Page 395

AN INDEPENDENT WOMAN

A DRIZZLING RAIN WAS falling from the overcast sky.

Water dripped endlessly from the bushes in the gardens.

Wet brown leaves carpeted the sodden lawns.

Serilla let the lace edge of the curtain fall back into place.

She turned back to the room. The greyness of the day had crept inside the house and Serilla felt chill and old in its embrace.

She had ordered the curtains drawn and the fire built up in an effort to warm the room.

Instead of feeling cosier, she felt muffled and trapped in the day.

Winter was creeping up on Bingtown. She shivered.

Winter was always an unpleasant season at best. This year it was an untidy and unsettled time as well.

Yesterday, with a heavy guard attending her, she had driven from Restart’s estate down into Bingtown.

She had ordered the men to take the carriage through the town, along the old market, and past the wharves.

Everywhere she had seen destruction and disrepair.

She had looked in vain for signs of repair and rebirth in the shattered city.

Burned homes and shops gave off their clinging odour of despair.

Piers ended in charred tongues of wood. Two masts stuck up from the sullen waters of the harbour.

All the folk out in the streets had been hooded and cloaked against the day’s chill, all hurrying somewhere.

They looked away from her carriage as it passed.

Even those streets of the city where the remnants of the City Guard patrolled seemed edgy and repressed.

Gone were the bright teashops and prosperous trading companies.

The bright and busy Bingtown that she had passed through on her first trip to Davad Restart’s house had died, leaving this smelly, untidy corpse.

Rain Wild Street was a row of boarded-up shop fronts and deserted stores.

The few places that were open for trade had a guarded, anxious look to them.

Thrice her carriage had been turned back by barricades of rubble.

She had planned to find merchants and neighbours who were making an effort to restore the city.

She had imagined she would dismount from her carriage to greet them and praise their efforts.

They were supposed to have invited her into their struggling shops, or walked her through their efforts at rebuilding.

She would have congratulated them on their stout hearts, and they would have been honoured by her visit.

Her plan had been to win their loyalty and love.

Instead, she had seen only harried refugees, sullen-faced and withdrawn.

No one had even offered her a greeting. She had returned to Davad’s house and simply gone up to her bed. She had no appetite for supper.

She felt cheated. Bingtown was the glowing bauble she had always promised herself that she would someday possess.

She had come so far and endured so much, simply to behold it so briefly.

As if fate could not allow her any joy, the moment it seemed she might attain her goal, the city had destroyed itself.

A part of her wanted simply to admit defeat, board a ship, and return to Jamaillia.

But there were no ships sailing safely to Jamaillia any more.

The Chalcedeans lay in wait for any ship that tried to leave or enter Bingtown harbour.

Even if she could somehow reach Jamaillia, what welcome would she receive?

The plot against the Satrap had its roots in Jamaillia.

She might be seen as a witness and a threat.

Someone would find a way to eliminate her.

She had been suspicious from the time the Satrap proposed that he leave Jamaillia on this jaunt to Bingtown and then visit Chalced afterwards.

His nobles and advisors should have loudly protested such a move; it was rare for the reigning Satrap to travel so far outside the borders of Jamaillia.

Instead of objections, he had received encouragement.

She sighed to herself. The same set of sycophants who had taught him so young about the pleasures of flesh and wine and intoxicating herbs had encouraged him to leave the governing of his land completely to them while he travelled through hostile waters, in the care of dubious allies.

Gullible and lazy, he had accepted the bait.

Enticed by the invitations of his Chalcedean ‘allies’, promised exotic drugs and even more exotic fleshy pleasures, he had been led away from his throne like a child baited with candy and toys.

His ‘most loyal’ followers who had always encouraged him to have his own way had done so to unseat him.

A sudden realization shocked her. She did not much care what became of the Satrap or his authority in Jamaillia.

All she wished to do was to preserve his power in Bingtown, so she could claim it for her own.

That meant uncovering who in Bingtown had been so willing to aid in his overthrow.

The same people would try to depose her as well.

For a fleeting moment, she wished she had studied more about Chalced.

There had been letters in the cabin of the Chalcedean captain, written in Jamaillian lettering, but in the Chalcedean language.

She had recognized the names of two high Jamaillian nobles and the notation for sums of money.

She had sensed then that she held the roots of a conspiracy in her hands.

What had the Chalcedeans been paid to do?

Or were they the ones who had paid? If she had been able to read those letters when the Chalcedean captain had held her prisoner there… then her mind shied away.

She hated what those nightmare days of confinement and rape had done to her.

They had changed her irrevocably, in ways she despised.

She could not forget that the Chalcedean captain had possessed life and death control over her.

She could not forget that the Satrap, the boyish, spoiled, self-indulgent Satrap, had had the power to put her in such a position.

It had forever altered her image of herself.

It had made her recognize the full extent of the power men had over her.

Well, she had power now, and as long as she guarded that power well, she would be safe.

No man could ever impose his will on her again.

She had the strength of her exalted position.

Position would protect her. She must maintain it at any cost.

Yet for power, there was a price.

She lifted the corner of the curtain again and peered out.

Even here in Bingtown, she was not safe from assassination attempts.

She knew that. She never went out unaccompanied.

She never dined alone and she always made sure that her guests were served before her and from the same dishes of which she would partake.

If they did manage to kill her, at least she would not die alone.

But she would not let them kill her, nor wrest from her the influence she had fought so hard to secure.

There were threats to that power, but she could defeat them.

She could keep the Satrap isolated and unable to communicate.

For his own good, of course. She permitted herself a small smile.

She wished they had not taken him so far away.

If he were here in Bingtown, she could see that he got the pleasure herbs and comforts that would keep him manageable.

She could find a way to separate him from Kekki.

She could convince him that he was wise to lie low and let her manage things for him.

A discreet rap at the door interrupted her thoughts. She let the curtain fall again and turned back to the chamber. ‘Enter.’

The serving woman had a tattooed face. Serilla was repulsed by the tattoo that spidered greenly across her cheek.

She refused to look at her any more than she must. She would not have kept her, save that she was the only servant Serilla could find that was properly trained in Jamaillian courtesy.

‘What is it?’ she demanded as the woman curtseyed.

‘Trader Vestrit wishes to speak with you, Companion Serilla.’

‘Let her enter,’ Serilla replied listlessly.

Her spirits dropped yet another notch. She knew she was wise to keep the woman close, where she could watch her.

Even Roed Caern had agreed to that. Serilla had been so pleased with herself when she first thought of the ruse.

In a secret meeting, the heads of the Traders’ Council had been horrified at her demand to have Ronica Vestrit seized.

Even in times such as these, they refused to see the wisdom of such an act, and the thought of that confrontation made Serilla grit her teeth.

It had proved to her the limitations of her power over them.

But she, in turn, had demonstrated to the Council heads her own resourcefulness.

A graciously worded request had summoned the Trader woman to be Serilla’s guest in Restart Hall.

Ostensibly, Ronica was to aid Serilla by exploring all of Restart’s records, not only to prove Davad’s innocence but her own.

After some hesitation, Ronica had agreed.

Serilla had initially been pleased with herself.

Having Ronica Vestrit live under her roof simplified Roed’s task of spying on her.

He would soon uncover who was in league with her.

But there was a cost to Serilla’s tactic.

Knowing the Trader woman was close by was like knowing there was a serpent in one’s bed.

To be aware of a danger did not necessarily disarm it.