Bloodchild. Anna Stephens

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СКАЧАТЬ to walk free? She stopped at a stall holding thin bolts of cloth, all of them dyed an uneven blue. The quality was poor, but the price was high and it was the only stall selling material in the required colour.

      ‘How much for eight yards?’ she asked.

      The man leered at her, brown teeth in a pockmarked face. ‘For you, pretty? Depends on what you got to offer. Knock a bit off the price if you’re a good girl.’

      ‘I’m not a good girl,’ Tara said and then cursed as the merchant winked and leered some more. ‘No, is what I’m saying. How much?’

      ‘No? Say no to your owner too, do you? Bet you don’t. How’d it be if I told him you offered yourself to me in exchange for your freedom, eh? How’d that be?’

      Tara rounded the stall and grabbed the man by the front of his shirt, hauled him close until they were nose to nose and she was enveloped in the stink of his breath. ‘How’d it be if I choked you to death with your own shitty linen, you traitorous little wank-stain? I want eight yards and I want a good price.’

      ‘Royal a yard, royal a yard and no less,’ the man croaked.

      Tara shoved him away. ‘I’m not paying you eight silvers. I wouldn’t pay two silvers for this quality of dye.’

      The merchant spat at her. ‘Fucking Mireces can afford it, why shouldn’t I make a profit serving scum like that?’

      Tara could’ve told him why not, could’ve mentioned the fact many of the slaves here in the market would be beaten, starved or executed either for failing to purchase the goods or for buying at too high a price. She knew none of that would matter to this man.

      She put her back to him and snatched up the tailoring shears, started measuring the linen. When he tried to stop her she shoved the shears towards his face and he fell back squealing, though not loudly enough to attract attention.

      Tara hacked off eight yards and threw two silver royals on to the table. ‘And just so we’re clear,’ she snarled in his face. ‘You’re all scum.’ She stalked away before he could reply and made it twenty yards before she remembered to drop her head and slow her steps, kill the fire in her eyes.

      A slave was watching her, standing with a couple of others. A big man, huge in fact, with a beard halfway down his chest. He had a trowel in his hand and was supposed to be shovelling mortar on to the inner face of the wall, right about where it had breached. Where Durdil had died. She blinked and looked away, looked back. The man went to wipe his face, then tapped his fingertips quickly against his heart. Tara faltered, then kept walking. When she was almost past she glanced back, gave him the tiniest nod. A Mireces overseer snapped something at him and he bent to his task again.

       A mason. That could be useful, either to bring the wall down or to blow the fucker up, maybe. Somehow. Failing that, he’s as big as an ox and if he had a shield he could hold a stairwell indefinitely.

      It wasn’t much, but it was a start. Tara checked her list and bought those items she could find. Combs and hair ribbons; four fine cups and plates with a matching pattern of flowers around the edges; linens and breast band, linens for children. The underwear was the only thing she got for a good price, there not being any free women or children in the city who might need such things. So cheap, in fact, that Tara took the enormous risk of buying fresh ones for herself and then, on a whim that could see her executed, she bought two painted wooden horses.

      The slave woman who was selling them wept with silent hopelessness as she handed them over. ‘Your children’s?’ Tara whispered as she paid. The woman nodded; then she looked fearfully over her shoulder at the Raiders crouched in a circle and betting on dice.

      ‘I’m so sorry,’ Tara said. ‘Have they gone to the Light?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ the woman choked. ‘I lost them in the smoke. I let go of their hands and they were gone, taken in a heartbeat. I lost them.’ Her voice began to rise and Tara shushed her, but it was no good. One of the Raiders looked up, scowling, and Tara did the only thing she could: she shoved the toys into her basket and walked away. She wasn’t even around the corner before the screaming started.

      As King’s Second, Valan occupied the large suite of rooms formerly belonging to the dead Prince Janis. Familiar with the palace’s layout from the siege, Tara knew exactly which corridors and shortcuts led from the suite to the king’s chambers. Handy, for when the time came, and the brief moment with the mason today gave her hope it would be soon. Getting the Rankers on side was easy enough, but they needed every slave rebelling at once, rising in every Circle and every district and causing so much chaos that no one would notice her slipping through the palace and putting a knife in Corvus’s heart before drowning Lanta in her own filthy, sacrilegious godpool.

      If only it could happen now. Tara didn’t do regret as a rule, but right now she was regretting buying those wooden horses with rare intensity. It had taken hard work and luck and the exact right mixture of defiance, ability and humility to charm Valan, but it could all come crashing down around her if he took exception to her decision-making.

      Tara had laid out the purchases on the big table in Valan’s suite and moved to her place by the door to await his return, when she’d have the honour of taking his weapons and boots and presenting him with wine and food. She got to remove his armour and then pour his bath, a luxury he couldn’t get enough of down here in the warm lands.

       So fucking honoured.

      She also got to tell him about any infractions by the other slaves during his absence, what the kitchens had prepared for him, and any messages that had arrived while he’d waited on the king. She tried to convince herself it was the same as being Mace’s adjutant back before the world had gone to shit, but then Mace had never insisted she scrub his back while he sat bollock-naked in a bathtub. She shuddered and reminded herself it was nothing like being an adjutant, because she’d never been one. She was an officer’s wife, not an officer.

      Her palms began to sweat when she heard his footsteps in the corridor outside. The other five slaves were locked in what must have once been Janis’s study. They were always locked away when the second left his apartments; Tara’s disguise as the wife of Major Vaunt had convinced Valan that she wouldn’t risk her husband’s safety by attempting to escape.

      ‘Welcome back, honoured,’ she said, as she did every single time, an affectation he enjoyed. He shoved his sword at her and strode into the main room, threw himself into a chair. She knelt at his feet and tugged off his boots, put them in the corner and then handed him a cup.

      ‘I got everything you requested,’ she said and gestured at the table. Valan grunted, rolling the wine around in his mouth as he wandered over. The fabric was arranged in what she thought was an artful sweep that hid the ragged edge where she’d cut it. The four cups and plates occupied the centre of the table along with the linens, and behind them stood the wooden horses.

      A muscle flickered in Valan’s cheek. ‘I did not ask for those,’ he said.

      Tara curtseyed. ‘No, honoured. Forgive me, honoured. The linens were so reasonably priced I had enough left over and more. I … was not sure whether your daughters would be able to bring any toys with them and I thought you might want to show you’d been thinking of them.’

      Valan’s expression was unreadable.

      ‘I can try and sell them on, honoured,’ she added quickly, voice quickening with anxiety, ‘or … or use them as kindling СКАЧАТЬ