The Ambassador's Mission

everything. She’ll have no trouble talking the Guild into ordering me home now. He felt a surge of rebellion, but it faded quickly. She was right, he reminded himself. It was too dangerous for me to come here. Yet something tells me going back to the Guild House isn’t a safe option right now. If Tyvara saved my life she wants me alive, and clearly that’s not where she thinks I should—

The door to the room opened abruptly, making Lorkin jump. But it was Tyvara standing in the opening. He could not help thinking, as he had done every time he’d seen her previously, that she was alluringly mysterious and exotic. Now, however, she did not stand with her head bowed and gaze lowered. Nor did she throw herself on the floor. Instead she regarded him with amusement, her pose confident and relaxed.

Which is a definite improvement, he decided.

“How are you doing?” she asked, grimacing at the smell.

“Still breathing,” he replied. “Though I almost wish I wasn’t. Are you going to explain all this to me now?”

She smiled faintly. “Yes. Come out.”

He followed her out into the big workroom beyond. Four slave women sat at a large table, watching him with undisguised curiosity but no hint of friendliness. Two were around Tyvara’s age, the others were older but it was hard to guess whether their wrinkles were from hard work and sunlight or advancing years. As he looked at them, they glanced away, then straightened and brought their attention back to him. As if habit made them avoid meeting my gaze at first. Tyvara, though, has to pretend to be a slave. I think... I think these women were raised as slaves, while Tyvara was born a free woman.

“Sit,” Tyvara invited, indicating a stool beside the table. As he did, she perched on the edge of another. “I’d introduce everyone but it is always safer to avoid sharing names. I can tell you we are safe with these women.”

Lorkin nodded politely at them. “Then I thank you for your help.”

The four said nothing, but their eyebrows had risen and they exchanged a few quick looks.

“We are a people known as the Traitors,” Tyvara told him. “Several hundred years ago, after Sachaka was conquered by the Kyralians, free women joined with female slaves and escaped to a remote and hidden place. There they built a home where none are slaves and all are equal.”

Lorkin frowned. “A society entirely of women? But how do you—”

“Not entirely women.” Tyvara smiled. “There are men there, too. But they are not in charge of everything, as they are everywhere else in the world.”

How fascinating. Lorkin looked at Tyvara closely. Of course. It’s not just that she was born a free woman. She’s used to having authority over others. Then he realised something else. She had always reminded him of someone and now he knew who it was.

My mother! At that thought he felt his stomach sink. That might not be a good thought to have slip into my mind if we ever... no, don’t think about it.

“Any questions?” she asked.

“Why do you call yourselves ‘the Traitors’?”

“Apparently we were named after a Sachakan princess who was killed by her father for being raped by one of his allies. He called her a traitor, and women of the time began calling themselves the same in sympathy.”

Lorkin thought about what the dying slave had said. “You are a traitor to your people.” Did she mean “Traitor”? No, that didn’t make any sense. But if Riva had known Tyvara was a spy...

“Did Riva know you were a Traitor?”

“Yes.”

“Why did she say you were a traitor to your people?”

Tyvara’s mouth twitched into a wry smile. “I’m afraid the fact that we don’t follow the emperor or the law, and have a habit of interfering in Sachakan politics, means most Sachakans consider us traitors.”

“How do you keep Sachakan magicians from finding you all? Surely they have only to read your minds?”

“We have a way of keeping our thoughts hidden from them. They will only see what we want them to see. It means we can have people in the households of powerful Ashaki all through the country.”

Lorkin’s heart skipped. Magic I’ve never heard of!

“Can you tell me how?”

She shook her head. “We Traitors don’t give up our secrets easily.”

He nodded. Something that protects the mind from being read – much like blood gems prevent mental communication between magicians being heard by other magicians.

“Is it like a blood gem ring?” he asked.

One of the other women laughed. Her eyes met his briefly, then she looked at Tyvara. “This one’s smart. You’ll have to watch every word.”

Tyvara snorted softly. “I know.” Then her amusement faded. She sighed, then turned back to Lorkin. “We have to move on from here. This place is too close to the Guild House and some of the slaves there know I had contacts here. You’re going to have to give up those pretty clothes and disguise yourself as a slave. Can you do that?”

Lorkin looked down at his robes and suppressed a sigh. “If I have to.”

“His face is too pale,” one of the younger slave women said. “We’ll have to stain it. And we’ll need to cut his hair.”

An older one looked him up and down. “He’s skinny for a Sachakan. But that’s better than fat. Don’t get many fat slaves.” She rose. “I’ll get some clothes.”

“You’ll need a slave name, too,” Tyvara said. “How about Ork? It’s close enough to your real name that if I call it by mistake people might not notice.”

“Ork,” Lorkin repeated, shrugging. Sounds like a monster. My friends back home would find that very funny. Then he felt a pang of sadness. They’re going to be worried about me when they find out I’ve gone missing. I wish there was a way – other than contacting Mother through the blood ring – I could let them know I was fine. He grimaced. Well, still alive, anyway.

The older slave had pulled a long rectangle of cloth off a rack where several identical lengths were hanging. She brought it to him along with a length of rope. The women exchanged smirks as he removed his overrobe. He wrapped the cloth around his body and belted it with the rope as instructed, then removed his trousers. He was glad he’d hidden his mother’s blood ring in the spine of his notebook. It would have been hard to retrieve it from his robes without it being noticed.

“You can’t take that with you,” Tyvara said as she saw the notebook.

Lorkin looked down at the book. “Can it be sent back to the Guild House?”

The slave women shook their heads. “Hard to do that without anyone knowing it came from here,” one explained.

“It’ll have to be destroyed,” Tyvara decided, reaching for it.

“No!” Lorkin snatched it away. “It has all my research in it.”

“Which no slave would be carrying.”

“I’ll keep it hidden,” he told her. He stuffed it down the front of the wrap.

“And if an Ashaki reads your mind he’ll know you’re hiding it there.”

“If an Ashaki reads his mind, he’ll know he’s not a slave,” one of the older women pointed out, grinning. “Let him keep his book.”

Tyvara frowned, then sighed. “Very well, then. Have we got any shoes?”

One of the other women fetched a pair of simple leather shoes that weren’t much more than a piece of leather stitched up into a foot-shaped pouch that was bound to the ankle with another, thinner piece of rope. Tyvara nodded approvingly.

“We’re halfway there. While our friends here prepare the dye for your skin and cut your hair, I had better tell you how a slave is expected to behave,” Tyvara said. “I suspect that’s going to be the hardest part for you. How convincing you are may be the difference between survival and assassination.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he told her. “It’s not something I’m likely to forget.”

She smiled grimly. “It can be very easy to forget, when you’re being whipped just because someone has had a bad day. Believe me. I know.”