Forging the Sword (The Farsala Trilogy) (39 page)

In truth, Jiaan wasn’t impressed. Even the greatest villains usually cared about their families. Of course, these people hadn’t been the peddler’s family then … but he was still the man who had betrayed the Farsalan army at the Sendar Wall, and nothing would change that. A part of Jiaan hoped Garren would kill him—though didn’t that make Jiaan as bad as Garren? He had told Fasal they had to be better …

He thrust the confusing thoughts aside. Still, those straight, careful letters scorched into the leather had to be worth something. “I’ll try to get him out if I can,” Jiaan told Nadi finally. “But I can’t promise more than that.”

“That’s all I ask,” said Nadi, though she probably would have asked for more if she thought she could get it. “But I’ll hold you to that much,
Commander.
”

Jiaan nodded acknowledgment and reached out to take the helmet as the lady Soraya returned.

It had been more than a year since Jiaan had seen her dressed like this, in flowing, embroidered silk, with glass beads and feathers braided into her too-short hair. The gasps of the men around him were a tribute to her beauty, but Jiaan had been in her company often enough to see her almost as the sister she truly was. And at least …

“Whatever happens,” he said, “you’ll make a fair diversion.”

“That’s the point.” said the lady Soraya, coolly ignoring the admiring looks of his men. “Shall we go?”

Jiaan thought he heard a quiver of fear in her assured voice—arrogance could be a cover for fear, he had learned—but he couldn’t be certain.

T
HE SUN WAS SETTING
as they made their way to one of the palace gates—a deci of guards escorting a deghass prisoner. She was clearly a deghass and clearly a prisoner, her hands bound in front of her, her overrobe artistically ripped. Her gleaming, shoulder-length hair formed a disheveled black cloud around her tense face. She really did look as if she’d fought them, and if Garren knew her at all, Jiaan reflected wryly, that would add verisimilitude. She’d been arguing with Jiaan almost every step of the way.

“Say it again,” she murmured in Hrum.

“I say it often, already,” said Jiaan in the same language. “I say it again, it will be …” He paused, the Hrum word eluding him.

“
Ariapar,
” said the lady Soraya. “It means ‘suspicious.’ Repeat it please.”

She couldn’t possibly expect to teach him Hrum in just one afternoon—but if she didn’t, it wouldn’t be for lack of trying on her part. Or on his. Jiaan sighed. “
Ariapar.
”

“
Ariapar
. Say it again.”

“No,” said Jiaan. “It will be
ariapar
if I say it again.”

Not that the Farsalan workmen around them were likely to care what he said, especially in Hrum. They were still casting dark glances toward Jiaan and his men, and in the lower city, less than a quarter mark ago, a group of apprentices and journeymen had followed them for several blocks, calling low-voiced insults. The one about needing eleven Hrum soldiers to capture one Farsalan girl had been the mildest of them, and since then Jiaan’s men had been marching with drawn swords in their hands.

After that the mob had melted away. No others had dared to take their place, but Jiaan was still nervous.

The mood in the city was odd this evening: half celebratory, for the feast had already begun, and, perhaps unwisely, Garren was handing out beer for the adults as well as sweets for the children.

He and the committee had already taken their places in the pavilion, watching a parade of the cities’ craft houses pass through
the square before them. Soon the speeches would begin. Jiaan suspected that the peddler had been forced to use his tale about a demonstration of hostility toward the committee, for there were almost as many Hrum soldiers in the square as Setesafon townsmen. That left the rest of the city lightly patrolled, and under the cheer of beer and celebration an undercurrent of sullen resentment bubbled upward. When darkness fell, Garren and the committee might need their guards.

For Jiaan’s later, tentative, plans for escape, the swirling, chaotic crowd was perfect—but right now it made being a Hrum decimaster escorting a prisoner a nerve-wracking experience. He was almost relieved to see the palace gate looming before him.

“Today,” he said, nodding briskly to the guard who saluted in return.

“Good evening, sir,” said the guard, standing aside to let them pass.

Jiaan decided to risk some simple words. “Not out here, it isn’t.”

The guard looked out at the crowd with a practiced eye. “I can see that. I’ll
vressa
you’re glad to be coming in.”

“Yes,” said Jiaan in Hrum, trying to control the quiver in the pit of his stomach. He walked briskly toward the palace, trying to duplicate the Hrum’s straight military posture and succeeding, he thought, fairly well. Some of the men who followed him could mimic the Hrum better than he could, but Jiaan spoke it best—and they all, hopefully, understood enough to obey simple commands.

So far their only duty had been to follow Jiaan and look like soldiers, and they seemed to be doing that well. At least no one had pointed at them and either laughed or sounded an alarm.

Jiaan thought there were fewer guards patrolling than there had been that afternoon.

“Are they all at the square?” he murmured to Soraya in Faran, after a quick glance to be certain there were no Hrum nearby.

“I don’t know, but it looks … curse it!”

They rounded a bend in the path and came into sight of the building that stood above the prisoners cells, just as the kitchen, according to Hama’s drawing, was perched over the vault and wine cellar. The guards patrolling the grounds might have been thinned, but the cordon surrounding the palace, the armory, and the building where the senators lodged had been redoubled and perhaps redoubled again.

The lady’s steps slowed and she stumbled. Jiaan caught her arm to set her upright. It gave him a reason to slow as well.

“We’ve got two more passwords,” he reassured both himself and her.

“Yes, but they look awfully alert. Suppose they ask for more than passwords? Suppose they ask you to state your business in a way that can’t be answered by I’m taking this prisoner to the cells’?”

Sunset lit the bronze decorations on the breastplates of dozens
of men scattered through the guard cordon—decorations that denoted officers. They might have been placed there to ask questions, Jiaan realized. Someone had tightened security.

“The kitchen,” he said. “Well take you in through the wine cellar.”

Soraya snorted. “Why would you take a prisoner to the cells through the wine cellar instead of straight through the armory?”

“To prevent the committee from seeing you,” Jiaan improvised. “Orders from Garren himself.”

He turned crisply, taking a path that would lead them to the back of the palace where the kitchen was. Jiaan had spent a large part of the afternoon memorizing Hamas drawing, and now he was glad of it. The guards who surrounded the palace and armory were too distant to have gotten a good look at them … he hoped.

“Why wouldn’t Garren want the committee to see me?” Soraya asked. He wasn’t sure if she meant it, or was asking because she thought the Hrum guards would ask him that, but either way the answer was the same.

“How would I know? I have my orders and I’m obeying them.”

Sometimes Hrum discipline was a wonderful thing. “How do I say all that in Hrum?”

The lesson kept him busy until they reached the modest building that housed the kitchen. Jiaan could have used more time to master the proper intonations of “I’m taking this prisoner to the
cells through the wine cellar; the committee isn’t supposed to see her,” but he could shrug and say “orders” as well as any Hrum soldier alive.

When they first entered the kitchen, all that preparation seemed unnecessary; only a handful of men and women remained in the long, echoing room, scrubbing a small mountain of pots and pans. The cooks had probably gone to serve at the feast, which was good. The bad news was that if there was a tunnel leading to the wine cellar, Jiaan couldn’t see it. He looked at the lady Soraya, who shrugged.

No help for it—he had to try. Jiaan walked up to a woman who was carrying a towering stack of clean pots toward a storage rack.

“I’m taking this prisoner to the cells through the wine cellar,” he said stiffly. “The committee isn’t supposed to see her. Where is the wine cellar?”

He knew how clumsy it sounded, but he didn’t know the Hrum word for ‘entrance.’

The woman didn’t seem to notice anything amiss. “Over there,” she said, motioning with her head toward a far corner. Her next comments were too fast for Jiaan to follow, though he caught the words for “stairs” and “turn.” Thank Azura he had a translator.

He nodded his thanks and marched himself, his men, and his prisoner briskly in the direction she had indicated. There it was, in the shadow behind the pillars—a stairway leading down, and a guard standing beside it.

“Password,” said the man, saluting casually as he ran curious eyes over the lady Soraya. She glared at him.

“Salute,” said Jiaan. “I’m taking this prisoner to the cells through the wine cellar. Orders.”

“Why not just take her through the
netalirium
?” the guard asked, though he was already stepping aside.

“The committee isn’t supposed to see her,” said Jiaan.

“But the committees all off watching the
garanial
” said the guard.

Jiaan shrugged. “I obey orders.”

“And
liassa
as usual,” the man sighed, looking at Soraya. “Too bad. She’s
aurin varet.
”

Soraya recoiled against Jiaan, turning him away. “Look stern and say, ‘Discipline, soldier,’” she whispered in Faran.

Two Hrum words she knew Jiaan knew. “Discipline, soldier!” he snapped in Hrum. The accent might be faked, but the tone of command was real. The guard stiffened. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

Jiaan nodded and herded his troops down the stairs and into the tunnel. It was paved and lined in plain stone, and so narrow that only two could go abreast. The small oil lamps barely produced enough light to see the floor. He felt safer here than he had at any time since they’d crept out of the laundry’s back door. He waited until they’d passed several turns before he bent toward Soraya.

“What did he say?”

“He said I was a pretty slut,” said Soraya coldly. “Or words to that effect. I hope his kind are never set to guard the slaves.”

Not all Hrum were like Patrius.

Soraya took a deep breath and let it go. Some of her angry tension seemed to go with it. “The kitchen maid said that to reach the wine cellar we have to go down the stairs, follow the tunnel to the fork, and then go left. She said the right fork leads to a portal to the sewers.”

Jiaan frowned. “There was no fork in the tunnel in Hama’s drawing.” It hadn’t turned as much as this one, either.

Soraya shrugged.

They went on in silence for a time. Jiaan began to wonder if the woman had gotten her directions confused, if they might be following the aqueduct out from under the palace. But eventually they passed around another bend and saw two new guards, stationed half a dozen yards apart so if anything happened to one the other could sound the whistle tucked into his belt.

They both looked bored, but they straightened up when they saw Jiaan and his party. Behind the second guard was a thick wooden door. The wine cellar?

Jiaan marched up to the first guard. “Mile,” he said, as the guard saluted crisply. The second guard had already turned to unlock the door. Jiaan’s shoulders started to sag with relief, but he caught himself and stiffened. The first guard looked curiously at Soraya.

“Ah, if you don’t mind my asking, sir … this is the wine cellar.”

“I know,” said Jiaan in his best Hrum. “I’m taking the prisoner to the cells through …” The guard had just told Jiaan it was the wine cellar. “Through here. She isn’t supposed to be seen by the committee. Governor Garren’s orders.”

The guard frowned, then shrugged. Jiaan blessed Hrum discipline yet again and led his small troop though the door and into the cellar. It was a vast, dark cavern of a room, full of barrels, casks, bottles, and even some cloth-shrouded furniture—which had been stored there for some time, judging by the dust—but it was empty of people.

The wooden door swung closed behind them, shutting out the guard. Jiaan’s knees wobbled with the relief of not being watched. He heard the men behind him all draw breath at once, their armor clinking softly as they relaxed. He turned and gestured urgently for silence—they’d been about to start talking, every one of them.

“They might be able to hear us through the door,” he whispered in Faran. “Loud sounds, at least. Keep your voices down.”

They had fallen out of formation with the sudden release of tension, but they all nodded. The lady Soraya pulled her wrists free of the loose rope and rubbed her face with both hands.

“It’s not over,” she said. “We still have to reach the vault, and the peddler in the cells, and then get out of here. It’s not over at all.”

But they still took a few moments to relax in the dim cellar,
locating casks of the right size to float down the aqueduct, exploring the room, and enjoying a moment of respite.

It was with reluctance that Jiaan waved them back into formation and donned his heavy helmet.

The lady worked her wrists into the rope without assistance. It looked tight—Nadi had tied the knots, for she had been the one who insisted that Soraya needed to be able to free herself. Looking at the girl’s taut face, Jiaan wondered if that had been because the laundress feared Soraya might need to free her wrists swiftly, or if she simply wanted to give the girl some measure of control.

Jiaan opened the unobtrusive, ironbound door at the far end of the cellar; according to Hama’s drawing, it led to the tunnel that led to the vault. This tunnel was narrower than the one from the kitchen to the wine cellar: Two could barely walk abreast, so Jiaan signaled his men to stagger their ranks. And since the vault was somewhere between the wine cellar and the cells, this tunnel was much shorter.