Peter Brett - The Daylight War

Gared flushed even more deeply at that, fumbling his axe back into the harness on his back and bowing as he backed away. ‘Sorry ’bout that. I … ah …’ He turned and moved quickly to tend his horse.

Rojer bowed again to draw attention back to himself. ‘I am honoured to have so many of the Deliverer’s blood come to see us off. Please, do not let me interfere with your goodbyes. Take as long as you need.’

He moved away as the women began their tearful embraces, nodding to the two Cutters. ‘Thanks.’

‘Just doin’ our jobs,’ Gared said. ‘Painted Man said to keep you safe, and that’s what we aim to do.’

‘Glad we’re leavin’,’ Wonda said. ‘Sooner we’re gone the better.’

‘Honest word,’ Rojer agreed.

‘What was all that about?’ Rojer demanded of Amanvah as soon as they were alone in the carriage.

‘A matter between-’ Amanvah began.

‘Is this how we begin our marriage, my Jiwah Ka ?’ Rojer cut her off. ‘With half-truths and evasions?’

Amanvah looked at him in surprise, but she quickly dropped her eyes. ‘Of course you are right, husband.’ She gave a slight shiver. ‘You and your companions are not the only ones eager to leave Everam’s Bounty.’

‘Why was your brother so angry?’ Rojer asked.

‘Asome believes I should have refused my mother when she told me to wed you,’ Amanvah said. ‘He argued with her, and it … did not go well.’

‘He doesn’t want your house allying with a greenlander?’ Rojer guessed.

Amanvah shook her head. ‘Not at all. He sees the power you command and is not blind to its uses. But Father has many dama’ting daughters whom he feels would serve. He has ever meant me as a gift for Asukaji, though it is not a brother’s right to give away his sister while their father lives.’

‘Why you?’ Rojer asked.

‘Because nothing less than his eldest full-blooded sister would do for Asome’s beloved Asukaji,’ Amanvah spat. ‘He cannot bear his lover’s children himself, so he tries to use the closest thing, as Asukaji did when he convinced Uncle Ashan to offer Ashia to my brother. Only my white robes have protected me thus far.’ She looked at him. ‘My white robes, and you.’

Rojer felt nauseous. ‘Where I come from, it’s considered … improper to marry your first cousin, unless you’re in some remote hamlet and haven’t got a choice.’

Amanvah nodded. ‘It is not favoured among my people either, but Asome is the son of the Shar’Dama Ka and Damajah. He does as he pleases. Already, Ashia has been forced to bear him a son that he and Asukaji treat as their own.’

Rojer shuddered, and breathed his relief as the carriage began to sway in its suspension, a sign they were finally moving.

‘Think on it no more, husband,’ Amanvah said, taking his right arm as Sikvah moved to his left. ‘It is our wedding day.’

333 AR Summer

28 Dawns Before Waning

Abban gasped for breath, sweating onto the fine silk sheets of the master bed in the Palace of Mirrors. The very bed where Ahmann first took Mistress Leesha, a bed yanked out from under Damaji Ichach at Abban’s suggestion. It pleased him to steal his own pleasure there, marking the silk while the leader of the Khanjin tribe laid his head in some lesser place.

Shamavah was already on her feet, pulling on her black robes. ‘Up with you, fat one. You’ve had your draining, and time is short.’

‘Water,’ Abban groaned as he sat up. Shamavah went to the silver pitcher cooling on the table. Beads of water ran down the metal as she poured a cup, much as beads of sweat ran down his skin.

‘One of these days your heart will give way, and control of your fortune pass to me,’ she taunted, quenching her own thirst before refilling the cup and bringing it to him.

Had any of his other wives dishonoured him so, Abban would have taken the cane to her himself, but for Shamavah he only smiled. His Jiwah Ka had never been the most beautiful of his wives, and her fertile years had long since waned, but she was the only one he bedded for love.

‘You already control my fortune,’ Abban said, taking the cup and draining it as she began helping him into his clothes.

‘Perhaps that is why you send me away,’ Shamavah said.

Abban reached out, taking her face in his free hand. He knew she was only teasing, but still it was too much to bear. ‘I will curse every minute we are apart.’ He winked. ‘And not just because I will need to work twice as hard without you.’

Shamavah kissed his hand. ‘Thrice.’

Abban nodded. ‘But it is for that very reason that I trust no one else to begin our dealings with the Hollow tribe. We must secure our operations and win the greenlanders over, even if it means red in the ledger at first.’

‘Nie take me first,’ Shamavah said. ‘It did not take long to buy the Hollowers’ trust, and they sold it cheaply. They do not have the stamina to hide their weakness for long.’

It was true enough. When they first set out from Deliverer’s Hollow, the Northerners all quieted whenever Abban drew near, mistrustful of any with a dusky tone to their skin. But Abban always came bearing gifts. Nothing so bold as gold or jewels — that would offend these people. But a silk pillow casually offered to one rubbing a sore backside from long days on a cart bench? A flattering word when it was needed? Exotic spices to flavour their cookpot? A few bits of common knowledge about his people?

These things the Northerners accepted freely, congratulating themselves over learning to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ in his language as if it were some great deed.

And so they began talking to him, still guarded, but with increasing comfort, letting him lead a conversation about the weather into talk of harvest festivals and holidays, marriage customs and morality. The Northerners loved the sound of their own voices.

It wasn’t the information Ahmann wanted, of course. The Deliverer wanted troop sizes and positions, points of military or symbolic significance, and maps. He wanted maps most of all. The Rizonan Messengers’ Guild had burned theirs the day the Krasians attacked, and the idiot Sharum had not bothered to stop them. The maps in Duke Edon’s library were extensive for his own lands, but for those outside his borders they were a decade old. To the north, Deliverer’s Hollow was growing exponentially. Small villages were swelling with refugees, and new settlements were forming, many far away from the Messenger roads Ahmann needed to move the full strength of his forces.

‘The landscape is changing,’ Ahmann had said. ‘We cannot achieve victory without understanding that change.’

It was sound military thinking, but gullible though they were, the Hollowers were not such utter fools as to reveal such information. Yet while Ahmann might turn up his chin at gossip and bickering, Abban knew it for the power it was.

Great things can be found in small talk , his father Chabin used to say.

Shamavah had done much the same when the greenlanders came to the Palace of Mirrors. All Abban’s wives and daughters spoke Thesan, but on her orders they had pretended only a handful of words, turning simple interactions into such complicated pantomime that the Hollowers had quickly stopped bothering to speak to them despite their near-constant presence. They silently brought food, cleared away refuse, changed linens, and carried water, all but invisible.

After weeks on end, the greenlanders no longer bothered to hide their petty squabbling. Even when they thought they were alone, more often than not they stood near one of the palace’s many air vents, and Shamavah had women ‘cleaning’ the central shafts continually. Abban read their reports, detailing everything from privy habits to sexual encounters. Some he read with more pleasure than others.