The Humbled (The Lost Words: Volume 4) (13 page)

Giselle picked up a chalice of wine and sipped. “It is our duty to keep the city safe, no matter who holds it,” she piped in, and scribbled with her other hand, the paper held down by a leaded glass carafe. She handed her own note to Sonya.

My girls have more than five thousand sword blades safely stashed away. We will be able to distribute them hidden inside bread carts prior to the Eracian attack.

Sonya frowned but said nothing. She passed the message to the other ladies. So was the nation’s freedom plotted, she thought, most bravely, under the very nose of the enemy.

It was a grave risk discussing treason, anytime, anywhere, especially inside the palace itself. One little slip, and she would die, probably in great agony. But doing nothing would not help her liberate Somar, nor was it conduct befitting a queen.

Her three partners were loyal. She was quite sure of that. All three had lost their husbands and sons to the Kataji and had every reason to loathe the filthy bastards. They were powerful women, with significant wealth, and Sonya’s own ambition did not impose on theirs in any way. In fact, they could only gain by being friendly and cooperative with her, because she had status and even greater wealth. Her brave husband was the richest man in the realm. After the war, she would make sure he rewarded the women for their valiant effort. She also made sure the guild mistresses knew that. Their success depended on their commitment to her.

Even so, Sonya was careful not to divulge all her plans, and she often played them against one another, hinting at future promises and honors and favors, every time spinning a slightly different story. Their greed kept them busy, even as they schemed rebellion against the nomads.

Most of all, Sonya kept a careful eye on Pacmad’s desires. Should the mongrel try to appropriate any one of these ladies as his concubine, she would have to be cast outside the circle of trust, because she would then become a rival. Luckily,
guild masters usually gained their rank at old age, which made their women somewhat old, too. Pacmad seemed fond of younger girls, and so far, he had kept his hands away from the guild mistresses. They did not seem to appeal to his wicked tastes.

Delphine was busy writing again. The woman led the rather grand food guild, and that meant a hundred other smaller trades would obey her instructions. Sonya expected the pie sellers, bakers, milkmaids, and alewives to use their freedom of travel through the city to carry orders of resistance as well as weapons and tools to the widowed Eracian women, who patiently waited for their chance to turn against the nomads.

Sonya extended her hand. The mistress was elaborating on how she intended to use the weapons produced by Giselle’s smiths. Most city women were not skilled in fighting, but there were a few old veterans from before Emperor Adam’s time who still remembered how to poke flesh with pointy sticks. Others just lusted for revenge and would compensate for any lack of training with brute dedication.

Armed opposition was only part of it, a very small part. When the Eracian assault finally came, the women would mostly focus on barricading the city, preventing the nomads from deploying freely. They would litter the streets with spikes, block alleys with carts, and set fires to barracks and inns housing the enemy, while making sure children were taken out of harm’s way. The fires had to be planned carefully so that the blazes did not spread unchecked. The women would poison the food, and the whores would try to assassinate the soldiers and officers in bed. The majority would simply hide in cellars, with enough bread and water to survive a few days.

Sinead did not seem to like the last note. She was writing her own response, the pen scratching furiously. Giselle was
talking so that no one would suspect anything was wrong. Sonya did not believe Pacmad had spies eavesdropping on her, but there could always be some common whore listening in, thinking she might wheedle gratitude or mercy from the nomad chieftain if she overheard a useful tidbit.

“Two buckets of ash for every rooftop,” the smith lady was saying, as if disagreeing with the rest. “And we must have a barrel of rainwater, too.” Those would come in handy if the wind carrying flames licked the wrong buildings.

Marking all of the taverns and houses holding the Kataji and the Namsue was also a big challenge. After the first wave of rape and pillage, the nomads mostly clustered in makeshift barracks in the wealthier areas. But there were many others who had gone into other quarters, expelling the survivors or using them as laborers. When Bart finally came to free her, Sonya planned for the city to be largely intact, with minimal damage. If everything went smoothly, only the nomad scum would burn and choke in the deliberate arson. She would present their charred, smoldering bodies to her loving husband, and he would be proud of her. The nation would cheer her as their queen—

Sinead was arching a delicate, thin brow. Sonya looked down and picked up yet another note.

The general will be suspicious if he notices the lack of flour in the warehouses. I can only manipulate the numbers so much. You promised him too much, and now he expects reserves for at least half a year.

Sonya sniffed. She wrote back.

Then make your women work harder. That’s what accountants and clerks are for. Make them.

But there was a risk there, too. Most of the underlings were not privy to the plan, so they also suspected nothing. Which meant the head of the merchants had to lie to her own women, and falsify the reports so they would falsify other reports, until it became a mess.

A wisp of smoke rose as Delphine burned another strip of paper. The room stank.

Sonya wished she could have consulted more of the guild leaders, but Pacmad was behaving irrationally lately. He seemed overly paranoid for some reason, so he would let her meet with the city leaders only in small groups. That meant repeating this silent ritual over and over. That took time, and she had no knowledge how long it would be before Bart came to her rescue. The Eracians were poised to strike any day now. She did not have to be a great expert in warfare to understand what those massive wooden monsters signified, the observation towers, and rank upon rank of soldiers. Her husband was beefing up the defenses relentlessly, tightening his grip harder every day.

Maybe Pacmad was afraid of Bart. That made her excited and even somewhat aroused. But that also made
her
afraid. If the Father of the Bear lost his composure, he could do something unpredictable. She had enough worries as it was, with Aileen the whore usurping her place. Then, there was that other slut, Viscountess Verina, eying the general with more than just fear lately. She was another woman handling her captivity rather too well, and she might become a real threat.

Well, not all news was dire. Linette had finally died from banging her stupid head against the wall so much. One less opponent but not the one that counted. Aileen and Richelle, those were her primary enemies, and she had to keep ahead of them at all times.

Sonya wished she could kill them, but that would just ruin all her other plans. Soon. She had to keep calm and focused. Queens had a terrible burden to bear, as her own destiny showed.

Bibi came in after knocking three times slowly. Sonya cringed. She remembered how she had snubbed the girl a few times in the past, before she had received Bart’s later.
Be nice. Be polite
. Yes, she had to remember to show some humility, even toward silly trollops like the secretary.

The clerk nodded at her mistress. Sinead took her report and read. Sonya waited, keeping her face passive of any ill emotions. She thought Bibi was looking at her, but she pretended to be busy staring at the head of the guild of merchants instead.

“This is quite interesting,” Sinead said. Sonya didn’t like her voice. It was too high.

Sonya almost snapped her fingers impatiently. “Please, dear?”

The report was written in code, as they had all agreed. On paper, it discussed mundane details of the city’s production, the coal, cloth, and pottery figures. But the real message was the change in the position of the nomad forces in the barracks and on the walls. Colors denoted the tribes and clans, tonnage signified the troops’ strength, names of shops and storehouses stood for origins and destinations. They had to keep track of the Kataji deployment. It was vital before the city’s liberation.

Bibi looked over her shoulder, through the open door of the chamber, into the corridor. She was trying to see if any
nomad might sneak around the corner and barge into their meeting. Burning of little notes over candle flame would not reflect well on Sonya’s position, so she had girls going back and forth with reports and messages all the time, and if a girl saw one of the nomads coming, she would enter and warn them in time. They even had thin cigarettes, the latest fashion with the ladies in Eybalen, so they could pretend to smoke, and hide the burning evidence.

Strange
, Sonya thought, staring at a silver box holding those rolled sticks of dried leaves. People had died in their thousands, mothers had to ration porridge to their babies, but you could find stupid little items like these in almost any villa. The Kataji had left them behind, uninterested or unsure how to use them. Primitives.

Another clerk bustled in, pretending to bring in another missive, her face panicky. It read, “General Pacmad is coming.”

Heart hammering like war drums, Sonya carefully rose and upended the candle holder into the hearth. There was time, no need to rush. She looked at her fingers, red polish glinting like blood. Steady. Calm. She sat back behind the desk, reached into the silver box, a gift from her captor, and picked up one of the cigarettes.

Sonya had never bothered much about what Eybalen whores did. She had always had her own superior finesse and style. Using that marvelous gift between her legs that never went out of fashion. Now she rummaged through her memory, trying to remember how to light one of these things. Puff? Inhale? But the end caught flame, and she coughed, gray tendrils eddying out of her nostrils and mouth.

Sinead waved the cloud of acrid smoke away from her, blinking rapidly. Delphine looked surprised by the whole idea. Giselle looked like she was considering the same thing as Sonya.

No, it would be suspicious
, Sonya warned.

She could hear steps. Soon enough, Pacmad came into view, grinning. He was walking side by side with Aileen. The girl was wearing some thin white sleeveless dress with narrow straps, her nipples showing. There were bruises on her upper arms and shoulders. And what looked like a bite mark at the corner of her mouth. A sweat sheen on her forehead, hair tousled. She looked like she had entertained the bastard with her young, sweet cunt.

“What an occasion,” he teased, the glint in his eyes dangerous. “Aileen will join you for consultations. Tell me, is Sonya teaching you well about city business?”

The girl shrugged. “I guess so.”

Sonya swallowed, her throat sore from that smoke. Every time she met that bitch, she felt weak, disoriented, frightened. With every little word, every little gesture, Aileen could condemn her, make Pacmad angry. She could not afford to lose his confidence now. But the mongrel only cared for fathering more children, the one thing she could not give him.

He was staring at her, she realized and suppressed swallowing another hard lump. “Smoking?”

She smiled weakly, unsure what to say. But it was obvious he expected her to demonstrate her affection for this new habit. Carefully, she sucked the bitter end of the rolled, vile thing, and it was nothing like the stories. No sweet taste of mountain herbs, no intoxicating lilt of the spirit, just the smell of old grass and foul smoke. Well, what else could she expect from lying Caytorean sluts?

“Eybalen fashion,” she rasped, trying to keep tears away, and a monstrous desire to hack like a dying old man.

He rolled his tongue over his teeth. “That stinks.”

She placed the cigarette on the desk, and it decided to roll on its own, leaving tiny orange sparks on the gleaming oak. “I am sorry,” she admitted.

“You will not do that,” he warned.

Aileen pointed. “May I try, please?”

Pacmad shrugged, his muscles twitching. “Yes.”

The slut approached the table and picked up the unfinished stub. Then, she pressed it against her whorish lips, pouted, and tried the same thing Sonya had done just moments earlier.
Cough, vomit, you bitch
. But Aileen did nothing of that sort. She frowned, then inhaled once again. Frowned, inhaled. Eventually, she smirked.

“Is this what ladies in Eybalen do?” she asked stupidly.

Sonya mounted a smile of her own. “It is quite popular.” Well, it had been just before Leopold’s suicide and her imprisonment.

“Can I take those, please?” Aileen was staring at Pacmad with beautiful, young adoration. Sonya wished she could ruin her face with a cheese grater. Take one of those cigarettes and extinguish it against the white of her eye.

Pacmad showed his teeth, face going soft. “Take them. Sonya will provide more when you need.”

Sonya made a tiny nod. “Please join us. We are discussing the production output.”

The general looked instantly bored. He appraised the women in the room for a long moment, then went out, his footsteps receding. Aileen sat herself right next to Sonya, blowing smoke in her ear. She couldn’t stand it anymore, so she coughed, and then gagged on her own spit.

“You don’t like it?” Aileen’s face was colored with concern.

Sonya blinked the smoky bite away. “Now, sweetie, here’s what we did so far,” she started, ignoring the jibe. Like every time Aileen joined her for trade discussions, Sonya carefully altered the topics and began a slow, boring lecture.

Pacmad might want to replace her with this young bitch, but fortunately, Aileen wasn’t very bright or too keen on studying. She got bored quite often, quickly, and she skipped many of the meetings, probably too busy fucking. Sonya was immensely grateful for that, because it allowed her just enough time to resume planning her realm’s defense. With Aileen around all the time, the insurrection would have been almost impossible.