The Traitor Queen (The Traitor Spy Trilogy #3)(31)

“No. They said they’re doing what they can to manipulate the Ashaki into objecting to the taking of a Kyralian magician prisoner, but it requires careful timing and can’t be hurried.”

He nodded. “Well … I appreciate their efforts. We all do.”

They had reached the entrance to his rooms. She looked up at him, her expression concerned, then patted him on the arm. “You’re doing everything you can,” she told him. “Everything they’ll let you do, anyway.”

He frowned. “So you think there’s nothing else I could do? Nothing that the Guild is preventing me from doing that I should do? Nothing we haven’t thought of yet?”

She looked away. “No … nothing that doesn’t include a risk of making the situation worse if it fails to work, anyway. Are you hungry? I was going to ask Vai to make me something to eat.”

What is this risky idea? he wondered. Should I ask about it? “Yes,” he said. “But not straightaway. I want to contact the Administrator first.”

“I’ll arrange something.” She headed back down the corridor and disappeared.

The interrogator didn’t turn up until some hours after the morning meal. Food had arrived – a slurry of ground grain. A faint symbol drawn with water on the porous wooden tray reassured him it was safe.

Lorkin’s stomach stirred unpleasantly as the Ashaki interrogator and his assistant led him in a new direction. The man chose another corridor and stopped at a different doorway, but the room inside was little different from the previous one. Plain, white walls surrounded three worn old stools.

The interrogator sat down and gestured for Lorkin to take one of the other stools, then looked at his assistant and nodded. The man slipped out of the room. Lorkin braced himself for more questions.

None came. The interrogator looked around, then shrugged and began staring at Lorkin with a distant expression. When the assistant returned, he shoved a female slave into the room before him. She threw herself onto the floor before the Ashaki. Lorkin tried to keep his expression neutral, to hide the wave of hatred for slavery he felt at her grovelling and the Ashaki’s expectation of it.

“Stand,” the interrogator ordered.

She got to her feet, facing the Ashaki with hunched shoulders and keeping her eyes downcast.

“Look at him.” The interrogator pointed at Lorkin.

The woman turned to face him, her gaze fixed on the floor. She was beautiful, he realised – or would have been if she hadn’t been terrified. Long, glossy hair framed a sculpted jaw and cheek bones that, for a moment, stirred memories of Tyvara that made his heart skip and fill with longing. But this woman’s limbs, while as graceful, were trembling, and her dark eyes were wide. At her obvious fear he felt his stomach sink. She expected something bad to happen.

“Look at him. Don’t look away.”

Her gaze flitted up to meet his. Lorkin forced himself not to look away. If he did, he knew the Ashaki would make him regret it somehow. He could not help searching for some hint of resolve in her face, or an effort at communication that might indicate that she was a Traitor. All he saw was fear and resignation.

She expects pain, or worse. The only slaves I’ve seen down here were carrying things. Why else would she – a beautiful young woman – be down here with no obvious menial purpose?

A slave this beautiful would never be given purely menial tasks.

He felt sick. He could not help thinking of Tyvara again, and what she must have been forced to do as part of her spying. She, too, was too beautiful not to have attracted that kind of attention from her masters.

After all, the first time she met me she expected me to take her to bed.

The interrogator stood up. He took hold of the woman’s arm and pulled her closer to him. One of his hands went to the jewelled sheath that all Ashaki wore at their hip and he slowly drew his knife. Lorkin held his breath as the knife rose toward the slave’s throat. The woman shut her eyes tightly, but did not struggle.

Words flooded into Lorkin’s throat, but stuck there. He knew exactly what the interrogator intended to do, and why. If I speak to save her, many, many more will die. If she is a Traitor, she won’t want me to betray her people. He swallowed hard.

The knife did not slice across her throat. Instead the interrogator slid it under one shoulder of her shift and cut through the cloth. He took hold of the other shoulder and pulled, and the slave garment slid away, leaving her naked but for a loin cloth. Her expression didn’t change.

The Ashaki sheathed his knife, looked over her shoulder at Lorkin, and smiled.

“Any time you want to talk, go right ahead,” he said, flexing his fingers and curling them into a fist. The assistant chuckled.

And then the Ashaki set to work.





CHAPTER 8


COMING TO AN UNDERSTANDING


Putting down the book she had been failing to concentrate on, Lilia looked around Sonea’s guest room and sighed. Though Sonea had been absent or asleep most of the time, her rooms felt strangely empty now that she had left for Sachaka. Lilia was suddenly more conscious of being alone, and that nobody – no magician, at least – was likely to visit.

Well, none except Kallen if I don’t turn up to classes on time, but it’s not like he makes social visits.

Anyi might still slip in at night via the secret opening in the room’s wall panelling but now that she, Cery and Gol were living under the Guild it was safer for Lilia to visit them. There had always been a risk that someone would discover Anyi in Sonea’s rooms and realise they hadn’t seen her enter or leave by the door.