Treason Keep

“The Overlord will protect us and see us safe into the harbour.”

“That makes me feel so much better.”

“I am pleased to see that you are beginning to appreciate the power of the Overlord,” he noted, as if her comment had been a profession of faith rather than a snide dig at his boring old god. “When we reach Slarn, the priests will appoint a Confessor to aid your conversion to the true faith.”

“You’re assuming I plan to convert, then?” she asked, bracing herself against the violent lurching of the hideously painted ship. The captain was screaming orders to his crew, fighting to be heard over the crashing waves and the creaking boat.

Cratyn looked astonished. “As the wife of the Crown Prince, you must set an example of faith and virtue for all the women of Karien.”

“Me? An example of virtue? I fear I am not worthy of that honour, your Highness.”

Completely oblivious to her meaning, Cratyn nodded. “Your humility does you credit, Princess. I am sure the Overlord will look most kindly on your character.”

Just so long as he doesn’t look too closely, she told herself. Still, the trip from Fardohnya so far had been bearable. She had only had to socialise with her Karien fiance and his priests during meals. The rest of the journey she had been left to her own devices in her small but sumptuous cabin, which was quite appallingly decorated by someone who had either been very devout or blind drunk when he chose the colours. Every flat surface was emblazoned with the five-pointed star and lightning bolt of Xaphista.

Tristan and the rest of his regiment were not invited to Slarn. Their small fleet of Fardohnyan ships was sailing straight onto Karien.

“Your ladies-in-waiting will also join us when we reach Slarn,” Cratyn added carefully. “I will then make arrangements to return your slaves to Fardohnya.”

Adrina turned to face Cratyn determinedly. “My slaves aren’t going anywhere, your Highness. They will stay with me.”

Cratyn took a deep breath before he replied, as if he had known what her reaction to such a suggestion would be. It explained his sudden desire for her company this morning. She wondered how long it had taken to work himself up to delivering the news.

“The Overlord says that man can have only one master, and that is God. We do not condone or tolerate slavery in Karien, your Highness. Your slaves must be sent home.”

“I don’t give a damn what the Overlord says. My slaves are staying with me.” She tossed her head imperiously. Pretentious little upstart! “Did my father know you were planning to deprive me of my slaves the moment we left Fardohnya?”

“He suggested that it would be wise not to broach the subject until we reached Slarn.” Cratyn agreed. “But he assured us you would understand the necessity —”

“Well, he was wrong!” she declared. “I do not understand.”

“I realise you are quite attached to them, your Highness, but as the Crown Princess of Karien, you cannot be seen to be supporting such a barbarous custom.”

“Barbarous!” she cried. “My slaves live in more luxury than most of your damned knights. They are cared for, looked after, and secure. How dare you call my treatment of them barbarous!”

Cratyn looked rather taken aback by her outburst. “Your Highness, I did not mean to insult you. I’m sure you take great care of your slaves, but they are not free.”

“Free to do what, exactly? Free to work like drudges for a pittance? For lordlings who think tossing their underlings a coin liberates them from any further responsibility for those less fortunate than themselves? It is harder to be a master than a slave, your Highness. A master must see to the welfare of his slaves. A master must ensure that everyone in his charge is taken care of. How many of your noble lords own the same level of responsibility?”

Cratyn sighed, unaccustomed to defending his position, particularly to a woman. In truth, Adrina was not surprised by the order to send her slaves home. She was far better versed in Karien customs than Cratyn knew, and had been expecting something like this for days. But she was enjoying watching him squirm.

“Your Highness, you must see that keeping your slaves is impossible...”

“I see no such thing,” she announced petulantly. “Isn’t it enough that I will never see my home again? Now you want to take away the only familiar faces I know. How can you be so cruel? Does your Overlord preach thoughtlessness along with virtue and piety?”

That left him speechless for a moment. Cratyn had not expected her to use his God to support her argument. “I... of course not... perhaps a compromise might be reached?”

Adrina smiled sweetly as he gave her the opening she was fishing for. “You mean I can keep some of them? Maybe just one or two?”

“You would have to emancipate them,” Cratyn warned her. “But as free servants, I’m certain the priests would not object to their presence.”

“Oh, thank you, your Highness,” she gushed, with vast insincerity. Taking his bare hand in hers, she turned it over and kissed it, in the Fardohnyan tradition, letting her tongue trail lightly along the sword-callused palm. Cratyn snatched his hand away at the intimacy. He actually blushed.

“Perhaps we should go below now, your Highness,” he suggested.

Adrina had to bite her lip to prevent herself laughing aloud. She realised, with mild surprise, that this young man was probably a virgin. The Overlord preached abstinence from sex except in marriage – and then only for the purposes of procreation. Cratyn was so annoyingly devout, he probably felt the need for penance if he had an impure thought. Adrina decided the wedding night was going to be quite an event, with Cratyn trying to pretend he knew what he was doing, and her trying to pretend she didn’t.

“Perhaps we should,” she agreed, with a smile that had nothing to do with the conversation and a great deal to do with her vision of her upcoming nuptials.

The Monastery of Slarn was as depressing and dark as the rest of the island. What little Adrina saw of the place in the carriage ride from the wharf was bare and rocky and windswept. The island sat in the middle of the Fardohnyan Gulf, but its fame stemmed more from its occupants than its strategic value. Slarn was home to the priests of Xaphista and a colony of Malik’s Curse sufferers. For some reason, the priests were immune to the wasting disease, and anyone diagnosed, regardless of nationality, was packed off to Slarn as soon as their condition was identified. Cratyn had assured her that the sufferers were kept well away from the monastery, but she wondered just how safe this place was. Her half-brother Gaffen’s mother had contracted the disease when he was a small boy, and Adrina still remembered standing outside the palace watching everything burn as she was taken away, screaming and crying to be allowed to say goodbye to her son. Everything Emalia had touched was destroyed with fire, lest it infect anyone else in the palace. Was Emalia still here, Adrina wondered, or had the disease taken her by now?

She glanced at Cratyn and frowned. He was seated across from her in the unadorned, but serviceable, carriage that had met them at the wharf. His head was bowed and he seemed to be muttering something. Praying, no doubt, she thought impatiently. Slarn was holy ground, after all.

“I hope they have a fire going when we get there,” she remarked, as much to disturb his concentration as to make conversation. “Is it much colder than this in Yarnarrow?”

Cratyn looked up, and silently finished his prayer before answering. “Much colder, your Highness. We are snowbound for part of the year.”

Adrina clapped her hands in delight. “I’ve never seen snow.”

“You’ll see plenty in Yarnarrow.”

“Then I’ll have to rely on you to keep me warm, won’t I?” Baiting Cratyn was proving to be a most distracting pastime.

To her delight, he blushed again. “I’ll... do my best to see you are... comfortable, your Highness.”

The carriage finally clattered to a halt before the forbidding facade of the monastery. The door opened and a hand reached in to help her down. There was a gaggle of tonsured priests waiting for them, in addition to a dozen or more Church knights and five women, all but one of them younger than Adrina. She looked about with interest as Cratyn disembarked beside her.

The older woman in the group stepped forward and smiled with the ease of a professional diplomat.