Aile searched for fun among the work ahead of her. Things she would enjoy. Watching Ilkea unwittingly determine her own end would be something of a joy. Perhaps she already had been saved by a half-illiterate centaur. Any fights were apt to be too quick for any real satisfaction and the faun seemed a boring quarry. He had gold enough, though. Aile imagined the heft of it and took a satisfied breath.
The sun had gone before she’d noticed and the chariots were drawn to a stop. Camp was made and a fire was set. Aile took her wine and some dried meat from her pack along with the tools she would need for the night. She started for her tent but Ilkea called after her.
“I have questions,” she blurted.
Aile turned to look at the girl but went no closer to the fire she’d made. “Well?”
“You did not cower or flee. How?”
The centaur she must have meant. “They are no threat to me. Not in those numbers.”
“No threat?” There was disbelief in her voice. She shook it away. “Because of your potions?”
“Even without them.”
“But your potions are strong.”
Aile gave her no response which made the satyr shift uncomfortably.
“I have not known of it, such a strong potion against centaurs. How do you have it? Please. The Halushek need—”
“Need to be given salvation?” Aile narrowed her eyes. “I would sooner put tongue to your furred cunt than endeavor to teach you anything. And to be bold enough to ask such a thing without so much as gold scrap. What should I warm myself with when you’ve won your imagined rebellion with my potions? What is the worth of the gratitude of even a thousand thousand satyr? A mud statue amidst dirty huts? I’ve no need of it and worse I grow tired of your dim understanding of that.”
She waited there a moment for a reply, then turned and pushed into her tent. There was no complaint from Ilkea, a fact which made Aile hate her all the more. No wonder they had been subjugated, she thought as she tended to her blades. There seemed only to be fight in them when they sense no threat. The centaur, stupid as they were, had even managed to understand it and turn the fact to their advantage. Enslave the lot of them and motivate them through threats. She could not imagine two races more made for one another.
When the blades had been seen to, Aile drank. The wine had kept well enough through the rough days and the stink of horses and horsefolk had not fouled it. She let the hours pass until she heard the noise of Ilkea asleep in her tent. When she was confident the satyr was deep into her night’s rest, Aile left her tent and made for Ilkea’s horse. The light from the Eyes was dim, but she could see the papers well enough when she pulled them from the pack. It was still there, the paper with the extra lines.
Aile replaced the papers and returned to her tent, a vague feeling of disappointment rising in her chest. Sadly, tonight she would sleep. And, come the morning, Ilkea would be allowed to wake.
Part Eight
K
Z
Socair
Práta waited until they were well clear of the alehouse to speak. Her voice seemed hesitant to Socair who had been deep in thought herself.
“What did you make of her?”
Socair let Práta’s question linger in the air for a moment, unsure of exactly how to answer. She decided that simply voicing her uncertainty was the best thing for it.
“I do not know, exactly. She seems so flippant one moment but there is something to her beyond it in the next. To be frank,” Socair paused. “She is somewhat frightening.”
Práta seemed surprised at the words. “She scares you?”
“No,” Socair shook her head. “More… there is too much beneath the surface of the woman. An enemy is a simple enough thing. Even an adversary. But…” She stopped a moment, thinking of how to put the words. “I felt she did not see me as either. As though I existed beneath her concerns somewhere.”
Práta gave her a look that said she did not understand but said nothing. Socair tried again to search her mind for the best way to say it.
“I do not think she is as Briste was. It is less… less that she does not care what happens to Abhainnbaile and more that she sees it as simply unimportant compared to— I don’t know— maybe the fate of her people, maybe her next meal. If I knew the minds of nobles so well I doubt I would find myself so troubled each and every time I escape a conversation with one.”
Práta considered that a moment. “Well, should it not be that way? Not about the meal, I mean. If she places what she imagines to be the welfare of her people ahead of ours, is it not what Deifir would do if you had not told her of the threat from the hippocamps?”
It was certainly fair.
