Sword and Verse (13 page)

Sotia trembled, for Gyotia had overpowered her once, and she could not help fearing him. She knew that Qora and Lanea supported her, though both feared Gyotia too much to speak in her defense. Lila stood at Gyotia's side, her hand upon her bow, ready as always to do his bidding. Suna stood aloof, absently stroking her own scarred cheek. Aqil, Sotia's own son, stood behind Gyotia, watching his father like a dog waiting for scraps to fall from his master's table.

I WAS TERRIFIED
the first time I went to the scribe rooms that housed the various ministry offices, but sneaking in turned out to be almost laughably easy. Early the next morning, I slipped into the Library of the Gods from the storeroom entrance. Not allowing myself to dwell on the image of Linti sprawled on the floor, I raced across the silent Library and entered the passage that led to the king's bedroom, feeling along the wall so I wouldn't miss the turnoff to the pitch-black lower level. I hadn't dared to bring a lamp. At the bottom of a shallow stairway, I stood behind a tapestry, gathering my nerve.

I peeked out. A lamp shone dimly away to my left, and the hallway curved into the darkness to my right. My palms began to sweat as I realized I had no idea which way was the dungeon
and which the scribe rooms. Suppose I walked straight into the guards?

Use your brain,
I told myself. I had seen the long rectangular windows, adorned with flower boxes, at the edges of the garden. Would such a view be afforded to prisoners? Of course not. I turned right.

The scribe rooms turned out to be large open spaces grouped around a central hallway. On pure instinct, I went to the largest—surely that would house the Trade Ministry records. I slipped in, both glad for and dismayed by the weak sunlight peeking in through the high windows. Not much time left.

Wooden tables lined the walls, with papers and quills scattered about. A glance at the open scrolls there—all shipping lists and schedules—showed I had come to the right place. I smiled to see how carelessly the scribes left their papers lying about, when they held them so close in public, as though afraid some errant Arnath might snatch them. All scribes were of the Scholar class, of course, but the palace scribes fancied themselves far above the others in the city, as they at least did not have to hire themselves out to merchants and traders. Plenty of second and third sons, and even daughters, of noble families had to turn to their quills to earn their bread by working for the lower classes.

In another world, that might have been an option for someone like me, too. Years of habit started to push the thought away, and then I realized: that freedom was exactly what the Resistance was fighting for.

My stomach fluttered. What if I couldn't find the record?

I made a careful circuit of the room, taking in the baskets of
scrolls next to the desks. A narrow door at the far end led into a large chamber filled with shelves of scroll baskets. I seized a yellowed tag hanging from the end of a scroll, and, by comparing it to the others in the basket, worked out that the records were stored chronologically along the top row of shelves. More baskets lined the bottom row, but I couldn't see how they fit into the pattern. I worked my way down the top row, following the timeline until I found the most recent scrolls by the door. But even those were over a season old.

Which meant that the newest entries were out in the scribes' area. I stepped back through the doorway and located a half-full basket—and on the desk nearby, a stack of scrolls. I opened each carefully, trying to remember exactly how it had lain on the desk so I could replace it.

The sixth scroll was the one I sought. It listed the items in the shipment from Lilano: fifty sacks of grain, forty bolts of cloth, two hundred swords, three hundred jugs of lamp oil, and one hundred slaves. I grabbed ink and quill from the desk and quickly applied the lines that would halve the number of slaves, then closed the ink bottle and wiped the quill on the much-stained blotter. I hovered as the ink dried—far too slowly—and blew on it for good measure, until my lines were virtually indistinguishable from the original scribe's. I replaced the scrolls and, satisfied that the room looked untouched, I crept back the way I'd come.

It went so well that I didn't hesitate when Kiti whispered my next assignment to me through the screen as I knelt in a temple alcove on the final day of Qora's festival. Now the Resistance needed food for the children we had freed before; a shipment
from the Valley of Qora was the target.

“It'd be best if you destroy the whole record,” he whispered. “The more we can take at one time, the less often we'll have to do this.”

I bent forward to feign prayer as someone passed by the door. “Won't they notice if the record goes missing?”

He laughed softly. “You'll figure it out. I trust you.” The way he put the emphasis on “I” reminded me of exactly who
didn't
trust me. I thought I'd proved myself, after the first time.

“I'll do it tonight,” I told him.

But I wondered about the wisdom of that promise when I crept out of the banquet late that evening, finally having been excused. In the kitchen storeroom I felt around for a candle and matches, then flipped the hidden latch to the passage.

When I reached the Trade Ministry office, I stopped short, realizing that I had concentrated so hard on getting here that I still hadn't decided how I would make the record disappear. Assuming I could find it, of course. I raised my candle, peering into the shadows, then moved along the desks, using one finger to slide scrolls open, looking for any mention of the Valley of Qora.

I found the scroll on the third desk, no unrolling necessary; the paper lay flat, weighted by stones at each corner, with a fresh page next to it where the scribe had half finished a copy. I chewed my lip. Removing it would raise suspicion; a scribe in the midst of copying the supply list would certainly remember its existence.

My eyes lit on the unstoppered ink bottle at the next desk. I looked back at the supply list. A stoppered ink bottle stood a hand's length from the paper. But as I looked more carefully, I
saw that the stopper was loose, not fully inserted into the neck of the bottle. A strong wind or a mouse scurrying across the desk might topple it. . . .

I tilted my head, calculating at exactly which angle the ink might spill in a flood over both copies. I nudged the bottle closer to the weighted letter, then carefully loosened the stopper even more and knocked the bottle on its side, jumping back as bitter black ink soaked the supply list and ran over the copy. Ink streamed to the edge of the desk and splashed onto the braided rug and scroll basket below.

The original was completely illegible, the copy mostly ruined, with only the shipment's origin and the first line (“seventy-five iron pikes”) visible. I took a quill and spread the ink until the words were obscured, then wiped the quill on the blotter and replaced it on the desk.

I stood back and surveyed the scene—it was quite convincing. And if I knew anything about scribes, it was that they were proud. The scribe who'd been copying this would probably burn the inky remains rather than draw attention to his own carelessness with his ink bottle.

Smiling, I crept back along the corridor.

The next time Laiyonea left me alone in the Adytum, I wrote of my doings with the Resistance, giddy at seeing the deeds on the page. It made them feel more real, somehow—so much so that I hated to burn the letter. But burn it I did.

I continued my encoding project too, and managed to work my way through the first five tensets of the lower order symbols
before the rains drove us out of the Adytum for a solid Shining and a Veiling, and the raised floodwalls blocked the sea.

I was eager for another assignment from the Resistance, and one finally came at the Festival of Suna. Laiyonea bid me wait in the carriage until called for the service; the king had ordered her to keep me out of the way except when the presence of both Tutors was explicitly required. As this meant I was also spared the sight of Mati and Soraya socializing with the other nobles before the service, it suited me fine.

No sooner had Laiyonea disappeared into the temple than the other door slid open and Jonis slipped inside the carriage.

“How did you do it?” he asked.

“Do what?” I whispered defensively.

“Make that shipment disappear. We've been listening around corners for two Shinings, and no one even seems to remember that there
was
a shipment due from the Valley of Qora.”

“You got it all?” I sat up straighter. Those children would eat well, because of me.

“Yes.” Jonis's mouth twisted begrudgingly. “What'd you do?”

“If you think I'm so incapable, why did you ask for my help?” I said, more loudly than I should have with the guards and driver just outside.

Jonis tensed, then relaxed when no guards slammed the doors open. He glared at me. “Oh, you're very capable, I think. Capable of betraying us in an instant if it suits your mood.”

“My
mood
? If that were the case, I wouldn't have helped you at all, the way you keep insulting me.”

Jonis's nostrils flared, and then I saw him make the decision
to calm down. His entire demeanor changed, a veil dropping over the anger in his eyes. Was this the face he showed his master?

“So, how did you make every Scholar in the city forget that shipment?” he said.

I might not have heard the forced humor in his tone had I not seen his anger just the moment before. Blushing, I told him about the ink bottle.

He shook his head. “All right, to business. This job's a little different.” He leaned forward and dropped his voice. “You need to alter the record of an Arnath named Ris ko Karmik. As soon as possible.”

“Why?”

Jonis gave me a hard look. “Ris is taking on an important mission. He agreed to do it only if we guarantee protection for his family. You'll remove the record of his wife and son, so if Ris is captured they can't be tortured to make him speak.”

I gasped. “Would the guards really—”

He stopped me with a glare. “In a heartbeat. We're nothing to them. You think Qilarites would hesitate to torture an infant? Your friend the prince wouldn't even blink.”

I looked away. “He's not my friend.” It was true. He wasn't anything to me anymore. The thought didn't even hurt, not really; there was just a hollow where the warm glow that was Mati used to be. I took a deep breath. “This man is willing to abandon his family?”

Jonis snorted. “His master sold him to an olive farmer in the Valley of Qora not ten days after the baby was born. He'll be lucky if he ever sees that child again. That's how life is for slaves, Tutor.
Most of us have nothing left to lose.”

I nodded. “I'll go today, after the service.”

“Good.” Jonis reached for the door.

“My name is Raisa,” I said.

He looked at me. “I know.”

“You always call me Tutor. My name is Raisa.”

Jonis paused. “Good-bye, Raisa. Don't fail us. A good man's life depends on you.” And then he was gone.

I sat formulating a plan, and presented a calm facade to Laiyonea when she came to fetch me. That afternoon, in the scribe rooms, I was less calm. Getting there had been easy enough—all the scribes were at an open council meeting, and Laiyonea too. But I had no idea where to find the record of a particular Arnath. I'd only dealt with shipping records so far, in the Trade Ministry office. I poked around the other rooms, and even spent a good ten minutes unrolling census scrolls, before I realized: slaves wouldn't be counted in a census, like people. Slaves were property.
We
were property, to Qilarites.

A sour taste in my mouth, I hurried to the Trade Ministry office. I examined the scrolls on the desks and found a few slave records, but nothing about Ris ko Karmik.

I stepped into the storeroom and studied the baskets lining the shelves. Remembering my puzzlement over the bottom row of baskets, I examined one of the tags. It held the name of a Scholar, and underneath,
City of Kings, east.
Unrolling the scroll, I found a list of the Scholar's property, including information about all his slaves. No names, of course; only descriptions of age, appearance, and family members. The language of the gods only allowed for
symbols to name Qilarites.

My heart sank. How was I to find Ris ko Karmik, when all I had was his name? I didn't even know who his master was—I hadn't known enough of the record system to ask for it.

I sorted through the other scrolls in the basket, pausing when my hand brushed a tag that said
Horel Stit, City of Kings, east.
I knew that name—Jonis's master. Remembering the man's oily smile, the way he had pinned his cruel eyes on Jonis, I unrolled the scroll and found a long list of property, ships, and a home by the docks, and, at the bottom, an inventory of slaves. Stit kept three household slaves: an older woman who cooked and cleaned, a young boy for errand-running, and a young man for everything else. I read the description of the third:
tall, curly sand-colored hair, typical Arnath complexion, by nature stubborn. Original owner: Kladel Ky. Came to Stit at age fourteen as part of the dowry for Ky's daughter upon her marriage to Stit. Mother and sister remain in Ky's possession.

Jonis would hate that I was reading this—and would hate that, even if he stood right beside me, he
couldn't
read it.

I replaced the scroll and forced my mind back to my task. I didn't have much time; if Laiyonea came to look for me in the Adytum, I'd best be there.

If only I'd thought to ask for Ris's master's name!

But wait—Jonis had said that Ris's master was an olive farmer in the Valley of Qora. And the records seemed to be arranged geographically. . . .

Luckily there was only one basket for the Valley of Qora; that area was mainly inhabited by peasant farmers who turned most
of their crops over to the Scholar landowners in exchange for the right to work the land. I found one slave with a young child, but he had grown up in the Scholar's household, and Ris had been sold there recently. I shoved the scroll back into the basket and reached for the next.