Canavan Trudi - The Traitor Queen

“The Elyne Ambassador has returned,” Tav gasped.

Dannyl nodded and waved to indicate the slave could get up and go and do whatever door slaves did when not announcing arrivals.

The sound of a door closing reached him, then footsteps. Tayend smiled briefly as he emerged from the passage, then shook his head.

“No luck,” he said.

Dannyl let out the breath he’d been holding. “Well, thanks for trying.”

Tayend sighed. “It’s early days,” he said. “If we are persistent, perhaps he’ll relent. I pointed out that you can hardly persuade Lorkin to speak if you never get to talk to him.”

Dannyl frowned. “Is that wise? Hinting that we might consider it could be dangerous.”

“Not if I say it. And I was only pointing out the fault in his logic.”

“I’m sure he’ll be so pleased you pointed out his weak logic in front of everyone.”

“Oh, there was nobody else there to hear — and he seemed to enjoy it.”

Dannyl felt his heart sink even further. “You gained a private audience with him?”

“Now, now. Don’t be jealous.” The Elyne smirked, then waved a hand. “Let’s have some wine and something to eat, eh?” He turned, beckoned to a slave, and began to give the man specific instructions.

Moving over to the stools, Dannyl sat down. Tayend might not have been able to see Lorkin, but the king had made the effort to see him personally. Maybe it’s because Tayend is an Ambassador who speaks for his king and country, while I am mainly a mouthpiece for the Guild.

He doubted that made a lot of difference. When it came down to it, King Amakira was annoyed with Kyralia and the Guild, not Elyne. It made sense he’d treat Tayend with the same respect as he always had.

“Ah. Wine,” Tayend said as a slave hurried in with a bottle and goblets. He sat down next to Dannyl and waited until the slave had served them and left before leaning closer to him.

“Merria told me this morning, after you left, that she has discussed the situation with her female friends. They are going to stir up objections to this dangerous treatment of a foreign magician,” he murmured.

Dannyl felt his mood lighten a little. “And… the other contacts?”

“Will pass on our message. They aren’t unaware of Lorkin’s predicament, apparently, but they didn’t say whether they could do anything about it.”

“I hate to think what they would do, if they could.” Dannyl shuddered and sipped at the wine. “They might kill Lorkin to ensure he won’t talk.”

“They won’t,” Tayend assured him. “They must have known there was a chance this would happen. They would not have sent him here if it would be disastrous for them.”

“Perhaps because they had people in place to kill him if it did happen. He might be dead already.”

Tayend shook his head. “The king assured me Lorkin is being well cared for.”

“He could be lying.”

“Yes, he could.” Tayend sighed. “We can only hope he isn’t.” The Elyne’s brows creased. “I keep thinking about one possibility, though I can’t see any advantage in it for the Traitors, so I suspect I’m seeing conspiracies where there are none.”

“What is that?”

“That the Traitors knew Lorkin would be imprisoned by the king. That they meant for it to happen.”

“Why would they do that?”

Tayend looked at Dannyl and shook his head. “That’s what I can’t work out. Except… maybe they want the peace between Kyralia and Sachaka strained. Maybe they want to ensure our countries don’t make any promises to help Sachaka defend itself against them.”

Dannyl felt a shiver run down his spine. “You think they might be planning something bigger and more direct than spying and assassination?”

“It must always be considered.” Tayend smiled grimly. “What doesn’t make sense is: if they are, it could have the opposite effect. They’re gambling that we don’t agree to something like that in order to free Lorkin.” He took a sip of the wine, his expression serious. “If it came to civil war, who do you think would win?”

“I have no idea.” Dannyl shook his head. “We don’t know enough about the Traitors.”

“Then I hope Lorkin does know more than he claims, because if the Allied Lands do get dragged into a war we could easily end up picking the losing side — or find we can only win by doing the majority of the fighting, and suffering the greater casualties.”

A knot of cold had formed in Dannyl’s stomach. Lorkin will have told Osen all he knows about the Traitors, so if Lorkin knows they’re planning a civil war then Osen does too. As Dannyl considered all Osen’s instructions so far the knot tightened. When slaves began to file into the room carrying platters of food he felt too sick to eat, but he made himself select from the plates, put food in his mouth and chew. Why? Because slaves made it. People who have no choice about their life put effort into this, and it seems thoughtless and wasteful to let that go to waste. Then he felt the knot loosen a little. The Traitors don’t approve of slavery. Civil war might bring freedom.

But it would come at a cost. It always did.

As Gol walked back into the room, Cery breathed a silent sigh of relief. His friend’s movements were careful and he grimaced with pain as he sat down, but otherwise he was looking much better than he had two days ago.

“It’s going to get nasty in there soon,” Gol muttered.

“I know,” Cery agreed. “But it’ll have to do for now.”

They’d chosen another room to relieve themselves in. The roof and walls looked stable enough, and Cery had brought in a pile of dirt with which to cover their leavings, but it was only going to be a temporary solution.

Asking Anyi to stay and watch over Gol for a while, Cery had explored the small network of rooms and passages nearby. It had been a long time since they’d been occupied. He knew that the late High Lord Akkarin had used them to store things, but the only items there now that were old enough to be from that time weren’t valuable: mostly empty boxes like the ones they were using as furniture. He’d found lamps of a style that would have suited the oldest houses in Imardin, if they hadn’t been distorted with rust, and broken shards of pottery from vessels that would have been worth a fortune for their age and rarity if they’d been whole.

The walls of these rooms were a combination of brick and stone. There were patches of brick filling in gaps between the stone, and brick walls dividing up larger stone-walled rooms, suggesting that perhaps the rooms had been originally all stone, and the brickwork had been added to repair and adapt the spaces.

In one room someone had scratched words on the wall. “ Tagin must die ”, he’d made out easily, as the letters were large and deep. “ Indria must be won ”, was smaller. A broken patch began with: “ Higher magic is the ca… and must b…” In another, larger room with a collapsed ceiling at one end, a list of names had been carefully carved into a stone slab leaning out from a wall. He didn’t recognise any of the names, but they were preceded by the titles “Lord” and “Magician”. Odd that they used both. He thought he could make out a date at the base, but he could not get the candlelight to reach that far and there was no way he was going to stretch under a large and heavy slab that looked as if it might fall at any moment.

Returning to their refuge, Cery had let a restless, pacing Anyi continue her explorations of the passages. He remained with Gol, and they talked about what Cery had found and of the past until Gol grew sleepy. Sitting in silence didn’t bother Cery as much as he’d thought it would, so long as he didn’t let his mind fix on unpleasant memories. It was restful and quiet, and for once he wasn’t worried about assassins creeping up on them.