Forging the Sword (The Farsala Trilogy) (15 page)

Soraya stifled a sigh. In ballads, when the bold young deghan went to spy on the Kadeshi warlord—or in older tales on the demons’ council—their enemies had the courtesy to discuss their battle plans when the hero showed up. But what was Lady Mitra doing? Soraya had thought that her maids did everything for the woman except eat and defecate. And wherever she was going, why couldn’t she take a maid to help her dress? It was common practice for deghasses to bring their own maids when they visited other great houses. Was this a visit to the home of some wealthy weaver or fabric merchant, whose family the governor didn’t want to embarrass? A dinner with—

Soraya barely managed to silence a gasp. You wouldn’t take a maid to a dinner—a state dinner—in a Hrum siege camp!

“You’ll find another girl to do your hair, my dear.” Despite his sympathetic words, the governor sounded bored. “Perhaps you’ll be able to keep her after … well, afterward.”

After what?
And even more important,
when
? Soraya was already leaning forward as far as she dared.

“It’s the waiting that’s worst.” Lady Mitra’s voice was so soft,
Soraya could barely hear it. “Everyone is so tense. I just … I just want it to be done. Finished.”

“Not much longer,” said Nehar. “A few weeks at the most. Probably less than that. Come to bed now.”

Mitra must have turned toward the window, for her sigh was audible. The lamp went out.

Soraya waited on the roof until Nehar began to snore, and then she waited longer. Her feet were cold, her hands were frozen, and blood pounded in her lowered head, but somehow she knew that Lady Mitra was lying open-eyed in the darkness beside her husband. She would hear Soraya’s movement. Soraya thought that if she tried to open her shilshadu to Mitra’s emotions, in the still darkness the lady might detect that as well.

What did Mitra think of her husband’s treason, deep in her heart? It was clear she wasn’t prepared to betray him. And she’d have a much better chance of getting a maid who could properly dress her hair as the wife of a high-ranked Hrum official than as a Hrum slave. But still …

Nehar was a coward and a fool, but Mitra, for all her propriety, was neither. She was a deghass. A
deghass
wouldn’t,
couldn’t
betray her people!

What was Soraya doing now, if not betraying Lady Mitra?

Yes, Nehar was a traitor, but Mitra had been kind to Soraya by her own standards. Kind by any standard.

But they’d turned traitor first! Were they still her people? And if they weren’t, then why did betraying them
feel
like treason?

It had seemed so simple, in Tebin’s warm kitchen, agreeing to spy on a traitor and his family. But when you met the people in question, came to know them, earned their trust …

Had the peddler once faced this conflict? Felt like she did now? Soraya thrust that thought aside.

I am a deghass,
she told herself fiercely. A true
deghass. That’s the difference.

Besides, her decision had been made long since, when she first agreed to spy.

Eventually, moving as if the stag she hunted were grazing in the brush beside her, Soraya crawled up the roof and made her way back to her room. She hadn’t learned much. Probably not enough to satisfy the peddler, and certainly no battle plans. But if something was going to happen in the next few weeks, she thought Commander Siddas should be warned about it. Soon.

“I’
M SORRY
, L
ADY
, but Kavi’s quite busy now, so I hope you can be making do with me.” Master Tebin’s polite words were belied by the twinkle in his eyes.

“You mean he didn’t want to talk to me,” said Soraya. “Which is fine, because I don’t want to talk to him either. I haven’t learned much that’s new, but the governor told his wife that something is
supposed to happen—that the waiting will be over—in just a few weeks, at most.”

“A few
weeks
?” Tebin’s eyes widened.

“At the most,” Soraya confirmed grimly.

“I don’t … I’m not in Siddas’ confidence, but I don’t think he expected anything that fast. I don’t suppose you know what’s going to be happening?”

Heat flooded Soraya’s cheeks. “They said something about a dinner.”

“A dinner?”

“A state dinner. With the Hrum, I’m guessing. I know how it sounds, but I assure you that’s what they said.”

“Don’t sound so stiff, lass,” Tebin said absently. “I’m believing you, no matter how odd it sounds, and I’ll pass it on to Siddas at the council meeting tonight.”

Tension Soraya hadn’t realized she felt eased out of her muscles. “I wondered, last time, if
he
even bothered to pass on my report.”

“Oh, he’d never neglect something like that.” Tebin waved his hands in vague apology. “You caught him at a bad time, is all. He’d a friend who was wounded in the Hrum attack last week, and he’d just died the day before. Kavi was angry with the Hrum, with all the world, I think, and it … well, it woke the old anger as well. Not that it ever needs much waking.” Old sorrow filled the sword-smith’s open face, and Soraya frowned.

“Why does Kavi hate deghans so much?” The name felt odd in her mouth, but it would sound strange to Master Tebin if she called him “the peddler.” She had used his name, in something approaching friendship, before she’d known what he was.

“You don’t know that story?” Tebin sounded startled. “Well, I don’t suppose you could, for Kavi wouldn’t be telling it. Not to you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Soraya hastily. “I just—”

“You’re wrong about that. It matters a lot.” But before he continued, Tebin went to the stove and poured two mugs of tea, setting one before her. It tasted weaker than it had the last time.

Soraya wasn’t even sure she wanted to learn the peddler’s history, but somehow the offer of tea trapped her there. Had Tebin known it would? He was a kind man, but he wasn’t a fool.

“Kavi was the best apprentice I ever had,” the smith began. “One of the best I’ve seen. At least, the best at his craft. In some ways he was one of my worst apprentices.”

“Why did the butcher set dogs on him?” The question had been nagging Soraya.

Master Tebin threw back his head and laughed. It was an easy, well-used sound, and Soraya smiled.

“Hmm,” said the smith when he finished. “I should probably let Kavi choose whether or not to tell that story. I’m likely sharing more of his business than he’d care for as it is.”

Soraya’s brows rose. “Let me guess—the butcher had a daughter?”

“Ah … no. In fact, the butcher had a son who fancied the daughter of one of our journeymen. She didn’t fancy him, but he couldn’t accept that, so he kept coming around. Made a nuisance of himself. And you needn’t feel sorry for him—he was an arrogant lad, who couldn’t believe that any girl he cast his eye on wouldn’t want him. In fairness, he’s a good-looking man who will come into his father’s shop. But Lalia had the good sense to want none of him. I was about to speak to his father about it, but Kavi and a couple of other apprentices took it on themselves to … discourage him. Though you shouldn’t feel too sorry for them, either. Their motives might have been good, but … well, let’s just say that if I was Feroz Butcher, I’d have set the dogs on them myself. And Kavi played plenty of pranks when his motives weren’t noble in the least. He was a mischievous boy, and took longer than he should have to outgrow it. Indeed, I’m not certain he’s completely outgrown it yet! But skill at his craft, and the love of it, those he had in plenty. Maybe that shilshadu thing he’s got has something to do with it.”

“Maok, my teacher, said that the gift might have grown out of love of the craft,” Soraya told him. “But what happened?”

The lingering humor left Tebin’s face. “What happened is that I took on a job I shouldn’t have. A man, a deghan, commissioned a
sword—demanded the best I could make and said he’d pay only if the blade was ‘worthy.’ You could see he was trouble.” Tebin sighed. “But the truth is, I didn’t mind making a fancy sword. I thought that when he came and found it unworthy—which I figured he would, no matter how the blade turned out!—he’d offer me a fraction of the price, and I’d teach him a lesson by turning it down. It might take me a while to find another buyer, but I’d sell it eventually, and meanwhile it could serve as a showpiece. If he surprised me and paid fair, well, I’m in the business of making blades. And it’s not the best idea to refuse a deghan. If you’ve a worthy cause the guild will back you, but to refuse just because I didn’t trust him? I should have, though.”

“It’s not your fault,” said Soraya. “No matter what happened.”

“Isn’t it?” said Tebin. “A job I agreed to, and a lad—a fifteen-year-old boy—who was in my charge?”

“So this deghan claimed your sword wasn’t good enough?” Soraya already knew that Tebin’s sword would have been magnificent.

“No. No, he’d a worse scheme than that in mind.” The smith’s voice was so soft that the low crackle of the fire almost drowned it. “I was out of the shop that week, gone up to the mining camps to buy iron. We’d finished the blade early—the man was supposed to come for it days after I got back. Most of the lads were working in the yard, and Kavi was minding the shop. He said the deghan didn’t even try to sneer at the blade. He tried it on the post and it tested
out—it was a lovely piece. But the man said he’d one final test for it, and he’d pay when the sword passed that.”

“He took the sword without paying anything at all?” Soraya frowned. Outright theft was a bit much, even for the most arrogant deghan.

“And Kavi tried to stop him,” Tebin confirmed. “He grabbed the blade, trying to take it back, and the deghan pulled it. Sliced his palm almost through the bone. He was lucky not to lose his hand completely.”

“I see.” Soraya’s throat ached. She hated the peddler, and always would, but she’d seen his gift with metal. She understood what that sword stroke had cost him. “I trust the deghan suffered for it?”

“Not in the slightest,” said Tebin. “He killed the cousin who’d inherited the money he thought was coming to him and used his inheritance to bribe the temple to get him off. Then the bastard had the gall to come back and pay me for the sword—full price. He even threw in three gold eagles ‘for the accident to your apprentice.’ Kavi threw that back at him. Would have attacked him, even though his hand was only half-healed at the time and we still had hopes … Anyway, that’s why he hates the deghans so—not just the bastard who maimed him, but all of them for letting him get away with it. Though maybe I should say that’s why he hated them, for I think that’s finally changing.”

“Since he got his revenge,” said Soraya coldly. “Killing them almost to the last man with his betrayal. Even the ones who didn’t allow it, who would never have done such a thing or allowed it if they’d known.”

“Kavi would say that they all supported the gahn who allowed it,” said Master Tebin softly. “But you’re right. Hates a bad thing. Anyway, now you know.”

T
HOUGH
S
ORAYA DISLIKED
to admit it, as she walked slowly back to the governor’s house, it did make a difference. It didn’t, couldn’t, excuse what he’d done, but he had sufficient cause to hate.

She dredged up a smile for the maid who opened the door, but it faded swiftly as she made her way to the solarium for the afternoon’s embroidery. It promised to be even more excruciating than usual, since she would have to listen to the lady Mitra’s complaints about a deghass being forced to translate for Suud barbarians, even if they did have questions about the terms of their apprenticeship! Surely someone more suitable could have been found …

In fact Lady Mitra only brought up Soraya’s improper behavior twice, for she seemed to be disturbed by some other worry. She sewed silently while Nayani and Armina chatted, once even stitching in the wrong color, so she was forced to pick it out and do it over.

Despite her curiosity—would she find herself out on the roof tonight? Nervous as Mitra seemed, she wasn’t likely to sleep!—Soraya
was relieved when the time came to change for dinner. But as she left the room, Mitra stopped her with a hand on her arm.

“Soraya.” She hesitated, looking after her departing daughters uncertainly.

“Yes, Lady?”

Mitra took a breath and seemed to make up her mind. “Soraya, I haven’t asked what happened to your family’s wealth. But I don’t … well, I would think that a prudent man would have sent some jewelry or coin along with his daughter, even if he was sending her to live with the savages for a time. After all, if some emergency occurred …”

“Lady, my father sent nothing—”

Mitra held up her hand. “I don’t care,” she said. “I mean that. But now, with your family gone, you’ll need anything you may have. So if you do have any … keepsakes, let us say, I’d advise you to keep them packed and ready to take at a moment’s notice. That’s all.”

The lady Mitra turned and hurried off, leaving Soraya gazing after her open-mouthed.

It was going to be soon. The lady Mitra was packing up her jewelry and valuables with her own hands, so the maids wouldn’t guess that the governor’s family planned to desert the city. And if she was warning Soraya to do the same …

It was going to be soon, and Soraya still had no idea what Nehar was planning.

Could she find out? In time?

A deghass would find a way. A deghass wouldn’t betray her hosts. A deghass …

Soraya sighed. She hadn’t found a way, and she
had
betrayed her hosts. In some ways she had never felt less like a deghass in her life, but another part of her heart welcomed familiar people, familiar clothes…. Even the familiar boredom had been tolerable in a world where so much was changing. Where
she
had changed so much, she scarcely recognized herself.

But if she wasn’t a deghass, what was she?

“T
O DEFEAT THE
H
RUM
,”
the old smith told Sorahb, “the first thing you must do is hold the city of Mazad, for if it can hold for a year the Hrum will retreat. Besides, the people there have resisted bravely and do not deserve to be taken into slavery for their courage.”