Back | Next
Contents

Chapter 11:
In a Family Way


I


The sinking sun had drained the world of color. The leaves on the olive trees around the little villa were almost black, and the bright red tiles along its pitched roof had shifted past maroon and darkened to mahogany.

From the wooded hillside Hanuvar watched as the field slaves were called in for their evening meal. For a short time the sounds of cutlery on plates, the low gabble of voices, and an occasional shout filled the air. After that came a crash of breaking crockery, and silence. Only then did he motion three of his people down slope. They entered the building and joined the silence.

Antires crouched beside him, hand pressed to the trunk of an oak. The playwright had left soft beds and warm meals behind when he’d officially turned the management of the harbor to Izivar Lenereva, and he had insisted upon accompanying Hanuvar on this mission into the wooded foothills southwest of Derva.

“I need to actually see your efforts if I’m going to bring them to life on the stage,” Antires had told him over a dinner in a private tavern room. He still possessed a young man’s craving for adventure, even though he had surely learned by now that any exciting moments lay between long stretches of hard living and incredible boredom, and not uncommonly were marked by horrifying violence. Hanuvar had reminded his friend of this, then pointed out that this particular mission was hardly a standard one.

“But none of them are really standard, are they?” Antires had asked. “Any time you or Carthalo are handling things personally it means you couldn’t simply buy or trade your way clear.”

And so he’d rejoined Hanuvar, grumbling only a little when their expedition had been caught in the rain on an open road.

Carthalo had sent his oldest two children along, both to assist, and for seasoning. Hanuvar was particularly glad to have Carthalo’s daughter Lucena accompany them, in part because she was clever and capable, but also because these particular slaves would likely feel more at ease if at least one of their liberators was female. Four more of Carthalo’s long-time operatives rounded out their force and helped manage the two horses and the wagons as well as security on the night watches. Three of them waited a quarter mile out with the animals.

From time to time, faint voices from the villa reached the ridge where Hanuvar and Antires waited. That was all to be expected. Hanuvar was more concerned that the sedative with which the conspirators had laced the food might be discovered, or simply not be heavily enough imbibed by the rest of the household. A slighter danger was that it might be too heavily consumed.

The evening stretched on. The sun in the trees sank further, until the shadow of the oaks merged with the ground in the growing murk. The roof tiles transformed from mahogany to black.

Finally Carthalo’s son Horace emerged, his features lost in the twilight, for he was only a darker outline against the grayer villa behind, identifiable only by height and the shape of the curling hair his father had passed on to him. He raised a left hand and waved it three times; the all clear.

Two more followed him out, one tall, one short, then another pair, holding close to one another. A sixth walked with the unmistakable waddle of a woman far into pregnancy. That left only one more, apart from Lucena and sturdy Brutus, one of Carthalo’s best operatives, but an additional slender adult emerged, walking with two children holding hands.

“Is one of them Lucena?” Antires asked. “This is more people than we planned for, isn’t it?”

“That’s not Lucena,” Hanuvar said, for he had seen a more confident female figure emerge, followed by wide-shouldered Brutus.

“Who are the extras?” Antires asked.

“We’ll find out soon.” Hanuvar replied. As Horace drew close Hanuvar stepped to the slope edge, hands extended to assist over the final feet.

Horace anticipated Hanuvar’s questions as he came up, saying sheepishly: “The ladies brought a few more. They insisted.”

The old maxim held that few plans survived contact with the enemy, and while that was true, in Hanuvar’s experience a plan was just as likely to go awry in the hands of allies with motives of their own. In this case the plan had depended in part upon their contacts in the household, and they’d apparently altered his detailed instructions.

The extent of those changes wasn’t fully clear until all of them were in the little clearing just beyond the wood edge. Horace introduced them by the light of a lantern unshuttered by Brutus.

First were the two Volani women, slim and pale and very young. Bruises stood out along the arms and shoulders of the older, and from their tight-fitting tunics it was clear that both were a few months along in pregnancy. One of the smaller figures was the third Volani that they’d been aware of, a sad-eyed girl of about eight, who clung tightly to the hands of the other girls.

Then there was a ruddy, sharp-featured Ceori woman with light brown eyes and red-gold hair. She too was bruised, but there was nothing shy in her manner. Her gaze was challenging. Near to her was the woman furthest along in her pregnancy, a darkly tawny beauty of Ruminian extraction, to judge from her coiled black hair. If the Ceori was challenging, the Ruminian’s stare showed that she was downright angry. Finally, there was a shapely Hadiran, with thick straight black hair, wide-hipped and deep-bosomed, whose dark-eyed gaze kept shifting between confusion and fear.

Three others were there, including their first unexpected guest, a shy little blond boy. The other person, whom Hanuvar had taken to be a child, proved to be the last of their intended guests and their principal contact, Marcella, a short, buxom woman in her early middle years scarcely as high as Hanuvar’s chest.

Most of Marcella’s attention was upon the woman standing defensively behind her. And this refugee was the biggest surprise of all. The rest of the women were garbed in plain white tunics and sandals. This last, also visibly pregnant, wore a finely tailored blue dress. A delicate azure necklace hung about her slender throat, and matching earrings dangled from her ears. Even her sandals were elaborately tooled.

“This,” Horace said, “is the lady Helena.”

Antires voiced Hanuvar’s own astonishment. “You brought the master’s wife?”

Little Marcella’s head rose swiftly. Her sharp, nervous movements suggested she were a stout bird. “Please, you don’t understand. The mistress was just as badly treated as the rest. I had to tell her.” Her gaze shifted to Hanuvar. “Please, lord. Take her and the boy with you.”

“I’m no lord. You delivered the drug to all of them?”

“Yes, lo . . . yes. They sleep, just as you promised. But the master is away, visiting his father.”

“It’s all that saved him,” the Ruminian said in fluid Dervan. “I would have killed him if I could have.” The fire in her dark eyes suggested she spoke the truth. And her words inspired no change of expression in the serious young wife.

Hanuvar sighed inwardly and shifted his attention to Horace and Lucena. “Was there any violence?”

“One of them kicked one of the overseers a few times,” Horace reported. “But no deaths. Everyone else in the villa is asleep.”

“We moved a few to their sides so they could breathe more easily,” Lucena added.

Any deaths during the escape would increase the chances of pursuit. For all that she was new to field operations, Lucena seemed to have a better instinct for thinking on her feet than Horace.

Hanuvar faced Helena. “We can help these slaves. We can give them new homes and new identities. But what can we do for you? Where will you go?”

The wife’s voice was tired but fierce. “Anywhere but here. Anywhere without him.”

“The master is a terrible man,” little Marcella vowed, and the other women agreed in a variety of languages. Only the Hadiran said nothing, but she nodded vigorously.

“And there’s another matter, lord—sir.” Marcella pressed her hands together and tilted her head sharply. Her fingers intertwined, wrestling out her anxiety. “My husband is away, with the master. If we could wait until they return, and free him too, it would be . . . I would be very grateful.”

“I told her we can’t do that,” Horace told Hanuvar, then turned back to Marcella without waiting for an answer. “None of us like slavery. At all. We’d wipe it from the peninsula if we could. But we can’t. We can’t save everybody.”

Hanuvar stilled him with a hand on the shoulder. By talking too much, he was making it obvious that they were not true members of Dervan society. “We can’t wait,” he told the women. “I’m sorry.”

Marcella’s eyes were pleading. “The master will be terrible to him.”

“I wish we could help him. But we’ve limited room, and resources. And time. We must leave now.”

Marcella’s face sagged with sorrow. She had to have known what the answer would be.

Helena rubbed her maid’s shoulder in sympathy, which elevated Hanuvar’s opinion of her on the instant.

Antires still looked to Hanuvar, an unasked question in his gaze.

Taking a Dervan patrician’s wife was trouble. But then there had been ugly complications all along when it came to freeing Volani women, many of whom were in horrific circumstances, owned by brothels and bathhouses and inns. Again and again Carthalo or his agents had been forced to pay extravagant prices to purchase entire female slave holdings so that no one would get to wondering why so many Volani were being singled out.

But what might they do for a Dervan matron?

“Let’s get moving,” Hanuvar ordered. With a few quiet words Brutus got the expedition sorted and led them deeper into the woods. Only a short hike would deliver them to the back road where the wagons waited.

Horace trailed, and Hanuvar brought up the rear. After a time he realized Lucena’s brother deliberately hung back because he wished to speak privately. The young man said, at last: “I’m sorry about all this. I wasn’t sure what to do with them. I didn’t think it was wise to leave any behind who wanted to go. They’d have told people what we’d done.”

“You did the right thing,” Hanuvar assured him.

Horace seemed to take some solace from that but remained apprehensive. “Are we going to be able to find room for them?”

“We’ll think of something.”

Horace relaxed, apparently pleased that someone else would have to solve the problem. After a time, his mind turned to another concern. “Did you see their bruises?”

“Yes.”

“Calchus beat them, him or the overseer. All those women.”

Hanuvar didn’t feel a response was needed. Horace was just a dull shape in the darkness beneath the trees, but his manner and voice were quiet and wistful. “He had all these pretty young things in his home. All he had to do was be kind to them, and he would have been the luckiest man alive. Living a dream.”

“Some men need better dreams,” Hanuvar said.

Horace might have been considering that comment for the rest of their hike, for he remained silent.



II


The master had finally stopped shouting, but his face remained mottled with red splotches. Ironically, he had handsome features, with a fine nose and broad cheekbones and a strong chin. But his mouth was often twisted into an ugly sneer, pinched with meanness, or rapaciously open and acquisitive. Calchus seemed capable of few other expressions.

The head overseer abased himself on his knees, pleading that he had beaten the remaining slaves already and assured the master they’d have confessed if they knew where the women had gone.

All the women of the household had fled. Every single one of the master’s bed slaves, his wife, the little girl, and then, of course, Florin’s own wife, Marcella. The little house boy had wandered away with them as well.

As Florin listened to the recounting of it all that morning he felt at a strange remove. His Marcella had left without him. How could she have done that? And where could those poor women be thinking that they could go?

He listened while the burly overseer, Monto, said he suspected one of the slaves had poisoned the food. Monto repeated again and again that he had questioned everyone, told how he and the others hadn’t awakened until the morning, a few hours before the master’s return. Some had been hard to rouse.

Calchus’ father Plautus waited silently with his two Hadiran bodyguards, grim, hatchet-faced men who spoke only when their master asked questions of them. Plautus was an older replica of his son, virtually identical save for a few streaks of gray in the black hair, some wrinkles, and a mouth permanently drooped into a scowl. And whereas the master had three principal expressions, the father had two; the angry one he wore when at rest, and one of unbridled contempt when facing anyone who displeased him. Plautus’ hands were knotted about his twisted oak staff. His eyes roved over the frightened and uncomfortable male slaves gathered in the courtyard. Many bore bruises or gashes, no doubt from the chief overseer’s interrogation.

“Where are my women?” the master shouted. “They had to have talked. Women always talk!”

The slaves stared back in abject fear, and shook their heads, quickly.

“Good money was paid for those women,” Calchus continued.

Florin wondered why the master mentioned that, because the slaves could hardly be expected to appreciate it, or care.

“My money,” Plautus interrupted. “Your shouting’s doing no good. We need answers.”

Calchus scowled and his blank-eyed gaze searched among the slaves. Finally it shifted to Florin, standing to the right of Plautus’ Hadirans. “You,” he said.

“Me, master?”

The master advanced so that he stood with his face only inches from Florin’s own. “You know something. Your woman had to tell you.”

“No, master.”

“Liar!” The blow to Florin’s face sent him stumbling. He raised a hand to his stinging cheek as the master advanced, motioning the overseer toward him. “Give me your whip!” he shouted, then once it was in hand turned to Florin again. “You had to know!”

“No, master. I would have told you!”

Teeth bared, the master brought the whip down across Florin’s shoulder, striking at too close quarters to cause any lasting damage, though the blow still stung.

“Liar! Lower your hands!”

Florin had raised them to protect his face and head. Shaking, he forced them down, and the master lifted the whip.

“Enough!” Plautus cried. “Value a man who speaks the truth.”

The master swore silently and lowered the whip. “We will have to contact the slave catchers,” he said with a scowl. “I’ll be a laughing stock.”

“Forget that. Slave catchers will not be gentle enough with the women,” Plautus countered, sneering.

“The women deserve whatever manhandling they get.”

“Fool. If they’re treated too roughly, they could lose the children.”

Calchus looked abashed and lowered his head. “Yes, Father. I do want them alive. The punishments I will give them . . . ” His eyes glittered. “But how will we find them without the slave catchers?”

His father must already have been contemplating that, for he answered without hesitation. “If we were in my sanctorum, it would be simpler. But here we must make choices. I will need one of your slaves. The one you will miss least. And I shall need a bit of your blood.”

“My blood?” Calchus asked.

“Family blood,” the older man said. “You know how it works.”

“Yes, Father,” the master said dully. Without much reflection he pointed out old Titus, the farm hand. The assistant overseer ordered the rest of the slaves out. Florin briefly hoped he too could leave but it was not to be.

The gray-haired man laboror watched wide-eyed as the Hadirans carried forth one of the battered wooden tables the field hands ate from and sat it in the weedy courtyard. He pleaded only a little when the Hadirans ordered him to the table, then lay face up when Monto cracked his whip. He lay shivering as the Hadirans bound him to the wood, with his hands stretched above his head.

Plautus, meanwhile, contemplated a black prism he’d pulled from his cloak. It seemed ill suited for the daylight, a black turnip-sized hunk of darkness daring the sun to counter its majesty. Plautus made no effort to calm the frightened old man. He seemed scarcely aware of him as he drew squiggles on Titus’ forehead with ashes. He looked to the Hadirans and pointed vaguely at the slave’s chest.

Titus and Florin gasped as one of the Hadirans whipped up a knife and stepped forward. But when he brought the knife down it was only to rip open Titus’ tunic from collar to waist.

While Plautus drew more squiggles on the exposed gray-haired chest, Titus pleaded a last time with his master, watching uncomfortably from the side.

“Please, master. I never gave you no trouble. I always did whatever you asked.”

“You were always slow,” Calchus said. “Silence, unless you want the whip. You’ll disturb my father.”

“But what will he do with me, master?”

Calchus’ voice rose. “Do you want the whip?”

“No, master,” Titus said in a small voice, still trembling.

He fell silent, and in a few more moments Plautus seemed satisfied with the strange spiraling symbols with which he had ornamented the aged farm hand. Only then did he look up from his work. With the same carelessness with which he had signed the Hadirans, he waved his own son forward.

Florin rarely saw the master dismayed, and at any other time he might have enjoyed just how uncomfortable Calchus was to present himself to his father. When the master offered his bare left arm, Florin finally understood the cause of the long line of old scars he’d long since noted. With a sharp, hooked knife, Plautus gouged a new line in his son’s flesh below the elbow. Blood flowed freely. It splattered the grass, and the master’s sandals, and his father’s prism. Against that strange surface the blood did not drip but sank inside almost as though it had been suctioned.

One of the Hadirans tended the injury with brusque care, as though it were a task with which he had long familiarity.

Plautus had already turned away, whispering strange words to the prism while he rubbed the knife against it. He loomed over Titus and lifted the blade.

The old man screamed when Plautus drove the knife into his stomach and kept screaming as Plautus thrust his arm up through the wound and deep inside his body.

Titus didn’t stop making noise until a few moments after Plautus pulled free a pulsing, dripping human heart and held it against the prism.

Florin had seen goats sacrificed, but never a man, and he had to gulp down his bile. He traded a look of disgust with Monto that was a brief, and rare, moment of fellow feeling.

The heart stilled and paled and diminished, as though it were an olive left long days in the sun. Plautus too, had changed, for, at long last, he was smiling. He sank to his knees beside the corpse and began to chant into his prism.



III


Their wagons were stopped mid-way through the morning by a half dozen bored horse troops. The leader of the cavalrymen was a grizzled optio with sharp eyes who pulled up beside the first wagon, driven by Antires. The other horsemen eyed the wagon’s armed guards with casual care, alert but unconcerned about the visible weapons. On back roads, only foolish merchants travelled without guards.

Hanuvar sat in the back of the covered wagon, amid the barrels of wine and the crates of goods. Larn, the little blond boy, sat across from him, and a portable wooden game board that Brutus had carried lay on the crate between them, populated by blue markers. The optio peered in at them before returning his attention to Antires.

“Where are you headed?” the optio asked.

“Clusia,” Antires answered.

“Transporting wine?”

“And leather for sandal making. I always carry some wine samples if you’re interested. Nothing fancy, but pleasant enough.”

The optio didn’t react one way or another to the offered bribe and waited for his junior to return from his onceover of the second wagon. Hanuvar heard him report: “Looks normal enough.”

“We appreciate the legion watching out on the roads,” Antires said.

“They’ve got us spread thin these days.” The optio made no mention of fugitives or escaped slaves. One of the women hidden in the compartment below the wagon bed moved with a thump but the optio didn’t seem to notice. Hanuvar shifted a half breath later to cover.

The optio was more old-fashioned than some, and only accepted two wine skins after Antires insisted he and his men deserved their thanks. The veteran politely raised the skin in salute, then just as politely praised the wine and passed it to his second. The officer waved the wagons on, and both vehicles rumbled forward, followed by their own horse guards. Outside, the cavalrymen gathered to pass the skins around. Inside, the little boy’s eyes were round in fear.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” Hanuvar said with a smile. “They weren’t even looking for us. They were just a normal patrol.”

The boy seemed uncertain, but the pretty painted board soon captured his attention again and they returned to the game, a rudimentary tactical exercise highly governed by chance.

They stopped only twice before making camp, and each time the women emerged from their cramped hiding places sweaty and uncomfortable. This, Hanuvar thought, was just one more dreadful trial for them.

If they’d cared to travel further into the evening, they’d have reached a nearby village. But a village would mean being seen by a host of fellow travelers, and so they camped off the roadside in a burned-out peasant’s cottage with partial walls. The dried horse manure and the ashes in the firepit pointed to its recent use by others for the same purpose.

In only a few days they would arrive at a safe house, and from there the women could be scattered as they wished. But for the next few days, pursuit remained a possibility. Slave catchers had almost surely been alerted. His people remained watchful.

The women stayed mostly to themselves, preferring the company of Lucena to their male escorts, as Hanuvar had thought they might.

He had just finished his evening meal of oat and dried fruit when Lucena walked over from the fire where the women sat and stopped before him. Antires and Horace, seated nearby, looked up.

Lucena’s young, fresh face was solemn with responsibility, as though the news she was about to relay was a grave burden. Her look was apologetic, but her tone was certain. “The women are pressing for silphium.”

Horace finished chewing and swallowed then bluntly stated the obvious. “That would make them sick for days!”

“Tell them I’m sorry,” Hanuvar said. “But they need to wait. We didn’t bring near enough for the use they want. And we don’t have someone trained to help if something goes wrong, nor can we manage the delays necessary even if all goes well. Have you seen the effects of silphium?”

“No,” Lucena admitted.

“They’re going to be feverish, and needing to void themselves, probably multiple times as the the drug works through their body. Suppose that would happen while we’re being stopped by another patrol.”

“It was bad enough when Helena needed us to stop for urination the third time, right after that hay cart passed us,” Antires said.

Though with her youth and finer features Lucena little resembled her father, when she frowned the family resemblance grew more obvious. Her attention to detail was similar as well. “What about those who are close to the cutoff point? Helena’s worried that even a few more day’s delay will be too late.”

“The cut off?” Horace asked.

“There’s a point where no matter how many silphium leaves you eat, you’re stuck with the baby,” Lucena explained. “Ontala is past that day. Some of the others are close.”

“I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” Hanuvar said gently. “Once we reach our refuge, we will have the help needed.” Their collection of fugitives included several experienced midwives and a world class physician.

“Hold on,” Horace said. “Are our women wanting to lose their babies too?”

“Our women?” Lucena asked.

Horace seemed not to have noticed the warning disdain in his sister’s voice. “The women from Volanus,” he explained.

“The girls? Yes.” Lucena’s dark eyes flashed challenge.

Horace, being young, either missed it or ignored it. “We can’t let them do that,” he said to Hanuvar. “Those are Volani children.”

“It’s not your business,” Antires said coolly.

“Well, is it yours?” Horace returned heat. “These are Volani.” He faced Hanuvar. “Isn’t that what we’re risking our lives for, every day? To save Volani lives?”

“This isn’t our concern because we aren’t the ones to live with the consequences.” Hanuvar thought the note of finality in his voice would discourage Horace from further inquiry, but the young man insisted on pressing ahead.

“I know their father is Dervan, but their mothers are Volani. Are they worthless because they’re only half Volani?”

“It’s nothing to do with that! You would make the women bear these children, against their will?” Lucena seethed with fury. “You, who speak so passionately against slavery? Will you keep them in manacles until it is time to deliver?”

Horace didn’t have an answer to that. He could not meet her eyes.

Hanuvar returned his attention to Lucena. “Explain to them that for their safety, and ours, we have to wait. It will only be a few more days. You could tell them I sympathize but it may not mean much.”

“It may not,” Lucena agreed. “But they want to talk with you.”

“Why?”

She looked astonished at him. “To thank you.”

“Have you told them who he is?” Antires asked.

“Of course not! They’ve heard rumors that Hanuvar wanders the countryside killing wicked Dervans, though, and some of them think you might be him.”

Antires grinned as Hanuvar groaned. “With a lyre and a garland in his hair,” he suggested.

“Very well,” Hanuvar said wearily.

Lucena nodded politely, fixing Horace with a pointed look before moving off.

“Why’s she so angry?” Horace asked quietly.

“If you haven’t figured that out,” Antires said, “you might need to reflect a little longer.”

“Why don’t you leave me to speak with the women?” Hanuvar suggested to Horace. “They seem nervous around most of us.”

“They do,” the young man agreed, then nodded his chin at Antires. “Is he staying?”

“I’ve been trying to get rid of this Herrene for almost a year now. But he keeps coming back.”

“It seems a shame to throw me away now,” Antires added.

Horace looked confused by the answer but noting the return of Lucena with some of her charges, he wandered over by Brutus on the north side of camp.

Lucena arrived with the two Volani women and their even younger companion—Meravar, Callena, and Sanava. Even with their noticeable pregnancy bumps the two older ones looked incredibly young, likely no more than fifteen. Their eyes were wide as they bowed formally to Hanuvar and Antires, sitting along the edge of the broken wall. They stammered out a broken, accented thanks. The youngest was more certain in her speech, but also more wooden in delivery. Her gaze was wary.

But then she had been subjected to terrible brutality.

“You are welcome,” Hanuvar replied in Volani. The young women perked up at this, and even the girl eyed him with greater interest.

“Where were you born?” he asked them in their language.

They told him that they had lived in the Talon, a claw shaped promontory north of Volanus’ central harbor. One of them had been a perfume maker’s daughter, the other a carpenter’s. Despite their similar features, they were cousins, not sisters. The smallest one had been an officer’s daughter who had sometimes gone with her mother to the perfume shop and had recognized one of the young women in the slave pens and immediately latched onto her.

“The Talon was lovely in the mornings,” Hanuvar said. “And all along the quay you could clearly hear the songs from the island temples.”

At this, Meravar sang quietly, haltingly, and then her cousin joined. Their confidence grew with the paired sound. Both had pleasant voices, but Meravar’s was truly beautiful, clear and sure. It was a happy song she sang, of the sun’s rising and its gleam upon the ocean, and the departure of the morning fleet on their hunt for fish, but their features were haunted by memory of the harbor and ships that were no more. The little girl began to cry without making a sound.

Beside Hanuvar, Antires wiped tears from his cheeks. Hanuvar nodded slowly in appreciation, then praised their singing. “You will be free to sing as you wish,” he promised. “You need fear no longer.”

The young women hugged him then, but the smallest looked as though she would believe in freedom only when she saw it personally. The three departed, and then Lucena presented the Hadiran, Calakanel. She possessed a lost doelike quality that diminished her otherwise striking features.

Hanuvar’s Hadiran was as rudimentary as Calakanel’s Dervan, but they managed to exchange greetings. He had the sense she still didn’t fully understand what was going on but was happy to be away from Calchus. He lamented no one on this expedition could communicate with her but assured her he had friends he’d introduce later that spoke her language well. She at least understood that she was safe and that things looked better for her future.

Next came the Ceori woman, who Lucena introduced as Maeve. On release last night she had worn her hair pulled back from her forehead, like a Dervan. Tonight it cascaded loosely about her face. She was pale and fierce, sharp and beautiful as a well-made sword.

“I thank you,” she said to him in accented Dervan. To save him from Antires’ questioning later he responded in kind, rather than speaking Cemoni, for he recognized her region of the Ceori lands from her accent.

“It is said that you are a father of battles,” Maeve continued, and Hanuvar did not reveal the inner wince. It appeared that this woman at least was confident in his identity. “I wish you had taken the battle to the master.” She spat to her left after she said his title.

“If we had killed your former master, the pursuit would have been more vigorous and certain.”

“He deserves death. I am the daughter and granddaughter of chiefs. I would have given it to him.”

“I’m sure you would have.”

The woman rested a hand upon the slight protrusion of her belly, and she saw the direction of his gaze. “I will raise my child as a Ceori and teach him to hate the Dervans.”

“You don’t have to keep the baby,” Hanuvar told her.

Her eyes burned. “The child is mine,” she declared with the hint of a snarl.

“The child is yours,” he agreed.

She wanted to know if it was true they would be freed with Dervan papers, and he assured her they would be. Maeve accepted the largesse with a grave nod, thanked him once more, and departed.

The Ruminian passed her as she walked forward, and Lucena said her name was Ontala. Her gaze was as fierce as the Ceori’s, though their looks were otherwise different, her eyes dark and long-lashed, her body full and rounded with at least six months of pregnancy.

She shook her head at the Ceori’s retreating back and said to Hanuvar, though not without affection, that Maeve was a fool. “A child from such a man will be a monster. Calchus is a monster, and so is his father. If I had the means, I would rid myself of this one.”

“Some say it’s blood that makes a child, and others how the child is raised,” Antires said.

“So says the philosopher,” Ontala said, and looked to Hanuvar. “What do you say?”

There was the shine of bright intelligence in her dark eyes. Hanuvar gave her the complex answer she deserved. “I have no great experience with such matters but suspect both can be true. Do not judge your child harshly.”

Her full lips pursed at his words. “Something grows in me I do not want. My aunt died when her child came. My grandmother was never right again after her third child.” She rested her hand on her belly. “You men think it is easy.”

He shook his head gently. “My wife died giving birth to a son who lived only a few hours. I loved her, and I would have loved him.” He felt Lucena’s eyes upon him as he continued. “I do not wish this upon you. But since you cannot change it, I wish you peace.”

She seemed to weigh his words for falsehoods. “And what will you do for me, and the child? The others say you will set us free. Why?”

“Because I swore an oath. I would tell you more, but if I’m to help others, my reasons must remain my own. Do you understand?”

“Not fully, but I respect an oath. Where will you take us?”

“First, to safe houses. But then we can arrange transport wherever you wish to go.”

“You’re a strange man,” she said, “if all that you promise is true. Are you a mystic, or religious man?”

“No.”

“All the stranger,” she said. “Well, then, mystery man, I shall wait to see what happens. If you speak the truth, my blessings will follow you forever after.”

“I could stand a few more blessings,” he said truthfully.

She left him.

“I didn’t know that about your wife and child,” Lucena said softly. “I’m sorry. I should have realized what you said that day we met was true. About your family.”

“You’re kind,” Hanuvar said, and was glad that the tone in his voice discouraged further comments.

Finally Helena arrived before him. The other women had looked fresher despite their long, uncomfortable day, as though even this restrictive freedom in hiding invigorated them. Helena looked more mussed and less settled, although the swelling along the side of her face had gone down. She had removed her jewelry. Mud stained one sleeve of her stola.

She thanked Hanuvar politely then got right to the question that must have been burning at her. “Why are you helping all of us? Oh, I know what the others say. But they’re just foolish slaves. I know you’re not Hanuvar. And I know you’re not doing this out of kindness. There’s profit in so many healthy young women. I just hope you’ll be kind to the boy and Marcella.”

Antires bristled. “Haven’t we been kind to you?”

Hanuvar stayed him with a lifted hand.

“You’ve been pleasant enough, but let’s be honest. You’ll clean us up and have us at a bordello. Possibly a high class one. I’m sure our lives will be better there,” she added.

Lucena gasped.

“What makes you say that?” Antires asked.

Her face clouded. “Any place would be better than where we were.”

“So you’ve said,” Hanuvar responded. “Where do you want to be?”

“I’ve no home left. My father might as well have sold me to Calchus. Mother and her sister have been dead for years.”

“So you’ve no close family. What about friends or relatives in provinces?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because it’s hard to know how to help you. These others are simpler. They’ll be able to fend for themselves. But you’re a patrician.”

“And you’re not sure if you can trust me,” Helena added. “Because you’re afraid I could tell people about your group. Don’t worry. I’d never tell. Just so long as you can get me away from Calchus. I’d even work at a whore house. At least then I’d be getting paid for sex, and I could save the money for something better.”

She apparently had a misconception about how most whorehouses operated.

“I don’t believe most women working there are well treated,” Antires said.

Worry furrowed her brow. “But yours will, won’t it? You don’t seem to be evil men.”

“I swear to you that I am not taking you to a brothel, of any quality,” Hanuvar said.

“We wouldn’t do that,” Lucena assured her.

Helena looked doubtful, so Hanuvar raised his hand and swore an oath by his ancestors that he was not selling them off. The woman looked confused but thanked him and bade him a good night. Lucena followed her, mouthing additional assurances.

“I’m still not sure she believes you,” Antires said quietly.

“Can you blame her? If I told her why we we’re doing this she might understand better.”

“But you can’t,” Antires said. “What are you going to do with her?”

He’d been wondering that himself. “I’m just not sure. I don’t think she’d give us away on purpose, but she might let something slip someday. Or decide like Maeve that I am Hanuvar.”

“It doesn’t help that you talked about Volanus with the young ones. Was that a good idea?”

“It was a good idea for them.”

“Fair enough. But what about Helena? It would take a great deal of money to set her up with a small household, and that would require the purchase of slaves as she likely can’t do much for herself. We’ve no spare money and I know you won’t buy any slaves unless it’s to free them.”

“You’re right. I’m thinking about putting her on one of the ships.”

His brows rose precipitously. “You’re going to put a Dervan on one of the ships to New Volanus?”

“I’ve done it before,” he reminded him.

“If you’re talking about the gladiator, and those others, they were former or current slaves. They weren’t patricians.”

“It’s not her fault she was born in Derva any more than it’s her fault she was born into a family that married her off to that terrible man.”

“You can’t expect your people to welcome her, though.”

“And why not? They’re no strangers to suffering. She’s suffered. It’s not as though she was remotely involved in the decisions that led to war.”

Antires shook his head. “You’re so used to looking further than other men you sometimes forget most can barely see past their feet.”

“Basic empathy shouldn’t be such a hard ask.”

“Yet you know that it is.”

He was right, and Hanuvar sighed. “And that may be our greatest failing of all. Not as Volani, or Herrenes, but as humans.”

“Now who’s being philosophical?”

“Did I accuse you of being philosophical?”

“Not today.”

A chorus of female voices lifted in overlapping screams.

Hanuvar leapt to investigate. His sentinels had responded too but he shouted to hold their posts and went forward only with Antires.

Lucena lay on her back near the second campfire, struggling dazedly to rise. Maeve stood protectively over her, a knife in one hand. Perhaps it was Lucena’s. The other women had gathered behind Ontala, who held a burning brand.

They faced a man’s shape of dripping darkness. It thrust one clublike limb toward Maeve, who struck it skillfully and sent drops of shadows spraying like blood. The thing withdrew its arm and slid to the left.

“What is that?” Antires’ voice rose in consternation.

“Shadow magic.” Hanuvar grabbed an unlit lantern that stood near Lucena. “Grab something on fire and circle it so it’s surrounded by light! Quickly!”

He stepped to the right, snatched up tinder, stuck it into the campfire, then used it to set the lantern blazing. He shone it at the creature, which quickly shifted backward. Ontala shouted for the other women to go. Helena, Marcella, and Calakanel hurried off with the boy, but the others snatched up burning wood. Lucena staggered upright, still dizzily shaking her head, and Antires helped her get clear.

The shadow man slid to the right, after the women, until Hanuvar directed the lantern beam toward it. The thing flowed to the other side, raising the same limb. While the majority of its form shifted like fog inside its confines, the one arm remained solid. It sidled back and forth between the threat of light from Hanuvar and the fire, and the flaming brands waved by the five remaining women and girls. From its movements it looked to Hanuvar as though it was tempted to slide all the way along the axis to its right, through a little gap and on toward the trees, but Horace raced to block it, opening the shutters of his lantern directly in its path.

The thing careened toward the women and girls, no matter the flames at the end of their tinder. Maeve brandished the knife and Antires returned to chuck a burning log at it, halting its progress. Hit then from the direct light of the two lanterns it shrank in upon itself until it was a black ball of darkness no larger than a gourd lying on the ground. Bits of shadow bubbled off it as though it were submerged in boiling water.

“Steady now,” Hanuvar ordered.

As he spoke another woman screamed from behind. Hanuvar heard a male shout, and other cries of alarm. He distinctly heard Marcella yell, “Let her go!”

He couldn’t give any of that his full attention until they’d finished burning down what he now knew for a distraction. The little ball of blackness steamed away into nothing over a dozen heartbeats. Then it was gone. Antires was at his side as he hurried toward the second combat. And as usual the Herrene had questions. “Was that like the shadow monster the revenant made?”

“A little,” Hanuvar said shortly. He didn’t add that the Dervans had employed shadow magic against his men in the second war, and that Harnil had ruthlessly stamped out the practitioners and their acolytes. Until his encounter with the revenant sorcerer, he’d thought the practice lost, for it had never been used against his people again.

One of Carthalo’s men bled from a deep slash across his shoulder. Hanuvar snapped his fingers and set another to tend him. Brutus pointed toward the tree line west of the camp. There Hanuvar heard the unmistakable sound of crashing brush through the dark woods. Something out there moved heavily through the foliage.

Marcella was looking up at him, her face bleeding from two parallel gashes that stretched from forehead to cheek. “It took the mistress!” She pointed. “Just took her up in its arms!”

“What swept her up?” Hanuvar demanded of Brutus.

For once the big man proved garrulous. “It looked like it was built of bloody feathers. It was about the size of a man, but with wide shoulders, and huge arms with claws. And . . . it didn’t have a head. I swear. Nothing. It was the ugliest damned thing I’ve ever seen.”

“How about that?” Antires asked. “You deal with anything like that before?”

“No. Marcella, is this your former master’s doing? Is he a sorcerer?”

“No, sir. It must be his father.”

Ontala and Maeve came up beside them. The Nuvaran had dropped her brand, but her companion now clutched a sword, possibly Lucena’s as well.

“He bragged sometimes that his father had powers,” Ontala offered. She blinked long lashes in disdain. “But he bragged about all kinds of things.”

“What did he say about his father?” Hanuvar asked. “Did he talk about the kind of his magic? Was he part of a group? Was he a revenant?”

“He’d surely have threatened us if that were so,” Ontala answered. “No. His father lived alone. He didn’t even like his son to visit him.”

Marcella bobbed her head. “It’s true. My husband told me of the master’s father’s home. It is an old, crumbling place with only a few servants. He was always too busy to speak to his son, unless he was shouting at him. But he gave him lots of money.”

“We need to get your face tended. Once you’ve relaxed that’s going to hurt.”

“Is it bad?” Marcella asked, raising a hand to her cheek. She blinked at the sight of blood on the fingertips she pulled away.

“I think it’s likely to leave a mark.”

“What about my mistress?” Marcella asked.

“I’ll deal with that.”

“I can tend Marcella,” Brutus said.

“See to it.” Hanuvar called the rest of them together and saw that no one else was missing. Lucena still looked shaken. “Antires can come but I want two more volunteers.”

He settled on Horace and Maeve as he needed Carthalo’s agents to protect the rest. “Brutus, you’re in charge. If we’re not back by midmorning, get everyone on to the safe house.”

“I want to go,” Ontala said.

“I will slay him for us all,” Maeve promised.

“That will have to be good enough,” Hanuvar said.

Ontala scowled but embraced Maeve fiercely.

They grabbed a few waterskins, and Antires rigged a lantern at the end of a short pole. They then headed into the woods in the wake of the headless feathered monster.



IV


Monto’s snores were gentle as those of a sleeping baby, and Florin wondered how such a vicious man slept so comfortably. He supposed it was due to his removal from responsibility. The man’s entire moral compass was given over to following orders.

The master tossed and turned while he dreamed, sometimes raising his voice, though the words were incoherent.

Florin himself couldn’t sleep.

When he’d been very young, he’d been the child of simple farm laborers, but his first master, a kindly man, had recognized his intelligence and brought him into the household, where he’d been given duties that were more socially than physically demanding. Then, at the man’s sudden death two years ago, his cousins had sold off his slaves, and Florin had found himself a personal assistant to Calchus. It hadn’t been long before he’d wished that his first master had not been so kind. For the first few months, Calchus had spent most of his time in a small house in Vorsini, or, more properly, the nearby brothel. But then the rich young man’s father had gifted him with a bevy of slave girls as well as a young wife and a country villa. As a farmhand Florin might have had a harder life, but a farmhand would not be witness to the cruelties, both physical and mental, constantly on display inside the master’s home.

Marcella told him that each slave woman kept the master occupied as long as possible whenever they were selected for his company, so that their fellow sufferers would have as long a break as possible from his attentions. Marcella. His heart ached at the thought of her. What would the master do to her once he caught her? And what could have possessed her to go along with this scheme? The master hadn’t been especially mean to her, since she was beneath his notice. Short, round, and loquacious, the master had thought it the height of amusement to house her with Florin, tall, slim, and quiet—he dark skinned, she light. But they had found that after long stressful days, holding one another was a healing balm in their meager lives. They would lie entwined, listening to the sobs or stifled screams rising from other parts of the house and praise the gods for the whim that had brought them together.

Now . . . now she was probably doomed. They would catch her. The master would likely torture the women he slept with. When done he would have no more use for Marcella than he’d had for poor Titus.

Florin turned his attention to the slump-shouldered figure seated by the fireside. Plautus still stared into the black prism, endlessly whispering to it like a demented lover. The light flickered ruddily along the side of his face, casting him in outline and painting him with wavering red and gold lines. The ebon crystal took no reflection and stood out only in its resistance to light.

The old man had grown older. Yesterday his hair had been black, with a few gray lines; now the conditions were reversed. So there was a price for working evil magics. That was some consolation.

Dawn’s light birthed in the surrounding trees. Florin gulped and rose, casting an eye toward the master, still tossing. Monto yet slept.

But Plautus’ Hadiran bodyguards were up. One or the other had been awake all night long, and they watched Florin as he wandered to the camp edge to relieve himself. Theirs was the gaze of hunting dogs trained not to kill the master’s livestock.

Florin returned to the camp to wash his hands, then, quietly as possible, readied the breakfast skillet and dug through their packs for supplies. He deliberately stayed on the far side of the fire from Plautus, which brought him into direct proximity to the Hadirans. The thicker of the two obligingly threw in some extra tinder, which was far more solicitous than Florin would have anticipated. He’d assumed the guards typical of the kind who thought themselves above other slaves, owing to their master’s own superiority. The Hadiran even managed to be gracious about his assistance, gesturing politely to the fire. Florin offered a nod of thanks.

There wasn’t warmth in that severe, emotionless face, but perhaps the fellow was not the unfeeling monster Florin had assumed. While he began to steam some water for the porridge, he quietly asked a question of the watching Hadiran. “What is it your master’s doing?”

“He keeps the beast in his heart.” The man’s accent was strong.

“I don’t understand,” Florin said after a moment.

“He works the magic through his mind, and his heart. But it is dangerous to have it in your heart for so long, so he has to give of other hearts, first. The more like his own, the better.”

Florin mulled that over as he added in the oat flakes and tossed in a few golden raisins. “Is that why he wants the women so much? Because the pregnant ones have two hearts?”

The Hadirans exchanged a laugh.

“No,” the nearer one said. “A mage must spill his own blood to work the great spells. The ones that affect him. But how can you spill enough of your own blood, and live?”

“The babies,” Florin said slowly. The abhorrence he experienced did not seem shared by the Hadirans, whose expressions had settled once more into unemotive masks. It was all clear to him now. Plautus had only twice visited the home after the women had arrived, and each time had asked if any of them were pregnant. Then, just the other day, he had mentioned wanting to see how their pregnancies were coming along.

To think that Florin had imagined some kind of grandfatherly interest from the fellow. He shivered. Plautus’ had been the curiosity of the owner of a plot of fruit trees checking to see if the produce was ready for harvest.

Florin had just decided the porridge looked thick enough when the footsteps crashed through the forest.

Though there was no trail from that direction, Florin heard no break in the steady stride. Just the sound of branches yielding to a crack, the crushing noise of sticks and old leaves, and, oddly enough, an occasional feminine moan of terror.

Fear advanced before the sounds, much like a perfumed messenger before a wealthy man and his entourage. The morning birds didn’t just quit their songs, they fled the nearby treetops. Squirrels who’d been silent chattered alarm and dashed away through the upper branches, the leaves shaking in their wake.

And Florin’s heart fluttered.

The overseer and the master woke and sat up blinking with worried eyes. The implacable Hadirans rose and stared alertly toward the oncoming sounds.

Almost too late Florin wrapped a cloth about the skillet handle and pulled it free of the fire. In the master’s current state, burning breakfast might get Florin killed. Or worse.

When the headless feathered thing stamped out of the darkness of the forest Florin was drizzling honey into the porridge from a shaking hand. Probably too much honey, but he could not look away from the thing. He could barely think.

It moved almost like a man, but its strides were too long. Wet feathers red as blood sheathed it. It reeked like a dead animal left too long in the sun. And it had no head. Its unnaturally long arms ended in clawed hands. Currently it cradled a female bundle with fear-maddened eyes. As the monster came to a stop before Plautus, only now rising with his black prism, Florin realized it bore the master’s wife.

Plautus breathed heavily; the creature breathed not at all. Its body came to a complete stop, as though it were a statue erected to the god of primal horror. Helena whimpered and tried to pull away, but she was held too tightly.

“You found her!” Calchus cried and stepped to his father’s side before laughing at his wife. “What do you think of that, you bitch? Did you think you could escape us? You just wait and see what I have in store for you!”

“Silence,” Plautus commanded, then whispered words into the prism. The thing knelt, setting the woman upon the ground. At more quiet commands it stood and stepped back, then was motionless once more.

“Father, where are the other women?” Calchus asked.

Still brandishing the prism, Plautus faced his guards. “Bind the girl to a tree. She must be secure.”

Helena stirred as the Hadirans hoisted her up but her struggles were ineffectual.

“Are you going to send it back after the others?” Calchus asked. “Father? Do you—”

“Silence,” Plautus’ voice was icy and Calchus fell quiet. As uncomfortable as the atmosphere remained, Florin felt some small pleasure in seeing his master put in so servile a position.

The old man fixed his son with a baleful stare. “The women have warriors with them. I had planned to have one spell hold them while the other creature chased the women my way, but the warriors broke my magic.”

“But you can still catch them?”

“Yes. I feel the call of their blood. But it took more power than you know to summon creatures to our world, and then to have my spell fail. I need to spend more blood. Much blood. And it must be of my line.”

Calchus gulped and looked down at his arm; Florin looked over to where the men tied Helena’s hands. Her eyes wandered over toward her husband and stared with bleak coldness.

Finally Calchus seemed to register his father’s meaning. “You’re going to kill her?”

“I need the child’s blood,” he said. “And I can’t very well wait for her to give birth, can I?”

“But she’s carrying my child.”

Most of Calchus’ slave women were carrying his child, but like many Dervans, he didn’t care about those who weren’t from Dervan bloodlines. Many masters sold off their slave-born progeny for a profit, and Florin had originally assumed his would do the same.

Plautus’ voice had grown grating. “I need the blood. We’ll find another wife.”

Calchus stomped over toward Helena as the Hadirans led her stumbling toward a nearby tree.

Monto followed, a confused expression on his homely face.

Calchus directed his anger at the woman as the Hadirans pushed her next to the straight trunk of a tall pine. With great care, watching his every footfall, Plautus followed, hand still holding his eerie black prism. His right hand slipped to his waist and he drew the hooked blade he’d slain Titus with, laying it against the black crystal.

“None of this would be happening if you’d been true to me,” Calchus snarled to his wife. He stomped up to her and shook a finger in her face as the Hadirans raised her bound hands.

She kicked out, cursing, and caught Calchus either in the genitals or near them.

He yipped and stumbled backward, hands shielding his privates, and bumped into his father.

The blade spun out of Plautus’ hand. He floundered for balance and scrambled to hold the prism. The thing seemed to take on a life of its own, falling from one hand to the next as he fought to keep it from striking the earth. His eyes were wide in alarm.

“Master!” the burly Hadiran cried, and both dashed to help.

Helena was suddenly free of their attention. Too late Monto started for her; she darted past Florin and snatched the blade dropped near her feet. Her wrists were bound, but the blade was sharp, and she pointed it toward the overseer.

Plautus, on one knee now, had finally steadied the prism. He eyed it as though it were a lion, ready to eat him.

The Hadirans looked over at the feathered thing at the camp’s edge.

“Don’t just stand there,” Calchus said to the overseer. “Take the knife from her.”

“It’s a sharp knife, master.”

“Use your whip, idiot!”

Monto unlimbered the whip. “Now lay down that knife, mistress,” he said. “I don’t want to have to use this on you.”

Her eyes shifted to Florin. He’d never seen so despairing a look, though he had seen Titus’ eyes only a day before. This was different. He had been helpless. She found strength, and not just in the sadness in Florin’s eyes. She turned the blade upon herself and drove the blade into her stomach, deeply.

Plautus screamed for her to stop.

She gasped, and shook, then, as the overseer advanced, she stabbed herself again and again, and again, until the blade and her hands and her dress ran with blood. She sank to the ground.

Calchus swore at her as he ran up. Weakly, she dropped the knife. Weakly she laughed and cursed him.

Plautus hurried to stand over. To Monto he said: “Cut her open.”

“Master?” The overseer turned to Calchus.

“Surely the child is dead,” Calchus said to his father.

“Its blood is still rich with life if we cut quickly! Move, man!”

Monto looked down at the knife as though it were a serpent.

Florin didn’t see the moment the prism was struck, but he heard the clink and saw a small metal blade soaring off to the left. Plautus had yanked back his bleeding hand, and the prism plummeted. When it hit the ground something inside audibly shattered.

The feathered thing heaved into motion, arms outstretched, and gathered speed toward Plautus, who shouted in panic.

The Hadirans drew their curved blades and interposed themselves.

And from Florin’s left a figure burst from the undergrowth. He didn’t recognize Maeve at first, for her hair hung wild and she’d painted her cheeks with muddy lines.

She shouted something in her own language, and then Monto drew his blade and blocked her progress, lifting his whip in his other hand.

The monster shredded the Hadirans with its terrible claws, leaving them twitching and moaning and dying, and had advanced as far as Plautus when he shouted, bloody fingers raised. He sketched symbols in the air.

The beast turned then, seemingly under the old man’s control and just in time, for three men had emerged from the undergrowth, a Dervan youth, a Herrene, and a muscular man in early middle age. The last one sent a javelin hurtling toward Plautus. The red beast intercepted the weapon with its body. The javelin drove all the way through, the point sticking through its back.

If the thing felt the injury, it showed no sign, for it rushed ahead as Plautus shouted in his sorcerous language. His hair had turned completely white now.

The javelin thrower ordered the others to split up.

The monster honed in on the man in charge and swiped, but he’d put a tree bole between him and its attack. The tree vibrated under its assault. The leader called for the others to move against the sorcerer, but the youth instead swung his sword at the beast and took a clawed swipe to the shoulder. He was hurtled backward with a splatter of blood.

The creature then advanced against the older man, and Florin could pay that battle no further mind because of the one going on nearer him. Monto lashed once with the whip, catching Maeve in the thigh.

She gasped, then hissed at him. “You’re first.” She limped to the right. Monto followed. He failed to note Florin, who rose with the skillet. Maeve saw him and taunted Monto.

The overseer didn’t hear Florin coming behind until he was only a few feet away. Monto whirled, raising a small blade in his off hand.

Florin had meant to catch him in the head. He struck Monto’s meaty arm with the skillet instead. The overseer’s skin sizzled, and the stench of cooking human flesh filled the air with his scream. Oatmeal sprayed widely.

Maeve dashed in and cut halfway through Monto’s whip hand. Her second blow tore through his chest. The overseer dropped, dead or dying.

Her features now painted by a vivid splash of blood and eagerness, Maeve turned to the master.

Calchus backed toward his father. Plautus had called back his beast because he’d noted the Herrene advancing upon him. He continued to mutter strange words under his breath.

And that was Plautus’ undoing, for the leader dashed on its heels and into the clearing. In one smooth move he flung a knife the short distance to its target.

Plautus turned in time to receive the blade in his cheek. His chanting halted, and all that came from his throat was a rattle. He sagged.

The beast dove at his summoner and tore Plautus into bloody shreds.

Calchus screamed and ran headlong into the woods.

The leader paused briefly to take in the scene. Plautus lay dead; the feathered thing was disintegrating in a rain of red feathers that fell across the body. Florin stared in horrified wonder.

Maeve sprinted after the master. A moment later, Florin followed. He’d never thought himself a bloodthirsty man, but he found himself hoping he’d arrive in time to see Calchus die.

The leader of the strangers caught up and passed him. Ahead, a startled Calchus cried out. When Florin came up, he spotted him lying prone at the bottom of a muddy hill. Maeve was climbing gingerly down the muddy slope to reach him. The leader descended via tree roots that separated the dirt almost like stair steps, and Florin followed on his heels.

By the time the stranger reached the master, Calchus had lurched to his feet. His rich tunic was slathered in mud, and so was his face, and the front of his legs.

The leader waited with bared sword.

The master caught sight of Florin, who halted on the stranger’s left. “Help me, Florin,” he said. “Help your master. This man means to kill me.”

Florin shook his head.

“I don’t intend to kill you,” the stranger said. But he did not lower his sword.

“I’ll reward you handsomely.” Calchus’ voice shook in relief. “Anything in my power. You want the rest of the women? You can have them. I’ll just buy some more.”

“No,” the stranger said, “I don’t think you’ll be doing that.”

Maeve arrived at last. She panted slightly, but she smiled widely. She raised her sword.

“Are you going to let her kill me?” Calchus demanded.

The stranger nodded. “Yes.”

Maeve moved forward, every step an oath. “This is for your wife. And for Ontala, and me, and all the rest of us.”

Calchus’ voice rose in desperation. “I can set you free! I can give you money—”

“There’s not enough gold in all the world,” Maeve mouthed, but not to him.

The master’s scream rose even before the first blow hit. It reached a crescendo on the second as he desperately threw up his hands to block her swings. He was still whimpering a little on the fourth. By then, the stranger had turned away. Maeve kept hacking at Calchus long after he’d stopped moving. Florin watched it all.

After a while she sat down on a fallen tree, and Florin brought her some water.

Once they returned to the hilltop, he learned that the youth had been wearing leather armor that had kept his wound from being mortal, though the cut along his upper chest was deep. The leader said he’d probably be feverish soon and that they needed to get back to the camp.

Florin wondered if maybe they should bury the mistress, but the leader of the men said they didn’t have time for that. He allowed Maeve to say a few words over her in Ceori.

Maeve looked tired now, but said she was up for the walk back, no matter that the Herrene complained it was going to be a long one.

“You need to get back and tell the others we’ve been delayed, but that all is well,” the leader told the Herrene. “And you’d best move fast.”

The man sighed something about always getting the best jobs, then hurried off.

“Is Marcella well?” Florin asked. “She’s with you, isn’t she?”

“She’s well enough,” the leader said. “And she’s been worried about you from the start. You’re Florin, aren’t you?”

“Yes, master.”

The man shook his head. “I’m not your master.”

“Who are you then? Why are you doing this?”

“That’s a good question. I pressed hard, thinking we could save Helena. But it turns out we came to rescue you. Marcella will be very happy to have you back.”

Florin helped the leader drag the bodies into a clearing, along with all the equipment he had no interest in, which included Plautus’ powders, tools, and scrolls. Likely they were rare and expensive, but the leader packed branches and leaves and kindling around them at least as carefully as he did the corpses, then set everything aflame. Once certain the fire was fully established, they watched for a while downwind to verify that the bodies were being consumed, then retreated. Florin followed the others into the cool, soothing safety of the woods, and the promise of the company of the woman he loved.

With the assistance of midwives, both Ontala and Maeve gave birth to their children, but I regret to report Maeve did not survive. Ontala suffered no more than is normal for women giving birth, but the death of her friend grieved her terribly, and she vowed she would raise her friend’s baby boy as an enemy of Dervans, pledging she would do the same with her newborn daughter. What the character of their children proved to be I cannot say, for Ontala left our company to return to Ruminian lands.

The rest of the women successfully terminated their pregnancies, with no lingering ill effects, so far as I am aware. Calakanel, the Hadiran woman, left with Florin and Marcella and Larn, the little boy, and opened a bakery in the very south of Utria. As for those three young Volani, I like to think that they found fine homes and healed their deep hurts in New Volanus, but I cannot say with any certainty.[14]

Long before their safe passage, though, we travelled to join Carthalo, who had been overseeing a difficult assignment of his own. His had been resolved with far less turmoil than ours, until the final moment, which drove him out into the road to intercept us before we were caught in the same trap that had nearly snared him. For, as it turned out, there was a traitor in our midst.

—Sosilos, Book Twelv


Footnotes


14) I was able to speak with the youngest of these women, who had grown to be a leading statesperson in New Volanus. Her name was Sanava, and she remained close with the other two, whom she described as her sisters. Even though she knew I worked to clarify the story of Hanuvar’s war of liberation, she preferred not to discuss her experiences while in Dervan captivity. I found her austere and dignified and faintly sad, though I do not mean to suggest that she was incapable of humor. She spoke eloquently about the great gift Hanuvar had given to her and so many of her people.

Silenus, Commentaries


Back | Next
Framed