by Bell, Hilari
If nothing else, it was time she returned to her true self. She had lived with the Suud for so long, she’d all but forgotten how to be a deghass. Soraya sighed.
“WHAT WAS IT LIKE, living with the savages?” The lady Armina bounced on the thick feather bed that was to be Soraya’s that night and many nights to come. “Do they eat raw meat? Do they run about naked? Are they really the descendants of men who bred with demons?”
The lady Armina, at least, had the excuse of being only nine. As for Governor Nehar, who had made much of the honor of succoring the daughter of the House of the Leopard and then discreetly set out to discover whether she knew what had become of her family’s wealth, Soraya didn’t excuse him at all. After learning that as far as she knew the Hrum had seized everything, he had left her to his wife and daughters.
“No, no, and no,” Soraya told the little girl calmly. “They cook their meat just as we do. They wear fewer clothes than we do, because the desert is warm, but by the standards of their own people they go properly clad. And though it’s true their skin and hair are white, as the demons’ were said to be, I think that’s because they only go out at night. And they can’t go out in the day,” Soraya added, forestalling the next question, “because their skin is so fair that the sun burns it within moments.”
“But you just said that the reason their skin is white is because they don’t go out, and now you say that they don’t go out because their skin is white. Which is it?” That question came from the lady Nayani, who was a year older than Soraya—seventeen, though you wouldn’t have suspected it from her conversation, Soraya thought sourly.
“Both, I believe, Lady Nayani, growing from—”
“Oh, call me Nayani,” said the girl impatiently. “And I’ll call you Soraya. We’re stuck here together, after all. I can’t believe that your own father sent you to live among the savages!”
“And I can’t believe that the lady Soraya wants to discuss such a devastating experience,” said the lady Mitra firmly. “We’ll drop the topic now, if you please. We all want to help her forget.”
Both her daughters pouted. It was the lady Mitra, Soraya thought, who wanted to forget her guest’s disreputable past. Governor Nehar’s wife seemed to be a woman who put proper behavior above all else—and living with the Suud wasn’t proper by any deghass’ standards. But Soraya hadn’t known how else to explain her whereabouts during the last year; that her father had hidden her with the Suud was the easiest, most plausible explanation. More proper, too. If Lady Mitra was offended at the thought of her living as a guest of the Suud, she’d have fainted to learn that Soraya had worked as a servant in an army camp—and a Hrum camp to boot!
Soraya knew that her own mother, wherever she was, would be just as appalled, though Sudaba would never have been as silly about it as Lady Mitra. Had Soraya once been that silly? Surely not!
She was about to dismiss the lady Mitra as completely shallow and self-centered when the woman reached out and gently tucked a too-short strand of hair behind Soraya’s ear.
“You are welcome in our house,” she said, “for as long as you wish to stay. Remember that.”
“Thank you, Lady,” said Soraya, fighting down a flash of remorse.
“We’ll get you some decent clothes, my dear,” the lady added. “Once you’re dressed, well do something about your hair, and you’ll soon feel like yourself again.”
It was kindly meant, Soraya told herself, trying not to grind her teeth. But she had a feeling that in a few days, far from “feeling like herself,” she’d be going mad from boredom and exasperation. She was halfway there already!
SORAYA DIDN’T GO MAD from boredom, though it was a near thing. She’d forgotten how tedious it was to do nothing but gossip and embroider, and in a city under siege it was impossible to hunt or to ride out. At least Mitra ascribed the clumsiness of Soraya’s embroidery to lack of practice instead of lack of talent, which was the truth.
The thing that saved Soraya’s sanity was her promise to spy, for there were shreds of interest mixed into the gossip.
Armina was filled with youthful determination to beat those wicked Hrum—preferably by going out on the walls with her father’s big sword and leading the guards to victory herself. This seemed a normal and proper ambition to Soraya, at least in theory.
But Lady Mitra scolded Armina—and not for her unladylike blood thirst, which was why Soraya’s own mother had scolded her for similar fantasies about fighting the Kadeshi. Lady Mitra’s lectures focused on charity, kindness, and not hurting other people, which to Soraya seemed an odd attitude in a city that had been under siege for so long. And Sudaba’s lectures, at least when Soraya was nine, had held an undercurrent of indulgence: She’ll grow out of it soon enough. It was only when Soraya didn’t outgrow her tomboy ways that the disapproval had become firmer. Lady Mitra’s reproofs sounded more serious, and more nervous, than they should be. And charity, kindness, and not hurting other people were qualities conspicuous in their absence when she described the local craftmasters’ wives who passed for society here in besieged Mazad.
But that was a small hypocrisy, which Soraya would have ignored if it hadn’t been for Nayani’s hints. Like Soraya—only a year ago?—her main ambition was to marry, and marry well, and behind her mother’s back she’d dropped hints that her marriage might take place sooner than Soraya would think.
Soraya frowned in puzzlement. There were a couple of young deghans, Kaluud and Markhan, attached to the governor’s staff, but as far as Soraya could see Nayani ignored them with the proper contempt of an heiress for landless men. And they seemed to be too busy with their duties to have time for girls at all. Some wealthy craftmaster’s son?
“Of course not!” Nayani exclaimed. The two girls were strolling—in a ladylike fashion—in the enclosed courtyard at the center of the manor. The flower beds were turning brown and dormant, but the air had been scrubbed clean by yesterday’s rain, and the rising sun was bright.
After almost a year on her own, living first in the isolated cottage, then as a Hrum servant, and finally with the Suud, the circumscribed life that was proper for a young deghass felt unnatural to Soraya—like trying to cram her feet into shoes that no longer fit. This would be her life again, she realized, when the Hrum were defeated and her mother returned. She winced.
It wont be this bad, she told herself. She could live in the country.
Even in the country, a garden courtyard with a fountain in its center was typical architecture for a deghan’s manor, but it was different there. Remembering the courtyard in the house where she had grown up, Soraya smiled even as her heart ached. Except when her father had important guests, it had been full of gardeners, grooms sitting out to polish tack in a good light, maids fetching water or gossiping while they folded clean clothing or linens … When Merdas escaped his nursery, the stables were his favorite destination, but the courtyard was his second choice.
The courtyard within the walls of Governor Nehar’s manor was smaller than that of Soraya’s country home; in the crowded confines of a city, such courtyards were a rare luxury. But it was the silence of the place that struck Soraya. Perhaps Governor Nehar’s servants chose to remain indoors. This sunny morning was cold enough that she and Nayani wore cloaks, and no one wanted to be outside in the afternoon rains that were now falling with dreary regularity—none of them, Azura be praised, as wild as that first storm had been. Soraya wasn’t sure if that was because her control had returned once she was safe, or if she’d simply imagined that that other storm had responded to her shilshadu, or if being inside helped dampen any effect her shilshadu might have—but whatever it was, she was grateful.
“The world has been overturned, Soraya,” Nayani continued. “But that doesn’t mean a deghass should forget her place. A craftsman’s son?”
Her tone would have suited the idea of marrying a Suud barbarian—but perhaps all ineligible men were equally ineligible in Nayani’s eyes. Nayani was the kind of proper young
deghass that Sudaba had approved of, and for the thousandth time Soraya was grateful that her father had taken an interest in raising his daughter. Thinking of her father hurt less now, but it still hurt, and Soraya dragged her mind back to Nayani’s gossip.
“So who are you marrying?” she asked. “I suppose if the Hrum send back all the slaves they captured there will be a few deghans among them, but none of them is going to be rich. Not like before.”
“There are other ways of gaining wealth,” said Nayani. “High-ranked army officers often got rich raiding the Kadeshi.” She giggled.
This was the kind of gossip that had always bored Soraya silly. “Well, all the army officers left in Farsala are here in Mazad. And none of them look rich to me.”
“Then I’ll just have to learn Hrum, won’t I?” Nayani giggled again.
Soraya caught her jaw as it started to sag. “But what about the rebellion? If Farsala succeeds in resisting the Hrum—”
“Soraya, you can’t believe that peasants can resist an army that defeated deghans. The world has changed. We have to … well, everyone has to do what they can, I suppose. And it’s not like … I mean, I wouldn’t marry too low. The stable boys are definitely out of consideration.”
If Soraya pushed now, Nayani would pretend it was a joke—so Soraya pretended it was a joke as well, though she couldn’t bring herself to laugh.
How could a deghass, even one as shallow as Nayani, agree to marry an enemy? Soraya’s whole heart revolted at the thought. But really, what choice did Nayani have? By deghass standards there was no one left worth marrying except one of the Hrum. To marry, and marry well, was what a deghass did.
A deghass was also supposed to obey her father or husband and take his loyalties as her own. If Soraya’s father had gone over to the Hrum, instead of defending Farsala to the death as his honor demanded, would he still be alive?
Her heart tightened with pain. Given the choice between seeing her own father alive and dishonored, or honorable and dead …
That choice had been given to her father, not to her, and he had made it. But if he’d decided differently, Soraya knew she would have married anyone she had to in order to support him.
Azura be praised, she’d never been faced with that. And maybe she was wrong. This whole supposition was based on no more than an offhand comment and a giggle.
LATER, IN THE WARM solarium where the women gathered to embroider while the rain fell outside, Soraya mentioned that the Suud had traded with the Hrum, and that the Hrum, hoping to smooth the path of trade, had given the Suud much information about themselves.
It was easy to bring the subject up, for the Hrum were attacking the walls that afternoon. Nothing was audible over the drumming of rain on the roof except for a distant roar, which rose and fell unexpectedly, and Nayani told Soraya that the Hrum attacked “all the time now.” Still, it was impossible to think about anything else.
When Soraya started talking about the Hrum, Armina decreed that the Suud who dealt with them were traitors, “’cause no one should help the Hrum at all.” But both Nayani and Mitra instantly set about picking Soraya clean of all the information she admitted to having about the Hrum.
Soraya was grateful for the warmth of the fire, even though her growing chill sprang from the heart rather than the flesh. Had Nehar really agreed to wed his eldest daughter to a high-ranking Hrum officer?
• • •
NOT WANTING TO MAKE them suspicious, Soraya waited until breakfast two days later before telling Mitra that it was time she went to see how the Suud were faring.
Mitra grimaced. “Must you, Soraya? It seems so … I mean … they’re Suud.”
“They sheltered me from my father’s enemies, and after the invasion they kept me safe from the Hrum, even though my father could no longer pay them,” said Soraya. “I cannot abandon them in a strange city without sometimes going to see if they need my aid. It’s a matter of honor. Isn’t it, Governor?”
“Hmm? Ah yes, I suppose.” Nehar spoke absently, his attention divided between the document he was reading and his plate, which was filled with slivers of honeyed ham, groats with raisins and sweet curd, and an apple pastry of which even Soraya had taken a second helping. His chef was excellent. Sudaba would have approved.
Mitra frowned, but her husband’s consent was sufficient for Soraya. She fled the table as soon as the meal was done, donned her cloak, and left the house without even stopping to change into street wear. Mitra was kind to Soraya, treating her as if Soraya really were a member of her own family, but she kept finding subtle ways to try to “save” Soraya from the bad influences she’d been exposed to. It would be like her to come up with some errand or event and insist on Soraya’s presence—which as a guest she couldn’t refuse.
If you didn’t know about the siege, Soraya thought, the cobbled streets, with their shops, houses, and work yards, would look quite ordinary. But even someone not trained in the Suud’s magic might have picked up the underlying tension that escalated the quarrel between a woman who’d thrown a bucket of wash water out the door and the man whose boots she’d splashed. The bargaining at the butcher’s shop lacked its usual aggressive good cheer. The price they settled on as Soraya passed seemed high to her, leaving the buyer sullen and the butcher himself not very happy for a man who’d just gotten a whole brass foal for a pound of chopped … something. The name of the meat was never mentioned, and Soraya thought that odd too.
Compared to the governor’s mansion the house attached to the smithy seemed small and shabby. When the woman who answered the door saw the subdued gleam of Soraya’s robe under the fur-lined cloak she stiffened, but when she recognized Soraya her alarm faded into a smile.
“Come in, Lady, come in. Master Tebin told me you’d be coming to check on your friends.”
“Are they doing all right?” The Suud were more capable of looking after themselves than Soraya had admitted to Nehar’s family, but she did worry about them.
“Well, one of them, that lad Marib, picked up a minor burn the other day. But that’s common around here, and it wasn’t bad enough to be sending for a healer. They’re getting on well with the other men.” The woman led Soraya into the house and back to the kitchen as she spoke. “And Kavi explained to the younger apprentices that playing tricks that would lure the Suud into the sun could really hurt them, so even those imps are behaving better than usual. Can I offer you bread and tea, Lady? Both are made, since it’s all we’re having for mid-meal. The commander asked the townsfolk to start rationing themselves, voluntary-like, and Master Tebin agreed.”
“I just ate,” said Soraya, and watched the woman’s face fall. “But tea would be welcome. Did your daughter get her clothes back? I asked the servants to return them.”
“They did, and thank you for thinking of it, Lady.” She handed Soraya a steaming mug. “I’ll go and get the master for you now.”
Tebin was awake? But when the woman returned, it was the peddler who accompanied her.
“Tebin’s attaching a hilt and can’t be interrupted,” he said, coming in and taking a seat across from her. His gaze rested on the rich silk of her gown, and his lips tightened. His own clothes were sweat-stained and dirty.
“I thought you were going to work when the Suud did,” she said. “What are you doing up this early?”
“We’ve found the Suud are all right on their own at night—we’ve just set a few journeymen to help them. For making swords it works best if the rest of us start the blades in the afternoon, so they can work shilshadu magic on them in the evening. Then we can attach hilts and do the sharpening the next morning.”
Soraya’s eyes widened. “You’re actually making the swords? Watersteel?”
“Of course.” He was trying to sound casual, but a smile tugged at his lips, and crept into his voice as he went on. “We’ve the beginnings of a fine armory. It was only a matter of getting the lads who can … can talk everything into swimming the right way while the blades cool, and p
utting them together with lads who can actually make a sword. In fact, I’m beginning to think there’s a trick to the cooling that would make things swim the right way even without someone Speaking to the steel.”
Since he couldn’t make swords, the search for that secret was probably why he was up early—but his presence would save Soraya some time. She had thought she’d have to write the commander a letter.
“I think that Governor Nehar has promised his eldest daughter in marriage to a high-ranking Hrum officer,” said Soraya. “That’s what I came to tell you, so you could pass it on to Commander Siddas.” She went on to describe what she’d heard and what she’d deduced.
“That’s it?” said the peddler when she finished. “That’s all you’ve got?”
“I’ve only been there for six days,” Soraya protested. “And what do you mean, ‘all’? He plans to marry his daughter to the Hrum—to make a blood alliance!”
To a deghan there was nothing more binding, more important, than a blood alliance. But she wasn’t talking to a deghan.
The peddler snorted. “We’re still getting news from the outside, you know. Peasants in villages all around Mazad are sabotaging the Hrum every way they can, despite Garren’s taxes and his threats. Commander Jiaan is fighting battles with the Hrum in the desert. And you’ve telling us wedding gossip about Nehar allying with the Hrum? That was obvious the moment we learned he was going to betray Mazad!”
“What do you mean, ‘we learned?’” Soraya demanded, “I was the one who learned he was a traitor in the first place. I told you about it!”
Astonishment swept over his face. He’d forgotten that—Golbad, djinn of envy, take him.
“Yes,” he admitted. “You did. I suppose it’s different now that you’re back with your own folks.”
“What do you mean by that?” Soraya demanded. “I said I’d spy, and here I am. With news!”
“Not much news,” said the peddler. “Seems to me that when you were spying on the Hrum you were willing to take a chance or two.”
