Sasha grinned at him, twirling her stanch. “You see? Much better.”
“I'd never thought of doing it like that,” Rodery conceded, repeating the steps. “The timing's complex.”
Sasha shook her head impatiently. “No, there's no complexity in svaalverd. Look for the simplicity, every time. It's just basic balance, see?” She demonstrated the six basic stances that every five-year-old learned. “And the balance dictates the stroke, see? It's all the same thing. Kessligh tells me that improving at svaalverd is a constant quest to make everything as simple as possible. There's always one thing that drives everything else. Look for it.”
“But…” Rodery shook his head, with a spreading half-smile. “But there's so many things…”
“Ele'sherihl,” Sasha told him.
Rodery winced. “Wait, I know that, that's…um…”
“Study your Saalsi!” Sasha said in exasperation. “Petrodor is full of serrin and they could all talk a stone to boredom! Ask them a question, they'll go on till sundown! Ele'sherihl means ‘the product of many things’…terrible translation, of course, but if you learn the tongue you'll realise how it works. Some things are made that are made up of many things. Like a boat-the hull, the mast, the sails, all are made separately. But, once completed, it's just one boat. Ele'sherihl. When you fight, make each stroke just one stroke, not a combination of feet and hands and torso. One thing. Simplicity. That's the key to svaalverd.”
There came a thud from nearby and a cry of pain. Sasha looked and found a teenage girl clutching her arm. Liam, her opponent, looked exasperated.
Sasha strode over. “Liam! Go easy! The object is to help her improve, not break her bones!”
“I'm okay,” the girl protested, shaking her arm. It was Yulia, a slight girl a little shorter than Sasha. She wore her auburn hair in a ponytail and her banda looked a little too big for her. She'd only started attending the training regularly after Sasha had arrived in Petrodor. “It's not bad.”
“It was a simple move!” Liam protested. “It's not my fault if she's no damn good!” Yulia, to Sasha's disappointment, only stared at the ground. Damn it, was she the only human girl in Petrodor prepared to fight back?
“Would you beat up a child?” she asked coldly.
“Look…” Liam turned to face her, slinging his stanch over his shoulders with a swagger. Cocky, like so many young Torovan men. “She's not a child. She has fifteen summers. And for that age, she's pathetic. Or are you going to tell me otherwise?”
“She needs work,” Sasha retorted. “So do you. Girls in this city don't have access to male umans, and they're usually the ones who can fight. And, what a surprise, I find girls aren't made to feel welcome in the courtyards, either. No wonder they fall behind the boys when fools like you try to break their arms whenever they try to learn!”
“Bah!” said Liam, with a dismissive wave. “You make excuses like all the others.”
“You truly think women can't fight the svaalverd?” Sasha asked dangerously.
“Sure! Serrin can! And you can, you're a wild, crazy highlander, they fed you raw sheep's bladders in the crib and you grew up strangling wild wolves with your bare hands!” There was laughter from watching men. Many had stopped their sparring to observe the confrontation. “But it's not our culture! And you, you should know better than to come into Petrodor from your mountain kingdom and try to turn all our women into wild amazons like yourself-”
“Ha, you're just scared of women.” She could see Uman Torshai circling behind to her left, tapping his stanch with one hand, appearing to watch the argument.
“Scared of women!” Liam thought that hysterical. “Truly, do I look scared?”
“Most of you Verenthanes are scared of women. Your entire world revolves around controlling women: make them marry, make them cook, make them make babies until they burst…”
“You're crazy!” Liam retorted.
“And all sin comes from women,” Sasha continued, “and all lust, and adultery's always a woman's fault, and husbands’ tempers…all your faults! All your faults, but don't take responsibility, oh no! Just blame your mother, your wife, your daughter. You're just a spoiled little brat who never had his ears boxed and thinks the stars all circle his arse. You couldn't take responsibility for your own fart. And you can't let your women do what they want, because then who'll you have to blame all your failures on?”
It was too much. Liam levelled his stanch at her, his face flushed red. “You watch your mouth.”
Sasha snorted. She'd been putting up with this for weeks now, and she was finally sick of it. “Did your mama not raise you properly, or do you just have a really small cock?”
Uman Torshai's stanch whistled at her knees from behind, to Sasha's little surprise. She swivelled, deflecting, and smacked Torshai viciously hard across the banda. The older man staggered and fell.
“Hey!” Liam yelled in fury and swung at her. Sasha performed a simple deflection, which flowed into a sidestep and strike, hitting him across the shoulder. Another attacker aimed angrily for her head and Sasha overbalanced him with an angled parry, twisted for maximum power through the same motion of feet-through-shoulders, with a crack that sent him flying.
Torshai came back to his feet and at her, but his timing was off and predictable with anger. Sasha crushed it, sending his stanch flying and neighbours ducking for cover, then took an arm with a downward strike. Liam stood bewildered, wondering what to do. Sasha jabbed, dancing forward. Provoked the awkward parry, and disarmed him with a flick to the wrist, then stabbed hard to the midriff with her full weight of momentum behind it. Liam fell hard on his backside, clutching his wrist and stomach.
About her, all was silent. Men stared. Torshai was on his knees, holding his forearm and grimacing. The third man was half sitting some distance away, feeling his ribs. Little Yulia stood wide-eyed and aghast. Sasha held her final pose, stanch poised, and glared at them all.
“I am the uma of Kessligh Cronenverdt!” she announced, in case there was any doubt. “I am not just his plaything, whatever some may say! You call yourself Nasi-Keth, and enlightened, but I see nothing but superstition and prejudice here! If I find one amongst you who is even half my standard with a blade, I'll let you know!”
She turned to leave, tugging the straps of her banda…and found Errollyn, leaning against a post regarding her.
“Oh, very subtle,” he said in Lenay, apparently very amused. “Kessligh shall be pleased.”
From the end of the longest pier on the fishermen's dock, Sasha could see all along North Pier, where the big ships moored and cargo moved from their holds to the warehouses and back. In the other direction, Sharptooth jutted into the water, blocking all view of Angel Bay-the southernmost half of Petrodor Harbour-save for Alaster Promontory, further beyond.
“Randel Ragini was one of Rhillian's?” Sasha asked Errollyn incredulously.
Errollyn nodded. He sat with his back to the pier's corner post, facing away from the ocean's glare. Partly, Sasha thought, so that he could keep an eye on the docks, and partly because a serrin's sensitive eyes were no friends of the bright sun. He carried no bow today-it would have been too conspicuous in the daytime.
“They're not all bad, the families,” he said tiredly. He looked dishevelled, dark grey hair falling haphazardly about his face. Sasha wondered how much sleep he'd had. “Randel Ragini had a taste for serrin things. Probably if he were poor, he'd have become a Nasi-Keth. But, being wealthy, he confined himself to trading curious artworks.”
“Patachi Steiner killed him for that?”
Errollyn shook his head. “No. Rhillian offered him things. Probably the patachi found out. I don't know how…I only just found out.”
“Offered him things?” Sasha squinted at him. There were men clambering on nearby boats, preparing to set sail. They were barely within earshot and unlikely to know Saalsi even if they heard. A swell rose beneath the pier as mooring ropes creaked and groaned. Wooden hulls clunked. “W
hat things?”
“I wouldn't tell you if I knew,” Errollyn said with a faint smile. “I'm in enough trouble with Rhillian as it stands. If she finds out we talked, anyhow.”
“Things.” Sasha gazed past Errollyn to the North Pier. Heavy loads dangled in webbing from rope pulleys. Men and mules pulled carts loaded with more freight. Trade from Saalshen. Trade from Ameryn. Trade from the Bacosh, the Lisan Empire and far distant Xaldia. Trade made power. Trade made Petrodor, and the families. No move was made in Petrodor, and no blood was spilt, without it. “Rhillian offered Ragini good terms of trade with Saalshen,” Sasha ventured. “Didn't she?”
Errollyn shrugged. “It's possible.”
“But good terms to do what? Side with Saalshen against Patachi Steiner? It would be suicide. Surely Randel Ragini did not love Saalshen so much?”
“You're asking the wrong man,” said Errollyn. “Rhillian is my friend but, on some things, she trusts me little.”
“Well you're here talking to me,” Sasha observed, “so I suppose that's logical.”
Errollyn smiled, and gazed away at North Pier. “We didn't know what it would do, you know.”
“I'm sorry?”
“Trade,” he said. “Two hundred years ago, Saalshen left humans alone. We thought it unwise to interfere. Then King Leyvaan invaded and we realised we had no choice.
“And so we began trading. Petrodor seemed a good place to start-only a sleepy village back then, but well positioned on the mouth of the Sarna River with access to inland Torovan and Lenayin beyond. Saalshen knew many skills and crafts that humans did not. Our medicines were in great demand, and our steel even more so. For a while, Saalshen was influential. There was so much wealth in the trade, and every human was desperate to please us lest we stop the supply. The great serrin thinkers who led the push for trade with humans were commended. This way, it was reasoned, we could control humans without having to resort to human concepts of empire and conquest. Empire and conquest sits with us very ill. Even today, much of Saalshen remains vastly uncomfortable with our role in the Saalshen Bacosh. Despite all the good we've done, still many wonder if we did the right thing in occupying those lands and changing them as we did.
“And today…well.” Errollyn locked a bare muscular arm about an upraised knee and sighed. “The Saalshen Bacosh trades many of the items that were once only available from Saalshen. Those skills, too, are spreading. Today we threaten the families with boycott, and they merely shrug. Worse, I fear our threats of boycott are only encouraging them to make war on the Saalshen Bacosh. They feel the Saalshen Bacosh, once captured, will be ample restitution for the trade they shall lose from Saalshen itself. Trade is no longer a potent weapon of Saalshen. Some say we should withdraw trade now, to punish those who move against us…but then, we lose leverage entirely.
“I tell Rhillian every day that we do not understand humans well enough to move against them as we do. Two centuries ago, not a soul predicted what has come to pass today. Humans are a dynamic society, fast to change. Serrin are not. And yet serrin, with our superior talents, refuse to accept our own ignorance. We are digging a hole for ourselves, Sasha. Rhillian insists that it is a tunnel with the bright light of hope at the far end. I say it is our graves.”
“Not all humans stand against you,” Sasha said quietly.
Errollyn gazed at her. His green eyes were not as sharp as Rhillian's. They were deeper, more jade than emerald. But still, they were brilliant and far from human. “I know,” he said simply. “If only someone would tell Rhillian.”
“Surely Rhillian does not consider all humans her enemy?” Sasha asked, incredulously.
“No.” Errollyn shook his head. “Rhillian believes…it is the philosophical precept of the rhan'ist and the tula'shan.” Or that was what Sasha thought he'd said. Errollyn was the most plainspoken serrin Sasha had ever met and yet, when he switched to serrin philosophy, even he sounded alien.
“Go very, very slowly,” she told him.
Errollyn made a face. “It's too difficult in Saalsi,” he said instead in Lenay, “most of the words lack even basic translation. Rhillian believes that there is no problem with humans at all. She likes humans.” A massive overtranslation, Sasha knew-serrin were rarely so simple in their feelings toward anything. But such was Errollyn's style. “She believes the problem lies in human society. Buy her an ale one night and I'm sure she'll be happy to explain it to you.”
Sasha frowned. “You mean one human is good, but a hundred humans is bad?”
Errollyn smiled. “Exactly. One human is just a person. A hundred humans make a society. And societies have kings, and religions and priests, and all these other things serrin completely fail to understand.”
Sasha shrugged. “Sounds quite sensible to me. I mean, look at Master Tongren in the The Fish Head. I've only dealt with Cherrovan before as a society, and they're no fun at all. But one Cherrovan…well, he's just Tongren. A decent, good-humoured man.”
Errollyn nodded. “Rhillian believes that human societies always define themselves by their narrowest possible interests. That they are exclusive, not inclusive. She likes humans, but distrusts their societies. And so she expects no help at all for Saalshen from humans. She feels Saalshen has been too forgiving and gentle for too long. She has a good heart, Sasha, but she is convinced that the time has come for Saalshen to take hard actions and make difficult choices.”
Given what she knew of Saalshen's enemies, Sasha did not feel she could blame Rhillian particularly for that. “And what do you believe?”
Errollyn sighed. “I believe that the fate of Saalshen is in humanity's hands,” he said quietly. “Humans shall either be our salvation, or they shall be our destruction. And Rhillian, I'm afraid, may make the latter all the more likely.”
He looked up, seeing someone approaching. Sasha looked and found Kessligh striding along the planks. He wore a loose shirt, rough pants and a floppy hat like Sasha's own, but she'd have recognised that stride anywhere. His approach gave her an unaccustomed feeling of trepidation deep in her stomach.
Kessligh sat cross-legged in the middle of the pier, straight-backed and perfectly flexible, whatever his fifty summers. “I've just come from the Fishnet Alley Courtyard,” he said, without preamble. “Some of your peers were a little upset.”
“I'm sorry!” Sasha exclaimed. “I just couldn't take it any more! They say they're enlightened, but they're all bigots!”
“Bigots?” Kessligh asked, an eyebrow raised.
“Yes, bigots! They treat women like the bigots treat the serrin, or the Xaldians! And worst of all, I'm a Lenay and a woman…I know I promised I'd hold my temper, but how are they ever going to learn otherwise if I don't prove them wrong?”
Kessligh exhaled hard and glanced at Errollyn, who seemed as amused as ever. “They have been a little slower in accepting the notion of a female uma than I'd hoped,” Kessligh conceded. “It's been thirty years since I was last here. I'd hoped things had changed, at least a little.”
Errollyn shook his head. “They're worse,” he said. “The rise of pagan ideas has alarmed the priesthood. There is a campaign for morality in all the temples, including the proper behaviour of women. Petrodor Nasi-Keth are open-minded by local standards, but they are also Verenthanes. Many attend temple services. The Nasi-Keth have never tried to shove serrin teachings down people's throats, they understood that the teachings would only succeed if people were allowed to pick and choose.”
“Maybe that was a mistake,” Kessligh said grimly. “So many people can't see their own hand before their face. No wonder Rhillian doesn't see much hope in the Nasi-Keth when she sees them moving backward.”
Errollyn shrugged. “If the Nasi-Keth do not reflect the values of the local population, how can they ever maintain their support? When balancing upon a high wall, one must sway both forward and backward.”
“I'm sorry I made them angry,” Sasha said earnestly. “But people like that are always going to be angry, one way
or another.”
“It's all right, Sasha,” Kessligh said tiredly, holding up a hand. “I'm not angry at you. Many Nasi-Keth do respect you. The others just require some work.” He seemed more frustrated than Sasha had ever seen him, as if something gnawed at him, deep inside. In Lenayin he'd always seemed so calm, so certain. Perhaps Petrodor had always made him feel this way. Constrained. Limited by other people's petty prejudices.
He had left her in Lenayin, whilst she remained embroiled in her homeland's squabbles, to come to Petrodor, leaving the brewing war in the north. That had come to rebellion. She'd come to forgive him his absence for she knew that his loyalties to the Nasi-Keth were as inseparable to him as her love for Lenayin was to her. Now, however, she occasionally wondered if he regretted the decision himself.
“We have the name of a vessel en route from Ameryn,” said Kessligh. “It should arrive shortly. There's a large weapons shipment aboard. We're going to stop it.”
“You think this will win support from Gerrold and Alaine?” Sasha asked warily.
Kessligh shrugged. “I can't control that, their people will either follow me or not. We'll stop that weapons shipment because it's what we need to do. It's what I came to Petrodor to do.”
“But you want me to take a leading role?”
Kessligh gazed at her for a moment then smiled. “It would help,” he admitted. “The tradition here is that the uma's deeds reflect well on the uman. If I'm to build a following, it'll take a little more than a few bruises to some thick-skulled swordsmen in a training session.”
“Leading Lenayin's first rebellion in a century and defeating the Hadryn armoured cavalry in battle isn't enough?” Sasha asked, edgily.
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