Trudi Canavan - The Ambassador's Mission

Four years later they were all graduated magicians, and the tailor’s shop was their favourite meeting place. Today Perler had brought his Elyne cousin, Jalie, to visit their haunt for the first time.

“So this is the tailor shop I’ve heard so much about,” a young woman said, looking around the room. The furniture was finely made, worn cast-offs from the wealthier houses in the city. The paintings and window screens were crude in both execution and subject.

“Yes,” Dekker replied. “All the delights you might desire.”

“At a price,” she said, looking at him sideways.

“At a price we may be willing to pay on your behalf, for the pleasure of your company.”

She smiled. “You’re so sweet!”

“But not without her older cousin’s approval,” Perler added, giving Dekker a level look.

“Of course,” the younger man said, bowing slightly in Perler’s direction.

“So what delights do they offer?” Jalie asked of Dekker.

He waved a hand. “Pleasures of the body, pleasures of the mind.”

“Of the mind?”

“Ooh! Let’s get a brazier in here,” Sherran said, his eyes gleaming. “Have a little roet to relax us.”

“No,” Lorkin said. Hearing another voice speak along with his, he turned to nod in gratitude to Orlon, who was as repelled by the drug as Lorkin was.

They had tried it once before, and Lorkin had found the experience disturbing. It wasn’t how it had brought out Dekker’s cruel side, so that he had teased and tormented the girl who had been besotted with him at the time, but how this behaviour suddenly hadn’t bothered Lorkin. In fact, he’d found it funny, but later could not understand why.

The girl’s infatuation had ended that day, and Sherran’s love affair with roet had begun. Before then, Sherran would have done anything Dekker had asked him. Since that day, he would only do so if it didn’t come between him and roet.

“Let’s have a drink instead,” Perler suggested. “Some wine.”

“Do magicians drink?” Jalie asked. “I thought they weren’t allowed to.”

“We are,” Reater told her, “but it’s not a good idea to get too drunk. Losing control is as likely to involve magic as much as your stomach or bladder.”

“I see,” she said. “So does the Guild have to make sure any of the lowies it takes in aren’t drunks?”

The others glanced at Lorkin, and he smiled, knowing that it wasn’t because his mother was a “lowie” but because they knew he would walk out if they made more than the occasional joke about the lower classes.

“There are probably more snooties that are drunks than lowies,” Dekker told her. “We have ways of dealing with them. What wine would you like to drink?”

Lorkin looked away as the conversation turned to wine varieties. “Lowies” and “snooties” were the names that the rich and poor novices had given each other after the Guild had decided to accept entrants to the university from outside of the Houses. The nickname “lowie” had been adopted because none of the novices that had come from lower classes were actually poor. All novices were paid a generous allowance by the Guild. As were magicians, though they could supplement their income by magical or other means. A term had to be invented, and it happened to be an unflattering one, so the lowies had retorted with their own nickname for novices from the Houses. One that Lorkin had to admit was appropriate.

Lorkin did not fit into either group. His mother had come from the slums, his father from one of the most powerful Houses in Imardin. He had grown up in the Guild, away from the political manipulations and obligations of the Houses or the hard life of the slums. Most of his friends were snooties. He hadn’t avoided befriending lowies deliberately, but most lowies, while not appearing to resent him like they did the snooties, had been hard to talk to. It was only after some years, when Lorkin had a firm circle of snooty friends, that he realised that the lowies had been intimidated by him – or rather, who his father had been.

“… Sachaka like? Do they really still keep slaves?”

Lorkin’s attention snapped back to the conversation, and he shivered. The name of the land from which his father’s murderer had come from always sent a chill down his spine. Yet while it had once been from fear, now it was also from a strange excitement. Since the Ichani Invasion the Allied Lands had turned their attention to the neighbour they’d once ignored. Magicians and diplomats had ventured into Sachaka, seeking to avoid future conflict through negotiation, trade and agreements. Whenever they returned they brought descriptions of a strange culture and stranger landscape.

“They do,” Perler replied. Lorkin sat up a little straighter. Reater’s older brother had returned from Sachaka a few weeks ago, having spent a year working as the assistant to the Guild Ambassador to Sachaka. “Though you don’t see most of them. Your robes disappear from your room and reappear cleaned, but you never see who takes them. But you see the slave assigned to serve you, of course. We all have one.”

“So you had a slave?” Sherran asked. “Isn’t that against the king’s law?”

“They don’t belong to us,” Perler replied, shrugging. “The Sachakans don’t know how to treat servants properly, so we have to let them assign us slaves. Either that or we’d have to wash our own clothes and cook our own meals.”

“Which would be terrible ,” Lorkin said in mock horror. His mother’s aunt was her servant, and her family worked as servants for rich families, yet they had a dignity and resourcefulness that he respected. He was determined that, should he ever have to do domestic chores, he would never be as humiliated by it as his fellow magicians would be.

Perler looked at him and shook his head. “There’d be no time to do it ourselves. There’s always so much work to do. Ah, here are the drinks.”

“What sort of work?” Orlon asked as glasses of wine or water were poured and handed around.

“Negotiating trade deals, trying to encourage the Sachakans to abolish slavery in order to join the Allied Lands, keeping up with Sachakan politics – there is a group of rebels Ambassador Maron heard of that he was trying to find out more about, until he had to return to sort out his family’s troubles.”

“Sounds boring,” Dekker said.

“Actually, it was rather exciting.” Perler grinned. “A little scary at times, but I felt like we were doing something, well, historic . Making a difference. Changing things for the better – even if in tiny steps.”

Lorkin felt a strange thrill go through him. “Do you think they’re coming around on slavery?” he asked.

Perler shrugged. “Some are, but it’s hard to tell if they’re pretending to agree in order to be polite, or gain something from us. Maron thinks they could be persuaded to give up slavery much more easily than black magic.”

“It’s going to be hard to persuade them to give up black magic when we have two black magicians,” Reater pointed out. “Seems a bit hypocritical.”

“Once they ban black magic we will, too,” Perler said confidently.

Dekker turned to grin at Lorkin. “If that happens Lorkin won’t be taking over from his mother.”

Lorkin gave a snort of derision. “As if she’d let me. She’d much rather I took over running the hospices.”

“Would that be so bad?” Orlon asked quietly. “Just because you chose Alchemy doesn’t mean you couldn’t help out the Healers.”

“You need to be driven by absolute, unwavering dedication to run something like a hospice,” Lorkin replied. “I’m not. Though I almost wish I was.”

“Why?” Jalie asked.