Chronicles of Charanthe
REVOLUTION
Rachel Cotterill
Copyright Rachel Cotterill 2011
Visit the author’s website at
https://rachelcotterill.com
Chronicles of Charanthe
Rebellion
Revolution
Reformation (2012)
Chapter 1
Eleanor was startled by how much Faliska’s capital reminded her of Taraska La’on as the city rose out of the sea to the north. The buildings were in a similar style, with sparkling domes and arches everywhere, and of course there was the same hot, dusty climate. Even the city’s name echoed that of its neighbour. Faliska La’un. Yet despite all the similarities, they’d been told this was a friendly country. Eleanor’s fluttering stomach felt otherwise. It looked too much like the city she’d fled.
Daniel, Eleanor, and the Charanthe trade delegation disembarked as soon as the ship’s first mooring line was tied. With unfavourable winds, the journey had taken longer than they’d hoped – they’d been almost two months crossing the ocean. They hailed a couple of rickshaws by the city gates and asked to be taken to their embassy, and after a surprisingly short journey they pulled up outside an imposing building facing onto the city’s main thoroughfare. It was designed in the local style, with several castellated towers and bulbous cupolas, and identified only by Charanthe’s Imperial crest carved across the centre of the huge double doors.
At the embassy, once they’d satisfied the guards of their identities, they were greeted by the young assistant ambassador – and Eleanor stopped short when she saw who it was. It had been two years since they’d seen each other, and both girls had changed in the intervening years, but not beyond recognition.
“Eleanor!” Gisele gasped. “But you–”
She stopped herself as she caught the look on Eleanor’s face. Driven initially by the need to pass messages unnoticed beneath the stern watch of their teachers, they’d learnt to communicate the most important things without words; Eleanor knew how to scream ‘Shut up!’ with only the slightest twist of her smile.
“What a lovely surprise,” Gisele continued, recovering quickly to her usual smooth demeanour. Not for nothing had she progressed so swiftly within the diplomatic corps.
“Delightful,” Eleanor said, though she wasn’t sure it was. Her cover was blown, and her only chance now was to throw herself on Gisele’s mercy and hope their childhood loyalties would be strong enough.
Daniel stepped forwards and extended his hand. “Do you know my wife?”
Eleanor held her face in an impassive smile, but she wondered what in all the Empire had possessed him. His wife? That wasn’t part of the story they’d agreed.
“Eleanor and I were at school together,” Gisele said. “But I had no idea you were married. And you must be...”
“Daniel, your envoy for weapons.”
“Daniel. Excellent.”
“We’ll have to make time to catch up later,” Eleanor said. “We clearly have a lot to talk about.”
“Of course. But I’m neglecting your colleagues... let’s finish our introductions, and then I can show you to your rooms.”
The head of the delegation extended her hand. “Anna, chief trade envoy, with special responsibility for imports, and the export of medicines.”
“Philip, representing our cloth trade and wood.”
“Oliver, gold and minerals.”
After shaking everyone’s hands, Gisele led the delegation up two flights of stairs to the embassy’s guest bedrooms.
“We’d prepared separate rooms for you,” she said to Eleanor and Daniel once the others were settled. “But this one should be big enough for you to share.”
“Thanks.”
“And it has the best view you’ll ever see across the city.” She pushed the door open and waved them into a large suite which did, indeed, benefit from a stunning aspect over the rooftops of the Faliska capital. Countless minarets glistened in the sun, but Eleanor and Daniel were too preoccupied to pay much attention to the views.
“Don’t ever do that again,” Eleanor said as she closed the door to shut out her old school friend. “You can’t suddenly invent a marriage.”
“It seemed the easiest way.”
“You can’t change our story without even asking me. How can this possibly help?”
“I had no choice. Why did you not tell me that you know the assistant ambassador? This could ruin everything.”
“I didn’t know she was working here,” Eleanor said. “But I was handling it. We’ll just have to explain.”
“Oh no.” He shook his head. “No, no, no. Why should we trust her?”
“We were at school together.”
There was a knock at the door; Eleanor answered it, took their bags from the porter, and turned back to Daniel as soon as they were alone again. “She knows me better than anyone.”
“That means nothing.”
“So you’re prepared to trust some traders we barely know, who are now wondering why we never mentioned being married – but not the assistant ambassador?”
“We were advised to trust this delegation.”
“And I’m telling you we can trust Gisele. I grew up with her!”
“You have spent too much time in the company of Venncastle men,” Daniel said. “Sharing your school does not make her trustworthy.”
“But I know her.”
“You have always been too trusting, Eleanor. You insisted on trusting Raf despite everything I told you, and look where that got you.”
She took a deep breath, hardly believing what she was about to say. “He never betrayed my trust.”
“How can you defend him even now, even after they have tried to kill you?”
“Jorge tried to kill me. Raf didn’t know.” Their time on the ship had given her plenty of time to reflect, and she was sure of that now. “I know you think they’re all the same, but he’s not like that.”
“He is one of them. I have told you so many times that you cannot trust them... I would have thought after this you would finally believe me.”
“You have to let go of your school rivalries some day, you know.”
He raised an eyebrow, adopting a half-amused, half-superior expression which made Eleanor want to slap him. “And yet you ask me to trust the success of our mission to the strength of your childhood friendships.”
“That’s completely different. You’re assuming a whole group of people are going to behave badly just because of the school they attended.”
“And you are assuming one woman can be trusted because she was at school with you. I see no difference, except that your prejudice is more self-centred.”
“Well, we’ve got no choice. Gisele knows I wasn’t assigned to be a trade envoy.”
“Which is why we must be married: reassignment is rare, but not unknown,” Daniel said.
“I know they do slight reassignments sometimes, like moving someone to a different town. But reassigning a complete drop-out to be an obscure trade envoy? I wouldn’t believe it myself.”
“We must think very seriously about this. We will talk later, but meanwhile, you will tell her nothing.”
He emptied his bag out onto the bed and started to pick out his clothes carefully, folding each item and creating a neat stack in the closet. Eleanor sighed and turned to her own luggage; she was tired from the journey, and all she really wanted was to get washed and have a rest before dinner. Gisele was a complication they couldn’t have predicted.
As she started to unpack, her hand scraped against one of the rocks she’d taken from the ballast when they first came aboard. Somehow in the chaos o
f the journey she’d forgotten to follow through with her plan and she’d still got the rocks – and the briefing notes they were supposed to sink – in her bag.
She pulled out the crumpled papers. “We were supposed to ditch these at sea,” she said.
“What?”
“Our instructions. It doesn’t matter, I’ll burn them now.”
She looked around for a grate, but Faliska was a hot country and apparently someone had decided that the room didn’t need a fireplace. However there was a sideboard with a large bowl for water and a jug for washing, set on a tiled area at the side of the room, and it looked like the tiles would be enough to contain a small fire.
“I will just check it one more time,” Daniel said as she reached for her matches.
“You’ve read it a hundred times already.”
“It is good to be sure.” He held his hand out.
“You don’t need to.” She ripped the sheets in half, set light to one corner, and dropped the burning pages onto the tiles. “It didn’t say much, anyway.”
She watched as the flames consumed the paper, prodding occasionally with her dagger to keep it burning steadily. Once she’d reduced the notes to a small pile of ash she brushed it into a corner out of the way. The tiles were slightly blackened but she scrubbed at the surface with her sleeve, and soon all signs of the fire were gone.
A bell-cord hung down from the ceiling near the wash-stand; Eleanor gave it an experimental tug, and before she’d even turned away there was a knock at the door, and a young man came in with a pail of steaming-hot water to fill the basin.
“Just ring again if you need more,” he said as he left; Eleanor barely had time to call out her thanks before the door closed behind him.
After a hesitant glance at Daniel, who was thankfully still sulking with his back to her, Eleanor stripped off her clothes and set about scrubbing the salt from her skin.
“I’m done,” she said as she towelled herself dry. “Do you want me to ring for some clean water for you?”
“Thank you.”
She dressed herself in clean clothes before pulling the bell-cord, then stretched out on the bed. She felt she should avert her eyes as Daniel undressed, but she found herself fixated – besides, she reasoned, if they were going to be sharing this room until they completed their mission then they’d have to stop being shy sooner or later. She watched the flexing muscles of his back and his buttocks as he sponged himself clean, peeking from between her eyelashes in case he looked round. Once he reached for his towel she closed her eyes fully and pretended to sleep, only to be disturbed a moment later by something hard landing in her hand.
“Marriage token,” Daniel explained when she sat up, fingers tightening around the cold metal chain. “Where is yours?”
“What?”
“As we are to be married, we had better do this properly. You need to give me the wedding half of your name bangle.”
She removed her own bracelet, unfastened the clips which held the two halves together, and passed the marriage half to Daniel.
“Doesn’t this make us actually married?” she asked as she attached the other half of his bangle onto what remained of her own.
“Technically, perhaps, but we will reverse it as soon as we complete this mission. We do not have to tell the others.”
“Just as well!” Eleanor could hardly imagine how their colleagues would react if they arrived back at the Association with wedding signs in place.
“Other wrist,” Daniel said as she began to clip the bangle back into its usual position. When she moved it to her right wrist, the metal felt strange and uncomfortable against her skin.
“It feels wrong,” she said, twisting the links between her fingers.
“You will get used to it.”
Their attention was caught by a gong ringing out in the hallway. “I suppose that’s our cue to go down for dinner,” Eleanor said. “Come on, it’s our first meal as a married couple...”
“Do not even joke about it.” Daniel stepped between her and the door. “We must act as though this is completely normal.”
“How long have we been married, then?” Eleanor asked. “Where did I meet you? And how did you persuade them to let me be a trade envoy, in this imaginary world?”
“We can decide these details later.”
“Gisele will want to know.”
“You do not need to tell her anything.” He opened the door and they stepped out into the corridor. “We have had a long journey. We have every right to be antisocial.”
The others were already seated by the time Eleanor and Daniel reached the dining room, and they slipped into the empty chairs between Philip and Gisele.
“I don’t think you’ve met the ambassador,” Gisele said, indicating the middle-aged man to her left. “Eleanor and Daniel, your new envoys for fish and weapons.”
“Welcome to Faliska,” the ambassador smiled. “I was just saying to your colleagues that, now you’ve arrived, we’ll set up some meetings with your counterparts here. Meanwhile, you should take some time tomorrow to relax and enjoy our city.”
“Indeed,” Daniel said. “I will enjoy finding out how it differs from the Empire.”
“Is this your first time abroad, then?” the ambassador asked.
Daniel nodded. “Yes. I have a lot to learn.”
As they were talking, servants filled their plates with steak and vegetables, and poured wine into generous glasses.
“At least the food here looks normal, like home,” Eleanor said. “Not like some of the weird things I’ve eaten.”
“Remember you’re in an embassy,” Gisele said. “We like Charanthe food as much as you do – when supplies allow. And it’s always a good day when a boat arrives from home.”
“So the local food, out there...”
“You probably wouldn’t recognise most of it as food, though it’s nice enough when you get used to it.”
“How long have you been out here?” Eleanor asked.
“It’s been few months, now,” Gisele said. “This is my second real posting. But how about you – did you manage to get a reassignment? I’m intrigued by how you’ve ended up in this job, given your history.”
“Well, you know I’ve sailed a lot, and I learnt a lot about fishing – so here I am, fish envoy.”
The ambassador raised an eyebrow. “What interests me is that Faliska don’t even buy fish from us.”
“Not yet,” Eleanor agreed. “It’s a developing market. Lots of potential, if we can just identify the kinds of fish that can’t live in these hot northern seas.”
“How would you even get fish all the way here from Charanthe?”
“Well, if we hung them to dry first, they wouldn’t rot on the way over.”
“Dried fish?” The ambassador laughed. “It would be a novelty, at least. Still, who am I to know what might appeal to the strange tastes of the Falisanka?”
Eleanor glanced around; it wasn’t just the ambassador who looked skeptical. “Okay, listen, just between friends, the fish job is a bit of a sham.”
Daniel gripped her thigh under the table, his fingernails digging sharply into her skin.
She ignored the pain, continuing: “It’s more of an excuse for me to travel with my husband.”
She leaned across to give Daniel an exaggerated kiss on the cheek. His face blushed scarlet, but he relaxed his grip.
“Oh, to be young again.” A broad smile spread across the ambassador’s face. “Young love, now there’s something I understand.”
“But of course, I’m still hoping we can make some good deals on the fish,” Eleanor added, sipping her wine. “Gisele knows I’ve always liked a challenge.”
For the rest of the meal the conversation hovered around the food, geography, and politics of Faliska. Eleanor listened with interest, constantly making comparisons to Taraska in her head but not wanting to voice her thoughts. There was nothing in any of her cover stories to explain her excursion into what was ba
sically an enemy land, and she didn’t want to open herself up to more questions. But she had to convince herself that this place bore no more than a passing resemblance to the city where she and Raf had been tortured.
“We need to introduce ourselves properly,” Daniel said as the others started to leave the room. Eleanor nodded, and waited by the door as he took the ambassador to one side and slipped their letter of introduction into his hand. Neither of them had actually read the note, but they expected its Imperial seal to be enough of a reference.
The ambassador split the seal with his fingers, scanned the paper, and nodded. He pocketed the letter without further comment.
“Gisele,” he called. She came to the door, looking a little puzzled. “Get some drinks for our guests; we’ll retire to the lounge.”
“But sir, I thought–”
“My plans have changed. As have yours.”
“Of course. Eleanor, Daniel?” Gisele led them to the sitting room of the ambassador’s private suite and fetched a large, dark bottle from a cupboard.
“This is the local liquor,” she said as she filled four sizeable glasses. “They call it Ngatu’a Karatsa” – she pronounced the strange words without difficulty – “which translates as something like Burning Death. You’ll see why.”
Eleanor sniffed the contents of her glass, and felt the fumes of the alcohol searing her nose. She was about to take a careful sip of the liquid when Gisele added, “The local custom is to swallow it all as one mouthful. For luck.”
Daniel shrugged and threw his head back, tipping the drink down his throat without a second thought. Not willing to be outdone, Eleanor copied him, and a moment later she knew exactly why the Burning Death was so named. By the time they’d both stopped coughing, Gisele had filled their glasses again.
The ambassador took a seat across from them, and raised his glass. “To your health, and to the Empire.”
“To the Empire,” they echoed.
“Can we take more time over this one?” Eleanor asked, but Gisele shook her head and emptied her glass in one gulp again. Eleanor took a deep breath and followed suit.