Destiny (26 page)

"You don't have to bother with throwing me out of the city," Sembrin said to the woman as he squared his shoulders. "I'm perfectly capable of leaving on my own, which I mean to do at once. Unless, of course, you happen to have room in your government for someone with my ability. I can be of more use to you than you can possibly imagine, and I won't ask more than a modest amount for my help. I can tell you - "

"Oh, spare me," the woman interrupted, no longer looking in the least amused. "I'd sooner have a rat from the sewers working for me, and in a short while we'll know everything
you
know without having to pay you even a copper. But after that you won't be thrown out of the city, which I'm sure you already know. You'll be taking a trip out into the country to see old friends, just not
our
country. Arrest them now, please."

A number of the large men began to step forward, but what really destroyed Sembrin was the look of delight on Edmin Ruhl's face. Somehow Ruhl had managed to protect himself, and the man's lack of worry showed that nothing Sembrin might say would cause Ruhl to be sent to Astinda with him. A scream began in Sembrin's throat and forced its way out of his mouth, but that didn't stop the large men from chaining him to a cursing Feriun.

It was over and they'd lost, they'd actually lost, lost everything… lost… lost!

Bensia Noll paced back and forth in the sitting room, much too agitated to read the way she'd been doing earlier. She knew she should have heard from Sembrin or one of his men at least an hour ago, even if they'd had a small bit of trouble at the palace. Everyone in the peasants' new government ought to be dead by now, so why hadn't someone returned to tell her that? Possibly she ought to send one of the guards left at the house to find out…

"And why aren't the children down here with me?" Bensia muttered, stopping to glare at the empty doorway. "I sent a servant to fetch them, so they should have been down here by now. Do I have to do everything myself?"

"Your pardon, Lady, but there are callers here to see you," one of the servants appeared to say, making Bensia jump just a bit. "Shall I show them in?"

"Of course you're to show them in!" Bensia snapped, hating the stupidity those peasants always showed. Imagine, asking if they ought to show in men who were in this house until just this morning. "I've been waiting for those callers, so get them in here fast!"

"Yes, my lady," the servant said with a bow, and then he stepped aside. Bensia was all ready to demand that Sembrin's men tell her what had taken so long, but the first sight of her "callers" froze the words on her tongue. Instead of it being Sembrin's men who were shown in, the callers were three strange women, two strange men, and Edmin Ruhl!

"Well, Bensia, how delightful to see you again," Edmin all but purred as he and the others came farther into the room. "I must say you're
looking
fit, and that's a lucky thing. You'll soon need all the fitness you can get."

"Guards!" Bensia shrieked, both furious and frightened at this unexpected turn of events. "Guards! Get in here now!"

"You want your guards?" Edmin drawled as he and the others stopped only a few feet away. "Oh, what a pity. We didn't realize you'd want them when we put them under arrest, thinking they'd be much better off with the rest of their ilk. We have them all, you know, including their leader and your poor husband."

"Mother, what's going on?" Travin demanded as he and his brother and sisters came hurrying in. "Who
are
these people?"

"No one of any importance, dear," Bensia replied with a smile, relief flooding through her. "I'm afraid we've lost your father's services, but the assistance of
these
people will probably prove to be a good deal more valuable. Why don't we see if we can convince them to cooperate with us? There's a good chance they even have access to the palace, the place we'll be going next. The place we're destined to be."

"If they have access to the palace, they must be servants there," Travin said with a sniff, properly identifying the group as one of peasants. "But I think we can still make use of them."

Travin smiled then, and his brother Wesdin and sisters Solthia and Liseria smiled as well. Bensia's children were more than ready to assist their mother, but in another moment her smile began to waver. She had tried to reach the power at the same time her children did, but for some reason she couldn't… quite…

"Is something wrong?" that wretched Edmin Ruhl inquired as the children lost their own amusement and became as agitated as she felt. "I thought you were going to ask us for help of some sort."

"Really, Edmin, they need more than just a
little
help," the trollop on Edmin's arm drawled just the way he had earlier. "That woman is so thick in the head that she thought we would walk in here without taking precautions. I'm not surprised that those children are living in a fool's fantasy, but isn't
she
too old to do the same?"

"She
is
getting a bit long in the tooth," Edmin answered with an air of consideration while Bensia gasped with insult and outrage. "That means her actions aren't necessarily due to stupidity. They might be due to senility."

"How dare you!" Bensia demanded with furious mortification, but then she remembered something and forced herself to smile. "And how is your dear father, Edmin? Still going on as usual, I trust."

"Oh, he's doing quite well these days," Edmin answered blandly instead of falling to the rage Bensia had expected to see. "He's recuperating in the palace, coming back beautifully from a small accident he had. Driffin there was good enough to treat him, and he tells me the healing took only moderate effort."

"You're lying!" Bensia snarled, hating the way all six of the strangers - especially the one Edmin had gestured to - were all but laughing at her. "But you've always
been
a liar, Edmin, so I'm not surprised that you're still at it. Now you and your peasant friends can get out of my house. My children and I will be taking tea soon, and - "

"Now, now, Bensia, we all know that this isn't your house," Edmin interrupted to wave a finger at her. "In fact it wouldn't be yours even if you'd owned it originally. All property formerly owned by those people known as nobles has been confiscated, and the nobles themselves finally given something useful to do. Very soon now, you'll be doing that same useful thing yourself."

"I'd rather die," Bensia stated as she drew herself up, speaking nothing but the truth. "You might find it possible to kill me, Edmin, but you'll never be able to force me to cooperate with peasants."

"I have no intentions of trying to do so, Bensia," Edmin returned as other strangers entered the room. "Our Astindan allies there will do any necessary forcing, and they're rather difficult to argue with. But you do need to learn that for yourself, so we'll be going now. Thank you so much for your hospitality."

Edmin and the two men with him performed ironic little bows, but the three women simply smiled. That
really
infuriated Bensia, but before she could think of something to say to the six peasants they turned and began to leave. And then the other peasants came closer…

"Mother, make them stop!" Solthia demanded shrilly as her sister and brothers simply made sounds of distress. "They're forcing us to obey them, but they're only peasants! I don't
want
to obey peasants!"

"Leave my children alone!" Bensia commanded, but instead of being obeyed she felt …
strength
being used on her. She was made to move closer to her children, and then all five of them were forced out of the room.

Bensia could never remember being as humiliated as when the five of them were taken past the peasants who had been their servants. The peasants laughed and applauded as they walked past, the hold she and the children had had on them clearly gone now. Those peasants were enjoying the sight of their betters being brought low, but their amusement would be remembered and avenged. As soon as she escaped capture, she would find those peasants again even if it was the last thing she did!

Anger carried Bensia outside and a short way down the drive without her noticing anything else. The children were walking in front of her, and the sudden sounds of protest they made caused her to pay attention. Bensia had naturally expected that they would be taken to a coach, but an old, worn wagon stood in the driveway and
that
was what they were being told to climb into. Another wagon was already filled with her former guardsmen, but
they
were peasants so it made no difference.

"You can't seriously expect us to ride in this - this -
thing
," Bensia said as their escort helped her sons and daughters into the wagon. "We have two perfectly good coaches, and I
demand
that we be allowed to use them."

"You'll only be riding in this wagon to the place where the rest of your people are," one of the peasants commented without really looking at her. "Once we have you all together and out of the city, you'll spend most of the trip walking. Up you go."

Bensia found herself in the wagon with the children in a very abrupt way, with nothing to sit on but dirty wooden planks on both sides of the conveyance. The girls were protesting in outrage and the boys had their hands curled into fists with anger, but all four of them were sitting down on the left-hand side of the wagon. Bensia couldn't understand why they would cooperate like that, but when she found
herself
sitting on the bench to the right she understood only too well.

"This is
not
happening," she muttered, staring down at her tightly folded hands. "This is nothing but a nightmare that I'll soon be waking up from. This
cannot
be happening to me."

Bensia held firm to her belief even as the wagon began to move. The wagon with her former guardsmen had gone first, and when it reached the road it turned left. When their own wagon reached the road they turned right, and both drivers of Bensia's wagon glanced at the quickly disappearing first wagon.

"I don't envy our Gandistran hosts," their driver said to the peasant beside him, speaking only just loud enough for Bensia to hear most of what he said. "Our lot here will simply be put to work. What the Gandistrans have to decide is what to do with those others. If there's no way to reclaim that group as useful citizens, they may have to - "

"Yes, I know what you mean," the second peasant said rather quickly. "Even putting down a dog would be hard for me, but if there's no way to keep those men from hurting innocent people, they mustn't be turned loose. And I can't decide which would be worse, making sure those men
can't
hurt the innocent, or putting them down. You're right. I'm glad the problem isn't mine."

The two peasants went silent then, but Bensia's distress still increased. That peasant government couldn't possibly kill or neutralize
her
guardsmen. Somehow her men would escape and free her, somehow they
would
!

But no one had come to free her when the wagon turned into the drive of another house. It was beginning to get dark so torches had been lit along the drive, but the wagon didn't stop at the house. It continued on to the stables, and that was where it stopped.

"What fools these peasants are," Travin sneered as he looked around. "They don't even know that we should have been let off at the house. Now we'll have to walk back to it."

"You won't have all that far to walk," one of the peasants said as he put down the tailgate of the wagon, clearly having heard Travin's comment. "Come right this way."

Bensia had meant to stay in the wagon and refuse to move, but the peasant's words caused her to rise along with the children and let herself be helped down. Once they were all on the ground they were led toward the stables themselves, of all places, and walking inside brought even more of a shock.

"Aren't those people most of our former neighbors from the country?" Wesdin asked his older brother as he looked around with widened eyes. "If they also came to the city, why didn't they offer to help us?"

"I … don't think coming to the city was their idea," Liseria ventured, appearing as unsure as Wesdin did. "And we won't have any choice about what's done to
us
either, will we?"

"Nonsense, child, nonsense," Bensia said at once, looking sternly at her youngest daughter. "We are
nobles
, Liseria, and that means we have
every
choice. No one will ever be able to - "

"Guess again, you bitch," a voice suddenly interrupted Bensia, making her look quickly to the right. Just as she'd thought, it was Sembrin who had spoken, staring up at her from where he sat leaning against the wall of one of the stalls.

"You have no idea how glad I am to see you and the children again, Bensia," Sembrin went on with what looked like true enjoyment. "At first being captured was shattering, but once I had a chance to think it came to me that you and the children would be joining me in captivity. Picturing you and your precious brood toiling at your own labor will make mine infinitely easier and more pleasant. And no, I didn't need the peasants' help to escape your control. I was already free when I left the house this morning, so
you
would have lost no matter
what
happened. I hope that thought comforts you in your hour of travail."