“What are you doing, kissing? Get to work!” Gorgen had followed them through the door. Now he grabbed the belt around his waist and wiggled it, threatening to take it off and use it as a whip. But then he turned away and walked down the steps to the Big Kitchen. Slaves worked there all night long, and there was always tea on the fire. Once he was out of earshot Mina grabbed Rushes’ arm and leaned in again.
“Some of us meet in the root cellar at night. Mylo the delivery boy, he goes out into the city and meets the priests. Then he brings their Stories to us.”
“What priests? Who?”
“You’ll see,” said Mina. Then she followed Gorgen down into the Big Kitchen.
Rushes shoveled coal into the fireplace. There were a few gods in the pantheon who did not have a temple in the palace. Meksha, of course, the goddess of fire, kept hers deep in a distant mountain, and Ghesh had no temple at all; but she could not think of one that fit the words kind or forgiving. That was the sort of god most people would find weak, but it made her feel warm even before she set flame to the fuel. Beyon was gone and could not forgive her for rejoicing over his death, but perhaps Mina’s god could. Rushes sat before the glowing coals and listened for Mina’s return. After a minute Hagga came in and picked up her dough as if she had never left it. Voices and the smell of roasting meat rose up from the Big Kitchen.
At last Mina came up the steps carrying a pot of greens. She placed in on the hearth to keep it warm and looked down at Rushes. “Will you go?”
Rushes gave a little nod, and Mina smiled. “Good.”
Slaves from the lower floors, male, female, young, old, gathered on barrels filled with pomegranates and pickled lemons, on clay pots filled with honeycombs and on the dirt floor. Rushes looked around and counted three dozen, at least, who had come to hear the stories of the new god. They held candles close to their lips, ready to be extinguished, and everyone kept quiet, their voices no louder than murmurs. Discovery meant punishment. Being out of quarters at this hour, and in the storage area, opened the slaves to accusations of theft and worse. Already a boy she did not recognize had eaten halfway around one of the best winter apples, set aside for the empress or the empire mother. Where would he hide the core, she wondered.
The silence deepened, and all heads turned towards a tall, copper-eyed man standing below the drying rack. He was handsome and young, with skin the colour of tea. When he smiled, a rush of gladness went around the room. Rushes thought the new priests could not have picked a better messenger than Mylo. His voice came soft and friendly when he spoke, humble but confident. “Welcome, everyone. Today I learned a new story. I learned the story of the living god and the servants of the fruit seller.”
Mylo told the story of a god who asked for shelter at the home of a wealthy merchant. The servants there were ill-treated, and once realising He was a god, begged Him to help. The god told them that he would leave in the morning, and that anybody who chose to leave with Him would be free from harm. But in the morning, He also invited the merchant to leave. The merchant refused, for his house was beautiful and he had many comforts; so before the god left, He struck the man blind and dumb.
Afterwards, Mina nodded and said to herself, “A wise tale.” Others seemed to agree, frowning and thinking very hard about the story and its meaning. Rushes kicked her feet against the crate she sat upon and waited. The story did not feel finished to her.
“Here is someone new.” All of a sudden Mylo stood over her, smiling down, and Rushes leaned back. She liked to look at him, but only when he was standing far away.
“This is Rushes. She’s from the Little Kitchen,” said Mina. “How did you like our story, Rushes?”
“Well…” Rushes looked at Mina, who nodded, brown eyes kind. “When the servants followed the god, where did he lead them?”
“Into the light, Rushes.”
“Where is that?”
“The light,” said Mina. “Knowledge. Wisdom.”
Rushes looked down at her slippers. They were grubby from the cellar floor, and now she would have to stay up late to clean them. “I’m sorry I didn“ t understand.”
Mylo put a hand on her arm, smooth and soft for a delivery boy. “Don’t be sorry,” he said. “I am a poor teacher. But the austere has arrived and he will lead us to greatness. When you come back, you’ll see.”
Rushes didn’t know if she would come again. She was frightened; every time she heard a noise she thought it was Gorgen, or Back-door Arvind, coming to discover them. She was certain they were not allowed to meet like this, in secret, after most of the lanterns had been put dark for the night. She wondered if this was the sort of thing Empire Mother Nessaket might want to hear about, but she could not imagine that it was. These were not nobles, viziers, or generals.
Mina took her hand and they readied to leave, but Mylo stopped them, an easy smile on his face. “Rushes,” he said, “Are you a merchant, or a servant? The first time a person comes, they get to choose.”
“I’m a servant, of course,” she said.
“Well, yes, you serve the silk-clad, but that’s not what I meant. A merchant needs to be forgiven, while the servants are innocent.”
Rushes frowned, thinking of Gorgen. “How do you know? The servants could be all sorts.” This brought a laugh from Mylo. He made a little bow, his dark hair falling forward over his face.
“Blessings. I hope you do come again before the end.”
Not sure of his meaning she did a little curtsey and hurried up the stairs behind Mina. Her stomach churned at the top, wondering if Arvind or another guard might be waiting in the shadows, but nobody was there. Her slippers needed a cleaning. When Mina turned towards her quarters Rushes ran down an empty corridor and through the Big Kitchen, ignoring the angry shouts of the night boss, and up the stairs to the little one. There she crashed into a wall of a man, dressed in silk, standing before the dying fire.
“You piece of stinking dung!” She heard the crack of his hand against her cheek, sensed her feet stumbling backwards from the power of the blow, before she felt it. She crashed into a storage cabinet, clay pots overturning, air thick with the scent of star anise and cardamom as they spilled from their containers. She slipped to the floor, stunned and dizzy, while the man came at her again, feet sharp and angry against her thigh and hip. Why? The Many had never hurt one another like this.
“Herzu’s balls, Zell! She’s just a girl.” Another man pulled the first away, hands firm along the silk of his arms. “You have had far too much to drink.”
Zell slipped from his grasp and struck out at her again, his slippered foot connecting with her stomach. She curled around the blow, the pain too intense to release as a scream. “I came for some bread and there was nobody here! It’s intolerable.”
“She’s here now, if you don’t kill her,” said the other man in soothing tones. “Come on, girl, get up and get us some bread.”
Rushes put her hands on the floor, slid her knees under her chest and pushed herself standing. She hobbled to the shelf where a loaf waited in plain view and reached for it, gasping with pain. She paired it with some olive oil upon the table and retreated into the corner. The men sat down with grunts of anticipation. Zell had a big round face and stuffed his cheeks to bursting, while the other one, handsome and thin-lipped, picked at crumbs. She tried not to clutch her sore stomach as they ate. She knew that she needed to listen and remember, to carry their words to Nessaket, but she was frightened.
“The slaves in the palace are not of the same quality as elsewhere, Nadeen,” said Zell, tearing off a piece of bread, “The problems began with Emperor Beyon and continue to this day.”
“Do not speak ill of the emperors, heaven’s light be upon them,” Nadeen glanced around for anyone who might be listening.
“In my home the slaves are ready to serve me at any moment, do anything. They would eat poison if I asked them to.”
“That sounds like a waste of money.”
Zell laughed, a stac
cato noise that made Rushes jump. “It’s the point of the thing. Obedience and respect.” He turned, his eyes searching the shadows until he found her. “Come here, girl.”
She came forwards, her heart beating in her throat. If I had a luck stone, things like this would not happen to me.
“When you see me again, what will you do?”
“I will give obeisance, my lord, and do as you ask.”
“You see?” Zell said, “she has learned her lesson.” He looked her up and down as if she were a horse on the plains and then ran a hand up her serving-dress, along her thigh and hips. “Here, now,” he said to Nadeen, “look at this young skin.”
Without thinking she stepped backwards, out of his reach, and his face twisted in anger. “Come here,” he said, “or I will beat you worse than I already have.”
She glanced at the other man; he had helped her before, but now his eyes burned with a strange fascination. She took another step back. “My lords, please, I-”
Zell stood so quickly that his chair flew out across the floor. He stepped towards her, menace written over every inch of his tall frame. “Come,” he said, “Here.”
Help me! She cried to the Many, but only silence replied.
But a voice came from the door, clipped, with hard consonants and long vowels. “What is happening here?”
A man dressed in a cloak of dark blue stood in the doorway. Behind him, in the corridor, a host of men with swords looked in, including General Hazran. She shrank back, her stomach hurting not from the blows she received but from shame. Hazran had always been friendly, but what would he think about her now, alone in the kitchen with two men? Zell had touched her-had he seen it?
Lord Zell turned with a snarl. “You-Fryth garbage,” he said to the man in blue, “You stink of defeat, yet see fit to ask me what I am doing? I, a lord of Cerana?”
“Then let me ask,” said General Hazran, and the man in the doorway- the Fryth man-moved aside to let him through.
“This slave is insolent.” The lord laid a hand on the hilt of his dagger. “I have every right to deal with her.”
“When you insult the quality of palace slaves you insult the emperor,” said the general, jerking his head towards the men behind him. The soldiers looked tense, ready to move, and the Fryth man had raised his thin sword from its scabbard enough for its steel to glimmer in the firelight.
Lord Zell looked each man in the eye, considering. “You will draw steel on me, for this slave and this Fryth?”
Hazran took a step forwards. “I am charged to protect the emperor, from insult and injury alike. And this Fryth lord is my charge.”
For a moment no-one spoke. Rushes backed into a corner, wishing she could disappear. She knew that this was no longer about her; it was about respect, order, hierarchy. Things over which free men could fight. Somewhere in the distance, a baby began to cry.
“A misunderstanding, then.” Lord Zell leaned back and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I hope you will overlook my error.”
“I will overlook it, this once, if you will leave and allow us the use of this table.”
The legs of Nadeen’s chair screeched against the floor as he pushed it back. He had been so quiet that Rushes had forgotten him.“Blessings of this night upon you, general.” Zell stepped away.
Hazran lowered his head. “And upon you.”
Lord Zell and his friend descended into the Big Kitchen. Hazran sighed and leaned against the water-tub. “Some fresh bread, girl, and wine for our guests.”
He was not angry with her, then. Rushes moved towards the shelves, but flinched when the Fryth man laid a hand on her arm. He touched her gently, but she wanted him to stop nevertheless. “She’s hurt,” He said to the general, “I’ll get the wine.”
She found the envoy’s behaviour strange. One would think him a servant himself and yet they said he was the grandson of the Fryth ruler. It made her wary. A silk-clad could behave any way he liked, but she could not risk appearing lazy. It would not be said of her that the envoy had served himself. As they both moved towards the cupboard she remembered the morning’s wine had not yet been brought up from the root cellar. “I’ll get the wine from below,” she said, “my lord.”
A man with hair as light as the sun pushed his way between Hazran’s men and walked across the room. He looked straight ahead, taking no care of the table and chairs, as if he had been in the Little Kitchen a dozen times before. He wore the robes and patient expression of a priest but held about him also a glint of determination, or else love. It drew Rushes in, wondering which it might be. “No. You need to rest,” he said after looking at her a moment with bright eyes, and under such a gaze she could do nothing but agree. “I will get the wine. I believe that if I keep going down stairs I will find it. Is that right, child?” His Cerantic was good, better than his companion’s. He walked towards the stairs.
“Austere-” said Hazran, but the man had already gone, in the same direction as Lord Zell. He was not the sort of man to be stopped by a word in any case. Five soldiers followed him, three Fryth and two Cerani, a deadly train. She remembered Mylo and the others, possibly still in the cellar, talking about Mogyrk. If Hazran’s men found any slaves there, eating apples or…
Austere. He was the man Mylo had mentioned. The one who would lead them to greatness. That was what she had seen in him. She looked down into the Big Kitchen, but he had passed from her view.
She turned from the stairs, took the half-eaten bread from the table and laid out a new loaf. Great happenings were not her concern. She would be a slave no matter what else might occur, just as she was a slave before and after the Pattern. She could only hope that if she pleased Empire Mother Nessaket she might end up upstairs, instead of in the kitchen.
Hazran motioned towards the table. “Please, Marke Kavic. Sit.” The Fryth lord sat down, and Rushes retreated to the corner, out of sight. One of the soldiers in the corridor motioned to the general, and Hazran walked out to speak with him.
She looked at the marke and found he was watching her. “You’re a quiet one,” he said, “How long have you been here?”
“Two years, my lord. Maybe three.” She tried to remember how young she had been when Beyon handed her that honey candy. That had been an age ago, viewed through a veil of shapes and blue lines.
“From where in Fryth did they take you? How?” There was something odd about how he said it, an angularity to his words that it took Rushes a moment to recognize. He had spoken in his own language-in her father’s language. She remembered only bits and pieces of her father-the smell of pine, the patches on the knees of his leather trousers, the way he sang under his breath when he thought no-one was listening. And his eyes. They had been blue. Rushes gathered herself and tried to find the Frythian words that would tell the marke she was Clan, from the grass, but at that moment Austere Adam returned.
The priest held a bottle of wine in each hand, the soldiers still trailing behind him. There was no sign they had discovered anything amiss. She rushed to fetch the men a pair of plain, sturdy goblets. The priest accepted them, sat down and spoke to Marke Kavic in a low voice.
“It is as I feared. Our countrymen are still on the road, war prisoners, to be made into slaves.” He motioned towards Rushes and she pressed herself into the corner, wondering whether he had seen Mylo in the cellar after all. As the delivery boy Mylo could talk to people in the city, find out who was on the roads. But why? Adam cleared his throat. “The peace negotiations have not affected Cerani plans in this regard.”
“Then we will ask for their return.”
The austere opened a bottle of wine and poured before speaking again. “What about all that you said on the road? The pain of a few for the freedom of the many. Sacrifices for the peace…”
“Whatever I said before, now I say that we will ask for all we discussed. The prisoners. Reparations. Everything.” Kavic took a gulp of wine.
Adam said nothing, but he gave a chilly, mocking smil
e, as if he had won a game against someone he did not like. Where before he had looked a kind and capable priest, now his expression resembled Lord Zell’s. She pressed herself even further into the corner, but as she watched the austere’s face transformed again, became the same calm, patient mask she had seen when he first entered the room. Empire Mother Nessaket would want to know about this man. She would be the one to tell her.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SARMIN
Sarmin sat in the Petal Throne, out of sorts, tormented by what might be imagination or might be memories of the night’s wandering. The cushions he had made them place rendered the seat bearable, but hardly comfortable. They softened the contours of silver flowers and twisting stems where they rose above the stonework. Azeem had bitten back his complaint when the slave girls brought the cushions, but Sarmin heard it none the less.
“Should I always suffer on the rack that tradition has set out for me?” Sarmin had asked him. “Seventeen years forgotten in a small room were not enough? Now I must put any stray heir to the Knife, and twist about in a chair made to be easy on the eye rather than on the behind?” Azeem offered nothing to displease him and yet the man grated on Sarmin, despite or perhaps because of the fact that the vizier’s personality came closest to his own of all the court. The key to it though was of course Azeem’s view of Grada. Honest or not Sarmin would hear no more of those opinions.
The throne room held the usual ensemble of place guards, sword-sons of Sarmin’s personal guard and courtiers who attended him. He had picked for this meeting not men he liked, or in some cases even knew, but men used to the politicking of empire, men who commanded troops or governed regions at a level that required their close and daily attention. They sat in a row on the third step of the dais, tradition dictating an uncomfortable afternoon for them too.
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