Lance stood his ground. “She’s just a child. She doesn’t belong with the others.”
Fitch studied him, more perplexed than angry, still riding high from his victory. “What do you mean? She’s of their House. If I spare her, she’ll inherit the estate and be married off to some fat lord.”
Sara spoke up, dispassionately. “If you kill her, the Senate will vote to award the estate to whichever House gives them the biggest bribe. Her death gains you nothing.”
Fitch smiled charmingly. “Who said anything about killing her? Perhaps I’ll marry her myself.” His jest earned a laugh from his audience. “I merely ordered her to be put with the others—but when Beauty asks, War listens.” His gaze roamed her figure, seemingly not put off by the blood staining the skirts and bodice.
Lance interrupted. “If I can find Lord Garius, will you give your word to spare the—any children?”
“That’s one trick I’d like to see,” Fitch said. “We’ve searched all the rooms as well as the baths and stables. I even had a man crawl under the floor and check the hypocaust.”
Lance waited.
“Very well, you have my word.” Fitch waved a hand, indicating the open door to the kitchens. “Have at it.”
Lance stayed in the hall. The little girl had called out “Pah”—short for Papa? He studied the men kneeling against the wall, ruling out the Qiph and two others with heart-shaped slave brands. Which left four men. One, he judged too young, but the other three were over forty and could have fathered both the little girl and the older siblings. He stopped in front of the man with the fleshiest face and compared his visage with the prisoners. Perhaps the nose was the same. Lance felt a surge of frustration.
“Him?” Fitch asked, incredulous, reaching for his sword.
“I’m not sure,” Lance said. “It could be any of these three.” The hall was utterly silent. “We need to get one of the field slaves.” Either loyalty or fear kept the house slaves silent. All except the Qiph studied the floor as if searching for a crack to open up and swallow them.
But Sara shook her head. “The ossoes may never have seen him up close. Look at their hands.”
“I’m a clerk,” the man protested, sweating. “That’s why I don’t have calluses.”
Lance looked at the pampered, soft hands before him. “If you’re a clerk, where are your ink stains?”
With a cry, Lord Garius lurched to his feet. Perhaps he thought to fight or flee, but Fitch’s sword brought him up short, the tip touching the underside of his chin.
Fitch smiled. “Greetings, Lord Garius. I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time.” Menace shivered in his voice.
Did he intend to execute him on the spot? Lance’s throat tightened with guilt. The lord probably deserved it, but—
“May I speak with you in private?” he asked Fitch.
Fitch sighed. “You’re a pushy man, priest, but I suppose that you’ve earned that much.” He pushed Lord Garius to where his sons and daughters sat under guard and walked into a dining room. Red and blue panels lined the walls.
“In Kandrith, we let those most wronged stand in judgment,” Lance declared.
Fitch stared at him in amazement. “Are you speaking up in favour of that whoreson coward, priest?”
Lance kept his voice mild. “No. But if your rebellion is to succeed, you need more than supplies, you need men. How many men did you recruit on your last pass through Tolium? Five?” He paused. “There are probably over a hundred slaves working at this estate.”
Fitch lifted an eyebrow. “Half of them women and the other half have never lifted a sword.”
Lance let this exaggeration pass. “Men can be trained.”
“It takes time to train a warrior. It’s best begun as a child. Besides, what would we arm them with?” Fitch shook his head.
“I can melt down their chains into swords,” Lance said quickly. “The rest can be armed with quarterstaffs. Wood is one thing you have plenty of.”
Fitch stared at him. “You’re a blacksmith?”
“My father was.”
“Nir’s sword, man! Why didn’t you say so earlier?”
Lance felt a surge of triumph; he had the other men thinking now. “So you’ll try it my way?”
Fitch narrowed his eyes. “I risk losing my Grasslanders, if I forbid them the taking of slaves.”
Sara spoke up from Lance’s elbow. “Promise them the leader’s share of the gold.”
Fitch made a face, but didn’t reject the notion outright.
“You’ve twisted the racha’s tail with this raid,” Lance said quietly. “They’ll have to send in the Legions now. You need men.”
“And how will freeing Lord Garius gain me this?”
“Not freeing him, letting his slaves judge him,” Lance urged. “Give them that much power, and they might have the pride to take up a sword for you. Bad enough they’ve had to be rescued. Don’t rob them of their justice.”
And if Lord Garius had been kindly then he would escape with his life. Once Lance would have laughed at the mere suggestion of a kind master. Before he’d met Sara.
Fitch stared at him, then smiled blindingly. “I’ll try it your way, but if it doesn’t work be warned—I’ll take the lost gold out of your hide.” He exited the room. “Bind and gag Lord Garius and his family and take them outside to be judged.”
* * *
Fitch raised his hands, quieting the uneasy crowd of slaves. “Let all who have a grievance against Lord Garius step forward!”
Feet shuffled, someone coughed, but no one moved forward. They seemed too afraid to speak.
Fitch put his hands on his hips, looking impatient. Lance winced. If someone didn’t step forward soon, Lance was going to take the brunt of Fitch’s temper. Lance scanned the crowd for Relena; he could rely on her to speak her mind.
“Edvard!” Fitch called. “Come here!”
Edvard limped forward from the group of Gotians on Fitch’s left. Apparently unable to bear Edvard’s slow progress, Fitch pulled him over to where Lord Garius knelt on the grass.
“There’s the man who crippled you. Pronounce him guilty and slit his throat.”
What?
Lord Garius mumbled behind his gag, blue eyes wide with terror as Fitch drew his sword and offered it to his brother.
But Edvard drew back, shaking his head. “It was the other one, the fat one. He ordered the overseer to beat the ring’s location out of me, and then put it on his fat finger. He’s the one I want dead. Where is he?” Edvard limped down the line of prisoners, scrutinizing faces. He looked torn between rage and tears.
To Lance’s relief, Relena stepped forward. “I remember you, lad. You were a brave one. The one you’re talking about is Drencis, the Viper’s husband—Lord Garius’s son-in-law. Unfortunately, he’s visiting the capital.”
“No,” Edvard whispered, face ashen. “He can’t be.”
Lance put his hand on Edvard’s shoulder, but the boy twisted free and stumped off into the crowd.
Fitch cursed a blue streak.
“If you’re looking for a reason to strike off his head,” Relena nodded toward Lord Garius, “I’ll give you one.”
“I’m waiting,” Fitch growled.
“He let it happen.” She stared down at the sweating lord, dispassionately. “It’s his estate, and he let his sons and the Viper and her husband have full rein. He didn’t care. He may not have sullied his hands, but he gave the orders for us to be worked like dogs in the hot sun. Wallec, Rubio, Jenneth...none of them had to die. All they needed was a little shade and water and rest. Nor did he have to sell away Rhonwen’s girls. Always money for horses and feasts and the Viper’s dresses, never money for mercia to ease a dying slave’s last breaths.” She spit on him. “I judge him guilty.”
A roar of agreement from the ossoes. The blood slaves and heart slaves seemed ambivalent, some voting yes, some no, but the ossoes outnumbered them. A few argued to have him burned alive, but Fitch ruled the smoke would attract unwanted attention and cut the man’s throat instead.
Lord Garius looked surprised as he bled out into the dust.
Both sons and the elder daughter were similarly executed. The sons were both judged guilty of rape. The daughter, the one Relena had called the Viper, apparently liked to order whippings over infractions, often leaving the slave dead or maimed for life.
Lance thought of suggesting to Relena that being raped was enough punishment—but then he remembered Madam Lust ordering Wenda whipped and said nothing. It wasn’t his place to judge.
A few of the freed slaves called for the tot’s blood, too, but Relena’s glares and the nursemaids’ pleading shamed them into silence.
Next came the overseers. The mob gave a bloodthirsty keen when they were brought out, bound and deprived of their whips. Not one voice spoke out for clemency, nor did the hardened thugs beg for mercy as the nobles had. Fitch looked half-sorry to lose them.
The last one refused to kneel for the killing stroke. He lowered his head and bellowed, running at the crowd. But instead of scattering in fear, the crowd pushed back, swiftly bringing him down. Fists rose and fell, and then Fitch strode into the melee with his sword.
Blood sprayed everywhere. Sara wiped a smear off her cheek—something she wouldn’t have done a month before—then looked at the blood on her fingers, nose wrinkling. Her skin suddenly ashen, she bent and vomited into the dirt.
Chapter Fourteen
Lance winced in sympathy as Sara emptied out her stomach. He stood behind her and held her shoulders both to steady her and cure the nausea. “Don’t look,” he advised her.
Remorse rolled through him. It hadn’t occurred to him that the executions would upset her, but it should have. Her soul was returning, and the Goddess knew the dead made a gruesome sight, especially the daughter with her black hair dipped in blood and her staring blue eyes. A sudden thought struck. “Did you know one of them? Is that why you’re upset?”
But Sara shook her head before wiping her mouth on her sleeve. “It’s the smell.” Sara shuddered, then bent forward and vomited again. Spasms racked her slender frame.
Even though Lance was touching her.
Lance blinked, feeling stupefied. The last time he’d been unable to heal Sara, a blue devil had been attached to her soul.
“What ails her?” Relena asked, approaching from the left. “Did she catch the sickness making the rounds right now?”
“Sara’s not sick,” Lance said sharply.
Relena put her hands on her bony hips and raised her eyebrows.
Lance moderated his tone. “She can’t be sick. The Goddess would have healed her before she developed any symptoms.”
“Maybe it’s not the kind of sickness that should be healed.”
Lance frowned.
Relena rolled her eyes. “And you call yourself a healer! If she’s vomiting for no good reason, then chances are she’s pregnant.”
Lance stopped breathing, the wind knocked out of him as surely as if someone had rammed a spear butt in his belly. Sara, pregnant.
Relena didn’t notice his reaction, squinting at Sara. “She’s not showing much, I’ll grant you. I’d say she’s probably only three, four months along.”
He calculated backward. About four months had passed since they first made love.
Wordless, his throat as dry as sand, Lance scooped Sara up in his arms and carried her behind a granary, far from Relena and the sight and smell of blood. He flattened his back against the wall and slid down so that Sara sat on his lap. Tenderly, he brushed a wayward brown curl behind her ear. “Better?” he asked after a moment.
She nodded, resting her head against his chest.
Love swelled in his heart, so strong it threatened to choke him.
“Did you hear what Relena said? That you may be pregnant?” he asked gently.
“Yes.” Her voice was calm.
“Since you lost your soul, have you had your menses?” he asked, but he knew the answer already. That first awful month without a soul, she wouldn’t have bothered to clean herself or her underwear. He would have seen.
“No,” she confirmed.
It was really true. She carried his child. Terror and joy fought for dominanace in a giddy whirl. Joy won.
He kissed the top of her head, but kept his voice matter-of-fact. “Have you had any other symptoms? Nausea? Tender breasts?”
“No.”
He spread his hand on her abdomen, finding a small bump. “Any flutterings from the baby moving?” Though it was still early for that.
A faint frown creased her forehead. “I haven’t noticed any. Does that mean I’m not pregnant?”
“No, the lack of menses is pretty conclusive. Every woman’s pregnancy is different. Some are nauseated all the time, some only in the mornings, and some lucky few sail through with little or no sickness.” He took a deep breath as she absorbed that. “How do you feel about being pregnant?”
“I don’t know,” she said after another pause.
Uncertainty was better than feeling nothing, Lance told himself.
“How do you feel about my pregnancy?” Sara asked, turning her head to look up at him. Another question she wouldn’t have asked three weeks ago.
“Awed,” Lance said softly. “Happy.” A foolish grin curved his lips.
On the other side of the granary Fitch began to exhort the slaves to throw down their chains and join his cause. Lance barely heard him, entranced by the vision in his mind of a tiny sleeping baby, bundled in a blanket.
“If you’re happy, then I am...pleased.”
A short laugh escaped him. “I’m going to be a father.”
Cadwallader had told his mother she would have grandchildren, but Lance hadn’t dreamed one was already on the way.
Thinking about Cadwallader and the other ominous things he’d predicted threatened to blight Lance’s joy. Something black loomed at the back of his mind. He pushed it away. He would think about Cadwallader’s predictions later. For now he would just be happy. He cuddled Sara closer, wishing they had privacy. He felt an intense desire to strip her naked and examine her body for changes.
But Sara was frowning again. “How do you know you are the father and not Claudius?”
Sara bent over Vez’s stone mouth, bleeding from his knife-like teeth, as Claudius rammed into her from behind. Lance shook his head to dislodge the ugly image. He kept his voice calm and deliberate. “It’s more likely the baby is mine. We made love twice, and when Claudius raped you he didn’t give you his seed.” Because Lance had torn him off of her. He only wished he could’ve strangled the lordling.
Did she believe him? Her gaze was opaque.
“Sara, look at me.”
Her blue eyes fixed on his face.
“This is very important. It doesn’t matter if Claudius is the father. I will love the child because it is your child and I love you—and because babies are very loveable. Julen loves Meghan, though he is not the father. Julen is Meghan’s father now, and I will be your child’s father. Do you understand?” He squeezed her hands for emphasis.
“Yes.”
Silently, he vowed not to let the babe’s possible heritage cast a shadow on their family. Too many tim
es he’d seen rifts occur between the parents and the innocent child of rape. Sometimes the mother, poisoned by memories; sometimes the father, always looking for signs the child wasn’t his.
Ironically, the Republican lordlings responsible for the rapes never had any trouble convincing themselves that the resulting children couldn’t possibly be theirs. Lance would never understand how they could chain their own flesh and blood.
* * *
“Lance!”
Looking up, Lance saw Edvard limping toward him.
“Have you seen Rhiain?” Edvard asked.
The words jolted Lance out of the pleasant daydream he’d been having of Sara, him and a baby living in a snug little house. Guilt stabbed Lance. He hadn’t given Rhiain one thought since the battle started; she was his compatriot and deserved better. He gently set Sara aside and climbed to his feet. “I haven’t seen her.”
“Fitch assigned her to help take the field north of the villa. Willem says she chased after an overseer on a horse, but didn’t come back.” Concern tightened Edvard’s face. “What if she’s hurt?”
“Then we’ll find her,” Lance said firmly. “But we know she succeeded in running down the overseer, or we’d be knee-deep in legionnaires by now.”
Some of the tension eased from Edvard’s neck and shoulders.
Lance was less reassured. “Let’s find out if anyone else has seen her.” Rhiain would’ve reported straight to Fitch if she’d returned, so Lance headed in that direction. He measured his pace so that Edvard wouldn’t fall behind.
A pile of bodies with their throats neatly cut decorated the columned entrance to the villa. A warning for those who would find them? Lance steered Sara well clear, having spotted Fitch by the grain wagons talking to several of his lieutenants.
Fitch scowled and stabbed a finger at him. “This is your fault. I call for warriors and what do I get?” He swept out a hand, indicating the ex-slaves running in and out of the villa, gathering up their meager possessions. “Broken old men and women with babes in arms.”
Soul of Kandrith (The Kandrith Series) Page 23
