linens without permission, but this was an emergency. She pulled lengths of wraps from the shelves and hurried back to Karine.
“We need a poultice, but if I take anything from supplies…” Lottie trailed off with a frown spreading across her face. “This is as much as I can do.”
“You’ve already done so much.” Karine reached across to take Lottie’s hand.
Reva and Lottie worked together to wind the thin pieces of linen across her back like bandages. When it was done, Reva went to fetch Karine a new tunic.
“Why are you taking that?”
Reva’s hand snatched away from the clothing pile. She turned sharply on her heel to face a stern face. The girl crossed her arms over an ample chest. She recognised Rosa from the frown alone. The girl manoeuvred herself between Reva and the shelves.
“Karine needs a new tunic.” Reva attempted to step around the girl, but Rosa blocked her path.
Reva gritted her teeth and looked up at the girl. She was older than Reva, in her early twenties at least, with pockmarked skin and amber eyes. Rosa might have been pretty if she ever smiled, but she did not.
“Karine should not need a new tunic. Karine has been here no more than five days, like you. Replacement tunics are not given out during the first month.”
“She was punished by Sister Valeria and now she needs a new tunic. Would you have her cleaning the pigsty naked?”
The corner of the girl’s mouth twitched up in a half-smile. “And why not? At least the guards would take pleasure from it.”
“Let me take this tunic to Karine, you unpleasant hag!” Reva could not believe the words that had come from her mouth but she did not regret them. She had spoken up and there was a part of her that felt proud as a lion.
Rosa, however, turned the same shade as Karine’s wounds. “Sister Valeria will hear about this.” She pulled the tunic from Reva’s fingers and tossed it to the ground. “Karine can stay naked for all I care. You are not taking that tunic. I will beat you myself.”
There was little that Reva knew about fighting, but she knew enough to know she would lose against this girl, and Reva did not have time to fight. She stepped away from Rosa, pulled off her own tunic and hurried to Karine. Without the tunic she was naked apart from footwraps and knickers, baring her breasts and her stomach. It was her stomach she most wanted to shield. The skin was still loose from her pregnancy, and there were red scars across her stomach, lines that were akin to the whip marks on Karine’s back.
“Here, take this.”
Karine’s jaw dropped. “That’s yours.”
“It’s filthy,” Lottie complained.
“She is bandaged up, that will protect against infection. She needs to stay warm. Rosa will not let me take a tunic and is threatening to tell Valeria about it.”
Karine’s eyes fell to her feet. “I don’t want to be whipped again.”
“Take the tunic. Go with Lottie and work somewhere quiet where you can take regular breaks.”
“And what about you?” Lottie asked. “What are you going to do in your undergarments?”
“I am going to finish cleaning the pigsty,” Reva said.
She tossed the tunic to Karine and marched out of the hall, holding her head up high as the chains around her ankles dragged along the courtyard stones. This time the stony-faced girls stopped what they were doing and gawped. Reva hurried across the courtyard amidst the stares and the laughter from the guards. Her haughty walk turned into a rushed stumble as she moved closer to the animal enclosure. The little pig stared at her with its beady eyes as she picked up her spade and cleaned out the pig muck.
“You do not frighten me,” she lied.
Stefan
Stefan thought little of Xantos so far. The Golden Bay stank. Gold Port was teeming with peasants selling foul fish, tough olives, and some sort of sickly sweet date wine that he had spat onto the walkway when a merchant came past their party with samples. He knew that the Golden Bay was named after the yellow cliffs that led all the way up to the Castle of the Sun in Obara. He knew that some of the Xantis made a fortune in the gold mines along the coast. He also knew that his father had no power here, and that was something he did not like one little bit. Still, he was a prince, he was rich, and he had a job to do.
Tucked into his doublet pocket was the paperwork from his father. Behind his back were the ships from his father’s fleet, taking up almost the entire harbour. They were waiting for an envoy from the Gold Council. Stefan sneered to himself. Who called themselves the Gold Council? Xantis were pompous idiots, he decided.
Stefan waited with his guards—wafting buzzing flies away from his eyes—and surveyed the Xanti people with dismay. Their colourful outfits were brash and uncivilised. They were so animated when they talked, and always laughing like idiots. The sailors coming down from the ships practically raced each other to the tavern, gurning at market girls on their way up from the docks. Stefan could not wait to be away from them. He hated the eyeballs that turned in his direction, viewing him with suspicion. Did they not know who he was? They should know a prince when they saw one. It was disgusting to think they did not.
The rest of the battalion waited on the ships in the port. Stefan had brought General Tyca with a strong cavalry of five hundred men, and General Coren, Lord Coren’s oldest son, with archers and infantry of almost a thousand. They were strong generals, though Coren had yet to prove himself in battle. General Barca had perished in the muddy landslide at Unna, along with the majority of his men. Barca’s son needed to gather the men left over and train the younger boys up to standard before they went into battle.
Though Stefan did not know the numbers of the Menti hiding like cowards in the Ash Mountains, he was confident that he could crush them with his fifteen hundred good fighters. Father’s campaign had all but wiped out the sorcerers and Stefan himself had executed many. He was confident that the fight would be quick and easy. Especially if he could get rid of Luca at the same time. He would never get another opportunity like this one.
Mikkel did not come back alone. The Irrinthian Brother strode towards Stefan and his guards with a Xanti in tow. Stefan could not help but notice how ridiculous his Governor looked amongst the dark-skinned Xanti. Mikkel’s gaunt, pale face was a sore thumb on a healthy hand.
“Your Highness, what a pleasure it is for our fair land to have you visiting us.” The Xanti bowed low with a raised eyebrow that Stefan felt was particularly mocking. The Gold Council may have granted Stefan and his father permission to be here, but they were not happy about it. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Lord Ramsiran, Lord of Asfaro and the Golden Coast.” The man was short and bald with deep brown skin and a mouth that was dry and cracked.
“Lord Ramsiran, thank you for the kind welcome to your lands.” Stefan glanced around the port in disdain. “What a colourful and vivacious place Xantos is. If only I had visited sooner.”
“We would have welcomed it,” said the Lord.
“I am sure you would.” You would have not.
“Come. Your soldiers can rest for a while longer. I have a litter and horses waiting to take us to the Golden Castle where we have refreshments ready.”
Stefan glanced to Brother Mikkel before turning back to the Lord. “I thank you for your kind and generous offer. But as my father’s correspondence indicated, the matter at hand is urgent. What we would be extremely grateful for is a guide to take us to the Ash Mountains along with extra provisions for the way.”
Lord Ramsiran shifted from one foot to the other. “Ahh, the Gold Council will be disappointed not to meet such a distinguished Estali prince. But I did expect you might feel that way, and that is why I had my men search out a merchant who regularly takes supplies to the nomads living in the foothills of the mountains.”
Stefan noticed that the Lord avoided using the word Menti to describe the people in the mountains. He also suspected that had he agreed to join the Council at the Golden Castle, he would have become embroiled in political discussion that would have significantly delayed his mission.
Lord Ramsiran wiped his hands on the colourful tunic stretched across his distended stomach before turning and gesturing to the Xanti soldiers waiting behind them. Two of them pushed a scruffy man before them. “We believe this merchant may have even seen your brother,” Ramsiran said. “He is a merchant who travels to the Ash Mountains delivering food. Good man, though he is relatively quiet. We have attempted to get more information from him but alas, the man…” He shrugged as though unable to do any more.
Stefan regarded the scruffy man with disdain. He wore the same garb as the other Xanti merchants moving around the port, colourful scarves as belts, and a cotton tunic over loose trousers. He was perhaps fifty years old, with dark green eyes. “What do you know, Xanti?”
“He
does not speak the common language,” Mikkel said. “He is a savage.”
Lord Ramsiran bristled. “A savage?”
“Forgive my Governor,” Prince Stefan said. “He has learned many facts and languages, and read many books on many subjects, but he has failed to learn tact.”
Lord Ramsiran smiled and bowed. “Of course. We all have our little prejudices about our foreign neighbours. But it is worth reiterating that we are all friends here.” The man smiled, but all Stefan could think about was the Menti hiding in the mountains. Menti who had fought and killed Estalis and who had been protected by the Xanti until King Davead had been forced to ask for permission—permission—to eradicate them.
The merchant spoke in Xanti and spat on the ground.
“He says he saw no prince,” Ramsiran translated.
“The man knows more than he is admitting,” Mikkel said. “He is a bad liar.”
Ramsiran regarded Mikkel with a narrowed-eyed gaze of utter disdain but spoke to the merchant in Xanti.
The merchant muttered something back and Ramsiran probed further.
Ramsiran sighed. “It would seem that the merchant did take two travellers to the Ash Mountains. One of them was Xanti, the other was dressed as a Brother but smaller and Estali.”
“And now he will take us. Where is your cart, merchant? We demand escort.” Stefan stroked the pommel of his sword. He let his thumb trail over the lightning bolt carved there. Perhaps this is fate. Perhaps this is what Anios had wanted for him all along. This was his opportunity to wipe out the last of the Menti rebels, and would go a long way towards ridding the world of all Mentis forevermore.
The man spoke again in his savage language.
“He demands coin,” Ramsiran said with a grimace. “Which of course the Gold Council will cover.”
Coin? Coin? It is his privilege to escort the crown prince of Estala.
