expression turned thunderous. ‘Not anymore. Fetch a basin and bring water to the slaves in the caravan. Move smartly, and don’t offend any of the Shinzawai retinue, or by the gods, I’ll see you strung up and kicking.’
Kevin regarded the diminutive hadonra, who always in his Lady’s presence seemed as shy as a mouse. Although shorter by more than a head, Jican held his ground. He snatched a basin from a passing slave and jabbed the rim into Kevin’s middle. ‘Get to work.’
The larger man grunted an expelled breath of air, then leaped back as a flood of cold water drenched his groin. ‘Damn,’ he muttered as he caught the wooden implement before it fell and insulted his manhood more permanently. When he straightened, Jican had moved on. Having lost his chance to slip through the press unobserved, Kevin located the water boy and obediently filled his basin. He carried its slopping contents across the dusty pandemonium and offered drink to two rangy, sunburned slaves who perched at their ease on the tailboard of a goods wagon.
‘Hey, you’re Kingdom,’ said the taller, who was blond and bore two peeling scabs on his face. ‘Who are you? When were you captured?’
The three slaves exchanged names as Kevin offered his basin to the slighter, dark-haired one whose right hand was bound in a bandage, and whose expression was strangely cold about the eyes. This man proved to be a squire from Crydee and was not known to him, but the other, who called himself Laurie, seemed familiar.
‘Could we have met before?’ Kevin asked as he took back the basin from Squire Pug. The blond man shrugged with an instinctively theatrical friendliness. ‘Who knows? I roamed the Kingdom as a minstrel and sang in the court at Zun more than once.’ Laurie’s eyes narrowed. ‘Say, you’re Baron –’
‘Quiet,’ cautioned Kevin. He glanced quickly to either side, ensuring no soldiers could hear. ‘One word of my rank and I’m a corpse. They kill officers, remember?’
Conscious of how thin and weatherbeaten his fellow countrymen looked, Kevin asked after their lot following capture.
The dark, enigmatic man named Pug gave him a hard look. ‘You’re a quick enough study. I’m a squire, and if they had figured out that meant minor nobility, I’d have been killed the first day. As it is, they’ve forgotten my rank. I told them I was a servant to the Duke, and they took that to mean a menial.’ He glanced around at the hurrying Acoma slaves, who moved with single-minded purpose to do the hadonra’s bidding. ‘You’re new to this slave business, Kevin. You would do well to remember these Tsurani can kill you with no pangs of conscience, for here they hold the belief that a slave possesses no honour. Kevin of Zun, tread most carefully, for your lot could be changed on a whim.’
‘Damn,’ said Kevin softly. ‘Then they don’t give you concubines for good conduct?’
Laurie’s eyes widened a moment, then his broad laugh attracted the attention of one of the Shinzawai warriors. His plumed head turned in their direction, and instantly the expressions of the two Midkemians on the wagon went blank. When the soldier turned away, Laurie let out a quiet sigh. ‘They’ve not spoiled your sense of humour, it seems.’
Kevin said, ‘If you can’t laugh, you’re as good as dead.’
Laurie wiped his face with a rag dipped in the basin Kevin held and said, ‘As I tell my short friend here, many times over.’
Pug regarded Laurie with a mixture of affection and aggravation. ‘This from a fool who almost got himself killed saving my life.’ He sighed. ‘If that young Shinzawai noble hadn’t been in the swamps …’ He left the thought unfinished. Then his tone turned sombre. ‘All the men captured with me in the first year of the war are dead, Kevin. Learn to adapt. These Tsurani have this concept of wal, this perfect place inside where no one can touch you.’ He put his finger on Kevin’s chest. ‘In there. Learn to live in there, and you’ll learn to live out here.’
The redhead nodded, then, aware that Jican watched his back, took his basin back for a refill. With a regretful nod to Laurie and Pug, he proceeded to the next wagon in line. If he could, he’d slip out of the slave quarters in the evening and spend some time with these two. Trading some information might not prove useful, but it might ease the pain of homesickness a bit.
But as the evening wore on, he was given more work, until, exhausted, he was led back into the great house and commanded to sleep in the room set aside for him. A guard outside his door made any attempt to visit his former countrymen useless. But in the night he could hear faint voices, speaking words barely understood, yet familiar with accents well known.
Sighing in frustration, he knew his own companions were visiting with the two Islemen from the Shinzawai caravan. He would get his gossip secondhand when he next had chance to speak with Patrick or one of the other men. Yet the lack of firsthand contact caused the most bitter pangs of homesickness he had felt since capture. ‘Damn that bitch,’ he whispered into his hard pillow. ‘Damn her.’
The wet season ended.
Lengthening days brought back the dry dust, and strong sunlight faded the plains grass surrounding the Minwanabi estate house; within weeks the hills would begin to lose their lushness, until by midsummer all would be golden and brown. During the hotter weather, Lord Desio preferred to remain within the shaded comfort of his estate house, but admiration for his cousin often lured him outdoors.
Tasaio might be serving his family as a senior adviser, but the day never dawned that he failed to maintain his battle skills. Today, while the morning mists burned off the lake, he stationed himself on a hillside with his bow and sheaves of arrows, and straw figures set at varying distances for targets. Within a half hour they bristled with shafts fletched in Tasaio’s personal tricolours: Minwanabi black and orange, cut with a band of red for Turakamu.
Desio joined him as his battle servant retrieved arrows between rounds. Aware of the young Lord’s approach for some time, Tasaio turned at precisely the correct moment and bowed. ‘Good morning, my Lord cousin.’
Desio halted, panting from his climb up the hill. He inclined his head, wiped sweat from his pink brow, and regarded his taller cousin, who wore light hide armour studded with precious iron garnered as a war prize from the barbarian world. Tasaio wore no helm, and the breeze stirred his straight auburn hair, clipped short in a warrior’s style. The bow in his hand was a recurve, lacquered shiny black and tasselled at each horn with orange silk. Politely Tasaio offered the weapon. ‘Would you care to try a round?’
As yet too breathless for speech, Desio waved to decline. Tasaio nodded and turned as the servant approached, a bin of recovered arrows in each hand. He bowed before his master. While he remained on his knees, Tasaio removed the shafts by their nocks and pressed them one by one, point first, into the sandy soil. ‘What brings you out this fine morning, cousin?’
Desio watched the arrows pierce the earth, in perfect lines like warriors arrayed for a charge. ‘I could not sleep.’
‘No?’ Tasaio emptied the first bin and started on the second. A jade-fly landed on the battle servant’s nose. He twitched no muscle and did not blink as the insect crawled across his cheek and began to suck at the fluids of his eye. To reward his perfect composure, Tasaio at length gave the man leave to brush the insect away. The man gratefully did so, having learned under the lash to ease himself only when given permission.
Tasaio smoothed a parted cock feather and waited for his cousin to continue.
‘I could not sleep because months have passed, and still we have not uncovered the Acoma spies.’
Tasaio set arrow to bowstring and released in one fluid motion. The shaft arced out through the bright morning and thumped into the painted heart of a distant straw figure. ‘We know there are three of them,’ the warrior said evenly. ‘And the field has narrowed. We have disclosed information leaks from our barracks, from our grain