The Heart of the mirage

I rose, fighting the feeling that the floor was a moving deck beneath my feet. 'All the more reason why no more time should be wasted. Prefect Martrinus, I thank you for your help and I would like to see the weapon and these people without further delay.'

'Today?'

'Certainly. I have been idle long enough getting here.'

He swallowed his surprise. 'Yes, of course.' He rang for a slave and a lad appeared, an Assorian if his curly hair was anything to go by. 'Agamin here will show you to your apartments,' he said formally. My tone had evidently made him wonder if he had been too casual. 'As soon as I have made arrangements, I will send someone to fetch you.'

I rarely bothered to read the emotions of slaves. They were either a seething mass of sullen resentment and fatigued indifference, or they were vague dreamers, escaping reality into thoughts of no importance to me. If they did their jobs well, they were like any other tool, easily ignored and irrelevant until something went wrong, and I took no more notice of them than I would a comfortable chair or a sharp knife. But now, my complacency rattled by the slave girl, I reached out to absorb the Assorian boy's feelings as I mounted the stairs behind him. And was immediately intrigued.

He could not have been more than twelve, yet he possessed the calm self-assurance of someone much older. He kept glancing behind to look at me, ostensibly to see if I were still following, but his fervid emotions told their own tale. He wanted to remember everything about me. Every detail. His passion startled me, yet also struck a distant chord of childhood memory. Oh, goddess, I thought. That's me. The way I was once, aching to be an agent of the Brotherhood… And then: J wonder who the sweet hells he wants to spy for?

On the next floor he opened a door, saying, 'Your rooms, Domina.' He had cast his eyes downwards, which was proper, but still his fascination to know me spilled out, enthusiastic, intrusive. It was an effort to ignore it. I wondered if he were already spying for someone. Martrinus? Fabia? The Tyranian Governor of

Kardiastan in Madrinya? Or perhaps something more nefarious? Too many political intricacies to be considered, and it was dangerous to tread where the ground was unknown. Reluctantly, I let it ride and did not question him- 'Agamin,' I said, 'I wish to speak with the Kardi slave girl. The one who spilled water on me – I do not know her name. Tell her to come here.'

He bowed and left wordlessly; on the surface, the perfect slave.

While I waited, I looked around with approval. The Prefect's house was not unlike my own villa in Tyr, and the rooms given to me, overlooking a garden courtyard, were cool and spacious. The furniture and carved statuary were obviously imported from Tyrans, all of good quality. There was even a head of a youth by Mattias, one of the finest sculptors of Tyr.

I was running admiring fingers over the perfection of the piece when the slave, a frightened girl of about eighteen, arrived at my door. Her face, swollen where Fabia had slapped her, was also red and blotched from a recent bout of crying. She entered the room and stood with her eyes downcast. She wore an anoudain, the form of dress the Kardi women seem to prefer – loose trousers and a long top. The bodice was fitted, attached to skirting split into back and front panels.

'What is your name?' I asked, careful to sound neutral.

'Othenid, Legata.'

'Have you been beaten for spilling the water, Othenid?'

Her face tightened. 'Yes, Legata.'

'Where?'

'On – on my back.'

I walked across to her, turned her around and touched her back lightly with my left hand, trailing

gentle fingertips over the thin blouse in an attempt to express my concern and win her trust. As far as I could see, she had been bruised but not badly hurt. Still, it must have been sore.

The girl turned surprised eyes to me. 'The pain – it's gone!'

While I was still trying to make sense of that, she knelt to seize my left hand and press her lips to the swelling there. It was all the confirmation I needed to tell me what had startled her into dropping the ewer. 'Theura -?' she asked, questioning. It was not a word I knew. And Goddess above, why did she think I had taken away her pain? For that was what she appeared to believe.

'Othenid, I need your help,' I said. 'Why did you get such a shock when you saw this?' I pointed to the lump on my palm.

'Why, Theura -' she began.

'Silence, girl!' The words cut across the room like a sword slash. We both looked around to see Aemid in the doorway, her eyes blazing with the intensity of rage. Her emotion was so tangible to me it was almost a physical assault.

'Keep out of this, Aemid,' I said, furious. 'Leave us.'

But Aemid didn't go. She continued to address the girl, not me. 'Can't you see she is not Kardi? She is Tyranian to her very essensa! Go -'

Othenid whirled and was gone, without waiting for permission.

I turned the full swell of my fury on Aemid. 'How dare you!' I raised my hand to strike her, more angry than I had ever been before with any of my slaves. But Aemid did not move, nor did her eyes drop; it was my hand that fell away. 'You stretch your luck, Aemid,' I said, breathing hard. 'I own you; don't you forget it.'

'I never forget it,' she said. 'Not for a minute.'

'If I'm wholly Tyranian, whose fault is it anyway? You were the one person who could have taught me what it was to be Kardi, who could have told me what the meaning of this is' – I indicated the swelling on my hand – 'but you kept silent. You still keep silent.'

Her eyes fell and a slow flush coloured her face. 'Yes. I admit it. But I thought if I told you, you might tell the General and he would use what he learned to harm Kardiastan. Later I feared you would be the one to turn the knowledge against us. I couldn't risk it.' Her eyes begged for understanding. 'You don't want to know what it is to be Kardi; you want to know our weaknesses so you know how to defeat us.'

'You are already defeated.' I took a deep breath to calm myself. 'Tell me what Theura means.'

'Nothing. It means nothing!' And then, knowing I would hear the lie, she amended her words. 'It's a – a word designating rank. She was just being polite, that's all. Legata, if you show your hand to any more Kardis and probe their knowledge, you won't live long enough to use the knowledge you gain. There're people out there who would kill you, rather than have a Tyranian learn our secrets.'

My jaw dropped. 'You threaten me?'

She winced. 'No! I – I warn. And you know the truth when you hear it. Be warned.'

'I'll have you whipped! And sold!'

I couldn't have said anything worse. I saw her resolve harden before my eyes, as though I had cast her spirit in stone with the power of my words.

She nodded. 'That is within your rights. But I will see to it that any Kardi slave you buy to serve you in my place will watch you and report what you do. Legata, if you pose as a Kardi and show that hand of

yours as proof, you are in danger. You will learn too much, and no Tyranian who knows too much can be allowed to live.'

I shook with shock and outrage. 'You want me dead!'

'No, child. I love you. I have always loved you. You are right; it is my fault you never became Kardi, and it is a decision I have had to live with all these years. I could have deceived General Gayed and taught you all I knew, but I didn't. I will never know if it was the right decision, because I can never know what would have happened had I followed the other road.'

I felt the love and pity and grief of the woman who had been my nurse, but turned from it. Right then, I wanted to believe the worst of her, not the best, and her resolve had not wavered. Vortexdamn her, she had as good as admitted she was now spying on me. It sounded as if she were contemplating passing on information to the very Kardi rebels I was hunting.