Phoenix Unbound
Page 40

Tamura gasped and Saruke’s eyes narrowed. Tamura leaned forward, gaze shrewd. “A useful skill then, if you intend to regain your birthright,” she said in a low voice meant only for him and their mother.
He took the tea Saruke passed him. “I do. It’s the thing that’s kept me alive all this time.”
Tamura slapped her knees. “I want to help. Karsas is a toad. Our clan has been lessened in the eyes of the other clans while he’s been ataman.”
The question lurking at the back of his mind since he first arrived at the clan camp surfaced to his lips. “Why didn’t he make you his wife?”
She bared her teeth. “Because he knew I’d kill him in his sleep.”
Saruke rolled her eyes. “She won’t marry anyone. I have no grandchildren.”
Tamura mimicked her mother’s expression. “We live well enough without a husband underfoot. And I hunt, and herd, and fight as well as any man.”
Azarion chuckled. “You always have.” Tamura had always held her own with him and the other boys her age, riding, fighting, and shooting as well as any of them and better than most.
“Whatever child I bore wouldn’t live to see its first year completed,” she declared, and refilled her cup with steaming tea. “Karsas would see to it. He wants no contender for his role as ataman or anything that will endanger his son’s chance at inheriting it.”
Azarion growled. For now, the role of Clan Kestrel’s ataman belonged to Karsas and his progeny unless the Fire Council revoked it. “I’ve much to learn and even more to avenge.”
Some of Tamura’s ferocity faded. For a moment, she looked as careworn as Saruke, her back bent with worry. “A lot has happened since you were taken from us. Much of it not good. Trade has thinned on the Serpent’s eastern flank, and our wool and horses fetch only half the price they used to. Only the silver holds its value, but our best mines are playing out. Raiders from the Gamir Mountains are wreaking havoc in territories belonging to the Goban, who in turn flee into our lands and ask us to help them against their enemies. I’m afraid if we don’t, they’ll turn to the Empire for support, though some suspect it’s the Empire supplying the raiders and encouraging them to harass the Goban.”
His thoughts reeled with this revelation. He’d been wrong to think most things hadn’t changed since he was sold to the Empire. The Savatar were no longer the powerful people they had been ten years earlier. “If the Goban can’t hold off the Gamir raiders or turn to Krael for help, Krael will use that to invade our lands. The Veil requires a lot of power from the agacins to keep it standing. There aren’t enough of them to add a second one.”
Tamura snorted. “Trust me, nothing you’ve just said hasn’t been discussed to death in council meetings. The atamans talk and talk but come to no decisions. Karsas isn’t the only one guilty of that failing.”
Saruke stirred the coals of the fire to redder life. “We send warriors to help the Goban fend off a raid or two, mostly during trade exchanges, but it isn’t enough.”
“The clan council and the Ataman Council will ask you the same thing we did, Brother.” Tamura drained the last of her tea before continuing. “They’ll want to know everything that happened to you to glean information. If you want a strong claim to challenge Karsas for the clan’s leadership, you will need to offer something to gain their favor. Knowledge of the Empire will help toward that.”
She wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know. He only hoped what little he could offer as a Pit gladiator with his wits about him and his ears open would be enough. “I wasn’t a statesman there. I was a slave, so I won’t know Krael’s plans, but I know the layout of the capital and how it places its regiments. Some of the gladiators were once Kraelian soldiers, commanders even, who displeased the emperor for some reason and were punished by having their freedom taken. They talked sometimes of their exploits. If you listen hard, you can learn while in the practice arena.”
Saruke’s hand on his arm made him turn. His mother’s eyes, a more faded green than his, were dark with grief and sympathy. “Then you’ll have something useful to tell them. Maybe they’ll listen.”
He glanced at the sleeping Gilene. “I have an agacin. They’ll listen.”
Tamura gave another one of her sardonic snorts. “An agacin who can’t light a candle at the moment. You’ll need luck as much as Agna’s blessing, Brother.”
He had no argument to deny that.
PART TWO
THE SKY BELOW
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Gilene turned her face to the sun, grateful for its light and warmth. She’d been in the Stara Dragana for five days, finding her footing among a people whose ways and language were unfamiliar to her. Behind her, the roofs of the black felt tents the Savatar called qaras rippled in the wind.
The clan camp was a hive of activity. The wedding of a Kestrel man to a Marmot woman was to take place in three days’ time, and several women from the Kestrel families had banded together to create felt rugs for the groom to present to the bride’s family as gifts. It was backbreaking labor, and Gilene joined in, welcoming the hard work.
When they started the first rug, Gilene offered her services as a skilled dyer to dye baskets of wool rovings in the colors requested. Once they dried, they’d be separated into more baskets while the women worked in teams of four or five to felt the white and gray rovings that made up the foundation of each rug.
One of the older clan matriarchs had eyed Gilene suspiciously, as if the offer to oversee the dyeing process would somehow endanger everyone handling the wool. With Saruke acting as translator between them, the matriarch peppered Gilene with questions.
“What do you know of dyes?”
Gilene hid a smile. “My village is known for its dyes. We extract the green out of long nettle and sell the dye powder throughout the Empire.”
“But do you know how to dye cloth? Making dye and using dye aren’t the same.”
Gilene didn’t argue that. The woman was right. “I’ve been dyeing cloth for a long time.”
A small crowd of women had gathered around them now, curious about this outlander’s purported skills. Still skeptical, the Savatar elder pointed to the kettles of dye set up nearby. “Show us what you can do.”
While the Savatar used plants that rendered colors in shades of yellow and red instead of the green she usually worked with, the process of dyeing the wool was much the same. Several dunkings with a hand rake and spoon and drying time on the racks produced rovings in the expected vibrant shades. Gilene, however, had added her own twist to the process, and the rovings looked like a sunrise or a sunset, graduating in shades from pale yellow to crimson. The many gasps of delight and approving nods told her she’d won the crowd. But had she won the critic?
The elder stared wordlessly at the rovings before flicking a quick glance to Gilene and then to Saruke. “She can dye the wool,” she said and walked away.
After that, the task was hers, and she watched from her place at the kettles while the other women designed and felted the rugs for the new couple. A few of the younger ones approached her, and in trader’s tongue asked her if she’d teach them some of her techniques.
“It’s mostly practice,” she said. “But I’ll teach you what I’ve learned.” She was trapped on the Stara Dragana for at least another month, if not more. Sharing a skill with her reluctant hosts might make things a little easier for her. She wasn’t looking for acceptance, but tolerance was just as valuable and as useful.