Dakon didn’t want Tessia knowing the real reason for his trip to Imardin. Travelling far from her parents for the first time would be challenging enough, without adding to it the fear of an attack from Sachaka. This first trip to Imardin ought to be an enjoyable one.
So, not surprisingly, she had not been admitted to the dinner conversation tonight. Apparently she’d eaten with Lord Gilar’s wife and daughter. That would have been a new experience for her. It’s obvious Gilar chose Pimia to be his wife for her magical bloodline, not her intelligence, and Faynara isn’t much better. Still, they’re well mannered. They wouldn’t look down on Tessia openly, or try to manipulate or trick her.
Conversation between Dakon and Gilar had been almost solely about the threat from Sachaka and Dakon’s coming meeting with the king. Lord Gilar had switched between declaring that no Sachakan would ever dare to invade Kyralia to believing they were all doomed, then back again. These shifts from confidence to despondency confused Jayan at first, then disappointed him.
Lord Gilar is a bit mad, I suspect. He’s got no grasp on reality. I can’t imagine him being a help during battle – more a hindrance. Dakon had to talk Gilar out of battle-training his farmers or getting them to abandon their crops and animals to spend months building walls around his borders. Jayan wondered if Gilar’s education had included any battle strategy at all. The man overestimated how long a physical barrier could delay a magician. One moment he couldn’t see the value of his people as sources, the next he was excessively concerned about not letting them become a resource for the enemy.
By the time dinner ended Jayan was exhausted from suppressing the desire to tell the man what an idiot he was, and immensely grateful to have a teacher as sensible as Lord Dakon. I pity any apprentice who finds himself receiving lessons from Lord Gilar.
They finished late in the night, long after the women of the house had retired to bed. Instead of heading to his room, Dakon indicated he wanted Jayan to follow him into the small seating room next door.
“Not tired?” Jayan asked.
Dakon grimaced. “Of course, but we don’t get much opportunity to talk privately at the moment. What did you think of Lord Gilar?”
Jayan sat down. “I’m surprised he’s a member of the Circle of Friends.”
“Oh? He’s a country magician. Why wouldn’t he be?”
“He’s hardly the reliable type. Constantly changing his mind.” Dakon chuckled. “I think if all doubts of an invasion were allayed he would be much more... decided.”
“All doubts allayed meaning an invasion taking place?”
“Yes.”
“Until that happens can you rely on his support?”
“Oh, yes. But he’s a man who finds it easier to follow the guidance of others than decide on action himself. The trouble is, within the Circle there are conflicting opinions on whether we need to make preparations, and what they should be.” Dakon stretched and yawned. “Gilar does have good intentions, he just isn’t always consistent in carrying them out.”
Jayan thought of the bridge, and nodded.
“Whereas there are some in Imardin who are quite the opposite,” Dakon continued. “Their intentions are not so good, and they are astute at carrying them out. We will have to tread carefully.”
“But surely it is in their interest to help us. There can’t be much benefit to letting the enemy invade, unless...do you think some are traitors? Most Kyralian families contain some Sachakan blood, if you look back a few generations.”
“No. Not yet, at least, and I doubt it would be for that reason. After two hundred years I don’t think there are any who would not consider themselves Kyralian. They would rather think of themselves as descendants of the Kyralians who gained us independence than of the Sachakans who conquered and ruled the previous generations.”
“You should hear my father talk.” Jayan grimaced. “He says it was only breeding with Sachakans that brought toughness into the Kyralian race. Sometimes I think he’d like to thank them personally.”
Dakon smiled. “Yet is he still proud to be Kyralian?”
“Stiflingly,” Jayan replied. He sighed. “I don’t think he’d like to see Kryalia invaded. Surely to suggest allowing such a thing would be considered traitorous?”
“Some will reason that if only the country leys are overtaken they will not be affected. They will be tempted to strike a bargain, give the Sachakans some land in exchange for avoiding a war. We must convince them that, in the long term, they will suffer for it.”
“Do you think they’re expecting us, and have prepared?”
“Perhaps. It is no great secret that the country magicians have formed an alliance of sorts due to fear of invasion.”
No great secret. “Gilar didn’t seem particularly careful. Tessia was a bit puzzled by his comments about the bridge being a barrier to invasion.”
Dakon frowned, then sighed. “I’ll have to tell her eventually. It’s just...it’s a bit cruel so soon after she’s discovered her powers. One moment she has a wonderful gift, the next she might have to use it to fight in a war.”
Jayan felt a stab of alarm. “Fight?”
“Well...be a source, not literally fight. But it still involves risk.” Dakon looked over at Jayan, his face suddenly thoughtful. “I’ve noticed that while you are being nicer to her, she still appears wary of you.”
Jayan grimaced. “Yes, I don’t think she’s forgiven me for being so tough on her when she first arrived.”
“Has your opinion of her changed?”
“A little,” Jayan admitted grudgingly.
“What changed it?”
Shifting in his seat, Jayan avoided Dakon’s gaze. “Something... happened. Before we left. I was trying to be friendly, but instead sounded like an idiot. She got all defensive. I don’t remember exactly what . . .” He paused, remembering the moment and feeling an echo of realisation and admiration. “It wasn’t what she said, but the way she said it.” He shook his head. “And then it was as if I could see into the future. When she knows what she’s talking about, she has such conviction. I imagined what that would be like, when she was older and more confident, and it was almost . . . scary.”
Dakon chuckled. “You’re right, of course. She is a natural. It’s possible she’ll surpass us both in power, and she has the focus and discipline of someone already used to study.”
Jayan paused. Dakon hadn’t quite taken in what he had been trying to say. I wish I was better at explaining things like this. But he wasn’t sure how to. Once he’d found something to like in Tessia, her fixation on healing and demands on Dakon’s time had suddenly become unimportant. And he began to find more things about her to like. Her practicality and lack of fussiness. How she was more inclined to hide discomfort to the point of her own detriment, rather than complain. The hints he had caught of a great store of healing knowledge, which in itself was amazing in someone so young.
But he had no idea how to communicate this, or to apologise for his earlier behaviour. So she continued to assume he hated her, and she hated him in return. How am I supposed to let her know I no longer resent her, when I’d have to admit why I resented her in the first place? And when she ignores me all the time anyway.
“Do you think she’ll ever lose this interest in healing?” he asked.
“I hope not. Plenty of magicians waste their spare time on worse things.”
“Would the Healers’ Guild accept her?” Jayan wondered aloud. He’d not heard of any magician receiving training through the Healers’ Guild, or any other trade guild for that matter. Maybe they gave some assistance to magicians, but the idea they’d take one on as a student was, well, ludicrous.
“Maybe. She may not want to join them, since she won’t need their endorsement in order to earn a living.”
Jayan frowned as he considered, again, his earlier assessment of her future. He’d doubted that she would be given highly paid magical tasks due to her lowly origins and lack of connections to powerful
families. Perhaps he could help her, when the time came. Perhaps she would make some influential friends while they were in Imardin.
“So how are you going to keep Tessia occupied while you’re meeting the Circle and the king?”
Dakon smiled. “Oh, Everran’s wife will keep her well and truly distracted.”
Jayan winced. “You’re going to leave her in Avaria’s hands?”
“She’ll be fine.” Dakon sighed and rose. “Best get some sleep. Lady Pimia is bound to have some foolish activity planned for us tomorrow, and Gilar will no doubt want to talk more.”
Jayan stood up and moved towards the door of his room. Would the women Tessia spent her time with in Imardin accept her? They could be cruel, when they took a dislike to someone.
Then I’ll make it known that I don’t approve. There are, at least, some benefits to being the son of an influential, if unlikeable, Kyralian patriarch. Perhaps it will be a way to make up for being mean to her at the beginning.
He stepped into his bedroom and closed the door.
I just have to learn to stop saying things that she can take the wrong way.
CHAPTER 13
At first Tessia caught a glimpse of a strange flat area in the dip between two hills and wondered what it was. It looked like a second sky, but darker, and it lay where there should have been land.
Then the wagon rolled around the curve of a hill and a great expanse of blue appeared. She knew it must be the sea. What else could it be? Flat, yet constantly stirring as if alive. Rippled like the surface of a pond tickled by the wind, occasionally foaming like a river running fast. And there were objects on the water she had only seen in paintings. Tiny, tiny ships, and even smaller boats.
She hadn’t yet grown used to the sight when Imardin came into view.
It had been clear they were drawing close. The road had grown busier, populated with a constant flow of people and their carts, wagons and domestic beasts. It wound alongside the wide Tarali river towards a range of southern hills. She had been told the city sat at the foot of the first hill. She had also been told that it lay where the river flowed into the sea, allowing safe mooring for ships at its docks.
As the wagon continued past the hill, a blanket of stone and roof tile appeared and she stared in amazement.
“You look surprised, Tessia,” Jayan observed, smiling smugly.
“It’s bigger than I expected,” she admitted, quashing her annoyance.
“Imardin is a third the size of Arvice, Sachaka’s main city,” Dakon told her. “But Sachakans prefer sprawling single-storey mansions. Kyralians build two- to three-storey houses, closer together so they fit more in a smaller space.”
She turned to look at him. “Have you been to Arvice?”
He smiled and shook his head. “No, but the description came from a friend not given to exaggeration.”
Looking back at the city, Tessia tried to match landmarks with those she’d seen on maps and drawings. The road they were travelling on, which had been paved for some time now, crossed the city in a gentle curve, then continued along the coast.
On the side we’re approaching from it’s called the North Road, within the city it’s the Main Road, and on the other side it becomes the South Road, she reminded herself. All very simple and logical.
Five wide streets ran parallel to the Main Road, each a measure further up the hill. From the docks another wide thoroughfare climbed upward, crossing all six roads, to the Royal Palace. This was King’s Parade, and where it met the Main Road there was a wide area called Market Square.
The tangle of buildings before her hid most of these features. She could see that some rooftops followed the line of the roads, but mainly they were a muddle of different shapes and sizes. Only the towers of the Royal Palace, at the high side of the city, were distinct. As the wagon reached the first structures along the road it became even more obvious that this was not the ordered, clean city that the maps had suggested.
These first dwellings were hovels clearly made from salvaged materials. They were half hidden behind droves of dirty, thin people in ragged, tattered clothes. A woman whose wide grin exposed a few remaining blackened teeth limped up to the wagon, holding up a basket of wrinkled fruit. She did not come too close, Tessia noticed. Others approached as the wagon passed, offering wares no fresher or more appealing. Looking beyond them, Tessia saw that arms were rising in appeal among an endless row of people huddling by the hovel walls, like a flowing salute to the passing wagon. Beggars, she realised, holding out hands or vessels for coin. Looking closer, she saw sores that should be cleaned and covered, signs of illness caused by bad diet. Growths that could be cut away easily enough by a skilled surgeon. She smelled refuse and excrement, infection and stale sweat.
She felt paralysed. Shocked. These people needed help. They needed an army of healers. She wanted to leap out of the wagon and do something, but with what? She had no bag of medicines and tools. No burner to sear a blade clean. No blade to sear clean. And where would she start?
A wave of depression swept through her, like a squall of ice-cold rain chilling her to the core. As she sank into her seat she felt eyes close by, watching her. Lord Dakon. She did not look up. She knew she’d see sympathy and right now she resented that.
I ought to be grateful that he understands. He knows I want to heal these people, but can’t. I don’t want his sympathy, I want the knowledge, resources and freedom to do something to help them. And an explanation of why they live like this – and why nobody else has done anything about it.
The road widened abruptly and they entered an open space. To one side she could see ships and boats tied up to long wooden walkways that extended into the river. On the other a broad road ascended between large stone houses. This, she realised, must be Market Square.
“Should there be stalls here?” she asked.
“Only on market day – every fifth day,” Dakon replied.
The wagon turned and slowly moved with the flow of other vehicles making their way towards King’s Parade. Progress was slow. Occasionally a large and spectacular covered wagon would force its way through, gaudily dressed men using short whips to enforce demands that other travellers move aside. Tessia wondered why nobody protested against this casual brutality. The finely dressed couple and three children she glimpsed inside one such wagon didn’t seem aware of it. Lord Dakon said and did nothing, but she was relieved when he did not order Tanner to speed their way with his whip, either.
She also noticed that most traffic avoided the centre of the road. Even the fancier wagons only dared swing out into the middle if they could leave it again immediately. When two riders came cantering up the centre gap, wearing identical clothing, she guessed that they were servants of some sort headed for the palace. There must be a law against blocking the path of anyone using the road for royal business, and the penalty or punishment must be severe if even those within the fancier wagons were keen to avoid it.
“See these buildings to the left?” Dakon said, drawing her attention from the traffic to the large, pale-stoned walls nearby. “They were built by the Sachakans during their rule here. Though they embraced the Kyralian way of building multiple-storey homes, they imported the stone from quarries in the mountains of their land.”
“How?” she asked; then, as she realised the answer was obvious, she shook her head. “Slaves.”
“Yes.”
“Who lives there now?”
“Whoever was lucky enough to inherit or wealthy enough to buy them.”
“People want to live in houses built by Sachakans?”
“They are well designed. Warm in the winter, cool in the summer. The best of them have bathing rooms with piped hot water.” He shrugged. “While we consider Sachakans barbaric for enslaving others, they consider us so for being unsophisticated and dirty.”
“At least we learned when exposed to their ways. We adopted their technologies, but they remained slavers,” Jayan said.
“They
gave us back our independence,” Dakon pointed out. “Through negotiation, not war, which was a first for Sachaka. Did that willingness to talk rather than fight stem from our influence?”
Jayan looked thoughtful. “Perhaps.”
“What was Kyralia like before the Sachakans came?” Tessia asked.
“A lot of independently ruled leys that were in conflict with each other as often as they were at peace,” Dakon told her. “No one ruler controlled all, though the lord of the southern ley was by far the most powerful. Everyone came to Imardin to trade, and he grew rich on the wealth that came from controlling the centre of commerce.”
“Is King Errik descended from that lord?”
“No, the southern lord died in the invasion. Our king is descended from one of the men who negotiated our independence.”
“How did magicians live before the invasion?”
“There weren’t many, and most sold their services to ley lords. No more than seven are mentioned in the few records left from that time. There is no description of higher magic, either. Some people believe the Sachakans discovered higher magic, and that was why they conquered so many lands so quickly. But eventually they lost them again as the knowledge of higher magic spread in those lands and local magicians began to equal them in strength.”
The wagon turned into one of the side streets. Realising she had forgotten to count the streets, Tessia glanced around for some indication of which one they had entered. On the wall of one of the corner buildings was a painted metal plaque.
Fourth Street, it read.
Remembering her lessons on Imardin, Tessia knew that people living in houses closer to the palace were usually more important and powerful than those living further down the hill, although it wasn’t always true. Some powerful families lived closer to Market Square because they or their predecessors had lost their wealth but not their influence, or perhaps because they simply liked their house and didn’t want to move. But the opposite did not happen: no poor or insignificant families lived above Third Street.