Rhillian rode up the broad street toward the Ushal Fortress in the bright sunshine, and wished she could feel happier. Crowds lined the road, cheering and throwing flowers. Ahead of her rode General Zulmaher, with captains Renard and Hauser at his flanks. Ahead of them, the banners flew, the great shield and sword of the third and sixth regiments.
The second row was for the serrin, but Rhillian did not mind. This was a human war-humans had suffered the greatest losses, and she would not have minded them taking all the credit even were it not so. Aisha rode on her left side, and on her right, Kiel, recently returned from southern Elisse, where he had been helping the peasantry to organise in preparation for further Rhodaani and Saalshen assistance.
Behind them marched the Steel, rows of armoured soldiers in perfect formation. Infantry first, cavalry behind, and to little complaint from the cavalry, who counted themselves lucky not to be fighting “in the mud.” The infantry protested against marching behind formations of horses. “Marching through the shit of our betters,” a corporal had remarked ironically, within Rhillian’s hearing.
“Almost enough to make one pleased to march to war, is it not?” Kiel suggested, surveying the cheering Tracatans who lined the road. His eyes were pale grey, so pale they were nearly colourless. His hair, unusually for a serrin, was jet black, making stark contrast against clear white skin. “Not that I actually got to see the war, of course.”
“It is unbecoming to fish for an apology, Kiel,” Rhillian replied. “I left you in the south precisely because you have the knack of command. The southern peasants were friendly, and ready to be commanded, and I had precious few options better than you.”
“One does not complain,” Kiel said mildly. “One merely observes.”
“One might have thought you’d seen enough blood,” Rhilian said, with an edge.
“Blood does not interest me,” said Kiel. “Only survival.”
“Survival lies in a stable Rhodaan and a stable Elisse. You also served, Kiel.”
“Mes’a rhan,” said Kiel with a faint smile. He put a hand to his heart and bowed. “I am convinced.”
Rhillian snorted. Somehow, with Kiel, the smile never quite reached those pale grey eyes. She had not invited him to the war because she distrusted his methods. Kiel, of course, knew so. One knew such things, between serrin, where humans might keep secrets, or suspicions.
Not all the crowd seemed pleased to see General Zulmaher, Rhillian noted. They applauded stoically, as one must, if one was Rhodaani and confronted with the victorious Rhodaani Steel. Without the Steel, free Rhodaan was finished, and most Rhodaanis knew it. But there were grim stares at the general, riding erect in full colours and armour, save the helmet.
The serrin were received very differently. Some Tracatans gasped, pointed or cried out. Women in particular gave exclamations, and hoisted their little girls up to a seeing vantage. Rhillian smiled and waved back often, to enthusiastic reply. She wore her snow-white hair loose down her back, carefully washed and brushed of all the war’s tangles. Her best jacket and riding pants, too, washed and pressed, and she even wore a silver chain with an emerald pendant for her neck. The pendant matched her eyes, brilliant green, particularly on a day like today when the sun would strike the jewel, and burn like green fire.
“The white one!” she heard them call. That, or “The white lady!” Rhillian supposed it was a vast improvement on “The White Death,” as she’d been known by many in Petrodor. General Zulmaher, they had all seen before, but Rhillian’s presence in Tracato was much more rare. They seemed intrigued.
“Unfair,” Aisha declared. “I made at least as much effort to be well presented, yet they are not staring at me.”
Rhillian smiled at her. “You look beautiful,” she assured her friend, and it was true. Aisha wore an in’sae jacket, a serrin riding top of patterned green and brown, her leather riding boots were newly polished, and her mare gleamed as though she’d been polished too.
“I know,” Aisha replied. “Yet even so, they stare as though I were a lump of coal beside a diamond. Which I fear is true.”
“They stare because we are strange,” said Kiel. “Humans are obsessed with uniformity. They strive for sameness, like wolves to the pack. Strangeness excites their senses, sometimes to pleasure, other times to fear.”
“A double-edged sword, as are all things,” Aisha declared.
“Perhaps,” said Kiel. “But even in love and pleasure, humans are moved by fear. Fear is the constant emotion. The foundation to all. It is never absent.”
Rhillian’s eyes strayed to a mother holding her daughter in the crowd. The little girl was staring, eyes wide, mesmerised yet uncertain. What would a child choose? To fear the stranger with the strange looks? Or to love her? Surely it depended on what she was told. In Rhodaan, children d, ld good of serrin. Enora and Ilduur too, for the most part. Yet the Saalshen Bacosh was small, compared to what lay beyond.
“What is our foundation then, Kiel?” Rhillian asked. “The foundation to all in serrin thought?”
“Reason,” said Kiel, without hesitation.
“There was once a man who reasoned that he knew the reason of reason. And, once reasoned, found it unreasonable.”
“I had not heard that,” Kiel admitted. “Eternis?”
“No. It’s Lenay.” Her smile faded. “Sasha told it to me, in Petrodor. She never believed in serrin reason.”
“It showed,” Kiel said drily.
“She never believed in serrin infallibility,” Aisha reminded them both. “Best that we follow her example, in that.”
“Aye,” Rhillian said. Not infallible, no. Merely determined.
They rode into the city, where the buildings loomed tall and grand, like little else in all human or serrin lands. Great facades of arches and columns, and courtyards flanked by statues, watching like sentinels, mythical beasts and great Rhodaani heroes alike. Here, before the House of Justice, stood upon a pedestal the statue of a serrin woman, dressed in the formal robes of a Grand Justiciar. She held a book of law under one arm and raised a sword to the heavens with another, her hair free and loose as a true justiciar would never wear it.
It was Maldereld, Rhillian knew. Elsewhere in the Saalshen Bacosh, humans called her a general, yet in Tracato most recalled her for her contributions to law, in the years of occupation following the fall of King Leyvaan. Rhillian also knew that this particular statue was the third, and little more than ten years old, the previous two statues having been defaced. Not all Rhodaanis liked to be reminded of serrin overlordship, least of all by a woman. Particularly not here, in the wealthy centre, where every building spoke of commerce and power, and the clothes of the common cityfolk were rich indeed.
The crowds here were huge and rapturous without reservation. Blackboots lined the road, and some garrison soldiers in full armour, to hold back the cheering people, many of whom threw flowers or grain. No dark looks for General Zulmaher here, Rhillian noted. The wealthy folk loved their general.
Then they came upon a particularly grand courtyard, pressed against the eastern wall of the Ushal Fortress. A line of soldiers and Blackboots held the crowd back from the courtyard, for within were arrayed the various importances of Tracato-perhaps fifty people, mostly men: ten standing on a great platform and forty seated on a scaffold behind.
The flagbearers turned into the courtyard, followed by Zulmaher and the captains, then Rhillian and her two lieutenants. The marching Steel did not follow, but continued their way up the road, headed to the south edge of Tracato, and the barracks there. There would be barely a night’s rest, before deployment to the western front, to face the invasion threat. No time at all, in truth.
Rhillian followed the officers about the central fountain, trying to keep her mare to a steady formation between Aisha and Kiel. She was not a natural rider, and serrin were not much given to formations anyhow. They all stopped before e platform and waited, while trumpets blew, and the crowd behind cheered some more, and a herald shouted a long announcement in Rhodaani that Rhillian caught only in part-something about glorious victories, and triumph in the name of the gods, and freedom for all humanity. Truly she was an appalling linguist, to not be fluent in Rhodaani. But then, she’d simply had more important matters on which to apply her mind.
More cheering, and then some young men in ceremonial gold came forward to hold the horses’ halters, while the general and his entourage dismounted. The lad holding the halter of Rhillian’s horse looked very nervous, and barely more than fourteen. Rhillian gave him a smile. He swallowed hard, and turned several shades paler.
Zulmaher stepped forward, and Rhillian followed, Aisha and Kiel having enough sense of human protocols to fall in behind. Zulmaher ascended three steps to the platform, where a priest gave him a holy book to place his palm upon, and a ring for him to kneel and kiss. Premier Chiron then placed a garland of leaves on his head, and Zulmaher rose and kissed Chiron on one cheek, and then the other.
Captains Renard and Hauser followed, to more cheering, as Zulmaher completed the circle of importances arrayed across the platform behind, clasping hands and kissing cheeks. Rhillian could not help but reflect how strange it was that Rhodaani men should kiss in public, while in Lenayin, a man could be killed for making the attempt.
Then it was Rhillian’s turn, and the cheering was just as loud when the herald announced her name. That surprised her. The trumpets blew, and the priest hovered with his book and ring, as though in hope. Rhillian granted him a smile, and that was all. Some serrin, on occasion, had touched the book, and kissed the ring, not wishing to offend, and being serrin, having no strict belief that could in turn be offended. “What was the harm?” they’d asked.
The harm, Rhillian was certain, lay in encouraging human uniformity. In that, Kiel was correct-it was the most dangerous of all human instincts. If Rhodaan wished Saalshen’s friendship, then it must accept Saalshen’s strangeness. To accept such strangeness, without hatred, would surely do them good. Serrin, after all, had been doing the same for humans since humanity had first appeared in Rhodia.
She exchanged kisses with Premier Chiron, an unremarkable man of lesser height than she, balding and dark featured. His eyes held a certain confidence, however, that was neither arrogance nor power lust.
“You and all your talmaad have the thanks of all Rhodaan, Mistress Rhillian Resil’dyi,” he told her in Torovan.
Rhillian repressed a wince at the last name. It was rare to meet a human who knew what serrin last names meant. “And the thanks of all Elisse one day, I should hope, Premier Chiron,” she replied.
Chiron smiled grimly. “Quite, quite,” he agreed. “One day I am sure, they shall erect statues in your honour in Vethenel, as we have for your glorious predecessor Maldereld. But for now, you have Tracato. The city is yours, Mistress Resil’dyi.”
Rhillian wondered if the premier might soon regret he’d said that. “I thank you, Premier. Saalshen thanks you for your friendship.”
She kissed cheeks and clasped hands with the others-there were councilmen and justiciars, wealthy merchants, senior civil offers, a general, an ambassador each of Enora and Ilduur and, of course, nobility. Some of those with appointed rank were nobility too. Some kissed too wetly, a few from lechery, and a few from that peculiar attitude of Rhodaani men in the presence of attractive women, part fatherliness and part lust.
“You’d make a good statue,” Aisha told her in Haati dialect, so none would be likely to overhear. She took her place at Rhillian’s side, looking amused.
“I’d rather be carved by a Petrodorian,” Rhillian replied.
“Nude?” Rhillian shrugged. Aisha raised her eyebrows. “That would be an interesting addition to a Tracato courtyard.”
“With a great python about my neck,” Rhillian added. “Its tail about my thigh, and stroking it with one hand, like so.”
“They stare at you as though you were a demon,” said Kiel, taking his place on her other side. “If they could only understand what you say, they would be convinced of it.” Rhillian grinned.
The courtyard’s new arrivals were climbing the steps to the platform now, and Rhillian’s smile faded. “I don’t believe it,” she murmured.
Lord Crashuren was first, a pale, tall man with a bald head save for great, grey whiskers. He was the first of the Elissian lords that General Zulmaher had made peace with. He took the knee before Premier Chiron, a palm upon the book, and kissed the priest’s ring. And he remained on one knee, as a junior justiciar held a Tracato city flag at Chiron’s side, a shield in blue and white checkers, and the words in Rhodaani-Levas dei to mertas. Live free or die.
Lord Crashuren kissed the flag. Premier Chiron asked for his allegiance, upon his word of honour. Lord Crashuren gave it, on behalf of all the lords of Yertan Province…that was a good chunk of middle Elisse, right up to the outskirts of Vethenel. There was no way the crowd about the courtyard’s far perimeter could hear the words, yet when Crashuren rose, the trumpets sounded, and the crowd all cheered to see Crashuren and Chiron embrace. The Rhodaani leader of the people’s office, selected by the general will of the Rhodaani population, and the feudal tyrant whose peasants Rhillian had found in pitiful condition, half starved despite the fertility of their lands, poorer than dirt, and brutalised by Crashuren’s thugs. Rhillian recalled corpses in the mud of the little village square, a woman and child amongst them. She’d killed the man who’d slain them. She’d have gladly done the same to Crashuren.
On the steps, there were more Elissian lords awaiting their turn.
“I wasn’t told this was going to happen,” Rhillian said in a low voice.
“No surprise,” said Kiel, sounding almost amused. Kiel usually expected the worst from humans. Today, his expectations were met.
Across the platform, at General Zulmaher’s side, Captain Renard gave Rhillian a seething look. Several of the councilmen, too, looked uncomfortable. Rhillian returned Renard’s stare for a long moment, pondering. Her stare moved to the general. Zulmaher stood oblivious, square shouldered and proud, watching as his accomplishments unfolded in all their glory. He did not spare her so much as a glance. Doubtless he knew what she thought. Equally doubtless, he caed not a bit.
The Mahl’rhen smelled of perfume and lavender. Errollyn walked the paths between courtyards, and saw coloured silk scarves blowing in the breeze, and heard windchimes and music. The talmaad had returned from Elisse-victorious, though the decoration would have remained even if otherwise. Serrin, not big on grand human ceremony, did enjoy their little celebrations.
In the northern complex, he found the baths. With a squeal of delight, a small, blonde woman leapt to her feet and ran to him bare footed. Aisha hugged him hard, and Errollyn hugged her back.
“Errollyn! Are you well? How is Sasha?”
“We’re both well.” Errollyn pulled back to look at her. There was no visible scar to the side of her head, beneath her hair. Aisha’s loose robe afforded him the opportunity to examine her shoulder, and then her calf, where injuries he had previously treated seemed well healed.
“That’s the most interest you’ve shown in my body for some time,” Aisha teased. “There was a time you did show more.”
“I’m with Sasha now,” said Errollyn with a grin. “If not restrained by human custom, I assure you I’d take you aside for a good fuck.”
“Oh poor Sasha,” Aisha sighed, hugging him once more. “One day we should really broaden her horizons.”
“She’s human, Aisha. It’s more complicated than that.”
“I know, I know. I’m half human too, I do remember.”
About nearby pools, conversation was fading. Serrin turned to look. Errollyn walked amongst them, removing an arm from Aisha’s shoulders to hop across a joining stream. Once across, Aisha replaced his arm, defiant in the face of serrin stares.
Seated half submerged in the warm water, relaxed and disinterested, was Rhillian. Wet robes floated in the water, revealing bare skin on hard muscle. Errollyn could see no new scars, yet she looked changed. Hardened. Her face, when her green eyes found him, seemed to bear a grimmer expression than it could previously show. Although her skin bore as few lines as ever, she now seemed somehow weathered, her brilliant green eyes darkened in shadow.
Conversation ceased entirely. Rhillian looked at Errollyn.
“What do you want?”
“Many things,” said Errollyn. “None of them brings me here.”
In Saalsi, it was well said, dismissing selfish intentions and claiming broader purposes. Six months ago, Rhillian might have snorted at the clever words. Now, she did not bother even that. Emerald eyes flicked from him to Aisha and back.
“What does?” she said blandly.
“I have news of Lady Renine’s intentions,” said Errollyn. “Before I share them, I’d ask more of yours.”
“Amusing,” said Kiel from his seat from the poolside, “that you feel you have the right to ask.” Errollyn ignored him. Rhillian just looked at him.
?I’ve not decided,” she said. “General Zulmaher has made allies of our worst enemies in Elisse. They flock to him mostly for fear of us. He promises them retention of feudal powers. Should they use them to retain power in Elisse, they would in turn provide a safe haven for feudalism in Rhodaan. Wealth, marriage prospects, trade, all according to feudal custom, and with no concern for the Rhodaani Council. It would be as though Maldereld had never raised a sword against feudal power in Rhodaani.”
“You can’t just remove feudalism from Rhodaan, Rhillian,” said Errollyn, his eyes narrowed. Had Rhillian learned nothing from Petrodor? “This cancer cannot be cut from the body, not without removing heart and lungs with it.”
“Errollyn speaks sense,” said an elderly serrin, seated on a cushioned chair in the wading pool. His skinny shins were half submerged in the water, his long hair white like Rhillian’s, but with age. “Rhodaan is a three-legged stool. The feudalists and the Civid Sein make two legs, the majority uncommitted population the third. Remove one leg, and it shall fall.”
“Saalshen makes a fourth leg, Lesthen,” said Kiel. “We can hold up any stool.”
“For a time,” said Lesthen. “For a time, perhaps. But we are not the pillar of foundation in Rhodaan we once were. Human civilisation grows rapidly. Serrin civilisation, slowly. When I was a young man, Saalshen had great power here. Today, our power remains the same, but Rhodaani power has increased tenfold. Today we are small, the strong child whose younger siblings have grown to manhood, while we remain children still.”
“I’m not planning to remove feudalism,” said Rhillian. “But neither can it be allowed to sabotage Rhodaan from within. What news do you have for me, Errollyn?”
Errollyn examined her. Dare he tell her? Most serrin would have felt compelled by the vel’ennar to be here. Unlike them, he had a choice. If he granted her this information, it would not be for unreasoned compulsion, but for judgement, and logic. That, at least, was what he told himself. Or did he not truly fantasise that perhaps, one day, he would do something to demonstrate his love of Saalshen, and win them all back to him?
Maybe he was fooling himself to think that he had a choice. Saalshen’s power here was a reality, as was Rhillian’s control over it. He could not afford to see Family Renine’s plans come to fruition any more than Rhillian could. Even if she chose a poor course of action, surely that was better than the alternative?
“There has been a courier. Between Lady Renine, and, I suspect, Regent Arosh of Larosa. I do not know how many messages. Perhaps several. Perhaps many, dating back years.”
There was silence in the chamber. Rhillian stood up. She looked suspicious, though whether at him or the facts he revealed, Errollyn could not guess. “Treachery?” she asked.
“Assuredly. She may claim she was demanding his immediate surrender, but that is already the Council’s demand. If she believed that, she’d simply support the Council. To go behind their back suggests other intentions.”
Kiel was smiling more broadly by the moment. “Errollyn. This good turn you do us is most unexpected.”
“I try to do what is right, Kiel,” Errollyn said coldly. “What is right, and what serves your purposes, are not always the same thing.” He looked at Rhillian. “What shall you do?”
Rhillian was gazing past him. Her emerald eyes were alive with possibility.
The amphitheatre was a marvel. Sasha sat cross-legged in her spot, midway up the slope, eating grapes and handcakes she’d bought from a vendor, and watched the play with intrigue. Daish, Beled and some other friends from the Tol’rhen sat on the stone seats, sharing food and exchanging murmured critiques of the dialogue. Occasionally Daish would murmur some important point of plot to Sasha, for the play was mostly in Rhodaani, with an occasional smattering of high-class Larosan. The theatre seated perhaps a thousand, mostly wealthy, fine evening clothes aflicker in the light of a hundred torches. The stage below was ringed with fire and lantern, to lend an unearthly texture to the actors’ costumes, beneath a black and starry sky.
The atmosphere of the theatre amazed her. A thousand people, all gathered together to watch the telling of a story. In Lenayin, tales were told to friends and family by the hearthside, and acting was not a profession respected by the majority of Lenays. Yet here, it seemed a matter of some seriousness. Furthermore, the play was quite intricate, and very recent, in the time of its telling. A commentary on society. Sasha found the concept intriguing, and a little unsettling, especially when so many of the Tol’rhen’s most precocious students insisted upon attending, and knew most of the playwrights’ names, and argued frequently over the merits of each. Culture, in her experience, existed to affirm one’s beliefs and values, not to challenge them.
A young woman in actor’s guild robes, and a torch in hand, picked her way carefully from the theatre’s steps, and along the ledge past audience members and trays of food. She paused at Sasha’s shoulder, crouching to whisper, “There is a serrin lady to see you, Lady Sashandra,” in Torovan.
Sasha frowned at her. Errollyn was at the Mahl’rhen, attending to Rhillian’s return from Elisse. Sasha had wanted to attend, but hadn’t been invited. She hadn’t been happy about it, but Errollyn, Kessligh and others who ought to know insisted that Errollyn was safe there, and in all likelihood, the talks would take many days. Knowing how impatient Sasha became with such pontificating, Errollyn had suggested (rather forcefully, to her annoyance) that she go to the theatre with friends instead.
“Back soon,” she told Daish and Beled, and left to follow the young woman. Steep steps led to a walkway around the rim of the theatre, guarded by a railing. Leaning on the railing a small, blonde woman watched the play with fascinated eyes. Sasha’s breath caught in her throat. “Aisha?”
Aisha looked at her. Pretty, pale blue eyes within a softly rounded face, she’d always looked like a little girl. Save now, when she smiled, and the emotion in her eyes spoke of things no child had ever known. Sasha hugged her fiercely, and was relieved that Aisha’s grip was just as strong. Some serrin had not forgiven her. Perhaps it was because Aisha was half-human herself. Or perhaps it was just that she was Aisha. When they pulled back to look at each other, both were crying.
“I’d heard you were well,” Sasha told her. “You look well.D;
“You too. City life has not turned you into an old hag yet.”
“Not yet!” Sasha laughed. “I went riding the other day. Spirits it was beautiful, I’ve missed horses so much. If I must spend another season away from them, I might just shrivel up and die.”
“Me, I’ve been riding rather a lot lately.”
Sasha nodded, wiping her eyes. “The war. How was it?”
“Victorious, happily. It was a war. They have their moments.”
“They do.”
They held hands, leaning on the railing and looking down at the stage.
“Oh it’s been so long since I’ve attended a play,” Aisha said wistfully. “Whose is this?”
“Some man named Deshirei,” Sasha replied.
“Oh Deshirei. He’s wonderful. A little tragic, though. I’m sure this will end badly.”
“It does seem to be heading that way,” Sasha agreed. “It began far too happily, and everything since has been a brewing storm.”
“He does that,” said Aisha. “It is rather the way of things, is it not?”
“Not always, surely?”
Aisha looked at her, and smiled. “Not always, no. Dear Sasha. I’m so glad you’re well.”
Sasha kissed her. “Why did you come tonight? I’d heard it was rather busy at the Mahl’rhen?”
Aisha looked back down at the stage. Evasively, Sasha thought. “Is your sister here tonight?”
“Alythia? No, with the company she keeps these days, I’d have noticed. Why?”
“How are your relations with her lately?”
“Good,” said Sasha without hesitation. “Much to our mutual surprise. We’ve merely accepted our differences. It’s amazing how much improves when you stop trying to convert other people to your own opinion.”
Aisha nodded. “I think perhaps we should find her.”
“Why?” And, in the cold trepidation that followed, “What, now?”
“Now.”
They walked uphill from the amphitheatre. Daish had decided to join them, having more interest in meeting the Princess Alythia than watching a play. And probably, Sasha guessed by the young man’s lively dark gaze, having more interest in Aisha, too. Perhaps he thought Aisha as young as she looked, and wondered if he were a chance. With serrin, provided one was somewhat good looking, well presented and agreeable, one was always a chance.
“Things are well with Errollyn?” Aisha asked.
“Oh not you too,” Sasha groaned. “Everyone asks when we’ll marry. It seems an alarming fashion amongst serrin in Tracato.”
“Most serrin who live among humans for a long time do so from a sense of fascination.”
“Born of horror,” Sasha added.
“Perhaps. But talmaad in particular are always keen to try strange human customs. It’s less alarming here because unlike in some other human lands, here divorce is also common.”
“Oh it’s still seen as a sin,” Daish countered, “I wouldn’t say it’s common simply because the educated serrinim and the Tol’rhen think so. Ordinary folk are a different matter.”
“Well, we educated serrinim can avail of it, at least,” said Aisha. “But your relationship with Errollyn intrigues, it’s no surprise everyone asks questions.”
“Serrin and human bed all the time in the Saalshen Bacosh!” Sasha protested. “I’ll bet no one asked your parents so many questions.”
“Yes, but my father was a farmer, and my mother had no interest in politics. The uma of Kessligh Cronenverdt, the daughter of King Torvaal of Lenayin to boot, and Saalshen’s most scandalous dissenter from the serrin unanimity, make rather more of a stir.”
“Especially in Tracato,” Daish added. “Everyone loves a scandal.”
Sasha glared at him. “Exactly how are Errollyn and I scandalous?”
“You’re not,” Daish said. “You just seem like you ought to be.”
“And what of you, Aisha? You’re more familiar with humans than most serrin, yet I don’t recall you ever claiming a human lover.”
“Oh no,” Aisha said adamantly, “serrin women don’t do that nearly as much as men. Serrin men like to see themselves as virtuous knights rescuing poor human women from their misery…or like Errollyn, are drawn to the thrill of the wild and dangerous otherness. Women here are treated like doormats, I don’t think many serrin women consider the prospect of tying their lives to human men particularly attractive. My father is a remarkable exception.”
“But that’s only to say that you’ve not yet found a human man to suit your taste,” Daish cut in. “It’s not to say that serrin women are not as adventurous as men, merely that you dislike what’s on offer.”
“That’s very true,” Aisha conceded, giving the young Tracatan a curious look. “Please elaborate.”
“I mean,” Daish continued, “what if you were to meet a particularly handsome human man, who was kind and courteous, and who found no difficulty in treating with…with beautiful serrin women who…who did not wish to be treated as doormats?”
“An interesting proposition,” said Aisha, walking a little closer. “And where do you think I might meet such a man? They are in my experience quite rare. Even your master playwright Deshirei only considers romantic scenarios where the man courts, and the woman swoons.”
“Well…” Daish was considering how far to push it. “I may happen to know such a man, in fact. I may indeed.”
“Would you now?” said Aisha, walking closer still. “Sasha, is it not our blessing to be in the company of a man with such fortunate acquaintances?”
“Indeed!” said Sasha, and she whispered in his ear, “Careful lad, this one’s nearly twice your age and can read every book in the Tol’rhen library in its original tongue.” Daish, to his credit, did not look dissuaded, only intrigued. “Daish is currently studying the principle volumes of Giraud,” she added more loudly.
“Oh Giraud!” Aisha exclaimed. “I love Giraud. Tell me, what do you think of his philosophy of original value?”
It was not a long walk from the amphitheatre to the walls of the Ushal Fortress. To Sasha’s surprise, the guards at the fortress’s main gate were not Family men but Steel, with their shields and full armour.
“Something’s wrong,” said Daish, as they approached across the lower Council House courtyard. “The Steel would not guard the fortress unless there were something wrong.”
“I can get us through,” Aisha reassured them.
“Aisha, what’s going on? Why do we need to find Alythia right now?” Sasha’s eyes swept the battlements above, but saw no sign of movement.
“I can tell you more when we’re inside,” Aisha replied calmly, leading them across a wooden drawbridge over an abbreviated trench that reached until the defensive wall began to climb the slope. She produced a medallion from her pocket, and presented it to a Steel lieutenant who stepped forward from his line. The man examined it, then nodded, and waved them through.
Sasha considered them as she passed. They were positioned not so much to guard as to defend.
Within the gate, there was a wide courtyard, stairs ascending the defensive wall, a broad stable and various buildings beyond. Perhaps twenty soldiers were pressed to a wall, all in silence and awaiting a signal. Ahead, past this courtyard and into the next, Sasha saw more moving silently, in orderly lines.
“Aisha?” she said warningly, and aside to Daish, “Don’t touch your blade,” as the young man moved to do so, in alarm. “We’ll not pick a fight with the Steel if we can help it.”
“Rhillian moves fast,” Aisha said grimly. “Sasha, best you fetch your sister, quickly.”
“Or what?” Sasha asked. Aisha did not reply. “Aisha? What does Rhillian do?”
“She moves against the nobility,” Daish said quietly, staring about at the soldiers’ preparations. “She’ll need the Steel with her, and the Steel are angry at General Zulmaher. Speed will give her surprise.”
“Surprise to do what?” Sasha hissed.
“Best you fetch your sister,” Aisha repeated, quietly. “Before the soldiers do.”
Sasha turned and ran, Daish and Aisha close behind. She’d only ventured within the Ushal Fortress once before, a quick tour with several Nasi-Keth who had had friends inside and knew the way. But she thought she could remember.
Yells and crashes split the night, as soldiers armed with small shields for the lesser space of hallways broke through the doors, and poured within. As she ran, Sasha wondered where all the fortress guards had gone, and recalled that while some were loyal family, most were merely paid. Surely Rhillian had offered a larger sum.
Across the second courtyard, soldiers were already clustered at the entrance to the grand hall. Sasha skirted them, heading toward where memory told her there should be…there, the kitchens. She ran down a narrow lane and found to little surprise that the rear opened onto the outer wall, beneath which were animal pens.
Sasha hammered on the kitchen doors, but received no answer. “Friends of the nobility!” she called. “We’re friends! Let us in, I seek my sister the Princess of Lenayin!” A metal plate scraped aside, an old face peering out through lantern light. “I’m Sashandra Lenayin! I have to reach my sister before the soldiers do, let me in!”
“Gods help you if there’s soldiers with you…” the old man muttered, and there came the clank of a latch withdrawn. The doors scraped open and Sasha squeezed within.
“Thank you!” she told the old cook, seeing commotion in the kitchen beyond, men rushing to hide things, others taking up carving knives as weapons. “Which way is fastest to her quarters?”
“Back stairs,” said the cook, pointing. “They’re too narrow for men in armour.”
Sasha ran past the confusion in the room, Daish and Aisha at her heels. She’d seen enough royal kitchens to know the back stairs where maids could carry food directly to lordly quarters above, and sure enough the far kitchen wall had stairs cut into the stone in a tight spiral. She grabbed a lantern off a bench and scampered up it.
She passed the first level and kept climbing, recalling Alythia’s claim in conversation that her quarters were on the same level as Alfriedo Renine’s very own. Alfriedo’s would be at the top, surely. She leapt stairs by lantern light two at a time, trusting that her fitness would not see her too exhausted to fight at the top.
She reached the final, fifth storey, and darted from the hole in the wall to find herself confronted by a nobleman in a hallway, his blade unsheathed, in an expensive gold-trimmed jacket and long hair in black curls.
“My sister Alythia!” she demanded of him as he readied his blade. “Where is she?”
“You are…?” he ventured, blinking as Daish and Aisha arrived at her back.
“Yes, I am! Where is she?” The nobleman pointed, and Sasha ran about a bend in the hall, and found a pair of large, ornate doors thrown open, to reveal a grand expanse of lordly quarters within. Several huge rooms seemed to occupy most of this building’s level. All now were crowded with nobility and servants, brandishing weapons, shouting instruction as they bustled to retrieve jewellery and coin from boxes, thrust family artefacts inside their jackets and collect sheafs of papers. Several now clustered about a fireplace, throwing many papers onto the flames.
Sasha thrust her way through, eyes searching, and finally found Alythia in conversation with Lord Elot. Alythia stared in astonishment as Sasha came running over.
“Sasha! Goodness gracious, what are you doing here?”
“I can get you out ’Lyth! There’s no soldiers on the rear stairs. I can get you out through the kitchens, but you have to come now!”
Alythia blinked at her. “Sasha, I’m not running anywhere. I shall stay here with my friends.”
Lord Elot bowed his head to her. “Your Highness’s loyalty and honour are as great as her beauty.”
“’Lythia, this is Rhillian’s doing, you understand?” Sasha pressed desperately. “She’s mad at General Zulmaher…hells, half of Tracato is mad at General Zulmaher-”
“And half are not,” came a female voice. Sasha turned, and found an elegant woman in a blue dress, with refined features and neat, blonde hair, perhaps aged forty. Following to her side was the young Alfriedo Renine. “The Council shall not stand for this outrage and neither shall Tracatans. We shall go quietly to our dungeons if we must, for we cannot fight the Steel. The outrage of the city shall free us soon enough.”
“Sasha,” Alythia added, “this is the Lady Tathilde Renine, mother of Lord Alfriedo.”
“There’s not going to be a council for a while,” Daish told them. “It will be suspended for sure.”
Lady Renine looked at him with mild surprise. “My dear boy, why ever so?”
“Feudalists have taken over so much of the Council, they’ve made it a laughing stock,” Daish replied. Sasha wondered if the enthusiastic youngster actually recalled to whom he was speaking. “And the Council appointed General Zulmaher. I’d guess they’ve arrested the general, and now they’re after his supporters.”
“Well if they do suspend the Council,” Lady Renine countered, “it shall be a complete outrage, the first time that such a thing has happened in two centuries in Rhodaan! The people shall never stand for it.”
“Actually,” said Daish, “it was suspended three times between 682 and 690, when the serrin were…” Sasha jabbed him in the ribs.
“’Lyth, this isn’t a good idea!” she pleaded. “If Rhillian’s doing this it’s because she thinks feudalists are a threat to Saalshen. We saw in Petrodor how she’s come to deal with threats to Saalshen!”
“Tracato is not Petrodor, Sasha,” Alythia said firmly, as shouting echoed near, and clattering armour. “Tracato is altogether more civilised, and we nobility have great support in the city. The powers are balanced here; Rhillian has less authority than she supposes.”
Sasha looked to Aisha, who merely stood aside and watched, venturing nothing. Had she given this warning out of friendship? Had she gone against Rhillian’s wishes? Certainly she did not completely disagree with Rhillian’s actions. That alone gave Sasha pause. Rhillian’s judgement she did nythust, but Aisha was another matter.
Soldiers burst into the grand chambers, shouting and lining men against the walls, but with no use of force save their tongues. Several pushed the men back from the fireplace, and retrieved those papers yet unburned. A captain emerged, and was confronted by the Lady Renine, all cool, unarmoured dignity before shield, breastplate, sword and crest.
“Dear Captain,” she said graciously, “I welcome you to my home. May I have your name?”
The captain looked uncertain, as though suddenly unsure of his place. Sasha flicked a glance at Alythia, and found her attention rapt, eyes wide with adoration upon the Lady Renine. Ah, thought Sasha. Now she understood, this dangerous attraction to Rhodaan’s most powerful noble family.
“M’Lady,” the captain said gruffly, and removed his crested helmet. A big man, dusky and square jawed, he seemed unwilling to meet the Lady’s gaze. “I am Mieren, Captain Mieren.”
“Of the farmer Mierens of lower Pathan?”
“Related, M’Lady.”
“Oh a delight, my dear Captain. Such a distinguished family, I hear the villagers of those lands speak ever so highly of them.”
The captain took a deep breath. “M’Lady, I have orders to escort all residents of the Ushal Fortress to the Justiciary.”
Lady Renine inclined her head, gracefully. “On what charge, Captain?”
“Treason, M’Lady.”
There were outraged shouts from several noblemen, and soldiers’ hands tightened on the hilts of their swords. Lady Renine held up her hands.
“Please, my dearest friends and family,” she said soothingly, “your outrage is just, yet it is indeed pointless to direct it at our noble soldiers of the Steel. These are good and honourable men, merely obeying their orders, as all good Rhodaani soldiers will. If you please, Captain, we shall accompany you in just a moment. If we first might be allowed to gather some things?”
“No possessions, M’Lady,” said Captain Mieren, uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, M’Lady.”
“Indeed,” said Lady Renine. “Come, Alfriedo, we shall go.”
“Yes, Mother,” said the young lord, walking to grasp his mother’s hand, as cool and dignified as she.
“Fear not, my friends,” said Lady Renine to those surrounding, “this thing has merely begun. Our serrin friends appear to have forgotten exactly whose land this truly is.” With a cold stare at Aisha that had none of her previous, gracious warmth. And to Sasha, her charm quickly returning, “Dearest Sashandra, Alythia is fortunate to have such a dedicated and loving sister as you. Please give my regards to your noble uman; we have had the opportunity to meet on two occasions, and I hold his wisdom in the highest regard. Please ask him to consider the Nasi-Keth’s position on this matter, and that of the Tol’rhen. That position could, I feel, become the pivot upon which rests the future of Rhodaan.”
She walked to leave, accompanied by others, watched by wary soldiers. Alythia walked first to Sasha and embraced her. “Thank you for coming so fast,” she said, with real emotion. She pulled back to look Sasha in the face, and her eyes were shining. “I’m very touched.”
Sasha shrugged, and managed a wry grin. “You’re my sister.”
Alythia kissed her on the cheek. “And you’re mine,” she said proudly. “My little sister. Be well and look after yourself, yes? I think perhaps I shall be safer in a dungeon than you on the outside.”
The streets of Tracato were deserted. In places there was debris on the cobbles, human items, lost pieces of clothing, a walking staff, an empty leather bag. The crowds and rioting mobs had rushed, and gone. From somewhere distant drifted yells and chants. The soldiers at Rhillian’s flanks eyed the windows and alleys warily, shields ready, waiting for archers.
Nearer the Justiciary, the human traffic increased. Before its arches were milling cityfolk, horses, Blackboots, and a guard of Steel upon the steps. Above them all loomed Maldereld’s statue, her sword raised to a cloudless sky. A familiar lieutenant saw Rhillian, and broke off his conversation with a Blackboot officer from the base of Maldereld’s plinth.
“Lieutenant Raine,” Rhillian greeted him as he matched her stride. “What progress?”
“Many arrests,” said Raine, removing his helmet as they entered the building. “Someone is making lists inside, I’ve not seen the latest. I think we have half the councilmen we wanted….”
“Renine?”
“Yes, all of them. But the law states we cannot hold them if we do not charge them.”
“My, what a sophisticated city this has become.”
“Do you wish the law suspended?” Raine asked her. It took Rhillian a moment to realise he was serious. She could, it occurred to her. Captain Renard was respected, but did not have the authority of a general. Zulmaher was under arrest, and alternative generals were at the western border. In Elisse, the Steel officers had come to respect Rhillian’s command greatly, and had praised the talmaad for making the pacification of Elisse enormously more simple. That respect had spread to the men. That, and she spoke with the authority of Saalshen, perhaps even more, in the eyes of these men, than Lesthen. Until some other general was summoned back to Tracato, she was effectively in command of this rebellion. Lesthen agonised over the moral and ethical implications of what she’d helped to do. Rhillian felt entirely calm.
“No,” she replied. “The Blackboots are unhappy as things stand, and I’ll not make enemies of the justiciars entirely. The Steel cannot remain in Tracato for long, and once you’re gone, true power shall flow from this building.”
The entry stairs led into a long, wide hall, filled with activity. Justiciars in black cloaks argued, clerks hurried clutching immense rolls of parchment, Blackboots escorted hands-tied prisoners while other cityfolk protested and pleaded beneath the wary eye of local guards. Rhillian threaded her way through, with Lieutenant Raine as an escort.
She did not continue down tmorws of courts, but turned left instead, and was halfway down an adjoining hall when a page brought an old man out from a doorway ahead. Rhillian stopped before him, and bowed.
“Justice Sinidane,” she said with respect. “I regret I have not had the opportunity to call on you since my return from the war. You look well.”
Sinidane snorted. “One of the most irritating things about growing old,” he replied, “is that every acquaintance must remark to my face their mounting surprise that I’m not yet dead. What have you gone and done now, silly girl?”
Sinidane had better than eighty years, yet looked well enough for that. He walked tall and unaided, though slowly, and spoke with an eccentricity that could seem to the unacquainted like absentmindedness. There were some Rhodaanis who opined that Sinidane, rather than Premier Chiron, was the true power in Tracato. As chief justiciar, his world was the law, and even premiers, High Table seats and councilmen must bow to the law. If only, Rhillian thought sadly, Maldereld had been more successful in removing the temples from the equation entirely. Sinidane’s black robes bore the emblazoned silver of a great, Verenthane star. Rhodaani justice came from the gods, or else no citizen would respect it as true. And that, frustratingly, brought the priesthood into the equation.
“If you will accompany me downstairs, I believe I can demonstrate to you exactly what I’ve been doing, Justice Sinidane,” Rhillian replied.
“Stairs, you say? Do I look like a sprightly young man to you?”
He followed her anyway, his page at his elbow, down some dark, stone steps, then, and into the bowels of the Justiciary dungeons.
A lantern hung outside Lady Tathilde Renine’s cell, yet she blinked at the new light beyond its bars. She sat alone on a small stool…a lady of her breeding would never deign to sit on the stone floor, Rhillian judged. The lady’s eyes narrowed in suspicion to see Rhillian, then widened as the Chief Justiciar shuffled into view, and leaned a steadying hand upon the bars.
“Your Justice,” said Lady Renine. “You’ve come. I had feared this insurrection had claimed you too.”
“The law is intact,” Sinidane replied. “Merely somewhat taken aback.”
Lady Renine came smoothly to her feet. “Your Justice, I would like to protest this appalling treatment, as it is clearly beneath a lady of my station. Further, the laws of your beloved Justiciary clearly state that any so detained must be formally charged by an officer of Rhodaan, not on the whim or imperial writ of Saalshen.” This last with a sharp glare at Rhillian.
“Captains of the Steel do qualify, Lady Renine,” Sinidane said mildly.
“The Steel swore an oath before the gods to uphold the office of the Council, not to arrest them!” said Lady Renine. “I have seen many dear family friends and elected councilmen marched past these bars, men the Steel swore to serve and protect with their lives.”
“You seem to confuse the nobility with the Council, Lady Renine,” Rhillian observed. “They are not the same thing, whatever the nobility’s attempts to purchase so many Council seats that it may appear so.”
“I’ll not stand here and be dictated to on matters of Rhodaani governance by a serrin! Just the other day, I was lunching with the serrin ambassador Lesthen, and he assured me that the days of Saalshen’s interference in the affairs of Rhodaan were over. And now we see it happening all over again.”
“Again?” Rhillian asked. “To my memory, we’ve never done this before. Unless you mean Maldereld. Do you mean Maldereld, Lady Renine?”
Lady Renine’s jaw trembled. Sinidane watched her. It was a curious question for the leader of Rhodaan’s feudalists to be asked, before such a man as Sinidane. Feudalists who decried the loss of old human ways, yet professed not to hate the new Council, the new Justiciary, the new laws, the divisions of human power, that had made Rhodaan everything that it was today. To regret the coming of Maldereld would be to regret all those things. To regret, indeed, that a man like Sinidane, practising the things he practised, should even exist.
“I wish to see my son,” Lady Renine replied, her voice low and cold.
“He is in the Mahl’rhen,” said Rhillian. “We do not lock up children, Lady Renine. He is well fed and looked after.”
“Bring him to me!” Lady Renine shouted. Rhillian did not blink, the lady’s furious stare struggled to hold her own, then flicked away.
“We have your correspondence with the Larosans,” Rhillian continued. “The letters. The offers of conciliation, of marriage and alliance.”
“Forgeries,” said Lady Renine, recovering some of her imperious calm. “I was warned the serrin would try something like this. Do not believe them, Justice Sinidane, they are sly and full of tricks.”
“I can prove otherwise. You would have offered the Larosans alliance, would you not? They already wed Sofy Lenayin. You would perhaps wed Alythia Lenayin to one of your allied nobles…perhaps even to your son Alfriedo? Or perhaps one of your new allies in Elisse? King Torvaal of Lenayin’s honour would not then allow him to attack Rhodaan, but only if you could demonstrate true rulership over Rhodaan. To gain it, you could offer the people of Rhodaan peace, against the armies that threaten them.
“But that peace would come with terms, would it not? The Larosans have invoked a holy war to free Bacosh lands of ungodly serrin. If the Larosans cannot demonstrate Rhodaan to be free of serrin, then they cannot claim victory, and the priesthood that pays for much of their war shall be displeased. What would be your intent then, Lady Renine? To rouse a pogrom against all serrin and part-serrin in Rhodaan? To cleanse us from this place?”
“You speak in paranoid riddles!” Lady Renine laughed contemptuously. “We could not do such a thing if we tried. The Steel would not allow it, nor the Nasi-Keth. Saalshen has so many powerful friends in Rhodaan, yet the serrin claim fear of persecution to justify this new tyranny!”
“Or would you seek to use the support for the nobility that does exist within the Steel,” Rhillian continued, “to undermine them? Already we have reports of desertions from amongst their ranks, and protests from some of General Zulmaher’s friends at his arrest. Would you undermine them to the extent that you should encourage them to lose? If the Army of Larosa and their allies should march into Tracato and hand the Lordship of Rhodaan to young Alfriedo, that would solve all of your problems at once, would it not?”
“You fool,” Lady Renine replied, “with your actions here, you make that all the more likely. You undermine the Steel, not us. Its soldiers desert because of your actions, not mine. You would leave us defenceless before the greatest army humanity has ever seen, and now you seek to lay the blame at my feet. Justice Sinidane, you cannot take these outrageous slurs seriously.”
“I assure you, Lady Renine,” said the old man, “I shall take no outrageous slurs seriously, should they be proven to be so. But quantified, proven accusations, I should take very seriously indeed. We shall see, in due course, which these are.”
Sinidane warned Rhillian later, as they made their way slowly up the steps from the dungeon, “Do not think that you have convinced me of the woman’s guilt, Lady Rhillian.” The old man’s grip was firm upon her offered arm, and she climbed slowly. “Nor that of her companions. I do agree to a likelihood, and in all my years I have never known serrin to produce false evidence, but the exact truth of such matters lies only in the laps of the gods. We mortals have only the law, and the law requires proof.”
“If such exists, I shall present it to you.”
“Furthermore, I do not like to see the Council suspended,” said the old man. “The gods shall think it ill. I would ask that you allow it to sit in session as soon as possible.”
“How is that possible, with half its members either arrested or under suspicion?”
“Lady Rhillian, I care not for your difficulties. This city’s institutions have been all that holds us above the barbarian fray for two centuries now. I tell you, I will not see them suspended indefinitely. Instruct one of your people to look into finding replacements for those arrested, I will investigate the legality at this end. You may consider that my order.”
“As you say,” Rhillian agreed. She was not prepared to challenge the man’s authority. They reached the top of the stairs, and Sinidane stopped, turning to face her.
“Is it you who commands?” he asked her, searching her face.
“By default, it appears so,” Rhillian said carefully. “Until General Lucia is returned from the border. It was not of my choosing, but the captains insisted.”
Sinidane sighed, and patted her arm. “I love this city,” he conceded to her. “I love this land of Rhodaan, and Enora. Ilduur too, in my weaker moments.”
“I too,” said Rhillian. “I hope to save them from capitulation to the darkest forces humanity has known.”
“I do not mean love in some woolly headed parochial sense, please understand. I mean that I love them for what they are. For the hope they represent, for all humanity. In fact, parochialism is my enemy. I fight it daily, and today, I see it running loose in my city. Beware the parochials, Lady Rhillian, for they believe in the conceit that Rhodaan’s greatness stems purely from the greatness of the Rhodaani character. And I am well aware that it does not.
“It stems from institutions, such as my own. Institutions that work in opposition to the native Rhodaani character. To the native human character, if you will. People are cruel, Lady Rhillian. Humans, anyhow. We fight and we bicker, and if not for the firm hand of a higher authority, we would do each other such harm as could not be imagined by the cool minds of serrin. Beware what you have unleashed, dear girl. Do not trust it. I am glad, in truth, to see a serrin leading such an effort, however wary of the effort itself I may be. But you should never, ever trust the native instincts of the power-lusting mobs beneath you.”
Rhillian nodded. “I understand.”
“Do you?” Sinidane looked pained. “Sometimes I wonder if serrin truly do understand what they have done, here in the so-called Saalshen Bacosh. When Maldereld came to us, and brought with her the enlightenment of thousands of years of serrin wisdom, we were but savages, in truth. We believed in lies, we had eyes but could not see, we had minds but could not think, we murdered on a whim and felt naught for the consequences. Such savages threaten us today, from across the Steel border, and we look across that border and we are pleased to be so much more enlightened than them.
“But in truth, I do not think we are. This…this civilisation, that the serrin have helped us to construct, and the thinking that attends it…this is not the natural state of humankind. Or not, at least, from where we have just recently come. Left to our own devices, perhaps we could have achieved this sophistication in…oh, I would guess a thousand years?” Sinidane’s fingers dug into her arm, with an almost painful grip from one so old. “Do you see what serrin have done here? You have accelerated us. You have taken a tribe of barbarians and dressed us up in pretty clothes, and taught us table manners and polite behaviour. And we are such good actors that when it works, it seems wonderful. Yet underneath, the barbarian still lurks…never doubt it! In some ways we have truly changed, yet in our hearts, we are not so advanced as serrin would like to have made us. We are children in adults’ clothing, grown up before our time.”
Rhillian took the old man’s hand, gently. “I understand. This was our experiment, in human lands. But we have achieved it together, human and serrin, and now we must defend it together. Have no fear of my naivety, Chief Justiciar. I have seen Petrodor, and the War of the King. I trust no one.” She smiled. “Not even you.”
Sinidane smiled back, and patted her hand with a sigh. “Well enough. But, dear girl, know this. I would give my life for Saalshen. Coming from one so near the grave as I, that is perhaps no great offer, yet even so, I would throw myself upon the spears of Saalshen’s enemies should it serve the purposes of Saalshen’s survival. Everything that is good about Rhodaan, you have given us. You are humanity’s greatest hope, and I despair that so many are ungrateful. I fear that we do not deserve you.”
Rhillian recalled Master Deani, of Palopy House in Petrodor. He had said to her much the same, in those final, desperate moments of siege and fire. Palopy was now a ruin, and Deani was dead, with so many others. Only she and Kiel had survived. She would not see such a fate befall Sinidane and his beloved Justiciary. She understood human power so much better now, for the lessons she’d learned in Petrodor.
Rhillian kissed the old man’s hand. “I am your servant, Chief Justiciar. Never doubt it.”
She escorted Sinidane out to the Justiciary grand hall once more. His page walked with him back to chambers, while Rhillian cornered Lieutenant Raine.
“I need evidence of the feudalists’ plot,” she told him in a low voice. “The Chief Justice is well disposed to us in that he is ill disposed toward the feudalists, but he is a man of principle and will not deviate from the law. We need proof.”
Raine ran a hand through his wavy blond hair. In the war in Elisse, he had proven to be one of the Steel’s best. “I have all available men on the task, yet our powers to gather evidence are limited. I cannot trust the Blackboots, half are paid men of the feudalists, and the other half are scared of those who are. My men are soldiers, good at killing the enemy and little more. What you ask is Blackboot work, law and evidence. It may be beyond them.”
“What of the city guard?”
“Hired soldiers, ordinary folk with ordinary values, neither good nor bad. Most are country folk though, so little sympathy for the feudalists there.”
Rhillian nodded. “Use them more, to free up the Steel. Pay them more, if necessary. Find those sympathetic to our cause to help gather evidence. Make a list of the most troublesome Blackboots.”
“I’d suggest we expand that list to red-coats and administrators, too. Feudalist money has bought powerful friends all through Tracato. I’d suggest a purge.”
Rhillian did not like the way that sounded. And yet, she recalled what she’d only now insisted to Sinidane, of the lessons she’d learned in Petrodor, and the hardening of her heart. “Yes,” she agreed. “Find me names first, and we’ll move from there.”
“What of the priesthood?”
“What of them?”
“Who do you think has been paying for all their holy trinkets and Saint Ciala’s Day festivities?”
“Noble gold. I’m not at all certain I can purge the priesthood, Lieutenant. But some nasty gossip could work as well, I’m certainly not above blackmail.”
“No shortage of that,” said Raine, with an evil smile. “I used to be an altar boy.”
“I’m sure you were charming. I’ll also want to meet Kessligh Cronenverdt at the earliest.” That nearly stuck in her throat, but she plunged on regardless. “I imagine he’ll be speaking for the Tol’rhen, in time of crisis, and the Nasi-Keth will be looking to him on military matters.”
“I would,” Raine admitted. “But I doubt he’ll speak for all the Tol’rhen Ulenshaals. Keeping that lot united is like herding cats.”
“Well I’m quite sure I can’t purge the Tol’rhen,” Rhillian said firmly. “The priesthood at least can be embarrassed, but Ulenshaals have no shame. And I cannot make enemies of the Nasi-Keth. If we lose them, we lose the city.”
“Agreed,” said the lieutenant. He ticked off his fingiv “Justiciars, administrators, city guard, Blackboots, priesthood, Nasi-Keth…who did we miss?”
From back up the hall, there were shouts and cries. Both turned to look, and saw a gathering crowd of cityfolk, some waving colourful banners.
“The factions,” Rhillian answered Raine’s question. “Go to your duties, Lieutenant, I’ll deal with these.”
She walked up the hall to where the intruders were causing the commotion. Justiciary guards stood warily close, hand to their swords. Civid Sein, Rhillian read the Rhodaani scrawl upon their blue banners…such a love of banners through the Rhodaani factions, a colour for every ideology. And there at their front was an ageing, fat Ulenshaal in black robes, in animated discussion with a justiciar.
“Ulenshaal,” said Rhillian. “Are you with these?” With a short nod to the rough-hewn men behind him. They looked too rustic for cityfolk, in truth. Farmers and village people, perhaps. Some held hoes or spades that could surely double as weapons.
“I am,” said the man in a loud, deep voice. “I am Ulenshaal Sevarien. These members of the Civid Sein have come to appeal for justice to the traitors who would sell out Rhodaan to the beasts who threaten our borders!”
“I intend to see justice, Ulenshaal,” Rhillian replied. “Be assured of it. In the meantime, you can demonstrate outside, the people of this institution are busy.”
“It is well known that the institutions of Tracato are crawling with the feudalists’ paid men,” Sevarien bellowed. “As a serrin who does not suffer such impulses of greed, you should know the corrupting influence of wealth on men’s morality and reason. We demand a purge of feudalists from the Justiciary and other institutions. We shall not leave until our demands are heard!”
Rhillian knew the Civid Sein well enough. They were the poor folk of the countryside, distrusting of cityfolk, of wealth, power and nobility. Many idolised neighbouring Enora, and hoped to implement a similar purge of nobility as Enora had done two hundred years before. As always, amidst humanity, there was no commonality. Even now, despite her many years’ experience with humans, she had to remind herself of it. Where serrin shared the vel’ennar, humans felt nothing to bind one to the other, save that which they created in their religion and ideology. And could kill each other on a whim, and feel only justification.
“Your demands have been heard,” Rhillian said sharply. “I hear them, we all hear them. Now leave, before I have you rounded up and thrown in the dungeons.”
Ulenshaal Sevarien drew himself up, bristling. “And how do you propose to do that? We are the people! Should you arrest us all, a hundred times our number shall be on your doorstep by this evening!” Angry, defiant shouts echoed him. Rhillian was aware of justiciary guards closing on her flanks, protectively.
“You listen to me,” she said icily to the big Ulenshaal. Beneath that stare, he paled, just a little. “The feudalists have tried to take control in Tracato, and for that, they shall pay. Now you tell me that you would take control in Tracato, through demands and threats of riot. For that, you shall pay. Now tell me again, do you threaten my authority?”
Somewhere behind her, Lieutenant Raine must have given a signal, for the blades of the justiciary guard came out all at once.
Ulenshaal Sevarien blinked at her. “You wouldn’t dare!” he exclaimed. About the Justiciary hall, all movement, all conversation had stopped. From the entrance, more Steel dharmi came running.
“The voice of the people will be heard,” Rhillian assured him. “You may make an application through the appropriate channels. The arms of the people, however, shall be mute. I have the Steel. Do not try me, or I shall crush you.”
“Sevarien!” yelled a new voice, female and strangely familiar. Rhillian looked, and saw a Nasi-Keth girl, short haired in pants and jacket, walking close. Rhillian stared. “Sevarien, best you leave.”
“Sashandra,” Sevarien retorted, “you don’t understand the gravity…!”
“Rhillian will deal with the feudalists!” came the angry reply. “Don’t pick fights with your friends.”
Sevarien took a deep breath and signalled for his party to withdraw. He may have bowed, or spoken something more, but Rhillian did not notice. She had eyes only for Sashandra. Aisha was with her, and a pair of Nasi-Keth lads Rhillian did not know.
“So,” said Sashandra, as the Civid Sein departed. Her eyes flicked to register the guards’ swords being sheathed, then refocused on Rhillian. They were dark, hard and beautiful. “You command Tracato now?”
“For the moment,” said Rhillian. She recalled Halrhen, and Triana, dead upon the stern of their ship on Petrodor harbour, cut down by Sasha’s blade. Recalled telling Arendele of Triana’s death, upon coming to Tracato. Recalled holding him while he sobbed, and imagining crossing blades once more with the traitor whom she’d once been so foolish as to consider a friend. But humans made poor friends, she’d learned. Kiel had always insisted so-she hadn’t believed him in Petrodor, for softheartedness, for wishful thinking, for misguided philosophies of coexistence between human and serrin. That night, on the ship in Petrodor harbour, had been the final stone on the tomb of her compassion, for this one in particular. “What brings you?”
“I’m here to see my sister.”
“She plots with feudalists,” said Rhillian, icily. “What of you?”
There was even less motion among those surrounding now than before. The very air seemed deadly, frozen with hostility. Svaalverd warrior that she was, Rhillian could read posture like a book. Before her stood one of the very best, feet barely a half-breadth from the opening tana stance, hands free, muscles tense with expectation. One twitch could see a blade in her hand. Another could kill any within reach. Her own stance, Rhillian realised, was barely different.
“She probably does plot with feudalists,” Sasha admitted, her voice hard. “She’s a naive fool with no clue how they would use her, despite my warnings. But I won’t let you hurt my sister.”
“You will submit to the law,” said Rhillian. “The law is not in my hands.”
“But it will be,” said Sashandra, with certainty. “Just as in Petrodor, when the diversity is removed, there’s only one faction left in power. Be it yours, or be it someone else’s, the result is the same.”
“The law resides in this building,” Rhillian replied. “I defend it, as surely the feudalists would not, should they have attained the power they were plotting. I will submit to it, and you shall, and your sister shall, or there is nothing here to defend.”
“Anyone but you,” Sasha snapped, “and I might believe them. You’re serrin, and this game you don’t understand! How many cities will it take, Rhillian?”
Rhillian recalled the flames. Recalled the howling mobs, her friends hacked to pieces before her eyes. It wasn’t her fault. It couldn’t have been. “It was your game too. You’re as responsible as I.”
“You gave Maerler the Shereldin Star! You wanted the slaughter that followed! You killed thousands, with that one bloody act!”
“They threatened, Saalshen. They were weakened.”
“Aye, you weakened them so much Patachi Steiner declared himself king, and now marches to war against us! With leadership like that, you don’t need enemies, you’ll be the end of the serrinim all by yourself!”
Rhillian could have killed her, right there. She struggled for breath, and fought to keep her hands from trembling. Sashandra must have seen the fury in her eyes, but unlike most, she did not flinch. Rhillian knew she could not draw, not against this one. As formidable as she was herself, against Sashandra, no fight was evenly matched.
“What proof do you have of Lady Renine’s treason?” Sasha pressed. “It seems ambitious even for her.”
“Go and ask Errollyn,” Rhillian said. “He gave me the evidence. This is all his doing.”
Sasha stared at her. And blinked. “Errollyn?”
Rhillian was surprised. Sasha hadn’t known? “Yes, Errollyn. It’s good to see that at least one of you has some idea of the nature of your new friends.”
She stalked off, gesturing Lieutenant Raine to follow. Sasha stood in disbelief and watched them go.