The Ambassador’s Mission: Book One of the Traitor Spy Trilogy (34 page)

Cery felt a flush of pleasure, followed by a niggling anxiety that she might be wrong. He had spotted the rogue by chance. It might not be so easy to find her again. The four of them moved around the room quickly, making sure everything was in order, then left the way they had come. Sonea relocked the front door with magic. They slipped out the back way. Once in the main street again, they exchanged glances but remained silent. The two magicians raised hands in farewell before they walked away. Cery and Gol returned to the empty shopkeeper’s house.

“Well, that was disappointing,” Gol said.

“Yes,” Cery agreed.

“Do you think the rogue will come back?”

“No. She’ll have had something set up to tell her if anyone came visiting.”

“So what do we do next?”

“Watch and hope I’m wrong.” He looked around the room. “And find out when the owner of this place is due back. We don’t want to scare him and his family half to death at finding a Thief in his house.”

The slave master looked surprised to see Dannyl and Ashaki Achati, before he threw himself to the ground at their feet. His surprise was not because a powerful Sachakan and Kyralian magician had come visiting. The estate had been expecting them, or someone, to arrive.

“You came faster than we hoped,” the big man said when Achati explained that they were looking for an escaped female slave and a Kyralian man dressed as a slave.

“You have seen the pair I described?” Achati asked.

“Yes. Two nights ago. One of the slaves thought they were people we’d been warned about, and when we came to question them they had run away.”

“Did you search for them?”

“No.” The man bowed his head. “We were warned they were magicians, and that only magicians could catch them.”

“Who gave you this warning?”

“The master, in a message.”

“When did the message arrive?”

“A day before the pair arrived here.”

Achati glanced at Dannyl, his eyebrows raised in disbelief.
So if Ashaki Tikako didn’t send the message, who did?
Dannyl felt his heart skip a beat.
The Traitors. They must be very organised to get messages like this out to the country estates so quickly.

“How long ago did you send your message warning your master of their appearance here?”

“Two nights ago – straight after they disappeared.”

Achati turned to Dannyl. “If he is on his way he won’t arrive for another day, even if he rides rather than taking a carriage. I’m afraid we’ll have to wait. I don’t have the authority to read the minds of another man’s slaves.”

“Do you have the authority to question them?” Dannyl asked.

The magician frowned. “There is no custom or law preventing me. Or you.”

“Then let’s question them.”

Achati smiled. “We’ll do it your way? Why not?” He chuckled. “If you do not mind, I would like to watch and learn from you. I would not know what questions to ask that might trick a slave into revealing more than he or she wanted to.”

“There really isn’t any trickery involved,” Dannyl assured him.

“Which do you want to question first?”

“This man, and anyone who saw Lorkin and Tyvara. And most of all, the slave who saw them and thought they might be the people they’d been warned about.” Dannyl drew out his notebook and looked at the slave master. “And I need a room – nothing fancy – where I can question them alone without others overhearing.”

The man looked from Dannyl to Achati uncertainly.

“Arrange it,” Achati ordered. As the man hurried away, the Sachakan magician turned to smile crookedly at Dannyl. “You really must learn to phrase your requests as orders, Ambassador Dannyl.”

“You have the greater authority here,” Dannyl replied. “And I am a foreigner. It would be rude of me to assume I could take control.”

Achati looked at him thoughtfully, then shrugged. “I suppose you are right.”

The slave master returned and then led them into the building to a small room that smelled of grain. The floor was covered in a fine dust patterned with the sweeping grooves of a broom. Particles hung in the beams of sunlight streaming in from a high window. Two chairs had been placed under the window.

“Well, it’s definitely not fancy,” Achati said, not hiding his amusement.

“Where would you suggest we question them?” Dannyl asked.

Achati sighed. “I guess it would be presumptuous if we’d questioned them in the Master’s Room, and guest rooms would have made it obvious we aren’t in charge here. No, I suppose this is an appropriate setting.” He moved to one of the chairs and sat down.

Dannyl took the other seat, then ordered the slave master to enter. The man related how two slaves had arrived with an empty cart, the male apparently new but lacking in muscle for a delivery slave, and the woman there to show him the route. While they’d loaded the cart one of the kitchen slaves had suggested to him that the pair might be the people they’d been warned to watch out for. She suggested drugging their food, as they would be less dangerous asleep.

At the mention of drugged food, Dannyl had to hide his dismay. Fortunately Lorkin and Tyvara hadn’t fallen for the trap. They’d slipped away.

He then questioned the woman who had suspected the pair weren’t who they said they were. As she entered the room, Dannyl noted that her gaze was sharp, though she gave him only one quick look before bowing her head and prostrating herself. He told her to get up, and she kept her gaze lowered.

Her explanation matched the slave master’s, including the contents of the message warning of two dangerous magicians posing as slaves.

“What made you think they were the people you’d been warned about?” Dannyl asked her.

“They were as described. A tall man with pale skin and a shorter Sachakan female.”

Pale skin?
Dannyl frowned.
The slave master didn’t mention Lorkin’s skin, and surely it would have been unusual enough for the man to notice. Wait … didn’t the woman I healed at Tikako’s home say Lorkin’s skin had been dyed?

Had the dye worn off, or was this woman feeding him the information she thought he expected?

“Tall, short, male, female – none of these things would make them stand out from other slaves surely. What made you notice they were different?”

The woman’s gaze, fixed on the floor, flickered. “The way they moved and talked. Like they weren’t used to following orders.”

So not the pale skin. Dannyl paused, writing down her answer as he considered what to ask next. Perhaps it was time to be more direct.

“A slave I spoke to a few days ago thought the woman was a Traitor and that they mean to kill the man she has abducted. Do you think it likely they will kill him?”

The woman was very still as she answered.

“No.”

“Do you know of the Traitors?”

“Yes. Every slave does.”

“Why do you believe it is unlikely the Traitors intend to kill the man?”

“Because if they wanted him dead they would have killed him, not abducted him.”

“What do you think they intend to do with him then?”

She shook her head. “I am only a slave. I do not know.”

“What do other slaves think the Traitors will do with him?”

She paused and her head lifted slightly before bowing again, as if she resisted the urge to look at him.

“I’ve heard some say,” she said slowly. “That the woman is a murderer. That the Traitors want you to find them.”

Dannyl felt a chill. Tyvara had killed a slave. What if that slave had been the Traitor, not Tyvara?

“Who said this?” he asked.

“I … I can’t remember.”

“Are there any slaves who are more likely to say this sort of thing than others?”

She paused then shook her head. “All slaves gossip.”

After a few more questions, he knew he would not get anything more out of her. She’d said all she wanted to say, and if she was withholding information he would not get it out of her voluntarily. He sent her away.

I’d wager she does know more. And then there’s the description of Lorkin’s pale skin. She wanted me to be sure Lorkin was here. Which makes sense if this rumour that the Traitors want me to find Tyvara and Lorkin is true.

But it could be a decoy. Still, the slave he’d helped at Tikako’s home had spoken the truth. Tyvara and Lorkin
had
come to his country estate.

What if the Traitors did want him to find the pair?
Then they’ll make sure we find them. Though I can’t imagine Tyvara will let us capture her without a fight. And we’ll have to be prepared for any reaction from Lorkin. It’s possible she’s convinced him to accompany her – perhaps even seduced him – and he’ll resist being rescued.

He wanted to believe Lorkin was more sensible than that, but he had heard the gossip in the Guild that the young man had a weakness for pretty, smart women. Being the son of Black Magician Sonea and the late High Lord Akkarin didn’t mean the young man had any of his parents’ wisdom, either. Those characteristics could only come with experience. With making mistakes and choices, and learning from the consequences.

I just hope this isn’t a serious mistake, and that the consequences are the kind he can learn from, not ones that will lead to me spending the rest of my life in Sachaka for fear of what Sonea might do to me if I ever return to the Guild.

Lorkin would have thought that a male and female slave walking along a country road in the middle of the night would raise suspicion, but the few slaves they had passed had barely glanced at them. A carriage had overtaken them once, and Tyvara had hissed something about it probably containing a magician or Ashaki, but all she’d had him do was scamper off the road and keep his gaze lowered.

“If anyone asks, we’ve been sent out to work at Ashaki Catika’s estate,” she’d told him. “We’re both house slaves. We’re travelling at night because he wants us there by tomorrow evening and that means walking night and day.”

“Ashaki Catika is known for that sort of cruelty?”

“All Sachakan magicians are.”

“Surely there are one or two good magicians.”

“There are some who treat their slaves better than others, but ultimately enslaving another person is cruel, so I wouldn’t call any of them good. If they were good, they’d free their slaves and pay those willing to stay and work for them.” She glanced at him. “As Kyralians do.”

“Not all Kyralians are kind to their servants,” Lorkin told her.

“At least those servants can leave and find a new employer.”

“They can, but it is not as easy as it sounds. Servant positions are in high demand and a servant who quits may find it hard to get work elsewhere. Households tend to hire servants from the same family over servants they don’t know. Of course, a servant can try other work, like a trade, but they will be competing with families who have practised that trade for generations.”

“Do you think slavery is better then?”

“No. Definitely not. I am only saying the alternative isn’t easier. How well do Traitors treat their servants?”

“We are all servants. Just as we are all Traitors,” Tyvara explained. “The term isn’t like ‘Ashaki’ or ‘Lord’. It is a word for a people.”

“But not a race?”

“No. We are Sachakans, though we don’t often call ourselves that.”

“So even magicians do the tasks of servants? They clean and cook?”

“Yes and no.” She grimaced then. “At first that was how it was supposed to be. We would all do the same work. A Traitor might clean dirty dishes one moment and then vote on important decisions, like which crops to plant, the next. But it didn’t work. Some bad decisions were made because people who were not smart or educated enough to understand the consequences chose badly.

“We started a range of tests designed to find out what a person’s talent was and to develop it, so the best person would end up taking on the tasks that required their skills. Though that meant we weren’t all doing the same things any more, it was still better than slavery. So long as the tasks required for maintaining our home and feeding our people were met, nobody was forced to do a certain job, or prevented from doing something they were talented at, because of their family status or class.”

“Sounds wonderful,” Lorkin remarked.

She shrugged. “It works most of the time, but like all systems it’s not perfect. There are some magicians who would rather spend their time complaining and manipulating others than wasting their magic on tilling the fields or heating kilns.”

“Most Guild magicians would agree. But we do work for the people in other ways. Maintaining the port. Building bridges and other structures. Defending the country. Healing the sick and in—”

The look she cast him had stopped the words in his throat. It began as a savage glare, then turned into a troubled frown, and then she turned away.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Someone’s coming,” she said, looking into the shadowed road ahead. “Anyone we pass could be a Traitor. We shouldn’t be talking. Someone might overhear us and realise who we are.”

The approaching figure turned out to be another slave. From then on Tyvara would not speak, telling him to be quiet if he attempted to start another conversation. As the sky began to lighten, she began scanning the surrounding area as she had done the previous morning, eventually moving off the road to where some thin trees barely screened a field wall.

They’d hidden among some dense, prickly bushes the previous day. These trees weren’t going to provide the same cover, however. Tyvara was staring at the ground. Lorkin felt a vibration, then heard a strange tearing sound followed by something between a thump and a popping noise. A cloud of dust rose up beyond the wall and the air filled with the smell of grit and dirt.

Before their feet a hole appeared.

“In you go,” Tyvara said, gesturing toward the hole.

“In there?” Lorkin crouched and peered into the darkness. “Are you hoping to bury me alive?”

“No, foolish Kyralian,” she snapped. “I’m trying to hide us both. Get inside before someone sees us.”

He put his hands on either side of the hole and let his legs dangle inside. There was no floor that he could reach. The prospect of falling into darkness didn’t appeal, so he created a spark of light within the space. It illuminated a hollow space under the ground, the curved floor not far below his feet. He let himself drop, then crouched to avoid scraping his head on the “ceiling” as he moved further inside.