by Zoe Marriott
Someone – Anca, of course – had tipped the gourdin off about Stefan and Rashna. Fortunately some of the Rua servants at the palace worked for the resistance, and after Rashna was caught, they hid Stefan and were able to smuggle him out. That was the only reason he had survived.
Deo shook his head. “I probably escaped the same fate as Rashna because Anca was hoping to get more information from me while I still trusted her. I knew we had to get you out of there as soon as possible, so we gathered up all we knew or could guess about Abheron’s plans for the ball, and Toril sent word to every resistance worker and fighter he knew to attack the boats at our signal.”
“You nearly killed Zahira when she got caught in the fire.” Sorin spoke for the first time, grimly. “You put her in more danger yourselves than she was facing from Abheron.”
Deo bowed his head, uncharacteristically cowed. “You’re right. I apologize for the risks we took with both of you. We were desperate, and we lost sight of you in the smoke and confusion.”
I laid my hand on Sorin’s arm when he would have spoken again. “No, it wasn’t their fault. Your plan was sound, Deo. The fire got away from you because the silk and ropes used to make the walkways and canopies had been treated with something – kirth oil, I think – that made them waterproof. It was like they were soaked with pitch. The fire could never have taken hold like that otherwise. Anyway, we’re all here, and still alive. So you succeeded. That’s all that matters.”
Sorin nodded grudgingly. I tightened my grip on his arm, and looked at Toril and Padmina again.
“The question now is what we do next. Is it safe for you, with us staying here?”
“Ah.” Toril smiled for the first time, the wide white grin bringing a devilish look to his face. “There is more to tell you yet.”
“We had news last night, just before we left to rescue you,” Padmina said. Her unsmiling face nonetheless shone with happiness. “It changes everything.”
“The alliance isn’t dead,” Deo said, his cowed expression melting away with suspicious speed. “After we left Mesgao your allies, both Rua and Sedorne, began gathering outside the town. The prospect of losing you both seems to have stirred everyone into action. Casador Fareed and Lord Elgun met with each other and hashed out a treaty between them. They’ve joined together, raised a new banner in your names, and they’re marching on Jijendra.”
“What?” I hastily put down my tea as it threatened to slop out, and gaped at Deo.
“Marching? That implies a force of some numbers,” Sorin said.
“They’re gathering followers as they come. Mostly Rua, but apparently at least three new Sedorne lords have thrown their lot in too, and brought their gourdin with them. At the last count they had a force of nearly two thousand people with them.”
I raked my hands through my hair, dazed. “Two thousand? The garrison here only holds five hundred gourdin.”
“Exactly.” Padmina sat very straight. “They’ll crush them.”
“Wait – what about Abheron’s army? The lords still loyal to him? Won’t he call them up?”
“He doesn’t have time,” Toril said, his grin spreading. “The standing army is stationed at Aroha – it’s an eight-day march from there to Jijendra, and the alliance army is only three days away. Even if he found out about the rebellion at the same time we did, there’s no way the Sedorne army could get here before the alliance. When we take Jijendra we’ll be capturing more than half of his court with it. Half of his lords prisoner! We’ll have broken any defence on his side before it can even form. His only option will be to run.”
“I can’t believe it!” Incredulous laughter bubbled from my lips. “This is—”
“A miracle,” Sorin finished. He grabbed my shoulders and kissed me hard on the lips. After a moment, he pulled back to lean his forehead against mine. “He’s finished,” he whispered. “By the goddess, he’s finished at last. We’ve done it. All we have to do is lie low for three days, and then this might all be over.”
A sudden frantic banging at the door made us all jump. Sorin and I separated hastily, but Toril held up his hand to stay us.
“No – it’s a knock I recognize. My grandson.”
Padmina frowned. “He’s not due back from the market until later.” The banging came again as she got up and unlatched the door.
A boy of no more than twelve tumbled through and fell against his mother, wrapping his arms around her waist. As the child hid his face in her tunic, the sound of muffled sobbing reached me. Padmina quickly shut the door behind him and shot the bolt, then laid her hands on his shoulders and pulled him back to look into his face.
“What is it, Jai? Come now, calm down. Tell me what’s happened.”
“The Pig! The Pig got Zaffi, and Ajeet. He got them all.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
Padmina’s gentle expression froze into one of shock and she kneeled before him, taking his face in her hands. “Tell me from the beginning,” she said seriously. “This is important. What did the Pig do? How did he get your friends?”
The little boy seemed to steady under his mother’s calm gaze. He took a deep breath, gulped back a sob, and then began. “I was playing stones with Ajeet and Zaffi and some of the other boys in the market place. It was all like normal! There wasn’t any of the things you warned about. The Sedorne stallkeepers were all there, and they weren’t nervous. Then suddenly there was shouting and screaming – and the gourdin came. More than I’ve ever seen. They came straight through the market. They were beating everyone, not just Rua, but Sedorne too. I saw a little girl, younger than me, get hit right on the head, and the gourdin hit her mother too, when she tried to stop them. They were Sedorne.”
He stopped, sniffing hard. “Ajeet and Zaffi panicked. They ran. The gourdin caught them. I did what you said, Mama. I curled into a ball and stayed really still. When they’d gone past I ran.”
I looked at Jai’s tear-stained face, feeling ill. Such senseless violence – why?
“Retaliation,” Sorin said quietly.
“For last night?” Padmina looked up from her son’s face.
“Probably. Or he might have heard that the alliance army is on its way.”
I thought about Abheron’s behaviour towards me; that flash of dark emotion in his eyes, reined back each time with a speed that spoke of iron control – and of fear. “No,” I said.
“What else could it be?” Toril asked. “He’s hitting back at us while he can.”
“No,” I repeated. “He’s too clever for that. Now is not the time to take random revenge on the people – especially his own. He needs them and their loyalty.”
“He obviously doesn’t care,” Deo said.
“Or he has something more important to play for,” I said. “We’ve underestimated him. Again.”
Sorin looked at me with concern. Where Abheron’s motivation was in question, I hadn’t been wrong so far. “How?”
“I don’t know. But he’s not finished yet, Sorin. Not yet.”
Padmina stood again, and drew her son to the breakfast table with an air of determination. “Sit and eat,” she said firmly. “You’ll feel better. We can’t do anything about what is happening in the marketplace until we have more information. One of our people is sure to come soon and tell us what the Pig is up to.”
She was right. A bare five minutes later, there was another knock at the door, and Padmina opened it to let in the Sedorne healer who had been caring for Rashna. The woman was chalk white and trembling, but her voice was matter-of-fact as she sat and told us what she had seen.
“Abheron’s gone mad,” she said. “The gourdin have raided every house, both Rua and Sedorne, on the west bank. Merchants, lords, stallkeepers, net weavers, fishermen. The whole right flank of the city.”
“Raided? Were they searching for us?” I asked.
“No. Not you.” Her gaze strayed to Jai, who was watching her with rapt attention. When she looked back at me, there w
ere tears in her eyes. “They were looking for children over two years old. They took them. Every one.”
There was silence. In my lap, my fingers curled slowly into fists.
“Hostages,” I whispered finally. “He’s holding them as hostages.”
“The people will never dare fight against him if he has their children. And he must know that if the children are hurt, people will blame us for it – turn against the resistance. That’s why he’s doing this.” Deo had gone the colour of ash.
“That isn’t all,” the woman said. “A royal proclamation went out just as I was about to come back here. He’s saying that unless Zahira Elfenesh and Sorin Mesgao give themselves up by dawn tomorrow, he’ll start killing the little ones.” She brushed a tear from her face impatiently. “My sister and her family live on the west bank. I don’t know … I’ll see to your wounded, but…”
“Then you must go to your family. Of course,” I said, realizing as I spoke how pitifully little it was to offer her. “Go with our blessing.”
She nodded at me gratefully, then got up and went into the other room.
“Abheron’s not a man any more,” Sorin said evenly into the silence. “I don’t know what he is.”
“What can we do?” Toril said, his face despairing. “Those poor little ones … their poor mothers and fathers. There’s no way to help them.”
I closed my eyes. No way to help them… I remembered the refugee children whom I had taught at the House of God: so used to fear, their bony, defiant little faces just waiting for the next blow to fall. My brothers, Kiran and Pallav – boys who never had the chance to be men. My sister, Indira, who never danced at a ball or saw the casadors fight over her hand.
I remembered my own face, as I had seen it in Indira’s mirror. A child’s face, unscarred, innocent and full of laughter. Before everything I loved had been taken from me, including my own name and memory. Children shouldn’t have to be wary and afraid. My brothers and sister shouldn’t be dead. My face should still be beautiful and innocent. It was too late for them, and for me. No way to help them.
Who am I? For the first time in weeks, that question echoed in my head. I knew the answer.
I am the reia. It is up to me…
I opened my eyes and looked at Toril. “I won’t let those children die because of me,” I said. “I won’t.”
They stared at me in shock. Then the room exploded with protests.
“You can’t mean—” Deo broke out.
“You can’t give in to him,” Padmina said, putting her arm round Jai’s shoulders. “I say this as a mother, and I would say it still, even if my boy was up there with Abheron. If these children are saved by your death, how many others will die before we have another such chance to be rid of him? He will never stop. The only way to be free is to fight him.”
“Please, Reia.” Toril gazed at me pleadingly. “Think again.”
Sorin gave me a measuring look, and held up his hands. “Quiet! For the elements’ sake, give her a chance to talk.”
“Thank you.” I drew in a deep breath. “I don’t particularly want to die. In fact, I have no intention of dying. So please stop staring at me like that.” I addressed Sorin. “Abheron told me that one of the reasons he had to get rid of you was that he was sure you would challenge him to a duel of kingship. You never considered that option, never mentioned it, even before Kapila poisoned you. Why?”
Sorin looked a little taken aback. “Before I met you, Abheron took extreme care to keep me away from him. I couldn’t get within a hundred yards, and you need to be face to face to issue the challenge. After I met you, it would have been completely inappropriate. A declaration that I intended to take his place as king – Sedorne king – of Ruan, bypassing you and your claim to the throne: a slap in the face to the Rua people, and your rights as the true reia.”
“I see.” I took another deep breath. Can I do it? What choice do I have? “Listen – I have a plan.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
Before dawn, Jijendra was swathed in shadows like ragged grey cobwebs. The rising wind harried low black clouds so that they spilled and tumbled over the paler darkness of the sky, and gales chased each other through the narrow streets, teasing shop banners and God charms until the air seemed to shriek with the noise.
My stomach jumping with tension, I pressed my back against the wall of a warehouse and peered round the corner at the deserted marketplace. The open area was carved into the centre of the west bank so that it was relatively flat, the floor paved with yellow sandstone. It seemed hugely empty without the mess of stalls, tents, carts, animals and people that normally filled it. No one would be selling their wares here today.
At the very edge of the area, overlooking the lake, a trio of tall wooden poles had been set in the stone paving. They were new – or at least, they had not been there when I was a child. I watched the royal pennants attached to their tips snap and curl in the wind, the insignia obscured by the shadows. I could easily make out the sturdy metal brackets driven into the lower portions of the thick poles. They were example arms. Executed traitors were hanged there, as a warning to anyone thinking of following their example.
They were empty now, but for how long, only Abheron could tell. This was the place where my uncle had decreed that Sorin and I must give ourselves up at dawn today. The place where he would murder the children if we did not.
Somewhere in the shadows around the square, Sorin, Deo, Toril and a handful of other resistance fighters were hidden. We had agreed that it was safer to split up – that way if any one of us was caught, the others would be free to come to their aid. But right now I longed for someone to talk to – or at least someone to hide behind. I felt ridiculously conspicuous.
A group of men came out of a nearby shop. None of them glanced in my direction, but I tensed as they brushed by, and nervously pulled the hood of my cloak further down over my face. I couldn’t afford to be seen, not until the last minute, when it would be too late for Abheron to do anything about it. I relaxed as the men crossed the path and went into a house closer to the market square.
Normally at this early hour I would have been alone in the city. Everyone should have been asleep, save the fishermen at their business on the lake below. This morning, there were no boats on the water, and it seemed that all the residents of Jijendra had left their beds early. In the half-hour since our small group had split up, a host of eerily silent townspeople had flooded the dim streets – some driving in carriages or carts, others on foot. Moving with grim purpose, they had disappeared into the houses, warehouses, shops and shadows surrounding the square.
They were here to see their children.
In the east, the sky above the mountains had been gradually growing paler and brighter. Now the glowing rim of the sun lifted onto the jagged peaks, and the first light of day unfolded over Jijendra. As I watched, there was a sudden burst of activity. As if the sun had been a clarion call, everywhere doors and windows were flung open, and people surged out to fill the road and swarm up onto the edges of the cleared market square. I was pushed forward by the press of bodies, away from my sheltered area and into the full blast of the wind. I clutched at my hood again and clapped my elbow to my side, horribly conscious of the hard points of the sword at my waist. I didn’t want anyone banging into it.
I let myself be driven up to the edge of the paved sandstone, but stood firm as others pushed around me to places in the square itself. As I was buffeted by the wind and the crowd, I saw finely dressed men and women jostle against workaday net weavers, Sedorne shifting to make way for Rua, young and old squashed together. All watched the road with the same expression of fearful hope.
“Soon. Soon…” I heard a woman whisper.
The sun rose higher, flinging out great arms of gold and pink into the banks of cloud that rolled before it. The crowd grew. More and more people streamed up to join the restless, whispering ranks watching the road, until there was simply room fo
r no more. The roofs of the surrounding buildings became packed, people jamming themselves through windows and climbing up to perch on rickety canopies to get a view of the square.
As the sun parted company with the mountains and lifted fully into the sky, a new sound reached my ears. It was the rhythmic clank and scrape of Sedorne armour: marching gourdin. Frightened cries and frantic whispering filled the air around me as a large body of soldiers – three companies at least, half of them mounted, and all armed to the teeth – came into view. The people on the road scurried back hastily to let them through, and the foot soldiers marched into the square and spread out, creating a human wall around the perimeter of the area, to keep the townsfolk back. One of them took up a position just before me. I shied away as if in fear, bowing my head to keep my face hidden.
Then Abheron came into view.
He was dressed in black. Not the fine, jewelled black of his ball costume, but the plain, slightly shabby black of a judge – or an executioner. His hair blazed in the new morning light as the splendid blood bay he was mounted on danced restively under him. As he rode past I was close enough to see his profile. It was expressionless. Nor did he look at the waiting crowd as he rode through them, along the avenue created by his men.
There was a new ripple of noise from the townspeople as the final company of gourdin passed. A Sedorne woman near by shrieked, “Ilie! Ilie! My baby!”
Everyone surged forward, displacing me and forcing me aside, but the gourdin lining the way turned on them fiercely.
“Get back!” one of the soldiers shouted. “Unless you want them to die! Go on, get back!”
Surrounded by soldiers, a little open cart bumped over the road – the kind of cheap wooden vehicle that was used to transport vegetables or wine barrels to market. In it were half a dozen girls and boys, both Rua and Sedorne, ranging in age from five to twelve or thirteen years old. Only a fraction of the children Abheron had seized. The rest must still be under guard at the summer palace.
