Fall of a Kingdom (The Farsala Trilogy) (6 page)

Jiaan swallowed. His father had entrusted him with important errands before, but this…this was a deghan’s mission! A chance to finally prove himself. To everyone. But still…

“Do we have time for this, sir? If the Hrum are coming in the spring—”

“Don’t worry about the Hrum,” said the commander.

Why not? You are.

“Your job is to get Soraya into hiding, unseen. And you can do it. I have confidence in you, Jiaan.”

The note in his father’s voice as he said Jiaan’s name transformed the words.
My son.
He didn’t have to say it aloud.

K
AVI WAS ONE HARD DAY
’S
travel out of Setesafon, and the prickling uneasiness that had dogged him for the last week was beginning to fade. He’d walked for several candlemarks beyond the town at which most people stopped on the first night of their journey, and not just because he was too short of coin to put up at an inn. He wanted to put more than a day’s distance between him and the city where he’d created such a stir by selling fifteen gold pieces in just eight days.

During the last few days he thought he’d seen several of his customers looking for him. They might only have wanted to purchase another piece. On the other hand…

No, Kavi was delighted to be out of the rich, teeming city. He’d left Hama and her family, and even the pathetically grateful guard, safe behind him, and he had three remaining gold pieces buried deep in his pack. To repay him for his trouble, Nadi had said. He’d offered to leave them with Nadi, for Hama could have sold them in seven or eight months with no danger—or, at least, no additional danger. But Nadi had refused, with a firmness that led him to suspect that a profitable partnership had come to an end. Ah, well. At least he was back on the road.

When he first became a peddler he’d hated making camp like this, in the rustling darkness of the open country, even though the blackened, stone ring and trampled earth told him that many had camped here before. Now the fire’s crackle and the ripping sound of Duckie’s teeth in the grass spelled home to him. Even the wind, rattling the leaves of the surrounding bushes, sparked no terrors. Not in these settled lands, where a gazelle would be lucky to survive—though he was no more afraid in the mountains, where jackal packs roamed, just a bit more careful.

Even the sound of hoofbeats on the road didn’t worry him, for they weren’t trotting, like a troop of guards trying to catch up with a miscreant; but plodding, like travelers who were using the full moon to push on an extra league or two.

It didn’t surprise him when the sound of the hoofbeats stopped at the riders’ sight of his fire. And reaching for his sturdy staff, transferring it from his right hand to his left, was a normal precaution.

“Hello, the camp.” The deep voice was genial, even friendly, but the accent was pure deghan. Kavi stifled a curse. The last thing he wanted was to share his camp with a party of deghans—and they’d take his hospitality, whether he offered it or not. In all fairness, if their places had been reversed, the deghans would have offered him shelter without hesitation. Hospitality was a point of honor with them. Of course, it was easy to be hospitable when you had money.

“May we come to your fire?”

As if he had a choice? Kavi could see the rider who led the party now. His clothes were modest for one of his class, but only the richest of nobles could afford
that
horse.

“Come and be welcome.” Kavi tried to sound friendly instead of resigned. Fighting with deghans was a losing proposition.

There were a lot of them too, he noted as they moved into the firelight. The servants had a somewhat military air, and several of the men looked very like soldiers; but there weren’t enough weapons for this to be any sort of army troop, and the only charger present was the one the deghan in command was riding. There were even a couple of young deghasses, with their maids in tow, as well as an older man in the severe black robes of a temple priest.

The last two members of the party made Kavi’s eyes widen. They were clad in bright-striped, hooded robes. With their hoods up, they might have been taken for lower servants—or even servants’ children, for they were smaller than the teenage deghasses. But in the darkness their hoods lay around their shoulders, revealing skin as white as moonlight and hair as pale as their skin. As white as a djinn’s.
Suud tribesmen. Or, rather, a tribesman and a tribeswoman.
Kavi had seen the Suud bargaining in the markets, trading exquisitely woven baskets for cloth and iron goods. The credulous said they had a djinn’s powers, as well as their coloring. But that had to be nonsense—no one with magical powers would live that poor. Were they returning to their tribe in the desert beyond the mountains and had joined the deghan’s cavalcade for an escort? It was none of his business, but Kavi had never had an opportunity to talk to a Suud, and he was curious.

In fact, the whole party was a bit odd. Kavi sat by the fire and watched pavilions go up, glowing like lamps themselves as lamps were lit within them. He couldn’t help but notice, as the servants bustled back and forth, that his own humble bedroll was pushed farther and farther from the fire, till it lay beside the bushes under which he’d placed his packs.

Duckie, on the other hand, was added to the herd of lesser horses and pack mules and led off to be tethered where the grazing was better. The grooms just assumed his permission, Kavi noted sourly. Though when they added his mule to their herd, one of them had checked to make certain Duckie’s hobbles weren’t too tight and he had nodded his approval. And, in fact, Duckie now had access to better grass, better water, and the company of her own kind, and she’d be guarded by the groom who took the watch. It would be foolish for Kavi to object.

He mellowed a bit more when a servant woman, who’d set up a tripod over the fire and hung a teakettle, asked if he’d like to share the camp’s meal. A good meal would be welcome after a day that had started before dawn and ended after sunset.

But it was cool enough that he clung to his seat at the fireside and was still sitting there when the two deghasses came up and held out their hands to the blaze.

The smaller, and prettier, of the two gave him the typical deghass you-are-beneath-my-notice-and-therefore-I-don’t-see-you look, but the taller one smiled.

“Good evening, Master Peddler,” she said. “At least, I assume you’re a peddler, from the packs.” She gestured toward the bushes where he’d stashed them.

“Aye, that I am,” said Kavi, using the broad country speech that was even further from the way the deghans spoke than the city folks’ accents. “But what’s a pretty girl like you doing out on the rough road this time of night, instead of tucked snug in a good inn?” He had no doubt they could afford it.

The girl smiled. “Traveling from one place to another. Why else take to the road?” She was trying to sound mysterious and exotic, he guessed, but she spoiled it with a giggle. Under the beads and feathers and the subtle cosmetics, her face was as ordinary as any country girl’s, but it was bright and lively—unlike that of her companion, who might have been a bronze statue. A disapproving statue.

“The truth is, we’ve taken two days to get here,” the nicer one went on. “We had a couple of late starts.”

Kavi smiled back. If she hadn’t been a deghass, he might have flirted with her. But she was what she was—not for the likes of him.
Let it go.
“So tell me, why are the desert folk traveling with you?” He nodded toward the tribespeople, who were setting up their shelter in a corner of the camp. It wasn’t even a proper tent, just a square of cloth stretched over a frame.

“Oh, they’re just gui—” She jumped and blinked at her companion. Kavi hadn’t seen the other girl move, but they were standing close together on the opposite side of the fire. Still, that kick to the ankle had been subtle. The haughty one returned his curiosity with bland indifference.

“They’re just guides, going home after escorting a party of traders back from the desert.” It would have been a smooth recovery if her cheeks weren’t so flushed.

Were they up to something? None of his business. The business of any deghan or deghass was the last thing Kavi wanted to be part of. Peasants who got involved in such things usually came to nasty ends.

“So what are you doing here, Master Peddler?” The girl’s desire to change the subject was a bit too obvious.

“Why, taking my goods down the road,” said Kavi, as if he hadn’t noticed anything. “I sell steelwork in the smaller villages, the ones off the trade routes that don’t see peddlers often and sometimes don’t have a smith of their own.”

The haughty one spoke for the first time. “Can you make money there? I thought the smaller villages had no more than a few tin foals to stack together.” Her voice was low and might have been pleasing if it weren’t so cool—and if the question hadn’t been so shrewd.

“Aye, but I’m not selling a master smith’s work, just that of the lesser journeymen and some of the apprentices’ better pieces.”

The girl snorted.

“It’s good work,” Kavi protested, stung in spite of himself. “Strong and durable. But it’s not pretty enough to sell in the city, where the masters’ work and the older journeymen’s goods compete. This way, the farmers get a better knife than their blacksmith can manage, since he only knows horseshoes and plowshares and maybe doesn’t work steel at all. And they pay less than if they had to travel to a town to buy it.”

“We know you’re not cheating them,” the plain girl soothed.

The pretty one snorted again, and Kavi glared at her.

“So you sell knives?” the plain girl went on.

“Aye, for the most part, and scissors and other fine steelcraft. Whatever bits I pick up. Though I got lucky in the city just…now.”

Both girls looked more alert at his stumble, and Kavi cursed himself. What djinn had taken possession of his tongue? He couldn’t sell these girls his forged gold—not this close to Setesafon and not this soon. Could he?

“What luck did you find?” It was the plain one who asked, of course, but even the beauty looked interested. Kavi suddenly realized that he wanted to sell her his gold. And if the plain one bought instead, well, she was just as much a deghass as the other! He’d been selling his gold work for days. Just one more time…

“Well, it was good luck for me, but I suppose it wasn’t being so good for the man I bought from,” he admitted. “A merchant, poor man, or so he had been. He said he lost interest in business after the death of his wife, him with no child or kin to leave it to, and that his competitors stole all his customers and he was too old to try to build up again. Selling off his wife’s jewelry, poor man. Though he got a fair price for it. And it’ll be giving me something I can sell in the next city, where my apprentices’ work doesn’t go so well.”

He smiled cheerfully and didn’t twitch the bait. He’d hoped to snare the beauty, but it was the nicer girl who said, “Jewelry?”

“A fine gold bracelet,” Kavi said. No need to show them the other pieces. Too many might make them suspicious.

In the end, they agreed to let him show them the bracelet in their tent. Kavi preferred to conduct this bit of business in private, and besides, the cook was beginning to glare at them impatiently. She could chase him off if she needed to, but she couldn’t do that with the deghasses, and Kavi wanted to be fed.

Away from the fire it was colder, reminding Kavi that autumn was well under way. Lingering in Setesafon had put him behind his usual schedule, but the price of this bracelet alone would more than make up for it.

The ladies’ small pavilion was bright with lamplight, and it was warmed by a charcoal brazier in one corner. The dusty, beaten earth was covered with soft rugs, and a low table held goblets of gold-chased glass, worth more than solid gold, and a silver pitcher. Kavi added a handful of falcons to his asking price. There were no chairs, but plump cushions surrounded the table and were scattered over the rugs. Two well-filled ticks lay near the brazier, covered with blankets of silk stuffed with loose wool. Kavi thought of his bedroll, and the ground on which it lay, and raised his price by a whole gold eagle.

“So what have you to show us, Master Peddler? What’s your name, anyway?”

“Barmahn,” said Kavi, pulling the silk-wrapped bundle from his pocket. He knew better than to expect even the nicer one to offer him a name in return. “This is the bracelet the old man sold me, Lady. In a way, I hate to sell, for I could see what it cost him to be parting with it. But I think it would please him to have it worn by someone as…sweet-natured as his dead wife.”

He’d started to say
as beautiful,
but the taller girl had been decent enough that he didn’t like insulting her intelligence. He wished the beauty would show more interest, but you took the fish that bit your hook.

The taller girl’s face was alive with interest, sympathy, and a bit of greed for the slender, glowing bracelet he held out on its bed of dark silk. He’d been attracted to it in the market because it had been lovely even in bronze. Now, lamplight gleaming on its elegant curves, it was exquisite.

“It’s beautiful,” said the girl sincerely. The haughty one closed her eyes in a faint wince at such bad bargaining technique. She’d be the one he had to watch out for, but Kavi wasn’t worried. The gold coating was thick enough to pass any normal test, and if they got another late start tomorrow, why, no one would be surprised if he got an early one.

“Would you like to try it on?” He tried to sound reluctant, as if he hated to let the bracelet out of his possession, and as she reached for it he tightened his grip just a bit.

But before she could take it, a strong hand fell on his shoulder, and another plucked the bracelet effortlessly from his grasp.

“What’s going on here? A sale?” It was the deghan in command.

“A pretty bit that I picked up from a man less fortunate than me, noble sir,” said Kavi easily. The man had made no sound on the soft rugs.