Rise of a Hero (The Farsala Trilogy) (18 page)

S
ORAYA’S DAY USUALLY STARTED
when someone tripped over her bedroll, beginning the incessant round of wood, water, and wash. But as time passed, muscles already strong from hunting and riding grew stronger and ceased to ache, and her sore hands grew callused and tough.

As she became more accustomed to the constant round of work, Soraya learned even more about the Hrum—the more she learned, the sooner she’d be able to find out where her mother and Merdas had been taken. She paid particular attention to the security that surrounded the locked record chests, and the small shack—which had originally been a tent—where they were
stored. She discovered which clerks had keys, and how the sentries’ shifts changed. But none of that would matter until she learned to read Hrum, so she asked Calfaer to teach her to read it, as well as speak it, “for no one ever taught me reading afore.”

He cast her an amused glance, though she was better at maintaining her accent these days. And since the time one of the kitchen boys got a good look at her and instantly professed himself smitten—she’d been forced to box his ears to disabuse him of the notion—she’d been careful about hiding her face behind her hair. The servants she could deal with, but if one of the soldiers reacted that way . . .

But they hadn’t. In fact some of the soldiers, and many of the officers, seemed to think that servants had neither ears nor brains. Soraya would have found it insulting, if it hadn’t been so convenient. She wondered what she had said in front of her maids—what had gone on in the minds behind those timid exteriors?

“I’ll be glad to teach you,” Calfaer told her. “If I’d ever been given a choice, I might have become a teacher. And if you’re literate in Hrum, as well as fluent, you can rise in their service—or perhaps be
hired by an officer when he leaves the army. But don’t let the Hrum know you’re learning. They don’t begin teaching their language to conquered folk till they’re certain the country is subdued, and that goes double for writing.”

Soraya had blinked in surprise. Farsala wasn’t sufficiently subdued? More and more merchants were selling freely to the Hrum. They’d even made a deal with the local farmers to haul off the kitchen midden and waste from the latrines and the stock pens and use it to fertilize the local fields—just like any peasant village.

Calfaer’s gaze was ironic, and Soraya sensed that he suspected her motives, but he asked no questions, then or ever. At first Soraya supposed that ignorance was safer for a slave, that he would seek it instinctively. But as she spoke with Calfaer, in Farsalan when others were nearby, and in Hrum when no one listened, she learned he hadn’t been born a slave. He’d been the son of a family of wealth and power before his country, a place called Brasnia, had been conquered. He was twelve at the time, he told her, and his father, along with the rest of Brasnia’s nobility, had fought the Hrum.

“We might have won too,” said Calfaer, “if our own serfs hadn’t joined with them, fighting against us.” It was the first time Soraya had heard bitterness in his voice.

“Serfs? I don’t know that word.”

“Like your peasants, only obliged to till the land, or perform other tasks their masters assign to them.”

“So serf is another word for slave?”

“No, no! We never kept slaves.” Though as he proceeded to talk about serfdom, the only difference Soraya could see was that to buy a serf you had to purchase the land they farmed as well, and that serfs were—usually—allowed to keep a small portion of the fruits of their labor. But Calfaer’s father had owned serfs, and Calfaer had been a slave most of his life, so he doubtless knew more about it than Soraya did.

And there was another important difference: A serf couldn’t be separated from his family. Calfaer had a wife and children, back on his old master’s estate. But that master had chosen Calfaer to accompany his son into the army, and the son had willed Calfaer to the army when he died. He would probably never see his family
again, though he wrote to them all the time, and sometimes received their letters in return. He hadn’t seen them for over twelve years.

The reminder that families could be sold apart chilled Soraya to the bone, though by this time she knew that by Hrum law no child under thirteen could be separated from its mother. Merdas was only three, she reminded herself. Ten years would be far longer than she needed to find and free them, no matter where in the vast Hrum Empire they’d been sent. But as Calfaer spoke to her of land after land, she began to realize just how vast the empire was, and she had to admit that it might take years.

Merdas had loved her as much as a two-year-old could love anyone. Would he even remember her by the time she found him? No matter—her love for him was motivation enough. Whatever it took she would do it, one step at a time. And the first step was to learn to speak and read Hrum. Under Calfaer’s competent tutoring, she was making good progress in reading, and excellent progress in understanding the language. She couldn’t speak it well, but she already understood most of what was said. It was as if that strange sense she’d developed for people’s emotions lent
her an edge in guessing the meaning of words she didn’t know.

Soraya also learned the history of other servants in the camp besides Calfaer. There was big Ludo, who was supposed to have been dropped on his head as an infant, though Soraya thought he’d probably been born simple. But he could lift a huge kettle of boiling soup without spilling a drop, carry two flour bags on his shoulders at the same time, and he always smiled. He was the only one to whom Soraya dared to show her face.

Another servant she liked was Casia, a strong, middle-aged woman, who had married young, raised her children, and lived all her life in the same small village. When her husband was trampled by an ox and died, she’d scandalized her whole family by taking up with the army for the adventure of it.

Most of the servants, Soraya had been surprised to learn, had freely chosen to work for the army. The pay was good, they told her, and they got to travel and see other lands. And if the people there were a bit hostile at first, well, they usually got over it quick enough.

Soraya, seeing the small signs of acceptance
among the people of Setesafon, feared they were right. But that didn’t matter anymore. Farsala was taken, and she couldn’t change that no matter how much it hurt. Merdas and Sudaba were what mattered. The only difference those treacherous peasants’ acceptance made was that sooner or later one of them would approach the army for work, and that would increase her risk.

It was the risk she thought about when Casia, who usually served in the governor’s quarters, slipped on a piece of fallen peach and twisted her ankle, and Hennic looked around the kitchen and picked up the big tray filled with small cups and handed it to Soraya.

“You will go serve. Farsalan girls know how to carry a tray, don’t you?”

“Of course I can carry a tray,” said Soraya tartly. For all his quick temper, Hennic didn’t care who talked back to him, as long as they worked quickly and well. Soraya hadn’t suddenly made his tea scalding hot for several weeks now. And she’d never done it too often—only when he really deserved it.

“But I’ve never served the officers before,” she went on. “How do I know who’ll want what?”

The tray was heavy. Soraya braced it against her stomach to keep it from tipping.

“You know because you ask them.” Hennic spoke with exaggerated patience, as if he was talking to Ludo. Except Hennic was genuinely patient with Ludo. “Beer, sir, or mint tea? You know how to say that?”

“Yes, but . . .”
But what if some officer has seen enough deghans to recognize one? What if one of them sees my face and wants me to bring something to his quarters late one night and stay till dawn? What if one of these men is responsible for my father’s death?

But she knew that one of the Hrum officers had killed her father.

Whatever it takes.

“Yes, Kitchen Master Hennic,” said Soraya.

She shifted the tray and walked toward the door. Casia had been helped onto a bench, where she sat clutching her ankle and waiting for the surgeon. The lines on her face had deepened with pain, but when Soraya passed she summoned a smile and winked.

“Nothing to it, girl. It’s just like serving a table in the meal tent, and you’ve done that dozens of times.”

In fact, having spent years watching her mother direct their maids in the art of gracious and invisible service, table service was one of the few things Soraya did well. She knew the small tricks, like always standing so the person served could take what you offered with their right hand. Her father had taught her to move silently for the hunt, and making herself invisible in plain sight was a skill she’d perfected over the last few weeks. She sometimes wondered if she was using the strange sense she’d developed for people to make them overlook her. Could she possibly be using shilshadu magic without knowing it? Surely not.

At least she had nothing to fear in serving in the governor’s quarters, Soraya reassured herself as she threaded the busy traffic of the central square. After all these weeks, proper service was something she could do without even thinking about it. But in Garren’s quarters she’d have to keep her wits about her. If she did that, she’d have no trouble at . . .

Soraya came to a stop, staring at the governor’s quarters closed door. She had no hand free to open it and if she kicked it, to approximate a knock, she’d interrupt whatever was going on
inside. She could have set the tray on the ground and opened the door, but one of Hennic’s rules was that nothing that held uncovered food was to be placed on the ground. And it was no use thinking he wouldn’t know—Hennic always found out about things like that.

Three officers came up the path where she was standing, and Soraya stepped aside. Since the summer’s heat had set in, the Hrum had started wearing sleeveless tunics that showed off their rank tattoos. The markings these men bore indicated two substrategi and a tactimian—high officers. They paid Soraya no attention as they passed, but as they went through the door one of the substrategi, a huge man with a bushy red beard, held the door open and looked back at her inquiringly.

“Thank you, sir.” Soraya scuttled through, like a beetle darting into a crack.

Governor Garren was the only officer who’d had his quarters built bigger than his old tent had been, but the front room, where business was conducted, was still crowded. The governor and a handful of substrategi sat around the table, and everyone else stood.

Soraya went to serve the governor first. She had seen Garren often enough, in the meal tent, which they still called a tent, though it was now completely framed in wood. Like most of the high officers, the governor ate in his quarters, but he sometimes came to the meal tent to address the troops. He wasn’t a bad-looking man, she supposed, though his face was too sharp for her taste—when she first saw him, she thought he looked like a shopkeeper. It wasn’t until he spoke that his total lack of warmth, humor, and compassion made itself felt.

“Beer or mint tea, sir?” she murmured, presenting the tray by his right hand.

His gaze flicked over her, and he chose tea without another glance in her direction.

The rest of the substrategi had the same oddly mixed appearance as the rest of the Hrum army. There was even a woman among them, hard muscled, and battle scarred. The red-bearded substrategus was the only one who chose beer, and he nodded an absent thanks as he took the cup.

The woman, seated next to him, cast him an envious glance.
But if she wanted beer, why did she choose tea?
The answer dawned, and Soraya suppressed a
grin. Her father had been powerful enough to attract sycophants, and he’d had small patience with them. “I need people who’ll argue when I’m wrong, Razm take them!” But Soraya had seen plenty of men, and women too, who ate what the powerful ate, drank what they drank, and laughed when they laughed.

Was Garren the kind of commander, of ruler now, who was flattered by such attentions? If so, it probably wasn’t a disaster. Most of Farsala’s gahns had been the same . . . and Farsala had fallen.

Soraya moved on to serve the lesser officers, and noted that most of them chose whatever they preferred without looking to see what the governor was drinking. She recognized the tactimian who’d been talking to the peddler, but he paid her no more attention than the others. The door opened and shut several times, and the crowd became denser still, dense enough that it was hard to move through it with a large tray, but Soraya did her best imitation of her own mouse-mannered maids, and no one seemed to notice her.

As soon as a harried-looking man filled the last empty chair at the governor’s table, Garren rapped on the wood and the room fell silent.

“I have called you all here to report an incident in Desafon. Our supply depot there was set afire and burned to the ground.”

Soraya served her last two drinks and stepped back to stand against the wall, ready to go for more refreshments if the need arose. In the consternation rippling through the room, it was easy to remain unnoticed.

One deep voice, that of the red-bearded man, rose above the disturbed murmurs. “
Set
afire, sir? Deliberately?”

“Yes, Barmael. The ordnancer had just purchased eight barrels of wine from some downriver farm and stored them in the warehouse. The men who fought the fire didn’t have time to investigate, but they noticed that several of the barrels were open and one had been knocked over. Since the sentries observed nothing until the fire was well started, Tactimian Nellus concluded that the arsonists were carried into the warehouse inside the barrels.”

“Then the freight handlers must have been in on it,” said a centrimaster. “There would have been a big difference in the barrels’ weights.”

“There doubtless was,” said Garren coolly.
“But the men who crewed the barge also acted as freight handlers. They even got paid extra for it.”

There was a moment of chagrined silence.

“Someone’s got a nerve,” said the red-bearded officer, Barmael. His voice was mild. “Did we lose anything of importance in the fire? Any casualties?”