Retribution

Depths

‘Well,’ I said, ‘at least this place is more secure than our last room.’

‘Being buried in a tomb would be just as secure,’ Leana replied, finally dumping her bags on one of the couches, ‘and that would still be preferable to this. Some kind of joke of Sulma Tan’s, do you think?’

‘At least no one can fire an arrow through a window.’

‘It is very difficult admittedly,’ Leana said, ‘when there are no windows.’

Our new quarters were located somewhere under the royal palace. The stone walls, constructed from large limestone blocks, were little more than seven feet high. There were five rooms in all, each one of a similar size, yet decorated in a pleasant if garish local manner. Animal skins covered the couches and formed rugs, and crudely preserved heads had been mounted as trophies. There was a well-ventilated stove, wall hangings depicting scenes of the hunt, and a good dozen or so cressets lining the wall. When they had all been lit it wasn’t that dark at all. Two rooms acted as bedchambers, one was for dining or entertaining guests, and another — equipped with a desk, ledgers and lanterns — could serve perfectly as a base for our operations. The only way in was through a thick, arch-shaped wooden door.

‘It’s a vault,’ I said, ‘and it’s spacious. So there aren’t any windows. What is this place anyway?’

Nambu Sorghatan, princess of Koton, and now — bizarrely — under our protection, answered in perfect Detratan. ‘It’s my mother’s emergency quarters.’

‘For use in. .?’

‘Sieges,’ Nambu said, sitting on one of the couches and leaning back on both hands. ‘Or if she thinks people are out to kill her.’

‘Does it happen often?’

‘Only when she’s paranoid.’

‘She doesn’t show much fear,’ I replied.

‘You get to see the queen. I get to see my mother,’ Nambu replied. ‘She also comes down here when she’s taking lovers.’

Looking at Leana I raised an eyebrow.

Leana smirked. ‘You wanted safety? You have found a love nest. A shame you never have anyone to romance.’

‘That may well be,’ I replied, ‘but it’s an improvement nonetheless. I imagine, decades ago, this would have been some sort of storage facility.’

‘Or a dungeon,’ Leana muttered.

‘Indeed.’

Nambu was standing with her shoulders slumped and a resigned look about her. She did not seem petulant — as the offspring of royals could so often be. She appeared to accept whatever direction she was steered in, and it occurred to me that a royal life may not be entirely blessed — though it was a thousandfold improvement on the existence of most young people. ‘How many people know about this place?’

‘No one,’ Nambu said, ‘other than her two secretaries and me. Maybe one or two close soldiers, if she can trust them. Her lovers are blindfolded on their way down here. Probably after they’ve arrived, too.’

‘You take exception to your mother’s. .’ I searched for the word, keeping in mind how young she was, ‘entertainments?’

‘Entertainments,’ Nambu grunted, stifling a laugh. She looked across to Leana. ‘Astran’s mercy — did he grow up in a monastery?’

Leana addressed Nambu. ‘You know, I think we will get along very well.’

‘Well isn’t that nice,’ I said. ‘I’m glad ridiculing me might provide a common interest for you both.’

‘Relax, officer,’ Nambu said, reclining on her side on the couch, and staring into the empty fire. ‘Anyway, to answer your delicate question, I don’t really care what she does with her lovers.’

‘Well, she must care for you,’ I continued, moving around the other side of the couch to see her face, ‘in order to want you protected so badly.’

‘Hmm. . She’s concerned that someone is going to take the throne. And I’m just something else for her to be worried about.’

I wondered if Nambu might open up on an issue that had niggled with me since I’d arrived. ‘Do politicians thirst for greater glory?’

‘They probably do, what few of them there are.’

‘There are not many here?’ I asked.

Nambu went on to reveal what I had suspected all along: that the political structure of the nation was anything but democratic. A handful of senators — mainly those with connections to the Sorghatan family — convened every new moon to discuss the affairs of the state. Mostly this conclave was made up of ranks of senators who were leading figures in rival clans — the Rukrid, Yesui, Tahtar and Jagats — and her mother had merely given them ceremonial roles to appease the embittered families. There was always the promise that one day they would receive more power, but it never came. Over the years the clans had become even more frustrated. Now and then these senators might put an issue or piece of policy forward to the queen, but she was someone who did things her own way and often ignored their requests. Those who sought any real power quickly disappeared.

It would explain why I had seen so few politicians around the city. Yet it was important to bear in mind that Nambu was possibly jaded, happy to exaggerate her mother’s weaknesses to paint her in a bad light.

It was getting late in the evening and we decided to head to our respective chambers. Leana and I would share the larger room, allowing Nambu her own private quarters.

‘Just so you know,’ Leana said, ‘at sunrise, we will be practising with the sword.’

Nambu peered from behind her half-closed door and replied, ‘Sure. If you know when the sun has actually risen.’ And she closed the door behind her.

Leana shrugged, turning to me. ‘The girl has a point. I will light one of these candles on the side and estimate how long has passed. It can also provide enough brightness for us to light the cressets in the morning. You will start to miss windows soon enough, Lucan.’

Without the sounds of the city to disturb me, I suspected I would sleep well. There would be no carts grinding through the narrow streets. There would be no priests calling out through the night. There would be no fights breaking out. It would be blissful.

I had taken the bed and Leana, as ever, had wanted to sleep on the floor. We would probably repeat this arrangement wherever we were travelling, no matter how much I argued otherwise. Not that I ever argued too strongly.

‘You have taken a bit of a shine to the young princess,’ I suggested, lying there in the dull light of the candle. ‘Forgive me for saying, but it doesn’t seem like something you’d normally be happy to do, yet you seemed keen to look after her.’

Leana was silent in thought for a while, something which felt all the more profound down there, away from the hubbub of daily life.

‘I do not mind so much,’ Leana whispered in reply. ‘Because I remember what it is like to be a young girl who is out of her depth.’

‘You do?’ I sat up in bed.

Leana looked uneasy, and then she said something surprising. ‘I was not always a warrior.’

‘How do you mean?’

Again, a lingering silence as Leana searched her mind for an answer. She was rarely in a rush to speak, but I could tell this was taking a lot of willpower. ‘I was once in a much higher station than I have previously let on.’

‘Go on. .’

‘Before the wars, this is. Before all the killings had begun.’ She sighed. ‘Spirits save me, when I was a girl I was in a position in society much like Nambu’s. In fact, we are very similar. We were very similar, I mean to say.’

Leana had never even hinted at this before. I had always assumed she was trained to be a warrior — and remained of the warrior class in her own culture — because that’s what I had inferred from her few statements on that period of her life.

‘Are you telling me that you’re Atrewen royalty?’

‘Not the most senior royalty, no. But of. . significantly noble birth, it is safe to say. I suppose at one point towards the end, as my people were killed one by one, I became senior royalty, but that does not seem appropriate to consider. That time has long since passed. The spirits wish for me to walk other roads, and I have taken them. I am not unhappy with their wishes.’

‘But you always made fun of my relatively privileged upbringing,’ I whispered. ‘I just assumed you didn’t like people of higher birth.’

‘You never appreciated how lucky you were,’ she replied bluntly.

‘That isn’t true, Leana.’

‘I had my privilege destroyed. Not removed, but destroyed. Only when these things are gone do we appreciate them.’

I let out a long breath. ‘You’re correct.’

‘What is more,’ she continued calmly, without a trace of bitterness in her voice, ‘I had to learn how to fight to get such privilege back. I had to train hard, and work hard, and commit myself to regain my dignity. Not that it mattered and not that I succeeded, but I did discover new things along the way and we must make the most of those discoveries. So yes, though Nambu has not been through any of what I have been through, I understand what it is like to be a young girl in a noble family, in a world where it is not so easy to be a woman as it is to be a man. Now, that is all I have to say on the matter. We must rest.’

I lay back down, stunned by the revelation.