“Some do,” said Errollyn.
“Truly? I've never heard of it.”
“There's much about the serrinim you've never heard.”
“There's much about humans you haven't heard,” Sasha countered.
“I know,” said Errollyn, sombrely. Tiredly. “One day, I'd like to learn more.”
Nearby, some sheep bleated. There was a pen over by the farmhouse. This near to Petrodor, it was not safe to leave livestock unattended in the fields at night. Not with so many hungry Riversiders so near.
“What are you talking about?” asked Yulia in Torovan. Her voice was small in the darkness. She walked close, thumbs in her belt, in obvious distress.
“Oh, just things,” Sasha replied in Torovan. “Serrin things.”
“Lenay sounds so different,” said Yulia, bravely. “My father thinks it's an ugly language, but I think it's pretty.”
“I've had the same argument with Lenays about the Torovan language,” Sasha admitted.
“To say nothing of the Torovan people,” Errollyn remarked. Sasha gave him a wry look.
“Is Lenayin very beautiful?” asked Yulia.
“Oh yes,” said Sasha, wistfully. “It's stunningly beautiful.”
“Tell me about it,” said Yulia, with faint desperation.
“Maybe later,” said Sasha, squeezing the girl's shoulder. “There's a road approaching. Be on your guard, we're a long way from safe yet.”
The grand gardens of Pazira House were surrounded by a stone wall, but here, away from the treachery of Petrodor, the walls were not rowed with spikes, nor guarded by watchposts. Errollyn ran first across the road and took position at the base of the wall. Sasha followed, placed her foot into Errollyn's cupped hands and was propelled upward. She lay flat atop the wall for a moment, searching the ground below in the dark, and then jumped, landing on soft grass.
Yulia came second, and fell heavily as she landed. Sasha helped her up, but the girl refused attention. Liam and Errollyn followed.
Ahead, its outer walls lit with lamps, stood Pazira House, a grand mansion of three floors and several turrets. The turrets, Sasha had gathered, were only ornamental-this was a house for living, not a castle for defending. All of the Torovan dukes owned such properties about Petrodor.
Sasha took a stone from the garden and followed Errollyn between tall, trimmed hedges. Beneath the branches of some tall trees, Errollyn gestured them flat, and Sasha pressed herself against a tree trunk. She heard a dog bark somewhere across the gardens, but the wind was blowing into their faces and the dogs would not smell them. Not immediately, anyhow.
Errollyn gestured them up once more and they moved into a maze of waist-high hedges. They stayed low and finally arrived at a wide courtyard with a long, rectangular lake. The house loomed nearer, its outer lights reflected in the dark water between lilies. Sasha could see guards by the main doors, with still more patrolling the perimeter. Soft footsteps approached alongside the lake.
Sasha peered about the hedge and saw a guard in armour with the obligatory broad-brimmed hat, the Pazira maroon and gold colours barely discernible in the gloom.
The guard strolled past them, oblivious. Sasha hefted the stone in her hand, measured the throw, then lobbed. It sailed past the guard's hat and splashed in the water. He spun. Then spun again, searching the night, a hand on his sword hilt.
“The duke prefers mint tea!” Sasha hissed at him. The guard spun a third time, finally facing the right way. But relaxing somewhat, to hear the password. Sasha stood up and he came over cautiously.
“What do you want?” the guard hissed back.
“To see the duke.”
“He's abed.”
“I'll make it worth his while.”
Errollyn, Liam and Yulia were held in the vestibule while Sasha advanced alone down the main hall with two guards. Candles lit the checker-tiled floor-the household was roused if the candles were lit, Sasha realised with little surprise. Riverside was burning and everyone was on guard.
Sasha and the guards waited at the hallway staircase as servants hurried past. The guards’ swords were sheathed and they did not seem particularly afraid of her. Wary, perhaps, but she'd not been a complete stranger to these grounds over the past few weeks.
Finally Duke Alexanda Rochel thumped down the stairs in a thin maroon robe and eyed Sasha with displeasure.
“Damn fool of a girl,” he rumbled. “What have you and your crazy uman gone and done now, set half of Riverside ablaze?” His white hair was rumpled, his eyes bleary.
“We were betrayed,” said Sasha, hooking her thumbs into her belt. “Someone told the mudfoots we were coming and that we meant to do them harm. Lies, of course.”
“The only part that wasn't,” the Duke of Pazira snorted, reaching the bottom and stopping before her. He fixed her with a beady eye. “Did it ever occur to you that not everyone in Petrodor views the Nasi-Keth as the source of all moral rectitude and goodness? You declare yourselves the saviours of the poor while ignoring the simple human truth that not everyone wishes to be saved. You of all people, Sashandra of the Goeren-yai, should know that.”
His stare was knowing. Sasha drew a deep breath. “I've information for you,” she said. “The doings of Symon Steiner. I think you'll find them-”
Duke Rochel made an irritated face and waved his hand. “You don't have to play favours with me, girl, you know damn well I'm still in your debt.”
Sasha blinked at him. “And on my side, too, I'd hoped,” she ventured.
“Damn fool,” Rochel muttered. “How did you ever rise so high with so little wits?”
Soon enough Sasha and Errollyn were seated on a sofa before some open windows on the mansion's first floor. The cool night breeze was a welcome relief from the stuffiness of the house. Sasha grimaced as Errollyn washed the wound on her forearm. It was shallow, but it hurt.
“So explain to me this relationship,” said Errollyn as he worked. A servant hurried across the central carpet, placed steaming cups on the table, and departed once more. “Sasha never has. Or at least, not to me.”
“I'm very pleased to hear it,” said Rochel darkly from a sofa opposite. He sipped at his tea. His eyebrows were as bushy and wild as his hair, and he had the habit of raising just one, beneath which to fix a suspicious stare. “Perhaps six years ago now…is it six?”
“Six,” Sasha agreed, reaching for her tea with her free arm.
“Six years ago, I had some trouble with the villagers of eastern Valhanan in Lenayin. There was a dispute over land boundaries with the earls of western Pazira, some silly nonsense that goes back at least five hundred years. Word spread to the great warrior Kessligh Cronenverdt, who rode from Baerlyn with his skinny, cantankerous fourteen-year-old uma at his side. The Lenays were very angry and I'm quite sure they would have attacked, as Lenays are wont to do at the slightest provocation-” Sasha snorted, “had Kessligh not persuaded them otherwise. And made quite certain I knew about it. That man's a devil in negotiations.”
“And so you owe Sasha and Kessligh some gratitude,” Errollyn concluded to Duke Rochel. “But I hear you also oppose this coming war.”
“Oppose,” the duke snorted. Glanced about the room, and the lovely old furnishings, the bright walls, the ornate ceiling. “You speak as if I had any choice.”
“A man's choices are his own,” said Errollyn. The duke gave him a stare. Errollyn gazed back, green eyes intent within a dirt-stained face.
“The war is a fool's adventure,” the duke snapped. “But this is the city of fools, and this city rules all Torovan with its foolishness. It's your fault, you know.” With a hard, accusing nod at Errollyn. “You serrinim.”
“I know,” Errollyn said mildly.
“You gave Petrodor all your trade and you created a monster. Two hundred years ago I could have spanked the patachis’ insolent backsides. One hundred years ago even. The dukes ruled Torovan then. My grandfather was such a man. I recall him to this day, despairing at the growing tide of wealth from Petrodor, the promises of trade and fortune that bent one duke after another to the will of the greedy, bloody-handed patachis. Those men don't deserve such power, they've neither the wits nor the breeding. For hundreds of years Torovan has been peaceful and prosperous beneath the rule of the oldest families, and we raised our sons with the skills and wisdom to rule wisely, and not for simple profit. Now we are reduced to mere vassals, competing desperately for the right to lick the patachis’ boots.”
“It seems the way of much human power,” Errollyn observed, “that those who deserve it least acquire it most.”