The Humbled (The Lost Words: Volume 4) (14 page)

But the Kataji chieftain was rather lenient with the slut. If he saw urgency in her studies, he never showed it, never expressed his anger. Well, she could not unravel all truths and mysteries. She was fighting for her life, for her freedom, for the freedom of her nation, and she would use any chance to better her position. There would be time to ponder Aileen after Somar was liberated. Oh, there would be so much time to repay the whore for all her little tricks, for all the humiliation. They would make it into a song, Sonya promised.

The guild mistresses sat quietly, looking somewhat shocked by this exchange. Delphine was the first to recover. “Lady Aileen, you might want to review these reports, too.” She piled a meaningless swath of papers in front of the whore.

Another day slowly bled as they sat and talked. Aileen was asking too many questions, and they were forced to answer her, give her genuine replies about how the city was run, how one could estimate the required yield, how the supply of wood to forges and the casting of bolts and nails all came together. Sonya taught her about trade agreements, about loans, about collateral payments. She even told her an old cautionary
tale about a greedy banker and a crazy goatherd who got rich through a simple mistake in a written contract.

Eventually, the slut surrendered and left. By then, everyone in the room was dead exhausted, and Sonya was nauseated from the smoke. She was hungry, too, and she realized her body hurt from tension, muscles drawn taut.

“We will meet again tomorrow. Early morning.” The slut usually slept late. That would give them enough time to resolve some of the difficult plans before they were interrupted.

She was tired. She should just go to sleep. It was obvious that Pacmad had other entertainment. Instead, she left the monarchical chamber and went for a stroll through the palace. After all, she had to keep in shape. Sitting around all day long would not make her belly or her thighs any less lumpy. She had to be beautiful and ravishing, and she could not afford to lose to Aileen.

A summer sun was setting, kissing the city rooftops. If her reckoning of time was correct, tomorrow was the name day of Monarch Raven, who had allegedly founded Somar. A week after that, her own. She would be that much older.

Cruel how time favored men and made women uglier. With every new year, she had to work harder to keep her breasts firm, to keep her bottom round, to milk her skins with expensive lotions so that creases would not settle in. Men were valued by their deeds, women by their faces and breasts.

Sonya considered leaving the palace and walking out into the cobbled courtyard. But her sandaled feet took her toward the workshops in the back of the manse, the ghost of a broken toe clicking faintly. She did not know why she chose to go there and stare at hairy men beating lumps of metal, feeding and grooming horses, or cleaning armor. Yet, their smelly, scarred,
imperfect shapes gave her solace for some reason. Maybe after Aileen, she needed a dose of ugliness to calm her down.

The courtyard was thick with nomads, but they ignored her, knowing all too well who she belonged to. They didn’t even dare look at her the wrong way. Morbidly, she was totally safe among her foes, these unruly, illiterate tribesmen.

Their smells were offensive nonetheless. Disgusting. Animals, just like the horses and dogs slinking around them. She should be repulsed. Perhaps becoming a queen had changed her perspective, made her stronger. After all, if she could not endure the eye-watering stench of brown horse piss, burnt iron, and unwashed bodies, she did not deserve to lead a nation.

From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed another alien presence, a clean spot on a dirty rag of meat and hair and leather and tools. None other than Verina. She had two ladies-in-waiting trailing her. Unconcerned, just like Sonya, the viscountess was strolling, enjoying herself.

What! First Aileen, now this whore. What kind of trickery is this!

Almost in a trance, Sonya moved toward the other slut. Verina saw her and beamed a precise, cordial smile in greeting. “My lady,” the slut greeted, as befitting her station.

“Verina,” Sonya said, moving closer, blowing two pecks in the air near the woman’s perfumed cheeks. “What a strange place we meet.”

“My lady, I saw you crossing the corridor. I thought it would be rude if I didn’t come over to greet you. I was just coming back from a visit to the park. General Pacmad provided me with an escort of his men so I would be safe.”

What game is that mongrel playing?
Sonya wondered, fuming. Perhaps he had discovered her and was merely toying with her. Perhaps she was a dead woman, and she did not know it
yet.
No!
She could not give up. She could not let doubt smother her. She was a queen.

“I was intrigued, so I came here,” Sonya lied. “I have never given the backbone of a functioning palace much thought. Now that I am in charge of providing for this city, this is an illuminating exercise. One must know the fine details to govern with efficiency.”

“You are very brave,” Verina agreed, radiating nothing but pure sincerity.

Sonya looked to the left. There was an anvil there, a big hammer resting on top of it, a bucket with iron rods on the ground below. She imagined herself dragging Verina by the hair into the smithy, laying her head on that cold, dusty metal, and beating her brains out, like egg yolk from a shell.

She extended her hand. “Dear, we have not chatted in a long time.” And she led her inferior away from the noise and bustle, scheming with vigor, thinking how she would defeat this slut, too.

CHAPTER 10

J
arman was almost bored waiting for his friend to return. He sat on a tree stump, an old, charred relic turned black and stone hard by lightning, watching a beetle rolling a dung ball three times its size, his head swimming with thoughts and worries.

There was a noise like someone whipping dried leaves. Jarman raised his head and saw a cloud of litter settle down. Lucas was standing there, back from his spying. He dusted himself off and stepped closer, his tattooed face stretched with worry and weariness.

“It is bad,” the senior wizard admitted, striding past.

Jarman pushed himself off the stump and joined his life slave for a walk back to Ecol, a shy league away. It would take them a while to get back to civilization, to the life of politics and intrigue, just enough time to let them talk uninterrupted.

There was a knot of woodsmen coming out of the Weeping Boughs. One lifted a hand in greeting and waved. Jarman waved back. His robed appearance and Lucas’s blue face had made them quite recognizable with the people of the town.

Lucas steered away from the cutters, into the wild grass expanse, surefooted and maybe agitated. To see the old Anada
preoccupied was unnerving. “The Naum forces are coming closer. They have almost completely overrun northern Eracia and Caytor. The eastern body is lagging behind a little, but that doesn’t diminish their threat in the slightest.”

Jarman tried to imagine the layout of the realms. So they had just a few more weeks before the armies clashed. Maybe a month, a month and a half. That was all the time he had to make Amalia forge peace with the Parusites. Then, it might be too late.

“Their supply train is stretched awfully long and thin, though. We should be able to exploit that.” Lucas stepped over a rock. “Some of them have taken over abandoned villages and planted a few crops that just wouldn’t grow in this climate. But most are just plodding on south.”

Lucas’s magical trips north and back had given both of them a valuable insight into the disposition of Calemore’s vast army. The van consisted of troops, a staggering number of them, moving as a landslide, unstoppable. But they did not have any deep strategy or any reserves. They had to forage off the land, and being bent on destruction, their progress was simply not sustainable. The army could not feed itself, and soon it would be forced to slow down.

Following days and weeks behind, was the rest of the Naum nation, women and children and craftsmen, bringing their lives and culture to the realms. Or rather, returning after their ancient banishment. It seemed Calemore simply planned on killing everyone else, then settling his folk on the empty land. But war had its own unpredictability, and it burned more than it saved. His warriors were slowly starving themselves. Their headlong pace was their biggest enemy right now. They might have to wait for their kin to join them before they could resume their advance.

Jarman was not fond of the idea of murdering unarmed people, but he could not really think of an easier way of fighting a superior foe. As long as the nations of the realms remained split and at war with one another, Lucas and he simply did not have enough soldiers to resist the Naum invaders. Slipping behind the enemy lines and cutting off all their supplies sounded like their best hope. That meant sending some of the defenders into the conquered, ruined territory to harry the Naum forces, maybe even make them stop their brutal war altogether. It was almost unimaginable, but he had to believe that.
My visions…

At the moment, he was not sure Amalia would listen.

She was very frightened, like a cornered animal, and she felt she desperately needed loyal men around her. Jarman could very well guess what her reaction to his idea would be: one of scorn and disbelief, maybe even outright mistrust.

“You should help Amalia,” Lucas said suddenly.

Jarman frowned. “I am.”

The old wizard shrugged. “Not quite. You are holding her in your debt. She knows that. She begrudges you for that. No one likes being humiliated, and even less being reminded of their helplessness.”

Jarman sniffed. “I have saved her life more than fifty times in the past two months.”

Lucas shook his head. “You have indebted her fifty times.”

“It’s the only way to get her to agree to my proposal.”

“Well, so far she hasn’t made peace with the Parusites, has she? It’s pure luck the Athesians won that battle against Princess Sasha. Now, all Adam’s daughter can think of is that she has no friends and allies around her, and she resents that. Resents you.”

Jarman was not expecting so much insight, so many words from his old friend. It was disturbing. But Lucas was not one to impose his ideas. “I am helping her,” he said weakly.

“We have come here to avenge your third mother,” Lucas preached. “That does not mean we should let this land burn after we’re done. I’ve seen people burn their crops and houses before fleeing so that the Naum soldiers would not be able to take them for their own. Not a bad war tactic, but if Calemore loses, then what? Caytor and Eracia will be left scarred, ruined. People will just starve. We cannot allow that. It would be immoral.”

Which is why the Sirtai never meddled in continental affairs
, Jarman thought with some bitterness. No matter what decision he made, it would always have dire consequences. It would cause as much grief and misery as joy and progress. The only question was, did he want to be the one making the grim choices for the sake of pride?

“I will stand by you to the death,” Lucas spoke. “But I will not turn a blind eye.”

Jarman looked behind him, north. You couldn’t tell by the puffy, milky wisps of white clouds moving across the blue sky that there was death and destruction there, so far, yet so close. “Maybe our plan should focus on stalling the enemy. That could work. Force them to retreat.”

Lucas stopped walking. “Until they figure out how to work the land and use rain to their advantage. Until they gather enough food to sustain them for a march all the way to the Velvet Sea. Then, there will be nothing left to salvage.” He pointed in the other direction, toward the black, silky cloud rising above Ecol, breathed out by its thousand smithies and forges. “The plan should be making Amalia strong and confident so she makes the right decisions. So she trusts you.”

Jarman rubbed his nose, but Lucas carried on, like a tireless plow through black soil. “The Naum people will find the Caytorean winter laughably easy to bear. They will carry on
fighting through snow and sleet, and then, the chances of our victory will be even slimmer. For now, they are unsure how to treat these realms. For now, they are indecisive and disorganized and hungry. If we are to beat them, then the whole of the realms must stand together. The key to that is Empress Amalia.”

Jarman wished he had Lucas’s magic so he could whisk himself north and witness the enemy force with his own eyes. But he had not yet earned his tattoos, and he did not expect to earn them anytime soon. But the moment when he might be forced to use magic to cause death might not be that far off into the future. Amalia was the key to this whole affair. He had to stick to that truth.

“So what do you suggest?”

Lucas leaned in toward him. “Remove the human threats around her. Give her breathing space so she can focus on listening to your story and believing it. Help her. Damn the tradition. We are here, in this strange country, already breaking all known rules and customs. One more will not make any difference.”

Jarman started walking. “Yes.” He wasn’t really sure what his answer stood for. But he didn’t have the courage to disagree with Lucas right now.