She toyed with the ends of her golden sash, as she watched Ware carefully, trying to divine his thoughts. He could not betray her-but if he chose to vanish from the city, she would be able to do nothing to stop him, and she would lose his services. How far dared she push him? She needed to be rid of Xylina, and to do so, she might still need Ware's abilities.
When Xylina had escaped the first ambush, she had been amazed. Even though Xylina had done well in the arena, that had been under controlled circumstances, and when she had time to prepare herself mentally for the event. Adria had no idea that the girl was such a quick thinker in an emergency-nor that the slave would fight with her, rather than standing passively on the side, or giving only a half-hearted attempt at defending her.
That had been what had made the difference, and it had made no sense whatsoever. The slave had no real reason to defend his mistress, after all; she had humiliated him in front of hundreds of women and their slaves. He should have been of limited reliability in an ambush.
But not only had he defended her, they had worked as a team, or so the woman who had lost her entire gang of ruffians had said. Adria saw no reason to disbelieve her, for the evidence was clear enough. They had dispatched all the men sent against them, even though they had been grossly outnumbered. That had been the first pile of bodies, left for the Guard to find. Xylina had reported the attack the next day, and had apparently accepted the Guards assurance that it was a gang of lawless freedmen that had attacked her.
If the slave had not defended the girl, she would have been overwhelmed.
Adria had not known what to think, at first. For a moment, she had even toyed with the notion that Xylina had some heretofore unknown power over her slave's mind. But after a moment of sober reflection, the reason for the slave's apparent loyalty was obvious enough. He was, after all, a former arena-slave, a condemned criminal. Even a dullard would be bright enough to know the law that applied in his case. His life was bound to his mistress's, and if she died, he would be executed. He had no choice but to defend her.
So the second time Adria hired an ambush to take them, she had made certain that the numbers were sufficient to get the job done. This renegade had almost double the number of slaves that the first had, and these men were bold enough to attack in broad daylight. It had taken Adria a great deal of time and effort to find this woman, and after the failure of the first gang, it had taken a great deal of gold to hire her for the task. The gang's first priority was to rid Xylina of her slave, or somehow separate the two. Kill the slave, Adria thought, and the girl would fall.
And yet, on the afternoon the attack was to occur, her first word of what had happened came from her own Guard.
It was the duty of the Guard-Captain to report all unusual occurrences directly to the Queen. On that afternoon, she had received a report from the Guard that told her that the numbers were not sufficient, that once again Xylina had won free of the attack.
Xylina had escaped the ambush unharmed, and had taken refuge with her slave in the garden of a nearby home-owner. All but two of the slaves who had attacked the girl and her slave had perished in the attempt.
Adria had sent word to the Guard to muster out all patrols, and search for the "gang of runaway slaves" that had made this attack. She had specifically ordered the Guards who had responded to the incident back to the barracks to make a fuller, more detailed report, thus denying Xylina a protective escort. She had hoped that a robber would see them as they made their way home, and find them an irresistible target. If the slave could only be killed, Xylina would be vulnerable. But nothing happened, and they reached home safely. Adria's spies reported back to her as soon as the pair entered their own gates.
That was when Adria had sent for Ware, determined to at least ruin this potential rival to the point of bankruptcy and exile, if nothing else. She conceived a plan; to wait until Xylina had been in her home for a few hours and thought herself safe, then to set a fire at the front of the house. Hopefully the fire would cut off escape; and she would make certain that it was a fire that would be fierce and hot enough to burn everything in its path.
For that, she needed a demon. She could not conjure fire; no woman could, any more than she could call a wind or a storm. A woman's magic created only inanimate things. Fire, though not alive, was a process rather than a thing. But Ware, like any demon, could call fire-and Ware could insinuate his power past locked gates and closed doors to do so, setting it on the roof to burn downward.
With Xylina and her injured slave asleep, there would be ample opportunity for the fire to take hold. Then once the fire had been set and had burned a hole in the roof, she could conjure enough oil and pitch to soak everything in the room below. That would keep the fire burning with an intensity that would destroy everything in its path, and make it spread as quickly as a thought.
So she and Ware had gone to the street outside Xylina's home, and the plan had been made reality. She had come in a plain, unornamented litter, carried by four mute slaves who could neither read nor write. He had walked beside the litter, wrapped in a cloak, looking like nothing more than a shadow.
She had hoped that Xylina had gone to bed; it would really have been best if the girl had been asleep. Then she would have gone up with house and slave, since Ware had set the fire directly over the master bed-chamber.
But somehow they escaped; Adria knew that as soon as another hand began conjuring torrents of water in an attempt to douse the flames.
That was why she had determined to feed the fire with oil. Oil floated upon water; oil would not yield to water. And Adria knew that if she stoked the fire until it burned even the paint from the walls, the flames would turn the water to harmless steam before there was any chance of the water accomplishing anything. So Adria stretched her abilities to the limit, conjuring as much or more oil than Xylina could conjure water. She had kept the flames fed and sent them higher and higher.
Finally the girl must have given up, no matter where she was; water ceased to pour into the blazing building and the fire roared on, no longer opposed. That had been enough; no matter what else happened, Xylina was financially ruined.
Adria knew she could stop at that point. She fell back upon the cushions of her litter, drew the curtains, and directed her slaves to bear her back to the palace. The demon disappeared somewhere; she never saw him go. In fact, she really didn't remember him being there once she had begun her own conjurations. Perhaps he had gone as soon as he had set the fire at her direction. It did not matter, particularly; he had done his work, and done it well.
She returned home, to the palace, coming in by a side entrance, and dismissing her litter and the slaves. The palace had been silent, for she had sent everyone to their quarters except for her own personal guards-all slaves, and as mute as the litter-bearers. This was not the first time she had undertaken something that her fellow Mazonites would not have approved of, and it probably would not be the last. Mute guards could be trusted not to reveal what they had seen.
Once she entered the palace, she returned openly to her bed-chamber, secure in the fact that no one who saw her would even think to question her whereabouts, or reveal her absence to others who might. She longed, desperately, for sleep. She had not felt this worn out in many long years. Not since the last challenge, in fact.
Yet there would be no sleep for her yet, not while there was work to be done.
Once she reached her bed-chamber, she cast a longing look at her bed, but sat down instead at a small desk in the corner of the room. She drew up instructions for the tax-collector, called another slave, and had the directive sent to the tax-collector's office in the palace. In the morning, when the woman arrived at her office, she would find them waiting for her with the Queens seal upon them. The rationale for the change in the law was a simple one, and she congratulated herself for thinking of it.